Amazon Looking for a new HQ - Detroit-Windsor Bid Rejected

**Richard** · February-15-19, 03:07 PM

56% of New Yorkers supported it while 36% did not,so who’s call was it really?

https://cnycentral.com/news/local/ma...ording-to-poll

**iheartthed** · February-15-19, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by Richard

56% of New Yorkers supported it while 36% did not,so who’s call was it really?

https://cnycentral.com/news/local/ma...ording-to-poll

By New Yorkers, they mean New York State residents. I have not seen an NYC-specific poll yet, but I live in NYC, not far from the proposed site, and have not spoken to anyone who was enthusiastic about the project, other than real estate developers.

**iheartthed** · February-15-19, 03:21 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

Had nothing to do with the 'subsidy'/'incentives'. Appears to be because all of the politicians were not really on board and were all fighting for the spoils.

You can pretty much translate 'no subsidy for billionaires' to 'no money&power for me and mine'. See Michael Gianaris.

No, it had a lot to do with the subsidies. A lot of people were not thrilled that the state was paying for jobs, and in turn would exacerbate more immediate problems like transit infrastructure and housing costs. Andrew Cuomo abruptly cancelled a temporary shutdown of a critical subway line between Brooklyn and Manhattan that had been in planning for several years. He did it in order to address concerns that there would be a commuter apocalypse between Amazon workers and the closed subway line. Many of the Amazon workers would have been looking to live in the neighborhood served by that subway line.

**Johnnny5** · February-15-19, 03:50 PM

If I was retailer based in NY/NYC I would be absolutely livid about having to pay among the highest taxes in the nation just to see them used to subsidize Amazon. The same Amazon that spent more than a decade unfairly competing by not collected NY or NYC sales taxes, and two decades taking predatory pricing to an extreme by continually operating their entire retail division at a loss.

I'm not a fan of many of Rep. Ocasio Cortez's beliefs, but her fight against taxpayers subsidizing corporations such as Amazon is definitely one I support.

**313WX** · February-16-19, 07:33 AM

LMAO!!!

Amazon Backs Out Of NYC Deal: 'Why Not Warren?' Asks Jim Fouts

http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/artic...asks_jim_fouts

**Meddle** · February-16-19, 07:57 AM

I stayed away from this thread from the beginning, but people need to get off the AMZ koolaide. The company sucks and should be avoided. They do a lot of things people don't even know about. It's running about neck and neck between AMZ and WM as to who is the least ethical company.

The more Jeff gets kicked in the head, the better. If DonDon, the NY Con could have done even one thing right from the beginning, it would have been to take Jeff on head to head and break the company up and stop all Gov money from going there including all web hosting and file storage.

**Bham1982** · February-16-19, 10:38 AM

Originally Posted by Meddle

The more Jeff gets kicked in the head, the better. If DonDon, the NY Con could have done even one thing right from the beginning, it would have been to take Jeff on head to head and break the company up and stop all Gov money from going there including all web hosting and file storage.

This is a separate issue, though. Amazon didn't get "kicked in the head", an idiot populist cost 40,000 jobs because she wanted to grandstand to her base.

Leftist populists like AOC are almost as dangerous as Right-wing populists like Trump [[though at least AOC isn't in cahoots with enemies of the U.S., a vile racist, habitual liar and delighting in others misery).

But the underlying worldview is largely the same - facts don't matter, all that matters is consolidating power by feeding the fervent, ignorant base. She's a 29-yo former bartender. She has the same [[lack of) public policy knowledge as a 72-yo reality TV star.

**Bham1982** · February-16-19, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by Johnnny5

If I was retailer based in NY/NYC I would be absolutely livid about having to pay among the highest taxes in the nation just to see them used to subsidize Amazon.

That makes zero sense. New Yorkers will obviously pay higher taxes without 40k jobs paying 150k.

The tax breaks Amazon were promised were modest in the context of the job requirements [[basically a $3 billion tax cut on $30 billion of tax revenues).

Americans really need a basic class on finance. I mean, I don't think AOC is lying, Trump-style, I think she's basically an idiot. She probably really believes that NY taxpayers were "giving" Amazon money.

**Richard** · February-16-19, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

That makes zero sense. New Yorkers will obviously pay higher taxes without 40k jobs paying 150k.

The tax breaks Amazon were promised were modest in the context of the job requirements [[basically a $3 billion tax cut on $30 billion of tax revenues).

Americans really need a basic class on finance. I mean, I don't think AOC is lying, Trump-style, I think she's basically an idiot. She probably really believes that NY taxpayers were "giving" Amazon money.

But she has a degree in economics so she must be smarter then the all of Americans that need a basic class in economics.

She is a member of the Democratic socialist party,their goal is to dump the corporations and the government provides everything for everybody for free,one really cannot been seen supporting a big corporation or jobs,then nobody would need the government to depend on.

