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Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

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Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#51

Post by minikites »

icebraining wrote: post #34
minikites wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But they do and I don't think there's any escaping that. It's natural. Lots of things are natural but part of the point of civilization and organized society is to control what is natural for the benefit of the population at large.

The parent's poster was all about how to control it.

The post you're referring to has it backwards, in my opinion. I don't think this deal wasn't bad for the nation at large, it was bad for New York. The solutions presented don't reflect that.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#52

Post by nkozyra »

PunchTornado wrote: post #9
nkozyra wrote: post #2

I know in the technical sense, calling it Amazons rejection is accurate, but in reality this was a power play of a different kind from the people of the city. While I've not found a consistent stance among people I talked to almost everyone found it at least troubling how Amazon could wield this kind of power. The people who opposed it were vocal and diligent. I'd argue NYC rejected Amazon. More importantly, while ci…

I was looking forward to those jobs tbh. Like the majority of nyers...

Sure. Amazon being here would have been good for a lot of reasons. It's a mutually beneficial situation. Amazon should want to be here either way.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#53

Post by whatok »

minikites wrote: post #48
whatok wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports stadiums and the Olympics generate temporary jobs and generally do not have the same economic impact of 25k jobs paying 150k over ten years. Amazon's tax breaks were tied to headcount so it's hard to see how the city would be a loser in this case.

Do you believe Amazon's extortion would have stopped at the first $3 billion and they would have happily paid taxes in full after that? http://fortune.com/2019/02/14/amazon-doesnt-pay-federal-taxe...

Who is Amazon extorting in either of these cases? If you have a problem with Amazon following the federal tax code that's existed longer than they have, perhaps you should take it up with your congressional reps.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#54

Post by whack »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #5

Agree with the article. The economists can argue all day about how the equation will work out to be a net profit to NYC regardless of subsidies, but that seems short-sighted. Every decision can not be reduced to a profit/loss question. One company should not have bargaining power over an entire city, and they certainly should not get special economic treatment over others. It points to and perpetuates an unhealthy po…

I keep hearing about Amazon getting "special treatment", but is that really true?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-amazons-hq2-means-for...

> For the Long Island City location, Amazon was going to receive $1.2 billion in refundable tax credits through New York State’s Excelsior Jobs Program if the company created 25,000 net new jobs in New York State by the end of June 2028.

> New York State had also promised a $505 million capital grant to reimburse Amazon for the costs associated with building its office space.

> Amazon also planned to take advantage of incentives through New York City’s Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program and New York City’s Relocation and Employment Assistance Program (REAP). Unlike the incentive offered by state officials, these city programs are available to any businesses that meet their specific requirements. Tax breaks through REAP, for instance, could have added up to $900 million.

Most of the subsidies are coming from existing programs which every company can take advantage of. The only special treatment Amazon is getting is the $500M mentioned above. Which works out to $2000 per job, over 10 years. An amount which is recouped in a few months of NYC city taxes alone - a tax which most other cities do not have at all.

I can see why people outside of NYC would be cheering for this. But it's insanity for locals to be celebrating shooting themselves in the foot. HQ2 would have cemented New York's place as the country's #2 tech hub after silicon valley. Over the next 20 years, New York could have even challenged and supplanted silicon valley. For tech workers in the city, it would have given them greater bargaining power when negotiating compensation with their existing or new employers. And for startups, it would have offered another source of employees to poach from, and a company that could easily acquire them.

New York has always succeeded because it was a pragmatic city. But this entire debacle is the kind of political dysfunction that I would have expected from San Francisco, not NYC.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#55

Post by downandout »

minikites wrote: post #32
rubyfan wrote: post #4

Have they answered where do the 25,000 jobs go now?

https://twitter.com/akarl_smith/status/1096123735935987712 If New York was willing to give $3 billion to Amazon, maybe New York can now use that money to hire 25,000 workers.

Your comment, along with the tweet you linked to and all other tweets like it, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the deal, resulting from a gross oversimplification of it. New York was never “giving” Amazon even $1. They were simply going to give Amazon a tax discount for a limited period of time, and the estimate was that the tax savings would have been about $3 billion over 10 years. This money is not sitting in a bank account somewhere, ready to be deployed for newly invented government jobs now that it has been saved from the greedy claws of Jeff Bezos.

