Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus (nytimes.com)

As expected, Amazon said on Thursday that it was canceling plans to build a corporate campus in New York City [The link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: The company had planned to build a sprawling complex in Long Island City, Queens, in exchange for nearly $3 billion in state and city incentives. But the deal had run into fierce opposition from local lawmakers who criticized providing subsidies to one of the world's richest companies. Amazon said the deal would have created more than 25,000 jobs. Amazon's NYC educational investments will continue.
Amazon's statement: "After much thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens. For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.

We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion -- we love New York, its incomparable dynamism, people, and culture -- and particularly the community of Long Island City, where we have gotten to know so many optimistic, forward-leaning community leaders, small business owners, and residents. There are currently over 5,000 Amazon employees in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island, and we plan to continue growing these teams."

Comments

Good government management

[Futurepower(R)]

Good!!! The governments should not provide subsidies. There should be a law against that.

Re:Good government management

[atrex]

Or, NYC could take that $3 Billion dollars and hire 25,000 workers with $50K annual salaries for two years to rebuild and modernize the city's subway system which will provide much greater and longer term economic benefit to the city than an Amazon office building.

Re:Good government management

[ranton]

And now some other city will give them what they want - and Long Island will be out of luck on this one.

Out of luck? They were about to spend $120,000 per "new" job created, so it is far from guaranteed Long Island would have benefited. Long Island has a 3.8% unemployment rate, so I doubt it is hurting for new jobs. The New York City area is probably not hurting for businesses to locate there. Spending that $3 billion on more affordable housing would probably do far more good in attracting businesses by giving them more access to employees.

Re: Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't subsidies. There's an important distinction between being paid, and incentives that mean you pay less.

One puts the onus of failure on the tax payer, while the other still requires the business to be successful.

In their rush to be virtuous and socialist, New York forgot that we are, and will always be, a capitalist nation. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers lost a golden opportunity to make billions of dollars for themselves and their community.

This is not something to celebrate.

Re:Good government management

[ceoyoyo]

And they'd still have half a billion dollars left over.

Re:Good government management

[sdinfoserv]

Try and live in NYC on $50K.

Re:Good government management

[godrik]

Try and live in NYC on $50K.

Indeed, $50,000 seems not enough to survive in New York for a month.

Re:Good government management

[AmiMoJo]

Problem is it's not $3bn in cash they have handing over, it's $3bn in tax they are not going to collect.

You can't pay people with tax you would have collected if Amazon had come to town.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no $3 billion. That was a tax incentive, not money sitting in some Scrooge McDuck like vault.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

They were incentives, not cash. A critical point you idiots seem to continue to ignore.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

They were never spending $3B. They were refunding $3B worth of the taxes Amazon would have paid. Too many stupid people commenting on something they don't understand.

Re: Good government management

[ShanghaiBill]

There's an important distinction between being paid, and incentives that mean you pay less.

There is indeed. But both are wrong. There should be equality before the law, even for businesses. One business should not be taxed to fund tax breaks for another "more worthy" business.

In their rush to be virtuous and socialist,

Only some deal opponents were socialists like AOC, who objected to the handouts to a rich company, although she doesn't object to handouts in principle. But many more objectors are free market capitalists, who don't think the government should be "picking winners". It was an alliance of left and right, standing together to oppose corporate welfare.

This is not something to celebrate.

Yes it is. Hopefully other locales will learn a lesson from this, and these corrupt handouts can stop.

Re:Good government management

[pgmrdlm]

You are missing the fact that they would then have to worry about Pensions, health care, and other cost's associated with those new employee's. Where Amazon would have had to eat those same cost's for all their new hires. I think this is a point that a lot of people are missing.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind most of those amazon jobs would have been for a LOT LESS than $50k. They too would not have been able to live in nyc.

Re: Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that's exactly what republican states are like... oh wait nevermind, those are the states everyone is moving to for jobs!

Re:Good government management

[Deathlizard]

That incentive was savings on tax revenue Amazon would have paid if they built in the area.

Since Amazon isn't coming to the area, not only are they out any tax revenue that Amazon would have generated, but any potential Tax revenue generated by the hired employees.

Unless they find another 3 billion dollar revenue generator, they get nothing but what the current property generates. probably a few million tops.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

The median salary in NYC is $50,711.

Re: Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still a subsidy. There would be huge costs in city services consumed by so many people starting to work in an area (regardless if those people already lived there or, more likely, move in from out of town). Not getting to realise the tax revenue to use to provide for those services would be a loss to the city.

I thought you conservatives were all about the free market and competition? Having government picking winners and losers is actually what might happen in a socialist society, yet here you are complaining that a city won't pay (directly or indirectly) to move in.

Giving tax incentives to corporations is a hugeboondoggle. In so many cases the gained job opportunities to locals are nowhere near the amount of money the business receives. Look at the Wisconsin FoxConn thing. FoxConn saves/gains billions of dollars, and the ultimate benefit to the state ends up most likely being puny.

Re: Good government management

[jythie]

For the same billions, they could probably attract hundreds of smaller companies that would have far more impact on the city.

Re:Good government management

[jellomizer]

Only to have that other city, to over promise, and run in server debt for decades, by the time they break even, to have Amazon move out. Leaving the town an expensive infrastructure, without a tax base to hold it.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and you know what else would provide thousands of jobs?

Federal legalization of marijuana, and various other recreational drugs as well.

Re: Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually NYC cleaned itself up in spite of efforts by both political parties. The decline in violence and poverty mirrored that of the rest of the country without regard to political affiliation.

Re:Good government management

[Solandri]

The median household income of New York City is $60,879. In particular, Queens is $64,509, and the Bronx is $37,397, and Brooklyn is $56,942 (these two neighbor Queens). Median income is the income of the 50th percentile household. So nearly half the people in this area live in NYC on less than $50k.

Re:Good government management

[ceoyoyo]

Correct!

$50k/year * 2 years is $100,000. Times 25,000 workers is 2.5 billion. That leaves $500 million left over.

Re:Good government management

[magzteel]

Or, NYC could take that $3 Billion dollars and hire 25,000 workers with $50K annual salaries for two years to rebuild and modernize the city's subway system which will provide much greater and longer term economic benefit to the city than an Amazon office building.

NY wasn't writing Amazon a check for 3 billion dollars.

Re: Good government management

[magzteel]

There's an important distinction between being paid, and incentives that mean you pay less.

There is indeed. But both are wrong. There should be equality before the law, even for businesses. One business should not be taxed to fund tax breaks for another "more worthy" business.

What does "fund a tax break" mean? They aren't writing Amazon a check. They are collecting less from them.
If a mugger leaves the cash in your wallet do you consider that some kind of gain for you? It was already your money.

Just the *news* of the new headquarters had started an economic boom in Long Island City. People were buying apartments, developers were planning to build, new businesses would have been created. Long Island City isn't car friendly, these would have been jobs for locals (including workers who moved in to the area) or train commuters from the rest of NYC and Long Island. They would have been using the local restaurants and shops, and going out at night there or taking the train to Manhattan. Killing this project killed a tremendous source of tax revenues for the city.

Re: Good government management

[ShanghaiBill]

For the same billions, they could probably attract hundreds of smaller companies that would have far more impact on the city.

Exactly. What NYC should be doing is improving their overall friendliness to commerce. Better transportation infrastructure, fewer restrictions on the construction of housing, fewer petty regulations, and a more streamlined bureaucracy. It should not take six months and 17 forms to open a taco stand, and nobody should need a license to paint fingernails.

Many growth friendly policy changes would cost nothing. Others, such as infrastructure improvements, would be expensive, but are badly needed, and will benefit the city for many decades to come.

Re:Good government management

[radarskiy]

Corporations should not go places that offer subsidies, since if you get a subsidy this year that means you are paying whoever gets a subsidy next year.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

"$3 billion for 25,000 jobs is $120,000 per job"

Which is roughly what it costs to employ a person making "$50k", especially in government work with all of the requirements/benefits (health insurance, retirement, SS, etc) tied in in the US nowadays.

