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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

#351

Post by refurb »

jhall1468 wrote: post #164
specialp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The 25k number was just to make a splash and notice they aren't doing that again. Because there aren't really any other areas that could give them 25k skilled employees. They will scale up in Nashville which is expected since it is a growing area, and they will still be in NY due to the talent. The "HQ2" show was primarily to extract large concessions which almost worked. My initial reaction as a NY'er was "…

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…

Reminds me of NIMBY’s celebrating stopping new housing to “preserve the character of the neighborhood”.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#352

Post by yug_blop »

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…

please cite a source

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#353

Post by devmunchies »

ahoy wrote: post #197
nerdb4itwascool wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed. the drive to squash this deal was mainly driven from local politicians who were whining that they were cut out of the process.

> Is this 4chan now? It's good when local politicians weigh in on local issues. Your comment is completely off the mark.

thats a very common phrase, used in high schools across America. Don't know what 4chan has to do with anything.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#355

Post by ctvo »

YeahSureWhyNot wrote: post #284
jhall1468 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doubled their occupancy to 7k. Amazon was promising 25k jobs. I'm stunned out how so many people in this thread are pretending thats equivalent.

empty promise is useless. did they sign a contract saying if they hire 1 person less than 25k and their average salary is 1 dollar less than 150k by certain time then they will refund all tax breaks? when bezos signs that contract then I would believe this.

Their entire deal, which was released with the initial announcement, is predicated on them creating those promised jobs and building those promised buildings. There are benchmarks along the way and all the incentives are based on meeting those benchmarks.

In short, yes, they would have signed a contract stating that.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#356

Post by SilasX »

CydeWeys wrote: post #326
SilasX wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And yet there's a huge number of businesses that do have presences in NYC because the tax revenue funds all sorts of things that make NYC attractive to businesses that can't be gotten elsewhere. Most of which were present there because they set up a long time ago. The current environment makes it so that you pretty much have to get a discount to make it worth starting there, per the famous reddit comment: https://ww…

If that's true, then fix it for all businesses, not just for Amazon. Amazon deserves the white glove treatment the least.

On that point, I agree.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#357

Post by asdff »

marcell wrote: post #157
djsumdog wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this exactly the opposite? Amazon would have destroyed the general economy in NYC like they did in Seattle. This is the city ignoring the big corporation and listening to their people. NYC doesn't need Amazon. It needs to fix it's rail system.

And how do you fix the rail system? With money from... taxes... from well paid workers, for example. I think a lot of people get so caught up in hating on tech workers and opposing gentrification they forget where the money comes from.

Taxes from 25,000 making low six figures pales in comparison to the incentives handed to the corporation. What is a better investment for NY, handing 3b to amazon, putting 3b directly into the rail system, or putting 3b in an investment fund and making use of the dividends? I'm not sure, but I can't help but think that if amazon figures 3b is a good deal for them, then it is an irresponsible use of public funds to enrich large % shareholders of amazon rather than having that public money 100% go to public use. Amazon isn't in it to improve LIC or NY, they are in it to raise their share price at the end of the day and wouldn't care less if Queens burned to the ground and sunk into the east river as long as earnings reports remained positive.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#358

Post by [deleted] »

Justsignedup wrote: post #346
bunderbunder wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wisconsin doesn't need to give out money, either. If anything, they need to not give out money. The story of the Foxconn factory, for example, is one of Wisconsin acting as if you can give a bunch of money to a company that smells of technology, and they will plunk a bunch of jobs for highly educated and skilled people in the middle of a region with relatively few highly educated and skilled workers. Which, it never…

Kentucky was a perfect example of this. They gave the best corporate welfare money can buy. And everyone left. There were no decent roads, schools, police. So there were no decent workers. The companies were basically given the best deal in a place with no workers. If anything the workers left even more because there was even less attractiveness to be there.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#359

Post by icelancer »

dang wrote: post #302
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…

Please don't get personally acidic in your comments to HN, regardless of how frustrated you feel with other posts. It corrodes discussion badly, and we're trying to stave off that decline here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

...there is nothing personal or acidic in this post?

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#360

Post by ctvo »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #6

Google didn't need any dog and pony show or significant forms of corporate welfare (that we know of) to announce a doubling of their presence in New York. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/17/google-...

Google announcing they to double their presence in New York is not the same as Amazon signing an agreement of understanding with the city and state.

Google hasn't committed to anything. Once it does, it will most likely seek the same tax benefits that Amazon did from the pre-existing programs if it qualifies

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