“The New York State Senate has done tremendous damage,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement ... NO! Mr. Cuomo & Mr. deBlasio have done tremendous damage. Their hubris in believing they were going to deliver this deal without involving too many other folks is what doomed this deal. Perhaps it was never going to happen however, how could they not have included every constituency, heard all of the differing views and then determine what needed to happen and if it could happen for the City & Amazon to strike a deal. Total incompetence by deBlasio & Cuomo.
10
Companies are not supposed to be more than self interested businesses.
That doesn't change the fact that they and their employees make cities viable by providing jobs and tax revenue.
Kara Swisher appears to believe these things come from nowhere and are just there regardless.
You won't be satisfied until companies like Amazon relocate to Alabama - and eventually even Wall Street abandons New York.
Then the city will consist of nothing but pie in the sky elites and illegal immigrants and will be hell on earth for an average American who will continue to abandon North Eastern Cities.
Disagree? Ok, read this then...
"New York's population continues to decline faster than any other state, according to new data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau."
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2018/12/19/leaving-new-york-population-loss-steepest-u-s/2362167002/
17
The Writer has no idea what she is talking about. Even according to the Federal reserve, Amazon is directly responsible for inflation in check and prices down ( https://www.geekwire.com/2018/federal-reserve-chair-says-amazon-effect-responsible-low-inflation/ )
Amazon has fundamentally altered the way we shop and has improved millions of life by increasing the value of every families dollar.
19
DeBlasio and Cuomo are out of touch with the people of New York City.
When a city such as New York and a company such as Amazon sit down at the bargaining table, everybody should stand up happy with something they want. This is an issue of people on both sides of the table really not knowing what they were doing. There needed to be concretely beneficial items in the deal for the people of Queens/NYC, who needed to agree with and support them. One wonders what city and state leaders actually know and understand about the people who live in NYC.
The deal had no solid foundation upon which to remain intact through any likely periods of renegotiation, and that's why it fell apart. The foundation is a documented outpouring of support from the people. I'm not talking about the support of Ocasio-Cortez or Gianaris - they work for the people; what they say matters only in the context of their advocating for what the people want. And not just Queens, but all of New York City - Queens does not exist in a bubble.
3
Contrast this debacle with the San Jose/ Google campus development plan:
https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/12/san-jose-deal-google-campus-diridon-station-vs-hq2-incentive/576310/
1
Read the latest piece on their promises for running the business on clean renewable energy and the reality.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Greenpeace-Click-Clean-Virginia-2019.pdf?_ga=2.89315417.319164303.1550092294-215595930.1550092294
What happened in New York also happened in Wisconsin, at least in part, when the Chinese corporation scammed $4 billion from the state before deciding to downsize their plans to build a manufacturing facility. Motto: you can't trust big business to do anything but steal. And, btw, they are very good at it.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/29/18027032/foxconn-wisconsin-plant-jobs-deal-subsidy-governor-scott-walker
6
Naive of the author to write that supporters of Amazon did so because they believed that Amazon was a cuddly teddy bear. However the positive externalities were many.
AOC complained about the exploitation of minimum wage workers - maintenance, etc. Solution? No jobs! Isn't that great?
There were 25,000 direct jobs lost which includes not only minimum wage jobs but also high paying engineering jobs. Oh and another 80,000 jobs indirectly created in the local economy - restaurants, shops, housing etc. In sum the City lost about 105, 000 jobs direct and indirect. Isn't that great for the working people?
Oh, how about the tax write-off of $3bill.? Actually there was a 9 to 1 return on investment(ROI) with $27bill. in tax receipts projected. TheCity lost that money, too. Isn't that great?
The one thing that is clear is this: The fringe left is not interested in making the world a better place for workers or anybody else. They are only interested in bending society to their own twisted demands.
There will be a long period of Republican dominance in NY for the forceable future.
17
Another person who believes that Amazon really was going to create all those jobs
Mike look at other business who promise the moon and stars and see what they did.
6
Yes, we can't have excellent customer service, convenience and good prices. Oh, and jobs. The horrors!
7
What ahem, "civil servant" -- politician, elected official -- do you know is trying to make the world a better place? And not just enhance their power, and later, monetize their time in office. Name one.
9
I am fascinated by people who describe all the bad things Amazon causes....as if now they won't do them because their pricey headquarters and 25000 high paid workers aren't going to be in New York....guess what...Amazon is a disrupter, and they will continue to disrupt....but now New Yorkers won't have those jobs, that investment, and that prosperity. We will ALL continue to use Amazon, Facebook, Google etc. You New Yorkers will be on the sidelines in the dustbin of history, still whining about "corporate america" not giving you a good job---because you looked over the fence, saw prosperity, and walked away from the gate.
13
What is the point?
2
It doesn't have to make the world better. But it does. It provides services and jobs. Should it hold our hands? Form a circle and sing Kum By Ya?
6
Thank goodness for toilet paper! All Amazon can offer the world is a discounted price for it. Not all that bad, I admit, but hardly on par with the product sold.
Amazon is a symptom of a consumer society in which accumulation is the highest aspiration. And don't believe that only Amazon is the source of job creation in a city in which several million people work.
Perhaps the real issue is what the city could do with the $3 billion it so cavalierly promised to Bezos. What did Cuomo and DeBlasio get in return for such a gift? Maybe they wanted to do for NYC what Pelosi and Feinstein had done for SF? Bozos for Bezos.
1
Regarding headline: Isn’t this the biggest issue facing our planet today?
Maybe New Yorkers are smarter when it comes to recognizing and dealing with con jobs because of long experience. After all, one of the biggest con men of all time is headquartered right here in mid-town Manhattan with 2nd and 3rd HQs in Wash. D.C. and Mar A Lago.
4
Wow. What a prejudiced column. This writer should get a reality check. People still have to work (even in this writer's Fantasy), and for many New Yorkers Amazon’s headquarters facility would have been a good fit. Not everyone can afford to be so smug and self righteous. Some of us have families to raise and bills to pay.
12
I applause New York City. The 25,000 jobs would be a less than minimum wage with no benefits, while the cost of living would skyrocket, as it has in Seattle, which is a haven for the ultra rich and hell for regular workers, trying unsuccessfully to live on a "measly" $75,000 or less per year. It's impossible in this city. The "middle class" is no more.
6
It seem likely Amazon believed the "winner" would be so breathless with joy that a ticker-tape-parade type reaction would not be a surprise ... that the main exertions would be by executives forcing smiles during the myriad civic celebrations.
Must be troublesome to learn too late that their wonderfulness is not hallowed outside the company to the extent it apparently is taken for granted inside the company.
2
Wanna bet if BP wanted to build its headquarters in NYC, or if the NRA its, there wouldn’t be different complaints? It’s not in Amazons interest to invest in an extremely liberal city and make concessions. Every other city Amazon is in will ask for the same. Politicians should taper subsidies to meet their cities needs. If the needs are too great, it only makes sense to go to a city less needy. NY has decided their infrastructure needs investments that Amazon is unwilling to pay for. How the subway, schools, and infrastructure get improved falls back on the politicians and taxpayers, where it has always belonged.
Amazon’s promises of jobs and economic Shangri-La were the “trickle-down theory” in microcosm. Studies show that corporate welfare frequently does not trickle down. (Companies frequently import their own employees from other states instead of hiring locally, etc.)
The good news is that instead of waiting for years to see whether those promised Amazon jobs and their ripple effect actually materialize, New York theoretically now has $3 billion freed up to spend right now on immediate and direct benefits to New Yorkers in the form of infrastructure, education, and rent relief. Hopefully we should hear about those plans from the mayor and the governor any day now?
4
I am pretty certain that Amazon does not care about making the world a better place since their basic retail business model is very damaging to the World - direct shipping over-packed boxes of stuff door to door is adding to our planet's environmental problems - burning more fossil fuels with inefficient point-to-point shipping and overloading our already overburdened recycling system.
3
There is focus on the 3 billion in tax breaks Amazon would have received as though NY is losing money they would have if Amazon didn't open up there. How much tax will they receive from the same area now that Amazon is gone. Three billion dollars? What NY has now is what they had before Amazon wanted to move there. A crumbling infrastructure, a crumbling transportation system, rising housing cost, and a need to repair and improve the schools. What they don't have is 25,000 new jobs. Also, they don't have the revenue they would receive from those 25,000 or the commerce they would generate. What the author means about the center in the Washington area, is across the river in Virginia. The infrastructure and transportation are good. The taxes are lower and the schools are good. Plus, there are other areas near that have plenty of room for expandability. What we are hearing now is a blame game. It’s all Amazon’ fault. NY stood up and vanquished the mean old Amazon. Other areas should follow our example. We won. But then other areas may be asking, “Do they really call that a win?” Maybe we will just lose and bring those 25,000 jobs here.
9
After a little more reflection I've decided that NY is better off without Amazon. Maybe the other cities will take notice what's at risk and do a cost/benefit analysis. At first blush losing 25,000 and billions in payroll and taxes sounds like a steep price to pay. But maybe it's not. Maybe the next mega-corp will come to NY and have better social and economic considerations. New York and other cities should not have to sell their souls for any jobs. Nor pay for them either.
Amazon was solely interested in a better place for Amazon. The purpose of the NY location was to make Amazon more profitable, and powerful. It was not about what Amazon could bring to NY. There are great advantages to locating in the most powerful city in the world. New York is the gateway to America.
Actually I'm not surprised that Amazon is so thin skinned. Their corporate leadership believed that they could blackmail NY and when exposed, suddenly their weakness and moral unfitness was revealed to the world. Amazon was trying to sell NY that "Amazon" is going to make NY a better place. New York didn't buy it.
I was born in the Bronx and raised there, Brooklyn and Queens. I went to college in Manhattan. PS 65 and PS 64 were my original touchstones. I played stoop ball and potsy on Cypress Ave. and flew kites in Saint Mary's Park. I'm a real New Yorker.
Amazon, in my view, wanted the status of NY but didn't want to earn it. You have to live here and be a part of it. You can't buy it.
7
Everyone is whining for no reason. This is the way negotiation works. So Amazon couldn't get the deal from NY they wanted because a vocal minority decided they wanted a better deal. Both won. Those who didn't like the deal effectively changed the terms. Amazon decided that Virginia was better for them. Both sides should be happy.
1
I simply have to laugh at anyone who believes the "25,000 jobs" garbage.
Most of them are low-paying and/or jobs created around Amazon being in town - food trucks and other services.
Those that pay well only increase the cost of living like housing and transportation.
Jeffrey Bezos, like the other tech and Wall Street greedsters are spending their tax evasion and corporate welfare money to enhance AI and robots - to REPLACE people.
Good Job, Good People of New York. Other states, cities, towns and areas of commerce must make the Robber Barons pay for the infrastructure WE THE PEOPLE paid for and built if they want to try to invade your area.
5
I believe the tech companies had good intentions - and then Greed came into play.
Amazon is not good for America, but it is easy and convenient. That is the conundrum.
1
In their responses, people bounce back and forth about the purpose and types of workers to be employed by the proposed development. The coming workers were to be white collar executives. Which means few jobs for people in the immediate area as well as no specifics on how the infrastructure would be expanded to handle the increased traffic. Pie in the sky is not an answer to any of this.
1
Do we expect most companies to be able to"startup" or grow without investors?
Over the long run, don't those investors risk their own money to help make a company successful?
We all benefit from having healthy/strong companies in terms of jobs/benefits and goods and services, do we not?
I didn't know Amazon was in the public sector business. When I order on Amazon, I don't do it to help New York fix its subways. I thought it was the NY taxpayers responsibility.
9
"Twitter having become the means of governing now"
That acknowledgement is the most important thing about this article.
Each election cycle bring the next idea that is suddenly seen as the one answer to how things must be done -- until the next idea, usually seen the next election cycle.
So what is set up to be next? We've got two years to watch and see what is an even better idea than Twitter.
I'll be glad to see it. I dislike the whole Twitter thing. It just does not reach me. Breathless coverage of the latest tweet seems to me like pandering to power, before that pandering to weirdness that was interesting enough to generate readers without doing real work.
The next thing isn't always a tech. Sometimes it is an innovative way to use tech, or combine ideas.
I'm sure there are consultants out there who are hot to sell the next idea, and one of them may actually have it.
I await that with pleasure, can't wait to see.
2
Does this person know what the central issue is of new tech? That through open source software the definition of property was changed from what is solely private to what is public, i.e., software is free to use because no one can own ideas, and software is nothing if it is not an idea. Open source software is how, as one example, The Huffington Post became a competitor to the NY Times without needing the tremendous outlay of capital and need to build the infrastructure of a newspaper. The NY Times should find someone who better understands how significant the computer revolution was, how it was not just another technological advancement, but an advancement in understanding minds and how they communicate.
2
Amazon iis the perfect market place, there is competition to give the best price. Also I save a huge amount of time and gas by ordering things that would be hard to fine without research and often a significant drive. The range of products on Amazon is astounding, I can even buy food from my home country which I could never find without Amazon. Good job Amazon.
3
The outrage stems in part from the huge incentives being given to Amazon when small businesses are dying and/or struggling to survive. Google is in Chelsea and none of the local businesses are booming from them being there. They shop online and dine in their own cafeteria.
It's an old fashioned concept that businesses contribute in some way to the neighborhood they do business in. Civics has become outmoded.
3
wasn't it written somewhere....something about the love of money being the root of all evil....?....actually, everyone from Ghandi to Bhudda to Jesus tried to tell us this.....
1
Sure, it's a meh moment - but that's just a "grapes are sour" attitude.
Why should any company "directly" make the world a better place - by helping transform neighborhoods? That's not the role of a public company.
In fact, Amazon has already made the world a better place. It has given back millions of people valuable time by making shopping from their homes so much easier; saved billions when people no longer have to drive to malls and park; and has created employment for hundreds of thousands, not to mention help increase the portfolios of millions of investors, including union and retirement funds, who benefit from rising stock prices.
Amazon didn't become the world's largest tech company because of free media publicity - are you reading this, AOC? The company deserved respect for what it has achieved - and what it would have brought to New York, not what it would have taken from the city.
If you've doubts, just ask the Washington suburbs.
4
@Rajkamal Rao
Someone should ask Rep. Che Guevara-Cortez and her pal Ms. Swisher if 250 people driving to the store in their own cars makes more sense for precious and fragile Gaia's health than one person delivering 250 packages to the same people using one truck. The mind boggles at the ignorance in America's socialists of basic, freshman-year economics.
3
The world isn't better with toilet paper???
5
Amazon was bringing upward of 25,000 jobs to New York. That's 25,000 families earning, getting raises, buying homes, spending money in the local economy, paying taxes, sending their kids to colleges and building a better life for themselves. Instead, a small handful of very noisy people like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spewed the same kind of anti-business rhetoric this author has. This is how it works when a corporation thinks about setting up anywhere in the country. Local states and cities offer tax offsets for a period of years because they do the math and evaluate the upside for all the reasons stated above and more. Kara Swisher should stick to technology since she knows nothing about business and may not own a calculator. Ocasio-Cortez won - the City of New York and her own constituents got nothing. What a victory for this naive social democrat.
7
You do wonder if the capitalists horse is already out of the barn---Again, our feckless Congress, when not on a break, spends months/years and millions investigating Benghazi, and right under their noses, we have companies literally colonizing our countries retail market and social media outlets---and, to make matters worse, when these master legislators do wake up, they give financial breaks for the exact behavior they should be regulating against.
4
The real point of all of this is that the balance between business and labor, between private enterprise and public good, is seriously off. Government is the entity that should be balancing it, but it has been completely demonized since Reagan, while business and businesspeople have been deified. It is short-sighted and supremely stupid, and it is burning our country down.
5
Thank you for saying what had to be said. I did a decade in The Valley in the 90's, and came away a bitter cynic when I saw the large scale greed, corruption, sexism, racism and disengenuousness that is always present in unfettered capitalism. Just because they provide a decent job they expect to be treated as divine entities, forgetting that's only part of the social contract. They transformed the Bay Area into a playground for the rich and a "hellscape" for everyone else. Where's that tide that lifts all boats? They're not interested. Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money!
4
Owners are so greedy that they can't even see that they are going against their interest.
Amazon and Walmart, two birds of a feather. Move in with big tax breaks and create minimum wage jobs with no benefits. Now tell me, who is the winner here??? Who can live in New York on $15 an hour???
1
"a business, like any other, out for itself and itself alone, and most definitely not changing the world for the better"
If you don't count the jobs which pay the salaries which pay bills, that is. In a sane world this is "better" than unemployment, homelessness, illness, death. But whatever, lefties.
2
It's also possible that the "sit-on-your-butt-and-buy-stuff" business model has peaked; and, that Amazon, having gotten a whiff of that, found the risk assessment getting a little heavy.
1
Kara
I have never commented on any NYT article to date. But Kara, wow, you are so on target and a great and necessary voice. I have been in ad tech for almost 20 years and imo you set a great example for those interested in correcting past mistakes. we are all culpable but a reckoning is past due. thank you
1
I visited center city Philadelphia yesterday, actually walked liked I used to when I lived in my studio in the heart of it. Back then it was bustling; everywhere there were interesting shops, places to go, bookstores, galleries, music stores, all-night diners, and the like.
Now it is a pedestrian ghost town, empty storefronts, featureless, grey-glass facades, no visual interest whatsoever. People don't wander around for the heck of it.
Why would they? Outside of pricey restaurants and bars (nighttime destinations) there is no place to go. Why would there be? Amazon has turned the world into click bait. I used to curse Mr. Bezos for killing the bookstore culture, but that was a rash underestimation. In actuality, he killed nearly all brick-and-morter retail. For what? Does any human need hundreds of billions? Boundless greed and vainglorious power lust. Since these comments are policed for civility, I will leave it at that.
4
Do any of the people who thought that bringing Amazon to LIC Queens actually ride the unreliable and overcrowded E or F or G or 7 trains? Do they sit forever in traffic on the Long Island Expressway or stand and wait in long lines for an overcrowded bus?
I don't think many.
Certainly not the TV pundits, MSNBC's D.Doitch who goes after progressives comes to mind. They are so quick to condemn the people who actually have to travel in Queens or NYC to do things that are necessary to live a normal life, shopping, doctors appts., etc.
NYC has steadily deteriorated in terms of infrastructure and has gotten so much more expensive live, housing, food, etc.
Amazon was being dumped on the backs of the people who are stretched to their limit right now.
Cuomo, DeBlasio et al, stop grandstanding and stop the decline and make NYC more livable now!
Huh!! And here I thought public companies had a legal, fiduciary duty to maximize gain for their shareholders. And I foolishly thought it was the government’s job to improve the general welfare. Silly me.
2
Self interested comepanies are the right kind, because their own self interest, tempered by competition, encourages them to do the right things.
1
I don’t want Amazon to save the world, not their job, I want them deliver the goods I order at a fair price and in an efficient timeframe.
Which they do.
Leave the other part to the Catholic Church.
2
For all of you deriding the greedy and evil corporations i hope you are not using any of the following free services: email, Facebook, Whatsapp both messages and free international calling, Instagram, your weather information etc.
The great majority of these mean greedy companies were put together by self made men. I admire them for all the innovations and for keeping our country as a leader world wide.
2
Some Progressives (and some columnists) are getting really good at aping Trump's scapegoating tactics: it's all the (brown-skinned) immigrant's fault becomes it's all the big West Coast tech companies' fault. Fair enough AMZN is guilty as charged -- of adolescent business/community relations acumen - ex-New York resident Bezos forgot his time on West 75th St -- too much time sexting? Not all tech all the time can be painted with your broad brush - Google comes to NYC with 20K jobs and no handouts from the public treasury. What about the developers of Hudson Yards - are their tax breaks OK while AMZN are sinful? Maybe Ms. Swisher should spend some time underemployed before calling 25,000 jobs a mere 'theoretical" benefit. As to her "hellhole" of San Francisco, roll the video of her glorious visit (with one hard question thrown in) to the Salesforce "airy" headquarters with CEO Mark Benioff (with nary a hellhole mention of SF while she there) -- that got her a lot of camera time on CNBC, making the world a better place? Are journalists alone in not pursuing their own commercial self-interests? And AOC - demagogue-in-training, but flunking staff discipline by letting a careless FAQ statement about railroads spanning oceans to obviate air travel that stomped on her own GND rollout in ways that will make Democrats who reflexively endorsed it easy punching bags right through 2020. Didn't Marco Rubio teach her anything - he tried to out-Trump Trump -- and lost.
FB's Zuckerberg told us: “move fast and break things,” then surveyed the damage and said "Done is better than perfect"
Pious Sheryl Sandburg told females to "lean in" then decided "Opps, better call in Plan B"
Well said, Kara.
1
"Playa's gonna play, haters gonna hate"
"Ah, the game's the game". "Always". [The Wire; 5/2]
LIC will gentrify - just at a slower pace.
NYC will be fine - Good for them.
Why would a world class city like NY need to prostate itself to Amazon?
Why didn’t Austin bend over like 100s of other cities for Amazon?
Anyone remember when Intel, in 2001, left an empty shell block of concrete and Vignette reneged on their plans to build an HQ in Austin?
Many “experts” at the time said Austin would never become a tech Mecca like Silicon Valley. Hahaha!
2
You take Amazon out of this headline and substitute 99% of corporations and institutions.
Is it just me or is there some sort of symmetry between Pecker's ploy to expose the dick pics and Amazon's attempt to extort tax concessions from municipalities?
1
Hey Kara, where's the problem? You get to keep your $3 billion, Amazon doesn't go where NY (and AOC) doesn't want it, and everybody's happy, right?
Spoken like a true New Yorker, self righteous, self centered, and out of touch. And for the record Amazon has changed the world for the better and yes, it is a business.
6
Someone ought to read and explain this NJ Gov Phil Murphy. He's restated his offer of SEVEN BILLION to Amazon to get them to Newark. (stop laughing!)
"But no one wanted to end up like San Francisco — which has become a modern hellscape..."
As you say in your very own text Ms. Swisher, "Oh stop."
SF certainly has its challenges, like any city, but as an ex-New Yorker now happily resident here for nearly two decades I would rather endure the "hellscape" of the Bay Area.
I'm going to get on my bicycle now and pedal across the Golden Gate Bridge to escape the fevered hyperbole.
3
Sour grapes by Ms Swisher
2
Excellent analysis Kara Swisher. The US is suffering greatly on many fronts with its seemingly complete lack of historical perspective. What hell wrought the Eisenhower era´s devotion to all things GM and Ford, essentially eliminating public transport on a national scale in favor of suburbs and the interstate highway system. So now we are paying the price with elderly ghettoes and no way to access services, with crumbling interstates, with those auto makers blithely leaving environmental chaos as they defected to more profitable zones.
US capitalism needs an overhaul. The very accurate assessment that we now have socialised risk for the very wealthy corporate class and darwinian death for citizens has come to pass. NYC does not need Amazon if its going to take needed tax moneys with more stress on services.
2
Fantastic article. I will remember this quality next time I almost cancel my NYT subscription.
"It cut too close to home..." ? You want "cut too close to the bone" or "was too close to home."
What is happening to the news lately? Everything has become political and tribalistic? it's either us or them ...?! Really! Double standards here!!! Trumps playbook all over this article To be honest, I have never seen a newscycle that is making a political issue out of a tech company pulling out of a deal ...politicians screaming tribalistic notions such "ha ..Amazon is not tough for NYC"? That statement looks like it's coming from a book of stereotypes. Politicians made a mess out of a business deal ...how to reply to that ? Incorporate article 2 on the book of how to "pretend" you were thinking of New Yorkers by using the old adage "Its hard to make it NYC" . Now our response is to say that Amazon is weak? How is that "tough" talk being praised in the same newspaper that consistently criticizes Trump for his bullying practices! Double standards here ...we've lost sanity, folks. We'll make buying milk at the supermarket a political issue too ...
1
This is an astonishing fox and grapes story. And a poor cover for blowing 25000 jobs. It's been sadly laughable to watch nyt and deblasio pretend otherwise. That is, nyc gets to be sad. Those of us in the DC area are laughing.
5
More progressive drivel after those on the left have damaged NYC badly with their narcissistic posturing. NYC is CLOSED for business.
4
Amazon is interested in one thing. Profit. Profit enables them to stay in business and that enables thousands of people to make a living, feed and clothe their children, buy a new car every 5 years, eat out once a month, make a mortgage or a rent payment and take an occasional vacation. In the narrow thinking of democrat socialists, that is not noble enough. If Amazon were a tree, or spotted owl, or a woman in need of an abortion, the outpouring of love from this crowd would be overwhelming. But in their eyes Amazon is an evil corporation, owned by a middle aged white guy, who already has too much money fo their liking. Riddle me this? What poor person employs anyone? The democrat party jumped the shark long ago.
2
Looks like the villagers have their pitchforks out.
"Bankers never said they were going to make the world a better place. Nor did makers of toilet paper ...."
Of course not. That does not mean that we would be better off without banks or toilet paper. The mission of banks and toilet paper manufacturers is not to fix the subway system or to create spiritual uplift; it is is to produce something that costs less to produce than consumers are willing to pay for it. In pursuing profits, they create jobs and income.
Amazon would have brought some of the smartest, most creative people in the world to NYC to produce stuff that generates profits for Amazon. It would have made NYC a more vital and diverse city. Too bad people expect businesses to be fronts for charities.
I think Ms Swisher really understands how huge corporations (aka the 1%) can actually bamboozle the public with dreams of trinkets and shiny things. The opposition to Amazon understood that all those shiny things eventually become dull while we continually feed those who promise us the goose that might lay the golden egg.
3
Zoning and land use restrictions have arguably more to do with the soaring rents and gentrification in places like SF & NY, and NY has been kicking infrastructure improvements down the road long before the founding of Amazon. The tech boom, in SF, has certainly done a lot to bring these artificial constraints on housing supply into starker relief, but I don't think it's fair to say that "tech" in and of itself has been the determining factor in worsening these conditions, and while there are other good reasons to be skeptical its more conspicuous poster children, "tech" hardly consists of just Google, Facebook and Amazon.
I have mixed feelings about the Amazon deal in NY; my opinion was that it would have been a net positive overall, albeit with plenty of good and plenty of bad to go around. The unapologetic pandering for - and bidders' eager compliance in bending over backwards to provide - large sums of other people's money as incentives was fascinating and disturbing, especially with regard to how blame was placed on either Amazon or the state for "needing" or providing such incentives, depending on who you asked, but almost never on the fact that such deals are hardly uncommon (just ask Connecticut how well some of them have worked out).
Amazon's presence may have been an opportunity (if a long shot) for NY to learn from the problems plaguing SF and show how that a thriving public/private relationship is possible, and it's unfortunate that this chance is gone.
Why is it that people are under the false impression that business owes us all something and should solve all the world's problems? I don't get it. A business exists to generate revenue. That revenue creates jobs and tax dollars. The jobs help us all. The tax dollars are used to solve the agreed upon social issues and for the collective good. Amazon does a lot of good for the country by paying taxes and creating jobs.
You may disagree with its business methods, driving down its costs, etc. Great. Take your money elsewhere. I hear wallmart does a lot of social good (ha ha). You may feel they pay too little tax. Great. Get active in politics, vote, do something about it. Stop complaining that business wronged you somehow.
Amazon isn't beholden to the American people and our vision of a greater good. Their job is make money for shareholders and follow the laws. You may disagree with that but I'm guessing you have a retirement account and won't like it if the FANG stocks change their focus from business to the greater good at the expensive of 25% of your 401k.
We need to drop the sanctimonious attitude toward business and own up the the fact that we, as a society, are all complicit and control the market. Change where you spend your money, where you invest and who you vote for if you want to change the world. Until you are willing to do that just accept, they are all doing what you ask them to.
1
But Amazon doesn't pay taxes. There's the fallacy in your argument.
2
@Kathleen
Please stop lying about Amazon not paying taxes. Spreading lies is not helpful. According to this very paper (April 2017):
"The company, in its latest annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, said that it paid $177 million in income taxes in 2014, $273 million in 2015 and $412 million [in 2016]."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/us/politics/trump-amazon-taxes.html
1
Good questions. Did the city ever actually propose a public-private partnership to improve the subways, ferries, etc.? And does this mean we only want to attract mediocre businesses from now on? Seems like a grave mistake and lost opportunity. And those tax breaks were only against future earnings, meaning the city has lost billions in present taxable profits.
