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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

#501

Post by kevintb »

siruncledrew wrote: post #207
zelias wrote: post #55

If Amazon had just quietly announced plans to expand to LIC without the "HQ2 Search" dog and pony show they almost certainly would still be here. Google buys entire city blocks and nobody bats an eye. Turns out that publicly shaking down cities across the US tends to draw out the opposition. More publicity = more scrutiny = more angry opponents of your business decision

Amazon's spectacle reminds me of Lebron's "The Decision". It's one thing to work out the details and make an announcement, but to purposefully turn it into a show about "What can you do for me?" instead of "Here's what I can do for you" made it not sit well with people. Also, the pull-out letter also basically dumps the blame on state/local officials for not wanting Amazon, despite not all stakeholders being present…

yep, yep, yep. precisely.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#502

Post by nodesocket »

clydethefrog wrote: post #482
nodesocket wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand the logic of politicians such as Ocasio-Cortez. Amazon HQ was going to bring 25,000 high paying jobs to the area, providing growth and opportunities for her constituents. Her argument against is that the Amazon HQ would further gentrification and she was appalled by the government subsidies. So she'd rather limit new growth, prevent new jobs, and stifle wealth to prevent luxury condos and Star…

Gentrification is the opposite of people moving up the economic ladder - it's the influx of more affluent residents.

So you really think Amazon was only going to hire people that already had wealth. It's not possible that somebody making $50k a year, could land a great new position at Amazon making $150k? Cortez is shooting her democrat constituents in the foot, and living up to her affiliation of democratic-socialist.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#503

Post by anth_anm »

jhall1468 wrote: post #210
function_seven wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While parent (and others) may be attempting to revise history, I think this outcome is probably for the best. Whatever growth occurs in NY will be organic. Not government-subsidized hyper-growth which can throw things out of whack. Real growth brings with it real increases in public funding, that can be used to fund real increases in infrastructure demands and demands on other public services. When a local government…

> Whatever growth occurs in NY will be organic. Not government-subsidized hyper-growth which can throw things out of whack. It's not going to be organic. Instead, these same deals are going to be spread out to a bunch of other companies, most of which will pay less than Amazon on average and the "subsidies" will take longer to be a net positive. Again, people confuse bribes with standard deals. Any company is eligibl…

No, people recognize that the standard is bribery and corruption.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#504

Post by heyjudy »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #465
r_smart wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they probably did. It was just behind closed doors rather than publicized.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure any such tax breaks would have to be public data by now, even if they were originally hashed out behind closed doors. If you're implying that Google got tax breaks, and no one noticed the public data confirming these tax breaks, please provide evidence of the data that has been overlooked.

Ass and umption.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#505

Post by jumbopapa »

shaki-dora wrote: post #148
tribune wrote: post #36

1. $3B in "incentives" sounds like a lot, but would this have been a good investment? i.e. would the city and State have gotten a reasonable return in the long run? 2. New York already has a lot to offer in terms of labor market, real estate for employees, and access to capital markets. Did Amazon really need incentives to want to be in NYC? 3. No huge loss for either party. NYC doesn't need Amazon, and Amazon can ma…

It isn’t about the net loss or win for NY. The problem with subsidies is that they needlessly cost money in a zero-sum competition between cities. It was always clear that Amazon would build somewhere. A race to the bottom competition over the exact location leaves everyone but them worse off than the alternative, which is coordinating to refuse to engage in it, like any sane economy like the EU does.

It's almost like there is a demand for Amazon to have a presence in the community.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#506

Post by dang »

dekhn wrote: post #487
dang wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to feel free to pat yourself on the back for not "falling for it" , which was a gratuitous bit of personal sarcasm, just the sort of thing which acidifies online discourse. Also, arguably, the bit about an attempt to revise history is an uncharitable escalation (though not personal).

enough people have chimed in response to you to say this is legitimate discourse within the HN rules.

People are more likely to comment when they disagree, so that's not surprising. The votes show the opposite, though both votes and comments are mixed.

Moderators have to make these calls. From my perspective this is no different from what we've done thousands of times.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#507

Post by dang »

whoisjuan wrote: post #443
dang wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to feel free to pat yourself on the back for not "falling for it" , which was a gratuitous bit of personal sarcasm, just the sort of thing which acidifies online discourse. Also, arguably, the bit about an attempt to revise history is an uncharitable escalation (though not personal).

I think you're reading too much into that phrase. It's a bit condescending but I don't see how it erodes the discussion.

It erodes discussion by slowly acidifying it. It's not that the remark was so bad in itself—it's that these effects compound, and if we allow them to compound very much, the problem will no longer be fixable. That's why we often ask people not to do this, even when they only did it a little.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#508

Post by bunderbunder »

taurath wrote: post #433
Justsignedup wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its really hard to make a thoughtful reply to a thread like this without seeming like its just ivory tower dumping on red states. My feeling is that they've set up a basically every person for himself sort of society with (usually multinational or national) businesses as the primary benefactor rather than people.

> ivory tower dumping on red states

If dumping on ostensible conservatives for wantonly doling out government largesse is wrong, I don't want to be right.

That said, FWIW, the greater context here is an article about New York getting in on the game, too.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#509

Post by imnotlost »

adventured wrote: post #420
digianarchist wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Turns out that publicly shaking down cities across the US tends to draw out the opposition. Unless it's for a football stadium.

Hundreds of thousands of people don't turn out for a parade for Amazon. They do when pro teams win championships. Football stadiums get subsidized because football is extraordinarily, wildly popular with most of the people that pay taxes. Those taxpayers spend massive sums of money on sports every year, across the NFL / MLB / NBA / NHL / MLS / NCAA. Those people pay most of the taxes that fund the government that the…

IT never works out for the city/tax payer.

Stop Padding Billionaires’ Profits by Paying for Sports Stadiums

https://ritholtz.com/2018/07/stop-padding-billionaires-profi...

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#510

Post by lenzm »

koheripbal wrote: post #488
tytso wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposition is not because some high tech firm, whether it is Google or Amazon, is expanding in NYC. The opposition is because of the Massive tax breaks and other $$$ giveaways New York was going to hand over to Amazon. I don't recall Google extorting NYC for $$$ before they decided to expand....

A "tax break" is just a reduction in taxes that otherwise wouldn't be paid at all . It still means a profit for the city. It's not like NYC is paying Amazon to come to NYC. NYC would still make huge tax revenues from additional sales, real estate, income taxes, and corporate taxes. Now they're turning that all away. It's such an irrational decision that if I were Amazon, it would raise a big red flag for me as well.…

It certainly means revenue for the city but we don't know that it means profit. All of those people are going to generate trash, take the subway and consume city services. Why shouldn't Amazon pay like everyone else?
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