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Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

214 points by agreen 8y ago

smallgovt 8y ago
I think it's sad that the vocal minority was able to alter this decision. As the letter mentions, the project would have brought $27b in revenue to the state. This magnitude of revenue is material considering the fact that the state only collected $76b in taxes in the last reported fiscal year. I think there's reason to debate whether large corps should be able to hold an auction like this, but given the place we find ourselves in today, there's no question this would have been a huge win for NY.
- votepaunchy 8y ago
  The $27B is a present value sum of future cash flows, not an annual revenue.
  - smallgovt 8y ago
    Thanks, corrected. Even so, still a ton of revenue.
    - alexis_fr 8y ago
      Not a ton of revenue if you are have expenditures for required new infrastructure, such as road and public transport, to accommodate offices.
  - Eridrus 8y ago
    The 3b wasn't an annual figure either.
- deogeo 8y ago
  > there's no question this would have been a huge win for NY. But a loss for the US as a whole, assuming the HQ still gets built, but without special tax exemptions.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    The overwhelming majority of the tax deals were/are available to other employers in the state as well. IIRC, only the land/building deal was specific and a version of that is likely to be available to whomever decides to build on the site.
    - mobilefriendly 8y ago
      Empire State Development was to award Amazon a cash grant of $325 million from taxpayers. This is corporate welfare and a kind of corruption. Congress should ban all government subsidies that are one-off and negotiated in secret with individual companies. There's an equal protection under the law issue.
      - otterley 8y ago
        As an attorney, I’m curious as to how you think a constitutional equal protection issue is at stake here. I’m unaware of any case law that would suggest so.
        berberous 8y ago
        Here's an article by a graduate of GW law arguing it could be an equal protection issue: https://taxprof.typepad.com/files/65st0033.pdf https://taxprof.typepad.com/files/65st0033.pdf I didn't actually read it, so I'm not sure how sound his argument is. Even if plausible, it's obviously just an article by a recent law grad and not actually the clear controlling law today.
        bpp 8y ago
        I'm curious why Congress has chosen not to regulate (or ban) the grant of tax incentives to companies as enticements for development; this seems to easily fall under the interstate commerce clause. All states lose out when they compete against each other in this way.
        berberous 8y ago
- spamizbad 8y ago
  I'm glad they dropped it. There are some grounded concerns: * Amazon is one of the most successful enterprises in human history and should not require support from taxpayers beyond their voluntary patronage of Amazon itself. * Most of these "deals" were put together secretly without input from the public. Millions (or in NY's case, billion+) of dollars were packaged and presented without community input or oversight * While amazon is talking about bringing middle and upper-income jobs to these communities, overall amazon has a documented history of paying poverty wages despite its tremendous financial success * State and local governments probably shouldn't be diverting billions of their citizen's tax revenue to lure corporations who will only impact a tiny subset of their citizenry. Does the taxpayer in Buffalo New York benefit if their tax money goes to fund some HQ in Queens, if the bulk of the state's tax capture is just "handed" right back to Amazon? With that said, there's nothing wrong with large organizations asking state and local governments to expedite things like site identification, planning, zoning, permitting, licensing, environmental studies, etc since you're talking about a MASSIVE undertaking during a short window of time. But beyond that, governments should avoid a race to the bottom with this stuff.
  - noahA 8y ago
    Would the bulk of the taxes paid by Amazon be paid back? The article said that Amazon would get $3 billion in existing credits (i.e. not deal specific, just business tax credits) and would be paying ~$27 billion. Seems like a steal for NY.
    - spamizbad 8y ago
      Look at this beyond the scope of Amazon. If the basic premise here is that any company should get a tax break if they are capable of hiring enough workers whose tax payments would exceed their employer's tax payments, all you're doing is just shifting the tax burden onto the workers in the form of regressive income, sales, and property taxes.
      - johncolanduoni 8y ago
        For there to be an actual increase in tax revenue for the state via income tax, those workers would have to be receiving higher salaries than they would have otherwise, would they not? Or emigrating from somewhere else, which they would be unlikely to do if they are not receiving an increase in compensation.
- inoop 8y ago
  > I think there's reason to debate whether large corps should be able to hold an auction like this It wasn't an auction. As the letter points out, each location put in a single, sealed bid, invisible to everybody else. There were no multiple rounds of bidding, as is typical for an auction.
  - paulgb 8y ago
    You've literally described a silent auction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-price_sealed-bid_auction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-price_sealed-bid_aucti...
    - inoop 8y ago
      Ah, I stand corrected, thanks!
    - ec109685 8y ago
      No, you mean a blind auction.
  - spenczar5 8y ago
    Eh, a sealed first-price auction is still an auction. It’s fair to call it that.
- ec109685 8y ago
  $27B over 25 years. So the loss of revenue is a little more than one billion a year. And even that seems high. From the proposal, “Amazon will have an annual payroll of $3.75 billion. …There’s been nothing like it in history,” Payroll tax for amazon is about ten percent: https://www.payroll-taxes.com/state-tax/new-york https://www.payroll-taxes.com/state-tax/new-york So, wouldn’t that mean the revenue loss is just 300M a year. And given they are forgiving 3B of that, the revenue over 25 years ends up being 4.5B over 25 years, which is even less. Here are the assumptions built into that $27B number, which was generated by proponents of the deal: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2018/11/15/new-york-amazon-revenue-estimate/2003646002/ https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/alb... Finally, there are 20M people in New York. So 1.2B of amazon revenue per year (high end) equates to $60 a person at the end of the day.
ddebernardy 8y ago
I suspect I'll never get why the notion of giving a tax handout to a company that's one of the most valuable in the world shouldn't be a non-starter. > Incredibly, I have heard city and state elected officials who were opponents of the project claim that Amazon was getting $3 billion in government subsidies that could have been better spent on housing or transportation. This is either a blatant untruth or fundamental ignorance of basic math by a group of elected officials. The city and state 'gave' Amazon nothing. Amazon was to build their headquarters with union jobs and pay the city and state $27 billion in revenues. The city, through existing as-of-right tax credits, and the state through Excelsior Tax credits - a program approved by the same legislators railing against it - would provide up to $3 billion in tax relief, IF Amazon created the 25,000-40,000 jobs and thus generated $27 billion in revenue. You don't need to be the State's Budget Director to know that a nine to one return on your investment is a winner. Actually, you do. Amazon already created jobs in NYC, without any handouts needed. Google recently announced they'd create more jobs, and they didn't expect a handout to do so. By the above logic, a 9:1 return for Amazon jobs is a good deal. What about the Google jobs? Do those count as infinite return? If so, more infinite returns, and less 9:1 returns, please. Or is there something else at work here?
- graeme 8y ago
  If google creates jobs in long island city, they would get the same handout though. Any company locating there does: it's a program NY state and NYC made to encourage development outside of Manhattan.
  - ddebernardy 8y ago
    So in other words, you're suggesting that the handout was baked in from the get go because the HQ was in Queens, and Amazon being Amazon had nothing to do with it? If that's the case, the media have done a terrible job reporting this.
    - CoolGuySteve 8y ago
      $500mm was specific to Amazon in terms of a land grant and property rights. That site is currently a plastic factory next to a Superfund site and the infamous Queensbridge projects though. It's likely the cit/state would make the same concessions to anyone that could place clean high income jobs in the area.
williesleg 8y ago