The irony is that the tech companies that brought us Amazon and online communication more generally is what enabled New Yorkers and others to debate the pros and cons and then to work together to block the New York headquarters. Capitalism has wrought fabulous innovations and continues to do so. However, a major shift may be needed now to move toward collective rather than competitive efforts. If we don't make this shift, we may be vulnerable to forces we can only combat in collaborative rather than combative strategies. And the technology we now have--in good part because of capitalist enterprise--provides the tools that make transparent what has been opaque for far too long. Now there's little space to hide the brutalities of capitalism that have been hidden for centuries.
To make this world, or at least this country, a better place, start by prohibiting so-called tax incentives altogether. They make about as much sense as forcing taxpayers who can't afford to take their kids to one game a year, even in the nosebleed section, to pay to build stadiums for billionaire-owned football teams. Let every state, every city strive to attract business by excelling in elements that make people want to live there--good schools, clean air and water, solid infrastructure, quality medical care--instead of handing out bribes, with all the opportunities for corruption that entails.
And why is it labeled socialism when government is asked to pay for those things that contribute to our well-being, but not when government hands billions of dollars to the richest company in the world?
3
Brilliant article.
However, there is still tech people aiming to change the world. Try to google «eyesynth».
There are more.
I'd been hoping Amazon would purchase a dismal tract of land in the NY region, level it, build their business-center operation, coupled with affordable housing, and some green-park-space, and, VOILA!, not, meh. J
Just the jobs created from the 'support-industries' this would have delivered, upwards of thousands of individuals gainfully getting employed, would have been such a win-win.
What a letdown for us New Yorkers who don't leave the area and move to sunnier regions. We're faithful, we're tough. But now have to put up with another black eye.
What happened? How could all those to benefit from Amazon coming to New York not get together and create something beautiful, so fantastic. But instead, an opportunity lost. Meh.
1
Let's leave morality out of this for a minute. Let's assume self-interest on both sides. On the government side, who did the cost-benefit analysis of tax incentives, job creation and external effects of the deal? What studies were done, and how was the proposal created? More than likely, politicians we're motivated by the the positive publicity they would get from having created jobs rather than by a data-driven cost-benefit analysis. The same self-interest should be assumed for Ocasio-Cortez and her colleagues in opposing the deal that was made. Thequestion remains was the deal a good one the local Long island residents.
3
How is this a surprise? Of course Amazon isn't interested in making the world a better place. It's a corporation, not a human being. It's an artificial construct that exists on paper only. Caring, empathy, a desire to be of service and contribute are literally not even possible for it to experience.
Corporations have done more of a number on us than I thought if we are actually surprised and disappointed when they fail to act like people.
3
@Kristin
According to the supreme court (and Mitt Romney), Corporations are people too. You called them "artificial constructs."
What role should artificial constructs have in our politics and our [currently so-called] democracy if they're without "caring, empathy, a desire to be of service and contribute"?
We should all be delighted, that Amazon will not be doing such business in NY. For the only certainty that would've resulted from such, is higher prices to Amazon customers. Amazon customers should take this opportunity to thank 21st century US Socialists.
Thanks again for reminding us the reasons for Amazon's HQ are about as real as the reasons for trump's wall. Neither is for the greater good but the good it will bring to only themselves.
2
I hate the self-sanctity of Tech firms as much as the next person. Read “Bad Blood.”
But the concept someone should veto 25,000 jobs because of some specious moral arguments is ludicrous.
Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world. It provides a service we all use. If you don’t, you live in the dark ages.
For DeBlasio and Ocasio-Cortez to work against the majority of New Yorkers (60% wanted Amazon and felt pride we beat every city out) is unconscionable and that is morally bankrupt behavior.
Also - the incentives were mischaracterized to the public and ill understood.
It looks pretty stupid to other cities that we can eschew 25,000 jobs - it’s like the Brexit - false claims and a hangover after.
Try finding 25,000 jobs for the city. With no income tax base, this city spirals quickly and the non taxpayers- roughly half, start to suffer.
65
@DMB
"Also - the incentives were mischaracterized to the public and ill understood."
Indeed and, for that, I blame the politicians for their arrogance and lack of leadership rather than a misguided opinion piece.
10
This of course ignores the central philosophical dichotomy that capitalism isn't out to make the world a better place but a side benefit of it has been to lift the world and its people out of poverty, ignorance and superstition. So a bunch of chumps in NY have managed to drive Amazon out. They aren't going to lose much sleep over it as others are lining up to take NY's place. Definitely meh from their point of view.
2
"Amazon Isn’t Interested in Making the World a Better Place"
Next thing you know, someone's going to claim the Red Cross in't into megaprofits.
I have said on these pages before and I will say it again: good riddance. Your Editorial Board does not seem to agree with you but I do. Amazon---to everyone's surprise---is a big business with little respect for small businesses and little people. I applaud my neighbors and friends in Queens who said no way to Amazon and to some of the politicians who took a visible stand against at least this too obvious monument to corporate greed.
2
What do states where residents are leaving, jobs are leaving, have housing problems, infrastructure problems, and super high taxes have in common? They are controlled by the socialist agenda of the Democrats and their liberal masters. Clear examples, California, Illinois, New York.
Housing is expensive in these states because the government regulations make it expensive to create enough supply to meet the demand. In San Francisco, it can take 10 years to get approved to build homes if ever.
Now as part of the Green New deal, Cuomo has prevented gas pipelines to be built into New York so be prepare for shortages of gas to heat homes in the coming years. What country suffers from shortages even though it is rich in resources, yep Socialist Venezuela.
4
You wouldn’t know a socialist if she was standing in your door. Read some Marx and quit hyping the Republican propaganda you are fed daily.
Seriously, we didn't need an op-ed to tell us that tech companies underlying purpose is their bottom line. Indeed, if you were to actually look at their philosophical hero you would find that it's rooted in the garbage philosophy of Ayn Rand.
1
@ALM
"Capitalism demands the best of every man—his rationality—and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him. His success depends on the objective value of his work and on the rationality of those who recognize that value. When men are free to trade, with reason and reality as their only arbiter, when no man may use physical force to extort the consent of another, it is the best product and the best judgment that win in every field of human endeavor, and raise the standard of living—and of thought—ever higher for all those who take part in mankind’s productive activity."
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html
Amazons circus netted it priceless data on every town that bid. How can Ms. Swisher maintain that $3 billion tax incentive was excessive, they all do it, but in Amazons case they made it a circus, and Cuomo did not sell it correctly. Amazon can be creepy, so can Google and all the others. The digital age is extremely creepy.
1
If Amazon had any real interest in making a positive local impact, it would have located the two new HQ's in Newark, NJ and Anacostia, DC
Like other commenters, Amazon has made my life so much better just like Facebook. Trying to destroy them is cutting off your noses to spite your faces.
What do you want to do go backwards instead of forward. You come across like Republicans hungering for the '50s again. Got news for you. It's an aged lifestyle.
2
Just an aside. That photo does not look like a sophisticated tech writer scrutinizing my claims. Looks like mom not arguing with a teenager about the state of hir room with company coming.
Neither is Ocasio and New York City per se.
2
Peter Stuyvesant and the colonists of New Netherland would be shocked at this NYT column and any opinion against the Amazon HQ2 proposal. New Amsterdam was built on the idea of self-interested business -- starting with the Dutch West India Company in the early to middle 1600's. New Yorkers on every street, from the sidewalk hustler to the white shoe lawyer, have always thrived on free market capitalism. Markets have energetically propelled the city for nearly 400 years! Now what?
Personally, I want all New York City businesses to be self-interested at all times. An optimal business builds wealth (for capitalist and proletariat classes alike via stock and salaries), provides goods and services, employs people, and innovates. City, state, and federal governments depend on business for tax revenues at all stages of the tax game.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the progressives have now spit in the face of Amazon (and its projected $25-30 billion in tax payments). This action contradicts centuries of precedent in New York City economic and political history. Queens residents, and the city at large, will rue these actions as other large companies avoid leftist/socialist protests in NYC. As the finance industry continues to leave the city, the income tax base will also further shrink. Instead of adding new Queens economic vibrancy, AOC and her ilk have harmed their middle and lower class constituency. Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch would never have taken this approach.
5
San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, filled with more art and cultural events than I could ever attend in my lifetime!
Please, tech companies, come turn my city into a hellscape!!
3
First time ever I agree 99.99% with kara. Why the exception? I would argue (successfully I think) that the folks who invented and then marketed and then improved toilet paper really DID change the world for the better. Or at least the USA. Talk about a "charmin" product!
33
It's a weird delusion.
Most people expecting a company to be philanthropic aren't working for free, aren't handing out their money or time to charities. A company is a collection of people. If they aren't outright evil, they're doing pretty good, if they do some charity, do more than they have to, they are good.
There's often a paternalistic view of a company's goodness. While we may think a job at $2.00 an hour is crap, in some parts of the world that's a better paying job than the alternatives, and when we protest the company for paying such low wages anywhere, people relying on that job starve instead. A company giving a reasonable wage, for the area and the job is doing something good.
3
One of the best analyses of this whole debacle that I've read so far. And the truest. To believe that this move was to benefit anyone more than Amazon is absurd.
3
how naive.
4
Get rid of Trump hotels, buildings and golf clubs in NYC, Washington, D.C, and throughout the world.
This piece goes a bit far- after all, New York politicians didn’t have to negotiate 3 billion in tax breaks for Amazon. Of course Amazon is going to try to get the best deal it can.
I remember when Twitter negotiated huge tax breaks for their downtown San Francisco HQ. Its in a slummy neighborhood. When the deal was struck they rolled out “artistic renderings” of the revitalized neighborhood that was to come. Nothing’s changed. Its still the same today although I’ve noticed more human feces.
Tech companies are indeed just companies. They don’t have magic wands that make everything better wherever they go.
5
Self interested companies like NYTimes pay your bills. You can believe in triple bottom line companies and still want Amazon to bring jobs to New York. This scar on NYT will grow and make it a grotesque place to do business
4
Amazon is making the world a better place - for all their customers. The customer is the constituency you keep forgetting about. Your articles shows your anti-business bias and ignorance. Do you *really* mean the world is not a better place because of the makers of toilet paper???!?!?!? If you think the world would be better with no toilet paper, I don't know what to tell you. And it's the same with Amazon, Apple, Google, Exxon, and all the rest. Their customers lives are much better as a result of the their products. If not, customers would not buy them. Your life is not improved by writing your article on your Macbook versus on and IBM typewriter?
You are 100% correct that governments should not give away sweet tax deals to huge corporations like Amazon. They should give those sweet deals to every business, large and small. The cost of living for everybody would go down, poverty would be alleviated, and everybody would be better off. When the "respectable" people put out ignorance like this, it is no wonder Trump is in the White House.
5
San Francisco has many problems but a modern hellscape? Hyperbole much?
2
Comparing New York to San Francisco is intellectually lazy.
3
"Amazon Isn’t Interested in Making the World a Better Place"
No, and neither is my barber. They have their own functions and Amazon is excellent at supplying me with things I need.
If you want America to be a better place, look to government, which is alas, paralyzed by our divisions.
If you want the world to be a better place, look to UN, which is, alas, toothless.
Don't ask Amazon to solve problems which are not their concern. Look to those who SHOULD be the ones addressing these problems.
4
Amazon is a big company dedicated, like all such companies, to itself. Expecting it to be anything else is naive.
1
No Corporation exists to make the world a better place. They exist for one reason and only one reason, to maximize return on investment for the shareholders. That is how capitalism works. Any executive who doesn't maximize short term ROI will soon be fired.
If corporations are "people too," as Mitt Romney tried to tell us; then, they are all sociopaths who will cheat their customers, exploit their workers, cheat the tax man, pollute the air and water and move to a third world country at the drop of a dollar.
The corporate sociopaths are here to stay, which is why we need the strongest possible government regulations and enforcement on them to stop them from doing harm, because that is their natural state.
5
Ha ha ha ha ha— sorry, can’t stop laughing ha ha ha— if you want to do good, you start a non-profit. (Unless your name is Trump, but I digress.). EVERY for-profit business is in business to make a profit. They try to sell things or services that people or organizations will buy because otherwise they won’t make a profit, and they may have positive effects, but that is incidental to profit.
I learned this in first grade. Clearly US education is in far worse shape than I thought if supposedly savvy adults believed what they were told by Jeff, Elon, Mark, Steve and the other billionaire bros.
3
@Lawyermom
Careful now. There a many non-profits (or entities disguised as such) whose only good they do is line the pockets of the executives and CEOs of those organizations. On the other hand, many corporations are, indeed, good neighbors and responsible.
1
Of course, Amazon is one of the best companies in the world, but it needs to change. Most people have a high awareness of the product, and it should do it. This information should be shared with people and people should be rewarded for sharing this information. If you do this, Amazon can be the first person to share information.newbecca.com
Just to pile on, Amazon willing had contender cities give them untold data, demographics and statistics on the citizens.
What we call the GAFA in Europe, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and others ( Starbucks, Netflix, Mc Donald, etc... ) all US big corporations are all based in Europe fiscally (not in the USA ), in Ireland, Luxembourg, mainly, where they benefit, and, or cheat to pay zero taxes there (and in the US ) while invading the European economy and destroying other smaller businesses.
They represent a trojan horse costing European workers trillions euros per year in fiscal fraud . The cash benefits travel back to the USA via shady American banks in the Caribbeans through London.
But, if they bring back money to the US , they also don't pay taxes in the US and don't participate in public investment .Everybody pay taxes on what they earn, they don't . And these are the biggest corporations in the world.
4
Two things strike me about Amazon and the Democratic Socialist who “fought” them off. First, Amazon is being chided for not being willing to fix NYC’s subway systems, educational infrastructure and housing even though Amazon has no history with those systems. Those who do have history with those systems have created the “is” state but somehow this is an Amazon’s issue. I guess there is a certain logic in trying to get others to take on responsibility for the issues you own. Wall Street successfully ran that play in 2008. The taxpayers solved Wall Street’s crisis while the Bankers cashed their bonus checks. Second, opposition movements are clear about what they are against. With all sincerity, congratulations on defeating Amazon. Now, what plan will the Democratic Socialist be bringing forward that will make NYC a better place? As a wise person once said, “...it’s is always easier to lead the coup than run the country”.
4
Ms. Swisher offers a fine corrective to what - post-canceling - seems to be a tone deaf set of columns in the Times, reflecting its pro-growth, pro-business, pro-real estate biases ... as clearly as Amazon's decision reflects ITS values.
I wish she had found space to reference Amazon/Seattle.
Good analysis teases out demonstrable CONNECTIONS between things like corporate growth ... and homelessness. The NY Times is loathe to do this, in general, as are most politicians, some labor union honchos and even some decent, liberal people who have drunk the JOBS kool-aid.
YES, we need GOOD jobs for NY's underclass, but we really need some changes in education that actually ARE afoot.
Amazon should have - because they are/were so much smarter than the people on the other side of the table - seized the moment to commit to working toward 25,000 NEW YORKERS being employed by them in 5-10 years. Of course, they would have had to commit to expenditures re education, but that's what a smart company would do if (a) it had something resembling a soul; and (b) too many states and municipalities didn't enable their basically bad behavior as corporate citizens.
This isn't rocket science, and it certainly isn't paranoia - Amazon's need for space and high paid employees in Seattle fostered population shifts and r.e. transactions. Many in the "bottom third" lost their homes. AND Amazon balked at even a modest effort to have them contribute to the "remediation fund." To me, that says it all!
2
"Amazon Isn't Interested in Making the World a Better Place"
Who sets the standard for what contributes to that goal? I hope you do not think it is you or the myopic local "activists" and politicians that sabotaged Amazon's move to NY.
Approve of all of their business practices or not, Amazon has made the world a better place.
2
$3 billion in subsidies for a company that pays no taxes?
http://fortune.com/2019/02/14/amazon-doesnt-pay-federal-taxes-2019/?xid=gn_editorspicks&fbclid=IwAR2qP6b_1u_KAHhJ4mwzDGUUADjWqzn23xK8w1485ljaKqjTQbqIbU9JQW0
This is an outrageous game being played by Bezos at the expense of so-called leaders like Cuomo and de Blasio. Bravo to the people of Queens for seeing this one-sided deal for the fraud that it is.
5
On the news this morning it was reported that Amazon made $11 billion last year and paid ZERO federal taxes.
4
Was so happy they did not choose Atlanta, which is a traffic "hellscape." After Atlanta was not picked, the proposal was released; it was outrageous what had been offered by Atlanta. But I love shopping on Amazon in large part because of our traffic problem....vicious circle.
I'm shocked. New York City has junky subways? That can't be. New York City should set up some kind of metropolitan transit system to deal with its junky subways. Now that the problem of junky subways has been spotlighted by The New York Times, I'm sure that a modern high speed rail system will be built in less than ten years. And, it will run on renewables. Good-bye Amazon, hello Future!
2
"But Silicon Valley truly believed its own myths.."
Did they? Or did we mythologize Silicon Valley?
2
Nope! Amazon, true to the tenets of American capitalism interested in increasing its profits at any cost whatsoever!
2
While I agree with most of the content of the article, I can't help but feeling that it's style suggests much of what people outside of New York dislike about the city and its arrogance--something that this fracas may further intensify. It starts with the second paragraph, which claims that 'meh' is a "Big Apple term."
Nonsense. A simple google search reveals that the term has no known point of origin (suggestions include Usenet, The Simpsons, and a simple phonetic spelling of a common utterance). And the word certainly isn't confined to New York. It's common all over the world, even back-asswards small-town PA! I get that New York is a special city, and I get that the Times is centered there. But until it can manage to prevent its writers from continually patting themselves on the back for that specialness, the majority of the country is going to continue to have a mixed opinion of the city and the ideas and values it represents.
Seriously. Stop calling Pittsburgh and Cleveland 'recovering post-industrial towns,' as if it their story ended in 1998, as if it's surprising to hear that there's an artist working there, and stop pretending that New York (even at the level of speech!) is fundamentally and transcendentally different from Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston--the country.
1
How about N.Y. finds 25,000 people and just divides 3 billion between them over ten years.
2
@Paulie They have Its called rent control.
1
Wow, what a surprise that Amazon is in the business of making money for its shareholders instead of "making the world a better place." The two goals are not incompatible, but Amazon didn't promise to fix the subways -- it promised 25,000 high-paying jobs, mostly to New Yorkers. Amazon is not a dream employer, but it pays its employees a minimum of $15/hr.; how many other companies employing unskilled labor can say that? If this isn't a company New York wants, then good for you to reopen the negotiations and drive out Amazon -- you save some money but over time will lose tax revenues of far more than $3 billion in tax breaks. Many other cities will benefit from those jobs, and it appears without have to pony the tax incentives.
2
We live in the hinterlands of eastern Washington. We have to drive 15 miles to get mail, 50 miles for a doctor and 100 miles for a monthly replenishment of food and supplies. Amazon has, at times, been a lifesaver with getting us needed supplies. The downside of their services, sometimes, is the packaging. There is a lot of waste that must be recycled. Other than that, their prices are fair, options are often available, and shipping is timely. Coastwise, east and west, should realize many people don't live like you. Kara should also realize that.
4
Rail against Amazon all you want, but no one who was against them has a plan that would have retrained area residents or give them the opportunity for jobs that Amazon would have. Go ahead and tell us how within even the next ten years you will bring any economic development or boom to the area and "people" you have so zealously "defended"?
3
All of this is of a piece. Let’s give it a name, Peak City. What I mean is that we’ve reached the limits of what we can do in established cities unless we decide to reinvest in their infrastructures. That goes way beyond subways and includes generating jobs and housing, education, and the chance at reasonable civic engagement. That’s prohibitively expensive. Amazon could not have spent enough in NYC to make its presence a neutral influence. We need to look elsewhere to small cities in the middle of the country that will become important rail hubs later in this century. Roughly a zone up and down the Mississippi about 250 miles wide (Chicago to New Orleans?). I call it America’s 4th coast. That’s where you can spend reasonable money and get good results. The middle of the country could really use the investment too.
2
There's nothing wrong with a corporation's management wanting a good deal. It's their job to maximize shareholder weath. But that goes both ways. The local leaders want the best deal for their taxpayers. They have every right to ask "what's in it for us" If it's not a win-win, then it's good to pass on the deal. Not to mention, a huge corporation like Amazon would hog too much resources and be way too powerful. It's probably better to try to get smaller tech companies.
2
How soon the author forgets.
I invite the author and the writer of the headline to visit the NYPL's McGraw Rotunda, and reflect on the thought from the visitor's guide "..this library has symbolized the democratic ideal of free and open access to knowledge since it opened to the public.." while gazing at the WPA murals by Laning, showing the history of the written word.
Then think about the rest of America, the America you two ignore.
How many people have access to a library at hours they can get there, and the means to travel to it? Our rural public schools are being starved, some shutting the library down for 'cost savings', while others can't add to the collections even though their population has increased dramatically. Often there aren't enough books for every child to have something appropriate for DEAR time.
Amazon, on the other hand, made the world a better place with Kindle. Kindle isn't just an e-reader, to make reading easier for people who need large print, or a dictionary at hand...its a portal to more books than many libraries have in their collections. In NY, an e-reader and an NYPL card allow a person who doesn' t have the funds for an internet connection at their home to access knowledge via public wi-fi, and improve their literacy skills.
I look forward to the next 'disruption'. The e-reader, including the Kindle by Amazon, has been fantastic.
3
I was never all that impressed with LIC - Queens. I don't know how gentrification could have made it worse. It makes me shake my head when people speak of gentrification or how Walmart or Amazon ruined things. I am old enough to have eaten in terrible local restaurants and received terrible counter service from snarky local hardware store owners. I am glad to have places like Home Depot and Amazon around to help me live a better middle-class life. We have historically low unemployment, so the ruination of the corner store has not ruined our economy. The closing of the bad restaurants and the opening of Hipster diners where the owners actually care about quality food is not a bad thing. Replacing check-cashing stores with Yoga studios is not a bad thing.
Gentrification is not a bad thing. It cleans the trash off of the streets and asks people to strive for better. Apparently some people are either too lazy or small-minded to enjoy a better life.
5
Bravo, thank you. Even Bezos with his pants down was a hero of the corporate democrats. He was standing up to Trump's tabloid smear. Amazon and these giants corporations who shop around for the best deal when they want to relocate hold up tax payers. Demand cheaper labor, as with Boeing in SC, then the politicians present themselves as heroes.
1
Agree with Kara that the whole process was a sham to begin with. Why would a company need two headquarters, much less three? It chose two locations on the East Coast to pit those cities against each other and extract more concessions. It became clear that it was going to get a better deal in the DC area and face less opposition.
2
I lived in Long Island City for 12 years and had to move when the rent was raised almost 20%. I'm glad this Amazon deal did not work out for middle class and poor residents in NYC because it would have made rental costs even worse.
3
@Cathleen. I’m sure that those who actually own property there might disagree with you, you should be quite satisfied that no company will ever locate there. Did you figure out why Citi left this undesirable are? Possibly because it was too close to a housing project?
2
Swisher seems surprised that Amazon's primary interest is profit and expects it to act more like a benevolent NGO. Amazon is in the business of selling goods, not fixing subways -- That's the government's job. The net tax revenue the city and state would have collected from Amazon would have gone a long way toward doing that, and thousands of New Yorkers would have had well-paying jobs with benefits that would have rippled through the economy. It seems to me that for the AOCs of the world who want to redistribute wealth from corporations to the working class the best way to achieve that is to have companies come to your communities and give your people jobs.
4
@Wade You are correct. They don’t see that Amazon being a good corporate citizen lies in the fact that they offer good products at an affordable rate that delivers to your home in a reasonable time frame. That has value for the average person.
3
@John
Isn't that how the South justified slavery, cheaper cotton?
1
Amazon makes the world a better place through what it does. It allows people better access to products than ever before. People find value in the service that they are offering or they wouldn’t shop with Amazon. People are constantly missing the value of capitalism because they can easily take for granted that they can buy almost anything they want or need and receive it quickly. Products and services are valuable. The day to day operations that fulfill the customers needs are the public good.
3
I still feel bad for the 25,000 robots who could have gotten jobs out of this deal. I mean, they've got families to feed, too.
2
Dear New York ,
It's been great, but I think I have to move on. I was always honest with you that it was about the sex for me. But you've always wanted more and you just won't accept that I can't give you the relationship that you want. It's not who I am. And now you're becoming demanding -- a house, kids, a new subway. That's just not me. I filled out a spreadsheet with pros and cons yesterday and the numbers say you're not the one.
Washington understands this. I'll be at her place.
I don't think you'll ever be happy until you realize that all the for-profit guys are like me.
Sadly yours,
Amazon
6
@Norwester
Very amusing, however, the for-profit guys, also created more jobs and wealth for more people than anyone else in history and their allagorical lovers were also employed and could afford to buy a house and car and pay for food as well as raise a family. More people have raised their standard of living by their relationships with for-profit guys than the con - artists not for profit guys.
1
@Jack
No argument, Jack. I'm a capitalist and I know that two things are true:
1. Capitalism is the engine that has made the United States the most wealthy nation in history.
2. Capitalism is amoral. For-profit corporations exist for no reason other than to enrich investors. No for-profit corporation will ever behave morally to the
Fortunately, the two can co-exist. It is possible to harness capitalism while defending our mutual interests in equal opportunity, safe streets and a clean environment.
Progressives just have to get over the mistaken belief that corporations can be shamed into moral behavior, and conservatives have to get over the knee-jerk resistance to reasonable regulation.
2
Hellscape is the perfect description for what the greed and arrogance of the tech giants have brought my city. It will always be a beautiful city (except for the architecturally obscene new skyscrapers), but it’s been hollowed out. The complexity and wonder of what it was never had a chance against the tidal wave of toxic “wealth.” Why couldn’t these data leeches have settled where they could have done so much good, where their toxicity would have been lifesaving. New York is way more than right to stand up.
4
@Stefan
San Francisco has worked long and hard to get to its current pathetic situation. I have 40 years of experience working or living and working in the San Francisco Bay area. The downgrading of everyone's life is due to the unrealistic policy views of cities like Berkeley and San Francisco and their avowed socialist elected officials.
They have managed to transform one of the jewels of the USA and the world into the current basket-case that is now San Francisco. The commuting carpetbaggers from Silicone Valley have created additional problems, however, it is the policies of the San Francisco city council and the people who elected them that is the real reason the city is failing. They are realizing the socialist utopia they have long strived for.
1
Socialism for the obscenely wealthy. If Amazon is doing so great let them help pay for the infrastructure they use. My gosh he even wanted a free heliport so he could avoid mingling with us mere mortals.
These corporate give always should end. They rarely have a positive impact for the towns especially small ones.
For a while I lived in rural East Texas. Literally the only place to shop was Walmart. I’m talking about a 50 mile radius. Did the Walmart’s pay local taxes? Of course not. Did Walmart offer their employees a living wage? No, many received food stamps to be used at Walmart.
The lie that building free arenas for sports franchises is the same thing, often it’s a burden on the town. All so people can cheer on “their” corporation and pay $15 for a $2 beer. We’re a country of suckers.
4
Seeing the New York 'progressives' rally against an Amazon 'cash giveaway' considering their current neighbors in Manhattan is a rich tapestry of irony. Just across the bridge, they bilk the NY and US treasury out of billions each year for the past century and even have the nerve to put the rest of America on the hook to back up their gambling habits when their bets go south! Yet a comparitively small West Coast startup comes in to join the party and suddenly locals are apoplectic that their municipality would even consider allowing an outsider join the game.
Can we ship a giant mirror to LIC to point right back across the water to their new found progressive 'friends' in Manhattan?
