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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

#571

Post by dralley »

kansface wrote: post #499
dralley wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is not a zero sum game.

You're right - the Prisoner's Dilemma is a negative-sum game.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#572

Post by ajhurliman »

FilterSweep wrote: post #354

2018: Billions in tax breaks to amazon will add thousands of jobs 2021: After hitting 2020 growth targets, Amazon quietly lays off 5000 It’s not like we haven’t seen this before.

Have we? It seems like the number of employees has increased every year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/234488/number-of-amazon-...

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#573

Post by cletus »

lsllc wrote: post #492
cletus wrote: post #330

So this was (IMHO) a shit show from go to whoa. The dog and pony show was a transparent shakedown where Amazon would still probably go where they were always going to go. The whole splitting HQ2 I think showed this. Like it's not even an "HQ" in any sense of the word. It's just an expansion. Also with talk of "25k jobs"... what jobs? Are we talking software engineers or warehouse workers? There's a difference. I don'…

"For example, a $3m brownstone in Park Slope I saw had ~$700/month in property taxes" Surely that's a typo. At a tax rate of $10 per $1000, that would to be $2500/month.

Examples:

- Park Slope brownstone, $548/month: https://streeteasy.com/sale/1375411

- Park Slope condo, $1740/month: https://streeteasy.com/building/105-8-avenue-brooklyn/3

Note: if you look into this a lot of condos have deceptively low monthly taxes due to a tax scheme (now defunct) called J-51 (IIRC) where property taxes started at 0 and would go to normal levels over 20-30 years.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#574

Post by Symmetry »

munificent wrote: post #179
raiyu wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but they will get that tax break regardless at least this we can continue to make NYC a powerhouse tech center. And it's in Long island City not in Manhattan like Facebook and Google.

> Yeah but they will get that tax break regardless I just don't understand this argument. It's like "Someone's gonna get fucked, so I'd prefer it be me." That tax break is real money . Money that your community will not be able to spend on education, infrastructure, police, parks, all the things that make a place worth living in. Why would you hand that over to a company that doesn't need it?

When there are hundreds of towns in the US able to offer tax breaks to get companies to relocate you're never going to persuade everybody to not defect. It would be nice if there could be some enforceable agreement put in place but as far as I can tell US federalism prevents that.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#575

Post by ben509 »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #527
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

A sheriff of a small town told me how they ended up spending thousands of dollars to SWAT team which he thinks he will never use. The reason ? After some school shooting in another end of USA the folks of his county wanted to know how their LEAs plan to defend the local schools. The correct response here was that they do not expect such law probability even and even if it happens there is very little they can actuall…

Honestly, it's a bit like a doctor giving someone a sugar pill.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#576

Post by dekhn »

dang wrote: post #506
dekhn wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't see votes as useful signal on Hacker News: for example, during the course of some comments I make, the vote starts out as very negative (from people who skim the comment and think it's insulting) to very positive (from people who read it more carefully and realize it's insightful). So there is a temporal aspect to votes (I'm sure you know more about this than me).A

And often when I get votes, there's no signal whether it's due to tone, or content, or whether it's because I'm expressing something that is true, but makes people feel sad (seems to happen a lot, makes no sense to me).

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#577

Post by MockObject »

trhway wrote: post #511
koheripbal wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

>taxes that otherwise wouldn't be paid at all. That is fallacy of excluded other possibilities. Especially for a place like NYC. I generally like AMZN, nevertheless I'm happy just on sheer principle that the bullying behavior by the 800lb gorilla didnt succeed this time.

That's not a fallacy, it's the well known concept of opportunity cost, which rational decision-makers always consider.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#578

Post by yourbandsucks »

nodesocket wrote: post #532
marrone12 wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what happens though. Amazon would be recruiting people from Ivy League schools, big consulting firms, other large tech companies.

Disagree, this constant propagation of rigged system or unfair game is not accurate. I know lots of people who came from very little and were able to work themselves up to economic success. In fact many of the people on the Fobes list came from poor upbringing and backgrounds.

And vastly more of them are not on the Forbes list.

People have done studies on income mobility and inter-generational income mobility. The studies say that it's getting worse, not better.

Yes, people can move up/down, but most don't, and it's happening less over time.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#579

Post by thetinguy »

nodesocket wrote: post #460
raiyu wrote: post #70

After being a resident of NYC for 30 years and seeing the city change and become a technology hub and just a financial center I think this is a real loss for NYC. It would also be in Long island City which would provide a huge influx of new workers and move that neighborhood forward in development rapidly. The down side would be that it would push some residents and business owners out but this is simply a fact of li…

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…

Do you think there are 25,000 high skilled workers in new york sitting around waiting for Amazon to show up? No, those workers are in high demand. So the only option is too pull from outside the region further driving up the cost of housing. Its pure numbers. What about the low skill jobs? Amazon doesn't employ cleaners and other low skill workers. They contract those jobs out, so the low skill employees see no benefit from working at Amazon anyway. Even if we pretend that Amazon can only employ native new yorkers, there aren't enough to go around. So they'll be taking jobs from other organizations, like small businesses, who can't afford to compete with Amazon.

So, what's the benefit to new york? Yea, there are 25000 new jobs. But the choice isn't 25000 jobs or no jobs. Its 25000 jobs with amazon and some number of jobs from other businesses. Other businesses will employ those high skill workers because there aren't enough to go around.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#580

Post by DisposableMike »

koheripbal wrote: post #526
jcfrei wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, this was a huge communication error on Amazons and the politicians' side. Offering such huge subsidies to a single company will never go down well in the current political landscape - especially not in a city with a resurgent left.

> not in a city with a resurgent left. IRRATIONAL left. This investment on the part of Amazon gave way way way more to the city than it got back in subsidies. It's kind of ridiculous. If I were Amazon, I would drop NYC in a heartbeat if they didn't appreciate that degree of investment. The subsidies were 1.525 billion. Amazon's investment was expected to be around 2.5 billion. Only an irrational fool cannot do that m…

Subsidies are paid out of tax dollars. Surely you're not arguing that Amazon's 2.5 billion investment will go straight back to the city's coffers?

It would generate property tax (if not abated) and income tax for the workers (both hired after the fact, and hired to complete the construction), but at what percentage of the total investment? 10-20%?

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