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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

#791

Post by Spooky23 »

taurath wrote: post #739
Spooky23 wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. In my neck of the woods one county nearly bankrupted a neighboring one by offering an existing business a deal that led them to move a few miles away. The old county was stuck with sewer bonds and other costs while the revenue vaporized. It’s difficult though as it’s a prisoner’s dilemma type situation.

It sounds like the county that was bankrupted left themselves at the mercy of the business.

Yes and no. I believe in this case they had an obligation to provide the sewer, and water/sewer ratepayers are responsible for costs. You can’t make an individual ratepayer responsible for the sewer.

Definitely a bad situation and a story told a thousand times in the US

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#793

Post by Androider »

huehehue wrote: post #788
Androider wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally tens of thousands of students graduate each year from NYU (16K alone) and other colleges in the area. You're right that skilled workers don't sit around waiting for jobs to show up. They'll go to where the jobs are, which for tech still largely means the West Coast. And I say that as a NYC resident and tech entrepreneur. The tech scene in NY is weak, and non-existent across the river in LIC. Having an Amazo…

For the new grads, you're still getting tens of thousands of people moving out of campus housing and into the non-subsidized market, so it hardly seems different that bringing people from out of state.

So the ability for your own constituents children to stay in their own home state given choice and opportunities is now equivalent to Amazon bringing in 25K out-of-state employees. Gotcha. That is about as direct a FU from the "I got mine" boomer crowd and politicians that nixed this deal to the next generation as you can get.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#794

Post by efitz »

balls187 wrote: post #714
will_brown wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about having more talent, but amazon definitely has more ego...At least LeBron didn’t demand special tax deals and non-public data from cities to bring his talents.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. First, state income tax is exactly that, income tax imposed by the state, and governed by the state. There may be local jurisdictions that impose additional income tax but any savings there would be trivial. While sports are important to the local economy, my understanding is that they are relatively minor at the state level. Second, LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing in…

> ... but any savings there would be trivial

Uh, state income taxes can approach 10%. This is not “trivial”.

http://www.tax-rates.org/taxtables/income-tax-by-state

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#795

Post by JohnFen »

NathanKP wrote: post #591
hopler wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the narrative, but too often the promised backside never arrives.

The solution to that is to make the incentives performance based. And that's exactly what was proposed: if Amazon hadn't delivered the promised results the tax breaks wouldn't have taken effect.

That's not really a solution all by itself. Making the incentives performance based merely opens the possibility of being able to sue, nothing more. And when you're talking about companies with the size, power, and lack of scruples as Amazon, suing can be a losing proposition regardless of how correct your position is.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#796

Post by JohnFen »

r_smart wrote: post #638
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure any such tax breaks would have to be public data by now, even if they were originally hashed out behind closed doors. If you're implying that Google got tax breaks, and no one noticed the public data confirming these tax breaks, please provide evidence of the data that has been overlooked.

It's basically standard practice for any business to negotiate tax breaks for building in one place rather than another. I'm not going to spend any real amount of time tracking down theoretically publicly available documents on these deals. Sure the records exist, but I have no knowledge of a database I can search, and I'm not putting in a FOIA request. Here's an article discussing the topic at large[0] (and Google i…

> It's basically standard practice for any business to negotiate tax breaks for building in one place rather than another.

Yes, this is common. But just because it's common doesn't mean it's right or should be allowed.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#797

Post by JohnFen »

ben509 wrote: post #575
KorematsuFred wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sheriff of a small town told me how they ended up spending thousands of dollars to SWAT team which he thinks he will never use. The reason ? After some school shooting in another end of USA the folks of his county wanted to know how their LEAs plan to defend the local schools. The correct response here was that they do not expect such law probability even and even if it happens there is very little they can actuall…

Honestly, it's a bit like a doctor giving someone a sugar pill.

One difference is that sugar pills can actually be very effective.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#798

Post by ChrisLomont »

airza wrote: post #787
rhegart wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But that economic activity will go _somewhere_, and allowing businesses to pressure them into tax breaks is collectively gutting the ability of many city governments to function.

Those city govts can choose 0 in new business or new business with jobs and income taxes and property value increases.

A business choosing a location is a business transaction, as is city taxation choices. Both can freely choose how to woo the other.

NYC chose to lose possible decades of high paying jobs over their unwillingness to deal.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#799

Post by joejerryronnie »

nodesocket wrote: post #460
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…

I just don't understand the logic of politicians such as Ocasio-Cortez. Amazon HQ was going to bring 25,000 high paying jobs to the area, providing growth and opportunities for her constituents. Her argument against is that the Amazon HQ would further gentrification and she was appalled by the government subsidies. So she'd rather limit new growth, prevent new jobs, and stifle wealth to prevent luxury condos and Star…

AOC’s logic is very straight forward. She wants to take money from you and I through massive taxation and redistribute it to her low income constituents through massive social programs. Don’t let her “soak the rich” bait and switch rhetoric fool you, the middle class always pays for new government spending.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#800

Post by SethMurphy »

The Allowance of a helicopter pad shows how tone deaf the proposal was. Never mind the safety issues of a helicopter flying over a heavily populated area, the noise of one was such an issue in Brooklyn that they banned any flights over land as a quality of life issue (other than police or news helicopters I think). They still come close enough to the land that they are a nuisance if you live near or enjoy the new publicly accessible waterfront areas.

EDIT: Apparently there were limits placed on 120 landings a year and it was on the waterfront campus mitigating some of the safety concerns. It was still a major concession given though that does nothing I can think of to add to the community.

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