There was a very interesting Anthony Bourdain CNN Parts Unknown episode on Puerto Rico. He interviewed a farmer that was raising high quality pigs in the interior of the island. The farmer explained that there was a vast untapped potential for agricultural development in Puerto Rico that is basically going to waste because pigs and other farm products shipped in from the main land disincentives the locals to fend for themselves. What a shame. In the world of AOC, why work when you can expect someone, whether it be the government or Amazon, to give you free hand outs? But God forbid that those handouts might be 25,000 jobs. You actually have to work to have a job. That prospect is a major threat to her constituency it seems.
3
"a business, like any other, out for itself and itself alone, and most definitely not changing the world for the better."
No, no, no, no. Please spare me the condescension. Amazon is not looking out for itself alone. It puts me, the customer first. No other business does that. Every businessman is obsessed with transferring as much money from your pocket to his. Bezos has stated that he wants to get rich by charging as little as possible ... what a novel business model -- do you think it will catch on? Ha, dream on. Do you think Amazon's competitors are nice to you out of the goodness of their hearts? No. Amazon forces them to be nice or lose customers. It's refreshing to see businesses now racing to the bottom for my benefit. Just think if the pharmaceutical companies did that. I hope Amazon becomes "the everything store." There are too many fat cat noncompetitive industries that need to be disrupted. And I, the customer will be the beneficiary. As for changing the world, technology can be good or bad depending on how YOU apply it. I'm reading this article online -- probably through a Cisco router, Verizon fios and Mozilla Firefox -- at a fraction of the cost of the paper version. And here I get to read the readers' comments. Some of which are pretty good. This is better.
4
New Yorkers who grew excited about the prospects of the 2nd Amazon HQ coming to Queens reminds me of the man in the joke about Bill Gates walking into a bar (we can change it to Jeff Bezos for this occasion). "Imagine!" says an excited bar patron, " the average income of everyone in this bar just went up by over 1000 % !"). Imagine indeed.
1
I must say New York, the rest of us are scratching our heads at your arrogant rejection of Amazon, given the billions in taxes you would be receiving from them for years. If you don't need them, then you don't need to be reaching your hands out to the federal government for charity.
4
It was just reported what Amazon paid in federal taxes. Virtually nothing. Why do the rich need welfare? If the can’t exist without handouts they shouldn’t exist. This sounds a lot like socialism, which is only good when applied to those hat don’t need it.
6
Amazon has two stakeholders: Jeff Bezos and Shareholders. Community, Environment, Employees, Vendors, and Customers, not so much.
This was a disaster from the get go. No interaction with community leaders, no plan for being organically absorbed into the New York community. Opaque negotiations.
"Alexa, why did Amazon blow off New York City?"
"Because New Yorkers didn't understand our commitment to stakeholders. Would you like to order something?"
1
Another great take on tech. Thanks Kara.
1
Absolutely. From now on, before any company is allowed to do any business in NYC, they must prove to all New Yorkers that their main goal is to make the world a better place.
2
@B Futcher
Yes, and AOC and the Democratic Socialists of America get to decide if the businesses applying to provide services in NYC meet the test of furthering the Bolivarian Revolution so NYC can raise its standard of living for everyone to that of all the other socialist paradises.
In the meantime, I enjoy receiving my Amazon ordered goods on time and at good prices delivered by people who do not yet understand that having a good job and benefits means that you must be an oppressed worker.
Finally New Yorkers didn’t believe the tech lie. Our phoney politicians sold the citizens down the river with their secret negotiations and then expected people to hail them as heroes.
Well once the subways,affordable housing is built, health care, homeless have a safe place to sleep, good schools that by the way have heat union jobs and the rest of our social ills then politicians can talk to the public. They need to be doing their jobs they were elected to do. Listen to the people who live in the area not in the gated communities.ie the governor and his minions
Amazon is not a job creator we saw what they did to Seattle. let them open up in a red state where people believe the lie as they are worked to death with no benefits, strip searched before they leave the warehouse with the search approved by the courts.
I have no regrets that the job creator is not coming to Queens, we worked hard not to have them price us out of our own neighborhoods. There are other people who want the luxury of having a business killer in their state.
For people who supported this Amazon opportunity get over the lost .
2
Why doesn’t NYC offer the same deal to businesses already in NYC: $125,000 for every job you show you create?
3
Another flabby, knee-jerk view of corporations’ contributions to American and global modernization.
Companies exist and survive because they produce desirable products and provide necessary services to society. Amazon is the twenty-first century’s Sears Roebuck, offering virtually everything under the sun at competitive prices. Perhaps most important, Amazon’s delivery service enables customers to avoid the stress, congestion, and added pollution of retail shopping.
Jeff Bezos is not an unreasonable man. New York might have negotiated with him to commit to the development of affordable housing and community centers as part of the Amazon hub.
Ms. Swisher’s predictable, pro forma orientation masks the fact that corporations grow pension funds, including the New York Times investment portfolio that will help sustain her through her retirement.
3
Amazon was going to provide around 25,000 good paying jobs in NYC. How many jobs are the newly emboldened activists going to provide?
3
I have never ordered anything online from Amazon or anyone else. But at a certain point in my life, I lost my eye sight to read a physical book or even a newspaper. I literally had not read a book in years until Amazon Kindle came along. It was like the end of the dark ages. I have thousands of titles in my Amazon Kindle library. And the best part is that ninety percent of them, works of literature, poetry and philosophy were free as being in the public domain. I can’t say how many novels I have since read on my Kindle from Gogol to George Eliot. Amazon has definitely made my life better.
2
"Amazon Isn’t Interested in Making the World a Better Place"
Amazon has made my world a better place. For many good reasons they have virtually 100% of my business. In less than 2 minutes I can buy anything I want and be sure I'm getting the best possible price.
3
Let's see, is my math right? $3 billion tax break, 25,000 jobs. That's $120,000 per job.
Looks to me like NY was willing to essentially pay all of Amazon's employees out of government money for the first 2-1/2 years, after which time Amazon would ---- ?
Yes, there would be positive spinoff effects on local businesses. But there would also be multiple negative spinoffs on the community.
When you start out $3 billion in the hole, those positives had better heavily outweigh the negatives.
1
@Steve Tripoli
It was more like ONE year of salary as a carrot.
The average salary was in the $120-150,000 range, really an enormous cash influx into the city and likely Nassau County.
New Yorkers lost $25-30 BILLION in tax receipts in the long term. That is a lot of subway repair work, even in that union-plagued city.
6
You think Amazon was going to pay taxes ?!
1
Whatever its intentions, in the case of Amazon business has improved quality of life. A greater variety of goods are available more broadly. Previously you had to accept what was on the shelves locally. Certainly, inefficient shops have been put out of business, so jobs in them are gone, as are jobs weaving by hand--what the Luddites were upset about. But clothing became less ruinously expensive and weavers went into other fields. Sure, there's that Amazon treats its people like robots. People aren't good at that, so they'll be replaced by robots and in the end the suffering will be gone and only the benefits will remain. Nobody now regrets the innovation of the power loom or clothing costing as much as a car. The market might correct the monopolization, or the government might have to. But for now there are alternatives.
1
Re Carnegie libraries - they were/are a wonderful gift to communities large and small, that is in those communities that still have enough money to fund them.
That said, I don’t particularly want my community social services and institutions funded at the whim of corporate donations. Such projects and services should be planned and paid for by our state and local governments. That’s their purpose and our responsibility as taxpayers to approve. Corporations can help fund them by paying taxes like other citizens.
3
@Nancy
Local and state governments are often staffed by people who cannot efficiently work in the private sector. For example, in Democratic CT, we needed to bring in the private sector just to have functional highway rest stops. Thank goodness philanthropy exists to provide the many libraries, parks, museums, musical venues, and historical foundations that local and state governments would mismanage.
1
To this layperson it seems dubious whether there will be real benefits to large cities like Washington and New York that already have plenty of white-collar workers and what they really need are affordable parts of the city for average, working-class folks It didnét seem Amazon was going to bring this. I'm really sad they didn't go to states/cities that could use the economic boost -- wasn't Tenessee or West Virginia mentioned? We really do need more hubs of opportunity outside of the coastal states plus Illinois to help this country become a little less segregated by income, opportunity and yes, politics.
2
Where's the surprise? Businesses exist to make a profit. Plus ca change...
Amazon is what Sears partly used to be, a giant catalog store. People forget that the opening of a Sears locally put many small shops out of business back in the day.
1
All this touchy feelie stuff is a lot of baloney. Go work in a amazon warehouse and see how they chew up their employees. Every company is out to make money at the expense of the consumer/employees or both. Sure NYC lost some jobs and tax revenue however it saved a neighborhood for the middle class. Just look at who was the most hurt, real estate agents and property investors.
5
@Thomas Renner
Capitalism: "Every company is out to make money at the expense of the consumer/employees or both."
Yes, I believe that is called the American Dream.
From the sandwich delivery person to the neighborhood dry cleaner, there are probably close to 100,000 direct economic casualties of this leftist propaganda against Amazon. Progressive politicians are keeping a strong political base by keeping the base POOR with this campaign. God forbid Queens constituents move up the economic ladder and realize AOC leftists are the pigs from George Orwell's Animal Farm. Your own government representatives are keeping you down for their own benefit! Wake up!
Take your shots at Amazon and/or the lack of creative, open, win:win-oriented negotiation all you want--but don't let your cynicism and extreme certainty kill the relatively new idea of "Purpose-driven" companies. If you think not only that is phony, but simply has to be, where's your statistical evidence that the growing numbers of companies, explicitly or implicitly pursuing it, are largely charades? Purpose is an important potentially evolutionary development for capitalism. We're drowning in problems for which we seem collectively incapable of answers. This type of capitalism, not returning to the model of single bottom line business-as-usual, if successful can help us in many ways. Stumbles are expected, but should be treated as learning opportunities. It's worth discerning what and who are frauds, who is succeeding at it, and who is really trying but not getting there yet. The companies going in this direction need your constructive criticism, at least temporarily open minds, and to hear and generate creative ideas. Whereas, reflexive cynicism, can kill this opportunity. Why not more attention to companies who might be succeeding at "Purpose," getting through the stumbles, what their triple bottom line orientations are giving society, what they need to go further, and what is being learned. It could also be revealing to search for stories within Amazon, too. Maybe some there also know they blew it and have something to learn. Old mindsets and certainties don't help.
There are many idealists in computing, and the market ignores them with a vengeance. Open Source software is written by volunteers, and given away free; often you have to go looking for how to donate, the download page doesn´t mention it.
After Open Source alternatives to Windows were easy to install, maintain and use, and offered comparable office, graphics and development tools to Apple and Microsoft (around 1999), I struggled for two decades to interest my employers in switching, evangelized them to friends, always offered help with them.
They have just a few percent market penetration. "Network effects" - that everybody else uses MS/Apple - crushed their market, even though they are free!
If you now find yourself in an expensive amusement park rather than a public park, paying high for every little thing, you chose it - just as you chose to sell your privacy to save a few bucks on paid services.
Over and over, we see "network effects" - the more customers have, the more value you offer to the next customer - creating near-monopolies. We need to recognize that the interaction of the market and Internet create "natural monopolies", like water service and electrical service, where it makes no sense to have competing networks of pipes or wires.
Monopolies desperately need regulation to not become social ills - well recognized a century ago. Regulation needs to catch up with the 21st century.
And you can walk away at any time.
1
As a life long New Yorker, I didn’t have a particular opinion of the Amazon deal one way or the other. I seem to remember that Goldman Sachs received double the amount of tax break subsidies from Bloomberg not to move to New Jersey, and that they never delivered on a promise to create ten thousand or so jobs.
But my takeaway from this is that a very particular segment of the New York community led by AOC and friends just decided that they weren’t getting enough swag out of it and therefore decided to kill the golden goose. There has always been a drive to diversify the New York economy as one totally dependent on Wall Street and to become a tech capital as well. This was that chance. Greedy local politicians and their welfare oriented constituents killed it. Maybe it is time to re-examine the city government’s hand outs to that bunch.
2
Why the need to analyze the tech industry? Any politicians who were able to produce 25,000 potentially well paid new jobs in one shot regardless of the industry, should have been praised, not vilified. NYC will not soon see an offer like this again.
2
You missed the point, badly, Ms. Swisher:
1. If your standard for businesses operating in NYC is that that they have to “Make the World a Better Place”, then I guess we should kick out Wall Street and the big banks. Yes, tech companies are just like every other big business, but don’t make like they are worse than the financial sector. Remember 2008? They almost destroyed our economy. Yet I didn’t see NYC tossing them out or turning down their tax dollars.
2. It is expensive to live here now and it isn’t getting any cheaper. There are hardly any manufacturing jobs left in the city. Baristas, craft brewery bartenders and sandwich shop clerks don’t make a family-supportive wage. Tech companies generally pay reasonably well.
3. If you want to make this about unions or the death of retail, that only makes sense if what been done here will help those causes. Rest assured, it won’t. That’s akin to a city refusing to let Ford in because it didn’t want to hurt the horse and buggy trade.
4. The legitimate debate is whether we should be paying companies like Amazon to come here. I agree we should not. But the solution is to tell Amazon that they are welcome to come just like any other business, but without $3 billion in incentives. But a small group of vocal “progressives” hijacked the process when polls show a majority of NYC residents wanted Amazon here. They would not even sit down and negotiate with Amazon. Not right. This will scare away other businesses.
2
Why does Amazon even need a 25,000 person campus, surely with all of it expertise in AI, distributed systems, cloud deployment etc it could build several interconnected smaller centres. I cannot imagine what operational benefit it would get from having all 25,000 workers located in one city as opposed to having 5,000 in five cities. All I can imagine is the financial benefit flowing from larger amounts of taxpayer funded corporate welfare. Maybe it was a vanity project - like the Apple Ring.
Ultimately, as formidable a force in our economy as Amazon is, they could not figure out how to navigate the political waters of New York. When the going got tough, instead of trying to negotiate with opposition factions, they folded and fled.
After seeing the effects of big tech takeovers in the San Fransisco area and Seattle, residents in western Queens rightly questioned what would happen to their ability to remain in a neighborhood where housing and other costs of living would inevitably skyrocket once Amazon settled in.
Amazon may be big, but they're not bigger than New York City.
2
Somewhere along the way, decades ago, the wheels began to turn, in that those who had both a work ethic, and a need to be frugal, slogged along, eventually, gaining whatever it was they were looking for in their life. They raised their children, not so much with the idea that they were going to achieve more financially than they did, but that they would see the world for what it is, a place with billions of people all looking to find a job, a vocation, and as they raised their children, and they would find it would be a melting pot of cultures, working, marrying, and blending in together. Then, along came the downturn, and those who were living way beyond their means, fell with the mortgage meltdown. In 1975, and 1976, with just a few, curious, and talented, mostly males, like Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ronald Wayne, we had a new age. They didn't know that they would be so successful, or become so rich, eventually. Ever since then, mostly males, have either gone after the tech dream, or been jealous of it. I have 2, 13 year old girl grandchildren, who could start work for either Apple or Microsoft tomorrow. It is a new day! Too bad, that there is a whole group of elected females that want to be elected, by telling people in this country, that all your problems in your life are because of the techies, or of course, in New York, of Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon. You alone make your own world better, not the tech CEOs of the world.
2
When are people going to become mature enough to understand that companies exist to make money, period, end of story.
3
It was not a "lefty" uprising that truly killed this deal. It was the secrecy in which it was concocted, a process obviously and suspiciously designed to evade citizen scrutiny; as well as the arrogance of Amazon, which would not deign to engage with the community and confront its opponents.
It didn't help that the economic promises made by the deal's supporters strained credulity; does anyone actually believe that we would have gained 25,000 jobs each paying $150,000 a year?
5
The purpose of business is to make $$ period It is very clear. Now for secondary aspects:1-Once the $ is made the business can do all sorts of good works and the more $ they make the more good they can potentially do.2- They create jobs-many jobs and each job has an expanding influence of the community round it creating many other jobs and businesses that the initial employee uses or shops at etc 3- The profitable business can fund schools , good works, charities, etc 4- There are also negative relationships where the way one does business can do much harm or the projects one funds could have negative results.
Ever been to Long Island City? Not exactly a garden spot and undergoing gentrification along with many other sections of NYC Maybe 25,000 well paid jobs with benefits could benefit many people there and made the area more affordable.
1
I don't support tax breaks for businesses especially for companies as large as Amazon. And it seems the biggest gripe was less Amazon moving in (the vast majority of residents, especially those of color, supported Amazon despite misleading news coverage according to Siena Research poll) than Amazon getting tax breaks.
It should also be said that whatever jobs or benefits Amazon brings anywhere, it'll never, ever, ever be enough for the company's critics, particularly journalists.
5
If there's one thing that's mind-boggling, it's the number of people who think cities spending tax payer money to bribe cash-rich corporations to bestow jobs upon them in a bidding war is capitalism.
It's not. It's socialism for the rich. The cost-benefit calculations were never more than hype, and the track record of these deals is not good. It's akin to to the madness that has cities building stadiums for profitable sports franchises. It makes the team owners rich, but the taxpayers end up with the bills.
If New York City wasn't a good fit on its own merits for Amazon and the only reason to come to the Big Apple was because of financial incentives, then both New York and Amazon are better off not entering into a relationship that can't stand on its own.
9
Fairly silly piece by Swisher.
Amazon has made the world a better place: expanded markets; faster delivery; cheaper prices; better service; a revolutionary approach to retail, etc.
No Amazon should be expected to enter into a public / private partnership to fix the NYC Subway. Amazon isn't public; Amazon isn't a private equity fund; and Amazon isn't a transportation construction company.
Amazon's presence in Queens would have been the dynamic engine of growth for NYC: economically, culturally, and socially.
A little city planning in co-operation with Amazon could have built a transformed Long Island. With a net additional $25 billion in tax revenues over 25 years, NYC and NYS could have built a whole new environment, and the working class could have been protected as well: low-cost housing projects; improved infrastructure drawn to the expanded Amazon projects.
That's all gone now. Amazon won't be back; nor will any other significant high-tech company.
9
That’s right. They will be sucking up all the resources in your state where they will proceed to take more out of your economy than they put back in.
1
Totally agree. I left San Francisco - it’s unfit for human habitation
This paper recently published an article about restaurant workers whose hours are being curtailed, possibly because of requirements to pay the new $15 wage. Instead of giving Amazon preferential tax breaks, local businesses, including eateries, could be given tax incentives. And didn't Amazon pay $0 taxes in 2017?
3
It's ridiculous for major cities to fall over themselves to get a big company to locate there. I'm not talking about Indianapolis, Des Moines or Kansas City. I mean places like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle. They should have enough to offer in talent and services to attract the best.
You don't see San Francisco, San Jose or LA dropping their pants to attract Amazon or Apple. It just sends the wrong message to companies about their role in the community. It should actually go the other way.
In Palo Alto, city government and Stanford negotiate on community benefits whenever Stanford expands. It benefits the community which creates circular benefits back to Stanford. When they invest, they attract better faculty, students, non-profits and businesses. While indirect, it does show up in a growing endowment.
8
I'd like to know how many people who oppose Amazon use Amazon. If New York really wanted to make an impact, imagine every New Yorker not using the service for a day, or a week. That would say something. The main problem with the Amazon deal is that it was done in the dark. Amazon won't care, they will just move somewhere else. Countless communities have made the mistake of luring business with tax abatements and when the incentives run out they just move on. Think of Pfizer, Wal-Mart and virtually every pharmaceutical company that abandoned Puerto Rico, leaving the massive problems that exist there now.
2
Seems like Amazon got scared of being outed with neoliberal ideas about tax breaks and unions all while tech has already become politically suspect and uncool but and democratic socialism looks the next big disrupter. We have eough tech, we need better politics to fix an increasingly unfair system.
Ironically Beszos by now might are rather find friends in Trump land.
Ms. Swisher,
Amazon has been a boon to millions of shoppers. Whether that makes the world a better place or not is debatable but it is time that we stopped expecting businesses to be some sort of saviors of society. I have read your reports that extol the numerous virtues of Facebook and Twitter (never mind the more recent misgivings). Amazon is no more or less useful than any other business venture that has made our lives less complicated. And oh by the way, New Yorkers pay a good load in taxes. So maybe you should be tasking the city hall with the goal of improving the subway and the infrastructure. That is what taxes are for, not food stamp usage.
7
Amazon will be fine, and NYC will limp along -- what is missing from your analysis is that the incremental BENEFIT of having Amazon here would accrue to us in NYC (with far more land, workers, and resources than tiny San Fransisco). Amazon's impact on retailing locally will continue unabated, and if not them then Jet.com or any other model because traditional retailing in the age of computers makes about as much sense as well, printing this newspaper on actual newspaper...
4
Amazon will not pay any federal taxes again for a second year in a row even though they’ve been profitable. And they’re still looking for a hand out!
6
Would you consider a stock portfolio that consisted of only one stock a healthy longterm investment? Of course not. It's time for our lazy clueless politicians to begin to understand urban planning. the private sector is not an animistic spirit good which arrives on favored winds.
The most sustainable urban economy is the most varied one with multitudinous long term and short term, public and private, large and small deals going on at the same time. Politicians need to get over their obsession with show biz marquee headlines — and just hire qualified people who understand urbanism.
What's been missing from this whole debate is the fact that Amazon might not actually have a sustainable business plan.
Queens may very well have dodged a big bullet.
Tech stocks can tumble billions in a day.
What does Amazon make? Nothing, it's a service sector firm— sales and shipping. How does it do it? With software and computer systems.
Amazon can go anywhere in the world today and somewhere else tomorrow. It will never need to stay anywhere if it finds a new place that's slightly better. It's easy to rent an office in city A or country B instead of the current location.
4
@Arthur
"The most sustainable urban economy is the most varied one with multitudinous long term and short term, public and private, large and small deals going on at the same time."...
Maybe it's late and hard to follow your reasoning but, haven't you described the diversity of the NY economy as it currently exists? Would Amazon not be just another part of that?
Amazon does far more than sales and shipping. They provide cloud computing, logistics, are a content developer and provider (movies and shows) through their own studios, and host thousands of small businesses (mom and pop) among many other things. In fact, they are the recipe for the diverse entity you describe within themselves.
1
Noteworthy comparison: Apple announced it is building a $1billion new campus in Austin TX for up to 15,000 employees a few months ago — and they are doing so without ANY incentives. (And without a Bachelor-like competition among cities.) Why does Amazon think it needs a taxpayer-funded red carpet?
10
@Ray
Perhaps Texas is already a more business friendly state than New York. Who knows, Amazon might end up there too.
2
@Ray
Texas: no income tax and relatively cheap land.
Considering all the recriminations coming from all sides about the NYC Amazon deal and its resultant demise, Kara Swisher's take on it is a model of even-handedness and restraint.
One thing I can agree with, though, is we have to get it out of our heads that a company--any company--is going to fundamentally do anything to limit its bottom line in the name of loftier ideals. We haven't set up a system that encourages that--we still go for Calvinist/Social Darwinist libertarian capitalism here, in which shareholder maximization rules, and often by actual contract law--and we don't have a system of governmental checks and balances to incentivize that. It's instructive that even a company like Ben And Jerry's, whose founders WANTED to partake of a higher purpose, eventually got swallowed up by Unilever and its politics and extracurriculars toned down.
If we want a system in which business has a responsibility beyond ledger ink, we have to legislate that. And, of course, the only way we could legislate that is to cut the corporate and oligarchic influence out of our election cycles. Those who read my comments regularly know I hold the single most far reaching reform we can enact is public funding of elections, with no organizational contributions--union, business, religious, PAC--and very low three digit ceilings on individual contributions. Then maybe our representatives can rep someone other than the highest bidder, and we could have less rapacious capitalism.
8
@Glenn Ribotsky
In my opinion, the notion of public funding of elections has two first amendment problems. First, it is compelled speech to the extent that the required money is collected from citizens under compulsion and spent to support campaigns of candidates to whose election the payer opposes. Second, disallowing campaign funding by private sector organizations and severely restricting individual funding is an obvious violation of any reasonable reading of the first amendment text.
@Thomas D. Dial
I would respectfully disagree with your first argument by referring to the granting of legislatures of the power to tax, and to your second by equating money with speech; disallowing funding by organizations and limiting funding by individuals does not in any way limit their ability to support or denounce through the media or any bully pulpit.
2
Who cares if they're nice guys? They come here and hire thousands of people, and provide the city with tens of billions in revenue. Sure, instead of paying $30 billion in tax, they pay only $27 billion, but surely that's better than nothing, especially the way De Blasio likes to spend.
4
Are NYU, Columbia, Pace, and Marymount interested in making the world a better place? How about Julliard, New School, Pratt and all the others? There are well over 600,000 students from these schools many bunked in studio apartments paid for by their parents. I know. I was one of those parents. There are also tens of thousands of interns, medical residents, and visiting instructors. All of these put tremendous pressure on the housing availability, particularly the cheapest housing. No one talks about the fact that these institutions avoid local taxes because it is well understood their benefits far outweigh that issue.
Furthermore, students are generally well accepted in New York with the recognition they contribute to its economic vitality. Imagine being an Amazon worker after seeing the ugly vitriol that was demonstrated in this discourse. Would you want to live and work here? This was an unfortunate and ugly situation for New York and was handled badly in so many ways. So tell me again, who, exactly, is interested in making the world a better place?
7
Amazon has made my world a much better place. I love shopping on their website. It saves me loads of time, I get exactly the products I want and prime delivery is amazingly fast and cheap.
Thank you Amazon !
7
Amazon certainly makes my life better. Out here in the boondocks, it can be difficult to find and purchase odd, mundane, and hard to find items without searching the internet high and low, or going for a 150 mile round trip to some specialty shop (think about the carbon footprint that causes). Amazon brings these things to my mailbox for reasonable prices, often from third party vendors selling through their site.
What was New York expecting of Amazon? What was Amazon expecting of New York? New Yorkers seem to forget that it is expensive to do business in their city, and the tax burden is high. The Amazon deal represented a 90 percent glass full deal, with the City and State collecting many billions in taxes from the company and its employees. The concessions only served to partially offset the tax disadvantages of locating in New York, compared to somewhere with lower costs.
The detractors from this deal chose to focus on the 10 percent of the glass that was empty. So instead, they got a glass that is 100 percent empty. With friends like that, New York needs no enemies.
12
Never in the course of human history have so many been damaged by so few.
I don't think NYers have fully embraced what a tremendous loss this was to LIC and the surrounding areas. When Intel chose Silicon Valley 5 decades ago, it transformed a region. Hundreds of other companies followed.
The damage that a few inexperienced politicians did to the tri-state area is un-recoverable.
Thank you for picking m old state of NY Amazon. I'm sorry you were treated so poorly.
13
I do not understand, is it for Amazon to take care of municipal problems?
Have your politicians legislate so that the problems will be solved/not created.
Consumers love Amazon for good reasons and dumping society's issues on Amazon's doorstep is neither here nor there. I would even disbelieve any business claiming some high moral ground. Better have laws and high taxes and not wait for charity or benevolence.
6
Why should Amazon be interested in making the world a better place? It’s an online business that allows me to buy cat litter, books (old and new), coffee, glass bowls, socks, a rug, etc without leaving my house. Delivered quickly. It is what it is, Sears on steroids. It isn’t a religion. It isn’t a new political party. It isn’t an antidepressant. It’s an online marketplace for 2019.
I’m supportive of Amazon because it is what I need for commerce, not what I need for spiritual fulfillment. Not a church. Not a political movement. An online store. Making the world a better place? That’s my responsibility, your responsibility, not Amazon’s responsibility.
13
It sets a very bad precedent when large corporations expect money from local governments to establish themselves in an area. Amazon may be a good company, but it makes enough money that it does not need to be subsidized. In fact, we need to do something to stop them from monopolizing the market, or can we really should stop calling ourselves a free market economy.
8
It certainly is a matter of opinion, but mine is YES - it does provide a public good. Amazon has changed shopping for the better. It has upped the level brick and mortars must achieve to compete. Essentially Amazon is saying to all businesses, "if you don't step up your game to our level your customers will become our customers." Also, lest we forget, Amazon is publicly traded and has a responsibility to not save the whales if by doing so doesn't provide a return on their investment.
