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

Post by ec109685 » Sun, Feb 24, 2019, 3:46 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #111

joshuamorton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not obviously true. The land is still there. Other companies could use it. Unless everything Amazon might have purchased goes totally undeveloped, the impact is less than the 25k jobs. And given the time horizons involved, I'd take that bet.

Anyone else who proposes to develop at the scale that Amazon was proposing, would likely be achieving similar tax incentives as to what Amazon was offered. Particularly since the terms of the deal were made public, that becomes an anchor point for any similar discussions. There is no question that organic growth will eventually create 25,000-40,000 jobs. But the net present value (NPV) of that future job creation is…

Post by travisoneill1 » Sun, Feb 24, 2019, 3:48 AM UTC

throw2016 wrote: post #49

This reads too much like a one sided political letter by a state functionary. It's curious no such 'open letter' was forthcoming from any public functionary accounting for the losses due to the long list of bank frauds and bailouts? Many here swear by free markets, fair competition and a level playing field and yet do not see the contradiction of letting large companies play regions against each other to extract conc…

Post by tptacek » Sun, Feb 24, 2019, 3:51 AM UTC

blacksqr wrote: post #154

tptacek wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You seem to be confusing strategy (long term thinking) with tactics (short term thinking) I wish I could understand why you seem to think it's a no-brainer that workers should unilaterally resign what they see as their long term interests to accept unquestioningly a corporate agenda with uncertain benefits for them in an indeterminate future.

Post by graycat » Sun, Feb 24, 2019, 4:11 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #139

asabjorn wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are addressing the quote: > 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. I think you are here making a moral argument of sorts. Why is it morally better to get 100% of nothing than to participate in a project with incentives that give you 9 times return plus create 24-40k jobs? I simply don't see a viable argument that this was morally right, a…

> Why is it morally better to get 100% of nothing than to participate in a project with incentives that give you 9 times return plus create 24-40k jobs? Because people who rail against deals like this take zero responsibility for any of the consequences. It's all of the fun moral policing and none of the downside. It's great to be an activist.

Post by blacksqr » Sun, Feb 24, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #176

blacksqr wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be confusing strategy (long term thinking) with tactics (short term thinking) I wish I could understand why you seem to think it's a no-brainer that workers should unilaterally resign what they see as their long term interests to accept unquestioningly a corporate agenda with uncertain benefits for them in an indeterminate future.

It doesn’t matter who’s side we’re on. I think Whole Foods should unionize. What was done here to try to accomplish that backfired, spectacularly. Labor will have less of a voice in similar negotiations in the future.