Re:Good government management

[Joey Vegetables]

A single person should be able to pull it off, though just barely (and probably not in Manhattan or any safe part of Brooklyn). A family though? Not likely. Your best bet then would be a single family house in someplace like Astoria or Staten Island. The latter would mean a terrible commute, and either one would be well upward of a million bucks. You would not get a loan for that much money on a $50k salary.

Re: Good government management

[ShanghaiBill]

What does "fund a tax break" mean?

It takes money to run a city. If Amazon is paying less, then someone else is paying more.

If a mugger leaves the cash in your wallet do you consider that some kind of gain for you?

Getting mugged happens randomly. We should be making our tax system less like mugging by having fair and uniform rules.

People were buying apartments

For every buyer, there is a seller. What you are really saying is that prices increased from their already sky high levels.

developers were planning to build, new businesses would have been created.

Developers in NYC are always planning to build ... and their building permits are denied 90% of the time. If NYC wants more construction and more businesses, they don't need to spend $3B. They can instead spend $0, and just stop saying "No".

these would have been jobs for locals

The local unemployment rate is at 3.8%, which is an historic low. The locals already have plenty of jobs to choose from. Amazon would have just bled workers from other companies, who couldn't match Amazon's wages because they weren't getting the same subsidies.

Re:Good government management

[Joey Vegetables]

A lot of these people live in public, rent-stabilized, or rent-controlled housing. My understanding is that those aren't available to new residents, except by lotteries and other mechanisms that can't be relied upon. Go to Craigslist and look at the rents you can find there for semi-ok neighborhoods, which most of them are, but not quite all - you have to be a local, which I'm not, to know for sure. But avoid eastern Brooklyn, immediately adjacent sections of Queens, the South Bronx, and Harlem, unless you know exactly what you're getting into. Then consider NYC's insane tax rates. Then consider how you can make $50k gross, maybe $35k net, and still be able to pay $2500 a month in rent. You can't, and that isn't what's happening. The people who make that little live in either subsidized housing or very bad neighborhoods, which are vanishing in much of the city due to gentrification.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

They were never spending $3B. They were refunding $3B worth of the taxes Amazon would have paid. Too many stupid people commenting on something they don't understand.

We understand that's only a difference in naming. The net effect is the same with other taxpayer making up the difference.

Re:Good government management

[jon3k]

But the economic benefit was estimated to be tens fo billions for the city?

Re: Good government management

[drinkypoo]

So make smaller companies pay the taxes while amazon make the $$$

The point is not to prevent Amazon from making money. The point is to prevent Amazon from being a drain. Not making them pay their fair share only means that everyone else pays their share while they profit.

Re:Good government management

[jbengt]

Try and live in NYC on $50K.

You don't have to live in a 5th Avenue Manhattan apartment to live in New York.

Re: Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that's exactly what republican states are like... oh wait nevermind, those are the states everyone is moving to for jobs!

Yeah, quality states like Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and Arkansas.

California has higher poverty rates than ALL but one of those, believe it or not. In fact, California has the highest poverty rate in the US.

Funny how you failed to know that.

Probably because the poor in California are the brown people that you, in your sheltered white, privileged suburban bubble - only pretend to care about.

Oh, and California has a higher percentage of failure to complete high school than ALL of those "quality states" you listed.

Got the balls to look that one up and actually learn something true? Probably not.

Re:Good government management

[ranton]

They were never spending $3B. They were refunding $3B worth of the taxes Amazon would have paid. Too many stupid people commenting on something they don't understand.

Try to get your facts right before calling others stupid. New York City and New York State were providing a combination of tax credits, grants, and other assistance such as shared spending for infrastructure projects. It was certainly not $3B of just tax breaks. Tax breaks certainly are preferred over grants, since less money is lost if the jobs don't materialize and less money is spent up front, but in the end it is still revenue lost for spending elsewhere.

In some Midwest town which is hurting for jobs, the argument that these Amazon jobs would be "net new" jobs is more compelling. But New York city has little problem attracting jobs; it has more problems funding infrastructure problems or offering affordable housing. The Amazon deal certainly could have been a good thing overall for New York (I originally said it just wasn't a guarantee Long Island would benefit), but the deal itself left a lot to be desired. Considering Maryland offered $6.5 billion more in incentives than Virginia at a location 20 miles away, but still lost, shows how little Amazon was using these incentives in its decision to locate their headquarters.

Re:Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a quick distinction.This was not Long Island, it's Long Island City, in Queens, not on Long Island. Probably not important to non-New Yorkers, but LIC is a 20 minute train ride from Manhattan, Long Island is longgggg train or car ride.

Re: Good government management

[ShanghaiBill]

Or the net benefit Amazon brings far exceeds the amount they aren't paying.

By some estimates the net benefit was $0.

By some estimates the net benefit was $27 billion.

Do you also believe in the Easter Bunny?

Robbing Peter to pay Paul sounds great if you are Paul. But the net benefit is zero. Or even negative if Peter moves away because he keeps getting robbed.

Re: Good government management

[MachineShedFred]

Found the guy who has never been on the NYC subway.

Hint: it's already a smoking sewer run into the ground by incompetent management, chronic underfunding, and decades of deferred maintenance.

Re: Good government management

[sjames]

It's a distinction without a difference. Somebody was going to be paying for the infrastructure Amazon needed to maintain an HQ in New York, If not Amazon, then everyone else.

Here's a thought experiment for you: New law, groceries and health care are now free to all comers. It's not like anyone is losing any money on the deal, they're just not making people pay anymore.

Re: Good government management

[ShanghaiBill]

The decline in violence and poverty mirrored that of the rest of the country

Actually, the decline in crime in NYC preceded the national decline by several years. Steven Levitt of Freakonomics attributed it to New York State legalizing abortion years before RvW. This hypothesis is not widely accepted, but the actual reasons for NYC's earlier and deeper decline in crime are not well understood.

Re:Good government management

[ShanghaiBill]

But the economic benefit was estimated to be tens fo billions for the city?

Only if you ignore the alternative businesses that get squeezed out or never created, because of high taxes, high rents, and lack of available workers.

Re: Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you own a mirror? Take a good look because you don't know what the hell your talking about.

Re:Good government management

[sjames]

Now find the damned umbrella.

They would be writing 3 Billion in checks, to cover waste removal, sewage, road improvements, etc etc etc.

Re: Good government management

[magzteel]

Or the net benefit Amazon brings far exceeds the amount they aren't paying.

By some estimates the net benefit was $0.

By some estimates the net benefit was $27 billion.

Do you also believe in the Easter Bunny?

Robbing Peter to pay Paul sounds great if you are Paul. But the net benefit is zero. Or even negative if Peter moves away because he keeps getting robbed.

I'm sure with your deep knowledge of New York finances and your rigorous study of the project economic details your analysis is more accurate than the one from the Governor of New York's office: https://www.governor.ny.gov/ne...

"Amazon Will Create 25,000 to 40,000 New Jobs with an Average Salary of More than $150,000, Invest More Than $3.6 Billion Over 15 Years and Create $27.5 Billion In Tax Revenue Over 25 Years"

Re:Good government management

[MachineShedFred]

if living in your parents basement, maybe. Or in an apartment with roommates stacked like firewood.

Re:Good government management

[ranton]

My mistake, good call out. As you could obviously tell, I'm not familiar with the area.

Re: Good government management

[Anonymous Coward]

Another hypothesis with supporting evidence is that leaded gasonline was responsible, and its elimination resulted in the decrease in crime 15-20 years later.

Re: Good government management

[jeff4747]

No, they can not do this because New York City doesn't run the subway. New York State does.

Re:Good government management

[DogDude]

It's the same thing. If you've got thousands of people moving to NYC, and they're all living there, essentially tax-free, that's a massive, massive burden on the city. Tax money goes to pay for basic services, of which NYC can barely maintain as is.

Re: Good government management

[ShanghaiBill]

This subsidy was Governor Andrew Cuomo's baby. He was heavily invested in it.

He even offered to change his name from "Andrew" to "Amazon Cuomo".

