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Amazon To NYC After Reconsidering HQ2 Plans: It'd Be a Shame If Something Happened To Your Kids' CS Education
theodp writes: Commenting on reports that Amazon is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City following a wave of political and community opposition, Amazon issued the following statement: "We're focused on engaging with our new neighbors -- small business owners, educators, and community leaders. Whether it's building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be." Yep, it'd be a shame if something happened. The Washington Post earlier reported that New York State Sen. Michael Gianaris, a strong opponent of the Amazon HQ2 deal, described the possibility that Amazon would pull out of the deal -- which totals up to $3 billion in state and city incentives -- as akin to blackmail. "Amazon has extorted New York from the start, and this seems to be their next effort to do just that," he said. "If their view is, 'We won't come unless we get three billion of your dollars,' then they shouldn't come." Over at Vice, Ankita Rao examines what Amazon infiltrating America's school system might look like.
also it's normal for big corporations to seek incentives from state
It's normal. That doesn't mean it's good.
, in the long run the state and population gets many times the return
No, in general not. The "long run" result is that once one company discovers that they can avoid taxes by pitting one locality against another in a bidding war, then all companies start to do that, and essentially what happens is that municipalities stop getting revenue from taxes. So they have to tax their residents instead.
Everybody loses.
I don't see any way for it to NOT work.
PT Barnum loved people like you.
How many $100-$150k software engineers in NYC are currently unemployed?
Most of these employees will just be shifted from other businesses, which aren't being subsidized, forcing them to either cut back or leave the city. There may be some net job growth, but it is unlikely it is going to be worth $3 billion.
Most tech companies in NYC are already desperate for talent. The limit on creating high paying jobs is not companies willing to hire them, but housing available for people to move to the city. Approving new building permits (cost: ~$0) would do WAY more to grow the NYC economy that this handout to Amazon.
But there is one thing you can be certain of: The politicians are going to label this as a "success" by highlighting every job at Amazon, while ignoring the equivalent number of jobs destroyed elsewhere in the city.