7
@David: Personal convenience and competition are not necessarily an improvement. Everything humans have done to improve the world over the last 10,000 years spawned new problems. Every major problem we now deal with began as someone's bright idea to improve the world.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
Disillusioned with Amazon. If they were serious they'd try to work out a deal that was not so one-sided. The fact that they gave up so quickly says it was all a sham. Reflects poorly on Bezos. While companies need to answer to their shareholders, shareholders should not be their only constituents. There's a need to be moral and supportive of their communities at the same time.
8
There are plenty of other cities happy to receive Amazon, with immense subsidies and tax relief. When that demand dries up, companies like Amazon will begin fixing up a city’s subways in order to have the privilege of setting up company HQ there. Don’t hold your breath.
5
Please, do not say that Amazon, a private corporation, should have offered to pay for public infrastructure as part of any "deal" to a potential 2nd HQ location. You're missing the point. That's the job of well-funded gov't institutions. Amazon and the other techs need to pay their fair share of taxes. It has become a nightmare to live anywhere near San Francisco.
9
Amazon is interested in making a profit and if you understood economics you would realize that providing benefits for Amazon does much more than simply produce profits; it increases employment and results in higher paying jobs. But then who cares about those who might end up supporting the have nots? We are too idealistic to understand even basic economics.
9
The global race to the bottom, where every government is supposed to compete for global corporations with tax cuts, subsidies, and other give always is bad for everyone, except global corporations and their shareholders.
Slashing taxes means slashing investments in education, infrastructure, and other things that make a place competitive in the first place.
It is also not fair to small businesses who don't get massive tax breaks just for existing, and don't get to blackmail cities every year with threats of leaving.
Many times, the promised benefits never materialize. Last time I checked for example, NYC was giving hundreds of millions in tax credits to global banks for creating jobs, while they cut jobs every year.
$3 billion in tax cuts is just too high a price. When you give in to these kinds of demands, you end up disinvesting in your citizens and infrastructure, which are the things that make a city work.
Corporations are chartered by governments to benefit everyone, but somehow they have come to think they only serve shareholders. They have no loyalty, and think that have no responsibiliy to give back to the localities that created and nurtured them.
Amazon got started in Seattle. How did Amazon repay that city? By killing a small tax increase meant to build the infrastructure needed to serve Amazon and by moving its headquarters away. If you date a married woman, then marry her, you can't expect her to be loyal.
Amazon used Seattle and dumped them.
6
Amazon is everywhere and nowhere here in Seattle. Seemingly half the people on transit work for Amazon, but when it comes to corporate philanthropy, its name never comes up. And that is surprising in a town that likes to look to the future, where "inclusiveness" is a major value, and where the physical environment, especially the Sound and the mountains, are a major part of the consciousness. Bezos or Amazon could easily have put its mark on an effort to save Puget Sound, or to provide scholarships for the kids in the city, many of them first or second generation immigrants, who aren't likely to work in tech without extra help in education. Gates has clearly made his mark here, as have Allen and McCaw, but Bezos is invisible. Time to step up and be someone!
7
@Rod Stevens Right. Bezos did absolutely nothing. A very selfish family. How dare they not contribute to helping out
In Austin the majority were relieved Amazon did not come here. Surveys showed most residents did not want them. Our city council and mayor were not allowed to bid just the State and Chamber. I like to think there would have been a lot of protest if they had tried. Our mayor had gone on record as Amazon should not expect anything from the city. I am pleased we are the largest city #11 in America without a professional sports team. When the soccer league tried to get public park land they were refused as many years ago citizens had passed a referendum that foresaw that kind of land grab and passed a law to prevent that. None of my city taxes go to support rich owners. Now it's time no money goes to rich business owners. Austin doesn't need incentives to lure people here and neither does NYC.
19
Kara, I am sorry, but I don't think you really understand how capitalism works. First if all, business is never trying to make the world a better place (that is called charity); business is trying to sell a good or service that customers will buy and then turn a profit. Businesses have no obligation; whether moral, ethical, or legal to make the world a better place. (however this doesn't mean it is right for businesses to make the world worse) Capitalism works so well because all of this creates a competitive nature, that forces innovation and creativity.
5
I guess you’ve never heard of the Social Contract, a moral tenet included in the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Adress.
5
But tell me, corporations consist of people, right? Do people have those obligation?
4
@American Patriot
We get it. The world is Darwinian by nature
The fallacy in this article is that Amazon could have chosen virtually any other location off their list of finalists and been welcome with open arms.
4
I have a boring factual question. When I first heard that New York was offering Amazon a $3B tax break, I presumed that meant that if Amazon had moved in and payed taxes at the normal "MSRP" rate it would have come to some large number (I have $8B in my head, but have no idea where that came from) so they said "Can we have a bulk discount on all those taxes?" and New York said "OK, we'll give you $3B off, you can pay just $5B." But if that were true then I imagine someone would now be unhappy about the $5B in tax revenue New York wasn't going to get. I see plenty of people unhappy about not getting 25K jobs, but nobody disappointed about a big (admittedly discounted) heap of tax revenue evaporating. Did I misunderstand?
6
The big number was well over your $5B. It was $25B . The $3B was a reduction that only happened as the $25 B accrued. No money upfront. Financially NY was covered well.
Also to keep in mind is that Amazon, according to a CNN Business article, did not pay federal income taxes for 2017 and 2018:
cnn.com/2019/02/15/tech/amazon-federal-income-tax/index.html.
To further subsidize a company of such wealth is ludicrous and certainly does not consider the best interests of Queens, its inhabitants and surrounding areas.
8
Interesting that such high-tech cities as San Francisco and Seattle have some of the biggest homeless populations. Here in Seattle, Amazon has a huge presence, and lots of dollars are flowing in, but none seems to make its way into the neighborhoods that could use it. Local politicians struggle to solve the homeless crisis. Amazon has not offered much evidence that it intends to do anything for the less fortunate. Reminds me of how the development of Atlantic City casinos was alleged to transform the lives of local residents. They are still waiting. NY was wise to fend off a bad deal.
10
New York City’s homeless problem is just as bad. There is a serious homeless problem in every major US city. Read about Portland Maine. Your argument is factually flawed.
Ms. Swisher, by delivering products and services that people want and need, and by providing thousands of people with jobs that allow them to take care of their families, Amazon does a tremendous amount of good in the world. The same cannot be said for you.
Who cares if Amazon does good, without good intentions, while you, with good intentions, do nothing of any real value?
4
Corporations do not have intentions. They are designed to generate cash flow and profit for shareholders in lawful ways. Period. They have advertising and public relations slogans to humanize, but we all know it’s a fantasy.
4
Amazon "promised" 25,000 jobs. What would have compelled them to actually do so, once they got their tax breaks?
Conservatives have "promised" us since Ronald Reagan that tax cuts would increase government revenue, and make everyone better off. How's that working out?
6
You don’t get a tax break until you actually owe taxes. You owe taxes by owning property and employing people. The more people you employ, the more taxes they pay, the more reductions you get.
Once upon a time, corporations saw themselves as good citizens of whatever town, and even state, in which they were located. Corporations gave pensions, real benefits, living wages. There's no reason not to expect this again, work for it, vote for politicians who change the rules to make it so.
I'm glad not to shop at Amazon, Walmart, etc., even if their "stuff is cheaper". Less "stuff" is a good thing, anyway, allowing me to save for a rainy day and putting a reduced amount of trash in the landfills and oceans.
14
I cheered today when I read Amazon pulled out. Well done, NY! We don't need to give away $3 billion to a trillion dollar company. What will the rich and greedy think up next? Just look at the area around Grand Central and Central Park South. Someone is building a lot of office and apartment towers. I hope average New Yorkers will profit from them, too.
3
The average New Yorker can not afford them. Therein is the fallacy of your position. New Job creation and housing formation are the only economic solutions.
3
While I don’t have much sympathy for Amazon and they can go a long way to clean up their image, I don’t see the need to paint all of Silicon Valley with the same brush. Nor do I see the need to diminish their potential to change the world for the better. This is precisely why we liberals lose. Silicon Valley by and large, has been a friend to liberal causes(with some notable exceptions like Peter Thiel). But in our need to be ideologically pure, we push away allies and like the sound of our own outrage too much to look at whether our actions will lead to a better outcome or just make us feel morally superior. In the meantime, opportunists like Trump win in spite of their moral bankruptcy.
3
OMG I live in San Francisco and have been wondering for some time how to describe what the tech crap has wrought upon this once lovely city. "Modern hellscape." Ms Swisher has totally nailed it! It's a total disaster mess here. Name any problem a city could have. We have it in epic proportions. New York got lucky that people actually cared about what happened to it.
239
@Nadia all great points. NYT did a great piece on how people who worked for Sears had a pension and 401k plan matches, etc. and could retire well. Some Amazon employees have to worry about using the bathroom and will never make enough money to retire without side jobs if they have time
22
@Greg Jones
The USA was rapidly developing when Sears ruled the retail world. Things change and the US is no longer the dominant player on the world stage. The country has also long been "developed". Where Sears didn't have serious competition for decades, companies like Walmart and Amazon have players/competitors, both foreign and domestic, ready to replace them at any sign of a misstep or weakness.
Why should Walmart and Amazon pay more than they have to? They're are muscular companies in a competitive marketplace. They are not charities. Re Amazon and their pay scale. $15-/hr doesn't sound like much pay in SFO or NYC, but is decent money in much of the rest of the country. I find it useful to think of the many workers at Amazon and Walmart as part of a retail army, bringing goods and services to many Americans who don't have the necessary wealth to be too choosy about their retail experience. I shop at both companies every week and find the prices and convenience to be too good to ignore. They are, like everything else in life, not perfect. They do however earn my loyalty on a daily basis.
3
@Nadia
I would say that the biggest problem SF has is the beggars, and the homeless who defecateon the sidewalks. Really can't blame that on Twitter or Salesforce.
10
Amazon is just like everyone else. If they could, they’d have it all.
5
Why should Amazon do for the public what the politicians don't do either? NY pols are out to get reelected, and maybe help the public, maybe not. Actually, Amazon has a great product. And guarantees its product (service and price). Name a current NY politician that has achieved anything of the magnitude of Mr. Bezos? Now the NY pols want to come to Northern Virginia and Nashville and disrupt our association with Amazon. Believe me we do not need you to come and ruin all the benefits we will achieve from the employment and tax benefits from Amazon. We don't need your negativity. Stay away.
5
You're kidding yourself if you think those 25,000 jobs were going to be filled by people currently just sitting around in Queen's wishing they had work... those would have been filled by transfers and skilled labor imported from overseas.
17
All corporations are the same, including Facebook, which is a complete waste of time.
4
Incentives to companies for building in particular states or cities aren’t evil of themselves.
But the recipients often take the money and run.
So, a wise government would offer this subsidy to encourage jobs. “Send us proof you’ve paid payroll taxes, and we’ll pay you an agreed-upon subsidy of some fraction of those taxes.” Then, if the jobs leave, the subsidies end.
2
I take it back. I just read the NYT editorial on losing Amazon's 25,000 jobs and estimated $27 billion in taxes over the next 20 years. It is realistic and calls attention to the smugness of Mayor DeBlasio. I'd gladly have the facility out here in the nearby desert.
2
I love this take. Brilliant.
Amazon paid no taxes in 2018, the second year in a row. Amazon got a REFUND. You and me, we have taxes taken out of our paychecks. Bezos thought since he made 11,000,000,000 dollars profit last year, he would get massive Pentagon and surveillance contracts. Job done.
The didn’t pay FEDERAL CORPORATE INCOME TAXES. They certainly paid property taxes, payroll taxes and others. On that note, 44% of Americans don’t pay any federal income tax either.
4
People buy into the unbelievable because they WANT to believe the lies they're told. How many times does one have to say "you only get what you pay for in this life" before people actually believe it? You don't want to pay more than 99 cents for your tomato sauce? Then don't expect the workers picking tomatoes in the fields to be given health care and paid family leave. $4.99 for those undies? Well then the less you know about the factory's conditions and the age of the women sitting behind the sewing machines where they're made the better. Same goes for Amazon. The fact that it's lead by the richest man in the world should tell us what we need to know. As Bezos and the company he runs have both become the wealthiest in their respective groups (person, company), I haven't noticed any noticeable improvement to our climate or reductions in child poverty or lower gun violence, have you? Now I'm not expecting those improvements to occur thanks to one man or one company, but are they causing the opposite? More housing for lower and middle-income New Yorkers? HOW was Amazon's arrival in LIC going to accomplish that, Mr. DeBlasio? $3 billion in tax breaks Mr. Cuomo? How about putting those funds into the MTA's budget and forget about the fare increases. What they ALL forgot is that the average New Yorker is too smart for all that and no, the majority of city residents did NOT want Amazon and why? Because we don't need them nor believe the myth about their "greatness".
8
@ManhattanWilliam Dude, it has been mentioned so many times for those who do not understand how these tax breaks work - company gets tax break on taxes generated - Amazon would generate 30B in taxes but would pay 27B. These 3B do not exist without Amazon.
Amazon HQ would have provided many construction jobs then permanent jobs. Jobs lead to housing formation. Housing formation leads to new families, spending and tax revenue. All of that is lost and now Arlingto VA will benefit. Who will make it up? Underdeveloped lots in Long Island City? You can hate Amazon but is simply a corporation acting like one. So I trust you are consistent in your logic and do not own and will never own any share of any publicly traded corporation because of you do, you are endorsing the corporate approach you oppose.
With Amazon, we can accumulate more stuff for less cost without getting off the couch or interacting with others. Then we bemoan that people are too materialistic, overweight, and asocial.
5
Amazon decided that it wasn't worth having a partnership with NYC with the radical fringe screaming at them all the time. I don't blame them. The company is far from perfect, but their job is to provide products and services that people want to buy, and they do this extraordinarily well. It is the local government's job to make sure that the deals they strike make sense for their constituents. This article is highly biased...For one thing, SF wasn't ruined by the tech companies. SF has big housing issues because government won't let developers build as much as is needed, and what does get build has to be very expensive because of the massive regulatory burdens and other costs imposed. Amazon would not have just brought 25k good jobs, it would have also enabled tens of thousands of local residents to benefit as their local businesses would also gain. As for those saying that $3b could have been better spent, that's a stupid argument. NY is broke, deficits and massive unfunded liabilities. The incentives would have been paid out of new tax revenues generated by the increased economic activity Amazon would have brought. Without Amazon that money does not exist.
5
Amazon has already made the world a better place. Prices are low, service is great, returns are easy. What's not to like. New Yorkers (at least in the NT) seem so smug and arrogant that they showed Amazon the door. You'll likely be worse off for it.
5
"Amazon certainly could have been more creative in proposing some balms for those ills in New York. For example, could it have entered into a cool public-private partnership to fix the junky subways its employees would have ridden, perhaps in new and innovative ways?
You know, making the world a better place? No, I guess not."
-- Well..I guess you will never know now, would you? So first, you don't want Amazon in NY and when it leaves, you complain that it's leaving without a fight - so it wasn't serious enough to be in NY in the first place?! Sounds like a bad relationship - "I want to break up with you and OMG I can't believe you are leaving me so soon, so you must have never loved me :((". Huh?!
Amazon made the right decision.
Btw, Prime deliveries have made my world a better place.
6
Lots of people around the world disagree what the better world is. It is not Amazon's job to do.
3
It’s not Amazon’s job to make the world a better place.
4
So Amazon should offer to repair crumbling subway infrastructure to open up shop in NYC? That's absurd. They make the world a better place by providing valuable goods and services--not by operating as a charity or an extension of local governments. Convince your governments to stop bending over backwards for these big companies and/or to raise taxes (or create new taxes) to improve infrastructure. Don't get mad at Amazon for getting the best deal possible and not offering handouts to the biggest city in the US.
And you know now that I think about it, I hear there is a big newspaper in NYC that employs a bunch of people. Maybe they should offer to repair the subway for the opportunity to continue operating there.. Or is the NYT just a "self-interested business" too?
6
The thing is, research shows that giving a helping hand monetarily to blue collar and low income folks has a huge multiplier effect: they put that money back into the local economy. In contrast, highly compensated folks sock the money away. What has more impact on the local economy: buying this year's Lexus, or buying groceries, clothes, etc? My thought is use that $3B to raise the basement income for everyone in LIC, that will multiply on the order of $1. 57 added for every $1 given, more local businesses will grow, and it's a virtuous cycle. Rather than throwing money at a billionaire for promises of "great paying jobs" for some, and crumbling infrastructure for all because that money is tied up with Amazon.
1
Funny how 3 Billion dollars was suddenly available for a tax break to subsidize a corporate behemoth, and then our politicians stand around and argue who should fix the subway and who should pay for it.
There's obviously money laying around in somebody's coffers. They just ain't spending it on us.
7
That money isn't lying in anyone's coffers - it's a tax break, not cash that NYC was going to hand over to Amazon.
1
A half billion dollars was a straight out grant.
@Susan Slice it however you want. At the end of the day that's 3 billion out of our pockets.
You wanna play here? Cough it up. Just like the rest of us do everyday, week and month.
Sour grapes? I would like to see one tenth of the negative press the tech industry gets on these pages directed against NYC's biggest industry - the bloodsucking financial sector. This is about the only major economic driver left in NYC, and it would be interesting to see someone explain how it benefits mankind. You can start with the carried interest exemption for wall street billionaires.
17
We must be wary of tech giants like Amazon. Probably the two biggest issues are personal data utilization and monopolistic business practices.
It is a good thing that New York rejected Amazon. They have enough commerce already. New York does not need the negative externalities that Amazon brings.
However, in general Amazon has greatly improved the American consumer experience
Before Amazon, Americans were stuck with shopping at the Mall, Wal Mart, and big box stores like Best Buy, Home Depot, and Staples.
(I do not count good corporate citizen Costco.)
If you think the aforementioned establishments were going to do you any favors, have another drink. They are run by MBAs and demographers who work ceaselessly to manipulate you and increase price points to get every red cent out of your pocket.
Amazon allows you to shop at home, minimizing transactional costs and mitigating carbon externalities from you car. Amazon created customer reviews (now standard online) which are a tremendous help in comparison shopping.
Amazon makes it easy to return items, and to purchase returned merchandise and floor models from other merchants at rock bottom prices.
In Alvin Toffler's 1980 book "The Third Wave," he predicted a future marketplace that would have much wider and more precise delivery systems. Amazon brought that to fruition.
MBA-run book stores like Borders and Barnes & Noble had already quashed the mom-and-pops. Amazon is a much better deal.
3
@Joe
Before Amazon, you could also shop at local supermarket, boutiques, farmers market if in your area, craft fairs, actual book stores where you could browse the shelves in front of you, the butcher, the baker, the liquor store, the pet shop. I still do the bulk of my shopping that way. And there are good catalog companies. I bought US made furniture from LL Bean, guaranteed for life.
6
@Lawyermom
Here in Arizona, where society has sprung unnaturally out of the desert, we had none of that.
In my hometown of Akron, Ohio, a supermarket & butcher that was acclaimed by the NYT and WSJ as the best between NY and Chicago has been supplanted by Whole Foods.
In places like DC, NY, Chicago and other large metropolitan areas, perhaps you still can find artisans and local purveyors who are superior - but they are far and few between, especially in the Rust Belt or Rocky Mountain Way.
I am an attorney bibliophile, and have spent a ton of my life in bookstores. Unless it is some esoteric, antiquarian place, you are better off staying home.
Our local public library has volumes recommended in the "New York Times Book Review" usually within a month. Between those institutions and Amazon, reading is much more efficient and pleasurable, and less costly than having Earth Mother Kettle ring you up at $30 per book.
I used to enjoy the bookstores associated with many fine colleges in Ohio. Now they are all run by corporations with the mindset of Bain's Mitt Romney - and not worth it.
Amazon has made other catalog companies better, and ameliorated most communities in the U.S. Amazon not only made its own business, but it provided a paradigm for other online retailers, which gave us much more choice. To posit anything else is romanticized bushwa.
Do I wish mom & pop were still around? Yes, I do, but they have been supplanted by MBAs and chains.
2
Amazon who?
Does anyone remember when the 2012 Olympics were going to make NYC a better place?
Or when Hudson Yards was the perfect spot for an NFL stadium?
Real and sustainable growth happens from the ground up.
7
Amazon was invited here, thought they had made a deal, only to find an organized effort to move the goal posts. They left a place that was signaling they weren't wanted. Maybe it was the protesters who didn't know what they wanted.
8
I thought socialism was supposed to be bad. Oh - It’s bad only when it means more people will receive needed medical care. When it enriches already wealthy corporations, that’s a good thing.
8
Business is business ... and I respect and like Amazon.
I would agree it's gotten big and I hope that it tries to retain some humanity. But that they should not get tax incentives and seek them would be ridiculous.
As a taxpayer I'm not hot on the incentives but again I've seen lots of companies who seek them. Living in North Carolina we had a number of companies who pulled in and asked for incentives and then pulled out when the incentives ran out - perfect example among others was Dell.
What worries me with this affair is this expectation that a capitalistic enterprise is expected to behave as a non-profit. Although I would like to hope that Amazon could do more for the average "Joe".
You could say a "Civic Duty" but then if you look at our country today?
1
Amazon ruined Seattle, got angry when the city wanted to tax large corps and basically stopped it. They are anti union, and treat warehouse workers like slaves. Come to Seattle and see how it is now. Not the same.
5
Sorry, don't agree at all. Amazon lasted a New York minute lol. They couldn't deal with push back from basically about 1,000 people - none of the rallies attracted much more than that. They were not cut out for NYC. The mayor was completely right - not tough enough.
5
So, AOC, no Amazon. Instead, let a thousand corner bodegas, scrap yards, chop shops and seedy warehouses bloom. And a shortage of skilled labor won't make much difference for those jobs, so no worries there. Just let's keep everything as is, and perish the thought that maybe neighborhoods will become nicer places to live where people are willing to pay more to buy or rent. No, let's not have that nightmare, please no.
10
Brutally accurate and tragically entertaining! Thanks Ms. Swisher, for providing some needed oxygen for surviving the long, arduous tech trek.
2
This may be a difficult concept but the concept of the marketplace is that each individual, or corporation composed of individuals, in pursing it's private interests, contributes to the health of the whole system.
Adam Smith called it the "invisible hand."
1
Please inform Amazon. They’ve done almost nothing to give back to Seattle. They take.
4
It's not a difficult concept, but not all self-interested behavior contributes to the greater good. Sometimes it's just exploitation.
3
People act like Amazon is this mystical, magical technology company. It's not. They use a lot of technology, but they are merely another online retailer. It's just a spiffier version of ordering from the Sears catalog in the old days.
A city giving $3 billion in tax breaks to a wealthy company to build another headquarters is absolutely absurd. Amazon hasn't even paid income taxes in two years, and the taxpayers of New York are expected to hand over their hard-earned tax money to these freeloaders? The American people are finally wising up to this highway robbery and are fed up.
A lot of people have mentioned the changes in San Francisco since the big tech companies have moved in. I lived there from 1982 to 1992 and it wasn't exactly charm city then. However, I have visited a couple of times in recent years, and I could never live there now. (The apartment I rented for $600 a month now rents for $4,700.) The tech people have so much money to spend that prices for everything have skyrocketed and the homeless population has greatly increased.
Hopefully, one of these days big companies and sports teams will learn that they can no longer extort their way to grandeur.
12
Try renting a one bedroom apartment for less than $5000 a month
Try commuting every day via LIRR and Subway - every day, in the rain, the snow and heat - and then tell me your average commute time. It takes my husband 2.5 hours each way from our home in NJ to his office in NYC. That does not include wait time for buses. When we visit my in-laws on Long Island it takes 3 hours - each way. This is life without Amazon and all the jobs and demand that they would bring with them. It was never realistic - we never had this capacity without huge investment in infrastructure. I don’t think amazon was every really real. They never would have met that 25,000 number because they would not have been able to find that many people who could show up to that location - every day.
11
Well Ocasio-Cortez will carry this with her into obscurity. Brilliant work by the Democrats running thousands of high tech jobs out of their town.
I’m a Democrat and this looks awful.
11
Go to Seattle. She’s right.
Thank goodness, God, saints and angels, and all others who reacted to what was a bad idea. It’s been 50 years since I lived in the greater New York area, but it was obvious to me that Long Island City was a poor choice to jam in 25,000 more jobs. Long Island could far better fit in these jobs outside the city limits. People were commuting to good jobs in Suffolk county in the 60’s. I'm sure they still could and might even live there already in many cases.
1
The whole tone of this article is misguided. Of course not - Amazon is about innovation and transformation. It's a business - it's not a charity looking to adopt NYC and fix its problems.
In their HQ2 search, they wanted a place to set up shop and do what they are best at in peace. They were not looking for a troubled community , or to get caught up in their local political fights, or fix crumbling infrastructure, or have angry residents yelling at them.
With such entitled and arrogant attitude, NYC risks becoming irrelevant and being left in the dust by other cities - those that are smart about encouraging business investments and continue to grow and innovate and thrive. Amazon made a smart call backing out - they have tons of better options.
There is a good chance that five years from now, Northern Virginia will be on its way to be the next Silicon Valley and New Yorkers will still be stuck with their in-fighting, finger pointing and crumbling infrastructure.
8
@Ash "In their HQ2 search, they wanted a place to set up shop and do what they are best at in peace."
You're absolutely right. And that's accomplished by finding communities that don't ask questions, try to get something for themselves in the deal and DON'T roll over and play dead to the likes of Bezos and other corporate masters. We New Yorkers are awake and hip to that game.
Now they're free to go to a complaint town "in peace" that won't see a dime in returns until 2030 for the big tax break that they hand Bezos who will have completely automated his company by that time and destroyed another city.
GOOD LUCK VA!
8
25,000 new jobs meant roughly 25,000 new subway riders, cars and buses. Who's responsible for addressing that issue?
8
Dead on right. If giant rich tech companies came to communities publicly asking how they could make them better, in return for getting access to the resources and public infrastructure they claim to be seeking — how they could contribute more than just jobs for a lucky few thousand people (many of whom would be imported from outside the community anyway)— maybe these would be far less contentious conversations, going forward.
5
The other thing that bothers me about your premise is that you think "making the world a better place" means Amazon is going to come into NYC and start spending money on building a better subway. If that's what you think, you don't understand tech at all, and I'm disappointed.
Amazon, and its leading competitors, are investing in the smartest people they can hire, to figure out how to make it all lower in cost, easier to use, and smarter, specifically, artificially intelligent. So for example, Alexa. They aren't building subways. They would have contributed hugely to NYC's revenue, and then NYC could have focused on building subways.
Amazon plows its profits right back into the company, which is very unusual these days. Everybody else is buying their own stock back. Amazon continues to see many areas where their approach will have a positive impact, and that's where they steer their investment; not to cities' subways. In many ways, Amazon, and its tech competitors, are looking into all the opportunities that other older companies have left behind in favor of stock buybacks. Just the kind of company that NYC should be trying to attract.
10
No, Amazon isn't interested in making the world a better place. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez IS interested in making the world a better place. So who HAS actually made the world better?
So far, I'd say it's "a push."
2
Lost in all of this is that Amazon paid $0 in taxes last year. $0. On $11 Billion in profits See: http://fortune.com/2019/02/14/amazon-doesnt-pay-federal-taxes-2019/?xid=gn_editorspicks https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/14/how-can-we-tax-the-footloose-multinationalsAlso a good article
28
Jeff Bezos and Amazon has made my life much easier and more enjoyable. They deliver way out in the sticks, have practically everything a person needs, returning/replacing items is easy and I get access to a plethora of videos. I no longer have to make the trek into town, saving me time, gas and wear on my truck, going from store to store to get what I need and wait in line. I literally have several days every year given back to me to do what I want, thanks to Amazon. How can people have a problem with Amazon for doing that? I know that in these here parts if anyone wanted to come in and bring a bunch of high paying jobs that would spawn new business and boost our economy, we'd not look that gift horse in the mouth, we'd shake hands and the deal would be done. We don't believe in biting the hand that feeds us around here.
