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After being a resident of NYC for 30 years and seeing the city change and become a technology hub and just a financial center I think this is a real loss for NY
by raiyu 8y ago
After being a resident of NYC for 30 years and seeing the city change and become a technology hub and just a financial center I think this is a real loss for NYC.
It would also be in Long island City which would provide a huge influx of new workers and move that neighborhood forward in development rapidly. The down side would be that it would push some residents and business owners out but this is simply a fact of life in NYC where on a long enough time line every undesirable neighborhood eventually become desirable simply because of increase in residents and increase in real estate prices. That would also conversely make adjacent neighborhoods more attractive.
As for the tax breaks those would eventually be off set and it would still be cheaper than the amount that was spent on a useless Subway line that took a decade and really added no real capacity where it mattered.
- tmh79 8y agothe issue for me is that the main benefit of the tax breaks is capitalized by owners of AMZN stock, mainly Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world. AMZN is going to grow somewhere, they should pay taxes where they grow.
- raiyu 8y agoYeah but they will get that tax break regardless at least this we can continue to make NYC a powerhouse tech center. And it's in Long island City not in Manhattan like Facebook and Google.
- eganist 8y ago> Yeah but they will get that tax break regardless Evidently not. Their tax break in Northern Virginia was not nearly as egregious (northern VA resident here; I'm totally fine with what we're paying for what we're getting). By contrast, what they were getting for LIC was insane. And by not having anyone else lined up and by looking at the backlash over the size of the tax break, I'd be surprised if anyone else approached that amount, so it doesn't look like they'll get that tax break regardless.
- munificent 8y ago> Yeah but they will get that tax break regardless I just don't understand this argument. It's like "Someone's gonna get fucked, so I'd prefer it be me." That tax break is real money. Money that your community will not be able to spend on education, infrastructure, police, parks, all the things that make a place worth living in. Why would you hand that over to a company that doesn't need it?
- raiyu 8y agoI rather the money go to bringing tech jobs to NYC and making it a true technology hub then leave it in the hands of the city to spend billions on useless subway lines that are 3x the construction cost of anywhere else in the world: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
- avolcano 8y agoAh yes, "useless" subway lines that carry [checks notes] 5.6 million trips a day. I'd rather have money go towards our public transit system, no matter how fucked up it is at the moment, than spend another cent on bringing tech jobs that will come here no matter what. NYC's been a "true technology hub" for a long time, regardless of one giant company deciding to abstain from coming here.
- raiyu 8y agoReferring to the second avenue extension.
- chrisseaton 8y agoWhy is everyone doing this ‘checks notes’ bit all of a sudden? It’s all over Twitter.
- ilikehurdles 8y agoPeople want to live and work in NYC in part because of those useless subway lines. There is no need for NYC to hand out taxpayer money to any company. Companies will come regardless. Increasing density isn’t going to make subway lines cheaper by the way.
- fjp 8y agoWouldn't you rather existing NYC residents build new companies to make it a tech center? You're just letting the giant school bully take over your neighborhood for below market value (due to the massive tax breaks) and declaring "Look! We're a tech center!"
- hopler 8y agoWhy don't you think existing NYC residents would want to work at Amazon?
- int_19h 8y ago> below market value (due to the massive tax breaks) I don't see how "below market value" follows from "massive tax breaks". Are you implying that the standard tax rate is somehow determined by the market? Because it's not, and "market value" is whatever the market is willing to pay for it. Unless they have someone other than Amazon offering the same benefits for less, then Amazon offer was market value.
- fjp 8y agoBecause they're essentially paying: market value - value from future tax breaks discounted to current value
- bluecalm 8y agoIt's not mainly Bezos. It's mainly investment/index funds - entities that that hold people's saving and retirement accounts.
- ilikehurdles 8y agoThe stock is down 0.61% today. Effectively flat, especially in a well diversified retirement account. It’s still up 2.8% WoW
- loeg 8y agoThe point stands — it's taking money out of the pockets of NYC residents, and delivering it to AMZN shareholders.
- alecco 8y agoPlaying Devil's advocate, these were tax cuts on new jobs and business. And even with that the income to the city coffers would be greater even in the short term.
- bluecalm 8y agoTax cuts/credits are not taking money of NYC residents. Actually the residents will get less money than if the deal was made. I hope this is obvious.
- WillPostForFood 8y agoIt is clearly not obvious: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19163755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19163755
- objektif 8y agoI mean a simple calculation shows that ny state would have break even in less than 10 years.
- untog 8y agoWould the tax breaks eventually be offset? Amazon paid zero federal tax for the last two years running. They're experts at tax avoidance. I don't see any reason to assume they wouldn't do the same in NY.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lccarrasco 8y agoAll new employees would've paid income and sales taxes.
- hnarn 8y agoBut it's also not the case that the increase of "income and sales tax payers" for NY would be zero without Amazon, so the benefit would have to take that baseline into account. It's not an easy calculation, and there are reasons beyond pure money as to why you wouldn't want an Amazon HQ.
- YeahSureWhyNot 8y agoall people who would qualify to work at Amazon getting 150k per year are already working somewhere making something close to that. this was not going to change employment rate or boost income taxes. this was going to drive housing prices, especially rent thru the roof though.
- twblalock 8y ago> all people who would qualify to work at Amazon getting 150k per year are already working somewhere making something close to that. this was not going to change employment rate or boost income taxes. this was going to drive housing prices, especially rent thru the roof though. Those people might not currently be in NYC, and they might have moved to NYC to work for Amazon. NYC would have received more income tax revenue if high earners moved there from somewhere else.
