Amazon To Not Build 2nd HQ in New York

[realibrad]

I personally DON"T care beyond saying that people who do that without an argument against what they are down voting instead of the down voting are not much else besides shit sniping moral cowards as well as lazy fucks. But it's also all too easy to hit that button by mistake.

I want you to know that your sense of humor is my favorite part about you. I feel it's not given the credit it's due.

 

[Sonikku]

While the deal may not have been Foxconn levels of stupid, it was still a bad deal. As a New Yorker, I approve of it falling through.

 

[Lanyap]

While the deal may not have been Foxconn levels of stupid, it was still a bad deal. As a New Yorker, I approve of it falling through.

Why was it a bad deal for you?

 

[fskimospy]

Good job AOC for denying 20,000+ jobs to YOUR district. Good job. Quite a win.

1) it’s not her district.

2) her support or opposition had nothing to do with this decision.

Why are conservatives so obsessed with this lady?

 

[Blackjack200]

Good article at the Verge about the changing public attitude towards deals like this.

https://www.theverge.com/interface/...yc-hq2-collapse-secrecy-incentives-automation

 

[fskimospy]

Good article at the Verge about the changing public attitude towards deals like this.

https://www.theverge.com/interface/...yc-hq2-collapse-secrecy-incentives-automation

I wonder how this author would reconcile their piece with the fact that the amazon deal was popular with poorer people of color and unpopular with wealthier whites.

They seem to have mistaken twitter for real life.

 

[K1052]

I wonder how this author would reconcile their piece with the fact that the amazon deal was popular with poorer people of color and unpopular with wealthier whites.

They seem to have mistaken twitter for real life.

A huge reason that drawing unnecessary attention to themselves with their selection process backfired in a big way. Wealthy white residents have long been trying to choke off development in much of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and increasingly Queens with pretty decent effectiveness. Amazon painted a big target on themselves.

 

[Blackjack200]

I wonder how this author would reconcile their piece with the fact that the amazon deal was popular with poorer people of color and unpopular with wealthier whites.

They seem to have mistaken twitter for real life.

Are you referring to a specific poll or article with this?

 

[fskimospy]

A huge reason that drawing unnecessary attention to themselves with their selection process backfired in a big way. Wealthy white residents have long been trying to choke off development in much of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and increasingly Queens with pretty decent effectiveness. Amazon painted a big target on themselves.

I agree, to me opposition seemed to center around the ‘dont change our neighborhood by building housing but also I don’t want prices to go up’ crowd.

 

[fskimospy]

Are you referring to a specific poll or article with this?

It had support in the poorer boroughs and not in the richer ones. It had support among blacks and Hispanics but not whites.

Not sure why the image isn’t working.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1096094083196559361

 

[K1052]

I agree, to me opposition seemed to center around the ‘dont change our neighborhood by building housing but also I don’t want prices to go up’ crowd.

I think part of the problem is that Amazon is used to being the big fish in Seattle and basically getting their way on everything. The east coast doesn't work like that and there are a lot more rocks to navigate around. I can only imagine what would have happened if they had picked Boston lol.

 

[fskimospy]

I think part of the problem is that Amazon is used to being the big fish in Seattle and basically getting their way on everything. The east coast doesn't work like that and there are a lot more rocks to navigate around. I can only imagine what would have happened if they had picked Boston lol.

My wife’s cousin is a well off white woman (household income around $150-200k) in Boston and when the location was up in the air she was vehemently against it because of exactly the reason we are talking about: ‘the city is too crowded, rents will go up!’. She feels the same way about new development in general.

As I’ve said many times, housing policy is a place where otherwise progressive people inflict huge harms on the people they claim to care about.

 

[Blackjack200]

It had support in the poorer boroughs and not in the richer ones. It had support among blacks and Hispanics but not whites.

Not sure why the image isn’t working.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1096094083196559361

1. I don't think your characterization of "poorer people of color and wealthier whites" is fair. The poll did not break out income or wealth. (at least the parts that were included in Nate's tweet)

2. I agree that the public was (narrowly) more supportive of the deal than opposed to it, but I suspect that the supporters were tepid and didn't feel too strongly about it, while the opposition was much more committed.

I think this poll oversimplifies the attitudes in New York towards this deal, I think a drawn out fight at the municipal and state levels would have polarized opinions more, and probably would have seen support fall.