Cuomo isn't running for president, so no need to shovel money into Andy's coffers. Proof is that Amazon isn't looking for a replacement.
unethical_ban 8y ago
I understand the tragedy of the commons, cities' race to the bottom, Amazon not needing breaks, so on. I also think some of this could have been avoided if people felt like they were part of the process, instead of being told by the state "Hey we negotiated with a behemoth company for them to take over your community - trust me, you'll like it".
- tehlike 8y ago
  You cant involve public with everything, or it would lead to big overhead
  - Brozilean 8y ago
    That's their job ya dingus.
  - markkanof 8y ago
    Very true, but we aren’t talking about involving the public in every single decision that government makes. But some of these significant ones might make sense. Especially if the outcome was that the deal went through.
  - icelancer 8y ago
    For billions of dollars of tax breaks? I don't think it's asking too much. Washington State manages to have non-binding advisory votes on topics just like this without much complaint.
  - sitkack 8y ago
    Efficiency over democracy, everyone is doing it these days!
la6470 8y ago
How much is the tax paid by Mr T and his businesses????
tombert 8y ago
As someone who actually lives in NYC and would probably benefit personally from their HQ2 opening since my property-value would probably go up, I honestly wasn't terribly upset to hear that Amazon was leaving. I am a little annoyed that only New Yorkers are paying the brunt of criticism on this. "If NYers hadn't complained so much then we'd have $27billion of revenue!!". But that's ridiculous; Amazon left NY because they felt like they had resistance, but you wouldn't know this based on the follow-up conversations.
alexandercrohde 8y ago
Reads as unreliable (presumably factually accurate but too motivated to be trusted as presenting a full picture). Anybody who pretends to be thinking about "loss for the city," is full of themselves. It's all politics, and disingenuous to imply otherwise. And morally, most other areas in the country need this more than NYC does. It sounds like the thrust of the article is "Look how stupid the decision making process was!" Well, true politics is petty and unreliable especially at large-scale. But that has no bearing on the larger issue.
- rossjudson 8y ago
  Factually accurate is a pretty good place to start. If you feel part of the "full picture" or "larger issue" is missing, then feel free to provide it.
  - alexandercrohde 8y ago
    I did. It's a disingenuous political move, swinging clumsily at unions, and hoping to rile up New Yorkers (such as myself).
presty 8y ago
Quote of the Day: "The seventy percent of New Yorkers who supported Amazon and now vent their anger also bear responsibility and must learn that the silent majority should not be silent because they can lose to the vocal minority and self-interested politicians."
- k_sh 8y ago
  I'm glad we're waking up to this fact. It's not enough to hold a belief... in our system, action is required. I think this is why young people are so frequently screwed by political decisions and policy - we are, uncoincidentally, the age group that votes least often.
  - pmoriarty 8y ago
    Voting alone is not enough. In some parts of the world, like Australia, voting is mandatory and as a result lot of people just vote randomly. A good education in civics and history is necessary, as is a belief in the political system and a desire to make a difference in the world through political action. Finally, a strong and independent media that does a lot of deep investigative journalism and does a good job of providing context and background on important issues instead of catering to the lowest common denominator is key, as without it people are much more easily manipulated and mislead.
    - intothemild 8y ago
      As a politics major from an Australian university, and as someone who now lives in Norway. You’re about 50% right. Yes in Australia mandatory voting has some people who “donkey vote” or as you call it “vote randomly” that percentage is almost all the 18-22 range. It’s not till they have to sit through a full one or two election cycles before they start to give a shit. As such my generation has seen the bullshit that’s been handed to us, we won’t stand for it. It is generational because of the two major parties, their “young” version hasn’t had anyone transition from the young party to the major party for members of GenX. It’s only now when the boomers are retiring are we starting to see some younger blood. Why? Cause those that didn’t give a shit, now care and it’s a huge wave of people. Politics are so much more left here in Norway, because people are educated and give a shit. The fucking Christian Right party just came up with the policy to decriminalise all drugs because putting people in jail and fining them wasn’t working. So why not try to help them with counsellors instead. No fines, no jail time... just help if they want it. What’s Australia doing? Well we just voted to dump a bunch of shit in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef because it’s inconvinent for the super rich assholes to ship their exports around it. Got to make a way through it for the ships. That shit won’t last with my generation.
imh 8y ago
>The seventy percent of New Yorkers who supported Amazon and now vent their anger also bear responsibility and must learn that the silent majority should not be silent because they can lose to the vocal minority and self-interested politicians. This like makes me frustrated. It shouldn't be everyone's responsibility to go on twitter or wherever and be loud. Maybe politicians should put in real effort to learn about who they represent. They could engage in the same kind of polling they do during election season, rather than just paying attention to whoever is loudest.
- jshaqaw 8y ago
  In a perfect world yes. In reality what matters is not how many people support a position but how many will vote based on that issue. If you support something but it is not in your top ten of voting factors (assuming you even vote) then in reality your view doesn’t matter to the powers that be.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
starpilot 8y ago
San Francisco-ization it seems. Liberals going against their own interests. Reminds me of an apartment complex under construction in SF that was forced to include a larger amount of low-income units. The builders found it would no longer be profitable, and ceased building. So lose-lose, prisoner's dilemma, vocal social media forces "won," lacking the cooperative biases that humans normally have. They all end up with nothing.
- blacksqr 8y ago
  tfw you can't make a profit renting housing in San Francisco.
  - pas 8y ago
    Lack of a streamlined and efficient construction approvals process is really hurting (some ?) US cities. Or the real estate developer community is really spoiled there. And by streamlined I don't mean just rubber stamp everything. But instead have clear rules, and check the plans fast whether they are compliant with them. (Basic civil engineering stuff, fire hazard, environmental protection, noise, traffic management, historic status. What else is there to check?)
    - blacksqr 8y ago
      Sounds like there's plenty of stuff to blame besides low-income people wanting a place to live.
      - asabjorn 8y ago
        Yes, but getting more units in a building that won't be build doesn't help said low income residents. This is a moral argument that does not fit the facts we know, and hence can't have a morally good outcome.
        blacksqr 8y ago
        I was not trying to make a moral argument, but an observation that many seem ready to believe any statement by the powerful no matter how dodgy, while the powerless are assiduously made invisible.
throw2016 8y ago
This reads too much like a one sided political letter by a state functionary. It's curious no such 'open letter' was forthcoming from any public functionary accounting for the losses due to the long list of bank frauds and bailouts? Many here swear by free markets, fair competition and a level playing field and yet do not see the contradiction of letting large companies play regions against each other to extract concessions. Too many times we just see pro business narratives that rehash arguments by lobbyists, bought economists and the business press to support specific business interests and these one sided narratives are now being challenged.
- prolikewhoa 8y ago
  These people you talk about don't live in those communities and haven't lived in communities that have been destroyed and made worse by big corporations like this. How's Seattle doing? Great for the rich, but not for anyone else. Walk the city streets in Seattle, head down to city mission in Pioneer Square, you'll figure out what the word "despair" really means. I'm glad the public stood up. The workers have power. Guessing this was just another Amazon game to slam unions to portray a massive negative image of AOC & worker power, like they did to collect city data.
  - lamarpye 8y ago