- apendleton 8y ago
- bobthepanda 8y agoLIC is one of the most heavily redeveloped areas in the city with 40+ story towers popping up like candy. It didn’t need a development boost. In fact they tore up an existing redevelopment plan for HQ2
- prepend 8y agoI expect the number of tech workers and high income workers will be much less without hq2. Although I hope that it’s a bustling tech hub in 5 years.
- asdff 8y agoNot all of those 25k jobs are highly paid tech workers. There will still be highly paid workers living there as they do now, commuting to Manhattan.
- prepend 8y agoNot all, but very many will be highly paid. My comment is about tech workers working in that area. I think this is better for that area to have highly paid workers in remote queens who can live or commute in. There’s already a ton of tech companies in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The new change would be to have a tech hub in LIC.
- subpixel 8y agoBetter for who? Better how? Queens is already richly diverse in both income and in every other category worth listing. There is nothing that the borough lacks that mythical tech workers will bring in their wake. On the contrary, much of what makes Queens quite unique is threatened by the one thing we know would follow on the heels of something like an Amazon HQ landing here: even more heated real estate speculation fueled by absentee capital, small businesses losing their leases, rent hikes, and general homogenization. Nothing about Queens needs to be preserved in amber, but neither does anything about Queens require some intervention to bring up to par. Possibly public transit but that is true of every borough.
- RockyMcNuts 8y agoIf you're talking about the 2nd Ave stub, yeah, it was crazy expensive but it's serving 200K passengers a day, alleviating crowding on the Lex (entire Lex is like 1.3m), and UES to Times Square is hella faster. Anyway, for me it hinges on how much special treatment Amazon got, $100K in tax abatements per job seems excessive, but others say it was pretty standard, would have been a huge anchor tenant for NYC tech and LIC, so much smoke blown on both sides it's hard to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . If they want to sell and support AWS to bigcos in NYC they are going to need a major presence regardless, not sure how much sense it makes for their other businesses to have a big HQ in NYC.
- RobertoG 8y ago"[..]$100K in tax abatements per job seems excessive, but others say it was pretty standard,[..]" It's possible to be both at the same time.
- onionsoup 8y agoThey are also aggressively expanding into display ads, and the epicenter of the display ads ecosystem is in NYC. A lot of the hiring in tech they do in NYC was for ads positions.
- lallysingh 8y ago$100k in taxes is maybe 6.5 yrs of a tech worker's state income (using 6.85% state income tax @ 220k/yr). That's before other taxes, like property (directly or indirectly through rent), sales, etc. They don't need 25k jobs to support AWS clients in NYC. It's not like they're supporting on-site installations.
- sbov 8y agoUsually 1 job means 1 person-year worth of work. So 6.5 years of a tech worker would usually mean 6.5 jobs. The jobs also tend to include things like construction workers, etc. So if you hire 500 people to build the place over 2 years that's 1,000 jobs created.
- wefarrell 8y ago
- nodesocket 8y agoI just don't understand the logic of politicians such as Ocasio-Cortez. Amazon HQ was going to bring 25,000 high paying jobs to the area, providing growth and opportunities for her constituents. Her argument against is that the Amazon HQ would further gentrification and she was appalled by the government subsidies. So she'd rather limit new growth, prevent new jobs, and stifle wealth to prevent luxury condos and Starbucks from going up? Make no sense, she is literally preventing her constituents from moving up the economic ladder.
- pxue 8y agothe whole argument of left is flawed. she's anti status-quo but are unwilling to sacrifice short term for it. basically her dream case scenario is to tax amazon 5B and then invest 3B it to bring them to Queens.. and then rake the returns going forward. In what fantasy world would that ever play out?
- clydethefrog 8y agoGentrification is the opposite of people moving up the economic ladder - it's the influx of more affluent residents.
- nodesocket 8y agoSo you really think Amazon was only going to hire people that already had wealth. It's not possible that somebody making $50k a year, could land a great new position at Amazon making $150k? Cortez is shooting her democrat constituents in the foot, and living up to her affiliation of democratic-socialist.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- marrone12 8y agoThat's not what happens though. Amazon would be recruiting people from Ivy League schools, big consulting firms, other large tech companies.
- phjesusthatguy3 8y agoWe're all going to have to do something for the people at the actual bottom once we cater to the people racing to the bottom. The people that can't afford to live at the bottom of NYC also can't afford to move their families to Central African Republic and run the tshirt machines producing stuff they ship back where they came from. The USA already has a tax structure in place. Amazon could afford to pay the existing taxes if they wanted to. Heck, they're paying their tax accountants to figure out how not to pay those taxes. Why doesn't Amazon just buy, say, Nebraska, and set up shop there?
- heyjudy 8y agoUBI, livable wages, raise estate and corporate taxes, operable unions without "right to work" (for less) / union-busting laws, more worker-owned co-ops and integrated standard-of-living net that lifts instead of treating people like criminals. But first, getting rid of the corporate capture of both major political parties, elected officials, government and policy-making is a precondition to do anything to reverse the neoliberal, cannibalistic anarcho-capitalism inverted totalitarianism being forced on us.
- zanny 8y agoI would also like some flying pigs and entropy reversed with my order of complete fantasy. Im not saying its wrong, but us muggles worth less than countries have no real, meaningful say in the future at this, and to be fair also at most other, points in history.
- door5 8y agoAlexandria Ocasio Cortez & Bernie Sanders openly espouse many of those ideas and are two of the most popular politicians in America. These ideas have a tremendous amount of traction and their advocates are getting closer to the centers of American power. This isn't a complete fantasy -- it's not an inevitably, but it is absolutely a viable part of political discourse & struggle
- 8y ago
- et2o 8y agoThat subway line is actually quite useful and has pretty high ridership