[deleted]
Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
381–390 of 1001 posts
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Whatever growth occurs in NY will be organic. Not government-subsidized hyper-growth which can throw things out of whack. It's not going to be organic. Instead, these same deals are going to be spread out to a bunch of other companies, most of which will pay less than Amazon on average and the "subsidies" will take longer to be a net positive. Again, people confuse bribes with standard deals. Any company is eligibl…
> There's no way to turn this into a positive here. I dunno. It seems like an unambiguous positive to me. The giveaway to Amazon was enormous -- so much so that it seems extremely dubious that New York would ever have been able to recoup that money, let alone increase it.
It wasn't a giveaway, it was a discount. If I sell cars for $30,000 each, and you negotiate me down to $25,000, have I given you $5,000 ? No.
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don't get personally acidic in your comments to HN, regardless of how frustrated you feel with other posts. It corrodes discussion badly, and we're trying to stave off that decline here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
...there is nothing personal or acidic in this post?
You don't think
> feel free to pat yourself on the back for not "falling for it"
is condescending?
Because to me it sounds super condescending, flippant, and dismissive.
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#384Google didn't need any dog and pony show or significant forms of corporate welfare (that we know of) to announce a doubling of their presence in New York. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/17/google-...
Google announcing they to double their presence in New York is not the same as Amazon signing an agreement of understanding with the city and state. Google hasn't committed to anything. Once it does, it will most likely seek the same tax benefits that Amazon did from the pre-existing programs if it qualifies
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's absolutely no way they are scaling up NY to the same degree they would have with the subsidies. There's no reason to. The value proposition is gone, so now Amazon will slow-roll growth in NY like they will any other office. The fact that you (and many others) consider this a win is an attempt to revise history. This tax deal was all about Amazon expanding very quickly. That deal is gone. But feel free to pat…
> This tax deal was all about Amazon expanding very quickly. Anybody who thinks that through should see why it's such a terrible idea. Not even NY can "very quickly" absorb 25k people in a small area without screwing up quality of life for the people who already live there. That's a great way to make real estate prices sky rocket and screw over the existing residents. And it'll completely screw up infrastructure and…
You're vastly overstating the effects of 25k people in a metro area that's >20M people strong. You're taking for granted that all of those people are going to live in a few blocks radius in LIC, and that's simply not close to what would've actually happened.
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were getting very near the same deal that any other company can get through a common tax-reduction program in NY. The difference was scale: 25k jobs was vastly, vastly more than any other company had used for this. The sheer number of people from NY saying they are "proud" of this shows just how far removed people are from reality.
If this is true (I don't know either way, I've only followed this casually), why go through the whole dog and pony show in the first place? In that case, Amazon seems to have shot themselves in the foot here by playing a carnival game with the campus selection process. They gave everyone the _appearance_ that they got a sweetheart deal while basically not getting anything special?
and wasted the time and resources of tons of municipalities across the country who placed a bid on HQ2 with the false impression that they had a shot at winning it.
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#387Hey, remember those Amazon insiders that bought property on the cheap? "...Amazon employees are apparently eager to get a head start on the New York City real estate game. Condo sales in Long Island City are soaring following the announcement that the Queens, New York, [a] neighborhood will host part of Amazon's HQ2, The Wall Street Journal reports. According to The Journal, one brokerage firm sold 150 units in four…
That was my first thought on seeing the headline as well. However I think those buyers will still do just fine. I doubt very many people have lost money by investing in NYC real estate.
Buyers took a risk. I would gloat to the ones that claimed insider trading for it that they were jealous for naught.
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google's expansion doesn't require its employees to live in a part of the city that lacks adequate schools and parks. Whereas if you work in LIC it's not like you can really commute into the city from New Jersey or Stamford.
hundreds of thousands of people commute from new jersey across the hudson every day
Yes, to Manhattan. Commuting Jersey to Queens is asking a lot.
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. The 25k number was just to make a splash and notice they aren't doing that again. Because there aren't really any other areas that could give them 25k skilled employees. They will scale up in Nashville which is expected since it is a growing area, and they will still be in NY due to the talent. The "HQ2" show was primarily to extract large concessions which almost worked. My initial reaction as a NY'er was "…
What if another state gave the concessions, and then it worked out spectacularly for them, completely reviving a city and building up a new ecosystem that funnels in new wealth and new money. Would NY be kicking itself then?
No because NYC doesn't need Amazon to be a large, thriving city with all the agglomeration benefits large cities have. Because it already has all those things. Amazon arguably needed NYC more than NYC needed Amazon.
On the other hand, smaller, not thriving cities may have indeed benefited from attracting an Amazon. But it's a bigger debate whether they would benefit more than the cost they might've had to pay to attract an Amazon.
Do we even have an example on record of a state or city making huge concessions to attract a company and it "completely reviving a city and building up a new ecosystem that funnels in new wealth and new money"?
Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus
#390Come to the Twin cities, plenty of land, lots of tech already, highly educated work force. Lots of lake houses and downtown is booming. Winter isn't that bad.
Winter isn't that bad.
Have you been there this year? It was -26F without the wind chill a couple of weeks ago.
Come for the cold weather and stay for the high taxes and high housing prices on the St. Paul side. Also, traffic is going to be fun on the west side for a couple of years.