New York was effectively giving Amazon coupons for X% off its New York tax bill. When your local grocery store sends you its weekly ad, and it says “over $500 in savings inside,” do you believe you can walk into the store with the coupons and demand $500 in cash? You may do that, but you should expect a heavy police response. Coupons simply help drive business that the entity issuing them would otherwise not have.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#56

Post by whatok »

whack wrote: post #54
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #5

Agree with the article. The economists can argue all day about how the equation will work out to be a net profit to NYC regardless of subsidies, but that seems short-sighted. Every decision can not be reduced to a profit/loss question. One company should not have bargaining power over an entire city, and they certainly should not get special economic treatment over others. It points to and perpetuates an unhealthy po…

I keep hearing about Amazon getting "special treatment", but is that really true? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-amazons-hq2-means-for... > For the Long Island City location, Amazon was going to receive $1.2 billion in refundable tax credits through New York State’s Excelsior Jobs Program if the company created 25,000 net new jobs in New York State by the end of June 2028. > New York State had also promised a…

It's really sad that this point has been lost in all of this. Somehow existing programs got spun into the city/state hand delivering a $3bn check to Bezos. Really sad.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#57

Post by mc32 »

melling wrote: post #25
weiming wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many debates I read online today assume that the city was going to hand Amazon a $3b check. Some sort of misunderstanding of how taxes/tax subsidies work.

So, what you’re saying is that there’s not currently $3 billion saved that can now be invested in the schools, subways, etc.

The fallout will be interesting to see: NY State govt is your regular Blue Democrat government, some of NYC, parts which were against this HQ2 deal, are very progressive. The progressives undermined the traditional Democrats. I bet we get to see echoes of this skirmish during the next cycle.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#58

Post by oliwarner »

minikites wrote: post #51
icebraining wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent's poster was all about how to control it.

The post you're referring to has it backwards, in my opinion. I don't think this deal wasn't bad for the nation at large, it was bad for New York. The solutions presented don't reflect that.

> it was bad for New York

And I think that's where our disconnect here is. Most were advertising this deal at a net +$30bn revenue for the state over 10y, even after this $3bn deal. 25,000 highly-paid people brings serious money. Income tax revenue. Sales tax revenue. 25,000 property tax payments. That's before you consider auxiliary businesses you get serving a campus of 25k.

What I'm not saying is that New York should have made this deal. They would have lost some potential revenue, but that's not the issue. What I'm saying is that no city, no state should be able to barter tax rates. Allowing that means that Amazon is paying less tax on its operations and making them even harder to compete with for SMEs. That hurts the nation at large.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#59

Post by brown9-2 »

whatok wrote: post #27
brown9-2 wrote: post #21

The Wisconsin Foxconn saga should teach us all to be highly skeptical of the claims that companies make when seeking these types of subsidies: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-06/inside-wi... Analyses of the Amazon-NYC story should factor in the probability that the 25,000 promised jobs would never have fully materialized.

Amazon should not be compared to Foxconn just because they both happen to be topical. Amazon would need to hit targets to get the tax breaks. There is no way that committing fraud or completely misleading NYC would be worth the reputation hit Amazon would get all for just $3bn over ten years.

I’m not suggesting fraud, just that we should take forecasts for what they are - forecasts, not guarantees.

However it seems to me that Amazon did not seem to mind taking a reputation hit with the idea of a year-long “search” and bake-off for HQ2 where the results were obviously pre-determined in advance.

Re: Did New York Lose Anything with Amazon’s Rejection? It’s Complicated

#60

Post by downandout »

whatok wrote: post #56
whack wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing about Amazon getting "special treatment", but is that really true? https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-amazons-hq2-means-for... > For the Long Island City location, Amazon was going to receive $1.2 billion in refundable tax credits through New York State’s Excelsior Jobs Program if the company created 25,000 net new jobs in New York State by the end of June 2028. > New York State had also promised a…

It's really sad that this point has been lost in all of this. Somehow existing programs got spun into the city/state hand delivering a $3bn check to Bezos. Really sad.

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