I tell ya.
It's a down right crime that corrupt Republican politicians like Cuomo and De Blasio rob taxpaying Americans to give Republican robber barons like B*Z* $Billions.
How much money got transferred to Swiss bank accounts over this steal. Oops, deal.
I can't wait for the Blue Wave to wash us clean of this right wing corruption.
Make America Honest Again. Vote Democrat in 2020.
5
I'm normally pretty negative on these corporate courtship routines, giving away billions in future tax revenue. But I am excited about this one -- mainly because of the scale. This could be transformative for LIC and Queens.
LIC was a place struggling to find itself in post industrial NY. Once the site of Fitzgerald's Valley of Ashes, it became something of a dump in the late 20th century. A recent spate of condo building doesn't fully address this. But, the scale of this Amazon project just might.
Half my family was from Queens, so I'm a bit biased. I like the idea of new prosperity in the Borough. Now, if only Albany and Tammany Hall could get their act together and figure out how to build a new subway line for less than $2bn per mile, the whole thing might come together.
I really do not understand what the problem is with Amazon coming to NYC especially LIC. We can no longer live in the past LIC and NYC will benefit from the revitalization Amazon will bring. All these people who are complaining and protesting is all that their doing is complaining and protesting but have not provided any alternatives.
@Lucas
Have you ever been to L.I.C.? .... Probably not.
It's highly unlikely that Amazon will do much to improve the lot of this neighborhood, no matter how many promises of "revitalization" they come up with.
And most of the comments I've read coming out of Seattle confirm my suspicions.
The pressure of Amazon's campus may push the development over the Sunnyside Yards, which seems to constantly be talked about but never happens. Maybe the City Council can focus on that, instead of complaining about the loss of what was.
Also, in addition to the 7 and the E trains, there is a Hunters Point stop on the LIRR, so the subways won't bear all the burden of additional commuters.
Just think of the economic benefit New Jersey receives from its residents who work in NYC. Let’s say it’s 200000 people with a dollar value of 20 Billion. With these kinds of numbers you’d think transit would be top notch. That more lines would be built. Etc. but no.
1
So, Cuomo and DeBlasio work for Bezos now? They certainly don't seem to be working for us.
I am really sick and tired of tycoons and domestic oligarchs calling the shots in our cities, our states, and in our government. They are latter day robber barons. The consolidation of wealth and power into so few hands tramples the workings of democracy, sidelines the legitimate concerns of communities and citizens, and stifles diversity and speech. (Yes, the government can't restrict your speech, but corporate entities are less accommodating, to say the least).
In a local sense, this will be detrimental. Our transportation issues, tenuous and stressful as they already are, will be pushed to the breaking point. Housing costs will climb further out of reach for local residents. The sense of community that makes neighborhoods unique, vital, and worth living in will be erased in favor of imported comforts and conveniences. One thing that damages a city like New York is when people move here expecting that it will be just like Middle America and then working to make it so. Some of us moved here to get away from that.
4
Tax Incremental Financing is a relative short term boon for big developers and a long term nightmare for residents who must live with the boom and bust operations of the retail and service industry. I lived in Arlandria for a short time after college and rode my bicycle near Crystal City to my first job in NE Washington, in 1972! Tysons Corner, the first large shopping center in the east, was just built. Years later, in northern Indiana, I found out that TIF financing was a terrible idea for a town like Arlington or Alexandria.
Plug into the money and give ridiculously high tax breaks for decades to those who force vast new unforeseen infrastructure requirements on a city. The invisible hand of the bankers and real estate broker is behind it, and La De Da land is built before you know it.
I hope the city planners of Arlington and Long Island have some regard for the long term heath of their residents before they go forward with this impending project, lock stock and barrel. Just study history. It was terrible in Indiana in 1991, and it is terrible in 2018, even for Virginia and NY. Mark my words. NOTHING has changed. Greed and total disregard for our earth still reigns over all.
2
Wow, crony capitalism, right in my own backyard. I never did like either of these pols, but the choices are so severely limited because people just don't vote in primaries, and this is what we're left with. Ooof.
2
They will never get along. Please don't go to Queens. Thanks.
3
Martin Luther King Jr: "This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor."
Nothing has changed.
6
Amazon paid about $45 million in US taxes last year compared to $724 in foreign taxes. Why put the tax burden on Amazon employees? Why can't the company do the patriotic thing and pay its fair share of taxes? They without our country's infrastructure, they wouldn't be able to operate. They should chip in to help expand and maintain it.
2
Here's a simple solution don't shop Amazon!
3
So Jeffrey Bezos wants to know if the governor and mayor can "work" together to give away New Yorkers' hard-earned taxpayer dollars so he can further destroy competition and neighborhoods.
Jeffrey makes The Con Don look like a piker. No wonder The Con Don wants to try to destroy him.
WE THE PEOPLE are the only ones who can/will stop them all. Good People of New York, Jeffrey has no intention of making anything better for anyone but himself. Please hold your lawmakers accountable and do not allow them to give the one of richest man on the earth - who got that way by stealing from the rest of us - YOUR money.
Not now. Not ever.
Fight like hell. Put the money into fixing your transportation grid. Jeff is only going to make it worse.
3
Amazon is a prime example (pun intended) of how corporations manipulate government to do their bidding. Of course NY and Virginia paid too much to have Amazon. It’s absolutely ridiculous and scary that ANY corporation can wield such power. Before long it will be our Congress that the corporations own (though they have most politicians in their pockets now). Before long it will be the national elections sponsored by Amazon.
3
So many hateful knee-jerk reactions in these comments, it's quite disappointing to see. Especially since 99% of these comments have no idea how complicated the NY tax system is, and the net increase in tax revenue more than offsets the amount being given given.
1
@PQ
That may be true -- but a lot of these comments come from people who know this Queens neighborhood.
Do you?
2
For the 2017 tax year, Amazon paid $45 million in US taxes and $724 in foreign taxes: https://goo.gl/APbDAL
Will the taxes collected from Amazon workers cover the burden on NYC infrastructure? Why should the workers be saddled with that, why shouldn't Amazon do the patriotic thing and pay a fair share of taxes like the rest of us?
3
I feel for the folks in New York, I really do. Cuoma and deBlasio sold the soul of New York for 2 Billion plus on a kiss and a promise. The Democrats rant about the Republicans lining the pockets of the rich and then the Mayor of New York and its governor spend 2 billion in taxpayer money so Amazon can build a new complex. What are you people thinking?
2
Amazon's final question for New York should be how many of us really want them here?
2
LIC is a terrible location. There are only a few options to get in and out of LIC and they all stink. The infrastructure is too old. The subway trains are way above capacity and are it is falling apart. the area is too dense to make driving a viable option and parking options are not good.
There are also no good options to get to LIC from NJ, CT or Westchester. In fact the commute from LI would stink too.
I think most would have to go to Manhattan and then get to LIC from there. That would be tons of fun.
The only affordable housing in the entire NYC area is in the housing projects. Do you think Amazon employees are going to live there?? Plus if you are making $100K in NYC you can't afford to live in NYC.
The should have put it in Hudson Yards or Newark.
24
@P
You’re correct - the transportation is lacking. It should be updated. I think this will make that happen.
5
@Maxie
It would take several decades to get the infrastructure to where it needs to be and countless billions of dollars.
10
@P- yep. i lived in Sunnyside Queens some 30 years ago, which is a stone throws away from LIC. The Queensborough bridge has got to be the worst bridge, next to the Manhattan bridge. might as well invest in a canoe and paddle across the East River, might be a lot faster than the subway, bus or car.
9
I find it astounding that all of you naysayers have concluded based on reading a few paragraphs here that NY city and state have allowed themselves to be robbed by Amazon. Never mind that folks experienced in economic development sharpened their pencils and crafted a deal.
Maybe it’s not astounding but instead a very human reaction to feeling threatened by prosperity around you. Like the stabilized tenant that frets when their neighborhood improves. The public school teacher that refuses to acknowledge successful charter schools.
14
@GC
According to Bloomberg, the subsidy, which from the ESDC, is funded by all NY STATE taxpayers, even those in Buffalo, 450 miles away, come at a cost of $61,000/job.
Those ESDC bonds come with debt service costs, and I doubt that those costs are adequately reflected in the subsidy price.
Those same economic development folks thought that it was a good idea to give the Wilponzi$ $800 million in municipal equivalent bonding authority and the $teinbrenner$ double that to finance their gilded palaces of sin. And a part of the Bronx debacle is the potential default of the corporate entity running the Yankee $tadium garage, which would put taxpayers on 5he hook for that portion of the bonds, due to sheer greed: $35 for ordinary parking, $50 for valet, while 1/4 mile away, at the vertical mall at Bronx Terminal Market, you can park for $20.
Or look at all the tax breaks Trump and 5he Kushners have reaped. And both have savagely forced out rent stabilized tenants illegally.
18
You posted one of the best replies. It’s a win win for NYC & NYS.
3
Lots of jargon but bottom line is that while NY has put its name on the bonds it does so to provide a subsidy by making the interest payments tax exempt, thereby reducing Amazons borrowing costs. Those buying the bonds risk a default by Amazon. NYS is not a guarantor nor is it are “on the hook”.
6
I live nearby in Jackson Heights. I am completely opposed to this. It will destroy our wonderful neighborhoods as rents sky rocket.
Change is inevitable. However, it is wrong to make me (a tax payer) pay to destroy my home, and it is unfair to the businesses who aren't getting the same subsidies.
It is bad for democracy to concentrate power in the hands of small collection of big businesses.
DeBlasio is a perfect example of why the left is held in such contempt. DeBlasio talks about caring about the working class. However, here he is. Stabbing us in the back and making us pay for the privilege.
DeBlasio and Cuomo are terrible for NY. Amazon is terrible for NY.
47
@XY
DeBlasio went along because he held no cards. Cuomo gave up the subsidies without input from the Mayor, the City Council or even the state legislature. All it took was Cuomo telling his appointees on the ESDC to do it, and even the taxpayers in Binghamton and Buffalo are on the hook for the bond costs.
7
Oh, wow. Amazon chose New York and Washington. What a surprise. We'd all wear our shocked faces if they weren't already creased from Trump's daily faux pas.
Now the two most vibrant economies in the nation will have a cup more wealth added to the ocean of it they already enjoy while former economic behemoths like Cleveland, St. Louis, and Cincinnati languish. Even stranger, the two winning cities were as willing to give away the farm as, oh, say, Columbus or Pittsburgh, which aren't on anywhere near as many dance cards as even a prosperous suburb of NYC and DC.
The Amazon 20 city list was not only a ruse for the company to employ so that it could learn what it could milk out of potential locations, but, for the rest of us, it was a statement about the only places in America that prosper right now, throwing in Amazon's first HQ city Seattle, and nearby Portland.
Much has been written about the renaissance of American cities but that is misleading. Cities from Buffalo to Albuquerque have buffed up their downtown visages, and started offering downtowns and districts with cafes, bakeries, and boutiques. Yet they still flounder.
Amazon exposed the zeitgeist that there are only about 20 or so "cool towns" deserving of investment, and it is in those places where all the job creation and growth are happening. As for the rest of the nation, let them eat cupcakes.
2
Just one more disgusting example of a mega-corporation blackmailing the American taxpayer.
Jeff Bezos' personal fortune is fast approaching $200 Billion... Yet, his money-lust ethos still demands an extraction of $2 Billion more from a city struggling with rampant homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, and financially distressed schools... All so he can continue his mission of drastically overworking and underpaying his workforce while destroying brick and mortar retail businesses all around the world, and the millions of jobs attached to them.
Amazon is a scourge - a siphon ... a trillion dollar Dirt Devil sucking the wealth from the fabric of society.
This latest "deal" with New York is just another example that no amount of wealth will ever be enough for Bezos until he, and a handful of other soulless multi-billionaire scoundrels, own absolutely everything.
This is no longer a trend... It is a destiny. Just last year, Trump and Republicans gave these monsters another $1.5 Trillion dollar tax cut to accelerate the process. I have little doubt that Bezos' personal share of that "middle class" cut was in the tens of billions...
We are suckers.
67
@Jeff-They also pollute like crazy: vehicles delivering goods, cardboard boxes up the yazoo, non-recyclable styrofoam peanuts, bubble pack.
4
@Ann
Peanuts are passe. Amazon uses those air pillows which are recyclable.
NY state taxes are among the highest in the nation, but we can’t afford to fix the transit system, our public housing is crumbling, tuition at state universities is soaring. Where is the money going? It’s pretty clear. You and I are subsidizing Amazon. It should be the other way around. Amazon benefits from its employees being able to get to work, live in safe affordable housing and be educated. End corporate welfare now. It’s time for corporations to pay their way.
76
@Rosary
You don’t think the new Amazon employees - high wage employees will be paying taxes AND buying things (sales taxes) and using services and eating at restaurants, etc., etc., etc. - more jobs=more taxes=more money available for improvements in transportation, etc.
This is GOOD for the area.
9
@Maxie - $100,000 per year in NYC won't get you far. Maybe a run down studio in Hell's Kitchen. As for dining out, it will get more expensive not less. So too with other purchases. You need ot make twice tgat to live an average , former middle class life style. Don't forget, improvements in transportation are at least 10 years awayto start. The subway system is old and to fix it(that in itself will be a nightmare with regars to congestion and delays due to reconstruction) will take $100 billion or more over 20 years. Amazon may just bail ot when they see what they got themselves into.
4
Absolutely! This is corporate welfare, and it is disgusting that we have to pay taxes but corporations get a free ride. This should never happen. 48K for each employee. Pathetic!
4
As a long time tech worker and Silicon Valley alumnus, let me tell you with 100% certainty that this "search" was never intended to be real or authentic.
The reason I say this is, you have to look at this search through the tech world lens.
At the risk of sounding patronizing (and I promise I don't mean it this way)...
Lens #1 (Normal person thinking): "Oh, cool, Amazon is looking for a new HQ. I am sure they'll pick someplace that offers attractive tax incentives and is affordable for its workers with good schools and plenty of room to ease congestion. What an opportunity for an untraditional tech city!"
Lens #2 (Tech worker lens) "We don't need money in the form of tax breaks. We already have all the wealth we'll ever be able to spend. What do we want? Absolute power -- both political, lobbying power (DC) and media power (NYC). Our 'search' will give us good PR and plenty of market data on the fake candidate cities competing for us, that we can turn into ecommerce insights."
Don't get me wrong. I am sure Amazon got some breaks, but that was not the deciding factor. They'll build a few parks, give some schools some laptops, and do a full tilt PR campaign about how they're improving their new hub cities, but the reality will be more rich people, higher cost of living, increased congestion...but it won't be the Amazon folks who are inconvenienced while they ride their private shuttles to work. It will be the locals who were there before.
340
@Michael
I'm afraid you're correct. I read recently from several resident who live and work in Seattle and they were not happy that Amazon moved in. Gone were the affordable rents and their way of life. In moved the tech snobs. I feel sympathy for those who reside in Long Island City, they will ruin it. Cuomo at work yet again. Too bad the residents of Buffalo who desperately need jobs didn't have a governor who fought for them. Amazon Cuomo indeed.
33
@Margo Channing, Bezos picked NYC, not Cuomo. And for all you know, it may be very positive for LIC residents. Bezos is the richest man in the world; he can make a positive difference in the community and build some affordable housing for those being pushed out. He can ask the city to make them rent stabilized apartments so noone is pushed out.
3
@kay : "Bezos is the richest man in the world; he can make a positive difference in the community and build some affordable housing for those being pushed out. He can ask the city to make them rent stabilized apartments so noone is pushed out."
And this is where we all throw our heads back and laugh.
Personally, I don't know Bezos, nor have I gotten the impression that he is malicious sort of CEO, but I won't put it past him to do what every "winning" CEO has done before him, to take advantage of capitalism for his advantage.
28
"So Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo agreed to let the state control the approval, meaning there could be local input but no local veto."
You mean local veto, like when citizens led by Jane Jacobs, stopped Robert Moses from paving over the Village? We seem to be living up to our motto, "The Empire State."
This is as troubling as our taxes subsidizing one of the worlds wealthiest corporations.
2
And when it's time for New York City to pay teachers and firefighters and police and transit workers-- the people that actually provide something substantive to the very city within which they can't afford to live-- you know precisely what we are going to hear. "Well, it's going to be tough. I mean we can't pay all of these folks blah, blah, blah..."
3
Well my goodness, it seems the public is here to serve Amazon. Isn't that a little backwards? I am quite sure Adam Smith did not have this contortion in mind.
1
Why did they even bother teasing smaller cities? NYC and the DC area. And a nice leftover for Nashville. But for the main course, they didnt want municipalities in the heartland and other southern states. They may have good reasons for that, available workforce being one of them. But why the big tease? Just put that out in front to begin with.
LIC could go back to being a factory town after all....the 21st century version of one.
1
This all comes "conveniently" a week after the election for Governor of New York State. Governor Cuomo knew New Yorkers would not want to subsidize an $800 billion market cap company with corporate welfare to the tune of $1.5 billion. If this was announced two weeks ago a democratic process could have played out with New Yorkers voting and getting a say with how our tax dollars are spent so that they are not abused.
Our system is broken when two elected officials (Cuomo and DeBlasio) have the power to hand over $1.5 billion of tax breaks to a company the size of Amazon with no vote by the people, no vote by the city council and no oversight for this abuse of power. I thought we lived in a democracy but this is an act of an authoritarian rule.
The city council elected by New Yorkers to oversee local land use and opine on incentives was completely left in the dark. Just read the public statements from the council speaker as well as the local city council rep and state senator.
Our infrastructure is maxed already. We need new subway lines, capacity and new roads. We need investment in our local schools. There are not enough seats at gifted and talented schools and classes maxed. That's where our tax dollars should go. Not reimburse Amazon $48,000 per employee. New York has many wonderful things and you don't need to give corporate welfare to be here.
NYT: How can the citizens of New York challenge this abuse of power and state and city funds?
11
@Justin Cuomo ran for his third (!) term with no concrete plans for improvement for the State. He presided over the mismanagement of the MTA for years. His re-election platform was 1- I'm not Trump; 2- look at all the great things I did before; 3-I've raised more money than anyone else for this race.
The day before the election he said this at a press conference: "I'll change my name to Amazon Cuomo if that's what it takes," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said to reporters on Monday in reference to his determination to land Amazon's second headquarters, HQ2.
This deal is consistent with who he has shown us he is for years. There really was no surprise here.
Federal legislation is required to stop local politicians from giving away taxpayer $. It needs to be stopped across all municipalities, states, and cities w/o exception.
7
It is unfortunate that the details of this NYS giveaway did not become available until after the recently-concluded election.
7
I read that one of the criteria that Amazon was looking at in choosing a location was the condition of traffic. Obviously they were lying about that to mislead any speculation. Washington DC metro area has some of the worst traffic in the nation and that area where they chose in Virginia is a bit of a choke point. During rush hours it's quite congested. It's right next to the Potomac River so that's one direction traffic can't travel. There is a reason all of those government buildings are vacant. They built and relocated elsewhere because of the traffic and the threat of terrorism, car bombs and whatnot. It's almost impossible to defend from a car or truck bomb. I know this because the agency I worked at built and relocated and there was much discussion about where and the effect it would have on traffic. They weren't in Crystal City but built on a military base not far away. Traffic was a huge consideration because gridlock is a serious and regular occurrence, especially when the roads ice up or even when it snows. There is however a metro line that goes through, but it's not well managed and may be over crowded.
The cost of housing is outrageous. They are going to have to pay the workforce a lot of money just for that.
It's going to be a chore working for Amazon in Virginia. The daily commute takes about three hours off your day. They will have to work military hours to avoid the traffic.
3
So let me get this straight; in order to make billions of dollars for a billionaire, New Yorkers are going to give Amazon billions of dollars? All of this is to reward a giant corporation that puts small businesses out of work. Yeah, makes a whole lot of sense.
10
@Mickey
They are putting big businesses out of business. Shopping malls are closing down because of Amazon, and they only recently began charging taxes on purchases.
2
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
New technology changes the game. Change happens. There used to be ice workers before refrigerators.
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Yup, and big as well.
Over-the-top rich corporation Amazon should be the one paying New York for supplying the talent pool, public services, culture and infrastructure to locate here, not vice versa.
Another example of a rich company leveraging its money with politicians to extract money out of the public coffers, instead of just earning it.
7
Well, there goes the neighborhood. LIC can wave good-bye to its wonderful vibrancy and sense of community. It will soon be a sterile office park. I would bet that none of the members of the site selection committee have ever tried to drive across the Queensboro Bridge between 3 PM and 7 PM. Boy, are they in for a nasty surprise.
4
@Mike Gera You make good points, but I doubt that any upper-level Amazon executives will ever feel the impact of the congestion surrounding LIC. But they will have to figure out a way for their professional workforce to get in and out at all hours, safely and without too much hassle.
Was this a real search, or did Amazon just go through the motions to make it look like it had not already chosen the nation's financial and political capitols?
1
Readers make a point about the 2 billion in tax incentives — fair enough — but of course they blame all Democrats. Then conveniently forget the 1.5 trillion in tax cuts given to the already wealthy, by Republicans.
1.5 trillion is the same as 1,500 billion. And we get nothing for it... no infrastructure, some piddly small amounts of extra cash in paychecks... the middle class still doesn’t realize the surprise tax bite they’re going to get come April 15th, 2019.
6
Cuomo and DeBlasio get along great while fixing the MTA. Now they can do this, too.
I was alarmed and complaining when NYT, HRC and Gillibrand supported Cuomo for Governor.
Mr. Cuomo's creation of big empty buildings across upstate, at our expense, which led to indictments and guilty pleas, is now to be repeated. Why not have Google move to Syracuse or Buffalo where some of these empty campuses live? The one near me is a "nanotechnology center" that was also touted for fimmaking. Should be perfect.
Tell you what: Go ahead as long as Trump reappoints Preet Bharara to head up the Southern District. He should request Barbara Underwood, too - not to take anything away from current legal talent but we need more of them, and more money for them.
3
I get that the NYC community chosen already has in place buildings and areas that can be reconverted. I wish Queens no ill will. That said, the racial politics of Amazon's relocation choices can not be ignored in Maryland and Virginia.
Let's start with the name, "National Landing." I guess it's just a coincidence that it sounds a lot like "National Harbor," the beautiful, waterfront development in predominately black Prince George's County right across the Chesapeake Bay from Alexandria and Crystal City. It already has roads and an infrastructure for growth, room for offices and retail to expand, restaurants, etc. Just too black for the Bezos crew. So Amazon's answer, steal the idea and white-wash it with a new name.
Prince George's has a powerhouse STEM high school, UMD's highly ranked business and engineering programs, never has Virginia's congested roads, and housing costs that are way more affordable. It also is racially diverse.
Prince George's was eliminated without comment by Bezos. All white areas in DC, MD and VA remained in the running. I hope African Americans will think about this before they put another dime into Amazon purchases. Retail racism is very powerful, and limits the growth of even affluent black communities. Destination style furniture stores, retail outlets, restaurants and major employers consistently refuse to locate in upper middle class to high income black neighborhoods.
Why subsidize wealthy Bezos and apparent racism?
8
@Sierra I don't disagree with your sentiments, but you cant ignore that this will create opportunities for the residents of the Queensbridge houses. Which you may not know is the worlds largest public housing complex and is a 5 minute walk from the selected location..
@Sierra
Your argument is clouded with racist this and racist that accusations. That area called National Harbor has yet to take off and really bring in business. It's not in a very good location and road access is limited. The local government is also corrupt. There was a news report about it just a few days ago.
@Esteban Please re-read my comment. I start off by saying I understand why he picked Queens. I am not disagreeing. I am pointing out the racism Bezos showed in Virginia and Maryland, not New York.
Keep building apartments but cannot rebuild the subway and bridges, and more roads, unless you want to dig more tunnels? Or make more over-roadways? The transportation system now is overloaded already.
3
All I can think - is more traffic congestion in two cities that already have to deal with gridlock. Not to mention the antiquated airports that serve them. Glad I do not have to commute or shuttle back and forth there. Ouch.
2
The Blas and Cuomo think Amazon is going to be the "magic bullet" that fixes the MTA and subways, their deluding themselves and fellow New Yorkers. This project seems a like a bridge too far....
1
Why is any city or county or state giving Amazon $2 billion when Bezos himself could put out the money and never miss it?
