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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

#751

Post by RodericDay »

gmanley wrote: post #741
JCharante wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animal cruelty is a great analogy because the people who oppose it, which are the minority, are more vocal than those who are proponents of it, which make up the majority.

Do you really think only a minority oppose animal cruelty? How many people are proponents of animal cruelty? Neither of us have data to back it up but if you polled people I think the majority would be against animal cruelty, they just wouldn't spend their time opposing it, that's the difference.

Is this one of those things where we pretend raising and murdering animals to eat them isn't cruel?

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#752

Post by CWuestefeld »

balls187 wrote: post #714
will_brown wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. First, state income tax is exactly that, income tax imposed by the state, and governed by the state. There may be local jurisdictions that impose additional income tax but any savings there would be trivial. While sports are important to the local economy, my understanding is that they are relatively minor at the state level. Second, LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing in…

LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing income in every jurisdiction they play in, not based solely on the jurisdiction that the team is based in. ... This means they are responsible for filing taxes in each of these jurisdiction.

Do you have a citation for this? I'm skeptical. I live and work in Texas. When I travel to my company's office in NJ, effectively earning income for a week in that state, I don't pay NJ income tax on that income.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#753

Post by sct202 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #671
mayukh wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, what kind of data would these public entities have that Amazon wouldn't already ?

Look at page 7 of the RFP: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything... A good portion of all of that is stuff Amazon could compile, but they got cities across the country to donate probably tens of thousands of hours of taxpayer salaries to do it instead. The nature of special incentives each proposal offered - custom ones for Amazon-only, or unusual ones - will also have told them which cities th…

Non-standardized data from hundreds of different cities is probably more trouble than it's worth in aggregate.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#754

Post by tom-_- »

tom-_- wrote: post #611
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…

How long would it be before other businesses would fully occupy the particular block of Long Island City Amazon was prepared to invest in? And would the employees of these businesses earn on average equal to or greater than the average NYC Amazon employee? These aren't rhetorical questions, and I don't know enough about Long Island City to have a confident guess at the answers but when evaluating whether Amazon HQ is…

This was the proposed location of the Long Island City campus along Vernon Boulevard bordered by 44th Road, 46th Avenue and East River: https://goo.gl/maps/6G43qfpqLws . Whether provided by Amazon or otherwise, tech employees would at least ostensibly be a net positive in terms of tax revenue.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#755

Post by hannasanarion »

jumbopapa wrote: post #505
shaki-dora wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Demand and price are not the same thing unless both sides have perfect information. The fact that Amazon ran a secret auction for their HQ2 compelled New York to overspend, for fear of missing out.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#756

Post by samstave »

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…

I am announcing an exploratory committee on whether or not I may or may not Apply for YCS19 - I wont tell you if I will apply or not - or how much money my [stealth] startup-unicorn will attempt to raise for an innovative and world-changing product we have yet to decide on seeking a co-founder for. But I am telling you now that I am planning on letting you know, at the end of this quarter - or maybe next month or who knows when, that I am looking into a potential announcement about this announcement where I tell you if I will make a further announcement about my announcements.

#YCFundMeToo

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#757

Post by pvg »

alexis_fr wrote: post #732
pvg wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but to purposefully turn it into a show A big difference is that contrived drama is at the very core of the entertainment business of professional sports. It makes for much of the entertainment! It's less helpful in the more mundane enterprise of 'building a bunch of offices and warehouses'.

Cough Trump Cough . It does look like Amazon tried to stir the same soup as Trump, and it doesn’t work (Note that I won’t defend that it worked for Trump, it’s just that it may have made it seem ok to pull money from cities using newspapers, because of that precedent).

I don't really see any connection. My point is that for the business LeBron James and the NBA are in, spectacle is part of the product and people burning LeBron jerseys in Akron is business well done.

People in Long Island City calling their political representatives and yelling at them about how they don't want your offices and warehouses is not business well done if you have 'building warehouses and offices' as a goal.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#758

Post by samstave »

pradn wrote: post #437
siruncledrew wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

LeBron's show raised like $6 million for various charities, so that's commendable.

I am of the opinion that any and all "Foundations" should be required to put their financials into a common splunk log repo with NLP search tools made available to anyone.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#759

Post by cpmsmith »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #752
balls187 wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. First, state income tax is exactly that, income tax imposed by the state, and governed by the state. There may be local jurisdictions that impose additional income tax but any savings there would be trivial. While sports are important to the local economy, my understanding is that they are relatively minor at the state level. Second, LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing in…

LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing income in every jurisdiction they play in, not based solely on the jurisdiction that the team is based in. ... This means they are responsible for filing taxes in each of these jurisdiction. Do you have a citation for this? I'm skeptical. I live and work in Texas. When I travel to my company's office in NJ, effectively earning income for a week in that state, I don't pay NJ in…

Apparently you technically should, but you aren't expected to because it would be impractical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_tax

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#760

Post by Androider »

thetinguy wrote: post #579
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…

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 benef…

Literally tens of thousands of students graduate each year from NYU (16K alone) and other colleges in the area. You're right that skilled workers don't sit around waiting for jobs to show up. They'll go to where the jobs are, which for tech still largely means the West Coast. And I say that as a NYC resident and tech entrepreneur. The tech scene in NY is weak, and non-existent across the river in LIC. Having an Amazon HQ in LIC would have been a great anchor around which to build a stronger startup scene: If your startup fails, hey, there's always Amazon to fall back on (instead of just the financial sector).

But I'm sure the students are actually grateful that they were spared from Amazon and living close to home, and that the Bay Area residents will continue to welcome each new batch with open arms!

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