    Unfortunately, some other community will have to suffer having so many high paid workers.
    - prolikewhoa 8y ago
      And then face the crippling poverty, homelessness, death, drug problems that come with those high paid workers. They contribute nothing to society, see Amazon in Seattle. Where are the Bezos schools, Bezos housing communities for the poor, where are the Bezos fire departments, Bezos parks? Nowhere. Just because you have different priorities, priorities that are "infinite growth" (cancer), doesn't mean its automatically a good idea. Those workers weren't being employed from NYC and surrounding areas, and you know it. They were coming there to displace people already living there. It's time the lower end of society starts getting a fucking say too.
viburnum 8y ago
If they start handing out billions for corporate HQs it won't stop with Amazon. Google and everybody else will like up for theirs too.
- tptacek 8y ago
  They weren't "handing out billions" to Amazon, as the letter explains.
- asabjorn 8y ago
  Amazon would generate $30b in tax revenue over the deal length, for which it would be given a $3b break given certain conditions. That is not a handout, because amazon generated all the money in question.
  - viburnum 8y ago
    Okay fine whatever, every other big employer will be lining up for the same deal or threatening to leave.
    - asabjorn 8y ago
      When Queens has attracted enough campuses like Amazons to become an ecosystem no incentives should be necessary. The deal has positives and negatives for Amazon due to its location, and lack of an ecosystem. After Amazon moved 25k jobs there there it would have been hard for them to leave.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
avar 8y ago
> "The RWDSU Union was interested in organizing the Whole Foods grocery store workers. [...]. Organizing Amazon, or Whole Foods workers, or any company for that matter, is better pursued by allowing them to locate here and then making an effort to unionize the workers, rather than making unionization a bar to entrance." I'm not familiar with how this works in New York. Someone who's registering a company needs to negotiate in advance whether the people they hire are part of some pre-existing union or not? Wouldn't Amazon just have started hiring workers, and if those workers decided to organize into a union or join an existing one they'd have had to deal with that then? It seems not, so how does this work?
- johncolanduoni 8y ago
  Perhaps they were looking for Amazon to guarantee they would only hire unionized workers (or X% unionized workers) for certain positions, as part of the deal?
zaroth 8y ago
Just as a business can grow organically and through capital acquisitions, a city can grow organically or through capital investment. A city can spend money (billions) on infrastructure and public spaces which serves the workers of the companies, and the campuses of those companies. A city can also ask companies to spend billions to help build out those spaces and that infrastructure and in return offer tax incentives. It works out exactly the same. Both subsidies serve the workers and the companies paying those workers in the same fashion.
rdiddly 8y ago
Oh no, New York is crippled from this! They'll never get on the map as a major city now!
protomyth 8y ago
Ironically, much of the visible 'local' opposition, which was happy to appear at press conferences and protest at City Council hearings during work hours, were actual organizers paid by one union: RWDSU. (If you are wondering if that is even legal, probably not). That is a pretty strong accusation to put in writing. I get the feeling that some investigation is going to happen on that one. Paid protestors presented as "concerned citizens" is not exactly a new tactic, but money is a lot easier to track these days.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Its very common in NY for high profile issues. When fracking was the cause de jure, hundreds of people were being bussed to Albany weekly to protest. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but it’s a thing.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    We do have some experience with it out here in the middle. I have a relative (by marriage) who did a pipeline protest then went to "protest a volcano in Hawaii". Apparently, it was a good gig. I'm just surprised that the NY government put it in a press release. It really seems odd, but maybe that union has really separated itself from the herd, politically.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      I agree — We live in interesting times... the ability of populist agitators to amplify their voices is greater than it has been since the 1930s. There’s a reason why an oddball like Bernie Sanders (and a long tail of others, of all political stances) is a high profile figure in 2019! POTUS has made this new “direct to you” model a thing that people are studying and learning from. Maybe this is a way to test the waters at communicating without lowering yourself to shouting to a mob on Twitter.
    - drak0n1c 8y ago
      Yes, there were people paid to blockade and prevent the construction of a new state-of-the-art science telescope on Mauna Kea. They were successful in pressuring the state to renege on the contract and block construction. I live in Seattle now, and I remember talking to a petition signature gatherer for the recently passed gun control measure (petitions get them on the ballot). He was paid per-signature by a non-profit funded by the Open Society foundation. He said he was doing it Arizona before Seattle, and will keep going around to areas they pay for.
mirimir 8y ago
Great letter! And as much as I support unions, RWDSU really messed up on this.
blacksqr 8y ago
"If New York only allows unionized companies to enter, our economy is unsustainable" Dear workers: you must remain poor and powerless forever, for the greater good.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Did you miss the surrounding context? His point is that NY has very strong worker protections, and that it's much better to let a non-unionized company set up in NY and then organize it, rather than trying to make organization a condition to entry.
  - blacksqr 8y ago
    Isn't the validity and relevance of those points something for the unions to decide for themselves? Some people are still able to distinguish reality from a sales pitch.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      No? I don't understand how you're connecting these dots. It's not like we have to wonder whether the union strategy worked here. It demonstrably failed. Amazon didn't buckle, they didn't accept Whole Foods unionization as a condition of setting up shop in Queens, and the union will not in fact see a single additional job as a result of what happened.
      - blacksqr 8y ago
        "the union will not in fact see a single additional job as a result of what happened" That assumes that all union organizing will now cease or come to nothing, and the unions will get no benefit from keeping a huge, dedicated anti-union company out of their back yard.
        tptacek 8y ago
        No, it just means that this particular transaction was net-negative for unions.
gcb0 8y ago
> First, some labor unions attempted to exploit Amazon's New York entry. When a company sees a market opportunity and increases prices to take advantage of it (or benefit from tax exceptions, which is the same as generating inflation on everything but their prices), it is praised. When a labor union does the same, it is evil. The 1% want to have the capitalism cake and eat it too. And for some reason we are boasting a letter from the person bought to defend the tax break in the first place. If you want one single proof that this is an "advertisement" for public opinion, i will give one on the very first paragraph: he compares "25,000-40,000 jobs" as if 100% oscillation is an acceptable negotiation scale (hey, i can pay you $100 to $200k a year if you accept now to work 12h a day every day!") and then proceeds to compare it to non-tax exempt jobs. Which is like comparing one thing to another completely different, for either incompetence or malice. Since he is a Budget Director, i will bet the later.
matchagaucho 8y ago
RWDSU... you really need to wake up. The Labor Union movement was making great progress with AMZN, raising the minimum wage of fulfillment centers to $15 hr. Negotiating is a series of compromises. AMZN basically reflected your brinkmanship strategy back into your face. While I wish corporate America was above this, the Unions are the ones that need to learn a lesson here. AMZN conceded to 11,000 Labor Union jobs for construction and services. But RWDSU, you wanted it all... including operational jobs. AMZN just will not capitulate to these tactics. And in fact, they'll go so far as to punish them and set precedence for future projects.
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