 

[fskimospy]

1. I don't think your characterization of "poorer people of color and wealthier whites" is fair. The poll did not break out income or wealth. (at least the parts that were included in Nate's tweet)

As someone who has worked extensively with demographic data for the city I can tell you that the relationship between race and income (well, poverty specifically) is extremely strong. So strong in fact that in some of our models we wouldn’t bother to use both because they were essentially identical.

While the poll did not break this out specifically I would bet many, many thousands of dollars that the median income of those supporting it was lower than the median income of those against it.

2. I agree that the public was (narrowly) more supportive of the deal than opposed to it, but I suspect that the supporters were tepid and didn't feel too strongly about it, while the opposition was much more committed.

More committed and more politically powerful. White people from Manhattan and Brooklyn have a lot more sway in state and local government than black and Hispanic people from the Bronx and Queens. They also have more time to worry about this stuff.

I think this poll oversimplifies the attitudes in New York towards this deal, I think a drawn out fight at the municipal and state levels would have polarized opinions more, and probably would have seen support fall.

Well I mean it’s a single question in a poll, to make the question more complicated would violate survey design principles. (No double barreled questions)

So sure it’s more complex than that, although the results of this poll line up exactly with what I have experienced here.

 

[Zorba]

The city isn't 'giving' $3 billion to Amazon, they are giving them $3 billion in tax breaks. The only way the city is out money is if another business would be providing similar revenues in that location. This seems unlikely.

As for the subways, the great part about Amazon being in LIC (and why the city is trying to promote development over there generally) is that it would run counter to the general subway traffic flow during peak times as people wouldn't be going into Manhattan in the morning/out in the evening. This was something the city specifically thought about, so it would basically just be soaking up unused counter-cyclical subway capacity.

I a $3B tax break still costs the city money, because Amazon would expect and get services that should've been paid for by those taxes. Roads, utilities, public transit, schools, public safety personal, etc would all have to be improved or built.

The burden for these services would've been shifted from the company to their employees and the community at large.

 

[realibrad]

1) it’s not her district.

2) her support or opposition had nothing to do with this decision.

Why are conservatives so obsessed with this lady?

NPR was giving her credit for her not having support for it and that being part of the reason people did not like it.

Is there a good article that gives a rundown of what actually happened?

 

[realibrad]

I a $3B tax break still costs the city money, because Amazon would expect and get services that should've been paid for by those taxes. Roads, utilities, public transit, schools, public safety personal, etc would all have to be improved or built.

The burden for these services would've been shifted from the company to their employees and the community at large.

I don't think so. Yes, Amazon would get access to the services of the city, but, the net effect would likely be that the tax revenue from the new activity would be far larger than the 3B. I would bet it would be larger many times over.

 

[fskimospy]

I a $3B tax break still costs the city money, because Amazon would expect and get services that should've been paid for by those taxes. Roads, utilities, public transit, schools, public safety personal, etc would all have to be improved or built.

The burden for these services would've been shifted from the company to their employees and the community at large.

Not really. First, the company has employees who are still paying taxes for all of those things.

Second, the tax money is only lost if there was another comparable entity willing to do those things without the tax incentives. I am not aware of one, although you never know!

Third, you realize that part of the tax incentives were predicated on Amazon building things like new schools, right?

 

[fskimospy]

NPR was giving her credit for her not having support for it and that being part of the reason people did not like it.

Is there a good article that gives a rundown of what actually happened?

Well overall people DID like it. We don't know the reason Amazon pulled out but my guess would be primarily because of the appointment of a new anti-deal person to the commission that needed to approve things, which signaled a lack of state and local government support. I doubt many state and local politicians care what AOC has to say.

 

[Zorba]

Not really. First, the company has employees who are still paying taxes for all of those things.

Second, the tax money is only lost if there was another comparable entity willing to do those things without the tax incentives. I am not aware of one, although you never know!

Third, you realize that part of the tax incentives were predicated on Amazon building things like new schools, right?

If nothing else built, you also don't have the increase in demand on services. There is a reason companies and people have to pay taxes, there is a marginal cost of support every one needs. A complex with 25K people needs a decent amount of support vs an empty lot.

I already said they would be shifting the cost of their services to their employees and other locals, you seem to agree with that. I am not sure why you think that is fine at the local level but completely against it at the federal level.

I was speaking more in general about these deals, not as much this deal specifically. But building a couple of schools is like when companies got their billions in annual tax cuts and used 50M of it for one time employee bonuses to look like they were doing the right thing.