This is welfare for the uber rich.
6
Jeff Bezos lost our confidence last month when he decided to strip his workers of stock awards and monthly bonuses shortly after promising to lead Corporate America by raising Amazon’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.
To regain it, Bezos must prove that he is a modern capitalist who embraces sound business ethics and corporate responsibility. This means Bezos should conduct his business deals in good faith. This means Bezos should ensure that Amazon is considerate of the well-being of all stakeholders it affects, not merely its stockholders.
Bezos should restore stock awards and monthly bonuses to Amazon’s workers. He should refuse the roughly $2 billion in tax incentives Amazon stands to gain from New York and Virginia as a result of the new split headquarters in those states and the eventual number of jobs created in them.
One reader made an excellent suggestion: Bezos should locate the headquarters, or, at this point, a headquarters, in Detroit, a city that is developing after decades of mismanagement and deterioration. This would be a patriotic gesture that would help bring much needed jobs to Detroit, one of America’s great cities, and help rebuild its middle class.
However, considering the immense wealth of Amazon and Bezos, such a move would be unremarkable. Bezos and Amazon should make a bolder effort for Detroit. What about an Amazon-funded private K-12 school system and a private college, specializing in business, science, math and 21st century job skills?
2
"They wanted to just trust-but-verify ..."
I wonder if people realize that Ronald Reagan did not invent that phrase, which he made so famous when negotiating with the Russians way back when. It's a very old Russian expression.
2
I can't believe NYC paid Amazon $2 billion to ruin their city.
Trust me. Alot of new people will arrive. They will need places to live, which they will be able to afford. And current residents will see the value of their homes skyrocket, which is good. But you won't be able to cash that value out, because that usually involves moving further from work and thus sacrificing quality of life. And, finally, your kids will be living with you until their 30's.
You paid $2 billion for that.
5
@Gary Sharp
On balance I find Amazon's presence here a plus. Many old timers are millionaires on paper (real estate). The social scene is wonderful, growing widely in the last 15 years. Neighborhoods are thriving. Give it time, NYC and VA, you may be surprised.
@Bill F. Yes, I'm rich on paper. So what. I'm a decade from retiring, and if i cash out now and move to Buckley I can afford a mansion-which I will never enjoy as I spend 4 hours a day in my car. In the meantime, our kids have to pay $500k for a starter home, and that's in the 'burbs. Yes, city neighborhoods are reinventing themselves, and that's great. That is, if they can avoid the hordes of homeless RV campers now ruining neighborhoods in Ballard, West Seattle and Rainier Valley.
I'm sorry, but I was on the Amazon bandwagon until recently-I just don't think the explosive growth has been worth it.
They are emblematic of what's wrong with the democratic party. Raging egos that prevent real work from getting done.
4
Why didn’t voters in NYC have the opportunity to vote on whether we would allow almost $2 billion dollars in tax credits to be given to Amazon for bringing their HQ2 to Queens? That seems like something that citizens should’ve weighed in on.
11
Also: kind of bait and switch don’t you think? — it’s not really HQ2, it’s more like one of 2 satellite offices. (Not exactly how the Gov. and Mayor were justifying $1.5b taxpayer-funded “incentives.”)
3
@Ray
Someone pointed out that they got a bunch of cities to do millions of dollars of research and hand over their data to Amazon.
But then, we hand over tons of data to them all the time. Your browsing history, what's in your shopping cart, how long it's there, which price drop makes you complete the purchase. And now what you charge on your Amazon Visa card at whole Foods and elsewhere.
2
Multiple articles on n NYT about amazon? Is shopping really that important? This company seems to be really selfish. Can we have more articles about how to create a culture that is not just about money and products?
4
Messers Cuomo and de Blasio how many of these jobs will be filled by H1B Visa holders? You've sold out the middle class again, your donors thank you.
4
Elected officials in New York, mainly democratic party this time...giving away billions in tax money to the monopoly company killing tons of small businesses...still wonder why ordinary citizens are sick of established politicians and officials???
7
' Funny how Cuomo chastises Trump's Jobs Creation Tax Act which contains specific provisions aimed at incentivizing multinational corporations to put or move back operations to the US but it's fine for him to use the same strategy for NYC. And oh, BTW, you all upstate can pound sand(i.e., no fracking but here's another casino to foster "economic growth").
What delicious irony: the Repubs can sit back and watch the Dem Left eat their own in 2020...
4
Much better for New York City and New York state and, probably Amazon, would be an upstate city like Buffalo or Syracuse. Or Schenectady, which is losing GE.
If you build it, they will come, for high wages but also, more important, for the related jobs and small businesses that make up a thriving community. Plenty of affordable, beautiful housing. Amazon - do something positive for a place that will truly benefit from your presence. Pay taxes into communities to help the public schools, improve public transportation, bring high speed trains to connect isolated upstate areas with access to culture, universities and airports. NYC is too crowded and expensive already.
Do some good for the rest of us.
6
The contemptuous smirks of DeBlasio and Cuomo remind me of of the pleased expressions of von Ribbentrop and Molotov after they signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, agreeing on how they'd carve up Poland. The citizens of Queens, indeed the whole city, are the new Poles, their desires and aspirations for their city trampled underfoot by political and billionaire oligarchs.
5
This is great for New York and for Long Island City. All these nay sayers can't get past their socialistic crying about how a company (Amazon) makes a lot of money and then gets incentives to choose New York. If not New York, Amazon would have picked another site and that local economy would have gotten the many thousands of jobs, additional revenue for local businesses and tax revenue from all those added workers. As an aside, this was always Cuomo's deal. DiBlasio doesn't and can't play on the same field as Cuomo whether you like Cuomo or not.
4
@Charlie
I thought giving out taxpayer money was the essence of socialism. Apparently not if it goes to large corporations headed by multi-billionaires. But sure is if it pays for health care, SNAP or CHIP. By god, those people are undeserving!
2
I get that Cuomo finds Albany boring, but why is he always in NYC acting like he's mayor? He's at every city tragic event and every celebration. He's Trump-like in his need for the spotlight.
4
@Ed
Cuomo is a practical leader and closed the deal. The mayor is a dreamer and gets very little done. Both were needed in this case and they played their cards well. Kudos to both! As for the Trump comparison, Cuomo is a master politician and apparently a better deal maker than Trump.
Albany is not only boring, it has been dysfunctional for years. The NYS Assembly is dominated by Democrats but the Senate has been GOP-controlled, so The Governor’s job of passing and signing legislation has been like herding a group of cats. The Dems will control both houses in January, so maybe things will change.
What happens or doesn’t happen in NYC is critical to the entire state, and it is the engine that drives and pays for the vast majority of the rest of the state. So it is essential and logical that he is involved in critical issues like this in NYC.
$1.2 billion and counting. Money that will not be recovered by the State & City in my lifetime (I'm 70), and given the experience of Seattle, probably never.
25,000 jobs? Not for New Yorkers (except maybe for the construction workers). Almost all those jobs will go to people moving in. Meanwhile, more local people will be dislocated.
3
If we assume that the incentives are a good thing what about the smaller companies that bring in of jobs? Where are the monies for them? Where is the expedited city planning? And where is the helipad?
At the end of the day we all know Amazon doesn't need the financial incentives.
6
Paraprhasing David Sirota: Millions for a helipad for Bezos; not one cent for the subways. I like this one, too, I forget where I saw it: "Amazon is not bringing 50,000 high-paying jobs to New York. It is bringing 50,000 people with high-paying jobs. They are not going to save your neighborhood; they're going to replace it." And you!
11
This business hub has been of great importance since 1641 when the Dutch first created New Amsterdam. Everyone should remember this trading post isn't without fault and controversy, and yet we make it work.
For the past 12 years, Long Island City has been experiencing rapid development. This area of Hunters Point has been in need of a final clean up. It seems people are not well informed of what that immediate area looks like. As usual, one too many seem to have a strong aversion to such growth and expansion.
Sure, can the two adjacent train stations handle the added weight of humanity?
There are thousands of rental units within walking distance to the proposed site; Are Amazon workers be able to afford the rents?
The MTA & Port Authority infrastructure needs several Trillion dollars for a complete overhaul, and yet, city and state representatives continue to give enormous Tax Abatements to capture much-needed Tax revenue.
If Hudson Yards aka RELATED was able to have the 7 train extended, why not add a Vernon Blvd stop to the existing line.
Cuomo stated that the ROI is $9.00 for every $1.00 spent. I think he needs to make that proforma public.
I was mildly amused at how far apart Cuomo and de Blasio were seated. You could taste & smell their mutual dislike and yet managed to be cordial.
Shame many continue to be so negative toward business expansion. I see this new building as a vast improvement over what’s currently there.
1
If anything could bring De Blasio and Cuomo together, it's sacks of developer bucks! Serving the people of New York City... not so much.
3
@Greg
Exactly how is bringing 25,000 good paying jobs to the area, diversifying the economy, and expanding the tax base not serving the people?
2
Any additional infrastructure to support this influx?
2
Good gracious! Don't all cities, towns and states offer incentives for companies to locate to their areas? Why all the complaints? For all its issues be happy that Amazon chose the East coast locations. The decision may spur more companies to open in those areas especially, Queens. As for the staggering rents, they are already high! When they go higher that will not be Amazon's fault for paying their employees well. Lay that blame where it belongs at the feet of the landlords. It seems to me incentives are they only way to convince any company to open near the projects.
3
@Regina
They do, and they shouldn't. They are picking corporate winners and subsidizing them with our tax dollars. Corporate welfare pure and simple. Whatever happened to that highly touted free enterprise we hear so much about?
Resistance is futile. Money/capitalism won. Humanity and Love Lost. But, there are little pockets of hope here and there.
3
I'm an Amazon customer but I'm uncomfortable with a business behemoth essentially telling elected officials what to do. Of course they do it now all the time but it further reduces us as a democracy
7
Now that one the richest companies in world history has extracted bribes from the government for the kind favour of locating in NYC, the logical next step is directing elected political leaders to do as Amazon sees best. Pretty soon elections won’t be needed. Brave New World unfolds.
5
Many people think bezos will run for president
Are you just realizing this is how it has always worked or merely verbalizing it?
There is zero anyone can do about it. Politicians are only concerned with their careers, and the 99.99% will continue to be subjugated like the machines they are.
Business has always controlled how much works.
Take care of your health, loved ones, and be happy. Worrying about something that is beyond control is futile.
Now make this same size investment in people who are not in this "corporate" sector.
6
What happened to ' if you build it they will come '?
Weren't there other parts of the country, say the Detroit area, that could have seriously benefitted from the influx of Amazon's river of jobs and all that means?
To say an area has qualified workers is ludicrous. Why on earth would the clogged-up northeastern, might go under in the next direct hit hurricane upper right hand corner of the US be the recipient?
I love NYC and lived there many years but the state just re-elected a governor that hates Manhattan and is too thick to see that the subway is essential to the workings of the whole state.
Maybe Chris Christie can be Amazons first CEO?
3
Worry about California, thanks. We’ll take care of ourselves here in NYC.
1
I doubt Bezos will step aside
@Dkha
Worry about your earthquakes, fires and mudslides, California. The qualified high-tech talent will want to live and work here.
Cuomo doesn’t hate Manhattan and Manhattan returned their love for him in his recent re-election. Queens did too.
Christie as CEO? LOL. He’s toast locally after Bridgegate.
Some of these companies make promises but never deliver. In Brooklyn a promise was made to created many jobs to build the Barclays Center. There were many disgruntled hard hat workers who never got any jobs. They also promised some affordable housing. Keep in mind they used eminent domain to achieve all this. Did the affordable hosing materialize? If you ever read Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot you know the answer. This means high rent pushing more people into homeless shelters. The city should never circumvent the city council. They need to be part of this. And there should be public forums for commentary by the public to discuss anything that might adversely affect housing and transportation. So many companies want to come here like tourists who want to come here. Why do we need to give tax breaks to the richest company in the world to come here to do business?
6
The NY Times article on 535 Carlton Ave on the Barclays footprint is especially poignant.
These giant projects don’t seem to work well in all cases. Barclays area development money has run out and there’s just endless open construction yard and 50 % occupied overpriced rentals.
But, Hudson yards in Chelsea may be successful.
I’m sorry but most of these comments are completely ignorant of the realities. Let’s lay out the impact.
- 25k high paying jobs. Between state, local, property, payroll taxes etc. the company will have a net positive on the tax incentives with 5-8 years. Then all net positive. Add in business taxes, and it is quickly becoming a goldmine that will drastically help families in the area.
- building the buildings, increased food needs, entertainment, all new jobs and NY revenue for related businesses and their families. Amazon employees are also way more likely to use public transit, shop artisan, shop local, and vote dem. Long term will be all benefits to local residents.
- the only tangible issue I see is that housing in the surrounding area will increase in cost. Not the entire city - 25k and their families is a blip in the radar, but the immediate area yes. Thankfully with public housing, those properties are protected so even that impact is limited.
Stop this moral outrage for the sake of being outraged and because it “sounds good”. I’ve seen no compelling arguments as to why this won’t be good for NY
9
@Hunter R.
The comments are illustrative of the mindset here. Dislike of Amazon must be the only area of agreement between the Times readers and Trump.
@Hunter R.
Well said.
@Hunter R. The argument is not that the process will not be good, but that the wealthiest company in the world did not need subsidizing to do this. Bezos would have moved here without the gifts.
Sure, give billions of our free money to already-successful companies. Meanwhile, start-up founders like myself have to struggle to get our companies off the ground. Why not invest in new startups instead?
10
Big mistake New York - as much as the city has changed and gentrified, this will make it even tighter and catering to this corrupt corporation.
5
@Mcacho38
I agree - NYC is great, and does not need to bend to the will of some tech-shopping geeks. This was a bad move.
1
Were the incentives cut in half when the projected workforce was halved? Half a helipad? If not, Amazon got the best BOGO of all time.
5
Why on earth should we bloat the insane wealth of Jeff Bezos by using $3 billion of taxpayers money in New York City when the deteriorating infrastructure cries for maintenance and restoration? Why create jobs in a city that is over employed and in a company that disrespects its employees and the authors’ rights? Shameless democrat leadership should submit this extravagant decision to a broader consultation. Amazon go home! New York City does not welcome you.
1
Speak for yourself. I’m glad they are here.
Hats off to Cuomo for bringing this deal to the north east. It must have been disdainful for De Blasio to take the side of an evil capitalist corporation. You see Mayor, big corporations bring a tax base, then you have money to pay for all of those social programs you love so much. Otherwise, the town looks like Baltimore, or Detroit. Understand capitalism now?
4
I think the objections come from the people who have to actually live in the shadow of NYC’s crumbling infrastructure, not from people from other states who look on from afar.
Come down here and try to avail yourself of public transportation and it’s deterioration before making a generalized and ill-informed counter argument
3
NYC will soon be named Amazon City. And their logo ( marketing) will have the Empire state building in it.
It puzzles me that we, the citizen of this NY City have to pay to be dislocated, out - rented out of our city, while being stuffed into not working public transportations, deal with mediocre electricity equipment, water systems, potholes, crowded sidewalks, unbelievable outdated old schools, walk over endless homeless (sad) people, bad breathing air, 50 Mio tourists
stuck in all our daily needed stores buying sandwiches, smoothies and all stuff for not to cook. Why should we keep on dealing with all this? Oh forgot, new life! One just pays that life gets even worse. Why do our politicians not ask for money to make our! lives once really better - or should I say - up to 21 century.... Just stuff more stuff into this outdated, crumbling city and you get what you asked for. A complete broken system..
Or wait 40 years until you get a return from your "Investment". Just hope the crumbling infra structure will last that long..
6
Cuomo will get his wish and forever be remembered as "Amazon Cuomo". But it will be a derogative, a reminder of one of the biggest corporate boondoggles in history.
3
@todji Cuomo just blew his chance at the presidency.
Have you been to San Jose or San Francisco lately? Have you read about the sky high rents? The traffic is horrible day and night. Prices for everything like food and coffee are higher compared to elsewhere. I would have been more impressed if Amazon offered a $billion to upgrade the subway that their minions are now going to overwhelm. No one will notice the putative increase in tax income from these 25,000 people. The money would have been better spent supporting local startups and regular businesses.
10
"The politicians even agreed to a plan to circumvent the City Council to prevent future roadblocks."
Absolutely shameful.
14
A secret deal to give billions of our, the taxpayers', money to a huge corporation run by billionaires. What's not to like?
10
And once again, it will be paid for off the backs of those who live here. As the new Masters of the Universe set themselves up in their comfortable suburban homes, we are the ones who get to foot the bill for their safety and enjoyment, while those who want to preen their bonafides in urban chic make our unaffordable housing even more unaffordable. And Mr. Bezos will be all the closer to ruling the world, care of New York City residents.
Well, at least the poor bankers on Wall Street will have some company now.
6
STOP IT!
The $2 billion is dependent on Amazon creating jobs. They don't get any tax credits if they don't create the promised number of jobs.
AND, it accrues over time. No one is "paying" Amazon anything. There is NO pot of taxpayer money going into Amazon's coffers.
Those complaining here are simply provincial and ignorant of what makes for growth.
9
@Mimi
They are conditioned to belive that paying less slightly less in somehow equivalent to receiving something.
1
And the Midwest continues to rust away...
5
@Mimi
How many of those jobs they create will be filled by people the also *bring in* to NY from elsewhere? How many will be filled with foreign H1B visa holders??
4
The conflict between these two is unconscionable: both are elected to SERVE the voters.
Enough!
3
Bezos has a vote. A BIG one since money is now speech
Please spare me the righteous indignation over the tax incentives. Amazon and their new employees will be tithing and investing plenty in NY. State income taxes alone from the estimated 25,000 employees will run about 190 million a year. After credits, Amazon will still have a hefty tax bill to pay and will be investing and drawing billions of dollars in construction and improvements (more jobs and taxes). Other businesses that are drawn to serve all those new high earners will themselves hire, invest, and pay taxes. Don't fret for the State. They will be just fine. Also, try to keep in mind, corporations and businesses do not pay taxes, their customers, employees, and to a lesser extent their investors do through higher prices, lower salaries, and reduced profit.
3
I was really hoping Amazon would pick Newark, whose resident citizens are actually trying against odds to right a ship that has a lot of issues.
If there were such things as corporate citizens or compassionate capitalism Newark and/or a city in the Upper Midwest that manufacturing flight and the loss of small family farms to big-agri have gutted would have won the day.
We need more push back against the greed and power of our current system. The oligarchs are winning.
6
We can only hope they can't. Amazon needs a four quarter game to teach it a lesson. That there are somethings money can't buy. Let Bezos earn his Billions for once, instead of on the backs of everybody else. Let his two year three card monte game payoff for somebody else. Amazon has committed to New York, may New York actually profit for their Faustian bargin.
.
3
An there goes the neighborhood. Influx of traffic, and the cost of renting escalating and all for fairly cheap labor. Who pays for the gigantic tax incentive? Tax payers. Amazon.com is not knight in shinning armor. Good luck
3
If the deciding factor was truly the quality of the labor market, then neither Crystal City nor NYC needed to offer Amazon much; the lack of skilled talent nationwide makes the availability of substitutes at scale nonexistent.
5
Ain't it weird when one of the worlds wealthiest companies, maybe the wealthiest company, ask for the tax-payers money to get their offices built?
12
@Stefan
Yes, it is "weird" Stefan and it happens here everywhere and all the time. It is as normalized and predictable as our absurd, non-stop, unnecessary wars. It would not be an exaggeration to call it "socialism for the rich".
7
@Stefan
Years ago businesses were taught how to get these cushion deals by the New York City Partnership and David Rockefeller. Kathryn Wyldevworked there now she pushes for more Big Business subsidies. NYC needs better representation to demand more from the top 1000 corporations without subsidies. NYC politicians are owned by these interest groups and completely got taken again.
3
There *must* be transit plans in store...other than the ferry, that site is a looong walk from either the 7 or the trains that stop at Court Square, Queensboro Plaza, and Queens Plaza.
4
@Al
Should make the subway free and add a corporate tax to pay for the subway once and for all.
Or let the subway system go private.
1
Which would raise costs and provide a Monopoly
It is a sad state of affairs when a company that is swimming in money is given massive tax breaks to allow some municipality the "privilege" of being their host. Then again, I guess that is the way it is in the United States Incorporated where they even get massive gifts from the Federal government.
6
The Times seems to think this is good news for New York but it is a case of a wealthy company milking the public purse for additional breaks. All the money spent on helping Bezos and other fat cats make even more profits is money not spent on infrastructures which goes mostly directly into the pockets of people who do not need it. Amazon is making America poorer and destroying many companies while also exploiting workers everywhere, from the US to Europe and China. I agree with The Atlantic that such deals should be illegal.
See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/amazons-hq2-spectacle-should-be-illegal/575539/
14
One thing the mayor and the governor ‘get along’ on is giving tax payer money to rich people: don’t ‘worry’, Amazon!
5
“My final offer is this: nothing.” Amazon still would have moved to NY
7
Not necessarily. Austin has a comparable tech pool, however they have a non existent mass transit.
1
With all due respect, and I say this as a native Austinite, my hometown’s labor shed could never have absorbed those jobs. Austin is a mid-sized metro at best, with (intentionally) underplanned and underbuilt transit and an airport with few direct flights. Not to mention the local Kool-Aid drinking and delusions of grandeur.
5
"On a late October day, Amazon executives flew to New York to answer a final question before they committed to opening a massive technology center in Queens: Could Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio stop bickering long enough to see the project through?"
Did you mean, "to ask a final question"? Or, "to get an answer to a final question"?
2
Any politician that gives into this company should be voted out.
8
They are making you an offer that you can and should refuse with an offer that they can not refuse.
Where are New York's finest when you need them most? Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Louis Buchalter and Albert Anastasia.
What about the star of Celebrity Apprentice?
3
The Amazon HQ2 in Queens will not create job locally, but the workers will be pouring in from all over the world. The number 50,000 will be doubled just in a year as chains of restaurants, retail stores, banks, gyms and financial institutions will vie each other to find a location nearby. As a matter of fact a portion of Long Island City will become part and partial of Manhattan which will be linked with ferries, roads and trains. I believe there will be most modern, colorful, greenery landscaping of the world.
Being a resident of Long Island City for the last 40 years I warmly welcome this project as I assume it's being built in my backyard, though it's a mile from my house.
10
Yes. And your property value will thank you
@Haider Ali
Be very careful for what you wish for. Since Amazon came into the Seattle area the amount of homeless rose sharply, rents out of control. Your home in LIC may be a thing of the past enjoy it while you can. Enjoy the traffic the crowds all the good stuff.
1
@Dsmith
True, many old timers here paper millionaires.
What is good for Amazon is not necessarily good for the country and the economy. In my area The Hudson Valley Upstate NY. In the last 3 years businesses have been closing up. Sears,Macy,JC Penny,Office Depot. These stores absorbed a big tax base. Which is now being passed on to the home owner. Also it means a loss of jobs. which affects the local economy. I understand that online shopping is here to stay. But there must be some happy medium. The local economy is just as important as the national one.Keeping jobs local is key. It all matters. Taxes,jobs,keeping local dollars local.
6
And just how many employees at these two locations will be H1 and OPT visa holders? My bet is the majority.
6
The most significant negative act is not always the largest or most notable, for example, there is the lone straw that breaks the camels back, or the tiny squirt of water dribbling out before the dikes break.
If you wanted to know whether we have reached peak capitalism and are on entering a denouement that will negatively impact our political economy, look no further than the brazen act to take land use authority away from the local city council by way of de Blasio abusing his authority to hand over power to the state. (This is the main reason why Amazon needed de Blasio and Cuomo to kiss and make up.)
Akin to this harbinger of doom is the outrage that Amazon demanded a couple billion dollars in financial incentives from the cities as a dowery: it does not need this money because it is so wealthy that it will not even notice such a gift. Jeff Bezos could pay the dowery on behalf of the two cities and he'd not meaningfully notice the change from his $150 billion holdings.
But it is the land use grab that is of most concern. Amazon is so powerful, it overrode the very land use function that exists at the local level: land use decisions are local precisely because the land does not go anywhere, it stays put, it is inherently local by virtue of the fact that it is the earth. The act of taking away the land use decision from the locality by a powerful outside corporate entity is the exact type of behavior that outraged the colonists, while you may think it's insignificant...