  RWDSU didn't care about the construction jobs being unionized. Why? Because construction workers don't pay union dues to RWDSU. Unions are businesses. They exist to make money via dues, and do enough to benefit employees to get voted in. Once in, they benefit from laws that make it very hard to get them back out. RWDSU saw the dollar signs and looked to enroll new members--mostly people who didn't even live in the state yet and were not members of the local. Because NY is not a right to work state, they would be forced to begin paying dues to RWDSU without any vote or input. A union's product is supposed to be advocacy for workers. But unlike lawyers or publicists, who are hired and fired by the people they advocate for, unions get voted in or established through hiring halls and high-level deals like these, and then they use the law to force workers to pay them for often unwanted or low-quality services.
gesman 8y ago
While economical illiteracy of loud-voiced minority politicians is a fact that played here, I think Bezos just made out of himself a "rich jerk cry baby" who threw "i'm in control and don't need your candy" tantrum. Lose-lose. PS: That said, I'd be scared of how that would affect NYC traffic patterns if plans would go forward.
droithomme 8y ago
Every NY voter needs to read this letter.
sitkack 8y ago
TIL Amazon sells Banana Republics and we all clamor for canoes and paddles.
graycat 8y ago
The problem is old, going back, one example after another, continually to a famous quote of Jefferson about sewage news at http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs29.html http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_spe... So, for a fix, first, mostly ignore the newsies (a word from a Bogart character in the movie The Maltese Falcon). Second, much of politics is trying to get votes from name recognition from shocking statements based on gossip, lies, distortions, made up nonsense, etc. Well, then, the newsies and the politicians have a strong interest in common: For name recognition for votes the politicians want their shocking stories told, and for ad revenue from eyeballs the newsies want shocking stories to tell. There was a similar remark in the movie Lawrence of Arabia. So, the second step is mostly to ignore the politicians. A third step is, for information that might be in the news, fall back to and insist on at least common high school term paper writing standards, rational, responsible content with thorough references to objective, credible, primary sources. With this third step will entertain: Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see and still will believe twice too much. Measure twice and saw once. Essentially everything you see in the media was put there and paid for by someone who wants to influence your opinion (Sharyl Attkissson). It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you do know for sure that just ain't so (In the movie The Big Short and there attributed to Mark Twain). Will conclude that for nearly all the news, printed on paper it can't compete with Charmin and on the Internet is useless for wrapping dead fish heads. A hope is that the Internet will enable many more new information sources with some with lots of credibility and narrow specialization and that the best of these sources will help the US and civilization.
warp_factor 8y ago
This story is so good because it perfectly illustrates the issue with politics today: - A vocal minority of leftists managed to force a silent majority. Once they won, they didn't really know what to do. Now everyone realizes that New York is worse off. - All of the outrage started and snowballed on Twitter, where self-centered politicians decided to use it as a way to virtue-signal. - The press did an awful job on this story: every article got a baked in narrative (From "Amazon was defeated and NYC won", to "NYC Lost and Amazon won"). It is simply very difficult to know what actually happened.
- meesterdude 8y ago
  > Once they won, they didn't really know what to do. Now everyone realizes that New York is worse off. Not sure how you've reached this conclusion. "Worse off" is subjective.
tamaharbor 8y ago
Has anyone from NY tried to get Amazon back?
Proven 8y ago
Occasional Cortex and the socialist unions got what they wanted. Screw Amazon, NY needs Green Deal and couple trillion in new debt and everything is going to be fine! NY is ruled by corny capitalists and crony labor.
gammateam 8y ago
> The union that opposed the project gained nothing and cost other union members 11,000 good, high-paying jobs. I want to see this feature film so people stop wasting their time with them
numair 8y ago
The fact that this guy is writing this open letter on behalf of the governor’s office, and seems to believe we still live in a 2008-esque Change-We-Can-Believe-In view of tech company largesse, shows how clueless Albany really is. If we have ACTUALLY learned anything from the past century of corporate relationships with muncipalities, it’s that you really do NOT want to encourage corporate monocultures within your cities. It distorts the local economy, creates its own social subculture that often overtakes the town’s existing culture, and presents a giant economic and existential crisis should the corporate giant need to downsize or exit the city (which they seem to always do, and always for someplace that has far more diversity, or a new host for their parasitism). New York State is, if anything, Exhibit A for all of this. The story of Kodak and Rochester, and the years of decline in Kodak’s absence (and before anyone mentions it, yes, I know there’s been a very recent Renaissance) is a story known to pretty much every urban planner who’s been educated in the past 25 years. Yes, you get a really easy bump in total jobs that is hard to replicate through more organic means; but you know, if you want to live in an interesting, dynamic society, you’re going to choose to go about it the hard way. Maybe the evil labor unions ruined the deal. Maybe the politicians flip-flopped. Maybe the tax credits pencil out. It doesn’t matter. There are large numbers of people who didn’t want Long Island City to turn into another Rochester. Or, to put it in a context that might be more understandable to the crowd here, they didn’t want to see Amazon do to their neighborhood what Snapchat and Google did to Venice Beach over the past 10 years. I’m sure the tax receipts are way, way up in 90291; at the same time, it’s not really Venice anymore, and those revenues have allowed the tech firms to hold the community hostage for whatever they want (for example, Google had an arbitrarily placed stop sign and crosswalk put in for their use, and managed to get the LAPD to cart off longtime homeless residents in the process (who, by virtue of the law of unintended consequences, have been replaced by far more aggressive and transient homeless people)). I’d love to see some of these politicians run on the “I stood firm on welcoming Amazon” platform for their next election. I don’t think the ones who flip-flopped into the negative are idiots; rather, they’re smart enough to see the writing on the wall. The tide is shifting, and fast.
jayventura 8y ago
Interestingly, although 70% of New Yorkers felt positively about the Amazon HQ2, I wonder what that percentage looks like for the actual current inhabitants of LIC. For many of the folks I know who rent in Queens, they were very much against the HQ2 and fearful of how it may affect their ability to afford living in Queens. Additionally, many New Yorkers I know who are around my age were very much against HQ2 because we felt that it was already so incredibly hard to even think about owning property in NYC, and that this was just one more notch that would make us feel like the possibility was slipping away. Not everyone works in tech/finance/RE and enjoys the salaries in those industries. Another common fear was how will this affect the subway system? For many of the people I know who were against HQ2, it wasn't about the tax relief. It was about the feeling that the most valuable corporation in the world was going to move a lot more money into the city, and make it a lot harder for folks not in the industry to live. A lot of these concerns where not addressed. It was always about jobs, jobs, jobs. And if they were addressed, it was not communicated effectively.
afiori 8y ago
> Ironically, much of the visible 'local' opposition, which was happy to appear at press conferences and protest at City Council hearings during work hours, were actual organizers paid by one union: RWDSU. (If you are wondering if that is even legal, probably not). Even more ironic is these same elected officials all signed a letter of support for Amazon at the Long Island City location and in support of the application. They were all for it before Twitter convinced them to be against it. Twitter as of now is a cancer in our society. Is is a fine social and sometimes fun, but do not form your opinion on it.
jinushaun 8y ago
People are upset about the beauty pageant. If Amazon had never done their stupid HQ2 search which resulted in the two most obiovus cities “winning”, they would have an HQ2 in NYC already with the same tax breaks. It would’ve all happened behind closed doors.