Nobody on the planet is going to be less objective.

He has less credibility than a NYC Bowery bum to be making forecasts about it.

By quoting him, you are saying much more about your own judgement and gullibility than about the supposed benefits of the subsidy.

Re: Good government management

[magzteel]

This subsidy was Governor Andrew Cuomo's baby. He was heavily invested in it.

He even offered to change his name from "Andrew" to "Amazon Cuomo".

Nobody on the planet is going to be less objective.

He has less credibility than a NYC Bowery bum to be making forecasts about it.

By quoting him, you are saying much more about your own judgement and gullibility than about the supposed benefits of the subsidy.

I guess you're much too busy being snarky to read the announcement or the attached memorandum of understanding between the parties:
https://esd.ny.gov/sites/defau...

The memorandum with attachments is very explicit in the details but you needn't read that either. You obviously know the terms better than the parties that signed it. For everyone else who lacks your keen insight here is the first paragraph:

"This memorandum of understanding (the “MOU”) sets forth certain understandings and agreements among New York State Urban Development Corporation d/b/a Empire State Development (“ESD”); The City of New York (the “City”); New York City Economic Development Corporation (“NYCEDC”; together with the City and ESD, the “Public Parties”), and Amazon.com Services, Inc. (the “Company”), with respect to a project to create, in coordination with the Company’s development partners, a new corporate headquarters for Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates in New York City, including the design, development, construction, renovation and operation of what will initially be approximately 4,000,000 square feet of commercial space and the creation of 25,000 new jobs with an average wage of over $150,000 annually within 10 years of the date hereof, with a planned expansion for a total of 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 square feet of commercial space that is expected to result in the creation of up to 40,000 new jobs within 15 years of the date hereof (the “Project”). "

Re:Good government management

[fafalone]

The rent situation isn't that bad outside of Manhattan and highly gentrified areas. There's a whole range of places between Williamsburg and South Bronx. People do it by having roommates. Outside Manhattan, there's a lot of very nice areas where a 2br is under 2k in rent, so two or more people split it and pay less than 1k each in rent. If you don't live in a fancy building the situation is even better. I'm a 10min walk + 10min subway ride from lower Manhattan, in a highly gentrified, very nice area, and in a market rate apartment that's 2br for under 1700/mo, so my share is around 850. The building and apartment are perfectly fine themselves its just there's no amenities in-building; if I wanted that there's plenty of 4k+ 1 bedrooms here.

Re:Good government management

[fafalone]

25,000 workers for two years could modernize exactly one station the way the MTA works.

Re: Good government management

[ShanghaiBill]

Another hypothesis with supporting evidence is that leaded gasonline was responsible

That does not explain why the decline happened earlier and deeper in NYC.

The switch to unleaded gasoline happened nationwide.

Re: Good government management

[Cyberax]

Nope. Doesn't work like this. A small company won't be able to sponsor redevelopment of the area. And also smaller companies might have a second thought about investing in a city that is business-hostile.

Re: Good government management

[reanjr]

Lead paint was phased out in different areas at different rates and corresponds nicely to the drop in crime.

Re: Good government management

[astrofurter]

Also, a smaller company probably can't afford to hire expensive Ivy League lawyers to pass suitcases full of cash to city councilmen in a dark parking lot.

Re: Good government management

[astrofurter]

"They would have been using the local restaurants and shops, and going out at night there or taking the train to Manhattan. Killing this project killed a tremendous source of tax revenues for the city."

Have you ever been to New York? Our restaurants and shops are already packed full of people. They're doing just fine. No handout to a billionaire oligarch required.

Re:Good government management

[orin]

It was a tax break, not a payment. Amazon was going to pay less tax, it wasn't going to get a payment from NYC. So you're idea of allocating the resources elsewhere can't work because the funds do not exist.

Re: Good government management

[zidium]

Amazon needs to relocate to Houston, TX. No way would we have the sentiment of astrofurter (5464356)!

Re: Good government management

[astrofurter]

Hey man, if you folks want to burden your children and grandchildren with onerous debt just so you can give a free handout to one of the richest oligarchs in the world - well go for it, I guess.

Re:Good government management

[Outta_the_way_peck!]

It was already covered when the locations were chosen that it was never a legitimate competition. Bezos already had homes in New York and Virginia. The competition was just a ploy to extract a better deal from those locations by making them against other cities that never had a chance.

Re:Good government management

[ceoyoyo]

Suprisingly, governments generally don't spend ALL their tax income on hookers and blow.

Amazon coming to town means a lot of expenditures on infrastructure, policing, fire, etc. I don't know exactly what the tax balance is for large corporations in NY, but there's a good chance that giving them a big tax break would end up in a net loss. Enough people seem to think so that they killed the deal.

Re:Good government management

[supercell]

Your economics igonorace is glowing. The $3B is a tax DISCOUNT over MANY years. AMZN would generate about $4B ANNUALLY in salaries in that locally area. The total taxes paid by the direct and indirect jobs by Amazon would dwarf any discount the City offered. By pissing off amazon and losing 25K high paying jobs and the losing approx $4B in direct ANNUAL revenue is bat shit INSANE. People like AOC have absolutely no business guiding policy at any level.

Re:Good government management

[beanpoppa]

It's quite a bit more than the salary to employ someone. In addition to their salary, there are payroll taxes, health insurance, pension/retirement, etc. Not to mention, the additional investment in your infrastructure you would need to 'house' these employees (office space, IT infrastructure, construction tools, etc depending on the job function).

Re: Good government management

[HeckRuler]

Do you honestly believe that AMAZON has any chance of failure?

Presuming that amazon is not going to be a failed business, the distinction you made between subsidies and tax relief disappears and the two are effectively the same.

We ARE a capitalist nation, but not purely capitalist because we have welfare, social security, and we bail out banks when shit hits the fan. And AS a capitalist nation we need to safeguard against those with capital controlling the market, abusing their market-share, gaming the system, and avoiding competition. That shit is illegal for a reason. Without competition there is no free market and capitalism fails. If they engage in anti-capitalistic behavior, like soliciting bribes from municipalities in exchange for relocating their headquarters, then they should be fined and the leadership put in prison.

If NewYorkers passed on this opportunity to make billions, then some other community can have the opportunity to make multiple billions without funneling money into Amazon's coffers. Economics is not a zero-sum game, but this decision is absolutely a zero-sum game deciding how the pie is going to be divided. And I applaud NY for calling bullshit on Amazon's extortion.

Re:Good government management

[atrex]

And businesses like Amazon that are anticipated to again pay ZERO dollars in federal taxes AND get a $129 Billion dollar tax rebate this year have no business getting any further tax incentives. Once they actually start paying their fair share in taxes instead of hiding their profits offshore, then, and only then, can we talk about conceivably giving them some tax incentives to do stuff.

AOC can just keep right on trucking, because it's people like her that are finally going to close the corporate tax loopholes and stop these corporations from hiding all their profits on some fly spec island or foreign nation.

Re:Good government management

[lordmage]

Not caring one way or another but I will point out that sounds like a Political Talking point. Take the money and hire..
How does Tax Incentives = Actual Money? your comment was insightful? There has to be money to be made for Tax Incentives to actually kick in.

Now there is ZERO new money.

Now, what would Amazon replace? Zero money? 3 billion dollar money? 10 billion money? Unless Amazon destroyed something, there was 25k in new jobs to be taxed by the city + anything over the Tax Incentives from amazon corporate. Guess how much Amazon would have made.. 17 billion is one number.. so then the City lost 14 billion in taxable revenues.

Any corporate landlord gives incentives to move in (in a good economy) such as "Configuration" help. ie: you move in, here is 100k for your new cubicles because we will make it up in 6 months.

Place it where they need it

[Only Time Will Tell]

I've always said if Amazon wants to be really beneficial and transformational, place their HQ2 in a rust-belt city. NYC is fine, they are millions of jobs and a high cost of living. Places like Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburg, etc. need the jobs and would be very supportive to Amazon.