30
@ Chris
I would " recommend " twice if I could!!
4
I find it incomprehensible that people are complaining about Amazon, or any large corporation, bringing jobs to New York City. The bashing of the mayor and the governor for bringing Amazon to NY is also illogical and unfair. Gaining jobs instead of losing jobs is a plus. Isn't it? Also, the attacks on Jeff Bezos are unreasonable. His story is an American success story. Since when is this a bad thing? There is no mandate to patronize Amazon, so all the vitriol is unnecessary. This new venture seems like a win for all involved, the city, the community and the future employees.
14
@E. Smith:
Bashing the hideous, unnecessary tax breaks that Amazon doesn't need!!! Subway system is failing in NYC, yet no money for that. Shameful!
9
Suppose the government decided to tear down YOUR home. They'd have to pay somebody to do it. That would create jobs.
Then, you'd have to rebuild. That would create even more jobs.
You might feel such a policy is unfair and complain. But hey, it creates jobs, so why complain?
Amazon will decimate the surrounding working class neighborhoods as rents rise. That is why there is so much anger. Nobody even asked us what we want.
9
“Brining jobs”? Interesting choice of words. I would say we taxpayers are buying these jobs. Question is, would the money be better spent on infrastructure, which would also create jobs.
5
Why does Amazon need this money? Aren't location, access to manpower (peoplepower for the perpetually outraged), a well developed transportation system some of the primary measures to check when choosing a business location? Or was the business administration class I took a giant fib and it all comes down to money and corruption. Yes, this is corruption, a giant corporation with all the resources in the world requires 500 million as a sweetener to locate an office somewhere.
18
I would guess that the combined height above sea level of the Long Island City site, and the Crystal City site, is less than 15 feet. I guess Mr. Bezos knows something about global warming that the rest of us don't ...
9
Or can build structures on stilts. Maybe that is the reason for the helipad
We’re all free to criticize the negotiating skills of Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, that is our right as citizens. Personally, I’m especially uncomfortable with the $505 million capital grant the State is offering to Amazon; I’d much prefer to see that money used for transportation infrastructure that benefits both the company and the broader public. Overall, however, it seems that the Governor and Mayor offered a smaller “incentives” package than many other competing locations and many of the tax breaks Amazon will receive are, for better or worse, already on the books and available to other firms as well.
However much better each of us thinks we could have done as lead negotiator, there are compelling reasons for welcoming this deal. Most importantly, New York City urgently needs to diversify its economy from its over-reliance on the finance industry which, with some 338,000 employees in the city, generates upwards of 20 percent of its household income and a similar proportion of its tax revenue. We saw ten years ago how vulnerable an economy based on finance can be. Amazon’s choice of New York as one of its central locations will solidify the city’s place among the leading technology centers and ensure that whatever unexpected directions the economic future takes we’ll be part of it.
7
@fbraconi
well, maybe even Amazon will one day be "too big to fail". The problem may is in the size of any of those big corporations... Maybe such huge firms should simply not be allowed. Diversity. Many small stores, companies, many eggs in a basket.. Exactly what such " deals" kill in the long run...
Isn't it Communist when the governments make deals with companies devoid of proper democracy as the leaders isolated the City Council and struck a deal in secrecy? Then again, the governments will use their power of eminent domain to steal privately held land.
9
I can certainly understand the benefits that Bezos and company see in bringing Amazon to the Big Apple (personally, I wouldn't live anywhere else). Even so, wouldn't it have been great if they had chosen an area in the Rust Belt as a location for their digs? After all, not even Donald Trump has seen fit to build anything there. This being the richest country on Earth. why not spread that wealth a wee bit more fairly and create jobs for people who still need them?
5
@stu freeman I actually thought they would have placed HQ2 in Dallas or Austin or in Denver or Atlanta. But I didn't think for one minute they would relocate to the so-called "rust belt."
The politicians are such short sighted chumps, it's unbelievable.
Amazon will get twice as much incentive money by splitting the Headquarters into two different locations.
8
Amazon is also making twice the investment. So it evens out. The detailed plan is available online for all to read. In detail.
3
Not twice. There is some efficiency in building in two places
The New York Times reports that “Amazon built a retail empire on low prices and free shipping. But for taxpayers, its new headquarters didn’t come cheap.”
The price tag that the tax payers will pay as of today is in the billions and YES Amazon Cuomo and mealy mouthed de Blasio engineered this coup d’e-tat: the economic colonialism of our true city.
Just consider the cast of characters: the worlds richest conman and his enormous retail monopoly, his company executives, his horde of lawyers, greedy profiteers, covert meetings, an ethically challenged governor and mayor, and the hoodwinked masses and their elected officials.
Then the surprising anti-democratic news comes out
as if Trump had manufactured himself, the new word is that Amazonian elites made a stink about the city’s planning process, one that allows for local officials and the (elected) City Council to veto projects. The company men appeared to know all about “pitfalls of democracy” and the process that is before them ( oh tedium). “So Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo agreed to let the state control the approval, meaning there could be local input but no local veto”.
Say what? Two elected leaders, like self anointed demi-gods, decided amongst themselves to do an end run around the New York City council, and the voice of the people, and illegally take-away the
councils representative duties rights and disenfranchise millions of voter and denizens.
This suppression is the norm with Trump and his party but not ours!
22
@SenDan
Well frased! Just a note to add, the Cuomo's and the Trump's were both patrician residents of Hollis Hills, Queens back in the 60's and 70's.
An old resident of the area described the Cuomo's as "spoiled brats". Sound familiar? Keep looking and you will find an abundance of similarities between Andrew Cuomo and D.T. It's not about party affiliation, but the behavior of bratty kids.
3
My feelings exactly!
1
Anyone regretting that vote for Cuomo over Nixon?
Anyone? Anyone?
8
Our two elected “leaders” patronize and mock us by speaking of the “benefits” of Amazon HQ2. All I see are more subway problems and ever skyrocketing real estate prices. Reminds me of the so-called “benefits” of erecting 1,000+ foot towers on 57th Street (nicknamed Billionares Row) which will never be occupied, serving only as a tax shelter for ultra wealthy foreigners. The rich get rich by not paying their taxes, remember?
How is Amazon any different? I hope this costs both of these lackluster politicians dearly.
10
It's an additional salaried tax base of 25,000 people making an average salary of $150,000. As for billionaire row, that's a dream come true! Million of dollars in property taxes and mortgage recording taxes paid by people who will never use any of the city services. It's like free money.
4
Bypass the NYCity Council? Let the lawsuits begin.
20
Big business has officially won.
Step 1: Create an atmosphere of precarious employment so people are appreciative of being over worked and under paid.
Step 2: Have them compete for your “affections” by pretending you’ll bring massive employment opportunities back to them if they’re just willing to pay for it.
Officially, we’re paying business to underpay us, overwork us, and further enrich the rich.
This is in the same vein of observation where it’s noted that tax payers (via welfare) are subsidizing companies who refuse to pay their employees appropriately.
Capitalism.
20
This is not worthy of big celebration. No matter how you slice it, Amazon is a shopping mall. They might have to build a cloud and work on distribution and solve the traveling salesman problem. These tasks require mathematicians and accountants and marketing people and computer scientists and all that. But at the end of the day, all of this intellect and money was spent on selling stuff on the internet.
11
@Bill I disagree. Amazon does a lot more than sell products online.
4
@Nate Like what? Write great poetry? Understand the molecular basis of life? Try to seek the commonality of all humans? Try to define beauty and expand its definition to all? Push our concepts of love thy neighbor? Challenge us to help the least among us? Or just find another way to sell stuff?
15
AWS cloud services, for one.
Oh now Amazon is dictating to our leaders how to behave? What? Who are these people? And why again do they get big tax breaks when they only serve their company's needs and will not really help local economy. Why do we want them? What is in it for New Yorkers and more specifically Queens? What is the upside for us again? I hate them coming here already.
20
@cheerful dramatist Say "Yes, Master" and prostrate yourself before the corporate gods. This is America!
3
Please, go online and read the actual agreement. They're receiving the same benefits that are available to other companies. The bespoke benefits are doled out in exchange for actual investments in the community not as a cash outlay. The city gets a return on 9:1.
1
You didn't have a reason to leave NY before, you have a good one now. Awful decision on NY's part to make this happen and at such an expense to taxpayers. It's disgusting. The governor and the mayor will both be long gone when the real trajedy plays out in a decade or so.
12
The arrogance of this company and its CEO amazes me.
Sticking their nose into local politics from Seattle, when geographically you could not be farther from NYC than any other place in the 48 states.
He should be down on his knees thanking NYers for their business, not the other way around.
Someone please tell Jeff to take his company elsewhere.
7
A NY liberal is giving subsidies to a corporate trillion$ goliath ?..makes the historical Republican tax breaks to new industry (and much criticized) look insignificant.
A Deblazio/Amazon goliath loams.
10
I don’t like what we’re giving away to Amazon to get this “deal.”
6
A question for all of the liberal NYT commenters expressing outrage about Amazon’s tax breaks: How many of you are willing to put your money where your mouth is and cancel your Prime accounts or stop shopping on Amazon entirely? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
10
Isn’t free market economics one of the pillars of conservatism? How is corporate welfare consistent with that. What would Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley think of government giving a company billions in subsidies. This is essentially favoring Amazon over businesses that already employ millions of New Yorkers. Google and Facebook are already here employing thousands and with plans to expand. Maybe they will demand matching welfare payments.
9
I say let the Federal gov't team up with Queens, Arlington and any other districts and on the space that would've gone to Amazon, a public alternative and competitor to Amazon (free USPS), owned by the taxpayer, to stop this behemoth from taking over the world. Now, before it's too late. I don't want to see Amazon or Jeff Bezos' megalomanical image every time I'm in NYC.
Enough is enough; we shouldn't have let it get this far. This concentration of piwer and wealth is antithetical and inimical to democracy. Are we so mercenary and venal, idolizing convenience to this extent, to let this happen? We voters make the laws in a government "of the people, by the people, for the people": we're selling our democratic soul to wind up with a "government of Jeff Bezos, for Jeff Bezos, by Jeff Bezos," who, by the way, has the nerve to call himself "Prime Mover" (an Aristotelian term for the Creator of the Universe) in the titie of his autobiography. It's not as if we aren't being warned about his megalomania. It is very clear and explicit, and we are permitting this to continue.
8
Ok. Trump built his NY tower then got to be president. Now Bezos (a rival of Trump's with similar personality and ego issues) is setting up a campus in NY that will vastly eclipse Trump's presence in NY. Trump pursued his megalomania with a personal skyscraper, but Bezos 'tops' that with his own personal space program and satellites and a fleet of drones. Almost makes me long for the modesty of pharoahs who contented themselves with pyramids, the occasional sphinx (both structures dwarfed by what their counterparts today build). Nobody can tell me we aren't headed down a similar path with Bezos, only much worse, in proportion to the power he is accumulating.
2 Questions.
When is Bezos (who entitles his autobiography "Prime Mover," which is Aristotle's term for the universe's Creator) going to insist on changing name of NY in his honor ("Bezosville," "New Amazonia")?
Why do we tolerate this?
Many have tacitly assumed when the terms "plutocracy" and "oligarchy" are invoked nowadays we are engaging in hyperbole. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS THE REAL THING. STOP IT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE. OUR DEMORACY IS BEING DESTROYED. We are making gods of these people.
18
From just the NY state giveaways to Amazon each one of the 25,000 jobs cost NY $68,000 If the city is kicking in $500M that adds another $20K per job. I see that now Amazon has upped the average salary figure to $150K. I would still like to know the median wage.
9
@JsBx That's salary per year vs. what would be a one time incentive. Personally I don't think all incentives are justifiable, but it's short term pain and long term gain.
3
Better question: can New Yorkers say no this amazon nonsense?
9
Be carfull of what you wish for. You just might get it.
6
See, the thing is, the argument isn't over welfare in this society, it's over who gets it.
15
This is disgusting. Amazon is digital Walmart. It decimates small businesses and is not to be trusted. New Yorkers do not want this.
23
@SN Amen.
1
As if Amazon needs any more of an incentive than the advantage of locating one of their huge warehouses in NYC where so many of their customers live, and how much being local will save in shipping costs!
As if however many jobs they allegedly will offer by 2028 it would never replace an iota of all the jobs that have been lost due to all the independent bookstores and other local retail stores all across the country that Amazon has put out of business!
That this boondoggle was hatched in secret totally behind closed doors between two men in the room, Bezos and Cuomo (via their proxies) is scandalous!
Nor is the timing a coincidence, just after Cuomo's re-election and before the new Democrat-controlled Senate and Assembly is seated in Albany!
What dirty dealing! What flagrant corruption!
10
@ELB Isn't this capitalism?
2
NOT a warehouse... headquarters 2. $150k/year jobs don't happen in a warehouse.
4
Ha, ha - asking if Albany and Gracie Mansion can get along, the eternal soap opera. Now, if only an ordinary citizen could ask for so much...
3
The smart investor will look into real estate on Long Island. These workers swill eventually have famailes and move to the burbs. LI is the most logical commutable suburb with good schools.
3
"The politicians even agreed to a plan to circumvent the City Council to prevent future roadblocks." + "So Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cuomo agreed to let the state control the approval, meaning there could be local input but no local veto."
Appalling. Whatever your take on this deal, forgoing the democratic process and removing a community's agency in deciding what goes on in its own neighborhood is a travesty.
15
Can someone tell us why NY is giving millions to the richest company while it's infrastructure is falling apart?
21
@Jim Because it's a corporate dog-eat-dog world, and if you can't find a corporate dog to eat, that's your problem. Since the Reagan Restoration first got underway, well-enabled by complicit Democratic "centrists," it's meet-your-new-Master, just like your old Master, the robber baron.
15
I'm sure the City Council will be perfectly fine with this and raise no grievances or protests or scuttle future deals at all.
/s
8
Amazon is already positioning itself to meddle in our politics and control the future of New York. They are getting above themselves by trying to dominate our elected officials. We are the voters. When we decide we want a different mayor and/or governor, we will vote them in, thank you very much. That is none of Amazon's business.
This plan is a threat to the democracy of our city and a total disaster.
I personally hope that Cuomo and the legislature see what is going on and reject Amazon's bid to install themselves in Queens. Once entrenched they will spread tentacles and slowly expand their power. We will never be able to get rid of them. Their corporate culture is to dominate and to use their resources to force people to comply. It almost has a totalitarian flavor to it.
Simple solution: to Amazon Cuomo should say: "leave your packages at the door and stay out of New York."
11
Eww, Amazon has taken over my current hometown and now they're coming for my original one. Not worth it New York. Good luck!
12
Meh.
That’s my response as a native New Yorker.
What isn’t in NYC?
I’m just mad we are paying $1.5B for Amazon to be here. Amazon should be paying us.
30
Bezos should be getting prosecutions for worker abuse and tax evasion, not $billions in corporate welfare from taxpayers.
14
A much better place would of been the old IBM or Pepsi headquarters in Somers. Look back at Cuomo's tax subsidies he gave Pepsi via his economic development agency, ESD. They took the money and then left the area.
6
Now, if Amazon would pay justly and give just benefits and conditions to certain workers, I'd patronize them.
Morally grow up, Bezos.
8
How many of these angry, outraged posters will destroy their Amazon Prime membership, or forego Whole Foods?
I didn’t think so.
As for me, I’m so angry I’m headed over to the salad bar at WF where I’ll read the book that was just deilvered to my doorstep by Amazon.
The book is a pictorial of the good old days of 1970’s NY, when broken glass, garbage, dangerous subways, and thousands of murders made the livin’ easy. Those were the days!!
18
Why should NYC tax-payers cough up $1.5B for Amazon to be here when our infrastructure is crumbling? Is Amazon going to help pay for the modernization of our infrastructure?
There are a million awesome companies in NYC. It’s what NYC is known for. I just want to know what we New Yorkers get out of the deal. The prospect of low-wage jobs we must supplement with welfare and more delivery vehicles clogging our streets outweigh any benefit I can think of. 50K new wealthy people driving housing prices up in Queens doesn’t seem so great either.
I want our governor and mayor to be clear about what we are paying for. Thus far, I’m not impressed.
14
I refuse to buy anything on Amazon. WF was my favorite store in Mill Valley. I no longer shop there.
2
When it comes to splitting the loot corrupt politicians always agree.
12
The definition of "incentives" is U.S. Taxpayers subsidizing corporations. The definition of U.S. Taxpayers subsidizing corporations is Socialism.
7
The billion-plus for Jeff Bezos is a great example of "Them that's got shall get"
I want to see him paying his new NYC employees a living wage in humane working conditions
9
@Charlotte K
Charlotte, whatever he pays his employees won't make up for the destruction of local culture and affordability. And unless he pays the whole neighborhood, it won't look pretty for those consigned to being his new neighbors.
4
Be careful what you wish for. The subsidies given to Amazon only ensure further gentrification that Amazon and other high tech companies brought to San Francisco.
10
CBRE's top tech cities in North America:
1) San Francisco
2) Seattle
3) Washington, DC
San Francisco is the most expensive city in North America, so that didn't help. And Amazon has already used up Seattle. I suppose that's why #3 rose to the top.
9
I was hoping they'd put the headquarters in Toronto...but it was always a long shot. And seeing the incentives that were provided, maybe it's not that big a loss.
2
What about billions of dollars in incentives to keep people in their homes instead of being forced out due to skyrocketing property taxes? How about freezing taxes (property and Federal, state income taxes) for those of us fortunate enough to survive to 65? How about incentives for small, locally owned businesses being forced out because Amazon has run them out of business?
Big corporations don't need tax incentives, its the lower and middle class trying to keep up with the cost of living, health care, that need tax incentives.
18
I just hope Trump can see the AMAZON (owner of his nemesis, the Washington Post) lighted sign from his Fifth Ave home when he is thrown out of office in 2021.
9
@Robert S that apartment building in NYC where residents recently voted to have Trump's name removed should be renamed the Amazon Bezos Tower.
4
yawn. Olympics, Tiff's, tax payer ballpark, more of the same. foolish taxpayers.
4
@John Walsh
more like greedy politicians.
3
They got 1.5 billion. Now I know why NYC writes so many tickets, charges so much on tolls, they want to give all the money to corporations run by the wealthiest man on the planet. Should make NYC subways free . Why should anyone pay for such poor service while the wealthy get such large tax breaks.
We are being run by morons.
57
Thank God it was Democrats that made this deal. In addition to the giveaways, Republicans would have demolished the NYCHA housing to make way for luxury apartments for the new $150K residents.
7
@Robert S
It’ll happen. Just wait.
4
Free advertising!
2
Actually, Amazon won't even affect the infrastructure of the neighborhood. They are moving into the Citicorp building. Citi wants out of that building.
1
@skater242
Wrong info NJ. Amazon said managements will initially take over most of the Citicorp building at Court Square in LIC as Citi leaves it, and while Amazon’s new HQ2 campus gets built on the East River waterfront a few blocks away.
There is some valid concern about the ability of the local infrastructure (subway system, bridges, streets, etc.) to handle this project. An infrastructure that has been crying out for repair, upgrades and replacement for decades. So NYC & NYS need to work with Amazon on those items.
This is a great thing for Queens, NYC & NYS, despite what you may hear on the national media outlets. Or from AOC, who does not even represent that Congressional district.
5
@skater242
Nope, read the article before commenting. Moving to a waterfront site, part of which houses the supply chain for NYC public schools.
5
Amazon is a on line seller, the Supreme court decided states could collect taxes these sales. Every state will get a peace of their business without paying a penny. We can then use that money to build stadiums. Winning.
1
The DC metro area is a great choice, but I'm not sure why they also picked NYC.
3
@Dia
NYC is for the other half of Amazon employees - the ones that don't want to wear Dockers and eat bland food.
21
And how is DC a great choice? Wouldn’t they serve humanity better by locating in a place that really needs jobs. I mean how greedy can the east coast get?
2
Lots of unemployed “artisan pickle” producers in Brooklyn with advanced degrees
4
If any small business owner or client (like me) ever casts a vote for Cuomo or DeBlasio for any office every again they need to have their head examined. Even Bloomberg wasn't this bad for small businesses.
9
I’ve heard the arguments as to why Amazon in general is bad for small business. Why does their coming to nyc change that or impact you in any way.
5
Bezos owns houses in Manhattan and Washington DC, in addition to Seattle (plus one in Beverly Hills). Coincidence?
4
Somehow I doubt that that’s the reason why Amazon chose those locations. Bezos can well afford any house he wants, anywhere he wants.
1
Just finished watching the recording of this PM’s presser:
> Governor, magnificent pragmatic centrist job – as ever...
> Mayor, kudos...You do really – and finally – get it...
If you stop trying to tax millionaires and make them flee your fair city – the billionaires once and now within your midst may just come and bail you out...
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/d-e-shaw-the-first-great-quant-hedge-fund.html
(note Eric’s mention)
Billionaires – as a general rule – don’t take kindly to having their things taken away...
But they are notorious for giving things back...
1
The amount of cynicism and caterwauling going on here is quite amusing. It's as if the complainers simply didn't read the article, which very clearly outlines why Amazon made its decision to invest in DC and NY. When did we become a nation of people who believe "the sky is falling!"?
8
The sky is falling and high tech is causing it. Look at san Fransico. The average person can’t afford to live there.
5
@dean bush
“Invest in,” as in sup at the public trough, at the same time as the head of the NYC subways says that they are need of a $40 billion capital infusion to keep them operable.
The subsidy is payable by all residents of New York, the whole state, including economically depressed Buffalo, where Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion” ended up in corruption convictions, without much benefiting Buffalo.
The self proclaimed “Amazon Cuomo” has cast himself as the haughty dowager in the Winston Churchill anecdote: “We have established what you are; now we are merely haggling over the price.”
4
Abundance of high tech talent in NYC? No way. Virginia yes —- NYC no.
1
@Jacque
Wrong info Dallas. NYC was picked because of the high-tech talent pool. And it’s the kind of city where high-tech workers want to live.
3
If they can afford to. Hey, I'm not far. Just about an hour by bus and subway (I went longer and further all on PT for decades). Nothing like waiting for the 5:10 am bus in the snow. Let me know the best time to do put the for sale sign outside. As a co-worker said, the next purchasers have to put down what I paid for the house. We sold my mother's house for forty times what she paid for it. Welcome to the Big Apple. Buy and hold.
1
Giving money to a money machine, madness.....Amazon should pay each of the cities to develop the needed infrastructure to support each new headquarter office. Look for local tax rates to go up.
6
Can you say corporate welfare?
Disgusting.
15
It's going to be ugly when it crashes and burns. Fads do that.
2
amazon should be paying to be in nyc. this is a joke.
6
Because Jeff Bezo's $150,000,000 of personal wealth isn't enough, he's taking money from cities that could house the poor, provide medical care for veterans, pay school teachers higher salaries etc etc.
But no..he wants to get PAID for making MORE MONEY by hiring employees (which he needs to do anyway) as if he's doing them a favor.
Greed thy name is Jeff Bezos.
10
@Diane you forgot 3 zeros
3
If Amazon's new HQ2 picks are anything like Microsoft, most of the higher paid jobs will be filled by people in the U.S. on H1-B visas. Y'all living in the HQ2 areas may want to start brushing up on Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Russian, etc.
10
@cosmos
Long Island City is actually a part of Queens, probably the most multicultural borough of New York City.
6
@cosmos
All languages already commonly spoken in Queens, with at least 100 more.
6
Did NY offer up to 1.2 billion in tax benefits in exchange for up to 50,000 jobs and is now accepting offering up to 1.2 b and in exchange for up to 25k jobs? If Amazon moved goal posts do we need to honor deal? Especially since we know what they value is ability to recruit and it would be hard to go elsewhere.
1
@Carlos D
From the article...
"Both state programs are tied to the number of jobs the company creates — if Amazon’s hiring falls short of projections, the incentive payments will be smaller."
1
How about $500M in small business seed money grants instead? Microcredit loan guarantees? Retraining for unemployed workers? Reparations for the legacy of slavery, which build the economy of New York?
