Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#261

Post by dang » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 3:15 AM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #48

zaroth wrote: post #28

I completely disagree with the “race to the bottom” framing of the idea that cities shouldn’t compete to provide the best services for the commercial enterprises which reside there. At the 50-75 year timeframe we are talking about at least hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value, if not trillions. The clustering effect of becoming Silicon Valley 2 cannot be overstated. My personal opinion is cities should b…

>At the 50-75 year timeframe we are talking about at least hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value, if not trillions. The clustering effect of becoming Silicon Valley 2 cannot be overstated. What are you talking about? Put those numbers back where they came from - your ass. >Personally I think the cities that only have tax incentives to offer will not come out the winner. Amazon cares a lot more about the s…

> What are you talking about? Put those numbers back where they came from - your ass.

Whoa. That kind of thing will get you banned here, as you're surely aware. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#262

Post by jknoepfler » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 3:41 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #193

jknoepfler wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly don't want you riding a car into a crowded downtown. I personally walked to work in downtown Seattle (to Amazon, ironically). I'd vote for any local candidate who pushed for an aggressive pedestrian-only zone in the city with a strategy for expanding mass transit access and park and rides. The technology for affordable mass transit is almost a century old; I think incremental, sustainable progress on that…

Cars are pretty terrible, but horses are even worse, if you can imagine it. Think about all the traffic problems with cars, except the street is covered ankle-deep in manure. And you can't install catalytic converters in their butts to reduce pollution, either.

I don't recall advocating horses. I advocate using the best means our times make available!

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#263

Post by na85 » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 3:46 AM UTC

prepend wrote: post #260

na85 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never trust a corporation to do anything they're not contractually obligated to do.

Automating executive jobs would increase profit. Trust corporations to maximize shareholder equity, as they are legally obligated to do.

It wouldn't increase compensation for those executives whose jobs are being automated, and it's the executives who control the company.

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#264

Post by aidenn0 » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 3:53 AM UTC

vvanders wrote: post #83

dumbfounder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon workers are highly paid, thus bringing the average income up, and contributing to taxes, strengthening the housing market, and much more. That's interesting that you call it pollution. High paying tech jobs are pollution? That doesn't compute to me. Companies that compete for talent will be pissed, but for lots of others it's a huge win. The only way I see it as a "bad" thing is if you are in a small city that…

> strengthening the housing market, and much more. That's interesting that you call it pollution. Talk to anyone who grew up in Seattle or SF pre-tech boom and you might find a different perspective. I think it's worth considering that while it's great for us in tech it's not like it's a net-win for everyone else. If you work in an industry outside of tech(or a part of tech that doesn't track payscales like the game…

My in-laws sold their house in Saratoga for more than 10x what they paid for it, and are quite happy with that result.

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#265

Post by zanny » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 3:59 AM UTC

sien wrote: post #258

zanny wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homelessness is only not Amazons problem because corporate charters annul the company of any moral responsibility. Amazon had 135B revenue and 540k employees in 2016. By comparison (according to the UN) that would have made Amazon the 60th largest economy in 2016, after Hungary (138B / 9.5m people) and before Ukraine (132B / 42m, which has been dropping considerably since). That is an insane amount of wealth to throw…

GDP shouldn't be compared to revenue. Revenue is flow through a company from customers. It could even be for a loss. If you did 1Bn in revenue but paid 2Bn for the goods you're selling it's not really a win. GDP is more like the value add of a country. Profit is a better comparison. However, profit is tricky as companies often use it to grow rather than pay out profit. Amazon's profit was 4B. Even saying, reasonably…

GDP is also flow through a country from productivity to revenue realized. Every country is not adding its flat GDP to its wealth every year because a majority of the value created from GDP goes to buying other countries GDP in the same way a companies revenue goes mostly to paying for its operating costs. IE, the US has a 20 trillion GDP but only sees around 4 trillion growth a year in national wealth the same way Amazon can have 135B revenue and 4B profit. Of course, the US having a "profit margin" of 20% to Amazons 3% demonstrates its not a one to one comparison, but the they are definitely the more apt comparisons for measuring how large an economic system is, rather than just how much its profiting.

