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The Path Amazon Rejected

nytimes.com

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Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#81

Post by jedberg »

bogomipz wrote: post #79
jedberg wrote: post #46

Why would Amazon try to make things right in NYC, when they can just go somewhere else that welcomes them with open arms and no complaints? NYC didn't offer them anything of particularly great value that they couldn't get elsewhere. I wish they were being better about helping the communities they are moving into, but I can see why they would just leave.

>"NYC didn't offer them anything of particularly great value that they couldn't get elsewhere." You mean like access to a very large and very skilled labor pool? A 24 hour transit system, 3 major airports? 1 million square feet of available office like they were going to take in Citicorp tower that has a train stop at the bottom of the building? Sure.

Amazon doesn’t need a large local labor pool. They get far more applicants than they need and plenty of people willing to move to work there.

There are lots of cities with empty office space. And in most cities parking isn’t a problem so the transit isn’t necessary.

You gotta think like Amazon — most of those things weren’t huge benefits to them. They were benefits to their future employees but only in that city.

The main things they are looking for are tax breaks and rapid development without a lot of red tape. NYC was proving that rapid development was out of the picture and so was the lack of red tape.

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#82

Post by pathseeker »

_bxg1 wrote: post #63
jakelazaroff wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using this logic, people aren't allowed to be upset at anything, as long as it's a rational action within a system. This is a weird way to look at things! You can justify all sorts of reprehensible behavior this way. "Either be upset that the system incentivizes slavery, or be upset that the incentives against slavery failed." But definitely don't be upset at the slaveowners!

Exactly. Realistically, most large-scale businesses will amorally fill whatever set of incentives exist around them, and the most effective way to keep them from being destructive is to regulate. However, businesses are made of people, and those people still have a moral obligation to society, even if most of the ones at the top ignore it. Actions beyond moral shaming need to be taken, but one doesn't preclude the ot…

Please explain what moral obligation you think Amazon was shirking by bringing massive tax revenue to NYC and far above average pay jobs.

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#83

Post by pathseeker »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #66
jvreagan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then they want to cheat as much as legally possible on their taxes when they're grown up. If it's legal, it isn't cheating...

Only if you believe there is no difference between whats legal and whats moral.

So why isn't your outrage with the government that adds tax incentives for businesses? It's like being pissed off at people who live in section 8 housing for not paying enough rent...

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#84

Post by pathseeker »

_bxg1 wrote: post #55
boron1006 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the tax breaks Amazon used are open for pretty much any company, and have been around for a very long time. But no one seems to want to repeal or fix these laws. In all of this, I haven't seen a single person talk about them. You can't agree to a set of rules then complain when someone actually follows them.

Many people may not even know about them. Encouraging people to channel these feelings into the ballot is well and fine, but let's not pretend there's anything close to a direct coupling between the will of the people and the will of their representatives, much less preexisting laws. People are allowed to be dissatisfied; they don't have to simply lie in the bed that they only had a partial hand in making.

Don't defend them when they are criticized for complaining about something they put absolutely zero effort into researching. Anyone complaining about Amazon and not the state government and/or the tax break programs is being ignorant and shouldn't be coddled.

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#85

Post by pathseeker »

perfmode wrote: post #33
trikonasana wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to be the popular opinion (that this is Amazon's fault) but I disagree. Amazon coming to LIC would have been a net benefit for everyone. 25k jobs that pay a minimum wage of $15/hour...who would reject that? Sure they get a $3b tax break, but they would have paid far more than that in state taxes over the long term. The people on the city council did not represent the the best interest of the citizens, inst…

How much did amazon pay in federal and state taxes in 2017 or 2018?

Massive amounts. Whoops, I think you forgot to qualify your statement with "corporate income tax".

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#86

Post by pathseeker »

bogomipz wrote: post #78
joemaller1 wrote: post #12

> Just days before, I had counseled a senior Amazon executive... Can pretty much stop there. I think Amazon saw a mayor and governor who thought they traded tax breaks for a say in how Amazon runs its business. This was a huge loss for the city. LIC will be toxic to big business for years. And now the mayor is passing the blame to the very corporations who would come in and create jobs.