Re:Place it where they need it

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I've always said if Amazon wants to be really beneficial and transformational, place their HQ2 in a rust-belt city.

Bezos doesn't own a home in a rust-belt city. Unlike Washington, DC or NYC.

Re:Place it where they need it

[ranton]

I've always said if Amazon wants to be really beneficial and transformational, place their HQ2 in a rust-belt city. NYC is fine, they are millions of jobs and a high cost of living. Places like Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburg, etc. need the jobs and would be very supportive to Amazon.

They just don't have the deepest pockets. Amazon's goal was never to be beneficial or transformational. It was to make more money (by saving more money in this case).

Re:Place it where they need it

[Graydyn Young]

Can you imagine the house he could build in the rust-belt though? The price of an apartment in Manhattan will get you an entire city block in The D.

Re:Place it where they need it

[squiggleslash]

Plus if Bezos gets a home in Flint, MI, I bet the water problem will get fixed pretty quickly.

Re:Place it where they need it

[hierofalcon]

Land costs are so much less, Amazon wouldn't need 3 billion. Plus, since real estate costs are so much less the pay ongoing for employees would be lower. Granted an influx of 25,000 employees would increase city costs in many ways (schools, roads, utilities, and would temporarily spike house costs). Still, they are unlikely to come anywhere close to costs of living in NYC.

Re:Place it where they need it

[AmiMoJo]

Nah, he'll just Amazon Prime bottled water in for next day delivery, then curse when it fails to arrive and he can't flush for three days.

Re:Place it where they need it

[93 Escort Wagon]

I've always said if Amazon wants to be really beneficial and transformational, ...

Stop right there.

Like most companies, Amazon is only interested in maximizing their profit. They won't say that, of course, because their expensive PR teams tell them how stupid it would be. So they spend a few million putting together a BS spiel about being beneficial and transformational - what's a few million against three billion dollars in taxes they won't have to pay?

The real problem is - the local governments buy into the lie hook, line, and sinker. They turn around and tell people Amazon is going to create 25000 jobs, which will be filled by local people. They keep a straight face while they eloquently speak of the billions of tax dollars the local economy will be gaining due to these new positions. Of course it's in their interest to do all this, because they are politicians and need lies like this to prop up their future campaigns.

Re:Place it where they need it

[Anonymous Coward]

Rural Wisconsin near the forthcoming Foxconn complex might be a good choice.

Re:Place it where they need it

[CaptainDork]

... schools, roads, utilities ....

There aren't any of those that are worth a shit.

Re:Place it where they need it

[s122604]

I'd just say, as an (in theory at least) potential employee, place it anywhere but Chicago, California or the Northeast Corridor..

It would be nice to live in a place where a 900 square foot condo doesn't cost a half million dollars..
Austin suburbs are still relatively affordable, as is Nashville, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and pretty much any Rust belt location.

Re:Place it where they need it

[jythie]

Pittsburgh or Cleveland would have made excellent choices in terms of hiring tech talent. NYC is already pretty high competition, with companies needing to snipe from each other, while Pittsburgh and Cleveland both brain drain problems with highly talented graduates needing to leave the areas to find work elsewhere.

Re:Place it where they need it

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Wish I had mod points for you. I'd never relocate to someplace in the Rust Belt where, if the position doesn't work out, I'm then stuck in the fucking rust belt. It's not like there's other prosepects. I'd never relocate for a job to a location where it's the only viable option.

Re: Place it where they need it

[DaveSewhuk]

Obviously you have not been to Buffalo or Cleveland in a while. House prices are rising pretty good right now in Buffalo.

Re:Place it where they need it

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should visit the "rust belt" before passing judgement. There are many opportunities and high tech jobs. In fact, because of morons like you, tech workers are in high demand. On a cost of living basis I bet you can make 2x as much as some "not the rust belt" location. You can't brag to your family/friends back in NYC about how much you make because it will sound low but you will be living in a mansion (if you desire). Added bonus: you can travel to whatever east or west coast place you love so much every weekend and STILL come out ahead financially since airline tickets and hotels are going to be less than the stupid high rents/cost of living in "awesome east/west coast city".

But people like you never change so I get to keep my awesome life. So please, don't come.

Re:Place it where they need it

[Joey Vegetables]

I get where you're coming from. I'm in Cleveland. It's WAY underrated as a place to live and to do business. However, I understand why our proposal for Amazon's HQ2 was not taken seriously. It wasn't a good fit at all. We don't have 25,000 available, highly skilled workers in or near our city of fewer than 400,000, of whom only 16% have a bachelors' degree or better (and most of these are doctors, lawyers, or bankers, not technologists). Granted, the suburbs increase that number a lot. But not to one even comparable to NYC, Chicago, or SFO. Then we also have the problem that our transit system is rapidly dying from lack of funding, and is primarily a hub and spoke system with only a single hub downtown. And it's at capacity, in spite of rapidly diminishing ridership. We can't get parts for our dwindling supply of rail cars, which are way past the end of their expected life, other than by continuing to cannibalize the few that remain. We also don't have the money to operate the buses, much less properly maintain and replace them. Don't get me wrong. These are not necessarily impediments for 90% or more of the businesses looking for a place to grow and thrive. But most of those are much smaller than what Amazon was proposing to build. They needed a HQ in a large city with at least acceptably decent transit. This just isn't what they were looking for.

Re: Place it where they need it

[Joey Vegetables]

In Cleveland as well, but starting from a very low base, and the increase is confined to a small handful of rapidly gentrifying areas. In general, housing here is still a bargain. (Example: my 4 bed, 1800 square foot single family house, with a driveway and yard, in the safe-ish suburb of Lakewood six miles from downtown Cleveland, and arguably the best bus service in the western suburbs, is now worth about $200k. Comparable price in, say, Astoria or Jersey City would be easily 6 to 10 times that.)

Re:Place it where they need it

[drinkypoo]

Nah, he'll just Amazon Prime bottled water in for next day delivery, then curse when it fails to arrive and he can't flush for three days.

Nah, he'd just RO all his water, and never miss any high usage fees he paid as a result of pissing 6-12 gallons of water down the drain for every gallon filtered.

Re: Place it where they need it

[CaptainDork]

Right after Facebook dons the cloak of ethics.

Re:Place it where they need it

[jeff4747]

Maybe you should visit the "rust belt" before passing judgement.

Lived there for several years after not following that poster's advice.

Follow that poster's advice. You can taste the despair when you walk out the door in the morning.

Re:Place it where they need it

[Ryanrule]

They already won. What do they do when there are no more worlds to conquer?

Re:Place it where they need it

[Ryanrule]

You can easily get a nice 2 bed condo in Chicago for 400k with lux fixtures, steam shower, rooftop, etc. Top end neighborhood. For now.

Re: Place it where they need it

[TimMD909]

Pittsburgh doesn't want nor need them, thank you very much.

Re:Place it where they need it

[LynnwoodRooster]

Given a condo in NYC just sold for $238 million, you can probably buy have the freaking city for the price of a condo in Manhattan...

Re:Place it where they need it

[fropenn]

Microsoft has done pretty well in Fargo. Plenty of highly-skilled workers, low cost of living, safe, no pollution...and there are other tech companies in town, too. https://www.denverpost.com/200...

Another example? Epic software is just outside Madison, WI. There are tons of other tech companies in the Madison / Milwaukee area.

The beauty of tech is that it can be done anywhere.

Re:Place it where they need it

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The $3 billion in tax breaks was from the estimated $27 billion Amazon would have brought in over the years.

Power-covetous politicians need tax dollars to spend to get elected. The only way to deal with them is to flee and let the voters decide on the quality of their decisions.

Nobody, including Amazon, is going to struggle to run a business while those in government sweat trying to make it difficult.

Idiots!

[bobbied]

And no, I'm not identifying who...

Well, what did you THINK would happen? Idiots..

Re: Idiots!

[Anonymous Coward]

They thought they would take advantage of New Yorkers, the toughest, meanest, shit-throwing bilkers in the country.

Not any more.

Re:Idiots!

[Micah NC]

Why did they want to get out of California and into ... NY?

