Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

811–820 of 1001 posts

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#811

Post by door5 »

zanny wrote: post #738
heyjudy wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI, livable wages, raise estate and corporate taxes, operable unions without "right to work" (for less) / union-busting laws, more worker-owned co-ops and integrated standard-of-living net that lifts instead of treating people like criminals. But first, getting rid of the corporate capture of both major political parties, elected officials, government and policy-making is a precondition to do anything to reverse the…

I would also like some flying pigs and entropy reversed with my order of complete fantasy. Im not saying its wrong, but us muggles worth less than countries have no real, meaningful say in the future at this, and to be fair also at most other, points in history.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez & Bernie Sanders openly espouse many of those ideas and are two of the most popular politicians in America. These ideas have a tremendous amount of traction and their advocates are getting closer to the centers of American power. This isn't a complete fantasy -- it's not an inevitably, but it is absolutely a viable part of political discourse & struggle

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#812

Post by door5 »

jemfinch wrote: post #456
munificent wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> That tax break is real money . Sure, but it's real money that your community doesn't get either way . You're living in a fantasy world if you believe that the choice was legitimately between "Tax money and 25,000 jobs" or "No tax money and 25,000 jobs." No, the choice has always been between "No tax money and 25,000 jobs" or "No tax money and no jobs." You're not getting the tax money either way. Either Amazon buil…

Jobs for whom? Not the vulnerable members of New York, jobs for upper middle class yuppies like you or me or nearly anyone on this site from the rest of the country. People in Queens aren't stupid, they know what the impact of Amazon would be and how it absolutely would not benefit them.

And almost certainly because of this struggle, the next City they try and go to isn't going to give them nearly as sweet a deal. They will demand more. Struggles like this are effective.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#813

Post by rsj_hn »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #396
rsj_hn wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think NYC (or SF or any high cost of living area) is a crazy place to put HQ2. In terms of subsidies, while it's easy to dunk on Amazon, and no business should be getting subsidies IMO, there is a real issue here: Cost of Living in NY is higher and Amazon will have to pay higher wages if it puts jobs there rather than a place like Nashville. That's higher wages for the same job. Pretty much every company has a cost…

There's a reason you get superstar hubs, instead of companies and employees equalizing to somewhere else as soon as one metro gets a bit more expensive. Network/ecosystem effects are a real thing. Google already has some dev offices in cheaper areas, like Pittsburgh, where office space is cheaper and the salaries they pay slightly lower. And yet, they still choose to double their headcount in NYC. Just saying, "well…

Honestly, I think you are not capturing the trade offs here correctly. There is some value to being in a hub, but not infinite value. For example a start up gains a lot more benefit from being in Silicon Valley than a company with 10,000 developers. The startup needs access to VCs, and it needs to hire superstar programmers.

Once a company reaches critical mass, it doesn't need access to VCs, and isn't able to hire superstar programmers at scale, so the quality of the average employee declines compared to what you see in startups. Now you start talking more about repeatable, workman-like code rather than brilliant groundbreaking code. You can still do the latter in a research center that you can keep in the hub and move a lot of the other code to the periphery, which will be most of your employees. After all, we are talking about HQ2 here.

At the same time, you have housing markets that are so insane that the majority of your developers will not be able to buy a house, which means they are going to leave you or demand really high wages -- wages that a company with 20K devs can't afford.

This is the inexorable logic of the market. Suppose we are not talking about people but some other scarce resource. Very expensive leather. You put that into the exotic cars but when you need to produce in high volume, you look for cheaper substitutes in order to help scale your operations. Everyone likes to think they are rockstar developers, but your typical AMZN HQ2 employee is not a rockstar, they are probably just a decent programmer (Not that there's anything wrong with that :P ). It just doesn't make sense to put HQ2 into a place where you have to pay 200K to win over the marginal employee.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#814

Post by int_19h »

atoav wrote: post #584
bko wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It is always vocal minoirities who do things, even with very popular topics. Animal cruelty? There is only a vocal minority who takes a public stance, despite this beeing a very clear cut issue in terms of public opinion. Migration is the other way round: most people don't give a fuck, but have a loud vocal base that will even hurt themselves to make a point and you will be heard.