3
A 1.5Billion tax break, let's add it up.... Who is paying for the upgrades at the regional airports and to the highways leading to and from those airports: LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark; Republic and Westchester County Airports? who will pay to pave the local roads, enhance the infrastructure ? Who will replace the aging 59 Street bridge, just a stone's throw away from this new base for Amazon in Long Island City ? Who will upgrade the local subways and address overcrowding and reliability on the No. 7 line ? How does this fit in with the plan to develop Willets Point, and to build over the rail yards in Long Island City ? While we are always glad to hear of enhanced employment, hopefully city planners were at the table to tabulate the impact of this increased activity. If New York City was planning extensive building projects around its old bid to host the Olympics, this project metaphorically has the same impact on infrastructure as having the Olympics in town every day of the year.
7
@GY
Don’t forget the legions of Long Island driving commuters who will try to park in Western Queens to avoid the coming congestion pricing charge that Cuomo is bound and determined to push through.
4
@GY
Amazon will spend billions to build their headquarters jn Queens.
I don't have the exact numbers but I am sure if they built this headquarters outside of the New York City it would be 30 to 50 percent cheaper to construct.
The cost of labor is more in this area and on top of that when these tax breaks end they will end up paying more taxes.
I bet over the next ten or so years Amazon will end up spending more money because they are in Queens even with those tax breaks then if they had put this headquarters someplace else and had no tax break to put it there.
If you look at it that way a billion and a half is nothing.
If you really understood economics you would have to agree.
The reality is that the average reader of the paper think they understood economics because they like Klugman.
What they don't understand about him is that he has a agenda which makes him write articles that further that agenda.
I'm not saying he is incorrect when he does that
He lies by omission.
So you get a incomplete story when you read him but because you have the same agenda he has you feel he is confirming the way you think but you do not realize that there are times he knows that if he wrote the truth he would be writing something that you would not like.
Notice he has written nothing about Amazon moving to queens.
If he did you would see he would agree with me.
Note to New York: Amazon and other Silicon Valley tech companies ruined the Bay Area with overcrowding, over-pricing, congestion. Instead of contributing to the infrastructure problems in the Bay Area, they simply had their own private buses pick up employees and shuttle them ever farther as employees moved from San Jose area to San Francisco to the North Bay. Seattle is going the same way as the Bay Area. I could no longer stand the traffic jams at all hours of the day and the high cost of living drove me out of my natal beloved home of California. I am sorry for you.
8
@Justine
You are wrong.
The Bay area has undergone a lot of new construction.
This did not happen because o f Amazon..
It has happened mostly on the East and West Coast.
You live in Wyoming so you have no knowledge of this first hand.
There is no empty land in San Francisco and because of the Geography you can't expand the city so any new construction would be upward and would increase its density.
I could go on but I would probably not convince you.
Just believe me when I there would be a traffic problem even if Amazon was not there.
On second thought I will mention one thing.
Because of leasing a car instead of buying, families that had one or at most two cars now have three cars and because more women are working there are more
people going to work and therefore more traffic.
1
@John Good luck with Amazon in D.C. John. I lived in NorCal from 1954 to 2008. I saw the changes. Silicon Valley has not only changed the traffic and housing affordability, but the culture profoundly. I live in WY for many reasons, but one was that I was priced out of the Bay.
Fascinating what constitutes an incredible boon for local govt. officials. I guess it would be amazing if the average salary was 150k but who believes that? Although not reported here, plenty of outlets have been reciting that number. With government subsidies should be a realistic expectation for average salaries. Funny how monopolies can coopt govt. officials so easily.
4
So happy for LIC. When I grew up in NYC, everything was made there. And now Amazon, where everything is bought.
2
Yup. I could walk to the Ideal Toy Factory three blocks away. And they had their own railroad spur. There were often things to be found along the trackway which "fell off the truck" so to speak.
1
@LBL
New York State has lost countless industries over many decades for many reasons. There was cheaper, non-union manufacturing labor down South, then they lost it to Mexico, and now most stuff comes from China. High NYS taxes made us uncompetitive for attracting new business and many companies that were here left. New technology made many industries obsolete so they either closed or were bought out. The list of reasons goes on.
So NYS finally attracks a very successful business that wants NYC as one of its headquarters, and instead of cheering there is outrage and protests from some corners of this city and this state. Give me a break!
How did New York politicians get played by Amazon for a multi-billion dollar tax-giveaway? What are the costs to New Yorkers in money diverted from schools and health care for infrastructure improvement, and rent increases from gentrification? Amazon’s investments will be for its own development, with apparently some chump change thrown at training programs. Young professional tech workers will benefit, perhaps 10% of New Yorkers, while most in the neighborhood will scramble for tips in the new high-end bistros. I worked in Silicon Valley when it was forming in the early ‘80s, and 40 years later East Palo Alto across the freeway from Stanford, the Valley’s heartland, is still an impoverished minority community. A monopoly global corporation has dictated tax policy to Democratic politicians in New York City, America’s economic and cultural capital, as if it were a colony.
9
Notice that the comments are mostly against. These things are not popular but they keep happening.
4
Last may the Consumer and Community Development Research Section of the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Consumer and Community Affairs (DCCA) published a report stating that in 2017 :
• Four in 10 adults, if faced with an unexpected expense of $400, would either not be able to cover it or would cover it by selling something or borrowing money.
• Over one-fifth of adults are not able to pay all of their current month’s bills in full.
• Over one-fourth of adults skipped necessary medical care in 2017 due to being unable to afford the cost.
Bezos already proved he could walk entire city councils like puppies on leashes looking for HQ2 dog food, now proves he doesn't care about 40% of adult American citizens and their kids. If you are looking to annihilate the poors, follow this proud post modern slave master and digital neo-colonialst, Jeffrey Preston Bezos.
Abuse travels at the side of power.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf
8
Would it been all that tough for Sellazon to imagine going to those parts of the US devastated by hurricanes, floods, fires, oil spills and other "natural" disasters, where the corporation could contribute in significant ways to rebuilding infrastructure and creating jobs? Guess so. Like so many Big Banks, Bezoberg is "too big to care."
6
These private sector - public sector deals are nothing short of monopolistic practices that pillage taxpayers for the benefit of business entities that are already far too big for a genuine Capitalistic economy -- which demands competitive markets.
11
Jeff Bezos should buy some pastel-green colored makeup, a Santa Claus suit, a sled, and a small dog. Bezos outdid the Grinch this Fall of 2018 and should wear that suit throughout this holiday season. He gave Amazon hourly workers a $15 minimum wage only to take away their stock awards and monthly bonuses to fund it. Now with this new split supplemental headquarters deal for Long Island City, New York and Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world, and Amazon, the second most valuable company in the world, stand to take $2 billion in tax incentives from New York and Virginia taxpayers.
13
@Howard Gregory
If people want to make more than $15/hour, they need to get some knowledge/skills that make them worth more than $15/hour. As an executive an an auto parts supplier once told me, "How much should I have to pay people to watch a robot do their job?"
4
You missed two points. First, employees are being paid what can be considered a living wage but they are going to lose benefits and bonuses so what did they really gain? Second, this deal is classic corporate welfare. Free 2 billion in taxes means the taxpayers in each state will have to pick up the tax tab while Amazon gets a free ride -- using free infrastructure, police and firefighter protection, etc.
6
@GMooG
The wealthy elites employ this skills argument whenever progressives plead for economic justice for Americans in the middle and lower classes.
It is largely a moral question. In an advanced nation there is no sound reason to tolerate impoverishment. Everyone should have a guaranteed income. Every worker should be earning a living wage.
We would eliminate our social and economic problems if we had such an economy. I do not advocate economic equality.
To address your skills gripe, which professional is more skilled, an entry-level nurse or an entry-level investment banker? Which professional is more valuable to society?
5
As a resident of the District of Columbia, I’m experiencing a lot of fellow feeling with New Yorkers.
In my own region, Crystal City is near the center of our already-congested Capital Beltway, which includes substantial portions of Virginia and Maryland as well as all of DC.
Additional Bezos-generated congestion threatens to degrade all local forms of transportation, whether public or private.
Special significance lies in the fact that Crystal City is a stone's throw from the Pentagon.
Mr. Bezos might tell you that this gambit will facilitate the corporation’s ability to improve vital aspects of our national defense.
Whatever the case, his stockholders—chief among whom is himself—should profit handsomely at the American taxpayer’s expense.
The downsides? For one, those who work at the Pentagon may find it more difficult to reach their computers in times of national emergency.
Of course, Amazon’s presence in Crystal City will put upward pressure on rents throughout the region.
This will be a special hardship for those who are junior in rank in the US armed forces, not to mention lower-paid workers—including Amazon’s own—in the civilian sector.
Mr. Bezos should reconsider this move based on the consideration that what's good for Amazon.com is not necessarily good for the USA.
5
People opposed to amazon forget that jobs bring more jobs and nyc will be the hub of technology which frankly is the future economy. Tax breaks are fine people, relax. It is not that one can spend the money on infrastructure- not happened so far. At least lets get the new economy producing jobs in the area. Frankly it will clean up the mess that LI city is. It may not be a kind statement but true. Don’t worry about amazon getting richer, it would happen anyway. What matters is what you get from it. Plain and simple. Once you have them here try to mould them to your needs. Well paying jobs ate their own reward.
6
LIC and Astoria are not messes. They are very hot neighborhoods having a real estate boom, and that was BEFORE Amazon.
4
@Hk
Infrastructure projects create real jobs, good paying ones. Didn’t you hear “Amazon Cuomo” touting doubling the Koszciuszko Bridge capacity, and the building at LaGuardia and soon at Kennedy? Doubling the Koszciuszko capacity will just move the bottleneck from entering the bridge at either end to exiting it, since the BQE isn’t gonna be 12 lanes, ever.
I’ve got a house in Astoria. Neither it nor LIC is a mess. Super hot real estate markets, and all the high rises going up in Queens Plaza and LIC will tax the already overcrowded 7 train, not to mention future overcapacity from Cuomo’s hairbrained scheme to run the LGA Airtrain AWAY from Manhattan to Willets Point.
3
New York is a great choice for a billionaire who has no desire to become involved (financially or otherwise) with his community. Amazon is a drop in the bucket in NYC. Yet they still got 1.2 billion in incentives. The money would be much better spent fixing the subway for everyone already in the city.
8
My guess is that average Amazon worker is 28 yrs old and not likely to have children before age 38-43. By the time these employees reproduce, the tax forgiveness period will be over. I doubt the Amazon workforce will be overburdening the public school system with kids. They *might* overburden Tinder with unrealistic expectations. That might happen.
Do most white collar workers have kids before 40 nowadays?
5
I still don't get the complaints about the subway. I regularly took the subway 20110 to 2010 (Brooklyn to Manhattan and the Bronx). It wasn't as reliable or nice as Amtrak, but it seemed ok to me. From 1995 to 1999, I relied on the commuter rail and subway in Boston. It didn't seem any better than NYC.
based on my own experience, the hue and cry about the NYC subway seems overdone.
2
So you used the subway TWENTY years ago and your experience is relevant how?
4
@JMM
2010. eight years ago.
i still use it sometimes. just not 9 to 5.
@richguy
Try the 7 at rush hour, then get back to us.
1
"will eventually house at least 25,000 employees each." 50,000 people, probably more, will lose their retail jobs all over the country.
4
...and 300 MM will benefit from more efficient and therefore cheaper/same-quality goods.
2
@KI
Why would moving HQ-level jobs to VA & NY reduce the number of retail jobs?
it seems that time has come to end corporate give out and such tax payer paid incentive to any investment proposals at national level. in most cases such tax break hardly help local people and economy much for long.
8
@bonku The corporations own and run the country, we are just their slaves.
4
Makes no sense. The wealthy just get wealthier.
Newark is desperate for economic development , offered twice as much and got passed. NY overpaid. They would of signed in NY without getting anything.
5
@Ralph Petrillo
Because nobody wants to live in Newark
3
And nobody wants to work there either!
1
@GMooG
Thus spake the guy who lives in a place where the four seasons are fire, flood, earthquake and riot. At least they used to be. Now it’s four seasons of wildfire.
1
That 1.2 billion would go a long way towards transit.
5
Maybe this will lead to MTA turning Hunters Point Avenue 7 and LIRR stations into something decent, modern, handicap accessible.
3
@Corbin. 1.5 Billion in construction costs gets you a long way towards a few feet of rail and years waiting for it.
1
@pbugt6
Don’t count on it. The MTA shut down the 36th Ave. and 30th Ave stations on the N&W trains for 9 months, and now has shut down 39th Ave. and Broadway for complete renovation. Granite floors, yes. Handicap access, amazingly, no.
3
Remember the seventies when Swing-line shuttered its doors eliminating light manufacturing LIC became wasteland. The only reason to go there was the LIC Crab-house on Van Damm Street. It's been a long road back the infrastructure can be addressed cut the Operational Expense Budget and increase the Capital Budget. This city soared turn of the 19th Century as it built then a century later almost burned itself down lets not make the same mistake twice.
3
Maybe now we can get rid of the alcoholic s, drug addicts and unemployed who live in tax payer funded housing and swap them out for taxpayers. Givers not takers
4
@Ronnie I would not be so mean as to suggest you have a problem with your fellow man, instead I'll point you to some information that might make you less poorly informed. NYT has available an interactive graphic map of ALL categories of gov benefits (SS, unemp, Medicare, etc.) nationwide. You can find it searching Google for a "NYT The Geography of Government Benefits." I doubt you'll bother but those who do will see that the vast majority of "takers" live in GOP voting districts. This is the URL:
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/12/us/entitlement-map.html?_r=0
3
@Ronnie
You'd certainly be replacing people who have 3-4 kids before age 40 with people (Amazon workers) who have 1-2 kids before age 50. More white collar employees means fewer school children.
2
It’s nice to see a Democrat state like New York giving tax breaks to the Uber rich. Way to go NY. You are showing you don’t really believe in socialism.
9
When Amazon discovers the mess NYC is in with regards to congestion, mass transit decay and delay, crime, cost of housing for its workers, they just might bail out after a few years. Been done before in other cities by other companies. They get the tax cuts, stay 5 years and leave when things go sour. shame on Cuomo and De Blasio, especially De Blasio, i thought he was progressive. more like a coprorate lackey/sellout/typical corrupt politican to me.
4
@lou andrews
Crime? 330 murders last year in a city of 8.5 million. Your per capita is much higher in Portlandia.
4
What a total sellout. A pile or research has shown that communities never earn back what they give away in massive corporate incentives. We have a homeless problem. A mental health problem. An infrastructure and transportation problem. A street-level retail problem. A public housing problem... just to name a few. None of this gets better with Amazon in the mix.
If there is one company that can afford pay full boat and make a positive impact on someone besides its shareholders, it's Amazon.
If our Governor and Mayor had any intestinal fortitude they would hold Bezos' feet to the fire and charge him the full rate for a quarter-HQ in Queens - the same that any mom and pop bodega would pay. Seems fair to me.
20
If it had been up to me I would have started an entirely new development at a site near Tucson and called it Amazona.
4
@Jay
That would be a fine idea, if not for the fact that nobody under 90 wants to live in Tucson.
4
$1.5b... Hmmm. Mayor Bill, Gov Andy do you realize that former Mayor Rudy is still waiting for job 1 from Bear/Sterns?
4
They are getting 1.5 billion in incentives plus the destruction of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, which will make way for a better and wider BQE, in keeping with the infrastructure upgrades the Mayor promised. It will destroy historic Brooklyn Heights.
So far, I'm not crazy about the deal.
5
@Asher
"It will destroy historic Brooklyn Heights."
... And they are welcome to it!
I always thought the one place in America Amazon would find no home would be New York City.
Small business owners be damned, I guess every community has caved now.
3
Yay! Maybe one day every American can be an Amazon worker/slave — correction — an Amazon drone. Just say “no” to this behemoth. It’s bad enough that the richest man in the world (who continues to get enriched at U.S. taxpayers expense) owns the Washington Post. Now he wants to own all of Northern Virginia. Beware of Bezos!
6
This is not good for the people already living here. Amazon won't bring New Yorker's jobs. They will bring jobs for transplants. We are overrun already. Teachers, nurses, policemen, construction workers--people we all need--can no longer afford to live here as it is! New York families are being pushed out of areas they have lived for generations, and that unique and wonderful NY spirit is going along with them!
13
The good news is the incentives are divided between the two places. Between the two cities, Virginia is the looser because a large number of employees may live in Maryland paying taxes to Maryland. No companies should get any kind of incentives that are not available to other companies in the state. Since, Amazon deviated from its original promises, Virginia should renegotiate the deal.
1
Shame shame shame of De Blasio And Cuomo for feeding the beast at the expense of small retail entrepreneurs!... Amazon does not deserve any incentives at this stage of the game. Quite on the contrary, needs to be regulated to return those excess profits to the community that arguably represents its very essence that keeps them going, ...
6
“Amazon will create Jobs” and poverty, rent will skyrocket, real estate will become unaffordable, your best example is the Bay Area experience with the Tech industry, if you think that amazon here to make life better you are dreaming!!
6
@Idriss - Actually, the best example is what Amazon has brought upon Seattle. I watched the old gay neighborhood of town get gentrified by the Amazon hipsters and its pathetic. What was a quaint, quirky neighborhood is now trying to become Little Manhattan with trendy clothing stores to replace the second-hand boutiques. Mom and pop ethnic restaurants have been replaced with over the top Gordon Ramsey-style venues that only the hipsters can afford. Rents went through the roof and traffic exploded to a standstill on a good day.
3
I guess if Amazon did not locate in Long Island City then y'all would be getting back all that tax revenue/breaks from the imaginary employees that were located elsewhere?
4
It’s called “buying yourself a job”.
State and local politicians willingly force their constituents to fork over millions of dollars in tax subsidies and other giveaways to, say, Foxconn in Wisconsin, Google/Alphabet here or Amazon in New York and Virginia this case — to name just a few — often in return for laundered campaign contributions or special deals for them later. And why not? It means jobs! Jobs!
Besides, in local politics, one hand washes the other. Corruption, like charity, begins at home.
Of course, the promised boom often never quite materializes. The deal doesn’t pan out as promised. Oh, the lucky company scores. Its executives and owners know what they’re doing, after all. But a deal heavily promoted as a “win-win” for that company, its investors, local suppliers, businesses, taxpayers and the community itself turns out to be a “win-lose-lose-lose-lose”. All those losers often kept in the dark, none the wiser. Deliberately.
It’s like pro sports stadium deals, or steals. The team owners and players do well. Everybody else ... .
It should be outlawed.
3
$1.2 billion in tax breaks for 25,000 jobs seems a little expensive. At $48,000 per job, we're basically paying the first year's salary.
A global race to the bottom that forces countries to slash investment in their people, to pay for native tax breaks for global corporations its a terrible way to run a world economy.
Massive tax cuts means massive spending cuts (even for borrow and spend Republicans). Massive cuts to spending on the very things that make a place a good place to have a business is penny wise and pound foolish.
Education, healthcare, infrastructure, basic research, etc., are the very things that makes companies, especially tech companies, grow.
When you beggar the future for short term gain, it is a kind of slow suicide.
And why do we let Amazon control half of all internet sales anyway? Why would We the People want any company to be that powerful?
5
My condolences to New York, esp. Queens.
7
I hope these 50,000 jobs are high paying jobs (>$15/hr at minimum) with health/retirement benefits. If that is not the case, I would rather have used the $1.2 billion for higher education/healthcare for 50,000 individuals than giving it to someone like Bezos.
2
@Michael Estimated average salary in new york site will be $150,000 per year. These is a corporate hq and the jobs will be mostly highly paid management and skilled tech workers. This isn’t a warehouse site.
I can't help but think Besos did this to irritate Trump in his own backyard!
Then again- Two east coast cities with traffic congestion and housing shortages?
Why not the Midwest? Why not build the company in the middle of nowhere and levy the infrastructure from all sides of the country? High speed rail, improved roads, better airports?
Sorry to say- but everybody loses on this one.. Bad Choice.. Bad Choice!
13
@Aaron - surely neither metro DC nor New York are "losing" on this one. If fact, they are about to add tens of thousands of well educated, creative, progressive thinkers to the hundreds of thousands of same who live in those cities. That's winning, not losing. Why are people in lesser urban areas so annoyed by this decision?
2
@Aaron A port city makes most sense. Seattle is first stop for a LOT of stuff coming to this country from China on containers and we have a good freight train system in place to disperse it along with a few airports. FedEx has their own, Sea-Tac and Paine Field can handle planes. So, it doesn't really make sense to put another HQ2 in someplace like Iowa because its so far from port of entry.
Houston would have been good, NYC, Miami, etc. but not Des Moines or Albuquerque.
1
Big win for NYC. People complain about Amazon not being taxed, but Amazon will create jobs (construction, catering, security, etc.). Also, Amazon employees will pay taxes. What is there now that is generating tax revenue? Nothing. This wasn't a choice between Amazon and some company with no tax abatement. It was a choice between Amazon HQ and undeveloped real estate. It's not as if Derek Jeter wanted to put a minor league stadium there that would generate a ton in tax revenue. It's basically an empty lot with dirt that doesn''t pay taxes or an Amazon HQ that doesn't pay taxes, but that brings 25k workers who do pay taxes and drink craft beer. Would people feel different if the Amazon HQ were being built on a non-existent pier along the Hudson instead of city land?
11
@richguy- "Big Win"? No, a big loss. Loss of liveablility, big loss in affordable housing, cost of living, ease of commuting by mass transit. More people= more pollution, congestion, expense, noise, crime, services cut(to pay for Amazon's incentives). Are you the typical corporate welfare capitalist with blinders on? It seems so to me.
4
@lou andrews
Do you live here. I live in Manhattan. I drive. The congestion isn't that bad. Or, it's just as bad in LA, Atlanta, Boston, etc..
I don't feel that the subway is as bad as people say, but that's been my experience.
I think you fail to understand how taxation works. You can't tax companies that don't exist (and nothing would be there in place of Amazon).
People move to NYC for the congestion and madness. The move from less congested, less polluted places to be here. The come for what money brings: Wold class food, better dating options, world class style, world class nightclubs.
Manhattan and Portland are, from what I can tell, exact opposites. In NYC, people will live on canned tuna in order to afford 500 dollar sneakers and 600 dollar jeans. Anyone in NYC who complains about congestion shouldn't be here. I park on the street, Sometimes, it takes me an hour to find a spot (luckily, I work at home). To me, that hour of looking for a spot is just the price I pay to live in lower Manhattan.
4
@richguy
“I drive. The congestion isn’t that bad.”
So why, if that were true, and it isn’t, is congestion pricing coming to an island under you?
Have fun paying $8 every time you either leave Manhattan or drive north of 60th St.
1
Where are these Amazon workers going to live on minimum wages? What impact will the Amazon workers commutes have on the Cities mass transit infrastructure? Sometimes when you think you have won, you have really lost - Cuomo.
6
@RCS It's a headquarters. Not a warehouse. Not minimum wage.
7
@RCS
These are NOT minimum wage jobs.
4
@RCS - Your argument hinges on the odd assumption that Amazon's white collar knowledge workers earn "minimum wage". Since that's untrue, your argument fals apart.
2
The complaints on here are crazy! We have the best economic numbers in a generation and now an influential company wants to bring thousands of good jobs to the city; we should be celebrating. Have you thought of the multiplier effect bringing so many desirable jobs will bring? How many smart young adults will bring to the city?
17
@Stefan- numbers lie. they are based on tax cuts and giveaways which the general public pays for, not the corporations. Our national debt is in the hundreds of billions just from Trump's tax cuts.. It's the ordinary worker who pays for and suffers at the end when the economy tanks. It's cyclical, always has always will be. soon the bottom will drop out with no way the gov't could help out in recovery because of our national debt. Time for corporations to stand on their own and not be subsidized by the rest of us. Are they capitalists or corporate welfare kings?
4
And the tax rolls will expand. Long Island City will prosper as will Long Island. Not to mention new construction. Bringing a Fortune 500 headquarters to Long Island City is something to cheer about. This is a beginning, not an end. These aren't minimum wage jobs! Graduates from NYU, Columbia, CUNY, Fordham, Parsons will be a pipeline for Amazon.
6
@Stefan I'd call Amazon more than just er...'influential'. And, yes, we have thought of the multiplier effect....on rental housing, on our already taxed subway system, and on the Queensboro Plaza, LIC and Astoria 'skylines'.
3
Much of the comments here have been negative— complaining that we had to lure a company worth 1 trillion dollars with financial incentives.