214 points by agreen 8y ago

I think it's sad that the vocal minority was able to alter this decision. As the letter mentions, the project would have brought $27b in revenue to the state. This magnitude of revenue is material considering the fact that the state only collected $76b in taxes in the last reported fiscal year. I think there's reason to debate whether large corps should be able to hold an auction like this, but given the place we find ourselves in today, there's no question this would have been a huge win for NY.

votepaunchy 8y ago
The $27B is a present value sum of future cash flows, not an annual revenue.
- smallgovt 8y ago
  Thanks, corrected. Even so, still a ton of revenue.
  - alexis_fr 8y ago
    Not a ton of revenue if you are have expenditures for required new infrastructure, such as road and public transport, to accommodate offices.
- Eridrus 8y ago
  The 3b wasn't an annual figure either.
deogeo 8y ago
> there's no question this would have been a huge win for NY. But a loss for the US as a whole, assuming the HQ still gets built, but without special tax exemptions.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  The overwhelming majority of the tax deals were/are available to other employers in the state as well. IIRC, only the land/building deal was specific and a version of that is likely to be available to whomever decides to build on the site.
  - mobilefriendly 8y ago
    Empire State Development was to award Amazon a cash grant of $325 million from taxpayers. This is corporate welfare and a kind of corruption. Congress should ban all government subsidies that are one-off and negotiated in secret with individual companies. There's an equal protection under the law issue.
    - otterley 8y ago
      As an attorney, I’m curious as to how you think a constitutional equal protection issue is at stake here. I’m unaware of any case law that would suggest so.
      - berberous 8y ago
        Here's an article by a graduate of GW law arguing it could be an equal protection issue: https://taxprof.typepad.com/files/65st0033.pdf https://taxprof.typepad.com/files/65st0033.pdf I didn't actually read it, so I'm not sure how sound his argument is. Even if plausible, it's obviously just an article by a recent law grad and not actually the clear controlling law today.
      - bpp 8y ago
        I'm curious why Congress has chosen not to regulate (or ban) the grant of tax incentives to companies as enticements for development; this seems to easily fall under the interstate commerce clause. All states lose out when they compete against each other in this way.
        berberous 8y ago
spamizbad 8y ago
I'm glad they dropped it. There are some grounded concerns: * Amazon is one of the most successful enterprises in human history and should not require support from taxpayers beyond their voluntary patronage of Amazon itself. * Most of these "deals" were put together secretly without input from the public. Millions (or in NY's case, billion+) of dollars were packaged and presented without community input or oversight * While amazon is talking about bringing middle and upper-income jobs to these communities, overall amazon has a documented history of paying poverty wages despite its tremendous financial success * State and local governments probably shouldn't be diverting billions of their citizen's tax revenue to lure corporations who will only impact a tiny subset of their citizenry. Does the taxpayer in Buffalo New York benefit if their tax money goes to fund some HQ in Queens, if the bulk of the state's tax capture is just "handed" right back to Amazon? With that said, there's nothing wrong with large organizations asking state and local governments to expedite things like site identification, planning, zoning, permitting, licensing, environmental studies, etc since you're talking about a MASSIVE undertaking during a short window of time. But beyond that, governments should avoid a race to the bottom with this stuff.
- noahA 8y ago
  Would the bulk of the taxes paid by Amazon be paid back? The article said that Amazon would get $3 billion in existing credits (i.e. not deal specific, just business tax credits) and would be paying ~$27 billion. Seems like a steal for NY.
  - spamizbad 8y ago
    Look at this beyond the scope of Amazon. If the basic premise here is that any company should get a tax break if they are capable of hiring enough workers whose tax payments would exceed their employer's tax payments, all you're doing is just shifting the tax burden onto the workers in the form of regressive income, sales, and property taxes.
    - johncolanduoni 8y ago
      For there to be an actual increase in tax revenue for the state via income tax, those workers would have to be receiving higher salaries than they would have otherwise, would they not? Or emigrating from somewhere else, which they would be unlikely to do if they are not receiving an increase in compensation.
inoop 8y ago
> I think there's reason to debate whether large corps should be able to hold an auction like this It wasn't an auction. As the letter points out, each location put in a single, sealed bid, invisible to everybody else. There were no multiple rounds of bidding, as is typical for an auction.
- paulgb 8y ago
  You've literally described a silent auction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-price_sealed-bid_auction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-price_sealed-bid_aucti...
  - inoop 8y ago
    Ah, I stand corrected, thanks!
  - ec109685 8y ago
    No, you mean a blind auction.
- spenczar5 8y ago
  Eh, a sealed first-price auction is still an auction. It’s fair to call it that.
ec109685 8y ago
$27B over 25 years. So the loss of revenue is a little more than one billion a year. And even that seems high. From the proposal, “Amazon will have an annual payroll of $3.75 billion. …There’s been nothing like it in history,” Payroll tax for amazon is about ten percent: https://www.payroll-taxes.com/state-tax/new-york https://www.payroll-taxes.com/state-tax/new-york So, wouldn’t that mean the revenue loss is just 300M a year. And given they are forgiving 3B of that, the revenue over 25 years ends up being 4.5B over 25 years, which is even less. Here are the assumptions built into that $27B number, which was generated by proponents of the deal: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2018/11/15/new-york-amazon-revenue-estimate/2003646002/ https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/alb... Finally, there are 20M people in New York. So 1.2B of amazon revenue per year (high end) equates to $60 a person at the end of the day.

ddebernardy 8y ago

I suspect I'll never get why the notion of giving a tax handout to a company that's one of the most valuable in the world shouldn't be a non-starter. > Incredibly, I have heard city and state elected officials who were opponents of the project claim that Amazon was getting $3 billion in government subsidies that could have been better spent on housing or transportation. This is either a blatant untruth or fundamental ignorance of basic math by a group of elected officials. The city and state 'gave' Amazon nothing. Amazon was to build their headquarters with union jobs and pay the city and state $27 billion in revenues. The city, through existing as-of-right tax credits, and the state through Excelsior Tax credits - a program approved by the same legislators railing against it - would provide up to $3 billion in tax relief, IF Amazon created the 25,000-40,000 jobs and thus generated $27 billion in revenue. You don't need to be the State's Budget Director to know that a nine to one return on your investment is a winner. Actually, you do. Amazon already created jobs in NYC, without any handouts needed. Google recently announced they'd create more jobs, and they didn't expect a handout to do so. By the above logic, a 9:1 return for Amazon jobs is a good deal. What about the Google jobs? Do those count as infinite return? If so, more infinite returns, and less 9:1 returns, please. Or is there something else at work here?

graeme 8y ago
If google creates jobs in long island city, they would get the same handout though. Any company locating there does: it's a program NY state and NYC made to encourage development outside of Manhattan.
- ddebernardy 8y ago
  So in other words, you're suggesting that the handout was baked in from the get go because the HQ was in Queens, and Amazon being Amazon had nothing to do with it? If that's the case, the media have done a terrible job reporting this.
  - CoolGuySteve 8y ago
    $500mm was specific to Amazon in terms of a land grant and property rights. That site is currently a plastic factory next to a Superfund site and the infamous Queensbridge projects though. It's likely the cit/state would make the same concessions to anyone that could place clean high income jobs in the area.