There's just as many business obstacles in NY.

FoxConned

[sdinfoserv]

Citizens figured out that skyrocketing housing prices resulting in increased homeless, gentrification, and billions in tax payer payola (aka "incentives" https://www.bizjournals.com/ne... ) just isn't worth it.
Good for them.

Re:FoxConned

[cascadingstylesheet]

Citizens figured out that skyrocketing housing prices resulting in increased homeless, gentrification, and billions in tax payer payola

But, you are describing current New York. No Amazon required.

Re: FoxConned

[squiggleslash]

"My house is worth 180x more?! This is a fucking outrage!"

- a renter.

Re: FoxConned

[sdinfoserv]

This is EXACTLY what is happening in Seattle. Old retirees on fixed incomes can no longer afford to pay property taxes on homes they spent their lives and raised their children in. Plus the Socialistic City Council in Seattle wants to hit every owner with a "beautification levy" ... They want to spend $200M making the park prettier and charge all the residents a 10% value of the house levy.

Re: FoxConned

[HornWumpus]

No sympathy for Seattle residents.

They voted for them. They can hang them from lampposts too.

Won't be soon enough.

Seattle has the government it deserves.

Phrase it differently...

[Luthair]

The region would have given and housed them 25000 employees. Surely that is worth something to Amazon.

Re:Phrase it differently...

[gtall]

If Bezos was determined to build something in NYS, Buffalo, Syracuse, or Rochester would have been a better fit. Cost of living is lower, there's land available and they are connected to the interstate system.

Re:Phrase it differently...

[jeff4747]

The region already has a huge housing shortage. 25,000 more employees are not a good thing for rents.

Re:good

[squiggleslash]

NYC will do just fine. It absolutely never needed Amazon, and Amazon would have caused problems for it (it's expensive enough to live there as it is due to the national shortage of decent urban space), not solved anything.

As far as the notion that it was right for a massive business to punish a city because its government didn't want to subsidize it, I'm truly disgusted that anyone would suggest such a thing. I'd like to see less subsidies to corporate consumers in general (Amazon is a corporate consumer, a user, not provider, of infrastructure, for example), and for cities across the country to stop competing with one another on who can flush their local economies down the toilet as quickly as possible just to attract a large employer who'll cost local taxpayers more than they bring in.

Talent pool - Re:Place it where they need it

[AmusingClown]

It appears to me that an existing pool of talent to pull from was one of their criteria (for at least a portion of the jobs...).
I don't know that they would be willing to gamble on a "build it and they will come" approach, but....
Perhaps a compromise would be to find a large city of a certain size and/or infrastructure that has lost some luster and is still cheap, but that is on the upswing (both economic and socially/culturally). I've been hearing that Detroit might meet that description?
As pointed out elsewhere, a big part of this is also the corporate welfare available, but perhaps a city on the upswing would be able to scrape something together?

Re:Talent pool - Re:Place it where they need it

[Joey Vegetables]

Detroit maybe. You'd be taking a chance. Cleveland, where I am, probably not. Just not a sufficiently sized and skilled workforce. Transit is awful in both places, but Detroit at least has plenty of excess road capacity.

Who needs'em ?

[Camarillo Brillo]

Screw Amazon. Shop locally!

Re:Who needs'em ?

[pauljlucas]

I try to. But the reality is that sometimes local stores simply don't have what I want. For product X, I tried four different local stores before giving up and just buying X on Amazon. For product Y, my local store imposed a minimum order quantity of 6 Y. I don't want 6 Y; I want 1 Y. Again, I gave up and bought on Amazon that was happy to sell me 1 Y.

NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenue

[drnb]

But they can't afford to give amazon $3 billion in tax breaks

They are not giving Amazon money, they are receiving less tax revenue. Now they receive zero tax revenue. That is a net loss of revenue.

I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[blahbooboo]

I bet also they realized it was going to be even more expensive to have employees in NYC due to the new Fed tax law. Higher tax states like New York have become even more highly taxed due to the cap on the state level income tax deduction from federal taxes (SALT).

https://nypost.com/2019/02/13/...

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[blahbooboo]

Thank god, it should have never existed. It just means those in states with no or low income tax are subsidizing those that live in places like NYC or CA. Now maybe those people will realize how much all their taxed out the ass govt programs cost.

Too simplistic thinking on your part. The high tax states contribute far more to the federal tax budget that the states with no or low state income taxes. For example, NY sends $38 billion more to the federal government than it gets back.

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[blahbooboo]

Here is a recent write up

https://www.ny.gov/programs/ta...

the law disproportionately hurts “donor states,” like New York, which already contributes $48 billion more annually to the federal government than it gets back. You're no income tax states that you say are subsidizing high tax are NOT, in fact they are sucking down from the fed gov more than they contribute.

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[blahbooboo]

Per capita, North Dakota has an even higher "give" rate than New York. North Dakota is not known as a "high tax state", so why do THEY contribute so much more to the fed than other states?

Per capita, seriously? You can slice and dice however you like to make it look better, but NY and other states contribute FAR more in total to the fed budget than North Dakota.

Fact is infrastructure costs money, North Dakota is a state with mostly nothing in it to maintain, and it's population is minuscule at 760k versus 19.5 million in NY state. This number difference massively skews the analysis to make it ND better on a "per capita" (i.e. you're dividing with a very small number versus a VERY large number).

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[blahbooboo]

One other thing, ND GDP is $49.77 billion. NY State is 1.547 trillion. ND is a rounding error for NY state. But keep telling using the per capita number so you believe ND citizens are contributing more...

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that you are have low intelligence, so I’ll spell this out to you in simple terms. An individual in ND is paying more than an individual in NY.

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, a New York government propaganda website! Let's totally trust it!

Here's a fact: By changing what you include as a federal transfer, you can make any state* look positive or negative. Want to make Florida look bad? Include Federal law enforcement, border patrol, and retirement spending. Want to make California look good? Don't include SALT, military spending, or federal land leases.

*Except Iowa. Iowa's a fucking black hole of suckage, regardless of money.

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[Enigma2175]

Do you have a source for that? This source says that New York's per capita federal tax is $8,849.66 and North Dakota's is $6,690.84. Doesn't seem like such "simple terms" to me.

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[blahbooboo]

Do you have a source for that? This source says that New York's per capita federal tax is $8,849.66 and North Dakota's is $6,690.84. Doesn't seem like such "simple terms" to me.

haha, well done. I meant to ask this anonymous coward troll for proof.

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[jeff4747]

[Citation Required]

Re:I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[hawk]

Of course, this can *also* be expressed as "the subsidy from residents of states with lower taxes to those in states in higher taxes has been reduced but not eliminated."

That subsidy (the SaLT deduction) means that by deducting taxes to the local government from federal income tax, residents of those states pay lower taxes on the same income as those in the low tax states.

hawk, economist at large

Re: I bet it's also the new tax law effect

[argStyopa]

Which pales in comparison to the federal taxes written off by NY residents every year.

Thank God that's done.

Anti-socialists finally win one

[JoeyRox]

Conservatives hate socialism except when they're the ones receiving the wealth taken from others, which would've been the case for the billions in tax subsidies Amazon was promised in this deal. That would've come right out of the pockets of other businesses in the area who didn't get the benefit of those same tax cuts.

fuggettaboutit

[mschaffer]

I seriously wonder what Bezos and his yes-men were thinking. They really are well insulated from real public opinion by their ivory towers. https://static01.nyt.com/image...

There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[drnb]

It's honestly anti billion dollar government giveaways. ... Most of the opposition is about giving away billions of dollars in tax credits to a company that already has billions of dollars!

There was no giveaway of money, no money was leaving the pockets of NYC government. What Amazon was getting was a lower tax rate, gov't revenues would be lowered. But now the government's revenues will be zero. That is a net loss for government. That was an awfully expensive political statement to make.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[Anonymous Coward]

Granting the tax break is far, far more expensive.