Frankly, I’m excited. The irony of Amazon moving into a Queens neighborhood while the iconic bank that has a presence there is shifting work offshore is telling. One is betting that talent gravitates to big, cosmopolitan cities, the other is treating workers as a low cost commodity.
This is a bet on talent, and on America.
19
@ThePragmatist
A bet made with your chips.
1
Remember, recently Seattle wanted to tax gross revenues of major corporations to fund their homeless problems and Amazon along with other companies fought against the proposal and it was shelved. This is what LIC is looking at in the future. A lot more homeless problem but unfortunately, they will be unable to bear the cold winter in the east and they will migrate to better climate in california. Many of the homeless in SF, LA areas are migrating from the east cost.
5
@Hari
why do homeless people congregate in large cities? i presume that some big philanthropist could buy a large plot of land and allow the homeless to set up camp there. maybe a closed airport or army base. my impression is that homeless want to be in big cities for access to alcohol. Why go through the bother of sleeping on the street in NYC, when you could be living in a tent in the woods in upstate NYC, if not for something you can't get in the woods? I still don't know why homeless people migrate to wealthy urban areas. if they shifted to poor rural areas, they'd probably experience less friction.
@richguy
The fatal flaw in your “argument” is asking “why homeless people migrate to wealthy urban areas?”
They don’t. They were always here, but lost their home, or were forced out. With no money to go elsewhere, they end up on the street. In NYC, this started with mass deinstitutionalization from mental health facilities in the late 70s and early 80s. Now add to that the yuge number of Iraq and Afghanistan vets with PTSD who have ended up on the street. Nobody makes a rational decision to move to a big city and to be homeless. The poor construction of your claim causes one to pause in contemplation of the accidents by which some become rich.
2
@richguy
Why? Didn’t help that many were given one-way bus tickets to NYC from towns and cities that didn’t want the homeless on their streets.
1
Who knew that Big Brother would be a new era Robber Baron Malefactor of Great Wealth in a new era Gilded Age named Jeff Bezos aka The Distributor?
This Jeff Bezos scheme is running ahead of our socioeconomic educational political legal and moral governing ability to adequately control them and weigh costs and benefits.
4
As someone who has fled the social, economic, and environmental disaster of the San Francisco and Southbay areas, I would like to say to those cities that weren’t “chosen” that they may soon come to appreciate just how fortunate they are.
10
This Amazon saga has been a little like reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" with an alternate ending. In this version, Veruca Salt "wins" the factory after some backroom dealings between Wonka and her businessman father. Charlie goes home to take care of his ailing family members.
Nothing against NYC personally. It's just that this seems like a foregone conclusion after a lengthy charade.
8
Small business owners across the state should be up in arms. Here is Amazon reaping such a ridiculous amount of tax payer money to squeeze not just small retailers but also publishers, book sellers, movie producers, and the list goes on and on. There will certainly be a few beneficiaries, but this looks like the biggest winner will be the multi-billionaire Bezos (who still hasn’t signed the Giving Pledge).
15
Why does Amazon need incentives?
Its seems an improper tax revenue.
9
Unemployment is at record low numbers. We don’t need jobs that badly. These companies are making record profits. They don’t need cash.
Can someone explain to me again why we are giving the world’s richest man a tax incentive?
35
@Manish
We always need good, we’ll-paying jobs. That’s what Amazon will bring to these areas. I bet new college graduates will be happy. I’m way past that but I’m happy for them and the area. Opportunity is GOOD.
2
@Maxie:
Do you feel the same knowing that the bonds that are funding this $ub$idy are being underwritten by all residents of New York State, even distant Gloversville?
3
I just got a delivery of a used book from Amazon and ordered a DVD and used CD yesterday.
Yes, many small businesses have failed to survive because of their aggressive behavior including some of my favorite bookstores.
I am assuming that none of the critics of Amazon ever use their services.
Right?
( Rolls eyes)
4
Twice. Once I returned the item. Once I sent a book to a friend.
@simon sez
You can roll your eyes all you want to, but I actually do NOT use Amazon. For me, it is a matter of principle. It is an inconvenient choice, given that Amazon is quickly becoming a monopoly. But with a little ingenuity one can eventually find alternative booksellers and businesses of all kinds, online as well as off.
Most of the time I do end up paying more for my purchases, but I do so knowing that my custom keeps small businesses open.
I consider Amazon an obscene blight on our democracy.
5
@simon sez Using their service is not
the same as giving away $1.5B of tax
payer money to the wolrd's richest man.
These elected representatives will have
difficulty in spending a fraction of the money
on retraining the workers who are likely
to lose jobs due to new techomology.
Shame on these so called elected representatives who kowtow to the rich
and ignore the ordinary.
2
I'm not a NY resident, but I can understand the backlash against the tax credits in particular.
The Excelsior tax credit program doesn't appear to be new. It claims to offer credits for verifiable new jobs in "desirable" categories. https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program
Perhaps the cost/benefit tradeoff is worth it for NY residents, but they'd be justified in scrutinizing it.
3
@Curious
Want to know how this has gone wrong on Amazon Cuomo’s watch? Just google “Buffalo Billion.”
2
Representative Democracy at its worst.
Government expenditures of this size should be voted on and approved by citizens . . . not the effete elites who run most governments.
I'll take back everything I've said if New York's political establishment had performed a thorough and honest poll of Long Island City's citizens . . . and received approval. If not, this is is a major affront and disrespect for LIC's citizens and just another example of the broken political system in which we all live.
6
No matter how you gussy it up or who pays it, a bribe is still a bribe.
7
Is it too early to sing "Am - a - zon is coming ... to town" or do we have to wait until after Thanksgiving?
Amazon will only feel the anger expressed here in comments if people stop giving them their money.
7
@YReader
I made it a permanent choice to not buy anything from Amazon.
3
@YReader I have that attitude with billionaires in general. Why go to Starbuck's when there are another 1,000 coffee shops in Seattle owned by mom-and-pop who make better coffee...and don't have their first billion yet?
4
@tom harrison - you are spot on. Agree wholeheartedly.
3
Outrage.Go somewhere that needs commercial activity.DETROIT!
not here.Think what this will cost to meet Amazon's standards.$$ should be spent to meet OUR standards and we are over crowded already.How about Ct.they need an infusion of new commercial activity...anywhere but here.
6
@susan mccall Corporations are under no obligation to go where jobs or commercial activity are needed.
@susan mccall- Detroit or Newark. I've been saying that since they announced and posted here last week. nice that others are on the same wavelength.
2
@susan mccall
These are tech jobs and therefore Amazon wants/needs to locate in a place with plenty of qualified workers. Also, those types of people want a certain lifestyle easily accessible. Places like Detroit therefore don't qualify (and I've lived in Detroit, so I'm not commenting without direct knowledge).
3
All that fuss, and they picked just about the most obvious sites on earth.
4
Let me get this straight. The richest company in the world who's been dodging federal taxes for years, run by the richest man in the planet earth, who's been destroying brick and mortar stores across the nation while erasing God knows how many jobs, is getting billions in incentives?
This, makes, perfect, sense. I am determined to not to buy from Amazon, ever again.
21
Suggest not voting for the politicians that come up with this stuff instead. I didn’t vote for Cuomo and, if I lived in the city would not vote for DeBlasio either
4
@Rosary
Voted for Cuomo - happy to, for many reasons.
Also shop on Amazon AND local small shops, including local bookstore - and will continue to do so.
2
NYC should have spent those $$ on infrastructure..
4
@Susan Tarrence
But they are phantom dollars. They are dollars that won't be collected from Amazon. But they aren't being collected now either. Those dollars don't exist and will never exist. They may exist in the form of taxes paid by Amazon employees, right? Amzon didn't get picked over some ta paying company. It got picked over absence.
3
@Honeybee
These workers won't drive. They will walk, take the subway, or ride a Citibike in nice weather. Nobody in NYC drives. Most cars in NYC are from NJ or the Northshore of Long Island. A few are from Westchester.
Traffic in NYC is bad only around the GWB and Holland and Lincoln tunnels. Those go to NJ. A lot of that traffic comes from
1) gridlock
2) people planning to exit right staying in the left hand land until they stop traffic by crossing three lanes to exit right
West Side Highway north would flow very smoothly, if nobody planning to use the GWB drove in the left hand lane. If that lane were reserved for through traffic north, then traffic to Westchester would be faster. Virtually all traffic in NYC comes from people going to NJ.
it's 25k people. that's a drop in the bucket in NYC.
1
Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, should be very proud that children will go to bed hungry so that he can squeeze out a few more billions. You are a great human being. "Love me, love me, love I'm a Liberal. Phil Ochs
7
Let’s hope that the Queensbridge apartments will remain affordable housing, in the wake of all the six figure employees looking for a place that’s close to the office.
2
@Toh14m
The only way to get an apartment in a housing project is to have a low enough income to qualify. Further, it takes years to get off the waiting lists.
2
Did Amazon, of all companies, really need a $billion incentive, at the expense of taxpayers ? The rich keep getting richer in this monopolistic world
8
@lm- New Jersey i heard offered $5 billion if they located in Newark. That would have been a smart move, but for $5 billion? Not sure.
@lou andrews
Yes, and Somalia offered $20 million. Do you see my point?
1
Love it, hate it or feel indifferent to it, the Amazon deals are a prime example of capitalism at work.
That we are the most radically capitalist nation in the world is both a blessing and a curse.
2
Only in NY.... A company wants to bring 25k good paying jobs to diversify the local economy and commits to billions in accompanying investments in Queens - not Manhattan or Brooklyn - and all people can do is gripe...
8
@Tumbleweed Well, NYC already has thousands of well-paying job opportunities, in tech or other industries. It also has crumbling infrastructure, and a large percentage of people who don’t qualify for those jobs, so Amazon or not, they’ll feel little effect. There’ll be a few opportunities for vendors, and a rapid rise in rental prices.
5
A company only has ONE HQ, not three! How "un-smart" can one get - "s" is as "s" does normally won't get published, hence "un-smart". The two so called new HQs are merely two branches or subsidiaries.
Besides, isn't Amazon double dipping at tax payer expense here? If the fake new HQ is being split in two, are the incentives also being split in two too? Or are they still getting the full benefits based on a single new branch?
How insulting for those who will become unemployed, watching their taxes going to subsidize the richest man and company on Earth gaining fewer jobs than many more jobs lost.
Mathematically that works as well as the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to those who did not need it to supplement their ill-got wealth and profitable corporations that underpay their employees. The new underpaid Amazon employees are somehow supposed to pay taxes too, like the rest of us, including the lost taxes to their employer?
I guess the wealthy and corporations - which are Romney people too - have no obligation to the society they depend on for their astronomical wealth, protection and existence.
Will Tucson get their "protected" saguaro cactus back? I doubt it.
2
Looters.
The local and state governments of New York City and Arlington, Virginia are looters.
Every cent that they give away is a cent that has to be made up by the local citizens.
Schools, dental clinics, parks, subway cleaners.... oh, I can think of a thousand public places to spend that money rather than sticking it in the coffers of Amazon via tax breaks, utilities or...... did I really read that there would be CASH???? Cash would be part of the deal - when there are homeless in these cities??
This has been going on for decades.
I can't begin to tell you how sickening I find this.
Really? On top of a $1.5+ TRILLION TAX CUT???
You fools.
You have just killed your futures.
6
Everyone on this page needs a math lesson. 25,000 jobs at $150k per year is almost $4billion a year in salary. Combined NYC and NYS tax rate of about 10$ means $400million per year in revenue, or $4billion over the 10 years. This is before counting all the money those people will spend locally on food, entertainment, rent, etc. A huge win for NY. Sorry for all the ignoramuses who don't get it.
8
@Tom Maybe a huge win for 'certain' people in NYC, but not for NYers as a whole. Unless you actual believe this windfall will be used to .... fix our crumbling subway system?...continue updating our three metro-area airports?...build more truly affordable housing?...improve public schools? lol
2
@Lisa
But the city didn't give money away. It gave away a tax forgiveness. That money does not exist nor has it ever existed. The only way it would exist is to collect it from a company, but if there s no company there, it can't be collected. To have that money and be able to spend it on stuff like the subway, the city would have to attract huge company that was willing to pay taxes. Let's assume that NO big company is ever willing to pay taxes. Therefore, that tax revenue could never ever come into being. Most companies will choose to relocate to a tax haven (other states or other countries) than pay taxes.
Stamford CT is already starting to lure finance companies away from NYC. If that goes unchecked, then the 2095 World Series might feature the Stamford Yankees instead of the NY Yankees.
5
@Tom why do you think the jobs will pay that much?
It has been over a year since Amazon announced its RFP for H2Q. Every community board, politician, and pundit has had ample time to ask questions, raise awareness, and generally mouth off. All this fresh, post-closing outrage is dispiritingly typical.
2
@Kelly I only heard of LIC/Queens being in contention just about a week ago. And yes, I do follow the news. It seems to me this was very hush-hush, and settled behind closed doors.
2
With this maybe LIC can be made to look less like a dump.
3
@MIKEinNYC Some dump. Come to Hunters Point South sometime. It’s gorgeous.
2
I am not worried. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will save us from the evil "capitalistas". Before long we will be as strong and powerful as Venezuela. Down with Amazon!
3
@Ziegfeld Follies Evita of Queens wants grandiose Social Programs great but it takes High Wage earners to pay those taxes not the nightly tips from a bar.
4
@Ziegfeld Follies
ooh sarcasm! My favorite!
But seriously, notice that the caravans full of political and economic refugees are not coming from the socialist countries Republicans love to hate, Nicaragua and Venezuela. They are coming from the capitalist "success" stories like Honduras that fully implemented Supply Side Economics.
Much of the Americas. Africa, Asia, etc. is canaries that were already killed in the coal mines. If Americans actually read the international section of the NY Times they would have known that Iraq was a lie, and they would have known that Supply Side Econimics requires violence and and transfers wealth to the global rich, by manipulating markets and governments.
We the People, are the citizens, the wealth creators, and the job creators.
Corporations are chartered by governments. Corporations cannot be citizens any more than I can be my own father. But they keep accruing more and more rights, and therefore wealth, to themselves and the global 1% who own 75% of their stock. Last year they gave themselves a. $5.5 trillion tax cut mostly paid for with $4 trillion in tax increases on high-tax-state workers (leaving a $1.5 trillion deficit.)
However though I disagree on what the Supreme Court has done, I would not attack justices or the courts (a la Trump). I would clarify the law with an amendment:
Corporations are Not People and Money is Not Speech.
[LOL Trump's wife wants a girl fired. I wander what that could be about. Oooh inuendo!]
Doesn’t Amazon have high employee turnover for both corporate and warehouse workers? Didn’t the NYT publish stories about how it’s a horrible workplace? The tech industry is notorious for burning through people quickly. Discrimination and extensive use of contractors are rampant. Amazon is probably running out of young white men in Seattle who it wants to hire.
Even if they’re able to hire all these people for HQ2, it won’t solve their discrimination and attrition problems. The so-called tech industry is really a cancer on the economy. This is not the healthy growth we actually need.
3
@Huh
Yes, and NY has a history of giving the global banks large tax breaks for jobs that never materialize.
1
All these incentives that were promised by Democrats to Amazon are going to backfire. The New York City pension system is in trouble. They are betting on huge gains in the stock market to remain solvent in the years ahead. When New York finds itself in trouble for their inability to make good on their promises to retirees, all this is going to come down on the Democrats.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/nyregion/new-york-city-pension-system-is-strained-by-costs-and-politics.html
amazon setting up a plantation in queens. slave quaters already set up [queensbridge [NYCHA] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensbridge_Houses
will be interesting to see how many will leave the welfare rolls for minimum wage jobs
2
@cw It's a headquarters not a warehouse. These aren't minimum wage jobs.
1
"They have been unwilling to pay any tax unless they absolutely have to". If that's the corporate mentality, I can't wait to see DT's tax returns.
1
Why are we giving incentives to these megacompanies? Wisconsin did the same for Foxconn.
What about incentives to mom and pop businesses and young people with ideas? The backbone of our country and economy is made up of the smallest of businesses, not the big guys who like to call the shots.
174
@wihiker
It's Democrats. I'm pretty sure all or nearly all 20 cities that were in Amazon’s finals list had Democratic mayors, with the exception of Toronto. Democrats like to do favors for high-rollers, because it makes headlines.
1
And one more thing. Do you think it was a coincidence that this announcement and the details of the deal came after the midterms? Or that both chosen cities were in states with Democratic governors? Liberals can be so naive.
1
@wihiker Because "megacompanies", especially Amazon, can pretty much guarantee 50,000 new, good jobs. If not, they don't get the incentives from either Virginia or NY State.
Picking business winners and losers is hard. The free market is more efficient.
I had NVa picked as the site from the week the candidate locations were first announced.
Or, as Jeff would say ...
"Of course it was North Virginia all along. And of course we said it was only one location. But who is going to leave $1.5 billion on the table?"
Great, we have millions given to Amazon in a corporate subsidy and an Amazon executive who confounds the words “criteria” and “criterion.” He states, the “overriding criteria was going to be the ability to find and attract talent.” I envision yet higher rents in Long Island City and WAY more traffic on the number 7 line. Let’s see what Amazon gives back. Will we see significant transit improvements (including the proposed expansion of LIRR service) and major investments in affordable housing or even market rate housing?
4
@Stephan What will you get back? An influx of people who dress and act like the Verizon guy in the commercials AND you will get an indoor rain-forest built in the middle of a temperate rain forest.
I guess Amazon's portion of the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts is not enough for them they need to extract billions more from local governments too. They likely already knew where they were going to set up two subsidiaries - there can only be one HQ - playing hundreds of localities off each other and then double dipping by extracting a largess from two localities instead of one.
5
So let me get this straight.
Amazon received billions back as a result of trump's 2017 tax cut and now states are giving Amazon free tax rightoffs/credits in 2018
Yet children are homeless, going to bed hungry daily, and have no medical insurance due to federal and state funding.
Bizarre and a national disgrace.
30
The political elite of Crystal City and Long Island City working intimately with a wealthy corporate elite feel like three enormous cancers living in symbiotic harmony with one another oblivious to the destruction of their hosts.
10
It would be interesting if CNN's Mario Cuomo addresses this issue and heatedly call on his brother for the tax subsidy. Perhaps, CNN will not touch this subject not with the younger Cuomo. As someone pointed out earlier, was the announcement calculated to be after the election? Will Mario Cuomo take note of that in his nightly monologue? What does Ms. Cortez has to say now. Many of her constituents will be forced out of their rental places? Pretty soon, earning $100,000 will be considered low-income housing in her part of town? that leaves the restaurant and hospitality workers scrambling for living space and many of them will be homeless. Look no further than gentrified, SF, San Jose, Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
6
Do you mean to say Chris Cuomo of CNN ?
2
Is this the same Amazon that happens to be the second most valuable company in the world?
Is this the same Amazon whose CEO is Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world?
Is this the same Jeff Bezos who last month promised to raise Amazon’s minimum wage to $15 per hour in response to pressure placed on him by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who introduced a bill to tax corporations whose workers were forced to take taxpayer-funded public assistance benefits to supplement their low wages?
Is this the same Jeff Bezos who almost immediately after promising to raise Amazon’s minimum wage to $15 per hour stripped his workers of monthly bonuses and stock awards, presumably to fund the wage increase?
Assuming the answers to the above questions are affirmative, depending on the number of jobs created by Amazon, New York may grant the company over one billion dollars in tax incentives while Virginia may grant the company another $550 million in tax incentives notwithstanding the mega-corporation’s $1 trillion valuation, Bezos’s $170 billion net worth, and his recent playing of Senator Sanders and his own workers on the worker compensation issue?
33
Amazon got a humongous corporate handout in Virginia close to the POST headquarters. It will take decades to offset the $819,000,000 welfare check the civic leaders wrote to Bezos. I hope the residents there become aware of this.
10
Will we ever know who was involved in the negotiations, and which NYC real estate crime families stand to cash in? The only thing missing from this shady deal is Jared Kushner.
10
Wow. I saw a press release where Citibank is taking credit for moving some 1100 people out of Long Island City to make room for Amazon. What it doesn't say is that they fired 1100 people and sent their jobs to low wage areas in India and Florida. Apparently, its not just the usual politicians that can speak from both sides of their mouths.
10
DC simply was not designed to accommodate behemoths like Amazon.
I live in Capitol Hill, a stone's throw across the Potomac from Crystal City. For two years, I commuted between DC and Northern Virginia, and for two years I experienced my commute time gradually increase with the number of rideshare vehicles on the road and folks rejecting the reliably dysfunctional metro system. I'm fortunate enough to have an office in downtown DC now, but my fiancee still commutes between our home in the district and Crystal City every day. A commute that once took 15 minutes door-to-door now often takes 45. Plus ~25K additional commuters into that equation and life becomes measurably worse for everyone.
No welcome to the neighborhood pie for you, Jeff.
9
I'm so excited. Just think of it! BILLIONS of dollars and jobs that will never materialize! (doesn't big Bezos also own the Post? What a coincidence that he picked DC for "HQ2" and do you really think Cuomo is gonna change his first name?) Here let me sell you this land that's immune from climate change. MONEY!!!! Lived in DC for 41 years. Know Crystal City well. Used to ride motorcycles there "back in the day" before they renamed congress's airport "Reagan" airport after the saint.
4
Fresh Direct, watch out. They're coming for you.
5
"With billions in incentives...". There was a 1970's ghetto saying, "Getting over like a fat rat". This is Bezos and Amazon, getting over like fat rats, billions of dollars extra in their pockets. What will the residents of Queens and NYC get? More congestion, more higher rents, and higher costs of basic necessities. As for Cuomo and De Blasio- they get to be chauffeured around in their limos, zooming past traffic and red lights, while looking at the rest of us like we're pathetic creatures. The rich elites conveniently avoid the common person's troubles, yet make idiotic deals with other rich elites that affects us all. Not blinking an eye when they offer "OUR" money to these self centered rich snobs looking out only for their own personal gain. The message is loud and clear with regards ot living in big cities like N.Y.: Get out while you still have some sanity left and money in your pocket, if you know what's good for you.
24
Two deep blue areas coughed up billions to a fat corporation that doesn’t need the money.
And all these years I was told Republicans are the corporate tools...
58
@EGD
The billions "coughed up" are dependent on jobs being created and major investments being made. Amazon will not receive these things if they do not uphold their end of the deal and the city/state will verify everything along the way. This is not a no strings attached blank check.
Think about that in the context of the recent Republican tax cuts, which primarily help the wealthy and were marketed as needed to create jobs and drive investment, but which do not depend whatsoever on either of those things actually happening and, as such, their economic efficacy will not be verified.
*That* was "coughing up" *trillions*.
Amazon is not getting these tax incentives for nothing.
And all of these incentives expire in 10-15 years. After that, the city will have a very profitable site built on what is now basically nothing.
There goes the neighborhood...
Seriously, though, this will be an unmitigated and entirely preventable disaster for NYC.
The future is experimental co-operative firms that meet local community needs, creating networks with different capital sources that support middle class wages, and the sooner we start making that cool, hip, and almost as remunerative as the big box employers ,the better.
What will Amazon bring?
You will see a bunch of 'Kendra' and ' Jared' s all over the city. Wondering how to be 'cool'.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/realestate/goodbye-silicon-valley-hello-east-village.html
It's just going to get worse and worse, flatter and flatter. Just think of all those people going to lunch and the gym, and after dinner drinks in LIC.
It will be like a convention of particulary staid towners colonized a neighborhood of NYC permanently.
Seriously, fellow NYers, if 1970s was a dystopia of poverty, crime , bankruptcy, strained race relations and desperation... fifty years later will be a case study in affluenza and the dystopia of striving , boring, west coast transplants who don't have a dream that is bringing them to NYC, they have a job and an idea already in place as to what it will be like.
It's literally the worst energy you can bring to NYC. Silicon based security psychology. Puke.
123
@Brendan this is a huge win for nyc. And do not worry - NYC is exactly the kind of place that can keep it real. Too much diversity here. Tech folks will be a good mix of what I would consider old fashioned optimism and the desire to make things better via tech. We need that to help balance the financial services industry dominance. Let’s mix it up.
5
What used to be the south Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle is now refered to as Amazonia.
