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I'm actually a YIMBY but I don't consider the Queens backlash against the Amazon's HQ2 NIMBYism. Instead its a valid argument against why Amazon should get bill

I'm actually a YIMBY but I don't consider the Queens backlash against the Amazon's HQ2 NIMBYism. Instead its a valid argument against why Amazon should get billions in subsidies to essentially gentrify Queens -- what will the actual inhabitants there see, other than landlords mostly getting higher rents as they push existing tenants out? These kind of 'race to the bottom' economic subsidies that states and cities compete on should be eliminated IMHO.

wernercd 8y ago
Maybe the cities should work towards building more housing in the areas affected?
djrobstep 8y ago
What's clear is that Amazon is an unstoppable force, the only question is, how to handle that force. Their business model is here to stay, because online retailing turns out to be a natural monopoly due to network effects and economies of scale. The best solution is to nationalize it. Instead of squeezing the public to boost private profits, all profits would be returned to the public.
- aerovistae 8y ago
  could not agree more. amazon and google need to be nationalized. neither is going away as long as the web exists in its current form, which is probably indefinitely. i can't imagine anything other than brain-machine interfaces disrupting the web.
  - nikkwong 8y ago
    > other than brain-machine interfaces disrupting the web these are probably coming sooner than we'd expect (neuralink supposedly has an 'exciting' update coming within the next few months), so, i wouldn't personally expect the way we interact with or even define the web to remain constant even, say, 10 years from now.
- zorga 8y ago
  > The best solution is to nationalize it. No, break them up. Governments are terrible at running businesses. Fragment the market legally so competition can't be eliminated by a monopoly. A competitive market is better than a government run monopoly.
  - jdi92mxx 8y ago
    Because they have to be terrible at it or because there are benefits to making it so?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - dang 8y ago
      Would you please stop creating accounts for every comment or two you post? This is in the site guidelines, and we ban accounts that do it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. HN is a community. Users needn't use their real name, but should have some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a very different kind of forum. There are legit uses for throwaways, just not routinely. Lots more explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20community%20identity https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
  - djrobstep 8y ago
    > Governments are terrible at running businesses. Pure ideology, and trivially factually wrong. - Nationalization means the government owns the business, not that it runs it. Only difference is who collects the profits, Bezos or everyday people. - Norway and the other Scandy countries have high levels of public ownership and huge public sectors. Their economies run great. "Some of these SOEs are businesses often run by states: a postal service, a public broadcasting channel, an Alcohol retail monopoly. But others are just normal businesses typically associated with the private sector. In Finland, where I know the situation the best, there are 64 state-owned enterprises, including one called Solidium that operates as a holding company for the government’s minority stake in 13 of the companies. The Finnish state-owned enterprises include an airliner called Finnair; a wine and spirits maker called Altia; a marketing communications company called Nordic Morning; a large construction and engineering company called VR; and an $8.8 billion oil company called Neste. In Norway, the state manages direct ownership of 70 companies. The businesses include the real estate company Entra; the country’s largest financial services group DNB; the 30,000-employee mobile telecommunications company Telenor; and the famous state-owned oil company Statoil." Read more here: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/14/the-state-owns-76-of-norways-non-home-wealth/ https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/14/the-state-ow...
- amluto 8y ago
  I would believe that running a “marketplace” full of commingled crud is somewhat of a natural monopoly. I don’t really believe that read online commerce is a real natural monopoly. A law that got rid of the liability shield that Amazon currently enjoys for the trademark infringing crap they sell might make a huge difference.
m_ke 8y ago
I agree with this. As a software engineer from Queens I think Amazon moving in is great but the bidding process and subsidies that came out of it are upsetting. New York would have had no issues filling up that space without giving out handouts. (Google is expanding without any). It's especially sad to see because my father just spent 2 months (working >80hr weeks) and thousands of dollars to move his carpentry shop from Bushwick to LIC after getting priced out due to gentrification. Now it looks like he'll have to do it again soon because the city decided to give the richest company in the world a 325 million cash grant. (https://mobile.twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1062374603232894976 https://mobile.twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/10623746032328...)
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> its a valid argument against why Amazon should get billions in subsidies to essentially gentrify Queens Because they’re bring more than they cost to the city? High-paying taxpayers, an educated workforce, technical talent and a reason to build out the East River infrastructure? New York’s permitting process is broken. (Not as badly as California’s, but that’s a terrible baseline.) To get these sorts of anchor tenants, we unfortunately have to pay. Fortunately, we’ll make it back in payroll, income, capital gains, property and sales taxes. I’m a New York City taxpayer, and while I’d prefer we get every penny of taxes owed, some gain is better than nothing. Perfect can’t be the enemy of the good.
- rayiner 8y ago
  Note that NY doesn’t need to get back all the taxes it gives up by luring Amazon. So long as the net gain to the NY economy is more than that, it can be seen as a valid tax expenditure.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > So long as the net gain to the NY economy is more than that, it can be seen as a valid tax expenditure Yup. New Yorkers are pragmatic. A win is a win. There is a problem in that this biases large companies over small ones. But unless our zoning processes lighten up, the best way to fight that might be throwing the taxes Amazon brings New York at the problem.
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  Is it really possible to say none of these could/don't exist in New York city already? Can you truly say that with a straight face? Same with D.C. for that matter. I didn't want this in Boston because Boston proper doesn't have the infrastructure to support an influx of people this size and I don't want my tax dollars supporting yet another company that will be big on promises light on results, see nearly every other time a company has been given money while promising jobs, and oh look they split the HQ cutting that perceived tax base in half. This is sporting arenas all over again.