16
I'll second that! I live in a very rural town, and while I buy local as much as possible, we have few stores. Amazon Prime is a wonderful thing, fast, efficient, with excellent selection.
2
You really should read some Adam Smith. It's enough to do your own business. Why should Amazon "make the world better" in any way than they already are? I think they have made excellent contributions to consumer choice and availability. I know I buy and read lots more books because its so easy.
7
Once again the writer holds tech companies to a higher standard than others. The primary aim of any public company is to maximize profits and shareholder value. For better or worse, this is the cutthroat, capitalist model. I don't fault Amazon for backing out in the face of strong opposition to their presence from the outset. Many other cities would welcome them and the jobs they bring.
3
25,000 jobs and $27 Billion in tax revenue would make New York a better place.
That is the point, Kara.
10
While the progressives are going to take it in the knee for a while on this one (and AOC needs to take an Economics 101 class like yesterday - AOC, i like you, please don't embarrass yourself by being economically illiterate) part of their argument still stands.....
...if teachers, nurses and minimum wage workers are going to share a city with multi-billionaires, those teachers, nurses and minimum wage workers need to stand their ground. They WILL be pushed out if wage inequality is not addressed. How about the idea that a minimum wage job in NY needs to be cast at a higher rate?
7
I think you meant to say "civil potentates like Governor Amazon Cuomo," no?
1
New Yorkers must be very naive to believe what you say they did?
Capitalism is amoral and has one value only: profit;
Otherwise it is an authoritative horrid arrangement for creating jobs or wealth or a good place to work. Most people hate their jobs and one has no control over most of what happens at your job. A Board of men (usually) dictates what you do, where you do it, how much money you earn and the length of your breaks etc.
They care about one thing only.
4
Destroying neighborhoods! ravaging infrastructure! forcing families from their homes! Are we talking here about America or Syria? Have we no perspective?
With ANY change comes disruption and displacement, no? With ANY change comes unforeseen and sometimes unintended consequences. Life, at least in my experience, is organic and fluid and nothing stays the same. Has there ever been an age (or city!) golden for everyone? Has life ever been “fair?” Didn’t we learn that as children?
Amazon is self-interested, for sure. Last I checked, most of us are, too. Amazon may not have been right for New York — I’m in California, so that’s neither my call nor my business — but omgoodness. My head is spinning.
5
Ocasio-Cortez was elected with fewer votes than Amazon was promising in jobs.
13
In 2018, Amazon, which is worth $795 billion, earned a record $11.2 billion in US profits, and received a federal income tax rebate of $129 million, essentially amounting to a tax rate of negative 1 percent. And yet they wanted $3 billion in tax credits and subsidies from New York.
Amazon's approach to New York was not unlike the pivotal scene in the movie "Deliverance." But in this case, thank God when the Seattle hillbillies met resistance, they scurried up into the woods before our city was sodomized.
3
Well duh, Ms. Swisher. Capitalism is about making money...and nothing else. You may like one capitalist, and hate another one, but Capitalism is NEVER about making the world a better place. Ever.
3
I've seen writers invent plenty of straw men, but this is a first for me: a straw company. Amazon never pretended to be devoted to making the world a better place. Neither did the Times. Neither did the reporter. Amazon is devoted to selling stuff better than anybody else does, and to that goal they have been true. This is the kind of bogus opinion column you get when people are paid to have opinions whether they make sense or not.
3
Hellscape? From a New Yorker? Puh-leeze. As someone actively working on the transportation-housing-jobs conundrum in the Bay Area, I'll agree there are problems. But somehow, I'm not convinced they are any more of a "hellscape" than is NYC and environs. And frankly, I like living in a place that doesn't think it's the center of the known universe.
5
@PatriciaM
Patricia, New York is already suffering under a transportation-housing-jobs conundrum.
Amazon walked straight into a place where those factors already put pressure on peoples everyday lives.
It is no wonder people had questions.
5
@PatriciaM I have lived in San Fran and I have lived in NYC, and as much as I have come to dislike NYC, I do think San Fran takes the prize as hellscape #1, at least compared to what I once knew. Matter of fact, I no longer want to even go back there to visit. And regarding places that think they're the center of the known universe, I think San Fran is right up there near the top of the list, and always has been.
@PatriciaM
FYI, apparently the author of this article lives in San Francisco, not New York City.
1
If the subway situation in the LIC area wasn't so horrible, this would not have happened. Cuomo and Di Blasio were absolutely tone deaf not to somehow factor infrastructure improvements into the deal to make the residents feel like they would at least get something back. The subways are so bad right now that thinking about cramming my body into a crowded 7 or G train gives me PTS (present traumatic stress). It's really bad. And on top of it, subway riders are now being threatened with fare hikes for ever worsening, unreliable and potentially unsafe repair processes on the L. People felt that the influx of yet more people would make those commutes even worse.
I do think it is too bad that the deal collapsed because for better or worse, the extra tax income and extra income generated (even with the 3 billion subsidy) would have benefitted local business and provided good jobs for the many college kids trying to get a degree in the NYC area.
The other problem Cuomo and DiBlasio chose to ignore was the problem of rent increases and gentrification, which make current residents feel as if they are nothing. They knew they would just get pushed further and further out into Queens, and their commutes would get even longer. We need a holistic approach to development that takes all of these factors into account. As a resident, the city is getting more and more unlivable.
Strange irony is that one thing that helps is ordering things on Amazon to save shopping trips!
6
If you look at history leaders who overtly tried to make the world a better place (Lenin, Mao, Chavez etc.) used a very personal definition of 'better' and ended up causing untold misery when the public refused to conform.
Those who simply tried to get rich (Gates, Buffett, Jobs, even Bezos) ended up enriching a lot of others in the process.
5
Who determines what makes the world a better place? Better fir whom? From which perspective?
It’s more complicated than “officials” and “activists” can comprehend. They just fight fir what they believd is roght. Economically it might be even bad for themselves. And it is definitely not good for everyone around.
That’s a simple point which socialists fail to understand. There is no “good for everyone” paradigm in this world. You can not create it.
5
" Progressives " are for working people? Really? Maybe before shooting down the Amazon deal the state politicians should have done some polling among the residents of L9ng Island City. Hey Congresswoman Octavia- Cortez, can you get me a job?
9
If NYC were to kick out all of the companies that didn't behave like saints, then Wall Street would be a ghost town.
4
So as I read this column, I am sure that if Ms. Swisher ever sells her home, she won’t try for the best price but instead, she will offer it to the most “worthy” potential buyer. Rather than another opinion unecumbered by any real world common sense, just once I’d like to see a column in the Times written by someone who has actually created a business, produced something more ephemeral than an opinion, and actually had to manage employees.
8
Let's do a reverse history lesson..
In 1992, the Philippine government kicked out the U.S. Naval base in Subic Bay. There was an immediate loss of 20,000 jobs. The government promised to transform SB into a dynamic port of international trade, commerce and prosperity. Well it's 2019, and Subic Bay is still an underdeveloped, 3rd world dump.
And so shall be Queens...
You guys get what you give!
6
Why am I not surprised?
Kara Swisher is thrilled yet again to have a tech giant to trash. Surely her column must be the most jaded of all when it comes to who is the enemy of the people.
This is getting tiresome, Kara.
7
Don't buy from them,Bet all this people buy from AMAZON.
Oh, Ms. Swisher must enjoy patronizing products and services with higher prices and little competition.
Me, I prefer the opposite, and find that it makes my world a better place.
But what do I know, I am not a wise tech writer for the New York Times...
7
Hey Kara, it’s not their mandate, they just sell stuff.
6
I find the headline of this article strange: why should Amazon be "Interested in Making the World a Better Place"?
Like any other corporation, it professes primary responsibility to its shareholders and, probably like some of the others, wastes money on expensive appointments, luxurious retreats, and maintenance of the higher echelon's lovers, mistresses, and catamites.
1
This notion that companies make the world a better place is foolish. What gave you that impression? Because some CEO said so? What made you think that a for profit company is making the world better?
This low level of comprehension of reality is troubling
5
Seriously? A NYT columnist surprised that a corporation looks out for it’s own interests? When Ms. Swisher doesn’t take a pay check and a NYT subscription Is free, then I’ll listen to what she has to say.
5
Amazon *has* made the world a better place. For those of you who live in large metropolitan centers, with an infinite number of choices in retail, that might not be obvious, but for those of us who are not so privileged (you know, those who live in the rural areas that produce the food you eat, and the wind power you consume), the fact that we can still get anything we need without having to drive 500 miles first is pretty awesome.
4
Kara,
Thank you for this piece: rather than being myopic and/or inflammatory, it is thought provoking and brings additional thoughts to the discussion. I might read it aloud (or circulate before) and use as a conversation starter with my kids at next family dinner.
1
Let's get real about Amazon's commitment to NYC.
-- $3b in incentives for a company that once again will pay no federal taxes this year. What do you expect NYC and NYS tax income from Amazon to be? What do you think their 2018 revenue was? Neighborhood of $230b.
-- 25,000 jobs created. Over 15 years. That's 1,667 jobs per year. I posit that we could fund more middle class lives by taking the $3b of incentives and simply paying as many people as possible $100k per year over 15 years.
-- Better yet, take that $3b, repair our subways, help the homeless and support small business creation in the boroughs. They will easily employ 25,000 people over 15 years.
10
As has been pointed out hundreds of times on this thread and others there is no $3b sitting on a shelf somewhere that can no be distributed elsewhere. The $3 billion represents the forgiveness of the first $3 billion of taxes that Amazon would have paid. The next projected $25 b then flows directly to the city.
Walking away from the deal did not result in the saving of $3 billion. It resulted in zero savings and the subsequent forfeiture of $25b.
I can’t believe how many times this needs to be repeated. Even AOC who should know better seems to believe there’s now $3 b to be distributed to the needy.
9
@GC
Bravo!
I, too, am perplexed at the ignorance of foregoing a multi-BILLION dollar yearly tax stream from NYC Amazon salaries.
What kind of Cuban or Venezuelan math did AOC learn at BU?
@GC , good reply. It obviously needs repeating.
Amazon and technology are definitely making the world better. All new medical developments are completely dependent on technology. Amazon's work in creating new artificial intelligence and machine learning infrastructure of all kinds -- including the hardware and server clusters in warehouses, and the specialized, complex, futuristic software that can manage them -- will be the way we solve cancer and find solutions to many other problems of the world. Technology, and specifically Amazon's technology, also helps us discover and map out many aspects of the universe that are still mysteries to us, including physics at the nanoscale and quantum levels and the universe's galaxies at a macroscopic level. It's also helping us figure out how our genes and DNA work, again, all for the purpose of eventually eradicating all disease and being able to provide unlimited food and education and resources for EVERYONE.
You are arguing that that is not good for the world? Please.
2
The ironic part about that argument is that arguably many cancers are likely caused by this modern life. All the chemicals we use? The vast majority are carcinogenic. All the fossil fuel to power those servers and tech? Carcinogenic. Tech is not a magic bullet to solve the world’s ills. Far from it. We just THINK we have all the answers, and tech fuels that myth.
1
@Elli
I disagree. Most cancers come from the fact that we live so long now that more people are getting cancer as they get older. And also better diagnosis -- a lot of cancer in the past was simply not detected.
Maybe we can legislate that individuals with a net worth >100m can only live and own property in the bay area. Takes pressure off the rest of us.
I mean, it's so far past reversible there, what's the harm?
3
NYC now has pre-K for all at a cost of 1 billion a year, free healthcare that includes undocumented immigrants at a cost of 100 million a year, the state is now giving free tuition for college to families making under 125k.
Please help me understand your math. Bring in a tech company at a cost of 3 billion that will generate billions more in economic activity. 25k jobs making over 100k vanished, gone forever.
Your choice. ..
Business is business...
NYC debt is 116 billion
$116,000,000,000
NYS debt is 63 billion
$63,000,000,000
USA debt is 22 trillion
$22,000,000,000,000
If you continue business as usual NYC and NYS and the United States will be bankrupt or in more palatable words "in dire financial circumstances" sooner than we think.
9
IMHO, it would have been prudent for Amazon to have listened to the very wise NYT Business writer and legend, James B. Stewart.
Mr Stewart wisely suggested Indianapolis as a site for many obvious reasons that one may find in NYT archives.
Believe he stated that Indianapolis was a clever choice as it would have the potential to help bring your country together. That not everything had to be on a coast in America, and that Indianapolis ticked many boxes up to and including a stable labour force, infrastructure and other bits.
6
@MKS - Would Amazon's work force want to live in Indianapolis? Asking for a friend.
1
@MKS But apparently not the nightlife, restaurants and other coastal thrills Amazon's hipster hires apparently crave.
@Space needle
Well, if one believes in and supports American creativity, I would expect that an additional
boost of energy would be enhanced and encouraged by a young and vibrant work force. Also, here in Canada we value our Prairie provinces (what you Americans call your mid-west states). Here, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, all thrive in our prairies and contribute to the Canadian economic and social fabric. We value them. I am not an American, I just thought that it might be a respectful change for Amazon to look at your American midwest rather than the typical west/east coast options. Giving a nod to your midwestern area perhaps may give Americans there a thought that they also have value and are not ignored. Perhaps help unite America in a small way? Thank you for asking.
2
Re the title to the article:
Of course not. It's only capitalism. Why are people so surprised?
1
@Rick Morris
I think it's better described as "free enterprise " too many co-citizens decry ventures as capitalist when no investing in and/or ownership of means of production (capital ) is actually involved
Great article. Amazon should have done more as you mentioned, like the subways! Now I read Amazon paid no income tax! Evil.
1
Sure, it doesn’t. Another thing that it gives the job to people. But who cares, right? Let’s just clap to AOC New Deal utopia projects. How many jobs she created?
5
Of course not, we operate under a capitalist system. The goal is to accumulate wealth - that's all.
That's why we are hated all over the world.
Even the definition of a "better place", as seen by our politicians, is a place with more money in people's pockets. Our two parties argue over issues concerning the distribution of the capital that is accumulated - nothing else.
Money is our only value. Nobody in our country has the slightest idea, that there are no pockets in a shroud. Even our "religious leaders". Most success minister? Minister with the biggest building. Even the Amish - major goal, accumulate more land. The Mormons? More paying members.
I'm not trying to single out particular groups, it's true for all of our religious groups. Nobody dares to take away their special tax perks.
A modern day Jonas Salk? Whaaat? No big breakthroughs, lot's of ads on TV. Jonas Salk made nothing on the Polio Vaccine - who does that now?
How do you run for office? By starting a money pile. If you have Twitter, why do you need money? Maybe so you can shove some of it in you own pocket? Our system builds itself.
Like Trump, Bezos is an American Heelo.
Amazonian greed is American Greed; it's a front and center American value. Our value is our product, 100% pure greed.
2
When do liberals typically grow up and stop believing in fairy tales? 55? 70? Never?
It's irrelevant whether Amazon's goal is to make the world a better place. The deal on the table -- to provide 25,000 jobs, many millions of dollars in ancillary jobs and services, and billions of dollars in tax revenues -- would have made life better for tens of thousands of New Yorkers.
That's enough. You don't have to be Mahatma Gandhi. If you do that much, you done good.
I had a liberal friend tell me it was good the deal got kiboshed because now New York could invest that $3 billion in incentives in helping the poor.
That is the level of sophistication columns like this one breeds. Hello, Cinderella. There is no $3 billion. That was a fraction of the taxes Amazon WOULD HAVE PAID, but won't now.
8
@Philboyd
Phil Baby,
In 2018, Amazon earned a record $11.2 billion in US profits and received a federal income tax rebate of $129 million, essentially amounting to a tax rate of negative 1 percent.
4
@Daniel Danny Boy, That means what, exactly, to the 25,000 New Yorkers who would have gotten great jobs, or the 100,000 who would have made a living servicing those employees, or the millions who would have benefited from the billions of dollars in tax revenues? You are making my point. Amazon is a soulless corporation. But only a fool responds to that by saying, take your billions and jobs and be gone!
2
The script writers ar HBO didn’t fall for the con. In their show, “Silicon Valley”, the tech moguls’ cliches were mocked from the beginning (2014). Many others, myself included, scoffed at Larry Page’s “Don’t Be Evil”. I’m glad that some New Yorkers saw that the Amazon deal was a race to the bottom. The true test of whether any wisdom has been gained is when a sports team wants a new stadium.
2
Whoever believes that any corporation is expected to do anything beyond serving their own needs and that of their shareholders simply doesn't get it. First and foremost, Amazon has a fiduciary obligation to its shareholders to maximize shareholder value. Of course they are going to negotiate the best deal for themselves. And what to they deliver in return? Tens of thousands of jobs which send ripples in all directions through the economy. They also want to be left alone to conduct their business. There's not a company in the world that wants to spend their time steeped in the on-going strife of surrounding political activism.
What's it worth to a community to realize an injection of 25,000 good paying jobs in one swoop? Most don't see those kinds of gains--ever. Amazon is one of the single most transforming entities of our time, right up there with Microsoft and Apple. I dare say there isn't a single individual on this post list that doesn't benefit from their service over and over again.
This growing sense of entitlement displayed throughout our society based on nothing more than what I perceive as resentful class envy is disturbing. Amazon didn't do anything but create a great business. If NYC is unwilling to participate in that success, someone else surely will.
4
So Amazon should have come up with a plan to fix NYC subways? The increased tax-base from 25,000 high-income employees sounded like a reasonable plan to me. And what would Amazon know about subway management anyway? It would just be another political circus and a side-show. Get real.
4
Amazon is just a big company that delivers stuff. What is so innovative about that, at the end of the day? Oh, and among their other liabilities: their staunch anti-union posture.
8
This article and many of the comments strike me as naive regarding the competitive environment in which US businesses must operate in order to stay in business. If Amazon didn't cut prices on just about everything, you can bet that a foreign competitor would have. Amazon didn't destroy bookstores, they just used price transparency to attract the most buyers. Just about everyone favors universal healthcare, free tuition, and high minimum wages, but it seems very few people want to pay higher prices for things they can get for less, much less higher taxes to support healthcare. tuition, and wages. Amazon would have brought increased prosperity to the area. and those who blocked them were more likely trying to shakedown the "big corporation" than trying to save the neighborhood. Amazon was smart to back away, and it will be interesting to see how the neighborhood fares without new business coming in.
3
No, tech companies are not in existence to "make the world a better place". No company is if they are honest. They priorities are to make money and reward shareholders. Now, if they can provide a service or commodity that people want, perhaps that can make that person's life better. But their overarching goal is not to improve the world, per se. It is to make money.
3
I take it that Kara Swisher has never read Adam Smith.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
And
"I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."
9
Adam Smith notwithstanding, it is still possible for self-interested behavior to be simple exploitation.
First off, I have some doubts about Amazon's official reason for pulling the plug on the project. It all seems a bit too convenient.
Other reasons like market slowdowns (esp. in Europe) since the HQ2 project was announced probably also prompted a pause in headquarter expansions. But Amazon/Bezos, a fierce opposer of unions, will of course not miss the opportunity to give the progressive left a kick in the teeth.
Second, in a collective failure of mayors and governors throughout our country, two very bad signals were given to the corporate world:
1/ Give us your media investment shows, our tax rates are negotiable.
2/ Market regulation has been so lenient that we saw the advent of corporate behemoths with market caps over $1 trillion. It clearly not only pays to aggressively grow and consolidate for outsize market power but it also brings exceptional tax and subsidy benefits. Those are yet another entry barrier for new competitors, who can threaten Amazon in such an environment?
3
"Amazon Isn’t Interested in Making the World a Better Place"
Perhaps.
But they could be a responsible, civic minded company and pay their fair share of taxes. This is especially true given the resources (sewer, water, transit, housing) they'd be using. This is one of the reasons there was resistance...they refused to participate as a responsible member of society and their community.
10
"Not a victory and not a defeat." Indeed. We refused to pay the ransom and they shot the hostage. I wish they hadn't shot the hostage, but it was just wrong to pay the ransom. Especially since the hostage taker was the richest company on earth. What will make it worse is that other cities will continue to pay the ransoms.
6
I like Amazon. I'm a New Yorker. But I'm glad they didn't get away with so many incentives so they could tap into the amazing tech talent this city has to offer. I also believe that it would have contributed more to increasing the inequality already palpable in more ways than one in this city. Just like it happened in San Francisco.
9
Amazon should have a Shipping Option: Socially Responsible.
I don't need my in 1 day. I can wait 4, even 5, 6, 7 days. Use the money that is saved to pay Amazon workers a living wage and give back to the community with some sort of improvement initiatives.
I would select that Shipping Method every time.
4
You do have that option on Prime shipping. Just look closely when you read your purchase summary. Some of us DO want our stuff in one day, however. I pay over $100 a year for this option.
3
@AM Got it - so if I have Prime, which I do, and I select 2-3 day shipping over 1 day - then - Jeff takes some of my Prime $ and ... I think it is this side of the equation that isn't done. : )
1
@AM I don't pay anything extra to get fast shipping as am not interested in paying $125-$150 or whatever Amazon now charges in NYC for the 2 or 3 times a year I wouldn't otherwise qualify for free shipping. I usually just buy from Amazon when I have enough for "free" shipping -- and that must be the socially responsible version, as it usually takes 2 weeks or more.
If I need something more quickly, especially if it's something I previously bought from Amazon (once you've bought it once from them they increase price on subsequent orders of same thing) then I just go to Walmart or sometimes Target. With them you get free 2-day shipping every time you spend $35 (including books, groceries and lots of things I never knew they carried online).
1
When Amazon announced two "second" headquarters, everyone should have known that the company was playing Northern Virginia against New York City, to obtain last minute conciliations! Nothing surprising about the strategy.
10
I think you are being a bit, how to say this politely, arch. Bezos has a family -- and is a human being -- and if I must suffer you I can certainly suffer him and his Company. It is quite young. Companies grow, some veer wrong and others veer positively. My inkling is that Jeff is at heart a good democrat --one for whom that term is not a party but a call to do what he professes to do. Keep his customers at the fore and treat them as he himself would be treated. This is all that is required of anyone. A bit more charity would help but perhaps not burnish the dictates of binary logic.
2
@Stephen C. Rose - true, Bezos has a wonderful family, and a girlfriend! They're all wonderful people.
Yes, he's just like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus wanted to take over the world. I use Amazon all the time, but it's naive to assume Bezos is a good, caring guy - his business's lack of transparency and tendency to steamroll all competition belie that assumption.
1
I’m continually struck by the absence in this debate of the full perspective on what Amazon actually is.
Yes, they are a tech company with vast data services and pipelines.
And yes, they are a distributor of retail goods that changed the efficiency and cost of consumer consumption.
What they also are is an aggressively predatory and monopolistic juggernaut that drove countless small and medium sized companies out of business by operating at a deliberate loss until their competitors had to shutter.
Their next play is to use the vast amounts of data (obtained by being an ostensible middleman) to pirate the best selling products in any space, artificially elevate their pirated products in search results, and further undercut their competitors.
In effect, they leveraged the marketplace, which was built on the backs of their merchants, to drive those very merchants out of business.
Why people tolerate, defend, or even outright support behaviors from corporations that they would never tolerate on an interpersonal level is beyond me, but I have zero empathy or support for these monstrosities of unchecked capitalism and I welcome their tight regulation and/or outright dismantling.
We can do so much better.
11
@Gregory Indeed.
Amazon's brand and presence is so powerful that many people no longer bother to look elsewhere. Moreover, through Prime, Amazon locks people into their platform.
When market regulation is reintroduced in the US, Prime should be one of the first things to go.
Other retailers are faced with a difficult choice: Surrender to Amazon's platform or have a much smaller reach. When they give in, their best selling products are subsequently also offered by Amazon itself and the retailer loses out.
3
If Amazon would start putting some of the vast sums they extract from consumers back into the economy we would all be richer. Or if Bezos would. Meanwhile, the good work of the WPA continues to rust away.
5
They do put it back, into their shareholders, employees and suppliers. That is how capitalism works.
"a business, like any other, out for itself and itself alone, and most definitely not changing the world for the better."
Of course, this was NEVER the case.
It was always been about business. Just another way that some clever businessman discovered he could horde all the marbles.
Jeff Bezos, like Travis Kalanick, like Sam Walton of WalMart simply discovered a way that they could take ALL the business for themselves.
Think of the hundreds of thousand (maybe millions) of stores, or cabbies that have lost their businesses because guys like Kalanick or Bezos could steal their business right out from under them.
That's why its important to tax the 1%. All of those retail stores and cabbies supported families and were part of the fabric of the economy. When a guy like Kalanick figures an ingenious way to take ALL of their business and ALL of their Income for himself, don't you think society should get a cut?
4
I love Amazon. As an older mostly housebound person i can order a book and 3 seconds later it's on my computer ready to read. If that isn't "magic" i don't know what is.
I did and do feel slightly guilty as i knew they were under paying their workers who worked in the ware houses. Well, strike, darn it, and when their great business stops the head honchos may rethink that practice. I can stop ordering until they achieve a better wage.
So strike workers, i can wait. You can win and we'll all feel better.
2
@Nightwood
If they were underpaying, they wouldn't be able to find employees, they'd all work at one of the companies paying a proper wage. There's no set standard for wages, it comes down to minimum wage at the low end, and what you are worth to the company and how hard you are to replace beyond that.
@SusanStoHelit Amazon has been known for years under paying their ware house workers. Many people will work at places because they are under educated and any money they do make is better than making none. So even filthy rich businesses take advantage of these people. How many billions does a person need/ They can have maybe a billion or a few million less and not hurt their life style in the least and the workers can enjoy decent wages .for themselves and their families and children. And there aren't always many companies nearby who do pay decent money for their workers who do the hard and isolated, some call it goon work, available. And they are necessary.
And minimum wage these days is a disgrace. The factory that engages in that should sink into quick sand and come to think of it, they quite often do.
2
I was shocked to see this OpEd title. It’s a truth, refreshing to see, but seldom said; I’m glad u said it. It’s the height of naïveté to expect AMZ, Facebook, etc., to fundamentally change anything that does not positively impact share price growth, period.
2
I had no idea this was a myth. There really are people who believe huge corporations care about them? Thanks for clearing that up.
2
Inequality of wealth and political power is a problem in our society and Amazon is a driver of inequality. Some New Yorkers made clear that they would actively work to unionize workers and fight for the people on the lower end of the divide. Amazon does not want to see their business model debated and walked away. They want a docile community that will allow them to continue to redistribute wealth upwards, and New York is not that community.
4
NYC was right to hold Amazon's feet to the fire. And when it got too hot, Amazon hot-footed it outa there. Amazon cares for only one thing: Amazon. Not the customer, not the worker, not the environment, not anything--except the bottom line. If you're a true capitalist I guess that's great. But if, like most of the rest of us you're not, or you're a hybrid, not so great. I live in Seattle and Amazon is making a mess of this city. And when the City Council wants to add a measly $275 per head corporate tax to finance homeless housing, Amazon leads the charge against it and the tepid, timid City Council folds. But guess who later donated $500-million to funding such housing? Microsoft. Also, not my favorite company. But at least they get it on this subject.
5
Amazon likes controlling everything they touch. They could not control the “tough” New York they encountered in the political arena, so they packed up there lions and gladiators and will take their show to another one.
2
"New Yorkers who expected better bought into the myth that tech companies are more than just self-interested businesses".
Well......there's the problem now....isn't it?
Until we force corporations to be more than "self-interested businesses", focused only on profit, no matter what destruction it does to society or humankind, we are lost. And force we must, because after 40+ years of this insanity, they are never going to reform, and change, themselves.
It should not be a myth that a corporation can and should be more than a profit-making Godzilla. It needs to be a reality.
3
This is pure and simple a debate about gentrification. Talking about the subsidy - basically a bit of giveback in return for getting 10x as much, like a 10% off sale - is a smokescreen.
If you don’t have any chance of benefitting personally from this and are also threatened by seeing your city become more prosperous then join the noisy opposition.
1
Everyone is critic these, including Ms Swisher. Never been impressed by the quality of her work, and this is another good example of such.
5
25,000 jobs at an average of say a $40,000 salary each would be $1 billion in employment income for New York City. That's why people welcomed Amazon - not for any woolly ideas about how they are different from toilet paper manufacturers.
