This seems like an above-the-fold, shock-to-consumer-confidence sort of story, whether or not it should be. Certainly my immediate response was an out-loud “holy shit”, regardless of whether it would actually do great things for New York’s non-Amazon population.
I just said Holy Shit too.
Some NY real estate developers just lost their breakfast.
Let the finger pointing begin…
New York Daily News -
Following months of community push back, Amazon on Thursday announced it was canceling its plan to open a headquarters in New York City.
This seems… significant.
The online retailer has faced opposition from some New York politicians, who were unhappy with the tax incentives Amazon was promised.
Yes, it was only some New York politicians who opposed the deal. Certainly not large numbers of New Yorkers furious over the giveaway of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to an immensely wealthy, exploitative corporation.
Way off my turf here, but I’ve read there’s a tendency with these high-profile deals for the community to go overboard with incentives without really looking to see if the numbers make sense. The celebrity effect seems to make people lose their heads. So maybe here there were people who said hold on, let’s catch our breath and think about this?
There’s a lot to be said about how much NYC wants Amazon, and vice versa. I’m no economist, but I think it’s debatable how much a community benefits from bringing in a very high-paying, very niche set of jobs, especially when it’s an employer which tends to churn through workers and have them take their savings elsewhere. How’s life as a non-tech worker in Silicon Valley, anyway? And that’s before the question of colossal tax incentives.
Much more significant to me is the fact that Amazon is bailing on NYC and not looking for a replacement destination for HQ2. That takes it from a NYC local-interest story and a tax-incentive-economics story and makes me think “holy crap, what are they seeing that the rest of us aren’t seeing yet?”
I think a lot of average NYers are not gonna lose sleep over this one. In fact, its probably a bit of a relief to a lot of people. The tax abatements were probably off the charts. That’s money that your average taxpayer in the city doesn’t get towards city services and other municipal improvements.
Yea!
I wonder if any one else has the Balls to tell Bezos to “go to Hell”. Folks given all the rightful anger with our Economy and it’s continued disparities with the immoral extortion practiced by the likes of Bezos, this is at minimum something that is long, long overdue.
Although I’m not too optimistic that some other location won’t give into the mythical job creation propaganda.
If only he could find a huge cornfield to buy up instead of a large metropolitan area.
U.S. retail sales in December suffered their worst decline in nine years, according to Commerce Department data released Thursday, a potential red flag for economic growth.
Then this from this past Tuesday:
A record 7 million Americans are 3 months behind on their car payments, a red flag for the economy. A record 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their auto loan payments, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported Tuesday, even more than during the wake of the financial crisis
New unemployment claims jumped by about 40,000 from a couple weeks ago.
Aberrations or a trend?
I don’t think they needed the HQ2 as much as were fishing for tax breaks. That being said, to blame the cost of rents and sorry infrastructure in NYC on Amazon’s potential arrival was insane. Amazon NOT moving to NYC is not going to solve any of the issues they were going to be blamed for causing.
Good. Now, use that 3 billion to make 12,000 loans of $250,000 each to actual New Yorkers who have a great idea for a small business. Agree to forgive the loan outright if 2 years from now, the business is a going concern with a payroll of at least 5 people.
Me three! Is the OSG (Orange Shit Gibbon) somehow see this as a perverted victory?
Very good point!
Yup. It will be interesting to see what the Unions, etc, and those who would have massively benefited from this, including those whose property values would have gone up, will do to the local politicians who were showboating over opposing Amazon.
And P.s. I am NOT generally in favor or using tax payer funding to attract jobs. I wish it were banned at a national level. But the “sweatener” of $3B was chump change for an employer who would being in 25,000 jobs. That is just huge, even for NYC. And a far greater payback than some of the crazier things such as Scott Walkers’ deal with FOXCON.
And P.S., a Siena College poll released this week showed that New York City residents supported the project by a 58% to 35% margin, per the Wall Street Journal (sorry, paywall…). So there is going to be some blowback on this in NYC politics.
What good is a tax break to build a huge complex if the whole thing–tax breaks or no–isn’t justified in the profit column? I’m not a businessperson or an economist, but none that I can see.