wernercd 8y ago

Maybe the cities should work towards building more housing in the areas affected?

djrobstep 8y ago

What's clear is that Amazon is an unstoppable force, the only question is, how to handle that force. Their business model is here to stay, because online retailing turns out to be a natural monopoly due to network effects and economies of scale. The best solution is to nationalize it. Instead of squeezing the public to boost private profits, all profits would be returned to the public.

aerovistae 8y ago
could not agree more. amazon and google need to be nationalized. neither is going away as long as the web exists in its current form, which is probably indefinitely. i can't imagine anything other than brain-machine interfaces disrupting the web.
- nikkwong 8y ago
  > other than brain-machine interfaces disrupting the web these are probably coming sooner than we'd expect (neuralink supposedly has an 'exciting' update coming within the next few months), so, i wouldn't personally expect the way we interact with or even define the web to remain constant even, say, 10 years from now.
zorga 8y ago
> The best solution is to nationalize it. No, break them up. Governments are terrible at running businesses. Fragment the market legally so competition can't be eliminated by a monopoly. A competitive market is better than a government run monopoly.
- jdi92mxx 8y ago
  Because they have to be terrible at it or because there are benefits to making it so?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 8y ago
    Would you please stop creating accounts for every comment or two you post? This is in the site guidelines, and we ban accounts that do it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. HN is a community. Users needn't use their real name, but should have some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a very different kind of forum. There are legit uses for throwaways, just not routinely. Lots more explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20community%20identity https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- djrobstep 8y ago
  > Governments are terrible at running businesses. Pure ideology, and trivially factually wrong. - Nationalization means the government owns the business, not that it runs it. Only difference is who collects the profits, Bezos or everyday people. - Norway and the other Scandy countries have high levels of public ownership and huge public sectors. Their economies run great. "Some of these SOEs are businesses often run by states: a postal service, a public broadcasting channel, an Alcohol retail monopoly. But others are just normal businesses typically associated with the private sector. In Finland, where I know the situation the best, there are 64 state-owned enterprises, including one called Solidium that operates as a holding company for the government’s minority stake in 13 of the companies. The Finnish state-owned enterprises include an airliner called Finnair; a wine and spirits maker called Altia; a marketing communications company called Nordic Morning; a large construction and engineering company called VR; and an $8.8 billion oil company called Neste. In Norway, the state manages direct ownership of 70 companies. The businesses include the real estate company Entra; the country’s largest financial services group DNB; the 30,000-employee mobile telecommunications company Telenor; and the famous state-owned oil company Statoil." Read more here: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/14/the-state-owns-76-of-norways-non-home-wealth/ https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/14/the-state-ow...
amluto 8y ago
I would believe that running a “marketplace” full of commingled crud is somewhat of a natural monopoly. I don’t really believe that read online commerce is a real natural monopoly. A law that got rid of the liability shield that Amazon currently enjoys for the trademark infringing crap they sell might make a huge difference.

m_ke 8y ago

I agree with this. As a software engineer from Queens I think Amazon moving in is great but the bidding process and subsidies that came out of it are upsetting. New York would have had no issues filling up that space without giving out handouts. (Google is expanding without any). It's especially sad to see because my father just spent 2 months (working >80hr weeks) and thousands of dollars to move his carpentry shop from Bushwick to LIC after getting priced out due to gentrification. Now it looks like he'll have to do it again soon because the city decided to give the richest company in the world a 325 million cash grant. (https://mobile.twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1062374603232894976 https://mobile.twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/10623746032328...)

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> its a valid argument against why Amazon should get billions in subsidies to essentially gentrify Queens Because they’re bring more than they cost to the city? High-paying taxpayers, an educated workforce, technical talent and a reason to build out the East River infrastructure? New York’s permitting process is broken. (Not as badly as California’s, but that’s a terrible baseline.) To get these sorts of anchor tenants, we unfortunately have to pay. Fortunately, we’ll make it back in payroll, income, capital gains, property and sales taxes. I’m a New York City taxpayer, and while I’d prefer we get every penny of taxes owed, some gain is better than nothing. Perfect can’t be the enemy of the good.

rayiner 8y ago
Note that NY doesn’t need to get back all the taxes it gives up by luring Amazon. So long as the net gain to the NY economy is more than that, it can be seen as a valid tax expenditure.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > So long as the net gain to the NY economy is more than that, it can be seen as a valid tax expenditure Yup. New Yorkers are pragmatic. A win is a win. There is a problem in that this biases large companies over small ones. But unless our zoning processes lighten up, the best way to fight that might be throwing the taxes Amazon brings New York at the problem.
cannonedhamster 8y ago
Is it really possible to say none of these could/don't exist in New York city already? Can you truly say that with a straight face? Same with D.C. for that matter. I didn't want this in Boston because Boston proper doesn't have the infrastructure to support an influx of people this size and I don't want my tax dollars supporting yet another company that will be big on promises light on results, see nearly every other time a company has been given money while promising jobs, and oh look they split the HQ cutting that perceived tax base in half. This is sporting arenas all over again.