2
Kara Swisher has a severe case of sour grapes.
I was not a fan of extracting $3B from taxpayers and giving it to any company, but this article is a huge Poor Me! Ms. Swisher whined that Amazon is "a business, like any other, out for itself and itself alone, and most definitely not changing the world for the better" after local activists and politicians made such a a stink about renegotiating the deal that Amazon backed away.
I can't speak for the whole world, but the convenience of having virtually any consumer product delivered to my doorstep in two days or less, at a lower price than I would pay down the street, that changed my world for the better. The fact that millions of people like me freely choose do business with Amazon millions of times every day is not because Amazon promised to make the world a better place, though it has. It's because they deliver better value compared to the alternatives.
Amazon struck a deal with NY State and NYC leadership to expand in Queens. After the deal was sealed, local activists and politicians demanded the terms be changed, expecting I am sure that Amazon would capitulate, but Amazon walked away instead. I see nothing wrong with that, but the Kara Swisher expects more. Her arrogance and sense of entitlement are stunning. Since she thought it was a bad deal and now there is no deal, she should be happy. But she'd rather complain.
5
NYC Pols and journalists to Amazon: Drop Dead. The 70% of New Yorkers who welcomed the deal, irrelevant. Sounds like politics as usual to me.
1
Who didn't know that Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg were both corrupt evil malign new gilded age robber baron malefactors of great wealth?
And unlike Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, Steve Jobs, Harvey Firestone and Bill Gates neither man was behind any useful pioneering technological innovation. Their arrogance and hubris needs to be humbled and leashed by antitrust, fair competition, trade and securities legislation and regulation to protect the American private market and the American republic from their amoral avarice.
4
Such a smug, insider’s take on what happened. That Amazon has decided, for now, not to look for another site “pretty much tells you that this was all a charade from the beginning.” Really? After months of planning, spending the time and money to review proposals, conducting site visits, talking to civic leaders and politicians – “all a charade”? Who exactly was Amazon trying to fool? I guess publicly traded corporations love throwing money away, that really pleases investors and stockholders?
I especially like the way she stacked the rhetorical deck with nonsense – “future tax revenues and other theoretical economic benefits.” 25,000 jobs in 10 years, not to mention the downstream effect on construction, restaurants, hotels, housing, and other industries doesn’t sound “theoretical” to me. It sounds about as solid as “let’s abolish ICE and watch our immigration problems go away.”
And as far as “making the world a better place” – she can be as cynical as she wants but every corporation in America now has a code of ethics. So while makers of toilet paper, potato chips and sugar water may not specifically tout their beneficence, they are actively involved in sponsoring races for cures, food and shelter programs for the poor, high school science fairs, college scholarship programs and every other way to attach their names to something good. And believe it or not - there are actually good people in corporations that push these things and leaders who fund them.
1
This was a topic I had been following for over a year, back when Amazon announced HQ2 plans.
While Amazon had cast its net wide, even from the beginning there were rumors that Amazon already had its mind set on a very select set of citiies.
In other words, the bidding proposals were a smoke screen and ploy to get very fat tax breaks from their real targets.
At a cursory glance, the three billion in incentives only even out after 10 years. So the income tax and economic activity that should pay for the additional infrastructure, city personnel, etc. won't even be covered until the break-even point. Because NYC is quite dense, infrastructure work is very expensive.
This means a burden on the other local tax payers. Which mostly means NYC residents, because NYS takes more than it gives back to the city.
Why would that make sense to local residents?
There’s a certain type that longs for pre-Amazon Seattle. It was a foggy, dreamy place where people lolled in cafes, sipping strong coffee and working on “projects”. This was writing scripts that no one cared about, music no one listened too and editing photos no one bought. Many neighborhoods had a skid row air about them.
Cheap rents made that sustainable on a low wage job and or a bit of family money. Should we really mourn the demise of all that ?
3
New Yorkers should be deeply ashamed of the greed and stupidity needed to send Amazon away. Secret negotiations were a pre-condition simply b/c Sr. Amazon leadership clearly knew the masses would quickly turn this project into a Roman-style 'Bread & Circus' charity event: sure, Rome was a republic :) To think how 25,000 high-paying jobs along with an estimated $27b in estimated regional tax-revenue benefits were squandered over a comparatively small amount of tax rebates is mind-boggling! Obviously, these vicious vocal detractors have never experienced running a business nor ever been tasked with making entrepreneurial decisions: let us see whether some benevolent sole will instead write the city an actual check to fix the broken subway system and/or build the requisite infrastructure...
2
I see a lot more of this as New York slides down the path of far left. Was it not a couple weeks ago New York was crying that Billionaires are leaving as well leaving them in a deficit.
I believe the blame was President Trump as the Democrats yell tax the rich? LOL
The working class are tired of supporting the lazy.
Good luck New York ;)
4
Thanks for your concern, pretty sure we’ll be fine, and will continue to generate enough tax revenue to keep distributing funds to your part of the country. You’re welcome.
2
Amazon has already made the world a better place....else why would our inflation remain so low all these years ? Country owes Jeff Bezos million thanks for what he has done for average consumer. All these big stores - without Amazon - would not hesitate to rip you off. New York and its politicians are so ignorant regarding what is Amazon is all about...sorry New York, you will regret your short sighted and politically motivated decisions....
Yes, inflation is low, but so our salaries, pricing is out of our apartments and forces us to the longer commute. How is this a better World?
Treating corporations like the enemy is what got Venezuela where it is today.
4
Treat corporations as friends and you will get Russia a la 90s.
1
In the real Amazon the water rains on everything and the places bursts with life. In the Bezos Amazon all the water flows to him so that he can go to space.
All those praising Amazon and capitalism enjoy an easy drink now as the landscape around them dies.
3
I beg to differ that the outcome of this decision is "meh." It might not be a victory in the sense of financial gains for NY - but it is a humanistic victory - which trumps $$ in my book - for not reapeating history by making a deal with the devil. Kudos to the community making sure their voice was heard and entering into this WISE decision with eyes wide open.
2
Let's update the 1980s Steve Jobs' Pepsi Cola sugar water reference to the 21st century proper reference as corn syrup water ;)
Amazon/Bezos is as big as it is because it has very proactively done all that it could to make the world a worse place because Mr Bezos saw a way to make money out of that worsening.
2
The people of New York rejected a failed economic theory: trickle-down economics.
That some of us were so willing to bet $3bn on some future, undefined, and speculative benefit is strangely naive. Especially when we already know that trickle-down doesn't work.
Amazon, you're welcome anytime. Without the bribe.
3
This deal was not rejected due to ideology or principle – it was rejected because it smelled bad. We can analyze the feeling of unease by saying, well, Amazon is anti —union, or Amazon treats its workers badly, or Amazon is a mega-giant that expects disproportionate perks from the communities in which it does business, or Amazon might drive up prices and destroy small businesses in Long Island City, Or Amazon’s ethos is at odds with its rapacious behavior toward lower level employees and sub contractors and competitors - but the fact remains that this deal had all the earmarks of a swindle and people felt that, regardless of their ideology.
I am not anti-business and I am not anti-big business, but I definitely had the feeling that Amazon’s hands were in New York’s pockets and that we should not take – to mix the metaphor – their very attractive bait. I am not sorry this deal crashed. Cuomo and DeBlasio will get over it.
1
Ms. Swisher must not get out much.
You know what was a real "hellscape"? - NYC in the 1970's: crime everywhere, high murder rate, dangerous subways and city parks, dodging drug dealers and muggers, a city on the verge of bankruptcy, arson causing fires every night.
And the "hellscape" Amazon offered - thousands of good paying jobs and the tax revenue and multiplier effects these jobs would generate.
I fault the egos of the "leaders" involved - on both sides. Cuomo and di Blasio did a poor job of communicating, and Amazon did a poor job of understanding how to sell their idea. Both parties underestimated the work that was necessary to build popular support.
1
Some pols in NYC just gave up at least 25,000 jobs and thousands of related jobs. The tax givebacks are disturbing but this relentless attacks on Amazon made it impossible for them to make their headquarters here. The unions also have questions to answer for their apparent demands on the company.
So Amazon is expected to come in and fix the problems that the NYC progressive government can’t fix? How about holding these elected officials to the same standards you expect from Amazon? Amazon’s job is serving the customer. NYC government’s job is serving the taxpayer. Who is doing the better job?
4
After the 2008 downturn, Bezos was loathe address paying state sales tax and engaged in protracted legal wrangling and foot-dragging over collecting and forwarding state sales taxes in many states. During the worst economic downturn in 75 years, Mr. Bezos was dismissive of the legitimacy and relevancy of sales taxes on goods sold via Amazon in states wherein the company did not have physical presence. Here are his thoughts on the matter, quoted in the NY Times on 26 Dec. 2009.
“In Washington State, where we have a presence, we get police protection, we get fire protection. We send our kids to local schools,” he said, according to The Associated Press. He said he didn’t understand why, “since we get no services from North Carolina, that they should be able to force us to collect taxes for them.”
The point, Mr. Bezos is not whether your immediate Amazon interests are being served by the sales tax collected, but the well-being in states where your customers live.
This is illustrative of his world view.
5
There is no reason for Amazon or any other company to come to a city where it is not welcome. You can argue that Cuomo gave them too much of a tax break, but you can not blame Amazon for that. It is not corporations fault that the politicians give them them huge tax breaks. It is the fault of politicians (like Trump and the republicans) and voters who continue to support such politicians.
People who do not live in NY really should refrain from commenting on this.
Some of the concerns here are unique to NY. In terms of area we are very small, in terms of population very big.
Real estate is so expensive, there are now empty storefronts in every party of NY, even on Fifth Ave. This is has become a great concern for the city government.
No one is against more jobs, or in some cases big corporations. What is offensive is the terms. Why should we give them a dime or any other incentives? They are richer than sin anyway.
Why the government do so much for them and so little for us.
If they want to play fair and be good neighbors, help us solve local problems, then they are welcome to open business here.
At this point that does not seem to be the case.
10
Bringing 25,000 well paying jobs is more than enough help in solving problems. Does AOC have a better idea?
2
She does: pay your taxes and invest in the community.
1
@David Jackson
So the Amazon proposal was not an attempted investment?
1
It is important for people to understand that the purpose of business is to make money for its owners/shareholders. Smart business executives/owners know that balancing making money and doing public good for the communities in which they operate (and society in general) is good business. But in the end, business IS about making money. Good government, on the other hand, is intended to serve its citizens. This often puts government and business at odds, which is why we have laws and, yes, regulations -- to protect society from businesses that would take advantage of their workers and/or cause harm to the society in which they operate (for the exclusive benefit of their owners). This is why business people generally do not make good elected officials -- the interests of business and government are often at odds. It is also why we need to push corporate money out of our electoral process. Governments must be responsible for the people's business; business is responsible to its owners. While businesses may do society good, that is not their primary purpose. Remember this when you vote.
3
We have one entity that unabashedly claims to make the world better: Government. When you want to get something exactly as specified when specified, whom do you call? Probably not the Government. Governments do some things better, but for most needs, I will take the gal that wants to just make money.
2
1. Why does a company like Amazon - who made 16 billion dollars - the first 3 months of 2018 need ANY tax cuts?
2. Why would a democratically elected official (feel the need to negotiate anything in private when taxpayers monies are involved
3. What issues did Amazon have with Unions? Oh, did Amazon wanted to be exempt from paying a living wage?
My mother has always said, "When a few people have the power to make major decision about the lives of others behind closed doors... you can rest assured, the masses are going to be messed over."
There was never any competition where Amazon second headquarters would be (in NY), Mr. Jeff Bezos all but admitted to it. I suspect what Mr. Bezos was hoping for some corrupt, desperate, gullible elected officials would give Amazon much larger tax breaks and more incentives.
7
Amazon was fortunate to grow during the years when there was no internet sales tax. For that reason, it already owes much of its success to taxpayers. It didn't need another massive subsidy.
Furthermore, while Amazon grew to its behemoth size, it walked all over local businesses that were having to charge sales tax to their customers. Many of those businesses are gone---wiped out. Did New Yorkers want further destruction of local businesses, whole neighborhoods in fact? No, for good reason. Amazon's huffy exit shows exactly why it was it bad deal.
4
great service, lower prices, great selection. try to convince me that amazon has not made the world a better place.
6
That’s a pretty narrow world view.
2
It is a blessing Amazon did not come, with all their expectations of tax breaks. It’s time for government officials to stop giving away the property tax store. The companies will locate where things will work with their plan. So stop giving them money to do what they are going to do anyway. Our infrastructure and services have suffered enough from stuffing money into the pockets of companies that will happily take every last dime there is - before they announce worker cutbacks.
3
Ms. Swisher, you are so wrong! Amazon has made the world a much better place. I love Amazon, because Amazon means I don't have to go to stores to do my shopping. I hate shopping in stores. Going to a mall is one of the most soul-deadening experiences known to man (okay, first world man). But now, my soul is alive, it soars! Because of Amazon, when I need something, I just click on a few screens, and voila, it is at my door in 48 hours. With free shipping because I'm Prime!
Progressive critics of Amazon (like yourself) need to factor my joy into the Amazon equation. I suspect you aren't giving it nearly enough weight. I’m (mostly) not kidding.
6
Nobody is saying Amazon should go away. We all love amazon, we just want them to pay their taxes and not displace a vibrant community when they set up a new office.
1
It is incredible that in this 21st century and in a country like the United States, a professional observes that tax concessions to attract capital and development are negative elements for a society. The tax advantages have brought work for more than 25,000 direct workers, which implies at least a similar figure for indirect workers added to many others that would increase their sales by requesting products or services. All this in the end being a factor of impetus for important sources of new income generation, which otherwise would not be generated. Improvements in public services must occur as they do in private companies, after a proper analysis of priorities and efficiencies that allow generating plans and savings that should be oriented to improvements in services or infrastructure for the common good. It is not possible that in a modern society, private development is seen as the enemy and as responsible for the development of public responsibilities. Inventiveness, investment and constant and permanent work is the object of envy and comments like this, that the only thing they generate is differences and hatreds. The truth is that from Latin America we see this kind of observation with horror, when it must be just the opposite, that is to say, to promote the public sector in search of links with the private sector to make communities better places to live.
2
@Carlos Brillembourg W
Some might call the tax breaks an investment.
1
I wonder if Ms. Swisher could survive in today's world without all the things high tech has brought us. Yes these companies have made the world a better place (iPhone, internet, medical advances, etc.) and made money for themselves and their employees. Sorry but that is how things work. NYC and its progressive politicians have taught hi-tech companies an important lesson - Don't come here. And they won't.
Nashville is quite the nice place and is awaiting Amazon's arrival. Guess who is better off - the people in Queens who won't get jobs of the people in TN who will? Of course Ms. Ocasio-Cortez doesn't think you should have to work so who needs Amazon.
4
There seems to be a false dichotomy here.
Like a person, a corporation (which is composed of people) has some good and some self interest to it. Paying a fair wage is normal good, doing some charity is good, making money is self interest - and needed for survival. It's not like a company is evil if we recognize that their number one interest, always, will be in survival. Amazon does some good charity, has reasonable care for many of their employees, but for others they are looking to make money and minimize costs so their competitors don't kill them. It's not all one thing, nor all the other.
1
There are many people, myself included, who believe that San Francisco was on a rapid downward trajectory until the tech bros changed the city. Yes, just as in New York rapid gentrification has caused dislocation and is a massive culture shock. But i'm tired of people like Ms. Swisher who see it as black hat-white hat, us-against them (and the "them" often includes people like Ms. Swisher) issue. It's far more nuanced than that.
2
Now that the corporate tax rate has dropped so much, I don't see why local communities should subsidize multi-billion dollar businesses to the detriment of local people. Yes it may build jobs, but the entire city bears the cost of increased property taxes, burdens on services, higher living costs, etc. A business should share in the tax burden of the places it works in, and not just pass it on to the locals (and those it newly employs) via subsidies and increased local taxes to cover them!
4
Say what you want, but the deal was misrepresented by its biggest opponents. Protesters and talking heads everywhere portrayed the deal as a "giveaway" of $3B of tax dollars that could've been put to much better use by fixing the subways, etc. That was simply untrue. Amazon was granted tax breaks - no income, no tax breaks; no deal, no tax revenue. There was no magical pot of $3B to spend on the progressive wish list. Even when crowing about her victory, AOC continued the false narrative that the money would be better spent in other places than on the world's richest man. There is no pot of money, and now there will be no jobs.
5
Honestly, this is not the 1950's. Corporations care only about making money, padding the CEO's pockets, increasing shareholder value. Nothing else. Why do you think otherwise? Should it be this way? No. But it is.
2
It needs to be said time and time again that the 25k jobs WOULD NOT HAVE GONE TO LOCALS! You aren't adding 25k jobs, you're adding 25k highly paid employed people.
The immediate effect of this is that property values and cost of living goes way up. Low- and middle-earners get pushed out of the rental markets. And of course if the housing market gets too hot (as it did here in Seattle when Amazon increased its workforce by 40k in a matter of years), then real estate speculators make the whole thing worse by coming in an buying up properties as investments.
But there are ripple effects further than this. Some businesses will do all right, but many others will fail in this environment. Rent increases are likely to more than offset new business from the new customers. Worse, a lot of small businesses will find labor costing more as their employees get pushed out of the neighborhood or struggle to get by. Artsy and creative communities will be devastated.
The people who already live in Long Island should breathe a sigh of relief. They just avoided a massive problem. This is not like a factory opening up that would employ a lot of locals. Amazon wasn't bringing jobs, it was bringing a huge amount of high-income employed people.
19
Some people benefit from these big tech companies, but you are right not everyone does.
Established mom and pop businesses that rent their locations lose. Instead you end up with a corporate franchise as its replacement.
Your local shoe repair shop, seamstress, dry cleaners and cool independently owned coffee shops disappear because they don’t make enough money to cover the enormous rent increases.
The only people who live in your neighborhood end up being the tech workers because they are the only ones who can afford to buy a house. The teachers, firemen, nurses, construction workers and other blue collar people who were your neighbors only come in to commute to work.
More people become homeless because the traditionally more affordable areas of town become gentrified and there is no where for lower income workers to live. They don’t want to leave the areas they grew up in and their friends and family are. Then @John Paul, you are right, further real estate speculation comes in that just exacerbates the housing problems.
Why doesn’t Amazon go to Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin or Kansas? Housing is available, jobs are needed, there is room to grow and they would be welcomed with open arms. Why does it have to be where it is already a squeeze on those of us trying to maintain a middle class lifestyle in tech areas where we grew up? Spread the wealth to areas of this country that need it more.
5
@Jane K People Amazon would hire to work at this place in NY would not want to live in places like Iowa and Kansas. They are basically single white 20/30 something males. They want a hip urban lifestyle, at least for a couple of years.
Amazon did not walk into the Mayor’s office and say “$3 billion or we are gone”. Is there any evidence it did multiple bidding rounds with announcements of best bids on each round? I have not seen it. Amazon said “Give us your best deal.” Likely as the cities entered the finals, it checked again. Cities could drop out at any time or lower bid if governments thought they had overstepped. Nobody in government got bribed. To my knowledge, the other cities did not cry foul about underhanded dealing. Is that wrong?
NY was the arrogant one in the room, thinking it could win and then change the deal. It changed the deal and the other party walked. It happens every day. Only because NYC was involved did it become some kind of Rorschach test of capitalism.
2
This is the most short sighted governmental decision in years. Under the Agreement, Amazon would have still paid New York a barrel full of taxes, and provided thousands of jobs, all with taxable income. The taxes they would have paid New York would be far higher than what they would have paid in a lower cost location. The Agreement would have provided some partial offset to the tax penalty related to doing business in New York.
Those who opposed this deal claim they saved the public $3 billion in subsidies. No, what they did was to lose the public tens of billions in new revenue.
By creating a hornets nest of opposition, they drove Amazon away before it even got here. So now that they have "saved" the public $3 billion, what are they going to spend it on instead? Will that money upgrade the 7 line subway? OF COURSE NOT. That is because Amazon leaving lost tax revenue. It gained no tax revenue.
4
Why Amazon with it's low overhead business model needed subsidies to come to NYC made no sense, and the public saw that. Plus the density of Long Island City and its awkward proximity to Manhattan meant there'd be unbearable congestion. Never mind the impact on the availability of already scarce affordable housing. Couple tens of thousands of high salaried folks with probably younger families needing accommodations added to the already over-strapped human and physical infrastructure meant that the subsidies would have beggared the City--for what? Good riddance, and a mess avoided by nearly everyone.
9
Do I expect Amazon or Verizon or The New York Times Or Blue Cross/Blue Shield to make the world better? Of course not. I expect Amazon to have what I want, deliver it quickly, at a price I am willing to pay. They do that. I expect Verizon to provide a network that accepts my phone calls and text messages and provides me data at a price I am willing to pay. They do that. I expect The New York Times to report the news in a fair and balanced way (I can't believe I just typed that) and provide other features I want to spend time reading. They do that.
Ms. Swisher needs to understand that businesses should be in the business of doing what they set out to do in the first place: deliver goods and services, provide a robust communications network , and report the news of the day. The fact that they don't spend the majority of their time and capital "making the world a better place" is, to me, not a problem.
One could also argue the opposite, that doing what they do so well DOES make the world a better place.
8
Seems to me "selling us piles and piles of stuff in really cheap and convenient ways" has actually improved the lives of most of us. It will also be hard to fund those subway improvements without more well-paid taxpayers.
3
"Amazon certainly could have been more creative in proposing some balms for those ills in New York. For example, could it have entered into a cool public-private partnership to fix the junky subways its employees would have ridden, perhaps in new and innovative ways?"
Isn't that the job of the progressive elected representatives, to be achieved with the (now gone) billions in taxes?
It used to be that people and businesses paid taxes, and cities used the money to take care of potholes and subways.
Now cities try to change the Earth climate.
While businesses are turned away for not taking care of potholes and subways.
2
Wow a great example of privilege is dismissing tech companies and a sector that will
Be growing in the future. I understand the challenges of housing and tax rebates but you need to address it via a public private partnership. America has paid the price due to the republican extremist and now it is the turn of the extremist on the left to cause more chaos that solve economic and social challenges. No industry no tax base
2
Another topsy-turvy progressive commentary. Isn’t it government whose primary job is to make the world better - you know liked clean subways, better housing and education, first-rate airports, etc. As always, the left always feels free opine how to spend other people’s money, but never hold their own progressive governments accountable for failure. Bezos has created more jobs than DiBlasio, AOC, and Cuomo combined, and while folks are trying to pin this on Amazon, other civic governments appeared to understand how to work with a business that could provide jobs and benefits to a city. Amazon wisely decided that they didn’t need the aggravation from the anti-business left.
5
Neither is 45
1
Congratulations NYC - you just saved $3B in rebates to Amazon. Be sure to disregard the taxes they and their employees would have paid as you reach around to pat yourself on the backs. My guess is that it would have been a larger # than $3B - but no need to worry about simple math at this point. (I thought AOC was an economics major). You now have no additional tax income, no neighborhood revitalization, no new tech jobs. Well done.
2
The NYT keeps trotting out columns like this to make themselves feel better that they didn't contribute to a massive fail. This is our version of Brexit, and telling yourself that Amazon wasn't interested in helping build civic infrastructure, where city hall and Albany have shunned responsibility, will be cold comfort in the next recession.
I'll leave aside Ms. Swisher's ignorance for using tax incentives as investments, instead of direct investment in the subways. Too many of us have screamed at that wall already, and if you're not bright enough to get it, then maybe you shouldn't be writing about it in the NYT.
The NYT stoked this resistance. You broke it, you own it.
2
So Amazon, just like the New York Times, is a business designed to increase the wealth of its shareholders. So what?
Like the New York Times, it does so by providing services and products people value.
Kind of like a columnist, who is paid (of my!) for writing columns people want to read (at least some of the time).
Amazon doesn’t have to be a “noble” enterprise, but in addition to making its shareholders and executives wealthy, it does in fact make the world better for those lower on the economic ladder. It does this by providing access to goods perhaps not otherwise available or at prices lower than would otherwise be paid. Maybe not a big deal, but millions of people seem to value that.
And maybe most New Yorkers wanted the 25,000 high paying jobs Amazon would have brought, and the countless more downstream jobs—at $15 an hour and up—that would have followed.
But if the author doesn’t think toilet paper makes the world a better place, she is free to stop using it.
2
The spin on this tale can literally cause one's head to spin. Today on morning Joe, Scarborought mocked the "elites" who were unfazed by Amazon's decision to pull out of the Queens deal. Somehow in this crazy world Andrew Ross Sorkin - son of a NY playwright and a partner in a major law firm, Scarsdale raised, and Cornell educated - and Donnie Deutsch - inheritor of a well-known marketing firm and Wharton educated - have their fingers on the pulse of the struggling people in Queens while AOC is the out-of-touch and ill-informed doyenne of the "elites."
2
The main disconnect here is what people mean when they say "city." If you believe, like I do, that a "city" is all those people currently living there; the Amazon deal was terrible for the city, and would have certainly harmed most people currently living in Long Island City, just as Amazon's rapid growth has hurt working class people in Seattle.
If you believe a "city" is a plot of land. Then, yes, Amazon would have made that land more valuable, partly by getting rid of the poor people and importing rich ones. Those who don't live next to Amazon can't appreciate how little they hire from or contribute to the current residents.
Regardless of this disconnect supporters of Amazon need to answer this: why should politicians support efforts that will damage their current voting base? This is what democracy looks like.
3
Losing 25,000 high-paying jobs is "meh"?
San Francisco is a "hellscape"
"Silicon Valley believed its own myths"? as if it's a singular entity?
You don't seem to realize the staggering positive benefits that flow throughout every facet of an extended community when 25,000 high paying new jobs are created.
NYC just lost TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY FLOWING FOR YEARS AND YEARS TO COME.
That's not meh. $3 Billion in tax breaks (not cash to Jeff Bezos); that's meh!
5
they are an apex predator of capitalism.
profits above employees.
profits above communities.
profits above partners (they are notoriously hard to work with in advertising, my industry).
profits above the planet.
profits above anything.
i encourage amazon employees who care about any of the above to unionize and demand a democratic voice within the company you spend the most of your living and waking hours.
7
@Chris W:"demand a democratic voice within the company "
Right now a single vote will cost just above $1600. There are about 491 million votes in the company.
Unionize? In the progressive view of Amazon and apparently its employees, that's what burger flippers should do.
How many Amazon employees drive automobiles that are assembled by unionized workers?
Apparently the barricades have to be ergonomically correct, family friendly and Green before the folks in Seattle will "person them".
2
Are you kidding me! Companies are there to make money and pay their employees that do the work to generate the money (and pay taxes). Target, Wells Fargo, Best Buy and Medtronic have huge complexes and not located in 1+MM residential areas. They go where the land is cheap and labor is available.
NYC is was horrible choice for Amazon in the first place. Jeff B. most have woken up by the blackmail conversations. Amazon's solution works out the best for all. He must have remembered Amazon's 13 guiding principles.
1
Giving the richest man in the world a 3 billion dollar tax break is a shining example of what is wrong with government today! Yes, NY could use more jobs, why does it have to subsidize a company's profits to do so? All of these tax giveaways are crazy! I built a plant for Thermo Fisher. They bought a site and then got the town to give them a few hundred thousand in incentives. Why?! They bought the site and were going to build the plant anyway! All the extra money just goes to the CEO's $50M plus salary! Yeah $50M! We need less millionaires and billionaires and more government of the people, by the people, for the people!
5
I think Kara Swisher is dead wrong.
I would say that Amazon has made the world a better place to a tremendous extent. Somehow this concept flies over people's heads, but there is perhaps no other institution in this world that has done more to get more goods of high quantity and quality to Americans at low cost. The consumer surplus each year likely is in the many billions of dollars. Over its existence, or perhaps in the foreseeable future, this number will be measured in trillions. I know this doesn't have the sex appeal of a selfless NGO in a developing country, but to pretend this has not massively impacted every American's life by giving them access to more and better goods is naive or simply misinformed.
