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

**Bham1982** · November-11-18, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by stasu1213

Bham the average millennial's salary starting out is barely over $40,000.

But we aren't talking about "average millennials". We're talking about six figure jobs generally intended for Ivy League/elite college grads [[or the very best students in regular schools).

That's why Amazon is moving to NYC and DC. The top prospects want to be there.

**Bham1982** · November-11-18, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by bust

Have you guys been to Seattle? A lot of Amazon employees are happily living in cute little craftsman style houses with front and back yards. Seattle is full of them, and you don't have go far from Amazon to find them.

But this is exactly why Amazon is expanding outside Seattle. Top millennials generally don't want this kind of housing. They're having a hard time attracting talent in Seattle, in part because it isn't urban/cosmopolitan enough, and not everyone wants to be in the Pacific NW.

**professorscott** · November-13-18, 10:51 AM

Here's one of the things Amazon cited about their existing Seattle HQ that apparently was an important kind of a thing, and to me, this, all by itself, means Detroit could not have made the cut:

"55 percent of 'Amazonians' commute to work in ways other than driving".

**Honky Tonk** · November-13-18, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by professorscott

Here's one of the things Amazon cited about their existing Seattle HQ that apparently was an important kind of a thing, and to me, this, all by itself, means Detroit could not have made the cut:

"55 percent of 'Amazonians' commute to work in ways other than driving".

Yeah, well, when you're being grossly underpaid and need a job, what else are you going to do?

**313WX** · November-13-18, 12:50 PM

Amazon did have a bit of a surprise with their announcement today. Apparently, Nashville is also getting a 5K employee east coast operations center, average salary of $150K.

**swingline** · November-13-18, 03:01 PM

Originally Posted by Honky Tonk

Yeah, well, when you're being grossly underpaid and need a job, what else are you going to do?

You would have a point if the HQ employees were paid like the fulfillment center people. But not so much when software engineers at the HQ are getting paid $150k. And given that Amazon builds its fulfillment centers in cornfields, the $9/hr folks working there can't use transit to save money.

**aj3647** · November-16-18, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by 313WX

NYC from October 2017:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.amn...nyc-1.14528070

"The city does not plan to offer any additional benefits it has discretion over, according to its Economic Development Corporation.

“Our biggest sell is our talent and the attractiveness, diversity and livability of New York City. Other cities around the country may have more of a need to lead with financial incentives,” said Anthony Hogrebe, a spokesman for the EDC. “Clearly, that and whatever the state is offering will be a component of what Amazon is looking at in New York, but I don’t think that will ever be our biggest selling point.”

Amazon is getting $2.8 BILLION in state and city tax breaks and subsidies to locate half of HQ2 in NYC.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com...on/1986979002/

You were saying???

**313WX** · November-16-18, 09:39 AM

Originally Posted by aj3647

Amazon is getting $2.8 BILLION in state and city tax breaks and subsidies to locate half of HQ2 in NYC.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com...on/1986979002/

You were saying???

Again, NYC did not engage in a bidding war.

Do you know what "bidding war" means?

**Jimaz** · November-17-18, 10:49 AM

The HQ2 Scam: How Amazon Used a Bidding War to Scrape Cities' Data

Cities of the stature of New York or Washington have been pulling away from the rest of the country economically for years. Of course Amazon would need to have personnel there. Amazon knew that creating the pretense of a bidding war would pressure major cities to offer lavish packages, running up the payouts the company could extract. But we should raise the question: Why would any politician give away ten cents in subsidies to bring in a company that they know will set up shop anyway?...

But the biggest suckers on HQ2 aren’t New York and Virginia; it’s the other 236 cities that bid on a headquarters they were never going to get. Those bids didn’t just include the size of the bribe; they included a wealth of important data about plans for transportation, housing, education and workforce development. Amazon now has a treasure trove of non-public information about America’s future, in addition to knowing how much cash cities are willing to part with to land an Amazon facility. And it got all that, along with a giant PR benefit from the bidding war, for free.

Was that illegal? Should it be?

**EGrant** · November-17-18, 10:53 AM

It's not illegal because cities willingly handed that information over.

**Patrick** · November-17-18, 12:27 PM

It's interesting because I live about a mile from "National Landing" [[Potomac Yard/Crystal City/Pentagon City) and very few people are thrilled about Amazon's entry into the area. A lot of people think that the main reason is because of potential work with the Pentagon, and while that may be true, Amazon's selection probably has more to do with GSA's upcoming e-Commerce portal initiative. That is going to be a massive game-changer with regards to how the govt. buys goods and services.

**O3H** · November-17-18, 03:23 PM

Is this the AMAZON everything bucket ?
Because I want to buy a bucket from AMAZON.
What is there website once again, please ?
I heard they ship anywhere, regardless where the HQ is located.

**SammyS** · November-17-18, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

The HQ2 Scam: How Amazon Used a Bidding War to Scrape Cities' DataWas that illegal? Should it be?

NDA’s go both ways. All information must be destroyed after a set time or once the deal expires.

**313WX** · November-27-18, 10:03 PM

Originally Posted by 401don

The more I think about this, the more I would be concerned about how Amazon would drain technical skills from the area. It has been mentioned how Amazon may desire the proximity to the automakers but I wonder how the automakers view this vs. the loss of skilled workforce. Chrysler has been advertising on the radio all week for skilled technical help, including programmers, at an open house to be held for the Brampton plant here in the Toronto area.