It has nothing to do with the economics of it all,if it did Amazon would have never settled for the $750,000,000 to locate in the other city when everybody else was offering billions.

It is about sticking it to the evil corporations as a win,no matter what the cost.

Trump could never have broke to company up,they tried it with Standard oil who then just set up separate state companies,Texaco,Amaco etc.,same as when they broke up Ma Bell.

All they do is splinter off into different corporations under the same umbrella,looks good when one can say,see I crushed that evil corporation when they did not actually.

**Worldsgreatest** · February-16-19, 01:37 PM

Wow NYC got screwed! Makes sense though, Brooklyn/Queens types are horrible and insufferable people. They figured that out and left as fast as they could! Hopefully at least this means more jobs in Chicago and the Detroit office.

**Wesley Mouch** · February-16-19, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by iheartthed

No, it had a lot to do with the subsidies. A lot of people were not thrilled that the state was paying for jobs, and in turn would exacerbate more immediate problems like transit infrastructure and housing costs. Andrew Cuomo abruptly cancelled a temporary shutdown of a critical subway line between Brooklyn and Manhattan that had been in planning for several years. He did it in order to address concerns that there would be a commuter apocalypse between Amazon workers and the closed subway line. Many of the Amazon workers would have been looking to live in the neighborhood served by that subway line.

Sure the 'subsidies' rankled many -- me included. But if the subsidy was the main issue, why didn't they go to other cities who offered more?

I would argue that AMZN behaved reasonably here. They know subsidies are given regularly. So they asked for competitive proposals. They didn't focus on subsidies, but they were part of the package.

AMZN withdrew because they came to believe that NYC wasn't of one mind on the deal. DiBlasio saying one thing. Gianaris & AOC another. Not a reliable long-term partner. And if we know one thing about AMZN, they think long-term.

A lot of arguments can be made in favor or against. AMZN thought they had a deal. NYC thought the negotiating was just getting started.

**Johnnny5** · February-16-19, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

That makes zero sense. New Yorkers will obviously pay higher taxes without 40k jobs paying 150k.

The tax breaks Amazon were promised were modest in the context of the job requirements [[basically a $3 billion tax cut on $30 billion of tax revenues).

Americans really need a basic class on finance. I mean, I don't think AOC is lying, Trump-style, I think she's basically an idiot. She probably really believes that NY taxpayers were "giving" Amazon money.

What doesn't make sense? Amazon was being offered a massive multi billion dollar tax break while existing businesses in NY [[many of which are being driven out of business by Amazon) have spent decades paying their fair share. If you don't understand why this is an issue, then I really can't explain it to you.

Here's another nice tidbit about Amazon.

$11,000,000,000 profit in 2018. Federal taxes paid? ZERO!

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/a...180337770.html

**Danny** · February-16-19, 03:38 PM

Amazon corps said HELL NO to NYC!! If they don't give them a tax break. This is how corps deal with governments and the communities. They got the money, they can do whatever they please. Either they help the community or destroy it.

**Junjie** · February-16-19, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

That makes zero sense. New Yorkers will obviously pay higher taxes without 40k jobs paying 150k.

The tax breaks Amazon were promised were modest in the context of the job requirements [[basically a $3 billion tax cut on $30 billion of tax revenues).

What does "$30 billion in tax revenues" mean? Amazon's combined reported tax expenses over the past three years were $3.6 billion. New York is missing out on some taxes those employees would have paid, for sure, but they are not missing out on any tax dollars from corporate Amazon and indeed are probably saving money since not all of the "incentive package" was composed of credits. Given a $3 billion floor, Amazon was never going to pay taxes to NYC as a corporate entity.

“Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the U.S. and every country where we operate, including paying $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years,” said an Amazon spokeswoman, Jodi Seth, in a statement. [Link]

Given all that, it's fair to ask whether 25,000 more jobs is worth subsidizing the local infrastructure and giving direct subsidies to the company. For a place like Detroit I'd say it would be. But New York City has 20 million people in its metro and a $1.7 trillion dollar GDP. New York is absolutely booming economically, is already one of the top 3 tech hubs in the country, and its leaders decided they weren't desperate enough for some more tech jobs to fight significant local opposition. Fine.

**iheartthed** · February-16-19, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

AMZN withdrew because they came to believe that NYC wasn't of one mind on the deal. DiBlasio saying one thing. Gianaris & AOC another. Not a reliable long-term partner. And if we know one thing about AMZN, they think long-term.

A lot of arguments can be made in favor or against. AMZN thought they had a deal. NYC thought the negotiating was just getting started.

A couple of clarifications:

The negotiations were mostly with New York State, not New York City. NYS is the one that offered most of the incentives to Amazon. Governor Cuomo was the lead elected official.
AOC is not a NYS official, so she really did not have any authority over the project. You could argue that she gave it more attention... But nobody gave this more attention than Amazon themselves, due to the way they went about this whole HQ2 circus.