I know this is a tough pill to swallow, but technology companies have become so valuable and influential because they have been so good at creating things that people value. This is all part of an ecosystem in the US that has, through a mostly free market (which includes your maligned bankers!), provided for a high standard of living for more people than any other in the entire world. And, yes, Amazon is a major part of that.
4
One of the largest companies in the world and the richest man in the world need a $3.5 billion tax break to locate their new headquarters in New York. Ask yourself whether anyone else gets this treatment. New Yorkers were right in opposing this giveaway. Amazon was also looking at Toronto as one of the locations for its campus. Thankfully we weren't chosen. By law municipalities in Ontario are not allowed to provide bonuses such as massive tax giveaways for companies to locate within their jurisdiction.
Is Amazon good for the over-all economy. It's been good for Jeff Bezos and those at the top but not for the average worker. Economists are finally realizing that the tech sector has in fact not been good for job creation. It creates a few billionaires, well paid positions at the very top and poorly paid jobs for the rest. Amazon opened up a massive distribution center north of Toronto and most of the warehouse is completely automated and those few jobs that do exist make barely above minimum wage at $14.38 per hour. How can anyone support themselves on this salary not to mention a family. I'm sure that Jeff Bezos wouldn't be worth $140 billion if he had to actually pay people a living wage.
https://ca.indeed.com/salaries/Warehouse-Worker-Salaries-at-Amazon.com,-Brampton-ON
3
Just a shout-out to all of your Capitalism-hating Progressives: economists estimated the net economic benefit to NYC of the Amazon deal--and it's 25,000 jobs--to be 27.5 billion. The value of the tax benefits provided by NYC and the State of New York? About 1.5-2 billion.
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/429673-amazon-and-nyc-not-just-another-corporate-welfare-case
Somehow, to Liberals, a more than 12-1 return just didn't seem quite worth it. Ahhhh, the ignorance.
4
Newsflash - virtually no one is actually making the world a better place, including AOC, who as a bartender refused to share her tips with the barbacks. What a great communist...
As far as tech "ruining" cities, SF, Seattle, and yes NYC (tech's #2 city in the US) have become mecca's in large part because of the good jobs tech has brought. So go ahead. Move to Detroit or Pittsburgh or somewhere that isn't "ruined" by tech. I dare you. The reality is that tech has created utopian cities with generous social policies ,which have attracted many poor and homeless people who couldn't survive in less liberal cities. Drive away the tech dollars and the highly paid employees and who will pay for the $32 billion hole in NYCHA? Who will pay to fix the subway? Who will order Seamless and take Ubers employing many of the 1 million illegal immigrants in this city? Who will pay the city income taxes that are providing those same folks (most of whom are not filing income taxes) with free healthcare and half priced Metro cards?
NYC is heading back to where it was in the 70s and 80s due to moronic "progressive" politicians who were so upset about forgoing $3 billion in future tax receipts that they squandered an additional $27 billion they would have received in taxes from Amazon. AOC and those of her ilk aren't an antidote to Trump. They're a Newtonian equal and opposite reaction with different politics but the same inability to craft policy and a tenuous grasp of and respect for facts.
6
Why should it bother New Yorkers that Amazon told them to stuff it? With zero unemployment and no homeless, who needs 25,000 new jobs? Plus, just think of the savings that not having to offer 3 billion dollars in tax incentives represents….well, not exactly any savings at all – but who needs any revenue from a company like that? No new revenue at all, is the far better option – ask any of the sharp-witted New Yorkers who so correctly howled over such a boondoggle; and don’t get me started on non-polluting businesses - New Yorkers absolutely thrive on pollution, so bring it on – whoever you are! No question about it, The City that Never Sleeps can breathe a sigh of relief, now that Bezos has come to the realization that New Yorkers are just too smart for him. Yeppers, Big Apple - let the rest of the nation watch with puzzled, head-shaking amazement – what do they know anyway? "It's our foot we shot - so what's it to you?!"
3
Amazon represents the extreme voracity of capitalist egomaniacs, who only care about their insane productivity targets at the expense and with total disregard for human beings: both their own employers and those who loose their businesses unable to compete with such monstrosities. We all share our part of responsibility when buying products through them.. Let´s vote with our wallets and send a strong message to Jeff. If you are unwilling to improve well being at large, we will do it for you!
1
I fundamentally disagree with you on your view of tech in general. It is my opinion that only tech will solve the massive issues in front of us. Do you think that these so-called activists with their naivete stand a chance? Or on the other side these dark, brownish Neanderthalers? These two sides left and right will never agree on anything anymore. They are too radicalized. We have lost the control in and of the middle ground. So you demonize tech. How shortsighted. And so these tech companies are out to make money - so what?. Why would I care? I use their services every day. Amazon is a great tech company. But for NYC to have lost this deal because there were local people out there that don't like gentrification just blows my mind. Whom are we listening to here? If you want to save the world without tech be my guest and try. But be aware that you don't have another 20 years to talk about it with all the various entities that think they deserve a say.
1
All this whining about $3B is ridiculous. Invest $3, get back $27, every one of you would jump on that. NY could have done a lot of good with $34B a year,
2
Isn't it amazing how fast New York Times columnists are jumping on the Amazon bashing bandwagon?
Amazon isn't coming to Queens thanks to the firestorm of negative publicity. The big bad corporate titan got the message that its presence isn't welcome here. This is now officially old news. It's time to move on and find another target to vent your collective wrath upon.
1
Civilization as it is now exists is the result of 10,000 years of people trying to make the world better.
If history shows us one thing (with apologies to Michael Corleone) it is that it is impossible to improve the world.
Change the world? Yes. But nothing ever made the world better than what we started with.
And you can throw all the examples you want at me. I have easily shot down everything people proffered as improvement. Go for it!
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
2
Guess Jeffrey couldn't play with the big dogs. Amazon belongs in the hinterlands, I mean I don't want China to come to New York with all their pollution and lack of human rights either. Amazon belongs in the backwaters, they sell stuff cheap, that's it, that is their big achievement. Yes you can get very rich that way but so what, your a merchant, who cares. Jobs for drones who will be replaced by uh, drones soon. New Yorkers are better than that and Amazon ain't. We need to view the world more like the feudal Japanese did. Samurai and the ruling class on top, followed by artisans and other creative types, farmers next and at the bottom merchants. Gotta have them but...
3
I assume your knowledge of Japanese society is as poor as your knowledge of economics. The nobility were the only ones to own property. The merchants were basically tenants. Who owns the property now? Lesson over. Now get over to aisle 7, clean up that spill and help your fellow artiste already working it.
Thank you once again, Kara. Your "Oh stop," put a smile on my face. I am SO tired of the "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere," posturing. Does everyone in NYC wear a super hero outfit? I, for one, refuse to take a knee to every New Yorker I come across.
I applaud AOC for questioning the Amazon deal. And I applaud you for your straightforward reporting.
But what do I know . . . I am just a hick Californian.
Another “thought leader” prognosticating from her airy perch, but hey, 25,000 good jobs for a corner of New York just went poof. Meh?
4
It was a lousy use of $3 billion. Also lazy.
If you want to build up Queens, fix La Guardia and add one-seat train service from it to Manhattan.
Don't any of you forget that in the last Congressional elections the progressives did not flip one seat. This is a country of the center.
2
Amazon marketed a plan to see how much people would pay to make their land values as high as Seattle, while dramatically raising the median income around town and making it possible to sell a lot more high end coffees, sandwiches and whatever else. Since I own a home, on 3 acres, and an art gallery, completely into selling great work to that minority of people who can afford it, I'm all for Amazon moving in down the block.
1
25,000 jobs at an average of $150,000 each is $3.75 billion dollars per year, and $37.5 billion dollars over 10 years. Wouldn't this have dwarfed the up-front $3 billion spent by NYC? Wouldn't the jobs have been good jobs, the kind that make for a good quality of life? Wouldn't money have flowed into the local economy, to restaurants, bars, clothing stores, and other retail and service outlets? Wouldn't tax revenues gone up? Instead, I keep reading about how Amazon didn't agree to any number of pet projects. In the case of this author, it was for Amazon to reimagine the subway system. Where in the world did that come from?
4
@Chris Everett in a word, no. Almost every one of these sorts of deals do not work out. There are some books written that are sufficiently non-technical that describe the problems which have resulted from the failures of this type of deal. Just because Amazon said it was going to bring 25,000 jobs to the NY area and our politicians said that they had safeguards in place to ensure that Amazon lived up to its end of the bargain means nothing. In too many cases cities, states, counties, etc., that have given tax breaks and subsidies to large corporations have lost in the end.
Given Amazon's record I don't believe that NYC lost much. We would do better to attract mid size businesses and work on improving our infrastructure and housing situation before we invite a company the size of Amazon to play in our backyard.
3
I have no expectation that Amazon will attempt to make the world "a better place." The company's job is to make money.
4
"Amazon certainly could have been more creative in proposing some balms for those ills in New York. For example, could it have entered into a cool public-private partnership to fix the junky subways its employees would have ridden, perhaps in new and innovative ways?"
My answer: yes, they could and likely would have over time-- if only out of self interest. And, $27B in future tax revenue would also help.
They (correctly) ascertained that the noise would likely never end. And the whole deal was balanced on the head of pin in Albany until 2010. (ha, see what I did there!). Their people would be embarrassed and harassed when seen with their employee badges in public.
And so on. So, yes...next, please.
Ever wonder what Seattle would look like if MSFT and Amazon had never gone there? And your largest employers were Boeing, the military (joint base L-M), Walmart, the local health care system, a university and Weyerhauser. Not exactly a growth portfolio--for jobs or revenue.
1
@Wenga
I do know what Seattle would look like, I lived here prior to both those entities. It wouldn’t be torn apart by relentless ugly new buildings and crushing traffic. Homes would be more affordable, parks less crowded, restaurants cheaper. It used to be a good place to be middle class, no more
4
@Margaret Layman
With all due respect (really)
Tell that to the citizens of any number of old industrial cities that did not evolve. The established middle class, what's left of it may be fine. But what about the future. What will their kids do? What will NYC kids do after the next financial meltdown or when banks no longer need bricks and mortar and finance is all in the cloud?
Seattle is named after an indigenous people's chief. I am sure they thought it was better then too.
2
All private employers are self-interested businesses, not charities. Why should Amazon have to behave differently to receive a relocation incentive than, say, Goldman Sachs or any of the other investment banks who've received the same? See, e.g., this NYT story from 2014:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/nyregion/with-tax-incentives-new-york-and-new-jersey-fight-for-jobs.html
All that the 30% minority who opposed Amazon's relocation have done is cost the city good-paying jobs and reinforced its deserved reputation as hostile to business. And Cuomo and de Blasio, in failing to close the deal or manage it properly, have reinforced why nobody should have voted for them in the first place.
7
"Amazon Isn’t Interested in Making the World a Better Place"
When it comes to business relationships of course the first priority is not the welfare of its employees or the surrounding community.
Henry Ford offered a $5/day wage not so that employees could purchase his products. He offered that wage so that employees would continue working on the assembly line. Prior to this, the turnover rate was 370%. A sizable portion of that wage was in the form of a completion bonus. The business focus has nothing to do with the 1980s. It's true that a family owned business might have some leeway but the forces of globalism with snap them back to reality.
From the employees side there is also a portion that wants to pretend they are out to "make the world a better place". It is true that more and more are reaching economic independence to where they can embark on whatever mission they think will save the world.
And from the consumer perspective? We've collectively left the mom and pop shops long before Amazon gained its current traction and more recently the big box stores and shopping malls in favor of Jeff Bezos and the legacy of Sam Walton. It remains in fashion to bash Bezos. Apparently it is also considered politically progressive to make fun of Walmart's customers. But overall the consumer's have fallen into one big virtual line.
You expected something else?
3
I was going to write another complaint about people repeating the ridiculous Henry Ford myth when I realized that you had gotten it right. People that think that Henry Ford gave anything to his workers without a same day benefit do not know the man. Good job.
3
I am glad to see the name Ford come up, to which I will add three words: Michigan Central Station.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/business/ford-detroit-station.html
When it comes to building goodwill, to quote an old advertising slogan, Ford has a better idea.
@Lorem Ipsum: Yeah Michigan Central Station.
You do know that Ford Motor Company will be cutting employment big time near the end of this first quarter, don't you?
Since Mulally left the company has been rudderless.
The only good thing to come out of this is to show Americans how things would be like under the policies favored by "progressives". Most Americans like to have jobs and the ability to take care of themselves and their families - our "progressives" have shown here that jobs are not all that important to them.
10
What's not being discussed is what exactly our elected officials gain from offering these companies "incentives". Someone at the Times - follow the money; there are plenty of deals like this done every year, in every big city. Where does the money go, in whose pockets? Why do they keep the negotiations secret? Why weren't the union reps involved in the negotiations, especially considering Cuomo and DeBlasio are Democrats?
I don't blame Amazon, they are what they are. I blame our officials for keeping us in the dark.
If we can't trust that public money is being spent properly, how can we expect government to solve problems?
2
Amazon was supposed to pay $28 billion in taxes minus a $3 billion rebate, and get 25,000 jobs at an average $150k/year each.
Democratic representatives said the deal was not perfect, to their liking, and destroyed it.
The next step is to put them in charge of the US economy. Which is vibrant, with lowest unemployment ever, and rising middle class real wages.
Democratic representatives said that the US economy is not perfect, to their liking. Since for instance it uses airplanes, fossil fuel cars, cows and natural gas for heating people in the winter.
So they just pledged, in the Green New Deal, to destroy it.
To the acclaim of NYTimes columnists, of course.
8
Was hoping Amazon would have considered Detroit. Bring jobs, rejuvenate a city, instead of adding congestion to already congested communities.
.
8
yes. it seems to me that New York including Wall St is good at attempting to swindle me and the rest of the world. how ironic that New York would cry foul when they are treated the way they treat all others
4
It’s our specialty, we created everything from credit default swaps to the Swindler in Chief! You’re welcome!
1
Bezos is just Trump Lite. Looking out for number one.
2
To Ms. Kara Swisher: Oh it's so wonderful to criticize everything and with such wonderful words. We assume that you don't order anything through Amazon or do not use any Google services, or an iphone they are all so bad. I imagine how it must be to live in your world not needing anything from the evil corporations.
9
Thousands of jobs and millions in added revenue for the state treasury is "meh."
And don't you love Ms. Swisher informing us that we didn't know Amazon is a business?
Let's get real. A ready-fire-aim publicity hound and half-baked ideologue named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez broadcast another spurt of Marxist ignorance and her adoring fans lapped it up. The result? New York loses. But what does she care? She's making over $100K in her new job and she got the publicity she wanted.
15
'But Silicon Valley truly believed its own myths — that tech leaders had arrived from the mountaintop to deliver the gleaming devices and magical software that would transform humanity, and that they would never be evil.'
Yeah ? And they DID deliver the 'gleaming devices and magical software'. And they DID 'transform humanity'. So very far from a myth. 'And that they would never be evil' ? 'Evil' is what ? Making a profit ? These people have given you exactly what you wanted. An easier life and you didn't complain. You buy on Amazon from your Google browser, pay with Apple Pay, tell all about it on Facebook and Twitter. You pay these people's way. You really think they were doing it all for you ?
5
@sheikyerbouti Ms. Swisher doesn't realize the irony of her being able to deliver that message to so many people and receive their input is entirely thanks to these evil companies.
Forget the world: you don't think 25,000 well-paid jobs, along with the development of a campus there, would make Queens a better place?
11
I didn't 'buy into' anything. I've worked in IT all my life (recently retired at 71) - and I think this is just stupid beyond words. Amazon would have created lots of high-paying jobs benefiting many New Yorkers. Where on gods green earth are high-paying jobs something to complain about? Amazon is in the business of making money, I get it, if they don't they won't be in business very long. But there are many people who are very well paid helping Amazon make money (as if that were a dirty word) and lots of them could have been New Yorkers.
13
@AMM this reply is to you and all the other commenters with the same trope today. A) Amazon had no strings attached to this deal as far as the number of jobs and the salaries claimed so yor evidence that this was a great deal is trump-level smoke and mirrors. B) the fact that they did not go back to their 3rd place municipality and commit to that as a fall back shows the entire event was a marketing stunt: intended to drive up the stock which it did, build the brand, and get the one site in which they will expand believing they are somehow better than NYC.
3
This piece is at least as cynical an outlook as that of the corporate management it so viciously criticizes.
6
Meh is NOT a big apple term. I've been using it for 15 years, and lived on both coasts. I love the NYT but I'm sick and tired of hearing New Yorkers yammer on and on about how many things "they" invented. They're as bad as Californians. This is a big country connected by the internet: it has become truly impossible to claim that words like "meh" could have a physical location. Other words that have a history in a specific area sure, but not things like meh. Can New Yorkers and people from New Jersey claim phrases like "I'm walkin here", or how southerners say things like "bless her heart" and Appalachian folk say "over yonder" or use the word "plum" to mean very/completely? Sure. But words like meh? You're plum wrong, bless your heart there is no way a word like meh was invented by anybody: it probably comes from the noise most people make when they're undecided, which is a culturally shared trait. I know it seems in important compared to the story, but legit I stopped reading the article at meh cuz that's how annoying New Yorkers are about how unique NYC is. I'm sick of it. I find your city to be dirty, dingy, expensive and crowded. You enjoy it, but for many of us you couldn't pay us to live there. The only reason NYC is a cultural Mecca is because of the sheer volume of stuff/people in NYC and for no other reason. Stop acting like you invent everything cool. Other cities have culture, but you could never tell that by the way y'all act: to y'all, everything's from NYC.
3
"Meh" as a word does actually have a home, but it's not a place, it's a TV show. The word was popularized by The Simpsons.
The NY progressives just reelected Donal Trump. I can see the campaign slogan now: Elect (pick Democrat) and they won't allow any jobs to be created, just like New York.
7
So on the news I keep hearing the tough can survive in New York. Where is the proof for that!! So Bill Gates and his foundation are trying to stop malaria, stop blindness in Africa, get clean drinking water and have safe toilets and sanitation. What could be more selfless and noble than this. Once again your opinion writer tries to pass off her opinions as facts. Sorry but no one outside of NYC is buying her take on this.
6
Thank you, Kara Swisher.
I am sick and tired of the way cities and states are bending over for Amazon.
I vote for less congestion and less gentrification and more civic/WPA-type jobs.
Like the late John Bogle said, “Enough.”
4
Her description of post tech boom San Francisco as a hellscape is an apt metaphor.
2
People don't think large public companies care about much but profit. It's why they were ctreated in the first place.
You might get some human kindness from a mom and pop outfit, but Amazon has killed a lot of them and now mom and pop are Amazon serfs.
2
Sure. Lots of bodegas in NYC with 50 % profit margins exude kindness.
This event is rather disastrous for the 2020 Democratic campaign. It is visible nationally and it paints the Democrats as a party of special interests. It suggests that "jobs" is not an overweening priority of the party. That is exactly what the Republicans have been using as a bludgeon all these years. As if they are any better. But it has worked for them.
3
All the high rises that have gone up around Long Island City is not what people think is happening there.
I talked to a shop owner, who said the apartments are being filled with roommate type arrangements.
This is to say these very expensive apartments are not bringing in wealthy people. Rather, young people splitting the rent 3 or 4 ways.
Amazon would have been a part in all this, but NYC really needs affordable housing.
3
Amazon has definitely made my world better. The best service I've ever experienced shopping is at Amazon. Thank you Jeff Bezos!
158
@J.Sutton, and when people can be either replaced with robots or forced to work even longer and faster for even less, your service will be even faster! Congratulations there!
57
@J.Sutton In Belgium and the Netherlands where Amazon hasn't cornered the market, the standard delivery term of all internet trade is order before midnight, delivered the next day. Without Prime or any other fees.
In Amsterdam, a 2 hour delivery is possible for a small fee if so desired.
I find Amazon's service here in Chicago mediocre at best.
53
@Liz My son lives in Chicago and when I've visited, I've enjoyed the same good service from Amazon.
4
Why? Because, they weren't welcome in your state. Would it be a "better" world if NY's antics didn't cost a community 25,000 jobs? That wold have made a lot of people's lives a little better. Sounds a bit like sour grapes to me.
7
I guess NYC doesn’t want jobs. A few delusional people who aren’t even NYers, and others who want to get their cut scuttled the deal.
Some people hate successful entities and have no idea what it means to produce something, what it takes to run an organization, and how economic activity happens.
Something is wrong with our educational system, clearly.
13
I agree that San Francisco and environs (where I grew up) is a modern hellscape, but wouldn’t Seattle have been a more apt comparison? The NYT loves to locate Amazon in Silicon Valley but it’s actually headquartered in Seattle, two states north, and people there feel that’s pretty bad, too. My Seattle relatives sent condolences when they heard Amazon was spreading to New York.
5
I think the good people of Queens would like Amazon and the jobs. Why does Amazon need corporate welfare?
1
The musings of bitter people who scored the New York version of Brexit - a tremendous own goal.
5
Amazon never promised to solve any of NYC monumental problems that the pols who turned it away are posturing that they can solve if only allowed to raise more "fair' taxes...
25K high paying jobs bring thousands of service and auxiliary jobs with it... not even counting construction and countless improvements... with a hefty tax that it would bring...
It is much more rewarding to see yourself punching your fist in the air and holding a cardboard slogan on 6 o'clock news that think about positive potential a company of this magnitude could bring...
Bowling ball is in the loser corner being beat by locals in less-sharp contest... :)
4
Well done New York.
Keep "evil" corporations and their jobs out of your city.
So what if working people lose out?
What's really important is defeating "greed."
(Just attract un-greedy businesses. For example, bring back burlesque.)
7
Only the most naive believed the nonsense that tech was somehow better or more noble than other industries.
At least Amazon creates value with their wide selection and fast delivery. You'd have to be brain-dead to have a Twitter or Facebook account.
4
A modern hellscape? One doeth exaggerate. But seriously, can you provide a link to a study that shows the Mid-Market payroll tax break, which is the only tax break the City gave to any company (including, but not limited to "tech" companies) directly exacerbated income inequality in San Francisco? That seems like quite a broad statement to make without eliminating other factors, like already accelerating trends, private busing, etc.
2
"But no one wanted to end up like San Francisco — which has become a modern hellscape even as internet companies build their airy HQs and become ever richer. There, tax giveaways only exacerbated income inequality and offered no solutions."
This author is misinformed. Tech companies did not ruin San Francisco. Local politics that prevent any housing from being built did. Business is good. Economic development leads to better life for almost everyone, rich or poor.
167
@Peter Interesting. I live here. The tax give aways and the bubbles that these companies create for their employees (buses, cafeterias, gyms, etc.) HAS made it a hellscape IMO and the opinions of many others. And then their is the destruction of places like Dolores Park. Apparently their parents didn't teach these kids about leaving no trace. DP looks like Woodstock Music Festival after every weekend of good weather. Housing is only part of the equation not the entire equation.
82
@Peter
But tech companies had a hand in ruining SF. This week boulders fell on cars driving along one of our bridges, but yet we have money to subsidize these very successful companies. This corporate welfare needs to stop.
71
@Peter My house in Redwood City has gone up 500% since I bought it in 1997. The weather and local animals in a small city near me, Portola Valley, remind me that I'm living in Narnia.
9
Detroit could really use Amazon.
Think of what could follow in the way of other businesses.
1
The American ideal of unfettered capitalism seems to draw surprising parallels to European monarchy. Both philosophies seem to encourage the notion that the ruling class, i.e. the wealthy, should exist outside the realm of the state and not be beholden to the rules and standards that apply to the common people. Supporters of both believe this separateness allows for impactful decisions to be made without bias while detractors see it as inevitabely leading to blind, unabashed pursuit of self-interest.
The reason Jeff Bezos thinks his company is entitled to massive tax incentives or Howard Schultz believes he's qualified to be president is the same reason medieval kings and queens never questioned the legitimacy of their sovereignty. It's no wonder these people always appear shocked by the uncomfortable reality that most people don't agree with them.
3
@Noah Both Bezos and Schultz are self made men and you compare that to a monarchy???? Since when is it a sin in this country that a person from the projects in New York (Mr. Schultz) can work his way up to the top. He is an example of what can happen in this country if you apply yourself. They are both to be admired and are examples to us all.
2
I think a large part of the failure is due to Amazon and the city and state leaders involved all thought everyone in Queens were just going to break out the champagne and ticker tape because, well you know, it's WOW! Amazon!!
The area involved could definitely benefit from investment, re-urbanization, revitalized infrastructure and transportation. Maybe they should have addressed those issues with the neighbors, they may have been a little more enthusiastic.
3
Well, that's 25,000 jobs that won't be coming to NYC. 25,000 incomes that won't be spent at local businesses.
And ultra-progressives wonder why they lost the blue collar vote and Trump is in the White House.
I consider myself a liberal, but the overweening, sheer daftness of the insular ultra-progressives is baffling. What does Kara Swisher expect? That companies should only come to her city if they don't compete aggressively in the marketplace? Times change. New jobs are created. No worries, there are plenty of other cities that are champing at the bit for Amazon's new HQ.
12
@Yair
Those weren't blue collar jobs. They will import an additional 25,000 people to the neighborhood who can pay enough to incentivize even the kindest landlords to sell out. The poor have to live further from work, as do teachers, nurses, doctors, shopkeepers, etc. Pay an extra 2 hours of daycare a day to commute.
If these were jobs for the people living there, that would be nice. But the deal is effectively to move out the existing residents and move in a new neighborhood in that same location as previously.
THAT'S why they're unhappy. They have prime real estate right now (NYC) and they don't want to lose it. It might be a bad deal for the city real estate owners but for the neighborhood it is a win no matter how you look at it. If their kids want to grow up to work in tech they can come and work on the West Coast in one of our newly bland neighborhoods.
1
Oh heavens this was a data grab from the very start. To see all of these cities genuflecting and promising was ridiculous. Just think about the data they collected about 250 cities in the country. Amazing they all fell for it hook line and sinker. Except San Antonio. If Amazon truly wanted to help - they would have picked north of NYC - where they could actually use it, housing would be affordable and reasonable commute from upstate. They could make a difference there but it was never about that. They always planned to take it to Virginia but NYC bent over backwards with incentives so they planned a second campus.
2
You have it all wrong. It was not Amazon demanding compensation from the cities. It was cities using compensation to try to buy the decision by Amazon to move offices to their city and bring $3B per year in salaries to the city and generating $300 million per year to the city in direct tax payments. Counting the offshoot spending, the impact on city revenue was probably more like $1B per year. THAT money could be used by the city to lower other taxes or to build infrastructure like subways and parks and social network support. Amazon is also remarkably effective at creating other businesses both from within the company and from budding off employees to create their own businesses. These are the kind of jobs that everyone is looking to improve their education and training and move in to.
14
It is not the mission of tech, or any other businesses, to make the world a better place. It is to meet previously unmet needs for which consumers are willing to pay. Amazon and other companies that do that prosper; those that don't perish.
We should not confuse the role of profit-making corporations with the role of government. Perhaps because government at the national, state and local levels has been so ineffectual over the past few decades in addressing the needs of their constituents (i.e. witness homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, cost of healthcare) we have excused them from their poor performance and look to the successful for-profit sector to solve our social problems.
Amazon didn't offer itself $3 billion in subsidies. Gov. Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio did. They should be the ones we look to for solutions. Good luck!
14
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I don't really recall Bezos saying he's making the world a better place. Maybe he's said that now and then, but if you read his annual shareholder letter, he seems hyperfocused on making money by making his customers happy, which is what a business is supposed to do?
It's companies like Facebook who pretended to make the world a better place.
5
How does one define "making the world a better place"? These tech companies employ tens of thousands, providing a good life for those working there - does that make the world a better place? They provide products or services that people either need or want - does that make the world a better place?
What do "progressives" do to "make the world a better place"? Looking at Venezuela or Cuba I don't see that "progressives" have made anything better, quite the opposite.
8
@jaco
Yes, by all means, keep trotting out Venezuela and Cuba as the definitive poster boys for failed "socialism". And keep ignoring the "socialism" rampant in the Nordic countries, where citizens in these productive, competitive economies pay high taxes while enjoying a quality of life and living standards at least equal to if not surpassing those here in the USA.