williesleg 8y ago

Cuomo isn't running for president, so no need to shovel money into Andy's coffers. Proof is that Amazon isn't looking for a replacement.

unethical_ban 8y ago

I understand the tragedy of the commons, cities' race to the bottom, Amazon not needing breaks, so on. I also think some of this could have been avoided if people felt like they were part of the process, instead of being told by the state "Hey we negotiated with a behemoth company for them to take over your community - trust me, you'll like it".

tehlike 8y ago
You cant involve public with everything, or it would lead to big overhead
- Brozilean 8y ago
  That's their job ya dingus.
- markkanof 8y ago
  Very true, but we aren’t talking about involving the public in every single decision that government makes. But some of these significant ones might make sense. Especially if the outcome was that the deal went through.
- icelancer 8y ago
  For billions of dollars of tax breaks? I don't think it's asking too much. Washington State manages to have non-binding advisory votes on topics just like this without much complaint.
- sitkack 8y ago
  Efficiency over democracy, everyone is doing it these days!

la6470 8y ago

How much is the tax paid by Mr T and his businesses????

tombert 8y ago

As someone who actually lives in NYC and would probably benefit personally from their HQ2 opening since my property-value would probably go up, I honestly wasn't terribly upset to hear that Amazon was leaving. I am a little annoyed that only New Yorkers are paying the brunt of criticism on this. "If NYers hadn't complained so much then we'd have $27billion of revenue!!". But that's ridiculous; Amazon left NY because they felt like they had resistance, but you wouldn't know this based on the follow-up conversations.

alexandercrohde 8y ago

Reads as unreliable (presumably factually accurate but too motivated to be trusted as presenting a full picture). Anybody who pretends to be thinking about "loss for the city," is full of themselves. It's all politics, and disingenuous to imply otherwise. And morally, most other areas in the country need this more than NYC does. It sounds like the thrust of the article is "Look how stupid the decision making process was!" Well, true politics is petty and unreliable especially at large-scale. But that has no bearing on the larger issue.

rossjudson 8y ago
Factually accurate is a pretty good place to start. If you feel part of the "full picture" or "larger issue" is missing, then feel free to provide it.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  I did. It's a disingenuous political move, swinging clumsily at unions, and hoping to rile up New Yorkers (such as myself).

presty 8y ago

Quote of the Day: "The seventy percent of New Yorkers who supported Amazon and now vent their anger also bear responsibility and must learn that the silent majority should not be silent because they can lose to the vocal minority and self-interested politicians."

k_sh 8y ago
I'm glad we're waking up to this fact. It's not enough to hold a belief... in our system, action is required. I think this is why young people are so frequently screwed by political decisions and policy - we are, uncoincidentally, the age group that votes least often.
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  Voting alone is not enough. In some parts of the world, like Australia, voting is mandatory and as a result lot of people just vote randomly. A good education in civics and history is necessary, as is a belief in the political system and a desire to make a difference in the world through political action. Finally, a strong and independent media that does a lot of deep investigative journalism and does a good job of providing context and background on important issues instead of catering to the lowest common denominator is key, as without it people are much more easily manipulated and mislead.
  - intothemild 8y ago
    As a politics major from an Australian university, and as someone who now lives in Norway. You’re about 50% right. Yes in Australia mandatory voting has some people who “donkey vote” or as you call it “vote randomly” that percentage is almost all the 18-22 range. It’s not till they have to sit through a full one or two election cycles before they start to give a shit. As such my generation has seen the bullshit that’s been handed to us, we won’t stand for it. It is generational because of the two major parties, their “young” version hasn’t had anyone transition from the young party to the major party for members of GenX. It’s only now when the boomers are retiring are we starting to see some younger blood. Why? Cause those that didn’t give a shit, now care and it’s a huge wave of people. Politics are so much more left here in Norway, because people are educated and give a shit. The fucking Christian Right party just came up with the policy to decriminalise all drugs because putting people in jail and fining them wasn’t working. So why not try to help them with counsellors instead. No fines, no jail time... just help if they want it. What’s Australia doing? Well we just voted to dump a bunch of shit in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef because it’s inconvinent for the super rich assholes to ship their exports around it. Got to make a way through it for the ships. That shit won’t last with my generation.

imh 8y ago

>The seventy percent of New Yorkers who supported Amazon and now vent their anger also bear responsibility and must learn that the silent majority should not be silent because they can lose to the vocal minority and self-interested politicians. This like makes me frustrated. It shouldn't be everyone's responsibility to go on twitter or wherever and be loud. Maybe politicians should put in real effort to learn about who they represent. They could engage in the same kind of polling they do during election season, rather than just paying attention to whoever is loudest.

jshaqaw 8y ago
In a perfect world yes. In reality what matters is not how many people support a position but how many will vote based on that issue. If you support something but it is not in your top ten of voting factors (assuming you even vote) then in reality your view doesn’t matter to the powers that be.

deleted 8y ago

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starpilot 8y ago

San Francisco-ization it seems. Liberals going against their own interests. Reminds me of an apartment complex under construction in SF that was forced to include a larger amount of low-income units. The builders found it would no longer be profitable, and ceased building. So lose-lose, prisoner's dilemma, vocal social media forces "won," lacking the cooperative biases that humans normally have. They all end up with nothing.

blacksqr 8y ago
tfw you can't make a profit renting housing in San Francisco.
- pas 8y ago
  Lack of a streamlined and efficient construction approvals process is really hurting (some ?) US cities. Or the real estate developer community is really spoiled there. And by streamlined I don't mean just rubber stamp everything. But instead have clear rules, and check the plans fast whether they are compliant with them. (Basic civil engineering stuff, fire hazard, environmental protection, noise, traffic management, historic status. What else is there to check?)
  - blacksqr 8y ago
    Sounds like there's plenty of stuff to blame besides low-income people wanting a place to live.
    - asabjorn 8y ago
      Yes, but getting more units in a building that won't be build doesn't help said low income residents. This is a moral argument that does not fit the facts we know, and hence can't have a morally good outcome.
      - blacksqr 8y ago
        I was not trying to make a moral argument, but an observation that many seem ready to believe any statement by the powerful no matter how dodgy, while the powerless are assiduously made invisible.

throw2016 8y ago

This reads too much like a one sided political letter by a state functionary. It's curious no such 'open letter' was forthcoming from any public functionary accounting for the losses due to the long list of bank frauds and bailouts? Many here swear by free markets, fair competition and a level playing field and yet do not see the contradiction of letting large companies play regions against each other to extract concessions. Too many times we just see pro business narratives that rehash arguments by lobbyists, bought economists and the business press to support specific business interests and these one sided narratives are now being challenged.

