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>Many people do not realize that Amazon leaving doesn't mean +$3B in their pocket it means $0 and even less than zero in the long term. How is this any less la

>Many people do not realize that Amazon leaving doesn't mean +$3B in their pocket it means $0 and even less than zero in the long term. How is this any less laughable than the position you're chastising? LIC was already booming before the Amazon investment. The idea that Amazon will be replaced by nothing at all is ludicrous.

beaner 8y ago
I dunno if that's accurate. "Lots of development + Amazon" is more than "lots of development." Amazon not being there doesn't necessarily mean there will be more of something else.
- mikeash 8y ago
  It’s highly likely, though. Supply and demand: less demand for real estate and employees means prices will be lower, which in turn means others will buy more. Economics isn’t a zero-sum game, but neither is it a completely uncorrelated bag of stuff.
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    This view of supply and demand is incomplete. Under your line of thinking there would never be issues of over supply. Which is of course wrong. During the financial crisis there was too much supply of housing that wouldn't be purchased at any price. See farming as an industry where too much supply can result in the need to sell product at a loss. Supply and demand is not some magical system that always balances. Artificial interference and externalities can absolutely throw it into negative-sum territory.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      That’s true in general, but we’re talking about 25,000 jobs in a thriving metro area of 20 million people. The situation isn’t anywhere near these extremes.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >Amazon not being there doesn't necessarily mean there will be more of something else... I don't know man? In most places I might agree with you, but in places like NYC and Silicon Valley? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it means more of something else. Sometimes it can be easy to underestimate the size and dynamism of those two economic engines.
  - esoterica 8y ago
    So you think the number of jobs in NYC is a fixed constant? That every extra job created by amazon is one less job elsewhere? That’s the literal opposite of dynamism.
    - sdenton4 8y ago
      That's basically what full employment means, and we pretty much there. So a pile of 'something else' jobs would be replaced with shotty Amazon jobs - and the stories from their corporate offices and from their warehouses have been harrowing.
      - nerfhammer 8y ago
        This is the opposite of what full employment means. Full employment means a fixed number of workers who mostly all have jobs already, not a fixed number of job opportunities. Adding more competition for labor during full employment means employers will be forced to make workers better offers, not worse offers. It does not mean every job can only be replaced by a worse job, it means the opposite of that.
    - CPLX 8y ago
      The amount of jobs in global leading cities is usually constrained by housing, rather than the other way around. It’s an important point to note.
    - geofft 8y ago
      If we're not able to significantly increase infrastructure for getting to work, whether roads, subways, ferries, or whatever, yes, the number of jobs in NYC is going to hit a cap pretty soon. The usual way of solving this problem and continuing to scale a city is that you use tax revenue from new jobs to build additional public infrastructure. But the HQ2 deal made a point of giving up that tax revenue....

beaner 8y ago

I dunno if that's accurate. "Lots of development + Amazon" is more than "lots of development." Amazon not being there doesn't necessarily mean there will be more of something else.

mikeash 8y ago
It’s highly likely, though. Supply and demand: less demand for real estate and employees means prices will be lower, which in turn means others will buy more. Economics isn’t a zero-sum game, but neither is it a completely uncorrelated bag of stuff.
- ineedasername 8y ago
  This view of supply and demand is incomplete. Under your line of thinking there would never be issues of over supply. Which is of course wrong. During the financial crisis there was too much supply of housing that wouldn't be purchased at any price. See farming as an industry where too much supply can result in the need to sell product at a loss. Supply and demand is not some magical system that always balances. Artificial interference and externalities can absolutely throw it into negative-sum territory.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    That’s true in general, but we’re talking about 25,000 jobs in a thriving metro area of 20 million people. The situation isn’t anywhere near these extremes.
bilbo0s 8y ago
>Amazon not being there doesn't necessarily mean there will be more of something else... I don't know man? In most places I might agree with you, but in places like NYC and Silicon Valley? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it means more of something else. Sometimes it can be easy to underestimate the size and dynamism of those two economic engines.
- esoterica 8y ago
  So you think the number of jobs in NYC is a fixed constant? That every extra job created by amazon is one less job elsewhere? That’s the literal opposite of dynamism.
  - sdenton4 8y ago
    That's basically what full employment means, and we pretty much there. So a pile of 'something else' jobs would be replaced with shotty Amazon jobs - and the stories from their corporate offices and from their warehouses have been harrowing.
    - nerfhammer 8y ago
      This is the opposite of what full employment means. Full employment means a fixed number of workers who mostly all have jobs already, not a fixed number of job opportunities. Adding more competition for labor during full employment means employers will be forced to make workers better offers, not worse offers. It does not mean every job can only be replaced by a worse job, it means the opposite of that.
  - CPLX 8y ago
    The amount of jobs in global leading cities is usually constrained by housing, rather than the other way around. It’s an important point to note.
  - geofft 8y ago
    If we're not able to significantly increase infrastructure for getting to work, whether roads, subways, ferries, or whatever, yes, the number of jobs in NYC is going to hit a cap pretty soon. The usual way of solving this problem and continuing to scale a city is that you use tax revenue from new jobs to build additional public infrastructure. But the HQ2 deal made a point of giving up that tax revenue....