"Vocal" is maybe not the most accurate word for this. The reason why things don't happen despite polls showing majority support for them happening (or vice versa), is because the polls don't show how much people care one way or the other. People who care more will also do more - being vocal is one of the things, but another one is e.g. fundraising for campaigns and voting in primaries.

An unrelated example: polls show large supermajorities in favor of many gun control proposals (universal background checks poll at ~90%, for example). But most people who say that they want it, don't consider the opposite stance on that a deal-breaker for their vote - there are many other issues that are more important to them. On the other hand, the 10% that is opposed, is very firmly opposed, and that issue is close to the top for many of them, to the point of single issue voting. And when those people all turn up in the Republican primaries and vote as a bloc, those votes are enough to prevent candidates that displease that crowd from even getting to the general. And so you have all those party line votes, with every single Republican voting against, even though the majority of their constituents - and even the majority of their supporters - would prefer them to vote differently.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#815

Post by int_19h »

trhway wrote: post #609
skookumchuck wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't any more "bullying" than you shopping various car dealerships to get the best deal on a new car.

more closer would be a Saudi prince agreeing to become a US citizen in exchange for a personally reduced income tax rate. Would you support it?

Suppose we change it slightly: a Saudi prince wants to become a US citizen in exchange for some considerable investment into our economy. Do you find it objectionable? Because that's literally one of the available options today.

https://www.uscis.gov/eb-5

And schemes like these exist in most countries out there, it's not just a US thing.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#816

Post by int_19h »

doublescoop wrote: post #666
a13n wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turns out that publicly shaking down cities across the US tends to draw out the opposition. Unless you're Elon, then it's celebrated.

I think you're misreading Musk's reputation outside of tech circles. If they're aware of him at all, he's more or less viewed as a Bond villain at this point.

A guy who is Elon Musk in all but name is literally the main villain in "Venom".

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#817

Post by int_19h »

fjp wrote: post #567
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.

Wouldn't you rather existing NYC residents build new companies to make it a tech center? You're just letting the giant school bully take over your neighborhood for below market value (due to the massive tax breaks) and declaring "Look! We're a tech center!"

> below market value (due to the massive tax breaks)

I don't see how "below market value" follows from "massive tax breaks". Are you implying that the standard tax rate is somehow determined by the market? Because it's not, and "market value" is whatever the market is willing to pay for it. Unless they have someone other than Amazon offering the same benefits for less, then Amazon offer was market value.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#818

Post by HillRat »

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…

If you’re doing client work there — and you may not be! —- you’re responsible for the portion of the income earned in that state (you have “nexus,” in the parlance — I’m less sure about merely having presence in a state even if the work isn’t generating company income, but in some cases I think that’s treated as nexus as well). In those cases, your company should send you state W-2s for your income; most decent consulting firms offer tax prep services if you end up working in a lot of state and international jurisdictions with tax consequences.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#819

Post by int_19h »

huehehue wrote: post #788
Androider wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Amazo…

For the new grads, you're still getting tens of thousands of people moving out of campus housing and into the non-subsidized market, so it hardly seems different that bringing people from out of state.

So then, colleges are the problem, and they need to downsize, so that there are fewer grads?

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#820

Post by ghaff »

balls187 wrote: post #771
CWuestefeld wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Unfortunately I am not an accountant and cannot give you tax advise, however, NJ has a non-resident income tax form, which you may be required to file: https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/taxtables.shtml Edit to add: According to my interpretation of this: https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/current/1040nr... Assuming your income is over $20,000, you ARE required to file a NJ state tax return. Also, n…

Agreed. I see no exemption there for “I was just attending a conference and just stayed in a hotel for a few days.” Much less spending weeks at a remote company location or job site.
Post reply on HN