The way Amazon handled this... was pretty amateurish, and it's almost shocking that they did not foresee this as a possible reaction in choosing New York. The reason that they pulled out isn't because they could not ultimately get the tax incentives that the state promised to them. Laughably, the likely reason they pulled out is because they belatedly realized that the way they went about this process, and the animosity of people who were going to be adversely affected, would open the company up to potentially years of bad press.

NYC does not have a shortage of six-figure salary jobs, so that is not a message that tends to override other concerns. What NYC does have is expensive housing, high inequality, and a strained infrastructure. Many people felt that the decision was just thrown on them and that Amazon would just exacerbate quality of life issues that are already present.

**Meddle** · February-16-19, 05:47 PM

I have no idea which cities were on the original list, nor do I care, but I would have expected them to pick a small-ish big city like Birmingham, Al or Macon, GA that they could have molded and manipulated.

**Junjie** · February-16-19, 05:52 PM

Originally Posted by Meddle

I have no idea which cities were on the original list, nor do I care, but I would have expected them to pick a small-ish big city like Birmingham, Al or Macon, GA that they could have molded and manipulated.

Agreed, though I think you're going too small. I would have expected something one click up like Austin or Minneapolis.

**Bham1982** · February-16-19, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by Worldsgreatest

Wow NYC got screwed! Makes sense though, Brooklyn/Queens types are horrible and insufferable people. They figured that out and left as fast as they could! Hopefully at least this means more jobs in Chicago and the Detroit office.

Enjoy the Schaenfreude, but Detroit and Chicago aren't getting one job because of this.

"Horrible and insufferable Brooklyn-Queens types" supported this 70%-30%, BTW [[what does that even mean? Hipsters? Guyanese?). Two crazy politicans, neither of which represent the area in question, got in the way.

**iheartthed** · February-16-19, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

"Horrible and insufferable Brooklyn-Queens types" supported this 70%-30%, BTW [[what does that even mean? Hipsters? Guyanese?).

Fake news.

**Bham1982** · February-16-19, 06:37 PM

Originally Posted by Junjie

What does "$30 billion in tax revenues" mean?

$ The $3 billion in tax breaks would only be fully accessed if Amazon meets hiring/salary requirements, which would mean NY State/City would have received $30 billion in taxes in aggregate. The incentives were basically a 10% break on future city/state income taxes, which is quite modest [[especially in the context of NY city/state taxes, which are quite high on higher earners).

Originally Posted by Junjie

Amazon's combined reported tax expenses over the past three years were $3.6 billion.

Amazon's federal tax burden has nothing to do with anything. If you don't like what they're paying in federal taxes, blame Congress, which just slashed federal corporate taxes to basically nothing. [[which I agree is silly).

Again, Americans need a financial literacy class.

**Bham1982** · February-16-19, 06:39 PM

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Fake news.

The polls are now fake? LOL

AOC supporters really are like Trump supporters. Populists are the same regardless of stated affiliation.

**Bham1982** · February-16-19, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The way Amazon handled this... was pretty amateurish, and it's almost shocking that they did not foresee this as a possible reaction in choosing New York.

This is what I don't get. How could none of their higher-ups anticipated a need for community PR? NYC is like the NIMBY capital of the planet. You could offer every household $1 million in cash, no preconditions, and 30% of the population would be against it.

What sort of sane person would believe that a gigantic corporate expansion wouldn't stir any questions somewhere like NYC or SF? Those places don't roll out the red carpet for corps, you need do PR.

**Wesley Mouch** · February-16-19, 07:22 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

Enjoy the Schaenfreude, but Detroit and Chicago aren't getting one job because of this.
...snip...

NYTimes disagrees. Detroit [[not Chicago) is a likely beneficiary.

see: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/n...n-hq2-nyc.html

**313WX** · February-16-19, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

NYTimes disagrees. Detroit [[not Chicago) is a likely beneficiary.

see: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/n...n-hq2-nyc.html

That article says nothing about Detroit.

**Worldsgreatest** · February-16-19, 09:47 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

Enjoy the Schaenfreude, but Detroit and Chicago aren't getting one job because of this.

In the words of our dear leader Donald J. Trump, WRONG! they made a statement that their other offices would absorb the jobs which includes Chicago and Detroit.

"Horrible and insufferable Brooklyn-Queens types" supported this 70%-30%, BTW [[what does that even mean? Hipsters? Guyanese?). Two crazy politicans, neither of which represent the area in question, got in the way.

No not hipsters. they're all just horrible and pathetic people who are so sure of themselves, you should understand since they're a lot like the idiot low-lifes who live in Birmingham.

I've been and they think because they live in some gentrified hell hole which will be under water eventually that they're better than everybody else in the country. So many ......... elitists and rent burdened morons.