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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

#621

Post by danans »

digianarchist wrote: post #169
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

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

And hot off the press, here's an article on that very subject in Memphis, TN: https://granolashotgun.com/2019/02/14/easy-payments/

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#622

Post by fastball »

adventured wrote: post #467
fastball wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average employee in that 25k cohort would need to be paying $12k worth of state taxes to NY every year for ten years in order to recoup the $3B tax break figure.

Average $160,000 household income per employee = ~$14,000 per year in state + local income taxes. That's ~$8,500 per year just to the state in income taxes. Include all taxes from 25,000 employees + their families (property taxes, sales taxes, etc), and it's a very likely $4.5 to $5 billion over ten years to state & local coffers from the employees. And that's just the direct benefits. It excludes any taxes Amazon co…

How do you figure that a family is paying more in property tax / sales tax than a not family? Property size is a function of income, as is sales tax, and you've already included income in your calculations.

The other issue is that this is assuming literally all 25k employees would be new residents of NY. Assuming this is true (which it probably wouldn't be), that also means that the city needs to maintain infrastructure for at least 50k new residents (probably more like 75k assuming an average family size of 3). That's not an insignificant amount of new people who require public services.

Regardless, ($14k * 25k * 10 = $3.5B). Not that much more than the initial tax rebate, and not accounting for any additional costs to the city. Also assuming that the rate of tax-paying by employees remains consistent, and that they don't cut any staff in HQ2, which is far from certain.

As to:

  Property taxes on real-estate owned by AMZN
You realize any property that Amazon would purchase is already owned by someone, right? And that the current owner is already paying property taxes.

Amazon already has an office in NYC. If they want to expand in NYC they can. Amazon growing in NYC is not at all predicated on the existence of HQ2. The only probable reason Amazon would continue to expand in NY specifically would be for more tax breaks. Which kinda defeats the argument that "Amazon will grow and we can collect more taxes".

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#623

Post by jhall1468 »

yug_blop wrote: post #352
jhall1468 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19165374

They did a vastly superior job than I could do.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#624

Post by chiefalchemist »

skh wrote: post #236
chiefalchemist wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa. Let's back up a bit. The DNC and the GOP do a terrible job finding qualified candidates that can do the job. The system is designed to elect the electable. We The People don't have much say in who the parties serve up, who is willing to run , etc. If the relentless (Media) attacks of DJT are an indication, there are few "outsiders" who are going to get involved in the future. And isn't that exactly what status…

If the relentless (Media) attacks of DJT are an indication, there are few "outsiders" who are going to get involved in the future. Consider the possibility that he isn't being attacked. That his actions/statements are being reported on. That what you call an attack is indicative of the nature of the man. When you cause George Will to leave the party then....

George Will? He's part of the status quo that laid down the foundation on which Trump build his successful candidacy. That George Will? The old white blowhard? That failure is not Trump's fault, it's Will's & Co. But people like Will don't have the integrity to stand up and be counted. Instead, they use diversion and misdirection, and sadly people fall for that. Will left because he was embarrassed, embarrassed by his own incompetence. Trump was a convenient excuse.

My benchmarks are these:

1) The USA went to War in Iraq over over lie. Thousands died, gazillions were spent, etc. as a result of that lie. The Media barely noticed. People who believe Trump is the worst thing ever clearly never understood who and Dick Cheney was. Trump is a pussy cat compared to Cheney.

2) Not only did BHO renew the (so called) Patriot Act but he expanded its depth & breadth. The Snowden revelation also came to light on Obama's watch. Again, the Media barely noticed. Real journalists would find both of these troubling. Instead, BHO was our first BuzzFeed POTUS.

--

I am by no mean a fan of DJT but the truth is nothing he has done to date comes close to either one of those. He's got __a lot__ of work to do to top either one of those. The Media is bending over backwards to discredit DJT because:

1) It's a favor to the DNC. It lets the DNC off the hook because ppl are too distracted to ask the DNC what should be asked. That is: "How negligent and incompetent do to have to be to lose to DJT? And what heads are going to roll for your debacle? We want names!!!"

2) The GOP doesn't like him either. He stepped in on their dance, made all their candidates look like the fools that they are, and made it to the Whitehouse. That's not how it works.

3) Neither party wants to see another outsider do what DJT did, and they will, by any means necessary, make sure it doesn't happen again any time soon.

4) Trump is good for the Media's business. They love the "outrage". They love the "controversy." As long as it draws eyes and clicks - cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-chaig - they're happy. The media finally discovered that giving Bush #2 and Obama free passes didn't help pay their bills. For the Mainstream Media DJT is like printing money.

That is the context. That's how W.DC operates.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#625

Post by rurp »

sokoloff wrote: post #543
lkrubner wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect: " that otherwise wouldn't be paid at all " The opposite is true, 100% of those taxes will be paid by some other business. Maybe you could make your argument about the New York City of the 1970s, but you sure as heck can not make that argument about the New York City of 2019. New York City is not starving for investment, rather, its biggest challenge nowadays is managing its fast growth. Other busin…

If that’s the case, why would the NY politicians put that money on the table? They did so voluntarily.

For the same reason that politicians support objectively terrible deals for sports stadiums: their incentives are misaligned. They get all of the positive press when the deal is signed and someone else will have to deal with the long term fallout.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#626

Post by rhegart »

sammycdubs wrote: post #585
jcranberry wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about New Yorkers who lived in Queens?

I live in LIC and I've not met anyone who supported it, especially the $3BN of incentives. No wonder Gianaris, who represents our district in the NY Senate, was such a strong opponent.

Majority of the incentives are from Amazon’s taxes. 27B in economic activity for 3B in tax breaks for just 10 years is wayyy better than almost every other corporate deal. Better than Tesla for sure. That 3B will no longer be generated. You want a net 24B or a net 0B? New Yorkers chose 0

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#627

Post by jhall1468 »

specialp wrote: post #305
jhall1468 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not many corporations I know of get a deal brokered by the mayor and governor privately with multibillion dollar cut after a large spectacle. I realize you might think differently as an Amazon employee.

My status as an Amazon employee is irrelevant, and I don't think the circumstantial ad hominem really brings anything to the discussion.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19165374

The grants are all based on the size of the deal, and the reason this one was so large is because the number of employees was so large.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#628

Post by dagoat »

will_brown wrote: post #588
jfnixon wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the company that owns vast swaths of cloud computing space doesn't have talent to back it up? Amazon is way more dominant than LeBron in their respective businesses.

I don’t know about having more talent, but amazon definitely has more ego...At least LeBron didn’t demand special tax deals and non-public data from cities to bring his talents.

> At least LeBron didn’t demand special tax deals and non-public data from cities to bring his talents.

As is common with other, bigger ego, basketball players

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#629

Post by jhall1468 »

ScottBurson wrote: post #307
jhall1468 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> any company moving into NY can get these same large tax concessions Interesting if true, but I don't think people are going to accept it on your say-so. I recommend digging up a citation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19165374

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#630

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

bko wrote: post #554
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

Most new Yorkers supported the project even when told about the subsidies. It's a vocal minority that sank the project https://www.wsj.com/articles/majority-of-new-yorkers-support...

I think the numbers in these pools are moderate enough to cast doubt on your claim. Would need to know about methodology, who paid for the survey, etc.

Even after reading this, I think the claim “most New Yorkers supported the project” is extremely dubious.

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