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Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

governor.ny.gov

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Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#141

Post by prepend »

spamizbad wrote: post #48
yawboakye wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon isn't taking money from the government. They're getting a relief of $3 billion IF they fulfill their promise. I'd take 25k-40k jobs for my people over $3 billion in taxes any day. As the director quoted the governor, the best social program is still a job.

Many companies in New York create jobs for the state. Some even more than Amazon, and generate even greater amounts tax revenue. Are they too entitled to tax relief? Amazon is a tremendously successful company. You start handing it tax breaks and you begin walking down the path of making it a government-sanctioned monopoly.

The letter says the next biggest company deal with jobs was 1,000 people. So no, there aren’t many other compnies bringing 25k jobs. Especially ones with average incomes of $150,000.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#142

Post by icelancer »

freewilly1040 wrote: post #96
ddebernardy wrote: post #3

I suspect I'll never get why the notion of giving a tax handout to a company that's one of the most valuable in the world shouldn't be a non-starter. > Incredibly, I have heard city and state elected officials who were opponents of the project claim that Amazon was getting $3 billion in government subsidies that could have been better spent on housing or transportation. This is either a blatant untruth or fundamental…

This was different than organic job growth because of the number of jobs at stake: > Amazon chose New York and Virginia after a year-long national competition with 234 cities and states vying for the 25,000-40,000 jobs. For a sense of scale, the next largest economic development project the state has completed was for approximately 1,000 jobs What's the goal of tax policy? There's a) achieving the appearance of fairn…

> Personally I'd rather maximize revenue, especially here where the knock effects on the economy were pro-growth.

Agreed, not to mention the blow this strikes against the state's willingness to be "open for business" as the NY State Budget Director pointed out.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#143

Post by icelancer »

sp332 wrote: post #16
tehlike wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant see why hq2 location cannot be based on bidding. Tax breaks are part of negotiation. Math is clear.

Well the laws should be applied equally to everyone, including tax laws. That's a pretty simple principle. If you're going to make an exception, you need to reassure people that rule of law is still a thing and you're not just letting a company buy a different set of laws for themselves, which is kinda what this looks like.

> Well the laws should be applied equally to everyone, including tax laws.

Do you feel this way about all laws, including drug laws regarding possession and mandatory minimums?

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#144

Post by icelancer »

endorphone wrote: post #85
berberous wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to somehow ban the concept nationally, fine, but otherwise if a city/state doesn't play the incentive game they will probably just lose out to others that will.

NYC, San Francisco, and a few other areas have absolutely no need for incentives. They're very robust, energized areas, and don't need to beg for employers to come there and leverage the dynamics and workforce. Amazon's ridiculous dog and pony show -- which wasted outrageous amount of public time and money -- was absolutely dystopian: Company that already is one of the largest in the world, with an enormous competiti…

> NYC, San Francisco, and a few other areas have absolutely no need for incentives.

I see you are not familiar at all where Amazon HQ2 was going to go. (Not NYC.)

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#145

Post by icelancer »

blacksqr wrote: post #130
asabjorn wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another favorite: > You don't need to be the State's Budget Director to know that a nine to one return on your investment is a winner. The politicians as well as activists involved in this train-crash showed what the consequence is of electing and pandering to people that think it is possible to be factually wrong while morally right. You can't be morally right while lying, and lack of interest/humility in search for…

> You don't need to be the State's Budget Director to know that a nine to one return on your investment is a winner. Yes, after all, Amazon did clearly state that they'd gladly pay us Tuesday for a hamburger today.

No, the tax breaks were only given if they generated the tax revenue and jobs.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#146

Post by prepend »

prolikewhoa wrote: post #99
starpilot wrote: post #44

San Francisco-ization it seems. Liberals going against their own interests. Reminds me of an apartment complex under construction in SF that was forced to include a larger amount of low-income units. The builders found it would no longer be profitable, and ceased building. So lose-lose, prisoner's dilemma, vocal social media forces "won," lacking the cooperative biases that humans normally have. They all end up with…

Should shelter, a basic human need, be for-profit? If so, why?

Profit motive leads to more shelter being built. The same reason why you want food production for-profit.

Not everything works best with profit motive (eg, healthcare) but if you want affordable housing then maximizing profit motive will help produce more housing.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#147

Post by blacksqr »

tptacek wrote: post #140
blacksqr wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is that the unions should have just taken the deal as dictated to them without considering their larger self-interest?

Yes? "As dictated to them" is a weird way of putting it, since they were the ones making the demands.

Dear workers: you must remain poor and powerless forever, for the greater good.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#148

Post by Spooky23 »

protomyth wrote: post #108
Spooky23 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its very common in NY for high profile issues. When fracking was the cause de jure, hundreds of people were being bussed to Albany weekly to protest. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but it’s a thing.

We do have some experience with it out here in the middle. I have a relative (by marriage) who did a pipeline protest then went to "protest a volcano in Hawaii". Apparently, it was a good gig. I'm just surprised that the NY government put it in a press release. It really seems odd, but maybe that union has really separated itself from the herd, politically.

I agree — We live in interesting times... the ability of populist agitators to amplify their voices is greater than it has been since the 1930s. There’s a reason why an oddball like Bernie Sanders (and a long tail of others, of all political stances) is a high profile figure in 2019!

POTUS has made this new “direct to you” model a thing that people are studying and learning from. Maybe this is a way to test the waters at communicating without lowering yourself to shouting to a mob on Twitter.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#149

Post by spamizbad »

rossjudson wrote: post #78
spamizbad wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad they dropped it. There are some grounded concerns: * Amazon is one of the most successful enterprises in human history and should not require support from taxpayers beyond their voluntary patronage of Amazon itself. * Most of these "deals" were put together secretly without input from the public. Millions (or in NY's case, billion+) of dollars were packaged and presented without community input or oversight…

Interesting. None of your concerns have anything to do with New York. Each would apply anywhere Amazon would choose to build.

Yes, that’s largely the point. I don’t think Amazon (or any company like amazon) should receive massive tax credits for jobs it needs to create anyway.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#150

Post by tptacek »

blacksqr wrote: post #147
tptacek wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? "As dictated to them" is a weird way of putting it, since they were the ones making the demands.

Dear workers: you must remain poor and powerless forever, for the greater good.

Once again, we don't have to wonder whether this particular strategy worked. It demonstrably did not. Workers in NY state and at Whole Foods are worse off than they would have been. This is a setback for the effort to unionize Whole Foods.
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