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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

#221

Post by tmugavero »

inoop wrote: post #212
tmugavero wrote: post #204

New York didn't lose anything by not having Amazon here. New York is a city built on diversity, and ensuring resources are available to maintain that diversity is important to the citizens. It's a matter of giving one huge handout to the most valuable company in the world that will destroy a community and drive up wages (bad for small businesses) and housing costs (bad for Queens), versus giving $5M to 100 small busi…

> It shows that Amazon never cared about the people here and would bring nothing to the community. Jesus christ, no. The state put an outspoken opponent of the deal in a position where he has veto power to stop said deal. Then when Amazon execs tried to call this guy multiple times he refused to even take their call. That's why they pulled out.

They want to get a multibillion dollar deal done in a global economic center, and a few phone calls to one guy was enough for them to stop pursuing it? Pretty weak if that's the case. Nobody I've spoken with here has anything positive to say about Amazon being here, and there's no way it hinged on one person.

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

#222

Post by anth_anm »

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.

> Mortgage Interest deductions

Can we get rid of those?

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

#224

Post by lesss365 »

sys_64738 wrote: post #65
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 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?

Not to mention they paid nothing in federal taxes

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

#225

Post by cthalupa »

kerkeslager wrote: post #164

The question for me isn't the profit/loss equation, it's whether we should be giving subsidies to already highly-profitable companies. You can argue all you want about whether Amazon would bring in more money for NYC, but the fact is that they would bring in MORE net money if they didn't receive the subsidies. Yes, you can argue that Amazon wouldn't come to NYC then, but that's only because American cities have allow…

>Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. If he wants a new HQ he can buy the real estate at full price. Americans need to stand up to the frankly disgusting idea that we should be giving him money.

I feel like all of the people saying that Amazon should pay full price because Bezos is rich are missing the point. His wealth is almost entirely in stock, which the valuation of is heavily dependent on how Amazon does quarter to quarter. He's seen a 25% decrease in most of his wealth vs. where it was last year.

He's not the richest person because Amazon is generated boatloads of cash and handing it to him, so it's not like he can redirect that into buying real estate. Nor can he sell a ton of his shares without potentially losing a controlling interest in the company.

He's obviously exceedingly wealthy, but in practicality, the majority of his net worth is unavailable to him as long as he wants to continue running Amazon without any chance of interference or veto, and basically none of it is available to make an impact on this sort of decision.

The merits of any incentives should be based on the economic realities of the situation, plain and simple. Do the tax breaks result in a net positive for the city, based on generated tax revenue, new jobs, both from Amazon and those providing service to Amazon employees, from the new housing that must be built to support the population increase, etc.

I don't know if they do. Maybe this would be an amazing deal for NYC. Maybe it would be a terrible deal. I'm not qualified to make a real judgment there. But the 'Bezos and Amazon are rich, why should we give them anything' is just more populist rhetoric, which we need to get out of our politics. It's toxic as hell.

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

#226

Post by cthalupa »

anth_anm wrote: post #210
whatok wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one opposing Amazon actually pieced out that portion of it as their reason for opposing it. Be honest. If the $500mm is the real beef with the whole thing then break it down vs jobs: $50mm/yr vs 25,000 jobs paying an average of $150k/yr for a total of $3.75bn of taxable income. At New York State's lowest tax bracket of 4%, that's $150mm. At New York State's highest tax bracket of 8.84%, that's over $330mm.

> then break it down vs jobs No. No giveaways like this. None. Zero. If Amazon wants welfare for jobs, then tell them to screw off and let another company come in that will employ people without handouts.

2.5 billion of the "welfare for jobs" is open to any company coming that meets the requirements of the Excelsior program.

So if you want companies to come in without tax incentives, you probably need to go to your congresspeople and get that program turned off.

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

#227

Post by inoop »

tmugavero wrote: post #221
inoop wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It shows that Amazon never cared about the people here and would bring nothing to the community. Jesus christ, no. The state put an outspoken opponent of the deal in a position where he has veto power to stop said deal. Then when Amazon execs tried to call this guy multiple times he refused to even take their call. That's why they pulled out.

They want to get a multibillion dollar deal done in a global economic center, and a few phone calls to one guy was enough for them to stop pursuing it? Pretty weak if that's the case. Nobody I've spoken with here has anything positive to say about Amazon being here, and there's no way it hinged on one person.

"The company tried to reach out to Gianaris — but he rejected three invitations to meet, according to a source."

source: https://nypost.com/2019/02/14/this-is-the-man-who-delivered-...

> there's no way it hinged on one person.

Well that's kinda what 'veto power' means ...

> Nobody I've spoken with here has anything positive to say about Amazon being here

That's funny, I live in NYC myself, and almost everyone I know was excited about it. We must have different friends I suppose.

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

#228

Post by anth_anm »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #105
dingaling wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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. Amazon is a publicly traded company. Like every company, the point of the business is to generate profit. This means reducing overhead costs in order to do so. Sure, they could do it out of pocket, but why do that when NY was offering standard business incentives to bring them there? Why cost your…

Instead they wasted how much time and money on a fake search, only to have the whole thing blow up in their face.

The idea that they had to do this out of "obligation to shareholders" is ridiculous. Amazon has avoided profit in search of growth for decades. For a supposedly long term thinking company this was a misstep.

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

#229

Post by derekdahmer »

Bartweiss wrote: post #188
leroy_masochist wrote: post #103

> The livability crisis that’s currently afflicting Seattle and San Francisco is evidence of how cities need to be careful what they wish for when it comes to the explosive growth of technology companies (and the attendant wealth that comes with it) in their metropolises. Let me get this straight, New Yorkers should view Seattle and SF as cautionary tales for what happens when high-paying jobs arrive in a metropolita…

I've seen quite a few takes suggesting NYC will be transformed by the sudden arrival of high earners, like the Seattle city councilors who went to NYC to warn the city about their mistakes.[1] Whatever Amazon's merits, the specific arguments seem ludicrous. Seattle lawmakers talked about how Amazon took up 20% of the city's office space. That was 45,000 workers in a city of 730,000 (6%), and a metro area of 3,800,000…

What a lot of people don't realize is Manhattan in 2018 still has less people living in it then it did in 1950. The massive immigration of young working people in the 1920s led to large scale development high density housing.

Living costs were out of control and people lived 8 to a room in extremely unsafe tenements but the upside is the city's housing and transportation infrastructure was built for a capacity it still has not yet claimed back today.

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

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

#230

Post by moate »

fuzzybeard wrote: post #116
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?

I read that the unions, especialy SEIU, wanted a promise from Amazon against interfering with future potential unionization efforts. Amazon probably doesn't want a domino effect happening where their operations in NYC get unionized and then it spreads elsewhere. But these jobs were tech jobs, so I'm guessing there was also going to be a distribution center or something else that would unionize? Because the tech worke…

Amazon already has a pretty big distro center presence just across the river in NJ. I'm sure they would not be too happy if those guys unionized and started demanding humane working conditions.
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