>"LIC will be toxic to big business for years" You mean like Citibank, JetBlue, Fresh Direct and Steve Madden who all moved to Long Island City years ago and continue to flourish? Or like Ralph Lauren who just signed a lease for 19K square foot of space and Cornel University's building of their Techion campus? Yeah right. I'm amazed on the number of people who appear be not only unfamiliar with Long Island City as a…

Those companies pay garbage.

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#87

Post by pathseeker »

bogomipz wrote: post #79
jedberg wrote: post #46

Why would Amazon try to make things right in NYC, when they can just go somewhere else that welcomes them with open arms and no complaints? NYC didn't offer them anything of particularly great value that they couldn't get elsewhere. I wish they were being better about helping the communities they are moving into, but I can see why they would just leave.

>"NYC didn't offer them anything of particularly great value that they couldn't get elsewhere." You mean like access to a very large and very skilled labor pool? A 24 hour transit system, 3 major airports? 1 million square feet of available office like they were going to take in Citicorp tower that has a train stop at the bottom of the building? Sure.

If any of those things truly mattered, Amazon wouldn't have walked away so quickly.

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#88

Post by pathseeker »

dtrailin wrote: post #25
dangban wrote: post #6

de Blasio tweeted this after Amazon cancelled: https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1096110674613358593 "working with the community" is code for "bribe" among the community organizer types.

That's an incredibly uncharitable insinuation. Do you think community organizers do it for the money? There are a lot of reasons people choose to advocate but regardless of weather you think they're right they generally do it because they actually believe in something. It's unlikely fighting Amazon is a very profitable venture.

They certainly do it for the power (the majority of them). Very few people put themselves in that position without an eye for moving into politics to continue their power growth.

Remember, the vast majority of people do not do things long term for altruistic reasons.

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#89

Post by ardy42 »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #49
_bxg1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You have a company taking advantage of the perfectly legal rules that the system set up. OH GAWD better grab pitchforks." People aren't allowed to be upset about something just because it's not illegal?

Reality doesn't allow people to have it both ways. Either be upset that the system incentivizes the behavior, or be upset that the incentives failed. In both of those cases, the blame lies at the feet of the elected officials. Granted, the implication of that is the blame lies at the feet of those who cast the ballots (George Carlin, we miss you). People always have trouble blaming themselves. Corporations are jello.…

> In both of those cases, the blame lies at the feet of the elected officials. Granted, the implication of that is the blame lies at the feet of those who cast the ballots...

Blame also lies at the feet of those people and organizations who twist the imperfect rules and governmental systems to suit themselves at the expense of others.

To put it another way: all software has bugs, and many of them get exploited. While it might feel just to put all the blame on the software engineer who wrote the code (after all, wasn't he supposed to have done a perfect job?), blame still lies at the feet of those people who chose to exploit the bugs to enrich themselves and/or do harm to others. Hackers are not an impersonal force of nature, they're people who made a choice.

Re: The Path Amazon Rejected

#90

Post by zaptheimpaler »

pathseeker wrote: post #83
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you believe there is no difference between whats legal and whats moral.

So why isn't your outrage with the government that adds tax incentives for businesses? It's like being pissed off at people who live in section 8 housing for not paying enough rent...

I do think the government giving preferential treatment to some businesses is anti competitive, didn't say otherwise.

That doesn't mean those who take advantage of unfair laws are completely absolved of blame either - they made a choice. You/grandparent seem to be saying businesses (and the real people who make these decisions) have zero responsibility to society besides what is legally forced upon them.

To put your logic back to you, if someone hacks your phone, steals all your data and blackmails you, you should be "outraged" only at the engineers who let the security vulnerability go through (i.e created the incentive), but not the hacker who is actually exploiting that vulnerability.

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