If the amazon deal is so lucrative, why don't we just give that tax break to every single company that operates in the city? The simple answer is because amazon, and any other company present, costs the city money. Infrastructure has to be maintained, city services have to be provided, etc. All that shit costs money.

If the taxes they collect with the deal aren't enough to cover the expenses of Amazon, then you're just creating a ponzi scheme, with other people stuck picking up the tab.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[pacija]

That is a net loss for government. That was an awfully expensive political statement to make.

Maybe not. I am glad NYC proved to be strong enough to show who sets the terms. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Amazon built HQ in NYC even without tax breaks. Many others did.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense.

Three cases:
1 - Amazon comes to NYC without incentives. NYC gets $10 billion in tax revenue.
2 - Amazon comes to NYC with incentives. NYC gets $7 billion in tax revenue, Amazon gets $3 billion in tax breaks.
3 - Amazon does not go to NYC. NYC gets nothing.

#1 is best, #2 was most likely to occur, but now they're stuck with #3: nothing. They get nothing. No jobs, no construction, no tax revenue. This is pretty much the worst case NYC could have hoped for.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[jeff4747]

What Amazon was getting was a lower tax rate

Nope. Amazon was getting a lower tax rate, some grants, and some Amazon-centric infrastructure projects.

So, there was actual cash leaving NYC's and NYS's pockets.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[jeff4747]

Nonsense is forgetting that Amazon coming to NYC also causes government expenses to rise and completely leaving that out of your analysis.

Somebody is going to be paying that $3B. And if it's not Amazon.....

Oh, and forgetting that the $3B also included some grants and Amazon-centered infrastructure projects. Not just tax breaks.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[drnb]

What Amazon was getting was a lower tax rate

Nope. Amazon was getting a lower tax rate, some grants, and some Amazon-centric infrastructure projects. So, there was actual cash leaving NYC's and NYS's pockets.

Likely that infrastructure would benefit others if Amazon left NYC. Its not like they can take the infrastructure with them. So Amazon-centric sounds iffy.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[drnb]

Nonsense is forgetting that Amazon coming to NYC also causes government expenses to rise and completely leaving that out of your analysis.

Somebody is going to be paying that $3B. And if it's not Amazon.....

Oh, and forgetting that the $3B also included some grants and Amazon-centered infrastructure projects. Not just tax breaks.

What Amazon centric infrastructure? Roads, internet, building renovations, etc ... Amazon could leave after two tax free years and such improvements would benefit the next occupant of the property. Plus there are the jobs involved in those infrastructure projects so a bit of that money get sunk right back into the NYC enconomy.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[jeff4747]

Amazon could leave after two tax free years and such improvements would benefit the next occupant of the property

Their plan was to build a new building, so the infrastructure would only be needed for their new building. No building, no need for infrastructure changes.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[jeff4747]

The infrastructure changes were to support Amazon's new building. No new building means no infrastructure changes.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[drnb]

The infrastructure changes were to support Amazon's new building. No new building means no infrastructure changes.

In other words the infrastructure was *not* Amazon specific and would apply to any user of that building. What's the average lifespan of office space in NYC, 70 years, 100 years, longer?

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[jeff4747]

In other words the infrastructure was *not* Amazon specific and would apply to any user of that building

It's difficult to have infrastructure support a building that does not exist.

Re:There was NO GIVEAWAY of money

[drnb]

The infrastructure included a subway line, sewers, etc. That benefits far more than one building.

...and the horse you rode in on!

[mschaffer]

Is it just me, or can you hear them shouting that (and gesturing)?

Re:...and the horse you rode in on!

[bobbied]

Is it just me, or can you hear them shouting that (and gesturing)?

I'm hearing the sounds of hot tar and feathers myself...

Re:Lol

[jellomizer]

The thing that bugged me is that New York City has a huge economy by itself. Those Amazon Jobs wouldn't put a real dent in the local economy. Now if they were 100+ miles in upstate, then those would be a big benefit to the local economy.

Metro NY shouldn't have to bend over backwards for Amazon for a fraction of a percent increase in its local economy. While a small town, say a post industrial town, Amazon could bring in new life.

I hoped that Amazon got a lesson from this, that even though you are a big company, don't expect everyone to bend over backwards to kiss your butt.

Most do

[rsilvergun]

if the median income is anything to go by.

Of course it's down $4k since 2009. The working class never did recover from 2008. And best of all we're heading into another (self inflicted) recession. Hooray.

Re:Most do

[fluffernutter]

But the economy is doing so well!

Re: Most do

[astrofurter]

Many parts of America never recovered from 1973 and 1979.

But I'm pretty sure any journalist who dared report that grim truth in mass media would never work as a journalist again. And might end up "confessing" to some imaginatively implausible crime.

So we carry on acting like there are just some small problems with the economy that can be fixed with minor tinkering. Instead of recognizing the slow motion economic collapse that's occurring all around us.

A rust belt city doesn't have tons of money

[rsilvergun]

lying around for direct & indirect subsidies. That's what this is about. As near as I can tell NY was basically going to pay Amazon for the jobs (similar to what Foxconn did to Wisconsin). The likelihood is that Amazon would be gone as soon as the subsidies dried up.

It's like a sports stadium without a team to watch. It doesn't make sense to pay companies to bring jobs. Spend the money making your state somewhere people actually want to live and the companies will have no choice but to bring the jobs because that's where the workers are.

Now, you're right that this is leaving middle America behind. They haven't been investing in their land or their people and they're feeling it. Part of me, the bitter, angry part, wants to leave them to their fate (it's mostly their own political decisions that got them there) but the sane part of me knows that's bad juju for all. Folks usually double down on bad decisions in a crisis. Better to have the Fed move in with jobs programs like we did the last time things got this bad. That's what the "Green New Deal" is for.

Bottom line, Amazon's pushing Supply Side (aka Trickle Down) economics on NY (pay us for the jobs and the money you give us will trickle down to workers). NY was smart enough not to buy it for a change. Here's hoping the rest of the country will tell Amazon to go pound sand and they'll have to pay for the services they want and need.

Re:A rust belt city doesn't have tons of money

[Solandri]

On a meta level, it's hypocritical for a government (a taxing institution) to give tax breaks to just one company. If New York has decided that its current level of taxation is the proper amount for optimal public services, then reducing that tax rate to attract a single company is hypocritical. Either you believe your rate of taxation is at the correct level and should stick with it. Or you realize your rate of taxation is too high and is driving away outside businesses, so you should lower it for everyone.

Bottom line, Amazon's pushing Supply Side (aka Trickle Down) economics on NY (pay us for the jobs and the money you give us will trickle down to workers). NY was smart enough not to buy it for a change. Here's hoping the rest of the country will tell Amazon to go pound sand and they'll have to pay for the services they want and need.

Amazon can ask for whatever they want. Ultimately it's up to the city to decide whether or not to grant it. If a government is principled, it will not offer special subsidies and incentives to any individual or lone company. If the government believes its taxation policies are right and proper, it will only offer subsidies and incentives to everyone, or to certain classes (e.g. if it wants to attract high-tech jobs). Not to individuals or lone companies.

While Amazon was slime for asking for tax breaks, fault for the deal ultimately lies with NYC for being unprincipled and granting it. It takes two to tango.

Re:A rust belt city doesn't have tons of money

[DigiShaman]

The "Green New Deal" was a Communist Manifesto for America. There was nothing remotely intelligent about it other than a trial balloon to gauge just how really stupid the average American is to buy into it. Politically, it's a diabolical genius power-grab ploy!!!

Now put down the pom poms.

Re:Lol

[lgw]

The whole HQ2 thing was a scam to begin with. Good to see NY rejecting the con. Opening 2 HQs next to Bezo's other 2 houses was so blatant, I'm amazed he thought it would fly.

Good for NYC

[rsilvergun]

I've had it with this race to the bottom where we're all falling over ourselves to see who can give the most of my tax payer dollars in direct/indirect subsidies in exchange for a handful of jobs (yes, 25,000 is a "handful" to a city the size of NY).

I have to pay for roads and schools, let Amazon chip in. Last I heard they're the most profitable company in history (unless Apple's got it this week).

