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Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#671

Post by ceejayoz »

mayukh wrote: post #612
ceejayoz wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just "What can you do for me", but "We'd never consider you for a HQ in a million years, but by all means give us a bunch of business intelligence gathered on your own dime we can use to site fulfillment warehouses..."

Curious, what kind of data would these public entities have that Amazon wouldn't already ?

Look at page 7 of the RFP: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything...

A good portion of all of that is stuff Amazon could compile, but they got cities across the country to donate probably tens of thousands of hours of taxpayer salaries to do it instead.

The nature of special incentives each proposal offered - custom ones for Amazon-only, or unusual ones - will also have told them which cities they've got extra leverage over if they come offering a smaller project like a distribution center.

https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/11/the-extreme-amazon-bidd...

> The most jarring incentive reportedly comes out of Chicago, which, under state law, could redirect between 50 and 100 percent of the income taxes incurred by Amazon employees right back to Amazon.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#672

Post by anth_anm »

rhegart wrote: post #626
sammycdubs wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in LIC and I've not met anyone who supported it, especially the $3BN of incentives. No wonder Gianaris, who represents our district in the NY Senate, was such a strong opponent.

Majority of the incentives are from Amazon’s taxes. 27B in economic activity for 3B in tax breaks for just 10 years is wayyy better than almost every other corporate deal. Better than Tesla for sure. That 3B will no longer be generated. You want a net 24B or a net 0B? New Yorkers chose 0

I'll choose that 0 over giving away 3 billion every day. I don't care how you try to justify this sort of corruption.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#673

Post by all_blue_chucks »

cletus wrote: post #402
quxbar wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what jobs? Are we talking software engineers or warehouse workers? Workers with an average salary of $150,000, I think it's disingenuous to act like you don't know that but you're also an expert in property tax reform.

Pay one person a salary of $1m and you can pay 9 people $55k to average $150k. The average means nothing. Will there some site lead earning $20m/year bringing up the average?

25,000 x $150,000 = $3.75 Billion dollars of new taxable income, regardless of how it is distributed.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#674

Post by anth_anm »

koheripbal wrote: post #488
tytso wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposition is not because some high tech firm, whether it is Google or Amazon, is expanding in NYC. The opposition is because of the Massive tax breaks and other $$$ giveaways New York was going to hand over to Amazon. I don't recall Google extorting NYC for $$$ before they decided to expand....

A "tax break" is just a reduction in taxes that otherwise wouldn't be paid at all . It still means a profit for the city. It's not like NYC is paying Amazon to come to NYC. NYC would still make huge tax revenues from additional sales, real estate, income taxes, and corporate taxes. Now they're turning that all away. It's such an irrational decision that if I were Amazon, it would raise a big red flag for me as well.…

It's not irrational.

What's irrational is not following up by banning every single deal of this type. Every single one.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#675

Post by sammycdubs »

bko wrote: post #554
zelias wrote: post #55

If Amazon had just quietly announced plans to expand to LIC without the "HQ2 Search" dog and pony show they almost certainly would still be here. Google buys entire city blocks and nobody bats an eye. Turns out that publicly shaking down cities across the US tends to draw out the opposition. More publicity = more scrutiny = more angry opponents of your business decision

Most new Yorkers supported the project even when told about the subsidies. It's a vocal minority that sank the project https://www.wsj.com/articles/majority-of-new-yorkers-support...

Most New Yorkers don't live in LIC and won't be directly impacted. If you asked me about a proposal in a borough I never go to I'd probably say "yeah sure no problem"!

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#676

Post by JDiculous »

bobthepanda wrote: post #182
raiyu wrote: post #70

After being a resident of NYC for 30 years and seeing the city change and become a technology hub and just a financial center I think this is a real loss for NYC. It would also be in Long island City which would provide a huge influx of new workers and move that neighborhood forward in development rapidly. The down side would be that it would push some residents and business owners out but this is simply a fact of li…

LIC is one of the most heavily redeveloped areas in the city with 40+ story towers popping up like candy. It didn’t need a development boost. In fact they tore up an existing redevelopment plan for HQ2

How many jobs are in LIC though? This would've been a massive boon to the LIC and the NYC job market without the added congestion that putting these jobs in Manhattan would've caused. Manhattan is already at/over capacity, but I don't think the Manhattan -> LIC rush hour subway is.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#677

Post by anth_anm »

tom-_- wrote: post #611
lkrubner wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect: " that otherwise wouldn't be paid at all " The opposite is true, 100% of those taxes will be paid by some other business. Maybe you could make your argument about the New York City of the 1970s, but you sure as heck can not make that argument about the New York City of 2019. New York City is not starving for investment, rather, its biggest challenge nowadays is managing its fast growth. Other busin…

How long would it be before other businesses would fully occupy the particular block of Long Island City Amazon was prepared to invest in? And would the employees of these businesses earn on average equal to or greater than the average NYC Amazon employee? These aren't rhetorical questions, and I don't know enough about Long Island City to have a confident guess at the answers but when evaluating whether Amazon HQ is…

> And would the employees of these businesses earn on average equal to or greater than the average NYC Amazon employee?

Does it matter? If they earn enough to live and spend locally then isn't that good enough?

Some Amazon employee giving a developer an extra 1000 bucks a month for a luxury apartment and getting their food delivered instead of going to the store isn't exactly an amazing economic benefit.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#678

Post by anth_anm »

ben509 wrote: post #559
jfnixon wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why did NYC bother to compete for HQ2?

Amazon being there would mean growth; whether it's greater growth than local businesses is hard to say. But mostly, it's obvious growth that looks good for politicians who can say, "look, I brought jobs!" People notice it when a high profile company arrives whereas if your local chain expands, that's not even a news story. Much of the political aspect of economics is due to the relative visibility of various events i…

It's because then politicians can run on "I BROUGHT AMAZON HERE! JOBS! GREAT JOBS!".

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#679

Post by anth_anm »

andosteinmetz wrote: post #595
NathanKP wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me explain it in terms that any New Yorker should be able to understand: If you are a New Yorker you are no doubt familiar with the concept of "one month free rent". Most buildings in NYC will give you one month free when you sign your lease. If a building doesn't give you that offer its probably not as tempting as another nearby building that does. Yet the "one month free" isn't a losing money proposition for th…

What New York City do you live in? I have never been offered, nor do I know anybody who's been offered a month's free rent on signing a lease. Places that do this are overcharging and driving up rents. Your comment may just be emphasizing the fact that there are multiple "New Yorks." And I suspect the New York that Amazon HQ2 would benefit would be the New York that pays too much to live in a glass tower and gets off…

The part where it's mostly overpaid software devs living in a bubble.

I live in that part of Seattle. It's the same part where people want to ban all cars because they never have to go anywhere that isn't walking distance, and their dog loves walking.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#680

Post by [deleted] »

cletus wrote: post #330

So this was (IMHO) a shit show from go to whoa. The dog and pony show was a transparent shakedown where Amazon would still probably go where they were always going to go. The whole splitting HQ2 I think showed this. Like it's not even an "HQ" in any sense of the word. It's just an expansion. Also with talk of "25k jobs"... what jobs? Are we talking software engineers or warehouse workers? There's a difference. I don'…

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