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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

#81

Post by CoolGuySteve »

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…

The thing is the subsidy was only 10% of the expected tax revenue and only $500mm was exclusive to Amazon (mostly in the form of property rights). The rest is available to anyone who sets up shop outside of Manhattan. As far as tax breaks go it’s fairly minuscule.

But because of poor numeracy and a poor understanding of the conditions of the break or the nature of tax deductions, a lot of people had sticker shock at the $3b number.

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

#82

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#83

Post by dashundchen »

dsabanin wrote: post #74
brown9-2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because it's not as if they didn't already have a public backlash against the HQ2 search, against their labor practices globally, and even in their hometown Seattle where they dominate.

Seeing as the state controls the incentives and the governor and mayor were on board, there was a decent chance they would have gotten the incentives no matter what local opposition was, and eventually the issue would have been dropped. For incentives totaling billions, it's difficult to imagine them dropping the whole thing over some heated meetings with councilpeople and union leaders.

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

#84

Post by tomatotomato37 »

ltc5505 wrote: post #8
rubyfan wrote: post #4

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

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.

TN as in Tennessee? I thought altanta was the tech hub for that general geographical area.

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

#85

Post by mattmanser »

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…

It's not a business. It shouldn't operate like one.

Your views seem quite old-fashioned, neoliberal, maximising shareholder value. Both concepts that are increasingly under a lot of scrutiny as they seem to have failed to deliver on any of their promises for anyone apart from the super rich.

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

#86

Post by dingaling »

whack wrote: post #69
mcphage wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if not for Bezos, those funds would have gone to other companies—some of which might have actually needed them, and weren’t just using their clout to try and get free cash while floating on billions in profit.

So now we're going to blame Bezos for using a incentive-program the way it was expressly meant to be used? Perhaps we should also start shaming white collar professionals who take advantage of 401k plans and Mortgage Interest deductions. If they didn't try to reduce their tax bill, that money could have gone to others who actually needed them. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

> Don't hate the player, hate the game

Without the players, the game ends.

Amazon can afford to pay its own costs many times over. Many SMEs cannot. I'd have had a lot of respect for Amazon had they just chosen a site on logistical criteria and built it out of pocket. Instead, I despise them even more than before.

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

#87

Post by jmngomes »

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…

It turns out that in many cases there is no " net profit (...) regardless of subsidies"

In fact, in some cases the jobs that the subsidized company 'creates' are move expensive to taxpayers (due to subsidies) than it would be to just pay the same people to not work, or work on something else that is actually productive for society at large.

Here's a good analysis of the issue: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2018/jul/0...

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

#88

Post by oarsinsync »

whatok wrote: post #47
minikites wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming $X was larger than $3 billion, which isn't a given. Look at sports stadium deals, hosting the Olympics, or Wisconsin's giveaway to Foxconn. The city/state budget is usually the loser in these deals.

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.

> 25k jobs paying 150k

I've seen a few people make this remark, on the assumption that every single job was going to be a high paying job. I believe this is an assumption as I don't recall seeing anything from Amazon stating that they were intending to do this either.

A citation would be helpful for this position.

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

#89

Post by barry-cotter »

hannasanarion wrote: post #14
barry-cotter wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd argue NYC rejected Amazon. Over 60% of NYC residents who had an opinion supported Amazon. Over 70% of Long Island residents supported them. This is a victory for some well organised political activists but to cast it as a victory for NYC is a bit much. At the very least it makes NYC a less likely competitor to the Bay Area. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/02/am... > The Bay Area: NYC is n…

>At the very least it makes NYC a less likely competitor to the Bay Area. Nonsense. If the bay area were a competitor, that's where Amazon would have wanted put their new HQ, not New York. Amazon doesn't have an HQ in San Francisco. Nevermind the fact that New York has been experiencing a tech boom for the last decade or more, with Apple, Facebook, and Google all buying campuses similar in scale to Amazon's proposed…

The point was that NYC was potentially a competitor to Amazon if they could get a major “tech” company as a kind of anchor tenant bringing tens of thousands of (rich from salary and stock) people to NYC. It has already surpassed Boston as the second city in the US and world if you want to raise VC or hire people who have experience in startups, companies that aim for super high growth for multiple years. The fact that NYC doesn’t have it together enough to keep Amazon after it won it means that while it may be better run than the Bay Area there’s room for somewhere else to come from behind and overtake NYC, maybe even the Bay though that would be the work of decades probably. Boston pissing away it’s advantage to Silicon Valley took decades.

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

#90

Post by CoolGuySteve »

paulgb wrote: post #24
KevinEldon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NY made the offer to Amazon. If citizens of NY don't want their government to be able to bargain with a business or organization on an individual level then they should take that power away from government.

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?

The government was starting to stack against Amazon’s permitting needs. Permitting is already notoriously complex in NYC.

From https://www.businessinsider.com/nyc-council-speaker-amazon-h...

the anti-Amazon movement's best shot at stopping the deal was through the Public Authorities Control Board, which the deal needed approval from. New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris, who has been highly critical of the Amazon deal, was just nominated to the board, and his "no" vote could have scuttled the entire project.

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