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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

#681

Post by eanzenberg »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #578
nodesocket wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree, this constant propagation of rigged system or unfair game is not accurate. I know lots of people who came from very little and were able to work themselves up to economic success. In fact many of the people on the Fobes list came from poor upbringing and backgrounds.

And vastly more of them are not on the Forbes list. People have done studies on income mobility and inter-generational income mobility. The studies say that it's getting worse, not better. Yes, people can move up/down, but most don't, and it's happening less over time.

The US (I assume you're talking about the US) intragenerational mobility is actually quite strong, meaning people have the ability to impact their own economic outcomes if they choose, or in other words, the American dream (TM). Decreased intergenerational mobility in the US is actually a function of decreased fraction of families earning below 100k, meaning, less people by fraction in the lower and middle class as they've pushed up into the upper >100k tier.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#682

Post by anth_anm »

skookumchuck wrote: post #586
trhway wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>taxes that otherwise wouldn't be paid at all. That is fallacy of excluded other possibilities. Especially for a place like NYC. I generally like AMZN, nevertheless I'm happy just on sheer principle that the bullying behavior by the 800lb gorilla didnt succeed this time.

It isn't any more "bullying" than you shopping various car dealerships to get the best deal on a new car.

It's more like asking for a discount cause you want 20 cars.

Guaranteed sale is nice, but if I think I can clear out those cars pretty easily without a discount I'm gonna be a lot less inclined to do it.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#683

Post by JDiculous »

marrone12 wrote: post #524
nodesocket wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you really think Amazon was only going to hire people that already had wealth. It's not possible that somebody making $50k a year, could land a great new position at Amazon making $150k? Cortez is shooting her democrat constituents in the foot, and living up to her affiliation of democratic-socialist.

That's not what happens though. Amazon would be recruiting people from Ivy League schools, big consulting firms, other large tech companies.

> Amazon would be recruiting people from Ivy League schools, big consulting firms, other large tech companies

Amazon is not that pedigree-driven, most people I know who work there went to decent mid-ranked but not Ivy League level schools. Wall Street (front office) and big consulting firms are literally pedigree driven to the point where they often only recruit on Ivy League campuses, Amazon and most other big tech companies are more egalitarian caring more about the tech interview than your diploma.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#684

Post by MockObject »

waisbrot wrote: post #616
MockObject wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The opposite is true, 100% of those taxes will be paid by some other business. Can you explain this some more? Are you suggesting that governments establish a target figure and adjust that year's tax policy to make sure it's met? The existence of budget deficits suggests otherwise.

> Can you explain this some more? Are you suggesting that governments establish a target figure and adjust that year's tax policy to make sure it's met? They are just suggesting that the site that Amazon would have occupied will be rented by some other business. Probably, that business will not have gotten all the tax-breaks that Amazon did. Therefore, the tax collected by NYC on that space will be larger with Amazon…

The alternate businesses may not provide the same density of profit as Amazon, so their total tax outlay might be much lower over time. (One must factor in the other taxes paid by the Amazon employees as well.)

Also, pretty crappy to get downvoted for an honest question.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#686

Post by taurath »

jhall1468 wrote: post #181
legitster wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subsidies were very contingent on Amazon delivering all of their promised uplift. But I think people scoffed at the top-line best case subsidies. I forget where, but I remember seeing someone dig into the details of the offer and Amazon was not actually getting that much better of a deal than any other NYC business.

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.

There are plenty of valid reasons why people who live in NY would not want Amazon dropping in - to say that they're removed from reality demonstrates quite a lack of empathy. Rents going up, people being displaced, an area that traditionally has fewer high income people all getting pushed out. People are still reeling from the push of affordability out of Brooklyn; now Bed-Stuy even is getting heavily gentrified. To many people, its a complete net negative for a tech company to move in - those who can't take advantage of it.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#687

Post by ceejayoz »

philwelch wrote: post #668
i80and wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up on a farm: there are entirely reasonable ways to define standards of livestock welfare that don't require veganism.

This is true, but the bulk of this hyperbolic criticism comes from vegans, and they're going to use terms like "animal cruelty" no matter what livestock welfare standards you set.

Do you dispute that current lifestock welfare standards in the meat/dairy/egg/etc. industries permit what most would agree is animal cruelty if the same things were done to, say, the family dog?

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#688

Post by Barrin92 »

J5892 wrote: post #598
atoav wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always vocal minoirities who do things, even with very popular topics. Animal cruelty? There is only a vocal minority who takes a public stance, despite this beeing a very clear cut issue in terms of public opinion. Migration is the other way round: most people don't give a fuck, but have a loud vocal base that will even hurt themselves to make a point and you will be heard.

Animal cruelty isn't a great analogy. It's not a vocal minority, it's a vocal subset of the majority. A vocal minority is when the opponents of a popular viewpoint are louder than its proponents.

anti-nimby housing activism is a better analogy. The case against more housing construction is very weak at a objective and public policy level, but the only opposition is arguably a minority of people because selling it to the public is difficult. Urban charter schools are another one.

I see the same thing with the Amazon HQ. It's easy for Amazon to spin it in a positive PR direction by talking about jobs and increased revenue, but the policy case for giving in to Amazon's demand is actually weak.

https://hbr.org/2018/07/landing-amazon-hq2-isnt-the-right-wa...

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#689

Post by bdod6 »

anth_anm wrote: post #677
tom-_- wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you sure? 25,000 employees * 12 months * 1000 = 300 million in economic activity.

Obviously not all 25000 employees would get an extra 1k, but the point being...these things can scale significantly when you're talking about Amazon. It's not a trivial thing for SMBs to fill the void that Amazon is leaving.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#690

Post by wnevets »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #396
rsj_hn wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think NYC (or SF or any high cost of living area) is a crazy place to put HQ2. In terms of subsidies, while it's easy to dunk on Amazon, and no business should be getting subsidies IMO, there is a real issue here: Cost of Living in NY is higher and Amazon will have to pay higher wages if it puts jobs there rather than a place like Nashville. That's higher wages for the same job. Pretty much every company has a cost…

There's a reason you get superstar hubs, instead of companies and employees equalizing to somewhere else as soon as one metro gets a bit more expensive. Network/ecosystem effects are a real thing. Google already has some dev offices in cheaper areas, like Pittsburgh, where office space is cheaper and the salaries they pay slightly lower. And yet, they still choose to double their headcount in NYC. Just saying, "well…

> Google already has some dev offices in cheaper areas, like Pittsburgh, where office space is cheaper and the salaries they pay slightly lower. And yet, they still choose to double their headcount in NYC.

Location, Location, Location.

Yes it's cheaper to live and run a business in Kansas but then you're in Kansas.

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