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New Yorkers Protest Amazon HQ2: 'We Should Be Investing in Housing ... Not in Helicopters' (geekwire.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Shawn Dixon's life changed overnight. On Tuesday he was surprised to learn that Amazon plans to build a giant campus with room for thousands of high-paid workers on the same block as the small business he owns, Otis & Finn Barbershop. "We woke up yesterday with our whole world upside down," Dixon said. The announcement that one half of Amazon HQ2 is moving into his neighborhood -- Long Island City in Queens, New York -- motivated Dixon to attend a protest of Amazon's future campus Wednesday. He was
joined by elected officials, labor leaders, and activists who gathered to speak out against the tax incentives, government subsidies and other perks -- including a helipad -- that New York is offering Amazon in exchange for the thousands of jobs the company promises to bring.
"We're worried about our ability to stay in the neighborhood," Dixon said. "I'm not against growth and I'm not against Amazon but what I'm against is giving away all this money to one of the richest companies in the world when our schools are underfunded, we don't have schools in this neighborhood, the trains don't run here, and small business owners have no protections." The rally was organized by New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris, who represents the Queens neighborhood Amazon is moving into. "By the way, Amazon was coming here without all this money anyway," Gianaris said when he took the podium.
"We're worried about our ability to stay in the neighborhood," Dixon said. "I'm not against growth and I'm not against Amazon but what I'm against is giving away all this money to one of the richest companies in the world when our schools are underfunded, we don't have schools in this neighborhood, the trains don't run here, and small business owners have no protections." The rally was organized by New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris, who represents the Queens neighborhood Amazon is moving into. "By the way, Amazon was coming here without all this money anyway," Gianaris said when he took the podium.
Look, resistance is futile.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go sell the house I bought just a few years ago for five times what I paid for it.
That said, you do have elections. But, as you can see with Seattle, those don't matter either.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Then maybe you should allow more density. Restricting supply is a great way to make things unaffordable!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Anyone who thinks these giveaways to big corporations for supposed reward (jobs, media exposure, etc.) needs to listen to the Citations Needed Podcast, particularly Episode 20, "How Sports Are Used to Fleece Public Trusts".
There's a good reason Amazon's HQ search was often called Bezos' "quest to find America's Dumbest Mayor". Looks like he found more than one.
My heart goes out to the people. Maybe it's not too late to replace your representatives and undo this.. :(
He is going to have a business with a large number of well paid workers right next door. Why would he be upset? Instead of protesting, he should clean his shop and get ready for the influx of new business.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The problem is that it is a tragedy of the commons situation. If New York doesn't give an incentive, then maybe Raleigh, NC will. Then, as in all markets, it comes down to what will the market bear. I think there needs to be a few court cases of unfair taxation that go up to the Supreme Court. The other answer is that people fight to reduce the role of government everywhere, but then they'd have to give up their rent-controlled apartments and cheap subway tickets.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Gotta love the irony of the same folks who shit on Trump for cutting corporations a modest tax break going all out rolling out the red carpet to give money to Amazon... and then ignoring their constituency when they realize what happened.
I don't know about the rest of the rant but
"By the way, Amazon was coming here without all this money anyway"
this part is true, other places offered more incentives but amazon moved there because of talent, so yeah they didn't need to throw the money.
The argument is, I think, that the present value of Amazon and their employees' future investments, tax payments, and spending outweighs the incentive the city provides. So if they want more funding for schools and other stuff, well, that's how you get the money to do it. The calculations might be wrong, but I kind of doubt it, the HQ will be dumping a ton of money in to the local economy.
... New Yorkers opposed to new jobs! Gee what a surprise.
Perhaps some people are mad about that, but many others are just mad about the tax subsidies.
Why should Amazon get a special sweetheart tax deal? In the eyes of the law, Amazon Inc. and Maggie's Pie Shop should be treated exactly the same. The government should not be favoring one over the other.
I think there needs to be a few court cases of unfair taxation that go up to the Supreme Court.
Would that apply to "enterprise zones" tax breaks designed to boost poor areas too?
Or does it just apply to incentives for disliked tech companies?
If he doesn't actually own the space he's in then with Amazon setting up shop, the lease payments are going to go up substantially to capture some of that sweet rich people money. He's going to have to decide whether his business can support the higher rent. If he decides he can't take the risk, the person who owns the building will find plenty of businesses that are willing to take the risk.
Work Safe Porn
Well, the city has to do a bunch of stuff not to make the whole situation a giant clusterfuck - road expansions, mass transit lines, new traffic signals, changing of traffic patterns to match the estimated traffic increases, all the water works / sewer work to be able to service all this new stuff, build fire stations, police stations, schools for the new housing, parks, waste disposal services, etc.
You know that Amazon won't be footing the bill for any of that. The current citizens will be, and there won't be any tax revenue coming from Amazon for several years after it's all done, because of the tax breaks being handed over, so the current citizenry will have to foot the bill disproportionately for some time.
Somewhere down the road, the city will start collecting on all this new shit when the deal expires; by then Amazon will threaten to leave and some idiot politician will ram through an extension just on the threat. This is the same game that urban renewal advocates play with "tax increment financing."
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
That still wouldn’t work because they’ll continue to insist on rent control. No developer wants to put up an expensive new apartment building if it means that they can’t charge market rates. That’s usually why all new development in cities by private investors is for luxury condos. Those are typically immune from any rent control ordinances.
The whole point is that there will thousands and thousands of new, well compensated professionals with incomes to tax and a giant surge of personal spending in the entire area surrounding the activity. That's exactly the sort of activity that funds the infrastructure in the first place. None of that would happen without attracting the entities that employ all of those people and stimulate all of those billions of dollars in activity. I haven't heard anyone report that the barber shop in question won't continue to pay taxes and fees on its surging new business activity, or that every restaurant for miles around that will get a huge jump in business will somehow fail to pay their taxes.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The whole point is that there will thousands and thousands of new, well compensated professionals with incomes to tax and a giant surge of personal spending in the entire area surrounding the activity
That's the theory.
It doesn't always work out that way in practice. MA got screwed by some pharmaceutical giants who didn't quite expand as they said they would. And Foxconn is currently fucking over Wisconsin, with $60k/year jobs costing the state $250k/year each in incentives.
As for that barber shop, his landlord is going to jack his rent through the roof, forcing him to close and/or move. A new Starbucks will pay more rent, but it'll be bad for that barber.....and a huge portion of the restaurants for miles around.