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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

#71

Post by Zecar »

whack wrote: post #67
sys_64738 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter how much money Amazon got as it's the perception of the fact they are getting a tax break which is why it's shocking. Amazon isn't some two-bit startup which has no VC funding. It's the richest company in the world so why the heck do New Yorkers need to hand over their cash to bring them the Queens?

For the same reason you hand over your cash in order to buy stuff on amazon.com or run things on AWS. Not because Amazon deserves your money, but because it's in your own best interests to do so. Since you seem so opposed to tax breaks for big corporations, have you also lobbied for repealing the Excelsior and REAP programs? Or do you get upset only when these programs are applied to Amazon?

You really truly believe the biggest company on Earth deserves to be subsidized by taxpayers?

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

#72

Post by repsilat »

lr4444lr wrote: post #39
paulgb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I haven't been able to find: did NYC actually withdraw anything promised for Amazon to back out, or did Amazon just get buyer's remorse after seeing the mixed reaction the city had?

Excellent question. It is hard to believe that only now did Amazon start caring so much about its already tarnished public image with worker rights and whatnot that they'd roll over so quickly on such a huge deal. I surmise that it was the mayor's office that called off their part of the deal, based on the public statements. The governor had been lacing into the recalcitrant lawmakers who joined the protestors. Both…

> I surmise that it was the mayor's office that called off their part of the deal

Surmise away, but the mayor has been strongly and publicly in favour of the deal, and critical of the people trying to kill the deal. (The guy who really killed it was state senator Michael Gianiaris.)

The problem was that the people who made the deal (de Blasio and Cuomo) didn't have the power, either de facto or de jure, to get it in place.

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

#74

Post by dsabanin »

brown9-2 wrote: post #18
ltc5505 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said that the search for a HQ2 will not continue and instead they are focusing on increasing presence in NY, VA, and I think TN. Not sure if the increased presence is 25,000 jobs worth.

Which makes this whole episode so bizarre - they suddenly changed their mind on the value of having a HQ2 (and 25k jobs in a HQ) completely, after such a long and public buildup? Something is fishy here.

Why wouldn’t you think that seeing all the negative public reaction they just decided to go the other way?

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

#75

Post by moosey »

oliwarner wrote: post #23
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…

> One company should not have bargaining power over an entire city But they do and I don't think there's any escaping that. It's natural. The problem comes with the various state and local governments wanting to subsidise things like this. They can offer things that perhaps objectively disadvantage the nation but help locally. Of course NY is go bend over backwards to get Amazon HQ2. All those people. All that income…

I'm going to disagree with "It's natural".

We have created a business and government environment where it is likely to happen, but we can change that environment at any time, just as Reagan created the current business environment 30 some odd years ago.

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

#76

Post by gigatexal »

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 dunno. The city if thought of as a business is right to offer incentives to get big employers as such employers as big and profitable as Amazon are likely to bring in even more skilled labor and high wage paying jobs. Yes this would lead to gentrification. But that is the job of the elected officials to set aside some of the projected windfalls in tax revenues for specialized housing for displaced people and for infrastructure and the like to accommodate Amazon. The problem is officials would rather line their own pockets with union money or campaign against or for whatever topic is all the rage than actually work.

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

#77

Post by repsilat »

paulgb wrote: post #30
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.

Yes, but the whole thing has a Karmic feel to it. Amazon used a very public HQ process which turned the process into a public game show. Since they used public pressure on local politicians as a bargaining chip to get a deal done, it feels fitting that it backfired this way.

A little ironic in the other direction too, I think. New Yorkers saw the deal as corrupt favouritism and wanted to stop it from happening. Now New York has even more of a reputation for corruption by making it clear they won't uphold the terms of deals they make. Really, Amazon are lucky the subsidies disappeared before they made significant capital investments, otherwise it would practically have been extortion.

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

#78

Post by dashundchen »

brown9-2 wrote: post #18
ltc5505 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said that the search for a HQ2 will not continue and instead they are focusing on increasing presence in NY, VA, and I think TN. Not sure if the increased presence is 25,000 jobs worth.

Which makes this whole episode so bizarre - they suddenly changed their mind on the value of having a HQ2 (and 25k jobs in a HQ) completely, after such a long and public buildup? Something is fishy here.

Yes, something strikes me as strange about the withdrawl announcment.

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the incentives and subsidies were coming from the state, not the city. Cuomo and many majority Democrats in the state Senate were on board. The mayor, DeBlasio was on board.

The opposition was driven locally by councilpeople and community activists. Some in state government opposed but I doubt it would have been enough to derail it, especially considering upstate cities have had similar blockbuster subsidy deals given to them (Albany with IBM/nanotech, Buffalo with Tesla/Solar City).

It seems like Amazon would be driven to withstand some (likely temporary) public criticism in order to get billions of dollars of incentives. After all, they already faced the same criticism during the HQ2 spectacle and have a lot of same type of backlash in their hometown to begin with.

Makes me wonder if there's another story playing out that the public has not heard yet.

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

#80

Post by Ar-Curunir »

gigatexal wrote: post #76
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 dunno. The city if thought of as a business is right to offer incentives to get big employers as such employers as big and profitable as Amazon are likely to bring in even more skilled labor and high wage paying jobs. Yes this would lead to gentrification. But that is the job of the elected officials to set aside some of the projected windfalls in tax revenues for specialized housing for displaced people and for in…

> The city if thought of as a business

Well the point is that the city should not be thought of as a business. Neoliberalism is a dead-end ideology that got us into today's mess.

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