prolikewhoa 8y ago
These people you talk about don't live in those communities and haven't lived in communities that have been destroyed and made worse by big corporations like this. How's Seattle doing? Great for the rich, but not for anyone else. Walk the city streets in Seattle, head down to city mission in Pioneer Square, you'll figure out what the word "despair" really means. I'm glad the public stood up. The workers have power. Guessing this was just another Amazon game to slam unions to portray a massive negative image of AOC & worker power, like they did to collect city data.
- lamarpye 8y ago
  Unfortunately, some other community will have to suffer having so many high paid workers.
  - prolikewhoa 8y ago
    And then face the crippling poverty, homelessness, death, drug problems that come with those high paid workers. They contribute nothing to society, see Amazon in Seattle. Where are the Bezos schools, Bezos housing communities for the poor, where are the Bezos fire departments, Bezos parks? Nowhere. Just because you have different priorities, priorities that are "infinite growth" (cancer), doesn't mean its automatically a good idea. Those workers weren't being employed from NYC and surrounding areas, and you know it. They were coming there to displace people already living there. It's time the lower end of society starts getting a fucking say too.

viburnum 8y ago

If they start handing out billions for corporate HQs it won't stop with Amazon. Google and everybody else will like up for theirs too.

tptacek 8y ago
They weren't "handing out billions" to Amazon, as the letter explains.
asabjorn 8y ago
Amazon would generate $30b in tax revenue over the deal length, for which it would be given a $3b break given certain conditions. That is not a handout, because amazon generated all the money in question.
- viburnum 8y ago
  Okay fine whatever, every other big employer will be lining up for the same deal or threatening to leave.
  - asabjorn 8y ago
    When Queens has attracted enough campuses like Amazons to become an ecosystem no incentives should be necessary. The deal has positives and negatives for Amazon due to its location, and lack of an ecosystem. After Amazon moved 25k jobs there there it would have been hard for them to leave.
deleted 8y ago
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avar 8y ago

> "The RWDSU Union was interested in organizing the Whole Foods grocery store workers. [...]. Organizing Amazon, or Whole Foods workers, or any company for that matter, is better pursued by allowing them to locate here and then making an effort to unionize the workers, rather than making unionization a bar to entrance." I'm not familiar with how this works in New York. Someone who's registering a company needs to negotiate in advance whether the people they hire are part of some pre-existing union or not? Wouldn't Amazon just have started hiring workers, and if those workers decided to organize into a union or join an existing one they'd have had to deal with that then? It seems not, so how does this work?

johncolanduoni 8y ago
Perhaps they were looking for Amazon to guarantee they would only hire unionized workers (or X% unionized workers) for certain positions, as part of the deal?

zaroth 8y ago

Just as a business can grow organically and through capital acquisitions, a city can grow organically or through capital investment. A city can spend money (billions) on infrastructure and public spaces which serves the workers of the companies, and the campuses of those companies. A city can also ask companies to spend billions to help build out those spaces and that infrastructure and in return offer tax incentives. It works out exactly the same. Both subsidies serve the workers and the companies paying those workers in the same fashion.

rdiddly 8y ago

Oh no, New York is crippled from this! They'll never get on the map as a major city now!

protomyth 8y ago

Ironically, much of the visible 'local' opposition, which was happy to appear at press conferences and protest at City Council hearings during work hours, were actual organizers paid by one union: RWDSU. (If you are wondering if that is even legal, probably not). That is a pretty strong accusation to put in writing. I get the feeling that some investigation is going to happen on that one. Paid protestors presented as "concerned citizens" is not exactly a new tactic, but money is a lot easier to track these days.

Spooky23 8y ago
Its very common in NY for high profile issues. When fracking was the cause de jure, hundreds of people were being bussed to Albany weekly to protest. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but it’s a thing.
- protomyth 8y ago
  We do have some experience with it out here in the middle. I have a relative (by marriage) who did a pipeline protest then went to "protest a volcano in Hawaii". Apparently, it was a good gig. I'm just surprised that the NY government put it in a press release. It really seems odd, but maybe that union has really separated itself from the herd, politically.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    I agree — We live in interesting times... the ability of populist agitators to amplify their voices is greater than it has been since the 1930s. There’s a reason why an oddball like Bernie Sanders (and a long tail of others, of all political stances) is a high profile figure in 2019! POTUS has made this new “direct to you” model a thing that people are studying and learning from. Maybe this is a way to test the waters at communicating without lowering yourself to shouting to a mob on Twitter.
  - drak0n1c 8y ago
    Yes, there were people paid to blockade and prevent the construction of a new state-of-the-art science telescope on Mauna Kea. They were successful in pressuring the state to renege on the contract and block construction. I live in Seattle now, and I remember talking to a petition signature gatherer for the recently passed gun control measure (petitions get them on the ballot). He was paid per-signature by a non-profit funded by the Open Society foundation. He said he was doing it Arizona before Seattle, and will keep going around to areas they pay for.

mirimir 8y ago

Great letter! And as much as I support unions, RWDSU really messed up on this.

blacksqr 8y ago

"If New York only allows unionized companies to enter, our economy is unsustainable" Dear workers: you must remain poor and powerless forever, for the greater good.

tptacek 8y ago
Did you miss the surrounding context? His point is that NY has very strong worker protections, and that it's much better to let a non-unionized company set up in NY and then organize it, rather than trying to make organization a condition to entry.
- blacksqr 8y ago
  Isn't the validity and relevance of those points something for the unions to decide for themselves? Some people are still able to distinguish reality from a sales pitch.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    No? I don't understand how you're connecting these dots. It's not like we have to wonder whether the union strategy worked here. It demonstrably failed. Amazon didn't buckle, they didn't accept Whole Foods unionization as a condition of setting up shop in Queens, and the union will not in fact see a single additional job as a result of what happened.
    - blacksqr 8y ago
      "the union will not in fact see a single additional job as a result of what happened" That assumes that all union organizing will now cease or come to nothing, and the unions will get no benefit from keeping a huge, dedicated anti-union company out of their back yard.
      - tptacek 8y ago
        No, it just means that this particular transaction was net-negative for unions.

gcb0 8y ago

> First, some labor unions attempted to exploit Amazon's New York entry. When a company sees a market opportunity and increases prices to take advantage of it (or benefit from tax exceptions, which is the same as generating inflation on everything but their prices), it is praised. When a labor union does the same, it is evil. The 1% want to have the capitalism cake and eat it too. And for some reason we are boasting a letter from the person bought to defend the tax break in the first place. If you want one single proof that this is an "advertisement" for public opinion, i will give one on the very first paragraph: he compares "25,000-40,000 jobs" as if 100% oscillation is an acceptable negotiation scale (hey, i can pay you $100 to $200k a year if you accept now to work 12h a day every day!") and then proceeds to compare it to non-tax exempt jobs. Which is like comparing one thing to another completely different, for either incompetence or malice. Since he is a Budget Director, i will bet the later.

matchagaucho 8y ago

RWDSU... you really need to wake up. The Labor Union movement was making great progress with AMZN, raising the minimum wage of fulfillment centers to $15 hr. Negotiating is a series of compromises. AMZN basically reflected your brinkmanship strategy back into your face. While I wish corporate America was above this, the Unions are the ones that need to learn a lesson here. AMZN conceded to 11,000 Labor Union jobs for construction and services. But RWDSU, you wanted it all... including operational jobs. AMZN just will not capitulate to these tactics. And in fact, they'll go so far as to punish them and set precedence for future projects.