Amazon has grown too large

[hedge00]

This is putting the cart before the horse. Corporations exist at the benevolence of society not the other way around. Amazon Corp uses strong arm tactics to wheedle their way out of paying the taxes that they exist to generate, because they are big enough to play municipal governments against each other. Time to break them up.

Re:Bad choice for Amazon.

[Iamthecheese]

You dream a pretty dream, but you should probably wake up and smell the swamp. The plutocracy is only growing more entrenched over time with the wealthiest members of society getting exactly what they want and everyone else getting crumbs. I just hope the rich wake up before their heads are on pikes.

Stop using the title line to

[Anonymous Coward]

split your reply.

There were no "conservatives" involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Those subsidies were offered up by Democrats Andrew Cuomo and Bill De Blasio.

Jeff Bezos gives money to Democratic candidates, not Republicans.

Where are the "conservatives" in the story?

Local gov'ts don't buy the line

[rsilvergun]

but their voters, who are desperate for jobs, do. Take the gig economy & temp work out of the equation and we're pushing 9% unemployment. Meanwhile the politicians figure they'll be out of office by the time the bonds used to pay for the subsidies come due.

It's just another example of the rich plundering the commons. Robert Reich calls it a Switcheroo. It's older than that though. We used to say "Privatize the profits and Socialize the losses".

Tax subsidizing a business is a bad idea

[Applehu Akbar]

A company with Amazon's riches shouldn't be looking for direct subsidies for a location. Any city that forks over $3 billion to a company locating there is going to expect some degree of control. In a place like New York, a lot of this control will come from yammerhead activists, including Scary Teeth Lady herself in this case, pushing their favorite lost causes. They would probably unilaterally demand that the Amazon center be powered by unicorns.

Haven't cities had enough bad experiences with sports teams who promise to locate in a city that promises to build it a new football palace or baseball Bastille? No sooner is the paint on the new stadium dry than the team runs the same scam on some other town willing to go full Mad King Ludwig on a rival palace.

NYC dodged a bullet

[wyattstorch516]

I'd bet most of those 25K "new" jobs would have been the result of moving people from the Manhattan office over to LIC. The rest would probably be filled with low wage support or warehouse workers. Amazon would have pocketed the money and as soon as it ran out started to move the workers to other locations.

It's a scam

[meerling]

Sure, at one time companies might move to a site permanently if there are "incentives", but that's not true anymore.
Now it's shop for the best incentives, and when those run out jump to someplace else for more incentives.
Even worse, they then write off the site they dumped on taxes for even more of a bonus.
From the viewpoint of the companies, staying in one place is financially stupid.

In other words, they didn't get enough handouts

[LostOne]

"For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term." Right. That's bafflegab for "we couldn't get enough handouts and special concessions". Which they shouldn't be getting anyway.

Re:NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenu

[sjames]

Sounds a bit like those self-entitled "influencers" who figure they should get a free meal at the restaurant because if they decide to blog about it, it'll be worth bajillions...

Re:Lol

[fredrated]

You think being near 2 houses was Bezo's reason to go there? Wherever Amazon goes Jeff can buy 10 houses from his pocket change, I doubt anything that trivial to him could exert substantial influence.

Re:NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenu

[jeff4747]

They are not giving Amazon money, they are receiving less tax revenue.

No. They were giving Amazon a mixture of tax incentives and grants, as well as spending on improvements that would have primarily benefited Amazon.

New Metric required

[Gorkamecha]

Can we use a new metric in place of Jobs?
Jobs might have meant something back in the day - but the word has been mangled so completely it could mean "well paying blue collar work" or it could be "third shift, part time apprentices who have to pay for their own uniforms"

How about instead we expect a "wealth" metric like "We plan to employ X million dollars of employees"?

...they won't of course. They don't want us regular plebs being able to do the math in our heads.
"Wait....we we're giving you 1 billion/y in tax breaks, and you're only bringing in 1/2 billion/yr in wealth......"

Good subsidies and bad subsidies

[Koreantoast]

There are good ways to do subsidies and bad ways to do subsidies. The HQ2 race made that very plain. For Virginia, at least a third of their subsidies were promises for infrastructure investments (e.g. when you hit X number of jobs, we'll build a new Metro station entrance), and one of the other key investments was a new university campus. Some would argue too that the four governments funding Metro in DC finally gave the system a steady income in part to attract Amazon (critical for the health of the subway system). Those are things that while benefiting Amazon, still benefit the community, whereas most of New York's subsidies were just straight up cash. That, and Virginia paid much less per head which is an added bonus.

Re: Lol

[Type44Q]

Now if they were 100+ miles in upstate, then those would be a big benefit to the local economy.

In other words, abenefit to roughly the same number of people.I'd ask what you're smoking but I'm more concerned with the morons who modded you up.

They weren't suspending income-tax, genius.

[Brannon]

Are you under the impression that NY was suspending income tax for all the Amazon employees in NYC? That's obviously not the case--so they wouldn't be living there tax-free.

20,000 new people is barely noticeable in a city of 8,000,000 people. Queens alone (which is where the site was going to be) has something like 2.4M people. NYC is *big*.

Re:They weren't suspending income-tax, genius.

[DogDude]

6 of one, half dozen of another. Whether you have them handing $3 billion in cash back to people, or you have people/companies living/doing business in NYC and simply not paying $3 billion in taxes, it's the exact same thing. So sure, you can say the individual employees will pay, but the company won't. It's the same thing. $3 billion is $3 billion.

Re:Lol

[ed1park]

Bezos owns the Washing Post, thus his home in DC. As for NYC, you can't compare it with living anywhere else. That's why he has homes there, and that's why he wanted to open HQ's there. If you think it's just a coincidence... then good for you. :)

Yay, maybe Miami can be HQ2b after all

[Miamicanes]

Pro #1: Bezos went to high school in Miami, and presumably has family and/or social ties.

Pro #2: South Florida is New York's de-facto sixth borough. So in a way, opening an office in South Florida IS kind of/sort of like opening a New York office. Miami is where a lot of New Yorkers WANT to live, but can't, because they have to be in New York for the sake of their careers. Give them an excuse to move to Miami, and they'll be on the next flight.

Pro #3: Miami will move heaven and earth to get Bezos a site where he can legally build the tallest skyscraper in America. Miami wants to have the tallest skyscraper in America so badly it hurts, and there's no limit to what Miami will do to make it happen. In the past, Dade County has overruled Miami's attempts to grant building permits exceeding Dade County's airport-imposed (for fuel economy, not absolute FAA limit) height limit, but Amazon is a big enough prize that even Dade County will fall in line for them.

Pro #4: Thanks to Virgin-Brightline, downtown Miami is now easily (albeit expensively) accessible to commuters who'd rather live near downtown Fort Lauderdale, and by the time Amazon's first building is ready, Tri-Rail will be running directly to downtown Miami as well.

Pro #5: In addition to being New York's unofficial sixth borough, it's also the de-facto capital of Latin America. If Amazon wants to poach the top talent from Latin American countries & have them come work for Amazon, Miami is definitely the place to do it from.

Con: Aspirations aside, Miami isn't New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Washington DC. Most of its potential IS still "potential".

Mitigation: Miami is big enough to be useful to Amazon, but small enough that Amazon could utterly and completely dominate it (the way it now dominates Seattle, and would NEVER be able to dominate Washington DC or New York). And if Miami starts resisting Amazon's future demands, there are two other big-city downtowns (and a couple of smaller cities that have more and taller skyscrapers than 44 or 45 entire states) within the "Miami" megalopolis... plus another completely separate megalopolis spanning the width of Central Florida just ~250 miles away.

Re: Yay, maybe Miami can be HQ2b after all

[Miamicanes]

No, it won't.

LONG before daily tidal flooding becomes a serious problem, higher storm surge from hurricanes will wipe out low-lying neighborhoods. The land will get purchased by investors, who'll pile another 10 feet of crushed limestone on top & build expensive new homes (or skyscrapers) on top.

