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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

#801

Post by vonmoltke »

lkrubner wrote: post #528
koheripbal wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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…

No, they won't. Any other business will get similar tax breaks to Amazon (excluding the $505MM special construction deal) relative to the size if the operations they want to put there.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#802

Post by humanrebar »

JohnFen wrote: post #314
digianarchist wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Turns out that publicly shaking down cities across the US tends to draw out the opposition. Unless it's for a football stadium.

> Unless it's for a football stadium. You haven't seen the perpetual and energetic fights in my part of the nation about public funding for football (and other professional sports) stadiums. Sports businesses trying to get tax money to be spent in order to enhance their profitability is absolutely something that brings out the opposition.

Correct. St. Louis and San Diego both let pro football clubs leave recently.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#804

Post by Nav_Panel »

jamiek88 wrote: post #512
koheripbal wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax breaks are just a temporary discount on taxes that otherwise would be paid at all. It's not like Amazon was getting CASH to move to NYC.

That’s assuming that space would be left empty. Which in NYC is unlikely.

Have you been to Long Island City? It's low-slung warehouses and taxi parking lots.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#805

Post by [deleted] »

atoav wrote: post #584
bko wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#806

Post by vonmoltke »

tytso wrote: post #705
koheripbal wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Google is expanding to create 25,000 GOOD JOBS! But since it didn't extort $$$ out of politicians, the politicians can't as easily take advantage of it. If you can get high-tech companies who are willing massively expand to create lots of GOOD JOBS without have to short $3 billion from the state budget, that might mean that the $3 billion dollars was a total waste and boondoogle....

> Google is expanding to create 25,000 GOOD JOBS!

No they aren't. They're expanding by about 7000.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#807

Post by Anarcissie »

jfnixon wrote: post #542
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…

So why did NYC bother to compete for HQ2?

The main driver of politics in NYC is real estate. Long Island City has already been undergoing a gentrification blitzkrieg, but adding Amazon HQ2 to the mix would yield fantastic profits to those of the rich who were in on it -- that is, those who had gotten the memo several years ago and taken up a good real estate position in the area. Plus, the irony of taking the proles' money in taxes to drive them out of their neighborhood homes and businesses must have offered an icing of sadistic pleasure to the mighty cake of profit. What I am wondering is how the deal was stopped. Usually, big real estate projects steamroll all resistance. There's money to be made! (Not by you.)

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#808

Post by bko »

siruncledrew wrote: post #207
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

Amazon's spectacle reminds me of Lebron's "The Decision". It's one thing to work out the details and make an announcement, but to purposefully turn it into a show about "What can you do for me?" instead of "Here's what I can do for you" made it not sit well with people. Also, the pull-out letter also basically dumps the blame on state/local officials for not wanting Amazon, despite not all stakeholders being present…

I don't see it as a "what can you do for me". A lot of Amazon's interest were aligned with that of many New Yorkers. Both Amazon and most New Yorkers want to have a strong transportation system and a diverse economy that doesn't just rely on taxing bloated financial bonuses to pay for services. They also want New York to be an in-demand tech hub with a deep labor pool and be a place where people actually want to live. Cities should strive to be places where employers want to invest. We aren't talking about handing over duffle bags of money to Bezos. They agreed to offset some of NYC's exorbitant taxes and regulations that make this city hostile to many businesses. And supposedly the incentives were available to any employer of that size. The fact is that having a large Amazon hub in NYC would greatly benefit the city and its denizens

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#809

Post by rory096 »

samstave wrote: post #758
pradn wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LeBron's show raised like $6 million for various charities, so that's commendable.

I am of the opinion that any and all "Foundations" should be required to put their financials into a common splunk log repo with NLP search tools made available to anyone.

IRS Form 990s are publicly available.

https://www.open990.com/org/020716277/the-lebron-james-famil...

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#810

Post by gammateam »

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...

They sank it?

Amazon could have easily ignored them for all eternity if they wanted. A vocal minority can't influence a random housing development, you think they had any say over Amazon? That's a STRETCH

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