morpheuskafka 8y ago
RWDSU didn't care about the construction jobs being unionized. Why? Because construction workers don't pay union dues to RWDSU. Unions are businesses. They exist to make money via dues, and do enough to benefit employees to get voted in. Once in, they benefit from laws that make it very hard to get them back out. RWDSU saw the dollar signs and looked to enroll new members--mostly people who didn't even live in the state yet and were not members of the local. Because NY is not a right to work state, they would be forced to begin paying dues to RWDSU without any vote or input. A union's product is supposed to be advocacy for workers. But unlike lawyers or publicists, who are hired and fired by the people they advocate for, unions get voted in or established through hiring halls and high-level deals like these, and then they use the law to force workers to pay them for often unwanted or low-quality services.

gesman 8y ago

While economical illiteracy of loud-voiced minority politicians is a fact that played here, I think Bezos just made out of himself a "rich jerk cry baby" who threw "i'm in control and don't need your candy" tantrum. Lose-lose. PS: That said, I'd be scared of how that would affect NYC traffic patterns if plans would go forward.

droithomme 8y ago

Every NY voter needs to read this letter.

sitkack 8y ago

TIL Amazon sells Banana Republics and we all clamor for canoes and paddles.

graycat 8y ago

The problem is old, going back, one example after another, continually to a famous quote of Jefferson about sewage news at http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs29.html http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_spe... So, for a fix, first, mostly ignore the newsies (a word from a Bogart character in the movie The Maltese Falcon). Second, much of politics is trying to get votes from name recognition from shocking statements based on gossip, lies, distortions, made up nonsense, etc. Well, then, the newsies and the politicians have a strong interest in common: For name recognition for votes the politicians want their shocking stories told, and for ad revenue from eyeballs the newsies want shocking stories to tell. There was a similar remark in the movie Lawrence of Arabia. So, the second step is mostly to ignore the politicians. A third step is, for information that might be in the news, fall back to and insist on at least common high school term paper writing standards, rational, responsible content with thorough references to objective, credible, primary sources. With this third step will entertain: Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see and still will believe twice too much. Measure twice and saw once. Essentially everything you see in the media was put there and paid for by someone who wants to influence your opinion (Sharyl Attkissson). It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you do know for sure that just ain't so (In the movie The Big Short and there attributed to Mark Twain). Will conclude that for nearly all the news, printed on paper it can't compete with Charmin and on the Internet is useless for wrapping dead fish heads. A hope is that the Internet will enable many more new information sources with some with lots of credibility and narrow specialization and that the best of these sources will help the US and civilization.

warp_factor 8y ago

This story is so good because it perfectly illustrates the issue with politics today: - A vocal minority of leftists managed to force a silent majority. Once they won, they didn't really know what to do. Now everyone realizes that New York is worse off. - All of the outrage started and snowballed on Twitter, where self-centered politicians decided to use it as a way to virtue-signal. - The press did an awful job on this story: every article got a baked in narrative (From "Amazon was defeated and NYC won", to "NYC Lost and Amazon won"). It is simply very difficult to know what actually happened.

meesterdude 8y ago
> Once they won, they didn't really know what to do. Now everyone realizes that New York is worse off. Not sure how you've reached this conclusion. "Worse off" is subjective.

tamaharbor 8y ago

Has anyone from NY tried to get Amazon back?

Proven 8y ago

Occasional Cortex and the socialist unions got what they wanted. Screw Amazon, NY needs Green Deal and couple trillion in new debt and everything is going to be fine! NY is ruled by corny capitalists and crony labor.

gammateam 8y ago

> The union that opposed the project gained nothing and cost other union members 11,000 good, high-paying jobs. I want to see this feature film so people stop wasting their time with them

numair 8y ago

The fact that this guy is writing this open letter on behalf of the governor’s office, and seems to believe we still live in a 2008-esque Change-We-Can-Believe-In view of tech company largesse, shows how clueless Albany really is. If we have ACTUALLY learned anything from the past century of corporate relationships with muncipalities, it’s that you really do NOT want to encourage corporate monocultures within your cities. It distorts the local economy, creates its own social subculture that often overtakes the town’s existing culture, and presents a giant economic and existential crisis should the corporate giant need to downsize or exit the city (which they seem to always do, and always for someplace that has far more diversity, or a new host for their parasitism). New York State is, if anything, Exhibit A for all of this. The story of Kodak and Rochester, and the years of decline in Kodak’s absence (and before anyone mentions it, yes, I know there’s been a very recent Renaissance) is a story known to pretty much every urban planner who’s been educated in the past 25 years. Yes, you get a really easy bump in total jobs that is hard to replicate through more organic means; but you know, if you want to live in an interesting, dynamic society, you’re going to choose to go about it the hard way. Maybe the evil labor unions ruined the deal. Maybe the politicians flip-flopped. Maybe the tax credits pencil out. It doesn’t matter. There are large numbers of people who didn’t want Long Island City to turn into another Rochester. Or, to put it in a context that might be more understandable to the crowd here, they didn’t want to see Amazon do to their neighborhood what Snapchat and Google did to Venice Beach over the past 10 years. I’m sure the tax receipts are way, way up in 90291; at the same time, it’s not really Venice anymore, and those revenues have allowed the tech firms to hold the community hostage for whatever they want (for example, Google had an arbitrarily placed stop sign and crosswalk put in for their use, and managed to get the LAPD to cart off longtime homeless residents in the process (who, by virtue of the law of unintended consequences, have been replaced by far more aggressive and transient homeless people)). I’d love to see some of these politicians run on the “I stood firm on welcoming Amazon” platform for their next election. I don’t think the ones who flip-flopped into the negative are idiots; rather, they’re smart enough to see the writing on the wall. The tide is shifting, and fast.

jayventura 8y ago

Interestingly, although 70% of New Yorkers felt positively about the Amazon HQ2, I wonder what that percentage looks like for the actual current inhabitants of LIC. For many of the folks I know who rent in Queens, they were very much against the HQ2 and fearful of how it may affect their ability to afford living in Queens. Additionally, many New Yorkers I know who are around my age were very much against HQ2 because we felt that it was already so incredibly hard to even think about owning property in NYC, and that this was just one more notch that would make us feel like the possibility was slipping away. Not everyone works in tech/finance/RE and enjoys the salaries in those industries. Another common fear was how will this affect the subway system? For many of the people I know who were against HQ2, it wasn't about the tax relief. It was about the feeling that the most valuable corporation in the world was going to move a lot more money into the city, and make it a lot harder for folks not in the industry to live. A lot of these concerns where not addressed. It was always about jobs, jobs, jobs. And if they were addressed, it was not communicated effectively.

afiori 8y ago

> Ironically, much of the visible 'local' opposition, which was happy to appear at press conferences and protest at City Council hearings during work hours, were actual organizers paid by one union: RWDSU. (If you are wondering if that is even legal, probably not). Even more ironic is these same elected officials all signed a letter of support for Amazon at the Long Island City location and in support of the application. They were all for it before Twitter convinced them to be against it. Twitter as of now is a cancer in our society. Is is a fine social and sometimes fun, but do not form your opinion on it.

jinushaun 8y ago

People are upset about the beauty pageant. If Amazon had never done their stupid HQ2 search which resulted in the two most obiovus cities “winning”, they would have an HQ2 in NYC already with the same tax breaks. It would’ve all happened behind closed doors.