6
@Brendan thank you for sharing the NYT Real Estate article. What Kendra loves: “The beauty of this building was no one was really living here yet,” said Ms. Sinclair, who welcomed the choice of so many available units. And the Facebook office was about a 15-minute walk away." AND celebrate the antithesis of the NYC vibe: “Everything is wonderfully new. There is not a scuff mark. It is pin-drop silent. We haven’t heard a single thing — not a siren, not a motorcycle revving. We keep pinching ourselves about how appreciative we are to be here.”
It is a bit unfair because the NYT just ADORES publishing articles about offensive rich people in their Real Estate and Style sections. But still. Quite a gem. And who names their dog Pacman...
6
I never thought I'd agree with Ocasio-Cortez but this time I do. Amazon is taking everyone for a ride.
22
@Mike Livingston
remember, all those amazon jobs are $100000+ corp jobs not warehouse jobs, which means more people will be displaced in queens and other new york areas, leaving more people homeless. where will they be headed to ? California perhaps? somewhere i saw in the news that many facebook employees (lower paid workers) live in their cars.
8
@Hari- in NYC they are warehouse jobs. don't you understand? $100,000 per year in NYC is like me making $30,000 in Omaha, Nebraska.
1
Tax avoidance and low wages. Keys to Amazon’s success.
14
I’m all about tech jobs in nyc. I understand the majority of these jobs will be 6 figure mid to senior management jobs. It will attract the best and brightest our country has so we can compete to be a tech hub because let’s face it tech and soon AI will have a massive hand in our futures- like it or not.
I don’t think LIC was a good choice, the Bronx would have made more sense since areas there need life injected into them so small businesses can open around amazon. LIC is already hyper inflated. What does really upset me is tax cuts or incentives for coming to nyc when all of us pay tons I taxes to live here and work for companies like these. That makes me mad and I don’t think that’s ok. I understand film incentives as it adds quality to every americans life and provides us with stress reducing entertainment and gives jobs in the arts an otherwise impossible industry to get work in. But amazon gets a tax cut? Really? So we can shop more online? I’m sorry no. We welcome these exec jobs in tech but they must contribute to our infrastructure that is in fact crumbling and grossly mismanaged by both the governor and mayor.
15
This is not Capitalism. But it is a tax hike for the rest of us. The "tax incentives" mean that Amazon and other corporate welfare queens like them are not paying their fair share for public services - and the rest of us pay more.
New York state gives away $9 billion in corporate welfare a year - not including Amazon. Annual tax incentives equal 76% (yes - 76%) of the state's gross tax revenue. Yet the corporate welfare queens receiving our tax money add just 3.53% to the state's economic output. A bad deal for taxpayers and an ineffectual model for development. In other words it's a win-win for Amazon, and a lose-lose for New York taxpayers.
And that's just state taxes. Local property owners also take a hit because Amazon and the other corporate welfare queens do not pay any property taxes. Instead they make Payments in Lieu of Taxes which in Amazon's case they can get back (at least partially) in another tax incentive if they designate the PILOT for a public project.
It's all a reverse Robin Hood - take from the taxpayers to give to the very richest companies on earth.
40
@LibertyNY
Socialism for corporations not for individuals. Coudda been worse. You could live in Wisconsin where our recently defeated Governor signed a deal with a Chinese tech company that forks over $7 billion in tax monies and infrastructure accommodation in return for a promised 3,000 jobs. We were told that the potential could be 13,000 jobs might be there, but most likely much of the work will be done by robots.
5
@LibertyNY
how is it a tax hike? will our taxes go up? is that true? I don't see how that mechanism works. The city isn't giving money to companies. just tax breaks. presumably, the employees for those companies don't have kids. so, they don't burden schools or programs. they just burden bars and nightclubs.
I think tax breaks are a net zero for the city/state and not a net loss. I'd have to see a graph showing that it's a net loss. Amazon workers probably won't use any city programs, and they'll pay for a Metrocard like everybody else. Amazon workers have far, far fewer offspring than people in housing projects.
You imply that Amazon eats tax dollars. But Amazon isn't getting money. They just aren't paying money. That's a net zero. Not a net loss. Some other entity would have to be there in lieu of Amazon and paying taxes. But that's not the reality. And, like I said, Amazon workers won't use any city services, like schools. If Amazon employees don't have kids and don't take the subway, they will give more to the city (in personal taxes and spending) than they use.
@RJ Rivard-Ouch! The math really stinks.
Why didn't Bezos try to put HQ2 on the Moon?
He doesn't have a vision.
I'm sick of getting those stupid boxes from Kenosha - I want one sent from the Moon.
Alright ---how about Montana - next door to Cheney - or Iowa next door to King?
3
1.5 billion in tax giveaways to Amazon! No way!
My small business has to pay huge taxes to New York state and NYC including license fees just to keep the doors open but the richest man in the world and his thriving (thieving) monopoly Amazon gets a ransom of 1.5 billion dollars! OMG. New York state has surplus and won’t dispue This democrat says: Recall the governor and the mayor, now!!!!
17
Oh, the credit all goes to our president, Donald Trump. The greatest president ever !!!!!
2
So Amazon will now have its headquarters in three of the most expensive places to do business in America. No matter where Amazon chose to locate, it was assured of huge, taxpayer-funded incentives. But the biggest factor in such decisions is often, where would the company's executives (and their spouses) prefer to live?
5
As a resident of another area that "lost" this competition, I'm enormously relieved. I work right down the road from where their facilities here would have most likely been located, and the existing local infrastructure and retail base are already severely overcrowded and worsening each month. Adding 25,000 new workers to the area would have been disastrous.
5
@Michael
you have every right to be extremely relieved. I had to flee San Francisco and Southbay areas after living and working there for 25 years. I decided I’ve valued my life too much to continue putting up with such insanity.
2
That's great. Let's further concentrate decent paying jobs in a handful of urban areas--characterized by high rents and traffic congestion--rather than create opportunities in other parts of the country that have been left behind.
10
The high rents are a function of the high salaries, which are in turn the result of high value added per employee. Regarding congestion, 25,000 people over the course of a few hours is nothing on the subway. Ever witness the exodus when the nearby baseball stadium empties?
5
@GC
As someone who has lived over 25 years in the San Francisco in Southbay areas, I’m afraid to tell you that you have no idea what you’re talking about
2
From the Indy area, where housing prices are moderate and so are the taxes: dodged a bullet there, not that we were ever really likely in the mix. But: how much other info did we give up that other corporations looking for corporate welfare can use to extort money for jobs from our supermajority Republican legislature and Republican love-me-some-business Governor? These techie companies that our pro-business politicians have grown so excited over; they want only the best “talent” to staff their businesses, but when it comes to the final analysis, they really are looking more for a government handout of infrastructure and incentives. This “talent” thing is a smokescreen.
8
@The Nattering Nabob Maybe tech companies don't want to be in the Trump country? Maybe they fear immigrants/brown people don't want to live in the Trump country.
2
@The Nattering Nabo
There is not a large pool of technical talent in NYC to hire —- which is what the deciding factor was supposedly. There is in Virginia ——but not in NYC.
1
I wonder if Mr. Bezos will use any of his new billions to build 1) affordable housing for his new, (certainly-to-be) low-paid workers, and those who will (inevitably) be priced out of LI City by it's oncoming yuppification, and 2) throw some cash at the City's Metro, a system already collapsing under the weight of its own rust and overuse?
8
@Kitt Richards these will be $100k + tech jobs according to npr. This isn’t a low wage hub but an exec hub which is why it’s in nyc the takent pool is already here. I’m betting amazon will have their own bussing or transportation since our infrastructure can’t handle much more of this. I really hate that they are getting a tax cut to be here
3
I am confused. How are billions in tax benefits any different from a bribe? Why is offering these tax benefits legal, while bribing is not? Except, it really is, because now tax payers will be forced to hand over their money to Amazon. A forced bribe, I suppose. I hope www.transparency.org takes note when they compile their next annual corruption rating.
8
Politicians continue giving away billions to a corporation controlled by the richest person on earth. When they pass the farm bill now before Congress, politicians will punish families of 4 making less than $25,000 a year who ask for an extra hundred bucks a month in food stamps.
Politicians continue funding corporate welfare yet never require the recipients to spend those billions of “economic development” funds to create jobs in parts of the country hollowed out by de-industrialization and decimated by drugs. The corporate welfare recipients are free to use the public’s money however will make the richest person in the world even richer. Our version of capitalism privatizes gains and profits while dumping the risk of loss and failure on the public. Good to know nothing has changed in the decade since the “financial crisis.”
5
If region coughed up 1 billion and received 25000 just each returning 4000.00 in stat and sales tax. How may years would it take to pay for the tax bream. 250 workers create I million in taxes. That means 25000 create 100 million in tax. It would take 10 years to pay for this gift. Since most of the new taxes pay for services for the new population the brake even point is more like 50 years or longer If we are generous and say each Amazon job create another equal; job it till takes 25 or longer. I also wonder how other businesses will feel when Amazon arrives and thumb its nose at them.
s.
6
These 25,000 workers are already employed and are paying taxes. A. never said they would relocate large number of workers from Seattle.
1
NYC has long been overly dependent on the Financial sector for high paying jobs. This at times proven to be during down turns a disaster for city revenues. True the city has media fashion and the Arts but not rivaling the Financial sector. Tech could balance things out. Amazon may be the magnet to draw more Tech to NYC. Amazon picked LIC because the deep bench it has in Tech workers and can attract more millennial workers they want Urban areas rich in restaurants, bars night life and Arts. The incentives are rightly tied to producing the jobs. Money will go to infrastructure in the area much need anyway i.e. sewers, some 500m dedicated to construction of the buildings these will be NY construction jobs for NY blue collar workers. The city is putting over a billion dollars in worn out Public Housing with no return. Brooklyn opening artisan beer and pickle businesses is fine but grabbing a piece of the Tech pie with Amazon being a gate leader makes sense in many different ways. Social programs cost money and high earning taxpayers foot that bill.
7
@James mcCowan
From someone who has worked in high tech throughout the U.S. and Asia my entire career——— there is no concentration of high tech talent in NYC. Not compared to other areas. The only tech talent is programmers who develop algorithms for the stock market.
1
monopoly. in another time we'd have broken it up so it couldn't hurt us
13
I worked with my dad in a Greenpoint factory right across the bridge from LIC for 4 summers. It was a hazardous and harsh place, but it taught me what jobs mean to people. But this is a sad day for New York City.
9
I hope that the taxpayers New York enjoy forking over $1.5 billion to place Amazon in a fairly difficult commuting location. Meanwhile, the LIRR, and the subway are already strained, and are in woeful condition to handle to current demand. As for roads,I know the various Queens highways were very bad, growing up in the 1960s, on Long Island, they are far worse now.
Amazon is going to add 25,000 more workers into this mess.
New York State is then going to go to tax payers and ask them to pay more to improve the infrastructure. Maybe going as far as adding tolls, where tolls do not exist. Or, increasing tolls, and fares, to cover this.
Imagine what could have been done with $1.5 billion just on infrastructure alone. This si corporate welfare at its worse. And, for those who live in LIC, they will be displaced by gentrification. And, those who live in Nassau and Suffolk, they will end up with a reduced quality of life and higher commuting costs.
The real estate companies though are going to do very well, as a very unaffordable area, becomes even more unaffordable. In both housing costs and property taxes.
I am glad they did not locate here to Colorado.
7
@Nick Metrowsky Exactly right! Look what happened to Seattle. It's mind boggling how the news hypes this up. Do people really believe this is gonna be great for them? Headline should be "Amazon Announces the end of your city".
2
@Nick Metrowsky
Ha! I'm happy for you, friend. Keep Colorado uncorrupted.
You're 100% right - with the tax loss already we'll have to use the taxpayers to improve the infrastructure.
Long Island City will need some upgrading - the companies make the profits and outsource the costs to us. Me, actually.
thx for you astute observations.
David Anderson, JD
NYC
1
You want Universal Pre K, you want homeless shelters, you want free healthcare for the poor and illegal immigrants not covered by the ACA, you want cash payments to victims of Hurricane Maria, you want to fix NYCHA, this is the type of thing you have to do. From a purely financial angle, this is a profitable investment for the city. The amount of income tax generated, plus sales and property taxes, etc. will more than make up for the subsidies. Simplifying the math, 25k x avg 150k is 3.75b a year in extra income that will be taxed. NYC offered a lot less than other places. Everyone was scrambling for this. They can't all be wrong. Less than $2 Billion seems a reasonable price.
5
@Max
No, Max, sorry.
Planet Earth calling Max. ;-)
We can have both if we stop invading other countries for no reason, cut back the make-work project our military is, and cut corporate welfare for...well...oh dear no... the DONORS.
We elected a swamp monster who promised to "drain the swamp" but swamped the drain.
OTHER COUNTRIES have all these things without whoring themselves out to Amazon, etc.
4
@David Anderson
That will not realistically happen in any of our lifetimes.
When you're ready to join us in reality and not indulge in fantasy, wealthy companies and their wealthy employees will help pay for all the progressive benefits and entitlements you want through all of the taxes, subway fares, restaurants they'll eat at, etc, etc, that they pay for. Unless you have any other REALISTIC ideas to pay for all of these things without having to raise taxes sky high which I bet even you wont stand for.
3
It has always puzzled me when local government gives away taxpayer money by waiving corporate taxes and through other incentives.
They do it for sports stadiums, foreign companies, and for the world's richest man: Jeff Bezos, whose worth is reported at $150 BILLION.
It would be nice if people like Bezos had noblesse oblige, the moral code some wealthy elites used to have that resulted in them not being voraciously greedy and even giving a lot back to the community as a form of philanthropy.
Bezos needs no subsidies, tax breaks or other perks. He already underpays and over-stresses his workers, and is so wealthy that he could easily lose $30-40 billion and not even notice it.
So why he wants to get a "great deal" from muncipalities is just pure greed.
16
@Steve Davies This passes for capitalism today. Amazon is the reverse Robinhood. Plus they now know how far about 100 cities will go to stoop to their level. NY and Virginia are crazy!!!!!
2
@Steve Davies You hit the nail squarely on the head. It is called “corporate welfare” as you well know and our business community in 2018 won’t make a move without it. Watch: once these bloodsuckers, Bezos included, finish the projects, there will be some schmaltzy commercials on TV or in magazines telling all of us what great gatekeepers of the climate or of local economies these companies are. Technically, we own these companies, or at least the ground they set on, because we taxpayers paid for the free infrastructure and incentives. Someday, somehow, I hope some gutsy politician comes along and makes an issue of that. Unlike Trump, that would be a true populist. Probably also a one-termer, too! Still, it would do my heart good.
1
@Steve Davies
Bezos never met a tax break he didn't like.
NY and VA seem poor choices to me. I am suspicious of everything Amazon does because it does what is best for IT, not people. It is in business for profit, not to make the world better.
5
@CJ I’m surprised he didn’t build it in India. Everything else ends up there.
4
I'm so grateful Amazon isn't coming to Boston. We don't need any more pressure on housing costs up here.
I am actually surprised Amazon chose Queens (or anywhere within NYC) when the infrastructure is crumbling such that many (myself included have fled or wish they could flee). I can't imagine how any more people could possibly fit on the 7 or L trains!
While I know young technies might want hip places to live, I would think liveability would be an issue too. I would have thought Austin or the like would be more of a draw.
6
Me too, but happy to keep Austin quality of life for the rest of us. We still have plenty of tech moving our way.
3
I am trying to avoid Amazon if I can. It seems to me that the only recourse that the people have is to boycott companies like this. I am not necessarily against incentives for companies, but I see little evidence that they actually return anything to tax payers. The Op-ed today by Bryce Covert suggests that there isn't a benefit to the people. I would like to see more analysis, but if what is stated there is correct then what politicians are doing is selling out the people. My main problem with Amazon however is that they are huge and powerful but not helping us with shunting the growth of fascism. The corporations in general claim they are amoral and are supposed to be. I would say if they stand by while fascism grows powerful in our country that they are immoral and deserving of failure. Boycott Amazon. I don't care that Bezos owns the Post, the papers are failing us as well because they are profit oriented and thus cannot tell the truth if it upsets their advertisers. That is not a fourth estate, but more like propaganda-lite.
9
Gentrification is neocolonialism.
Amazon, get out of New York.
Our government does not speak for us.
6
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just beginning to realize her opinion doesn't matter, and that is a good thing for Long Island City.
Maybe Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo should gently and politely remind her of this.
8
@Ziegfeld Follies
Not her district either.
The pitiful site of a vastly profitable company extorting tax concessions from financially unsteady communities was all the evidence one should need to conclude that US-style capitalism is evil.
7
@Ed Watters Are you and I the only ones who believe it?
I am sure New York area progressives are having aneurysms over AMZN's tax package (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has already expressed concerns that Jeff Bezos and his troops are only coming to New York to exploit her constituents). But the reality is that 25,000 high paying jobs and a further diversification of the City's workforce away from Wall Street can only be a good thing. And placing AMZN in LIC takes some stress off of overcrowded Manhattan. Leftists may also have convulsions over the tax abatements, but they should remember NYS and City are among the highest taxed jurisdictions in America. The tax benefits seen here takes the tax load from obscene to not horrible. And honestly, if a former Sandinista like Mayor Di Blasio can see the merits of this transaction, I would hope Williamsburg's gentry left can see it too.
6
@Achilles, Sure, "job creation" is always the loss-leader when private corporations want tax breaks, but this is only one part of the calculus. As some have pointed out on this thread, the impact on the infrastructures, traffic congestion, housing and other factors need to be considered. It will likely take several decades for the community to recover the benefits of the $1.5 given up by the city in tax breaks.
And, let's face it, why should any community give a tax break to a company worth as much as Amazon? Is there some universal law at work here that demands that corporations get whatever they want?
2
@Achilles
Sorry - just in mid-aneurysm (heey - you were right) so I'll be brief. We here do pay the most taxes - mainly b/c shysters like AMZ participate in a race to the bottom, ultimately avoiding any responsibility for the infrastructure/services they require.
Now back to my brain bleed....
D. xox
3
@Achilles
What do you consider high pay $15 p/h?
In Canada we had a name for successful companies that reap government incentives: Corporate Welfare Bums.
20
@John
In the US we have a name for all those high-tech, new industry, next generation companies that are created in Canada: non-existent.
2
@GMooG
Yes, that would explain all the high tech workers crossing your porous border into Canada.
here they call it corporate warfare
2
Are all these incentives needed for such a company? Unlike the EU, the US has no rules tackling state aids. This looks like making Amazon even mightier.
1
These two cities bid on the assumption that one site was going to be selected by Amazon, but instead their full bid bought each a half loaf. What a scam!
6
Don't we have this backwards? Shouldn't it be Amazon, or any large business barging into a community, that makes concessions for the good of the community - rather than the community forking over billions of dollars in corporate welfare? Why does the richest corporation in history need my tax money?
Governor Cuomo says, essentially, this welfare will pay for itself. Just like an appliance salesman. Or Cheney selling the Iraq war...
13
@Saundra R. Halberstam
It's Pottersville (It's a Wonderlife Life) - the corrosiveness on society is appalling. Why shouldn't EVERY corporation and business of any size demand tax breaks? How do you legitimize giving it to Jeff and not to Sam? Or Sam's Club? And once you go that route then how do you raise taxes fairly or equitably?
Cuomo is picking winners and losers, and last I heard that was an awful thing to do in a capitalist system.
3
haha. all the midmarket areas were played against each other by amazon just to get the concessions from major metros like it always wanted.
sort of sad for the depressed areas which could have greatly benefitted.
2
Oh well, I guess the free college and universal health care will have to wait and the homeless will still have a home.....in the streets.
1
It's no coincidence that Jeff Bezos, who already owns the Washington Post, is positioning his two headquarters within proximity to two large hubs: media and politics.
3
The Real Winner : Seattle. Think about it.
Seriously.
3
It's a good thing Jeff got some extra scratch outta NY and VA, it's hard to scrape by when you're only worth $160,000,000,000. God knows NY doesn't need the $, I mean look at the subway: it's a marvel of modern tech and it's so clean you could practically eat off the platforms!
BOYCOTT Amazon, were you can still, even after the attacks on it by Trump, you can find "over 2,000 results for "Ivanka"".
5
Thank goodness Amazon had no interest in Los Angeles.
I dunno, NY Times. Maybe you could write an in-depth article explaining for all us dupes WHERE in the NY State constitution it is written that ANY politician in ANY capacity has the right to determine on a case-by-case basis how ANY entity can get tax breaks. This corporate hostage taking parasitism has become sooooo commonplace that we are all numb to it in terms of the LEGALITY. It canNOT be legal.
9
Can't the complainers on our side just for once be a little bit thankful that a company like Amazon chose to put a facility like this and the jobs that go with it in our area?
Before the digital ink is even dry on this announcement the far left whiners, including our new congresswoman Ocasio-Cortzez are starting to whip up the predictable anger and outrage about the tax giveaways.
Every municipality in the country wanted this project, and their first instinct is to trash it?
I hate to break the news to you, but we are still capitalists here for now and the foreseeable future.
We need corporations like Amazon, the jobs they bring and the small business that it creates in support of them.
This is the same kind of narrow, self absorbed, cut off your nose to spite your face thinking that ended up getting Trump elected when their hero Bernie Sanders lost the nomination and they refused to vote for Hilary.
Just relax for a minute and be happy that they chose us.
4
Kudos to both Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, for collaborating to make this happen...
Watching the close of the presser, complete fun to see de Blasio have to remind himself to utter some token socialism at the end of his remarks, about unions...
While fully marveling at realizing what 25-40,000 good-paying jobs will mean to NYC – and the outer boros more specifically...
Personally, never had a problem with any of the building-trade unions...
No growth = no jobs = no good...My sentiments exactly...
And a shout-out to the person not there – former Mayor Bloomberg – for having the vision and tenacity to enable NYC's resurgence at scale...
PS
To all the urban socialists so unhappy about this – suggest you all just move to Seattle...
Access to flights leaving both LaGuardia and JFK is – or will be – much improved...
PPS
Bill – I don’t like that many things about you...But the new ferries and future streetcars are fantastic...
PPPS
Now, if you two can only stand to be in the same conference room a little while longer – perhaps you can engineer the biggest give-away boondoggle of all...
Deed the entire subway system over to Elon Musk, if he promises to fix it...
If he plays hard to get - let him site a Tesla dealership in each terminal station...
As soon as Bezos leaves the company, which will happen, the HQs in Queens and DC will be redundant and will be right-sized. Do you think Amazon will give back the $$$$ ?
2
Amazon is valued at a trillion dollars, they have put more people out of work than they will employ, they have crushed both big box stores, as well as mom and pop shops, who's owners livelihoods depended on their small store. Now Amazon wants to open brick and mortar stores, in places where they have destroyed any competition or threat of competition, and they want to open HQs, all on the backs of the taxpayer.
In Seattle, Amazon had to be forced into helping with a problem they have helped to create. Amazon pays employees pennies, and as housing costs rise, workers can't afford housing, this spills into the economy as whole and workers in general are forced to pay more than a third of their income to rent. Amazon is held harmless, from taxes.
They get billions in tax breaks and incentives, money collected from the citizens of that state to pay for state, city operations, schools etc, and politicians don't have to tell the public the total long term cost. Most citizens will never see higher wages, or a higher standard of living.
What they will see is politician's saying that there is no money for schools, roads, healthcare, and they will float a levy to pay for those services. While Bezos get's richer, on tax payer money. He's convinced city leaders, that by giving Amazon tax payer money, that tax payers will benefit from just from Amazon's presence. I live in Seattle, and I've never seen any monetary benefit from Amazon having their HQ here.
3
The devil is in the details. NY is not paying $1.2 billion. It is foregoing that portion in future revenues that the project will generate. And that it would have foregone anyway had the project been built elsewhere.
5
Complete nonsense. This assumes that if amazon didn’t move to LIC the space there would just be vacant and not taken by any tax paying business. That’s not how an economy works.
1
The fact that the land is and has been vacant means that tax paying business that you dream about would not have arrived anytime soon. Hence the subsidy.
2
@GC, Who is the landlord for that property? Are they paying taxes on that site ? Are they writing it off ?
For those who worry that Bezos will "know everything about you" - he already does. And, for the markets where he might have been a little uncertain, their city officials opened up wide-eyed and groveling, bowing and scraping, every detail regarding their political aspirations, pharma labs, corporate strategic initiatives, infrastructure plans, and of course, excruciating details about demo- and psycho-graphics regarding their regions. Every one of the cities that clamored to be considered provided to Amazon intense and extensive market research that Amazon got for free - with the tab being paid by those cities' taxpayers. The very research Bezos and his minions will use to conquer retail and every other class of trade in all those cities that begged to hear, "It's you!" How utterly naive and sad - and the corporate welfare continues.