Meanwhile, rising sea levels will cause saltwater intrusion into groundwater, forcing South Florida to either process lake water or do full-on reverse osmosis. The higher water cost will drive farms to sell to developers, who'll proceed to build several million new homes, office parks, and shopping centers in extreme south Dade & inland. Miami-area retirees will cash in on the house they bought for $150k that's now worth $1.5 million & move to a cheaper inland exurb, developers will knock down their 3/2 house & replace it with a 6/4.5 McMansion (or a skyscraper) sitting on more crushed limestone, and sell it for $5 million to someone else. Stir, rinse, and repeat.

South Florida is 100% non-seismic. It's one of the few places in America where you genuinely CAN get away with piling on fill dirt & crushed limestone forever.

If any part of the US is likely to look like Coruscant 500 years from now... it's South Florida. We've been terraforming swampland into condos, office parks, retail stores, and golf courses from Day One. It's nothing new to us. Every 25-50 years, our building codes add a few feet to the minimum allowed amouna of fill dirt, older stuff gets destroyed by hurricanes, newer & more expensive stuff gets built to replace it, and life goes on. In South Florida, levees exist to keep yards and parking lots dry... AFAIK, it has NEVER been legal here to build habitable dwellings whose first floor is below sea level, and for at least the past 40-50 years, worst-case storm surge has to be taken into account as well.

Put another way, South Florida is probably better-equipped to deal with sea level rise than anywhere besides maybe the Netherlands & Singapore, because we've ALWAYS had to engineer around flooding right from the start. Every inch of urban coastline in Florida was engineered to be that way. Urbanized parts of Florida's east & west coasts haven't had anything that resembles a natural coastline for 50-100 years. Compare the coastline at Cape Canaveral to the rest of Florida's east coast to see just how terraformed most of our coastline IS.

So, no. Miami isn't going to be "under water" a few decades from now. It might very well be a 10-20 mile wide peninsula joined to Florida's west coast by causeways across what used to be the Everglades, but eco-fantasies about it being abandoned to nature just aren't going to happen.

Re:Lol

[Darinbob]

These companies come in and do a razzle-dazzle show and manage to get subsidies that they don't need. This is not just Amazon, it happens all over the place. Businesses get promised tax breaks and the cities realize after the fact that they got screwed. Ie, Walmart is very good at convincing small towns to give them a huge tax break, otherwise they threaten to build the store just across the border (the upshot of the tax breaks is that some stores such as groceries start to go out of business due to unfair competition). It's common for sports teams to try and get tax breaks if they move their stadiums to the new locale.

Re:NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenu

[drnb]

They are not giving Amazon money, they are receiving less tax revenue.

No. They were giving Amazon a mixture of tax incentives and grants, as well as spending on improvements that would have primarily benefited Amazon.

Infrastructure improvements would likely benefit Amazon and the next occupant of the real estate, should they suddenly leave. Its not like improved roads, internet, etc are unique to Amazon.

Good plan

[SPopulisQR]

Good plan, but union salaries go to the range of $100K to $150k or so. Cops with some exp make $120K. In private sector that would be equivalent of $200K due to the benefit such as pension, never paying trafic tickets etc. You are correct, $3B better be used to reduce the burden for the rest of the New Yorkers, but $50K is not a living wage in NYC, more like a starter paycheck, really.

Re:NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenu

[jeff4747]

Amazon wasn't going to be using an existing building. The infrastructure upgrades were just for Amazon and their new building.

Kinda Saw This Coming

[Ferretman]

Look, no government should provide subsides IMO, no matter what. They distort the market and just rebound in not necessarily good ways.

Having said that, the whole issue is more "meta" than that. Amazon bailed because in large part because of the extremely poor treatment they'd been getting, the attacks on their business practices (right or wrong), and the way the whole environment had just been "soured". It's not at all hard to believe that they just looked at the increasingly unfriendly environment around the whole thing and decided to just bail for friendlier territory.

Bad for New York. Good for another state...and hopefully said state does not offer subsides and the like.

Ferret

Re: Lol

[astrofurter]

Who is fooled by this bunk? Maybe 30 years ago, maybe. But nowadays EVERYBODY knows big corporations NEVER make good on their promises of jobs & tax revenue. One would have to be dumber than a bag of hammers to believe those obvious corporate lies.

So I don't buy it that local officials were fooled by slick salesmen. Seems way more likely that those local officials were persuaded by suitcases full of cash in a dark parking lot.

Re: Lol

[Darinbob]

Except that this happens again and again. I think municipal politicians are as dumb as any other politician.

And where exactly is the city going to get

[rsilvergun]

the money to build the infrastructure Amazon needs? Or staff schools for their kids? Or Police to deal with the increase in crime from adding 25k workers (who'll speed, drive drunk, get robbed, etc just like everyone else)?

If Amazon didn't need governmental services they could save a fortune building their HQ out in the Mojave Desert. And if Businesses didn't cost governments money we wouldn't need to tax them. Contrary to what you might have heard on talk radio we don't tax businesses to pay for steak and lobster and Cadillacs for welfare receipts....

Of course there is

[rsilvergun]

the Green New Deal is what we're going to do with the out of work coal miners and other blue collar guys put out of work by automation. You know we've doubled manufacturing output in 20 years while cutting the workforce by 1/3? It's not outsourcing that's costing jobs at this point, it's robots.

If you don't do something with those folks they're gonna go find themselves a strong man. Somebody like Trump but violent. And we're gonna have WWIII on our hands. You or your younger loved ones will die in trenches for their glory and to cull the herd. As an added bonus the Green New Deal will slow climate change and maybe keep us all alive.

Re:Of course there is

[DigiShaman]

Communism (because that's what this is) will lead to hyperinflation, the complete abandonment of the US Dollar (in favor of a cryptocurrency), and civil war. The vacuum of the US no longer being a super-power means China, India, and Russia start to jockey for power to fill in the void. That could very well spark global thermonuclear war.

So the way I see it, no matter how the scenario is played out, there will be a massive culling of the human population. Because fact is, AI and automation has rendered the vast majority of humanity to rather "useless" air breathing meat bags. With the exception of the elite ownership class owning the means of production.

All paths march toward neo-feudalism. So be it. But communism is the most hellish trek any nation can take.

Re:NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenu

[drnb]

Amazon wasn't going to be using an existing building. The infrastructure upgrades were just for Amazon and their new building.

So the city was going to run infrastructure to a newly constructed office building. That's what cities do. And that infrastructure would likely be used by a centuries worth of tenants.

Re:Lol

[jellomizer]

"As for NYC, you can't compare it with living anywhere else."
So for someone making a 7 digit salary, can afford an apartment, smaller then a home a family making 5 digit salaries, 200 miles away has.
Perhaps it is the noise of Constant City traffic and people? Oh I get it. You get a penthouse on top of the tallest building, so you can see a skyline, of black tar roofs, and industrial AC units.

Sorry NYC is a dirty crowded city. It has its pluses and wonders, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Re:NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenu

[jeff4747]

And instead, the money can be spent on repairing and upgrading the infrastructure for existing buildings, which desperately needs to be done.

Missed opportunity!

[thomn8r]

"Bezos pulls out" would have been a great follow-up to last weeks "Bezos exposes Pecker" headline.

There is NO 3 Billion Dollars !!!

[Tulsa_Time]

I was a 3B discount to 20B in taxes they were going to pay.

You are making the same mistake that Occasional-Cortex did.

Re: Lol

[astrofurter]

I'm going to say that widespread corruption seems rather more likely than widespread idiocy. I've met lots of crooks of all different sorts. But I'm not sure I've ever once met a person face to face who was actually dumb enough to believe borrowing money to give a free handout to a billionaire oligarch is somehow going to benefit us commoners who must best the burden of paying for said largesse.

Re:NOT giving Amazon money, taking less tax revenu

[drnb]

And instead, the money can be spent on repairing and upgrading the infrastructure for existing buildings, which desperately needs to be done.

The money was always going to be spent on things the island needed, Amazon or no Amazon, sewers, subways lines, etc.