You could also use net worth to quantify how much "weight" Amazon has available rather than what it is actively exerting in influence, in which case it would be around the 35th largest nation considering its 656B valuation. Thats roughly as much as Finland is worth. I didn't use that statistic because I think there is a much wider differentiation between a nations wealth and a companies market cap than USD revenue vs USD nominal gdp.

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#266

Post by s73ver_ » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 4:11 AM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #155

s73ver_ wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but most people will benefit (every single landlord, lots of businesses that will sell stuff, and all the people that would move and get a job there)" That's far, far from "most people". Landlords, for instance, would benefit, due to being able to charge higher rents. But everyone else in that town that rents would not benefit. And I dare say there are more renters than there are landlords.

http://www.businessinsider.com/homeownership-rate-state-map-... Most people are landlords..

That is not at all what that says. Someone who owns their house is not a landlord. A landlord is someone who rents out a property to someone else.

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#267

Post by rspeer » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 5:11 AM UTC

dumbfounder wrote: post #97

s73ver_ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Strengthening the housing market" Other than code for "making everything much more unaffordable", what does this mean? And yeah, it's pollution for those who don't have high paying tech jobs. There are more people living in those cities than Amazon employees; their interests and needs need to be taking into consideration as well.

I would rather live in a housing market that continues to increase rather than one that goes up and down with the wind.

If the price of housing always increases, how is anyone who's younger than you (and not richer than you) supposed to be able to afford a house?

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#268

Post by lovich » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 5:43 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #257

lovich wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not caring about the environment you operate in, whether its so much pollution that your rivers light on fire or the human element that might make your workers depressed, just because it doesn't show up on a spreadsheet is an incredibly short sighted move that can and will reduce profits in the long term. And if a company was willing to fuck over everything as long as it increases shareholder value then it should be…

I do agree with it, but... Amazon is regulated. They're already not allowed to murder or enslave people - and they still come as close to wage slavery as they legally can in their warehouses. The law doesn't require them to care about the homeless, and the market doesn't seem to care about them caring about the homeless, so Amazon doesn't care about the homeless. Their culture is legendary for its relentless focus on…

Ah, I see. Yes, I don't imagine that Amazon would do anything unless they saw a return on investment either. I do think that situations like that do affect their bottom line though, at least in terms of employee morale when it happens in their neighborhoods. I have heard that Amazon tends to churn through their employees, but they are getting big enough where I don't know if they can keep doing that and keep the quality they want

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#269

Post by yumario » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 6:54 AM UTC

I found this whole competition for Amazon absurd. Lets think about the prisoner dilemma:

    If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison
    If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa)
    If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser charge)

Now A, B are cities and the can compete(betray) or not compete(stay silent). If they both compete (1th case) is the worst outcome because Amazon does not need a tax break or incentives. It's one of the richest companies in world already!

A competes, B does not (2th case). Good for city A because they can offer an small incentive an still get Amazon, bad for city B.

A and B do not compete. Good for both as the overall economy of the country would improve.

Re: Why Don’t the 20 Cities on Amazon's HQ2 Shortlist Collectively Bargain?

#270

Post by Kalium » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 8:27 AM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #189

Kalium wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can definitely think of worse places than San Marcos. Though being outside Austin proper means giving up anything remotely resembling usable public transit. And in all honesty, Austin could be reasonably characterized as outgrown and gentrified already. Plus, SA has already played this game. It got them Rackspace. Which, uh, could maybe be going better.

Rackspace is one example of that business, but Amazon is not going anywhere. And there is STILL a lot of space all around San Antonio (far west, anything east) as well as New Braunfels and even (if Amazon spent the $$$ to get land) plenty of space within a mile or two of downtown for a large campus. I've thought for a while that commuter rail lines: Along the freeways: 35, 10, 281, 151 Between big retail spots: Downt…

San Antonio can't even build a street-level rail line for the densest areas without politics getting in the way and halting it. Until that changes, San Antonio is likely to be Our City Of Lots Of Potential for decades to come.

Personally, I wouldn't move back without massive densification of the "urban" core. Right now the place is a massive suburb where getting by without a car is impossible.