2
Amazon couldn't have picked two cities with worse traffic or housing cost inflation except perhaps SF. Good luck to their employees!
6
@Mr. Devonic As an Alexandria native, that was my first thought! Have at it, glad to see EC in rearview mirror.
And, um, extended family house soon to be on market . . .
Amazon will fix the subway and bus system in New York.
Or it won't and things will get worse.
I'm anxious to see how things will workout for them situated next to Queensbridge Houses. I envision a kind of unfolding triptych of social, economic and political inequality. This is how class works in the USA. Tourists will come and take photographs.
4
Make these kinds of bidding wars illegal, they are no more than bribes which the taxpayer is required to pay. Giving local tax breaks to corporations shifts property tax burdens to homeowners. Giving state tax breaks shifts the tax burden to private individuals. Eliminating the legalized bribes from the picture would cause corporations to base their decisions on infrastructure, education and labor force. It would encourage states to compete on the basis of educating their citizens, maintaining infrastructure, and maybe even state sponsored health care. Trade budget busting bidding wars for a fair competition for jobs.
7
@P. J. Brown You are obviously right: this is a typical prisoner’s dilemma, with cities having to compete on one-off tax breaks. If cities tied their hands through law society as a whole would win, and yet cities would still compete against each other. In a healthier competition.
However in NYC, which taxes people on their income, I don’t the homeowners will be the losers in this story. But who cares about renters?
Well we were on the list of 20 cities, but I am not sad Columbus wasn't selected as one of the big sites. We already have a tightening housing market and worsening traffic. I doubt next tier cities like Columbus, Cincy, Pittsbg, Indpls., etc. were ever really possibilities if labor pool depth was the main criterion. On the other hand, what Nashville is getting would have been lovely.
@Roy Lowenstein
Perhaps the RFPs nationwide were just an Amazon PR ploy. But at least it got those cities to think about the best way to attrack new business and to plan for future investments that will attract that next business.
The governor and mayor gave away the city and state for what? More congestion? I do hope that those new employees will be excited about the high state and city taxes as well as the congestion and often unreliable transit system. OK – there are so many cultural advantages in NYC but will those $100,000/year employees be able to afford them given the outrageous cost of living (home prices and rents will sore with the influx of so many new talented tech people). It will be interesting to watch this develop.
3
The Corporatocracy is complete. Pay no taxes and receive tax proceeds to pay for corporate operation.
4
I’d be interested to know whether part of the deal was to wait till after the gubernatorial election to announce the decision. I’m looking at you, Andrew Cuomo.
6
@Marisa Leaf Playing that race to the bottom is indeed nothing to be proud of, and I hope Cuomo (and De Blasio) will have to pay for it.
1
Sounds like another case of socializing the costs while privatizing the profits. Similar to building Sports stadiums on the public dime.
At a minimum the citizens of New York State might like to demand a scrutiny of the cost-benefit analyses that Cuomo and De Blasio have used to arrive at this arrangement.
34
So for 20 years or so Amazon had an ~8% advantage on price over local stores by not being required to collect sales tax for god knows what reason.
What say for the next 20 years Amazon and all other internet and mail order companies are required to collect sales tax, and local brick and mortar businesses who are required to pay retail rents and otherwise engage in community building will not be required to collects sales tax?
13
It simply boggles one's mind that the world's richest man, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, owning over 75 percent of one of the world's richest companies needs billions of dollars from New York taxpayers in order to locate one-half of his new headquarters on Long Island. New York Gov. Cuomo said he would even change his name to Amazon to get them. Perhaps, he should consider changing it to "kleptocrat." This is a victory for crony capitalism from the politician who ended the millionaire's tax, refused to improve New York's deteriorating subway system, and has cut funds for public higher education. All this has done is make it even more expensive to live in New York. I know; I just moved out of state because of the high taxes, especially real estate, made even worse by another billionaire's bonus in the Trump tax cut. It's time for Amazon to pay, not the taxpayers; it's time for this obvious monopoly to be dismantled, not enriched at the cost of diminished vital public services.
39
Amazon: “I am a multi billion dollar corporation that grudgingly paid its workers a living wage, and also build a new HQ in two metro areas in the east coast. I have billions stashed abroad, and already pay little to no corporate”
Also Amazon: “I want a handouts from the government”
12
Why is New York State giving Amazon tax incentives? Really? Give it to our schools, our subways, our disenfranchised but not to the Emperor! Give those tax breaks to those that need it the most in areas throughout the state that e desperately needs it. Why are we giving all this money to a highly profitable company. I need a drink!
33
Incentives. Sounds so much better than extortion.
49
@Council
I think it is extortion only to the cities that could actually benefit. We could just say no.
1
@Council: "Sounds much better than extortion", which is really what it is! Wake up, America... we're being taken over by the kleptocrats, and are becoming slaves to them. I think I'll curtail my online Amazon on-line purchasing....anyone else????
2
@Diane Thompson
I have Prime but started buying locally more, even if less convenient or more expensive
1
Seems to me, the way Amazon has exploited and abused our fragile US Postal service for their own selfish benefit for far too long until 'somebody' called them out on it, finally, shouldn't Amazon be the one paying the city a billion dollars for the convenience of coming into town, using and wearing out an already tenuous subway and city/state infrastructure system??? Helloooo????
73
@RLC I agree. We hear so much rhetoric about people needing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stand on their own two feet, yet when a company worth more than most countries deigns to grace a city with it's presence the city has to pay them?
13
@RLC
You know it used to be that way. When corporations wanted to move to a new city, they looked at infrastructure, and availability of labor, the livability of the city itself, access to waterways, rail, etc.
Now it's how much of the taxpayer money will their elected officials "give them", both in the long term and short term. Using public money collected from citizens of those states, is nothing less than malfeasance, it's not their money to squander. In this country city leaders are in this race to the bottom, Amazon, is a trillion dollar business, cities, and states have no business taking tax dollars collected for schools, roads, bridges, healthcare, etc, and give it to a company that is worth a trillion dollars.
Not to mention the problems that WILL follow Amazon, they pay garbage wages, pushing up housing costs, while taking money OUT of that city's tax base. If you give Amazon 1 billion in incentives, then give them a far lower state corporate tax rate, it will take years before that city will start to break even.
Politicians need to understand it's not their money, to "give" away, that is tax payer money collected from the citizens to pay for the operations of the city. Instead, the local politicians give that money to a trillion dollar company and man, who is the richest man on the planet. Then politicians hide their dealings from the very people funding it, the tax payer, which only a few thousand will benefit from Amazon.
17
@Stephanie/James
Yes, and yes. We used to employ the correct tax system on monolith Corporations like Amazon of 90%plus, before the St. Ronnie Reagan era began the slow dismantling favoring tax advantage of the CEO's and boardmen over that of our communities. To watch it all unfold over the last forty years has been truly upsetting and shameful. We're our own worst enemies.
7
What does a multi billion dollar company like Amazon need with billion dollar tax incentives from the states to do business there? Didn’t corporate taxes get lowered to 21% just last year? What is up with our country and this corporate welfare??
216
@MissyR
Try a valuation of one trillion dollars.....Bezos is the richest man on the planet. How much is too much, how much is enough.
Bezos had to be forced kicking and screaming, into helping fix the homeless problem Amazon has contributed to. When the city of Seattle wanted to create a "head tax" to help pay for the spike in homelessness, Amazon, was willing to shut down the construction of one of it's office buildings putting 7,000 iron workers out of work, just to spite the City of Seattle. If I were the mayor, I would never let a corporation blackmail the city by holding 7,000 jobs over the cities head.
Two weeks later Bezos suddenly has an extra 2 billion to throw at schools, and other things, while throwing a poultry 2 million towards homelessness, nothing more than a way for Amazon to deflect the possibility of that head tax being reintroduced.
Bezos, and corporate america in general, are to blame for many of the problems brought on by low pay, (at $12.00 an hour most Amazon employees qualify for some form of welfare), yet Amazon makes a huge deal out of raising their pay to $15.00 an hour, but cuts bonuses. But that raise to $15..00 that was GOING to happen anyway, the $15.00 dollar an hour minimum wage law passed in Seattle. So Amazon as it turns out, isn't doing anything special.
What american's need to understand is, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that higher corporate taxes reduces jobs, jobs are a side effect of corporations growing.
6
@James Young
Yes. If you Google tax rates by year and GDP growth by year, it is more than obvious that cutting taxes over four decades has reduced average growth by 40%!
Unfortunately most economists are paid by the very rich to hide the obvious truth.
Take an hour or so of your day to prove to yourself that supply side economics is a giant lie. Its worth it.
Growth war higher under stagflation than under supply side economics! Check the actual data.
3
@James Young-Adding to your points, if my math is correct: taxpayers pay Amazon $1.7 billion (in tax breaks). Divide that by 25,000 so-called jobs created and it comes to $68,000 paid out for each job created.
I asked at the outset of the HQ2 search why any corporation needed a headquarters. What with telework, virtual meetings and other tech advances, there is no longer a need for impressive HQ buildings, cushy boardrooms, private offices, executive dining rooms and all those other trappings from the 1950s.
Amazon might need more distribution centers around the country since it is now the last general retailer in the US. Yes, there are Target and Walmart but why fight for parking at the former and risk being shot at the latter when you can order from Amazon in the comfort of your own home?
5
@Lynn in DC
The Target in my town shut down. The huge shopping mall is vacant except a few stores.
1
The smaller site in Nashville will prove to be the most important of the three, especially if it is located near a hot-chicken restaurant.
6
Tell them to simply go away. The stress on our infrastructure will be too great, the rise in housing costs will price out far too many. The cost of living will soar for those mere mortal who are caught in the backlash. They want talent -- then they have to pay for it go to Kalamazoo (no disrespect meant) and get it, and keep it there on your own dime. We are doing well enough thank you.
7
Procedural transparency concerns aside, from the standpoint of regulatory governance, I think this is probably a best case scenario for New York.
The Excelsior program, as shown in a 2015 audit by the NYS Comptroller's Office, hasn't been great economically. The State hasn't had the resources or willpower to ensure that the hundreds of small companies approved for relatively small tax credits are sticking to their ends of the deals, so New York has been getting ripped of.
It'll be much easier for the city and state to watch over one huge company in Long Island City and measure job growth/investment than it has been for them to watch over ~500 small companies scattered all over the state.
Plus, there is huge public interest in this story to which Cuomo and DeBlasio have closely associated themselves. If this goes terribly, it'll mean their necks, so the regulatory agencies supervising these incentives will feel pressure to ensure success.
As a side benefit, with Democrats now taking the state government, it's good to see Cuomo and DeBlasio working together. That bodes well for the city.
Whether or not $1 in tax credit should be worth $10 in investment or $15 (or whatever the Excelsior ratio is) is another debate.
At the end of the day, I think this is a regulatory scenario where economic incentives and administrative ability seem pretty well-aligned. Chances of the risk paying off seem good.
4
@AGuyInBrooklyn
Beyond this, the proposal looks pretty good. I recommend people read it before judging it:
https://d39w7f4ix9f5s9.cloudfront.net/4d/db/a54a9d6c4312bb171598d0b2134c/new-york-agreement.pdf
Annual outlays are relatively small since the headline dollar amounts are spread through 2028/2033. Of course, all the tax incentives and grant money are dependent on investment/job creation. If Amazon misses its targets, they don't get the benefits. The schedules are laid out so you can see how the programs work.
What's not mentioned at all in this article, and which certainly needs to be weighed, is that the Excelsior credits expire in 2028.
In other words, after ten years, this deal is gravy.
1
The grit of the NYC region and its beautiful folks will meet eye to eye with Jeff Bezos and its Amazon. Its challenge will be welcomed because of their resilience and adaptability. However, make no mistake. NYC is no tax haven nor tax friendly, Amazon. A six digit salary of your employee is relative above average in the region.
2
Confused about the fraction. Can’t say HQ1 because that’s taken. HQ 1/2, since HQ2 represented one quantity? Decimal better? HQ 0.5? Do I have the math wrong altogether?
1
So New York state is giving Amazon $1.2billion for branch office. We could build 5 or 6 feet of subway line for that money.
147
@mkm
Such hyperbole!
We could get at least 10 feet of subway for 1.2B.
7
Amazon should have picked a purple place to invest to spread the wealth from the coasts toward the rust belt. Bring them back with jobs and investment. It already takes my husband 5 hours a day to commute to NYC from our home 40 miles west in NJ.
Cincinnati has great technology school, Pittsburg too.
10
This type of socialism is perfectly acceptable to conservatives/GOP while claiming to be proponents and protectors of the “free” market.
8
@Glennmr
...except that it was done by a Democrat and liberal, Andrew Cuomo.
By the way, I too am an Democrat and a liberal (with most things), but I am no fan of Andrew Cuomo.
11
@Ed
Cuomo? A liberal? Look who backs him:
"State's biggest G.O.P. donors migrated to Cuomo"
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2014/08/states-biggest-gop-donors-migrated-to-cuomo-014809
2
@Glennmr
errr, which conservatives are you talking about? DeBlasio? Cuomo?
Cuomo's Fairy Tale Trickle Down. And what is going on in Bill de Blasio's mind is beyond me. And what is going to become of the 300 million dollars directed to Hudson and Kingston NY, I'd like to know. Who's going to benefit from that?
Mario Cuomo teamed up with Reagan over closing the health facilities creating the massive homelessness on the streets of NY City. This will do the same to education, transportation as well as the possibilities for proper health care.
6
@rubbernecking And I think Hudson and Kingston are getting 30 not 300 million, but really, the matter is, who is going to benefit? If we trickle down, we should be upon health, education and human services like cheap tickets or free admission to museums, films and performance.
This is a nightmare perpetrated by Amazon Cuomo.Most of the jobs will be done by robots.Amazon deserves no tax breaks and we should be putting all our resources into improving the subway and infrastructure in general and most crucial affordable housing.I think we citizens of NY should have a say in this debacle.To leave it up to corrupt Cuomo is galling.
8
@susan mccall
I hope the Times or pro publica follows the money. How much will Amazon Cuomo get in his campaign coffers from Bezos and company in the future?
1
Why is a company with such a huge profit in need of incentives, subsidies, and all that other corporate welfare? Bezos already has every penny he needs, and then some....
Public money that would better serve the homeless with cost-free housing is a more honorable and urgent use of our tax dollars.....
End corporate welfare NOW!
18
My heart goes out to the locals who live in Long Island City....what amazon did to Seattle and the small business owner they will do to you.
18
@Margo Channing
"Locals" is not one group of people.
All the locals who own homes and apartments in the neighborhood just hit the jackpot.
1
LOL! My area was in the running for this and I'm glad you won!
I just want my Amazon deliveries, not share my commute with 50,000 Amazons!
7
No! No! No!
This is a very profitable business.
It should pay FULL taxes--not ask us for charity.
86
@mike
NOooo. Amazon should do what it does. It up to you and your representatives to do what is best for you and your region. Amazon did nothing wrong in this whole story. If mistakes are made with tax incentives it's on the people and the politicians.
It is ridiculous to give away taxpayer money to a multibillion dollar corporation. Coumo and fellow Democrats rail against corporations so why is this being done? Amazon would have built in NY anyway. Amazon manipulated NY to get what they wanted on their terms.
9
@Sam
They should be paying us.
Not he other way around
So now that each site will only be getting roughly half of the "HQ2" investment, I'm sure that New York and Virginia will reduce their original proposed tax benefits and incentives by half, right???
8
So excited about the resume workshops for residents of Queensbridge. Amazon’s generosity is truly heartwarming. I’m sure Cuomo and DiBlasio stood firm making sure this was part of the deal. This is truly giving back to the community.
2
What a joke. Scam the cities looking for revitalization, get all the information for 200+ cities to strategically market to them and get even more personnel data without permission.
I forgot, Bezos has quite the apartment overlooking Central Park in NYC and is building quite the home in DC. Access to the stock market and politicians. I guess if Bezos had a home in Montana, Butte would have come out big.
Time to break up Amazon. Deceit, deception and internet gerrymandering requires divestiture.
Wonder if our politicians have the guts to break them up?
31
Very expensive housing will become more so in these places. Buckle up, low and middle income renters, the worst is yet to come.
8
@On the coast
All of these decision affecting middle income earners made by public servants their whole lives who will live off the public the rest of their lives. I'm talking to you Amazon Cuomo and ineffectual Warren Willhelm (aka de Blasio).
Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. He bought Whole Foods grocery stores, very popular in the DC metro area. Now he has the local governments under his thumb with this deal.
He's takin' ovah, ya see.
Washington, DC is going to become a company town in a few years. Those office buildings constructed for government agencies are built for security, electronic and otherwise. Bezos will build his empire of control through all of the technology available and exploited by him in the past few years. Beware! He will control your food supply and track your movements by the Amazon and Whole Foods apps on your smart phones. He will monitor your homes through Alexa. He will know everything about you, even the color of your underwear and what toilet paper you use. He will know what you eat for breakfast and your favorite beer.
Virginia and New York have opened their gates to a Trojan Horse.
6
More jobs are good, but not at the cost of hundreds of millions. Arlighton's economy is already red hot.
2
800 billion dollar company as I write this that is working the average assembly line worker like a slave and they deserve a billion from the socialist Cuomo. Just like the old Tom Kean ex governor of NJ slogan perfect together. Not only will they give them tax credits Bezos won't give them any money to help the crush of new people using the infrastructure and school system.
Remember his lark of asking the public how he should spend his fortune and he decided it would be on exploring space and or Mars. This is who we are courting! Dr. Strangelove.
4
So wrong that a company so rich, and full of so many smart people, has to play a game and jerk around hundreds of cities, forcing them all to spends tons of money on their pitch, only to have this happen. Amazon knew from the start how this would end. This is a shame, and the fact they are receiving tax benefits is like rubbing salt in a wound. Shame on Bezos, Shame on Amazon!!
13
Two Billion in tax incentives!
For a company as large as Amazon that effectively has put retail businesses out of business like the shopping malls in Northern Virginia at Tyson's Corner. What about the tax revenue from those businesses?
American local governments are self serving morons. Trump could definitely get the taxpayers of Virginia a better deal than that!
4
Amazon must have figured out that Long Island City and Crystal City must be fully integrated so don't be surprised if PANAM is brought back to live to reconnect La Guardia and Ronald Reagan Airports.
1
@rudolf
You've never heard of Delta or American Airlines?
Washington, D.C. and New York City. How original.
4
Cool. Another reason to get off this glorified sandbar as soon as humanly possible.
3
Jeff Bezos' search for America's Dumbest Mayor apparently yielded two qualified contestants.
9
Poor Bezos. The richest man in the USA needs a tax break to come to Long Island City and use my tax dollars to subsidize him.
In LIC, thirty something tekkies and computer specialists already share a small 1 bedroom 4 to an apartment. When you can't pay your college debt and afford 1 room to yourself- now that's economic progress!
Queens, as usual, will be the loser. Thanks, Cuomo.
7
What a craven bait-and-switch. Amazon throws a beauty contest then makes an utterly predictable decision to award the prize jointly to two East Coast locales. Of course Amazon kept the big prize: scads of information.
155
This is obscene—one of the most financially well off companies in the history of the world having to get a pay-off to open a location in New York City.
77
Every tax dollar not paid by Amazon is either a cut in public services or one to be made up by me.
6
@Stourley Kracklite Meh. NYS has the highest taxes in the country. AMZN's package reduces the tax load from obscene to middle of the road. Our illustrious leaders in Albany and Trenton and their paymasters at the public sector unions have made sure that public services in the metropolitan area will be overpriced and of mixed quality.
1
@Achilles Thanks for your insight... :/
So grateful Amazon is trying to make the East Coast a new tech hub. With generous unnecessary tax breaks the control of government ought to fall right into the hands of the tech titans.
5
After 9/11, the DOD moved thousands of jobs away from the D.C. area; with them went many contractors. Both had occupied lots of space in Crystal City which is currently available and clearly attractive for Amazon. It is unfortunate, but not surprising given Mr. Bezos' apparent minor interest in civic responsibility, that an area in the country truly in need of economic development was not chosen. I for one will think twice about purchasing from Amazon in the future.
5
I'm a Long Island City resident, and love the sense of community that runs in this neighborhood. It truly feels like a small, self-contained city in a way I haven't experienced with other neighborhoods (I lived in Washington Heights for 6 years, and spent several years long-term house sitting in Soho). This is the first place I've lived in NYC where I want to stay in the neighborhood on the weekends, where the local businesses seem to have a sense of service and loyalty to the community, and where neighbors actually try to get to know each other. Of course these characteristics aren't exclusive to LIC, but they seem to be heightened here. I hope Amazon's move doesn't diminish what makes Long Island City such a great place.
@LD
Oh don't worry LD they will. Count on it. Cuomo and de Blasio ought to be strung up by their shoelaces and tarred and feathered. People who don't know what it's like to live or work in the private sector.
According to another NYT story on this same subject, Amazon will receive $1.525 billion in tax breaks for creating 25,000 jobs. This is the doing of a Democratic governor and a Democratic mayor.
And the Democrats complain that the Trump tax bill was a "give-away" to the rich.
14
NYC as I know it is done, folks.
I grew up in Forest Hills, Queens and attended high school in Long Island City. LIC has been changing over the years but Amazon feels like a death sentence to Immigrant New York. If these jobs may help locals in the short term, in the long term, it will press the same locals further and further out of the neighborhood as the cost of living will sky-rocket further. This is not a maybe — it is certainty, and we've seen this happen over and over. In no time, you will completely lose the diversity in that neighborhood and adjoining neighborhoods that makes Queens the immigrant hub it has historically been.
I felt the tug of displacement in my stomach when I heard the news and thought about the changes to come. Brooklyn -- I've never felt for you this hard.
3
Everybody always complains about how the evil tech companies aren't paying their share, or squeeze public officials for big tax breaks, but the fact is that tech companies spread unprecedented wealth, wherever they set up shop. Both NY and VA will see major benefits for years to come.
3
@Brian Will Because NYC doesn't know what unprecedented wealth looks like? There are more billionaires in NYC than anywhere else in the world (https://cnb.cx/2Iqj6yu). We don't need schooling from California on this topic.
3
@Brian Will “fuzzy math”
@Brian Will not sure "spread' is the right word being its fairly well consolidated. i haven't benefitted wealthwise from facebook, twitter, salesforce, hp, google etc. which is in the bay area. n
2
I do hope that Amazon actually pays its employees a full living NYC wage.
Otherwise, we the taxpayers are going to be picking upt the costs for them to do business cheaply and to provide these workers basic healthcare coverage, housing, and food.
4
Don’t worry you’ll not pick up the cost. Most of the workers will be on temporary visas like myself, where we pay thousands of dollars to the federal treasury and don’t anything in return.
Well, at least the incentives are not for a sports stadium.
5
The NYC area is paying Amazon more than twice what the DC area is paying, for the same thing. Odd.
5
@JustInsideBeltway
Well look who brokered the deal. None other than Amazon Cuomo. Apparently numbers, contracts etc. are not his strong suit. Don't know what his strengths are. What he did for HUD he's doing to the residents of NYS, gross mismanagement. Apparently to work in Albany you have to check your brains at the door. And ethics.
1
I am delighted to see that Amazon will land in LIC, as both a resident and a property owner. The usual whining about tax credits shows an ignorance of economics. Amazon will be an engine that powers several other local businesses - hotels, restaurants, shops, support services, subcontractors, construction, etc.
5
@QED
Really ? They will service their employees and space themselves.
Those people will step out of the building to leave and enter to start...
We just gave the richest man in the world our tax dollars after her put hundreds of shops(books & music) out of business
5
@QED My whining about tax credits has to do with the manipulation of the marketplace by the government giving corporate welfare to the richest company in the world, further disadvantaging small businesses that are already hurt by Amazon's legal economic advantage of economies of scale. Yes, if you own property in LIC, you stand to benefit with increased property values, as do some local businesses. But that would have happened without a payoff by the government to the wealthiest company in the world. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in the current economic model, and NYC just exacerbates that by bribing the rich to locate in LIC.
