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Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#291

Post by jhall1468 »

YeahSureWhyNot wrote: post #245
jhall1468 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely no way they are scaling up NY to the same degree they would have with the subsidies. There's no reason to. The value proposition is gone, so now Amazon will slow-roll growth in NY like they will any other office. The fact that you (and many others) consider this a win is an attempt to revise history. This tax deal was all about Amazon expanding very quickly. That deal is gone. But feel free to pat…

Amazon is notorious for paying pennies. 25k jobs paying 150k on average is a pipe dream. ask whole foods delivery people for Amazon fresh or whatever its called. they are counting their pay including $5 mandatory tip they collect from customers.

So few sentences to be so wrong.

First of all, these jobs were all white collar. Amazon's current new grad SDE's in NY and SF both have more than $150k in comp. New grads.

Second, the food delivery people for Amazon Fresh are employees of Amazon. The Amazon Flex drivers is what you are talking about, and there is no "mandatory" tip for that service. What you're talking about is something Instacart and DoorDash was doing. Those are entirely different companies.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#292

Post by [deleted] »

JBReefer wrote: post #229
elicash wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is a loss for NYC and the future development / resilience of its economic base. I don't see any reason to prioritize the "economic base" over the people currently living there. Those things do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. They can, but often do not. Those elected officials seem, to me, to be representing the best interests of the people who voted for them. What's best for the tax base of a certain geograph…

LIC is essentially a neighborhood cut from whole cloth - it used to be all taxi yards and vacant warehouses, bit of high end printing. No one lived there until very recently, and the people that do are rich as fuck - it's basically a discount Midtown East. The poor people who live in the nearby projects came out strongly in _favor_ of Amazon opening up and lobbied the city hard - turns out Amazon also needs janitors,…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#293

Post by jas_far »

dralley wrote: post #115
jdhn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvoted, but it's true. If I recall, the city/state would've broken even not that far into the future, and then everything after that would've been pure profit for them.

It's a matter of principle. NYC (or any municipality) shouldn't be bending over for massive multinationals. It's a form of corruption, one that's depressingly widespread, and it's a race to the bottom that, from a 30,000 foot view, accomplishes nothing but screwing over the taxpayers and smaller competitors lacking the leverage for these antics, and benefiting the corporations that are already enormous and powerful.

I can’t believe you have to explain to people why corporatism is a bad thing. It underlies the largest problems in this country, and we should actively be protesting it.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#294

Post by dang »

ng12 wrote: post #142
Alex3917 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's expansion doesn't require its employees to live in a part of the city that lacks adequate schools and parks. Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford.

What are you talking about? LIC has lots of schools and parks. It's a very residential neighborhood. > Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford. Why not? Take the Path to the E or the metro north to the 7.

> What are you talking about?

Could you please edit swipes like that out of your comments here? They acidify discussion. Your comment would be fine without that bit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#296

Post by jhall1468 »

siidooloo wrote: post #282
jhall1468 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's absolutely no way they are scaling up NY to the same degree they would have with the subsidies. There's no reason to. The value proposition is gone, so now Amazon will slow-roll growth in NY like they will any other office. The fact that you (and many others) consider this a win is an attempt to revise history. This tax deal was all about Amazon expanding very quickly. That deal is gone. But feel free to pat…

New York City has no current shortage of jobs or growth. Incentives aren’t needed. If they wanted to offer incentives for companies to move to Buffalo, it might be worth it. But NYC will be fine without it.

Most companies are eligible for the same incentives. These tax deals will still happen, but they will be for lower paying jobs. Just read the press release at the very least. These are programs that existed before Amazon announced anything.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#298

Post by JohnFen »

magduf wrote: post #170
skh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current pet idea is that the Electoral College ought to be replaced with the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies. That way we could do away with the facade that presidential elections currently create.

That's actually not a bad idea. We've already proven that the American people do a terrible job selecting a president with the current Electoral College system, so letting the F500 CEOs select the President surely can't be any worse.

> so letting the F500 CEOs select the President surely can't be any worse.

Oh, I really think it could.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#299

Post by danenania »

jhall1468 wrote: post #235
specialp wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was primarily a deal to ease the regulatory burden of building such a big thing, I'd be all for it. Admittedly NY has an issue now with too many layers of bureaucracy. But this isn't entirely what it is about. It was also about large tax concessions when plenty of large companies are hiring tech in NYC without any of them. A skilled employee in NYC does not last very long at all on the job market. The 25k emplo…

Ugh... any company moving into NY can get these same large tax concessions. Amazon got nothing special outside of reduced regulatory burden. Why is this not understood? This same subsidy is now going to go to 15 companies who all probably pay less on average than Amazon. There are skilled workforces outside of NY, believe it or not. And they aren't going to go through the regulatory burdens to expand NY to a major ca…

I see what you're saying, but Amazon pretty much did that to themselves by making the whole thing such a public spectacle. Whether or not they were offered a special deal, that's the impression everyone got, and it should have been predictable that they'd provoke a lot more political backlash with this approach.
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