When I lived in Ohio my company got a huge tax break to move us a few miles up the road to a different city. That city then passed a local income tax to pay for all the service improvements the company needed. So all the employees lost 1.5% of their salaries to offset the company's tax breaks that "don't cost anything unless someone else would've gone there for free."

 

[realibrad]

Well overall people DID like it. We don't know the reason Amazon pulled out but my guess would be primarily because of the appointment of a new anti-deal person to the commission that needed to approve things, which signaled a lack of state and local government support. I doubt many state and local politicians care what AOC has to say.

Here is what I found as a quote from Amazon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/nyregion/amazon-hq2-queens.html

"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."

Here is what the mayor said.

“We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world,” Mr. de Blasio said. “Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.”

From the article, it sounds like it was the city council that really tanked this. From what I understand, they could not stop it officially, so, they went after Amazon in public. Amazon feared damage to its image and decided it was not worth pushing forward.

Here is what sucks the most.

“I’m really upset because I don’t think they realized what they did,” she said of the elected officials who had opposed the plan. “And they’re proud of it? They think they did something lovely? They wanted the political gain, they should have done it in a different way. They get put into office for us, not to work for themselves.”

 

[Blackjack200]

As someone who has worked extensively with demographic data for the city I can tell you that the relationship between race and income (well, poverty specifically) is extremely strong. So strong in fact that in some of our models we wouldn’t bother to use both because they were essentially identical.

While the poll did not break this out specifically I would bet many, many thousands of dollars that the median income of those supporting it was lower than the median income of those against it.

While I understand that there is a strong correlation between race and income, I'd argue that we still don't know enough about the poll to state with confidence that the deal was more popular with poor people in NYC than it was with rich people, your willingness to put thousands of dollars on the line notwithstanding.

More committed and more politically powerful. White people from Manhattan and Brooklyn have a lot more sway in state and local government than black and Hispanic people from the Bronx and Queens. They also have more time to worry about this stuff.

Again, you're making assumptions that I don't think the poll supports.

Well I mean it’s a single question in a poll, to make the question more complicated would violate survey design principles. (No double barreled questions)

So sure it’s more complex than that, although the results of this poll line up exactly with what I have experienced here.

It would be good to have the whole poll to look at, Nate's tweet only included an image, no link to the poll, which is frankly pretty annoying, not sure why he did that.

 

[fskimospy]

If nothing else built, you also don't have the increase in demand on services. There is a reason companies and people have to pay taxes, there is a marginal cost of support every one needs. A complex with 25K people needs a decent amount of support vs an empty lot.

I already said they would be shifting the cost of their services to their employees and other locals, you seem to agree with that. I am not sure why you think that is fine at the local level but completely against it at the federal level.

I was speaking more in general about these deals, not as much this deal specifically. But building a couple of schools is like when companies got their billions in annual tax cuts and used 50M of it for one time employee bonuses to look like they were doing the right thing.

When I lived in Ohio my company got a huge tax break to move us a few miles up the road to a different city. That city then passed a local income tax to pay for all the service improvements the company needed. So all the employees lost 1.5% of their salaries to offset the company's tax breaks that "don't cost anything unless someone else would've gone there for free."

I don't agree with these sorts of incentives at all. In fact I think one good thing we could do is pass a bill federally to eliminate the tax preference for state and local bonds, which would make handing these incentives out more expensive. That being said there's nothing special about the Amazon deal in this regard. If people wanted to eliminate these incentives why were there no complaints before? Because of that I doubt that's the real issue.

 

[Genx87]

It had support in the poorer boroughs and not in the richer ones. It had support among blacks and Hispanics but not whites.

Not sure why the image isn’t working.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1096094083196559361

This is fascinating information to me. Thank you for posting it.

 

[fskimospy]

While I understand that there is a strong correlation between race and income, I'd argue that we still don't know enough about the poll to state with confidence that the deal was more popular with poor people in NYC than it was with rich people, your willingness to put thousands of dollars on the line notwithstanding.

Okay.

Again, you're making assumptions that I don't think the poll supports.

This has nothing to do with the poll. Are you seriously trying to argue that white people in Brooklyn and Manhattan are not more politically powerful than black and Hispanic people in Queens and the Bronx?

Really? Have you ever been to New York City?

It would be good to have the whole poll to look at, Nate's tweet only included an image, no link to the poll, which is frankly pretty annoying, not sure why he did that.

Here you go:

https://poll.qu.edu/new-york-city/release-detail?ReleaseID=2589