4
Amazon needs to help both these states in dealing with climate change. Make all the delivery cars electric. Sell only from sustainable companies. Put solar panels on the roofs and use geo thermal for heat along with solar generated electricity. Pay the people well and make the impact on the environment positive. Jeff Bezos is a smart man and a 'can do' powerhouse. He can do this and actually help these communities in a million ways if he just thinks about it and sees the forest from the trees.
7
@kay Don't hold your breath waiting for Bezos to suddenly become a model citizen. He talks the talk, but walking the walk would cut profits, and that's what Amazon is all about. Sorry.
4
Many tri-state well educated (new college grads, experienced types) migrate now away to Silicon Valley if going for hi-tech jobs. Amazon's arrival can reverse that and attract other companies here too, adding more momentum to NY. This is a good thing.
5
@Gian Piero
Maybe a tiny fraction of a percent of what the Bay Area gets. The Bay Area is light years ahead, and that won't change any decade soon.
2
I really feel sorry for the folks in Washington area suburbs and Long island city folks. There will no benefits for the cities except a short-term increase in tax receipts.
5
Great, a company that does not pay its workers a living wage, so that they depend more heavily on taxpayer-funded subsidies from local, state, and federal governments.
Wow, a company that "needs" tax breaks to decide where it locates, even though it is a "category killer" retailer that is also run by one of the world's wealthiest men.
Mayor DeBlasio and City Council, turn this "opportunity" down. If Amazon wants to be in NYC, let it be treated the same way as the small stores it is putting out of business are treated.
68
actually out here they pay usually around $24 an hour in Denver. I'd say for Virginia that's super livable. our cost of living is much higher
1
@margaux
Online calculators show that the DC metro area is overall 34% more expensive than Denver metro area, and that housing is twice the price in the DC area vs. Denver.
5
@margaux
No, the cost of living in metro VA is much higher than Denver
5
Cuomo's slush fund has been wasted in Update NY. If one were to use the money for luring companies, LIC is not the worst choice. The neighborhood will gentrify completely within a few years, for good and bad.
However, the City is groaning from it's popularity. We actually need money targeted to infrastructure. The building boom is making NY look like Pudong, but the infrastructure cannot keep pace or even tread water.
Lastly, Amazon doesn't really need the tax incentives. Just because you can do it doesn't mean that you should.
13
Westchester county on 287 would haven been a better choice. So much space and great access to nyc
@Jordan Schweon Nice call on the Pudong reference.
So now Amazon's publicity stunt moves onto the next stage. I hope the NY Times will stay on top of this story, because this is much ado about nothing. Look for Amazon to begin cutting employee in the next few years. Growth will slow significantly for their core business, just as it has for AWS. Competition is on the heals of Amazon. Saavy buyers are finding deals elsewhere. A few years ago I started shopping Amazon and wa shocked how much money I saved elsewhere. Target, for instance, has free shipping for all orders over $35. Amazon will remain the leader for some time, but their share of the pie will shrink, along with their stock price.
6
While I am a fan of Amazon, there's no denying that New York is wasting money with this deal. Paying $1.5 billion for 25,000 jobs equates to about $60k per job. Even with many of these being high paying tech jobs, the city and state will be hard pressed to recoup that in income taxes over the next decade.
Beyond that, it's easy to think of more effective ways to create tech jobs in NYC. Why not create a tech accelerator or VC fund for New York state-based companies? With $1.5 billion dollars you could provide $1 million each in seed funding to 1,500 startups or $500k each to 3.000 startups! If those 3,000 startups each created an average of 10 jobs you'd far surpass the number of jobs Amazon will create and as a VC or tech accelerator NY would eventually recoup their investment too.
Furthermore, NY already has a burgeoning tech scene and the proximity of MIT and the Ivy Leagues offers a steady supply skilled knowledge workers. Frankly, we shouldn't overpay to get Amazon because Amazon was never going to set up their HQ in the boonies. Neither Amazon's senior executives nor elite tech workers would willingly relocate to Albuquerque or Louisville. We could have offered a couple hundred million in incentives and have been competitive with virtually any other city. This was a bad deal, plain and simple. Bezos must have agreed to have the Washington Post endorse Cuomo's 2020 presidential bid or something.
23
What a pity. Amazon had a chance to inject new life and new jobs into places that need both--Detroit, West Virginia, to name a couple of obvious options. Instead they go to NYC and DC? Really? Is NYC not congested enough? Are apartments not hard enough to come by and expensive enough already? What a pity. Think I'll go back to buying in local stores now.
31
@kj Living in the Detroit metro area I for one am glad we are not getting it. The roads are bad enough already, the extra traffic and lack of a solid public transit infrastructure means driving anywhere would be immensely worse. Last winter I blew two tires out from potholes alone. And the tax incentives that were offered by Detroit/Michigan were just insane where they offered to give the taxes the state collected on the employees back to Amazon so employees were literally taxed to work for Amazon by Amazon.
1
I think most people just want the jobs amazon will bring . Those people who are not happy or have negative things to say about this are already have jobs. We will soon see the long lines once they hire.
3
@Miahona The long lines could have happened in any community in America without giving out $1.5+ billion in corporate welfare. Giving the richest company in the world welfare violates the 14th amendment equal protection clause. It is an unfair advantage that hurts small businesses already in decline by Amazon's legal advantage created by economies of scale. Now the government has picked winners and losers rather leaving it to a fair economic system. If you support the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer then this is a good day in America.
6
@Miahona yes long lines of non-nyc residents
2
Well if those twenty five thousand employees are paid very highly, like $150-200,000 on average, it’s probably a deal that will eventually bring some benefits but more likely, Amazon shareholders will do fine but nobody else will see any net benefits.
9
why would they pay them that much money.
1
Because that is the average pay in the area for white collared college educated workers with experience.
3
The billions of dollars of corporate welfare to Amazon has turned the 14th Amendment "equal protection" clause upside down. that clause states, in part, that individuals and businesses moving into a state "shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof." All the mom and pop stores that have already been losing money because of Amazon should join together and sue NYC and Virginia for giving extraordinary "privileges of trade and commerce" to the wealthiest company in the world thereby furthering its advantage and ability to crush small businesses. It is a constitutional violation. It also reinforces the historical inequity in America that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
106
@B
Yes and its not only Citizens United. The Supreme Court has been twisting the 14th Amendment to make corporations into pseudo citizens and Money into speech for over a hundred years.
Support this Amendment:
Corporations are Not People and Money is Not Speech.
5
This is so very wrong. I am convinced that the founding fathers, had they conceived it, would have never let any corporation skirt their due tax bill. It's ridiculous with their profit they don't pay into the local community, but many small businesses that they will eventually crush do. Fair play? Not even close.
93
@leftcoast Just wanted to point out that corporations did not exist in 1780. If they did, or if, somehow, they were imagined back then, I think the Framers would have put in protections.
Let's see how long it is before Amazon wants new taxpayer funded roads and exits and buildings. I don't believe for a New York minute they will use anything old or outdated. They'll want shiny and new and taxpayer funded everything. And how many years will all that take?
8
@markd, if that's what Bezos wants then he'll have to pay for it and make it happen. People want the upgrades and don't mind paying a smidgen more to make it happen. Building some affordable housing to help those pushed out by the coming higher rents would be a step in the right direction.
1
@markd It creates jobs.
I’m sure the thousands of new employees will be happier than the majority of these commenters. But hey, I don’t live in the US so perhaps I’m blind to the obvious discontent.
2
Conveniently bikeable to Langley and NSA HQ with all the national security amenities to meet the standards and expectations of the modern IT behemoth.
@Thomas Busse 15-20 miles to both Langley & NSA from Crystal City. Maybe bikeable, tough in that humidity ...
@Thomas Busse Yes, our new overlords are cycling enthusiasts. Very Vonnegut.
NYC to Amazon: please go. We don't want you. Go to Detroit where they need help.
65
@Mixilplix Even worse is the location in Crystal City which is already crammed with high rise everything. Why didn't Bezos take over Washington's Mount Vernon. Plenty of land out there.....
3
Hopefully the tax credits allow Amazon to stay in Wisconsin next to Fox-Con
2
Amazon may soon find out a few things:
Their employees will lose out on bidding wars for New York real estate, eventually.
New York City is not a laid-back city.
They will need to modify their drug screening policies.
Taking your laptop home on mass transit is a Bad Idea. But Amazon doesn’t believe in offices, or desks with locking drawers, so....?
8
@Steve B Good grief. Have you ever been to New York City? You don't actually get mugged every time you step out the front door.
3
Hate to burst your bubble but in NYC everyone rides the subway. At all hours. Wall Street guys with Rolex watches and dishwashers with bare wrists. Those Amazon issued laptops will be just fine.
8
@Steve B i don't think you realize this is NYC of 2018 not NYC of when you visited in 1970.
3
Billionaire Bloomberg set the stage by rezoning the East River waterfront, including LIC, doling out the parcels like party favors to his developer cronies so that an unbroken wall of luxury towers could go up from the Brooklyn Bridge to Queens. Now, billionaire Bezos has come to claim occupancy. Neat how that all worked out, huh?
Cuomo and de Blasio, who relish their supposed adversarial reputations, are in truth both craven vassals of the NYC real estate mafia. You can bet that along with the Mayor and Governor, there were a host of NYC real estate and finance goniffs at the table with Amazon, positively salivating at the prospects, everyone else be damned. Amazon's plans for "giving back", especially when they are recipients of an enormous largess, is reminiscent of when, as part of a deal to add several more stories, one of these luxury condos builds a fenced-off "public park" the size of a doormat.
19
I live 2 subway stops from Crystal City.
Nobody is sure yet what this is going to do to this area except we are all betting our rents are going to be much higher.
8
@fast/furious You can bet on it.
2
Where's the infrastructure to support 50,000 more commuters, residents in Long Island City?
67
@Harriet
Aside from the fact that the city and state need to take care of our infrastructure regardless of whether or not Amazon brings in 25-40,000 more commuters over the next decade (Long Island City is growing anyways), this deal includes a PILOT program that will contribute 50% of what property taxes would be (the land will technically remain owned by the government, so it won't pay property taxes) to an infrastructure fund for improvements ("including but not limited to streets, sidewalks, utility relocations, environmental remediation, public open space, transportation, schools and signage") outside of Amazon's site, but inside of the Long Island City neighborhood.
I'd say that's at least $5-10 million annually for as long as Amazon is there, which could be decades, escalating with CPI, to be specifically allocated towards local infrastructure.
And that's money that this site would not have generated given that it's currently half government-owned and half vacant. Even if a developer developed the vacant land, their property taxes would be treated normally, not allocated specifically towards infrastructure. Plus, no developer would be able to build what Amazon is going to be allowed to build, so Amazon's PILOT is likely going to be more profitable than the property taxes of any normal real estate project.
Tax incentives for Amazon certainly are a better use of public money than the millions spent on attracting and hosting the next Olympic Games. Congrats to Amazon.
6
Whatever happened to "Build it and they will come" thinking?
Amazon had the opportunity to open up this employment bonanza to areas that are crying for such an infusion of real economic opportunity.
Say, in the MId-West. Lower East Coast.
But, of course, they were always going to put this project right up next to the biggest air-cargo capacity complex in the country.
That 2-day shipping guarantee was driving his thing all the time.
4
@KMEC
To people who wanted Amazon to put HQ2 in Detroit, Houston or in the South: Do you know a lot of well-educated 20 somethings who want to live in Detroit? Or Texas?
Do you want to live in a Red State?
Didn't think so.
What Amazon got putting HQ2 in Crystal City: pretty area (DC/NoVa) with a moderate climate (discounting the humidity), 3 regional airports, subway, excellent NoVa public schools and hospitals, numerous good colleges & universities, museums, concert venues, restaurants, other cultural amenities, numerous outstanding hotels, lots of nice places to take 1 - 2 day vacations. Healthy local economy. Lots of existing housing.
"If you build it, they will come."
Maybe.
After college in NYC and grad school in CA, the last thing I would have done was take a job in a Red State. I think lots of well-educated young people feel that way even more now.
Want to move to a state that practices discrimination,
has entrenched racial animus, is represented by neanderthals in Congress, where officials claim "liberals" are stealing the elections?
5
yes, and we will have more polluted air...
@fast/furious I hear your points.
As a moderate living here, I know what it is like to be in the minority.
Submit that an influx of just the kind of people that might take those jobs could help bring about the political climate change that we are seeing in previously super-reds like Arizona and Texas.
I know that it is not Amazon's responsibility to help Americans get to know one another again as people but it might have been a start.
1
Excellent news. I worked at Crystal City years ago, it was an uninspiring collection of 70s-era buildings that seemed saturated with federal government torpor. Not much has changed in the intervening years. Hopefully Amazon will re-build part of it, attract other private companies, and bring in some sorely needed vitality.
2
With Amazon comes a large influx of people, skyrocketing rents, overburdened infrastructure, and a huge loss of quality of life for the residents who must accommodate its minions. It's not a winning situation for anyone except Amazon and the economic refugees who move in to take up jobs with them.
26
@Wolfgang Rain Hi. "Economic refugees" are going to be easily making over the median household income in the district. Take your theories elsewhere plz.
@Wolfgang Rain Hmm. Long Island has been bleeding young people for decades. These new workers can live there, be as close to their physical job location as lots of New Yorkers, and be able to afford the CoL.
Some LIers will complain about the hit to infrastructure and such. The same ones now complaining that they can't keep their kids on LI? Can't have stuff both ways.
1
@Rachel I don't dispute that some of the incoming will be making more with Amazon than the district median income. My "theories" derive from direct experience having lived in Seattle, observing how the Amazon effect in Seattle was only good for Amazon and the economic refugees who took up jobs with them. It was not good for the citizens who were rent-jacked and crowded right out of their own home town. Managing an incoming behemoth like Amazon is a tricky business.
3
Amazon's corporate genius has made dozens of U.S. cities promise them tax breaks they don't need while maintaining the leverage to play New York and D.C. off each other, guaranteeing their privileged treatment for years to come.
It's a good deal for Amazon, but a pretty poor deal for everyone else.
40
Interesting that some headlines are identifying NY and N. Virginia as "winners." Losers might be a more apt descriptor. I have family in Seattle and I am very relieved that Amazon HQ2 is not coming to Chicago (a finalist city). In my humble opinion, Amazon has had a very detrimental impact on the quality of life there. The idea that tax dollars have been used to lure a fabulously wealthy company at the same time that an enormous burden is placed on the taxpayers and citizens is outrageous. It is hard to see how this is going to pan out. As well, Bezos has not come close to the philanthropic example set by the Gates family, who have a tremendous sense of civic responsibility.
125
@LBS When it comes to anti-philanthropy, the worst is the Walton Family from Walmart.
If their net worth is combined together, they are the richest in the world by far.
Epitome of the Scrooges...
8
You could call it an Olympic win—as much of a win as getting the Olympics in your town.
Nor would I call the private-school-friendly monopolist Gates a "philanthropist". Ill-gotten gains and insecure non-free software and all that.
1
25,000 young, well paid professionals competing for rental apartments, seats on subway trains during rush hours, schools, brunch tables on Sundays, Übers would make life in LIC/Astoria even less exciting.
4
@Comfortably Numb
It may be great for real estate brokers, but for the rest of Queens, not so much.
If only Cuomo would give that tax break to hard working New Yorkers instead of the richest man in the United States. How Trumpian of him!
When did Cuomo turn into Trump?
9
Young well paid professionals? How many of those Google folks will be able to afford LIC, Astoria, etc. where you'd need $100k in income for a $2500 studio using NYC's typical 40x monthly rent in yearly income requirement? I suspect very few. $15/hr won't even get you a room sublet in LIC.
3
@Deb K
Cuomo was always like this.
1
As a citizen of Colorado, we did not offer Amazon a large tax break and the majority of citizens here where opposed to the Amazon headquarters , but this is up to the citizens of New York to figure out and i wish them luck with their new employer .Remember that with the new employer come 25,000 new citizens that need services from New York .
15
yes they will need services but they will also pay taxes at a very high rate
not such a bad deal
4
@larry Pay taxes at a high rate? You're kidding, of course. I've lived in two places in NY State, and you have no clue about life in New Orleans...... I'd rather move back to NY.
1
@ultimateliberal
nys and city tax ranges between 12 and 15%
whats that times 25000 jobs?
2
Amazon may soon find out a few things:
Their employees will lose out on bidding wars for New York real estate, eventually.
New York City is not a laid-back city.
They will need to modify their drug screening policies.
Taking your laptop home on mass transit is a Bad Idea.
17
@Steve B Not only laptops but a large group of well-off people will be a tempting target for the criminal element.
2
Ohh? And you have great experience there, I presume? You don’t think people in NYC take their laptops with them in the trains or buses?
2
@Marisa Leaf
Don’t ignore the value of data
2
I have mixed feelings about this and I'm not inclined to blindly believe the adversarial rhetoric The Times and most mainstream outlets have taken on this.
I'm not entirely sure what the substantive problem is here beyond the optics. As long as the incentives are commensurate with the initial number of jobs provided, what's the problem with trying to attract business to your town or city?
If Amazon is going to pay those 25,000 employees in Crystal City at least $15/hr. (which they've committed to do) those incomes that are paid out to those people will match the money made by the incentives -- in less than a year!
Clearly the long-term gain was worth it for these cities. Was the prolonged search theater just to milk incentives? Sure. Would it have been better to locate these new offices in a Midwestern city? Maybe, depending on the skills Amazon felt like it needed.
Even if their intentions were good, the story will be that they were bad.
I just wish people would think for themselves instead of just choosing to be outraged because a headline or last paragraph in an article told you to be.
11
What's wrong with it is that Amazon is not competing in a free market. Every company creates jobs and economic activity, but most don't get this incentive; just the big one that can use its size as leverage. The corner grocery store the auto repair shop, and the corner Thai restaurant don't get the subsidy. These "incentives" take tax revenue out of government coffers that fund roads, public services, police, etc..
63
@MV So is the problem that Amazon is getting the incentives or that other businesses aren’t? My impression is that it’s the former, which I personally agree with. But if a city or town makes the decision to provide these incentives because it’s a net gain for the community...they should have the choice to do it.
And if the community believes it’s a net loss, they should vote out their local and state representatives.
3
@R, yes, they have to pay them at least $15/hr in NYC because that's the law. They'll have to do a lot better though in NY than $15/hr to attract workers though. We're at full employment and jobs are a dime a dozen here.
1
I once took a subway train to Long Island City. I was the only person to get off at Vernon-Jackson Ave. Place looked barren. I guess this will be a benefit to the neighborhood. It only comes out to $60,000 in tax breaks per employee. And I guess Long Island City won't be barren anymore: they'll have Starbucks.
On the other hand, Crystal City will expand to look like Times Square in Manhattan. There won't be enough room on the sidewalks, so people will walk in the streets. And the Crystal City Metro stop will be like a typical midtown Manhattan subway platform: overcrowded while people jostle to get on the next overcrowded train. Jeff's a real matchmaker!
3
@george eliot
Apparently it's been a long time since you visited Long Island City, as it's no longer barren.
3
This should help people see the future. It's not about the cost of living, but where the intellectual talent is.
7
@David it's about what municipality can give the most tax breaks.
5
"Billions in incentives" = more tax burdens for working families.
96
"They have been unwilling to pay any tax unless they absolutely have to..."
They just want governments to funnel YOUR tax money to them.
Pro sports facilities, Olympic cities, corporate giveaways like this -- funny how our tax dollars always seem to be subsidizing the already-rich.
178
@Pat
Yes and ask then to pay a few dollars forward to invest in the next generation, and they scream about redistribution.of wealth, as if there is any way to get a billion dollars,, much less $50 billion without redistributing wealth from the workers to the rich.
3
Would that *this* giveaway were among the issues to vote Yes or (preferably) No on when the city told us to Flip Your Ballot.
Even if the jobs actually made up for Amazon Cuomo's gift of OUR TAX DOLLARS to them (SPOILER: it won't), we don't need a corporate office for a monopolist seller of creepy "smart" speakers, backdoored e-book readers, and DRMed e-books for said readers with a dubious 1-Click patent. It won't help This Economy, and it won't help This America.
No Taxation without...uh, how'd they say it again way back?
17
$1.2 billion in corporate welfare to the richest man in the country paid for by New York workers decided by our elected officials. Democracy and capitalism are broken.
355
Democracy may be broken, but this is capitalism running exactly as it was meant to.
19
@Alex
Yes, correct: greedy, self-interested only.
That's the pure capitalist model. But we have thought these 242 years that governments are established to moderate that, to assure citizens a decent society and fair economic opportunity.
7
@Alex
Exactly.
Capitalism isn't Broken. Its fixed.
2
FTA: "Amazon, which is based in Seattle, could receive more than $2 billion in tax incentives in New York and Virginia, the company said in its announcement. Up to $1.2 billion of that will come from New York state’s Excelsior program, a discretionary tax credit."
This is a moral outrage. The people of New York are subsidizing a TRILLION dollar company with a founder worth more than the GDP of Kuwait to build an office here? Seriously? What mechanisms are in place to ensure we get an adequate return on our investment? How can we demonstrate that the AMZN HQ will accrue 1.2B in economic benefit to us, and over what time period? Let me guess: there aren't any.
439
When the Yankees wanted a new stadium, at taxpayer expense, they touted all the jobs that would be created. Whenever one of these boondoggles goes up it does means construction jobs, for a brief period, for workers who can't even afford to live in the city anymore and commute from NJ or Nassau county. It was determined that the building of the new Yankee Stadium created about 22 full time jobs, believe it or not!
https://www.yonkerstribune.com/2009/01/2-billion-in-taxpayer-money-to-yankees-to-yield-22-new-permanent-jobs
109
@KMH
You get the satisfaction of seeing socialized costs leading to private profits. What more could you ask?
31
@stan continople sports stadia are the WORST. No evidence these white elephants ever yield the benefits their billionaire owners promise. Just an ego stroking exercise for rich dudes and the politicians who kow tow to them.
16
American-style capitalism at work - enrich the rich at the expense of the rest. Bezos is the world's richest person. His company makes money by the boatload. He does make anything. And he pays his employees dirt.
But he gets subsidies from governments - at taxpayer expense - to increase his asymmetrical business model.
It's all because Americans can't ween themselves off consumerism. Not the direction we need to be taking. Congrats, Jeff, you conned us again.
162
@Jim Richardson A different situation but local residents interviewing for positions at the soon to be opened Amazon fulfillment center on S.I. report that Amazon is far from the smiley company that their PR would have you believe.
11
@NYC Taxpayer Likewise here in North Randall, a down-on-its-luck 'burb of Cleveland. The fulfillment center, on the site of a dead mall, looks like a prototype for Trump's wall.
8
Oh how bold of them, choosing a city like NYC badly in need to additional wealth, more people, and more traffic... Remind me again why they couldn't have chosen somewhere else that perhaps might've benefitted from it more? Maybe somewhere in the rust belt?
206
@Dan
NYC has an educated workforce, existing infrastructure including public transportation, access to major airports etc., and NY State has the tax base to afford to give them the subsidies they demanded. Many rust belt areas don't have any of those things.
22
Look at the city’s population numbers. Those who aspire to careers in finance and fashion already come to NYC from elsewhere in huge numbers. Now, more techies will just be chasing more positions
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@Dan
Because no one wants to live there
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Has it been established that Amazon will use existing facilities? I seriously doubt that they're going to want to use anything less than one day old. I think that the 'lucky' winners are in for a whole lot more kerfuffle before things are ironed out. Amazon already got hundreds of cities to roll over for them, I can't see them having it any way but their way.
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Jeffrey has one thing on his mind and it's not doing anything to improve the communities he occupies, Mr. McClaughlin.
Jeffrey wants OUR lucrative government contracts - you know so he can sell them OUR personal information.
Mr. wonderful? Not to me.
Largest Corp in the world, Trump tax credits up the Gaza and we still have to bribe them?
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@Kevin Bitz Every municipality gives tax breaks. Amzn's employees won't be so lucky. This deal tells us that without the massive tax breaks Amazon would want no part of NYC.
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Why should the states and cities in the US be competing against each other to the benefit of the rich? This is one country and we should work together to the benefit of our citizens.
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@NYC Taxpayer Actually, it doesn't. Amazon has many reasons to locate in New York. Most likely the city/state are paying them to do what they would have done anyway. $1 billion in subsidies is probably not enough to persuade them to be where they don't want to be.
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