In light of this week's news, have your thoughts changed about the poor babies that are the automakers?

**Richard** · February-13-19, 11:51 PM

Seems like a be careful what you wish for situation.

New York is not being to receptive to HQ2.

"Since the Governor and the Mayor announced the Amazon deal, I have joined many to fight it. We rose up and held the line. When a corporation is anti-union, pro-ICE and seeks billions in corporate welfare, we must fight back. It’s not over, but I’m proud of the values we fought for," Council Member James Van Bramer told Newsweek.

https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-new-...opardy-1324573

Interesting how Pro-ICE is lumped in with anti-union,how was that even relevant?

VA is still a go but with only $750 million in subsidies instead of the billions offered elsewhere.

**EGrant** · February-14-19, 07:27 AM

ICE uses a company called Palantir for data and analytics. Palantir is powered by AWS.

Amazon also met with ICE to discuss their facial recognition software, which is a pretty terrifying concept.

**Honky Tonk** · February-14-19, 08:08 AM

Originally Posted by EGrant

ICE uses a company called Palantir for data and analytics. Palantir is powered by AWS.

Amazon also met with ICE to discuss their facial recognition software, which is a pretty terrifying concept.

Why does Amazon need facial recognition software that powerful? That's an interesting question.

**Jimaz** · February-14-19, 08:26 AM

Originally Posted by EGrant

ICE uses a company called Palantir for data and analytics. Palantir is powered by AWS.

Amazon also met with ICE to discuss their facial recognition software, which is a pretty terrifying concept.

‘450 Amazon employees tell Bezos to kick Palantir off AWS’

An anonymous Amazon employee verified by Medium’s editorial staff wrote yesterday that Amazon should not be selling facial recognition software “Rekognition” to law enforcement as it was being used by police departments and Immigration and Customs Enforcement [[ICE) without ethical oversight....

Amazon sells Rekognition to police departments and hosts Palantir on AWS. Palantir provides the software for much of the tracking and deportation systems used by ICE....

A study by the ACLU found that Rekognition incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress, identifying them as other people who have been arrested for a crime.

The members of Congress who were falsely matched with the mugshot database used in the test included Republicans and Democrats, men and women, and legislators of all ages, from all across the country.

Nearly 40% of Rekognition’s false matches in the test were of people of color, even though they made up only 20% of Congress.

Note also that the phrase "Lock 'em up" is now being popularized among the proles.

Gulag Town and the “Little Zone” vs. the “Big Zone”

Be careful what you wish for, wall huggers. You might get it.

**Richard** · February-14-19, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by EGrant

ICE uses a company called Palantir for data and analytics. Palantir is powered by AWS.

Amazon also met with ICE to discuss their facial recognition software, which is a pretty terrifying concept.

Facial recognition software has been in use since 2002.

Plantir though is in way to deep.

JPMorgan used Metropolis to monitor employee communications and alert the insider threat team when an employee showed any signs of potential disgruntlement: the insider alert team would further scrutinize the employee and possibly conduct physical surveillance after hours with bank security personnel.^[40]^[41] The Metropolis team used emails, download activity, browser histories, and GPS locations from JPMorgan owned smartphones and their transcripts of digitally recorded phone conversations to search, aggregate, sort, and analyze this information for any specific keywords, phrases, and patterns of behavior.^[40]^[41]
They also own First Data,the credit card processor most widely used now,which gives them access to everybody’s financials also.

We gave up our privacy for a false sense of security.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies

Still Interesting how NY used ICE support as an example when every gov and private company has excess to the same technology,including their own state and local government.

If one is going to boycott then that is one heck of a list,including not even swiping a bank card or credit card.

We are already a sugar coated China.

We use Bank Of America and first data,BOA has 57 million base customers world wide and that does not even count the other bank cards that are swiped through the system and information collected.

Does not Googles reverse image look up use the same technology?

**401don** · February-14-19, 12:02 PM

Just saw news scroll on tv Amazon has officially pulled the plug on NY location due to opposition from state and local politicians.

**EGrant** · February-14-19, 12:06 PM

Yeah NYC is in no place to complain about surveillance: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/09/new-...ure-going.html

**Zads07** · February-14-19, 06:28 PM

And NYC HQ2 is cancelled. Good on them for not allowing the government to subsidize jobs and a private company *cough cough Ilitches*

**Jimaz** · February-14-19, 07:55 PM

Originally Posted by EGrant

ICE uses a company called Palantir for data and analytics. Palantir is powered by AWS.

Amazon also met with ICE to discuss their facial recognition software, which is a pretty terrifying concept.

Palantir has been mentioned here before:

DetroitYES Forums » Non Detroit Issues » Facebook Scraped by Cambridge Analytica
DetroitYES Forums » Non Detroit Issues » Thom Hartmann » How Spy Agency Contractors Have Already Abused Their Power
DetroitYES Forums » Non Detroit Issues » Thom Hartmann » Thank God for the Guardian

**Wesley Mouch** · February-15-19, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Zads07

And NYC HQ2 is cancelled. Good on them for not allowing the government to subsidize jobs and a private company *cough cough Ilitches*

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.

**Canadian Visitor** · February-15-19, 02:53 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.

Your reading of the motivations of NYC pols may or may not be correct; but either way the result was.

NYC had no compelling reason to subsidize Mr Besos