3
Does Amazon realistically have a competitor? In either a big picture, marketplace platform sense; or, if you go sector by sector, what does the competitive playing field realistically look like for online book sales or online music sales? Friendly reminder that we wrote laws in the late 19th century to protect from the deleterious effects of one dominant player in a market. Good on New York for setting a limit to what it deems acceptable to write off for such a giant.
The Supreme Court ruled last June that, overturning 1992 precedent, products Amazon or other e-commerce sites sell to consumers must be charged state tax as applicable. This is only about half of the merchandise sold through the Amazon platform. Congress needs to address how to ensure third party sellers are meeting state tax requirements. There are people who sell stuff out of their garage as a third party on Amazon, but a lot of these are actually online businesses stuck to the Amazon platform like leeches. That’s why you pay the seller fees: look at all that free exposure and the big brand vehicle.
This issue isn’t about raising a little tax revenue for a given state. It’s about competitiveness and fairness. It’s hard enough for small business in the big box era. We can’t mandate that small business follows tax laws (or labor, or any other) when some Goliaths can evade them. It’s anti-competitive. Amazon has the resources and tech expertise to build sales tax into the third party platform. Why hasn’t it?
4
Nor should it be. It’s a for-profit enterprise, not a social welfare organization.
5
Team - this is pretty nuts and pretty simple - NYC just lost 25,000 high paying jobs which would have had a major knock on benefit to 100,000 other people in the city. EVERY major city in the US competes to win these jobs and every major city offers incentives. We won and then blew it. I'm a lifelong democrat and progressive and my party is being run over by the far left - I pray that the far left doesn't end up dividing the party so much that DT gets reelected.
15
@David I agree with you that this is a real loss that shouldn’t be celebrated, but I don’t think it’s fair to pin this on “the left.” A lot of what Bezos was complaining about has been standard operating procedure for decades - the dance between developers and NYC politicians has always been about years-long processes with promises on both sides broken and renegotiated as everyone has their hand out. Bezos is a spoiled brat who’s never had to deal with these things before, but the real tragedy is that the richest man in the world sees no inherent value to being in New York - meaning that the capitalist forces that have lowered the quality of life in the city so much that they’ve actually decreased its value.
Having said that, I do think it doesn’t help for local politicians to be gloating about this as a victory or smugly shrugging off a large amount of high-paying jobs. That really does not help the leftist cause. But Blasio and AOC did not cause the problems that led to this loss. What they can do is to find another way to stimulate New York’s economy in the tech sector that doesn’t involve giving a billionaire everything he wants as long as he greases the right palms. The city is paying the price for having done that too many times.
@ David & James Jacobs--you guys are THE LEFT. What are you even talking about here? Are guys blaming folks even further to the left? I'd love to see your political continuum.
1
Tech companies are no different than other companies when it comes to demanding preferential treatment for taxes, unions, or anything else. In fact, tech companies get away with far more than a corporation like GM or Unilever. Why? Our laws haven't caught up to what tech companies of all stripes are doing.
That Amazon assumed they would be welcomed with open arms after the details of the deal were released was naïve. People living in the NY metro area know how overburdened they are when it comes to taxes, the infrastructure, the cost of housing, and other small items like a lack of decent public spaces. Amazon used its "search" for a second place to have headquarters not to benefit the place it selected but to create a meaningless competition where it would win.
Cuomo and de Blasio overstepped their bounds with this deal. They have only themselves to blame. There are plenty of people who can no longer afford to live in the NY metro area. Bringing in a tech company that is anti-union, likely to outsource more than a few jobs, unlikely to hire 25,000 people with everyone of them being paid decent salaries, is an act of monumental stupidity. Did they think that Amazon was going to improve the horrible road conditions, the crummy subway conditions, or be willing to help out our public schools?
It's time our politicians realized that businesses don't care about anything but their bottom line. Citizens know it just by the way they're treated.
7
Not their job. We gave up on social contract with corporations ages ago. Sole purpose of company is to make profits for their shareholders. The fact that they’ve made shopping easier and cheaper is already icing on the cake. At least we’re getting something.
5
It used to go without saying that major corporations were expected to perform a certain minimum of philanthropy and social responsibility.
3
New York has been giving itself away to billionaires (including a certain autocratic orange menace) for decades and all it has to show for it are a bunch of empty luxury apartments amid a crumbling infrastructure. Bezos was just a little too late, because the tipping point just happened in the last 2 or 3 years, but it’s now evident to all that rapacious capitalism has accomplished what terrorists and hurricanes couldn’t: demoralized and destroyed the essential character of New York - and, ironically, by doing so it’s lowered its value. If New York is just going to be a bunch of people taking Uber to their apartments that are so far away from their workplace and so expensive that they abandon Manhattan at night and there’s nowhere to go anyway because their favorite businesses are shutting down due to high rents and forget about trying to do anything creative because there’s no time or space or community then really what’s the point? It’s turned into a kind of oversized Las Vegas, with a glittery tourist facade obscuring the reality of how most of its millions of residents live.
It disturbs me that so many people see the Amazon debacle as lefties destroying jobs. A lot of what Bezos was complaining about has long been normal New York procedure: protracted negotiations, political maneuvering, everyone gets their cut. Even Trump gets that. Not only does Bezos not get that but he didn’t see the value of fighting to be in New York. Capitalism has devoured itself.
3
to say we are a democracy doesn't state the facts accurately. What we are, is a democracy, run by capitalists.
2
Maybe Bezos was trying out the waters of both places to see which would have more docile employees and he noticed that New Yorkers are more likely to cooperate and hence form a union. While in Virginia, it is a right to work state and the workers will come from more geographically fractured areas, probably mostly taking the redline in from Greenbelt, with not as much opportunity to collectively organize.
2
Exactly who ever believed tech companies cared about "making the world a better place?"
2
The tech journalists, like Ms. Swisher, that's who. When tech titans like Bezos made ever more audacious claims -- like package delivery by drones, served by dirigible warehouses in the sky -- the tech writers rarely asked a tough question.
It's not a nice world out there -- companies need to survive and grow. Amazon pays well -- look at the numbers. Good jobs make for a better place. Amazons dominance is not assured.
Bezos is never going to make money from the Wash Post -- and his personal wealth will eventually be distributed. While he has not signed onto the giving pledge -- he is starting to give it away.
Long Island city would have been better off with them vs w/o.
3
It seems that those decrying the loss of Amazon NYC and its 25,000 new jobs are naively assuming these positions would have been filled by current residents of the city.
Really?
You don't think that many -- perhaps even most -- of the hires would have been made from outside (even far outside) the metro area, including current Amazon employees willing to relocate if it meant moving up in the company?
2
Why is that relevant? NY has been a city of ambition since its founding as a Dutch trading post. 25,000 jobs generate lots of prosperity. It doesn’t matter if they’re filled by locals or newcomers.
2
Or even US citizens....
@GC, I do think that many of the AmazonNYC proponents are inferring that there were going to be 25K terrific job opportunities for Greater New York's current residents (and are decrying that these are now been lost). I'm just saying: T'wern't necessarily so!
Remember, this has been a bitter issue involving many so-called job creators (from casinos to tech centers) brought to cities and states after huge tax and land concessions by the munipalities: In the end, the lion's share of the jobs actually went not to people on the immediate region but to long-distance commuters and to out-of-staters willing to afford steep rentals or inflated house purchase prices.
1
Good for NYC. Amazon will do what's in its best interest, with or without incentives. Any company that pays ZERO federal income taxes needs ZERO additional tax incentives. All the 2nd and 3rd tier cities that weren't chosen were just auditioning for future Amazon warehouse locations.
3
I don’t buy much on Amazon but recently had the undercounter lights in my kitchen stop working. I put the serial number of the transformer into a search engine, located one online and received it in two days at a cost of $15. I was saved endless hours vs the alternative of first finding then visiting a store.
Seems like that’s an example of Amazon making the world a better place. In their own way.
9
The vocal critics of Amazon in NYC have shown the rest of the US the way. A new and novel approach to their ultimate goal. In a very different way, they have shown us all how to become Detroit. They have cleared the way for fewer jobs and tax revenues to provide for city services and enhancements. No competent company will want to move there. Maybe a new Bitcoin paradise?
5
How is it remotely fair that a corporation who paid no federal income taxes for the last several years get an additional 3 billion in subsidies? What about the shooting that money towards fixing the crumbling infrastructure? Wouldn’t that net a similar return for creating jobs?
3
So odd how this relentless juggernaut threw up their hands after experiencing a little dissent.
2
Nope. JB was not going to be extorted by AMI; and he was not going to be extorted by some petty, local politicians. He was consistent.
1
Of course not. They are in the business of putting the other company out of business. That's business. Citizens United was built on it. A closed forum plotting against an open forum. A closed forum taking the place of a democratic one. Anti social.
Movements that benefit shareholders on the inside, that's it. Workers are tools, an Ace in the hole to tax for later bailouts. Politicians are paid to play. Consumers just hold their prospected earnings. Charity and good will fits in at taxtime.
2
Get real, Kara. You need to adjust those glasses again. There are several billion reasons many of its customers think Amazon very much has made the world a better place.
Amazon is an America success story and Jeff Bezos is a visionary.
It suffered loses year after year after year, but Bezos and his investors believed in his vision for a new kind of retail distribution system.
When my son and I drop-in on his grandmother and my mother tonight on our Echo Show devices, we won't be thinking about NIMBYs or "Not in My Back Yard" folks like you.
We'll just be grateful for the technology that allows us to keep in touch with someone we love.
Folks like you would find ways to criticize a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
As for my son and I, we enjoy them together with a cold glass of milk.
Go hate that.
14
PB&J with milk. I would read the labels these days...at least if you purchased ingredients in US.
2
For all the people saying good, Amazon is in the business of making money for shareholders, not doing good for the world. You are missing the point of why that continues to be pointed out with them and other tech companies and businesses.
Whether it's making "brand purpose" statements about toxic masculinity or pretending they hold themselves to higher moral standards like "don't be evil", it's important to see and call them out for what they are - cheap gimmicks and words they trot out when it serves their agenda or when there's some government money or consideration they'd like to have. At any other given point in time, they're operating their businesses like any other Koch brother / Leona Helmsley/ Scrooge McDuck.
179
@EM
Ok, but isn't that true of every biotech in Kendall Sq/Central SQ as well? Nobody asks those biotechs to be socially responsible. I don't get why people expect Amazon to be a force for social change. Nobody thinks that about Pfizer or Tesla. Is it because some people strangely think everything connected with the internet is supposed to be utopian and revolutionary. To me, the internet is just a new domain for business.
11
@EM Your reference to Scrooge McDuck made my day. What about those wily nephews?
6
@Anti-Marx
Part of it is because these so called tech mavericks feign virtue and high-mindedness, which in light of Facebook's part in the 2016 elections, is the height of arrogance.
This does not even take into account Google and Facebook's mining of your personal info.
27
Thought I'd note that in fact Amazon has made the world a better place for me. Living rurally, having the means to have everything delivered to one's doorstep, in record time no less, is no small thing. It makes life far easier and it need not all be unwanted junk. It can be food, supplies for babies and kids, medicine, gifts, shoelaces, everything. Things we do not have to get in our car and drive long distances for and also it saves our time, we can go cross country skiing instead, visit a pal, read the paper! Also, sometimes a ton of money in someone's hands is indeed a very good thing. Bill Gates was vilified and now it seems he and his wife save more lives than just about anyone else, they absolutely improve the world and I do think Bezos is headed the same direction. Amazon is not evil and I say that as a liberal Vermonter.
9
Here we go--with the typical Liberal misunderstanding of the purpose of corporations. They don't exist to make the world a better place--they exist to make money for their owners and shareholders. They only do good coincidentally--by making better products, or inventing a better, more efficient ways to get things done--and by hiring people.
Bill Gates didn't found Microsoft to make the world a nicer place. Steve Jobs didn't start Apple to improve the lot of fellow citizens. Zuckerberg didn't launch Facebook to better the human condition.
Entrepreneurs, inventors, investors and other capitalists do not go into business with altruistic motives. Their motivations lie in self-interest--to improve THEIR lives--not ours--but manage to do good anyway--by improving the lives of all of us--in providing employment and better experiences in our daily lives. If not for this benefit, they would never succeed. We would never buy their products--and we wouldn't volunteer to work for them.
Make no mistake: Jeff Bezos picked NYC, not to improve the lives of New Yorkers, but because he believed their talents would benefit the prospects of Amazon. But Liberals, in their blind hatred of Capitalism and free enterprise--could only see the negative. They couldn't envision thousands of employee paychecks, health care and retirement benefits--or the homes, automobiles, college tuitions, and million other things those paychecks would purchase.
Liberalism. Blindness. Hatred.
11
One more inconvenient fact: economists estimated the net economic benefit to NYC of the Amazon deal--and it's 25,000 jobs--to be 27.5 billion. The value of the tax benefits provided by NYC and the State of New York? About 1.5-2 billion.
Somehow, to Liberals, a more than 10-1 return just didn't seem quite worth it. Ahhhh, the ignorance.
4
Now that we have thwarted the plans of the world's richest greedy capitalist, we can go after an even bigger target - Wall Street. Goodbye NYSE. Hello Virginia Stock Exchange.
2
Politicians aren’t interested in making the world a better place.
1
As a country, we seem to get in trouble whenever we allow ourselves to believe that we have moved beyond the occurrence of some past, dark aspect of our lives, such as the company that is too big too fail or such as the living, breathing monopoly.
Teddy Roosevelt, a bully New Yorker, would know what to do with Amazon.
138
@Larry Dickman, we may have forgotten the robber barons, but they didn't forget us. They were building their think tanks, paying their lobbyists and legislator pals, and riding us down to precarious contingency. Now they resent and punish any hint that they aren't gods. And this is just the beginning of their plans for us.
24
@Larry Dickman. As I recall, Teddy Roosevelt came very close to losing his life on a tributary of the Amazon :)
4
Whine - whine - whine.
NYC offered the deal and Amazon took it. No one held a gun to NYC's head; though I suppose one could observe that maybe they're not sufficiently mature to handle their won affairs.
After offering the deal, and having it accepted, NYC wants to change the deal. Amazon says no. Welcome to the real world of adult behavior.
7
Disagree. AMZN has by it's business and increasing philanthropy made the world a better place, and will continue to do so. As far as NYC mistake, AMZN took the appropriate action quickly when it became obvious that dealing with stupid would be a costly, never ending distraction for the business. Moving on....
4
@J Patterson The situation is more nuanced. Compare it to Google's move into Manhattan. They bought the largest office building in NYC, the another large one behind it, then a pier. Added thousands of jobs and never went begging for a tax rebate. Because they know this is the best place to be. Amazon blew it by trying to imitate pigs at a trough, they would have done very, very well on their own, behaving like regular businesses do. They didn't come here to do any favors for New Yorkers.
1
@brooklyn AMZN already in NYC and will continue to be, perhaps just not at the same scale as what could have been.
I’m amazed that anyone who has ever traveled east of Manhattan on the Queensboro Bridge or the Long Island Expresswsy (495) thinks a large industrial complex sandwiched between the two was ever a good idea. Bezos shoehorned a helipad cause he certainly has experienced that route. Selecting NYC wasn’t the biggest prob, selecting the crossroads of what currently is traffic-armageddon, independent of any future corporate build out, is. The shortsightedness of selecting that particular location amazes me.
3
I believe this withdrawal will be a net loss for a prepondeance of NYers. The truculence, however well-intentioned, of anti-Amazonians seems spiteful, myopic and led to slaying a avaricious dragon (as some categorized Amazon) that should've been spared.
4
I dunno. Seems like Jeff Bezos chose two cities on the East Coast for personal reasons: NYC to be in “New York”, and Northern Virginia to be close to DC (and his investment in the Washington Post). He still has Northern Virginia; perhaps New Jersey’s governor should have a little talk with Mr. Bezos about his side of the river. After all, it’s easier to land corporate jets at Teterboro to get to sites nearby than at Westchester County to get to Long Island City.
Yes, Jeff would have less access to Manhattan, but perhaps Amazon could help cover some of the cost for building new PATH tunnels under the Hudson as part of their tax incentive plan. They could even Put the HQ in Hoboken or Jersey City with a big sign visible from downtown; what could be a better way to salute NY?
3
Wow, a "self-interested business." What is a business SUPPOSED to be?
Too bad NYC politicians are not equally self-interested in getting their people jobs.
6
From another article from the very same NYT, about Virginia's assurance of the permanence of Amazon there:
"“It highlighted a particular community dynamic in a region that has its act together,” Mr. Dorsey said. He added that Amazon hasn’t changed its plans to bring 25,000 jobs to National Landing by 2030, with the potential to increase that to 38,000 employees later."
Here we have exactly the same number: 25,000 (with a big asterisk: "by 2030"). So, either Amazon has perfected the art of creating a standardized campus, whatever the local they build it; or they simply pulled out a big number of the blue.
And from 2019 to 2030 there are 12 years: that's 2083 jobs per year. And there's a big catch: by extending this number over a long period (12 years), they opened this loophole: they can build a campus with only circa 2,000 jobs (which is a normal number for a very big factory nowadays) and then fire and re-hire on a 1-year cycle, thus claiming to have "created" (i.e. opened) 25,000 vacancies ("jobs").
1
Jeff Bezos could have offered to fix the subways, at least the one to Long Island City, out of his pocket change.
1
Are New Yorkers, for all their New York attitude and street savvy, really that naive? How could anyone for one moment think that a fast rising nearly $200billion company was out to make the world a better place? I doubt it.
My experience with people from NY is that they have a hidden naivety that the rest of the world is not up to their standards. For Amazon to swoop in and show them how wrong they are would pop their little bubble. That is the last thing that they want.
Creating 25K well-paying jobs is not "making the world a better place"? This silly notion is no better than Trump's MAGA.
3
As someone with a job, I guess it's easy for Ms. Swisher to dismiss 25,000 job opportunities for others in New York. Maybe she could create a "business" and hire someone herself. That would make the world a better place.
9
Sounds like the New England Patriot's effect: people get mad when someone else keeps winning. Instead of working harder to overcome the competition, they become bitter and angry.
If New Yorker's didn't want amazon, the polls would show that... they don't. A small circle of bitter people put their egos above opportunity for 25k people.
2
"this country’s most innovative and promising and often its most inspirational" -- HA! Amazon has used the "Internet Tax Free" gimme to put out of business legitimate outfits that were forced to pay local taxes. The same way Uber is putting out of business legitimate companies that have to comply with local legislation while Uber is given a pass. There is nothing inspirational there, unless you find inspiration in swindles.
3
Amazon and others in their category is doing to all of America (and the world) what Walmart did to small towns all across this land: Crush small retailers. Time to stop the ever growing concentration of wealth and welfare for billionaires. Time to break up these companies. And lest we forget the majority of jobs are made by small businesses not these billionaire boys. Stop worshiping these false idols.
4
Thank you. Your sane voice is always a relief among the slavish technophiles and weird political hysterics. The point is that they could have done better had either party been willing to engage in real negotiation from their own strengths.
But was it really Amazon's job to be a creative negotiator on behalf of New York? Tech leaders tend to believe their own lies because they are young and naive and lead young and naive people--but New York leaders should have known better and done better for their city.
New York should have known and driven a harder bargain. And Seattle needs to suck it up and do the same.
It's been reported that Bezos owns residences in the greater NYC and DC areas That he would choose to build other HQs in any other but those places is absurd. Shame on our local politicians for not doing their due diligence and standing up to his arrogance. We will get by without him.
3
Oh stop it Ms. Swisher! Who ever said Amazon was working so hard to make the world a better place!
To see Rep Ocasio-Cortez on TV this morning state to the public that we should consider how many schools or homeless shelters $3 billion could fund either shows a total lack of understanding of economic (as taught in freshman economics) or a callous spreading of false news to the public.
Let's make sure everyone knows what we are talking about: the state & the city were not paying Amazon a nickel; they were forgoing taxes on future earnings (that now will never be earned), and looking forward to collecting taxes on all earnings beyond the first $3 billion worth, which are projected to be many times that. There is no $3 billion sitting in some piggy bank.
Plus we are forgoing immediate taxes on the earnings of 25 thousand new employees & on all the small & large businesses that would have done business supporting the huge Amazon venture (that will now never materialize).
Maybe you should become a classmate of Rep Ocasio-Cortez in a basic economics course.
11
This argument has been stated over and over for weeks now to no avail. It’s just too easy for the misinformed to cry NO GIVEAWAY TO AMAZON.
2
If the deal doesn't work for a city, don't make the deal. What's the worst that can happen? (Put your hand down, Detroit.)
1
Ah -Kara. No
No, Amazon‘s primary concern is not making the world a better place, neither are any of the other fortune 500 companies they’re a business, their first priority is to their stockholders and to make a profit so they can pay the workers so the workers can provide for their families, starting to get this?.........
3
Ms Swisher, what other kinds of businesses are there besides the "self interested" ones? Why do you think ANYONE starts a business? How many businesses of the 'other' kind are going to bring 25k 6-figure jobs to any city? Have you ever run a business? How well did it do? You cite San Francisco at your column's end, calling it a hellscape. What do you think is causing the housing shortage in SF, a booming local tech industry bringing high paying jobs and disposable income or brain-dead housing regulations that forbid any vertical construction? New York can learn from San Francisco--remove the idiocy of local politicians or pay the toll.
1
25k jobs, 27b in payroll tax, innumerable jobs created because of it.
But it's all good 'cos the liberals and socialist democrats showed off the man who is in charge.
The area will remain a mud puddle, no money to fix the trains, no new jobs, no money for the budget deficit.
This is what the democrats and Liberals call a win.
No surprise since socialism ran down Venezuela, and the socialist democrats now want the USA to follow in those steps.
1
The Amazon deal would have brought in $27 billion in tax revenue alone. But that is just the very tip of an enormous ice berg that NYC would have gained from.
Having been a party to many corporate decisions, I can assure you that corporations do not expend resources on "charades". Amazon was actually under the illusion that NYC is not some progressive-socialist gimmie that slum. Let this be a lesson to other forward thinking companies. NYC is not hospitable. Don't bother.
New Yorkers should have been clamoring to qualify for the 25,000 tech jobs. Or setting up or working for businesses that would have sold to Amazon and their employees. That is the way the world should work.
Expecting a company to do what DiBlasio and the local community failed to do is just plain stupid. Actually, voting for DiBlasio was just plain stupid. You got what you asked for.
You see, those who shouted down Amazon never had a stake in the American dream. Never wanted one. They just want social assistance and if and when NYC social assistance dries up, they can just pick themselves up and find another bunch of taxpayers to steal from. It's what they call the "Green Deal". Which will work as long as there are places willing to pay the lazy
The Lord helps those who help themselves. Local residents will suffer if they just sit around waiting for charity.
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Only a fool would ever believ that a commercial shareholder driven company was genuinely aimed at making the world a better place. Thirty years ago, I had an argument with an engineering consultant who headed up a divisional professional body organisation claiming that his involvement in rezoning certain parts of the city so that he and the other cronies on the committee were not merely benefiting their companies because they were guided by business ethics. I told them all the phrase “business ethics” was an oxymoron and a lie companies tell themselves and the public to avoid scrutiny. Despite the claims of the grand “Mission Statements” frenzy of the 90’s when push comes to shove, a business will make decisions based on the bottom line which is profit, not morality. Morality isn’t even a paragraph, let alone a chapter in any textbook on business basics. Legislation is the only way a business can be guaranteed to put anything above profit. To believe otherwise is naive. Bezos and Zuckerberg have just been very creative in marketing their “We care about you” lie which appealed to the extreme naivety and youthful aspirations of the dot.com techies who spent too much time reading programming textbooks and zero time reading anything outside their discipline. None of them had “been around the block” and anyone over 30 were simply dinosaurs who should be ignored. Hooray for the multi-billionaires who sold the gullible public this load of hooe! Wish I had no ethics at times.
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Bravo ! Great ink !
I’ve lived and worked in SF for over 30 yrs.
I have witnessed the transformation of a city that was once ethnically,economically and,culturally more diverse as well as equitable across the demographic.
Now the once charming city that visually was America’s little Paris is now overrun and smothered with insipid looking towers lacking any congruity in terms of size or design with the existing architecture.
They have risen high above the downtown city streets occupied by a handful of rich Geek Lords
that gaze down at the dilapidated streets the homeless, the human waste and of course the current demographic which is made up of mostly
young white 20’s to 40’s from some where else congregating and walking the streets like lemmings talking on their phones oblivious to their neighbors in there own special world.
Clueless that they are only the insignificant pawns
being used by a handful of powerful predatory wealthy tech oligarchs that could care less about investing in the infrastructure.
S.F. is a paramount example of what’s been occurring across the nation screaming at us about
the despairing deference between the supper rich ,the so called MIDDLE CLASS debt ridden
into oblivion that work longer for less than my parents did in the the 1950’s and of course there’s the rest of us ?
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.... and driving economic development, wages, tax dollar, and gainfully employed citizens out of city if a victory for the welfare queens, who expect the remaining city dwellers to pay for their state subsidized lifestyle.
Im starting the think Amazon paid for a lot of posters to this very site...
this deal shouldnt have gone thru simply because it bypassed the normal channels that other businesses should adhere to...
the mayor and governor making a back room deal is something EVERY citizen not just progressives should have sidewyed
its slightly insulting to support Amazon coming here under that kind of dynamic...
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Let's see: (1) NY offered enticements to Amazon to move to Long Island because NY thought the move would benefit NY. (2) Amazon decided to move to Long Island. (3) Most New Yorkers, including most Hispanics and Blacks, thought NY would benefit and didn't mind the enticements. BUT a minority consisting of "progressive", affluent and mostly white politicians and protestors denounced the enticements and Amazon, leading Amazon to cancel its decision. And that's progress?
Headline: "Amazon Isn’t Interested in Making the World a Better Place"
Sorry, corporations and capitalism in general aren't "Interested in Making the World a Better Place." They are interested in making money. Period. End of story.
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Amazon only exists to make its owners money, like all other companies. The change the world stuff is pure marketing fluff. I can't believe anyone was naive enough to fall for it.
@bill Amazon has certainly changed my life, much to the better. Thank goodness for Jeff Bezos and Amazon.
Nope - All that I expected out of Amazon coming to LIC was 25,000 jobs and the economic multipliers that come with them. That’s it.
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Going by the title of the piece, I would like Kara Swisher and AOC to tell me what corporation is interested in making the world a better place. Would that be GM, Ford, Goldman Sachs, Apple, Monsanto?? Maybe Microsoft, or any of the oil or coal companies??
The real question is: what states, regions, cities don't offer tax incentives for corporations to open up in their area? Very few to none. I doubt Swisher and AOC would be worried about Amazon if they located in Indianapolis.
I also assume that Kara Swisher and AOC have a plan to bring even 5,000 new jobs to NYC at a rate of $20-$40/an hour. (someone in the comments below suggested this was not an acceptable rate of pay for New Yorkers. Tell that to the New Yorkers who aren't even making that.)
Amazon doesn't like unions. Then fight for a union.
Swisher and AOC call Amazon's decision to abandon NYC a victory. For whom?
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Amazon is leaving NY. So are 50,000 residents per year who leave in search of a better place to live. Only NY politicians who have mandated some of the nation's highest income and property taxes would consider 25,000 new jobs and billions in incremental tax revenue to be a bad deal.
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NYC is more interested in moral posturing than attracting employers. It's OK-- the Green New Deal will provide jobs for all those who are unable or unwilling to work.
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Look, it would be good for many NY'ers if Amazon wants to move here. And I don't think it's right that one representative in Queens can decide for our whole state - there should be a ballot referendum. But I think most of NY agrees that if Amazon gets such a big tax abatement, then they do need to offer something for those write-offs besides jobs.
I believe Amazon should help repair and modernize the subway. Cover all improvements to the main feeder lines into Queens and heavily subsidize the rest of the mass transit system. Let Google and Apple and all the Wall Street banks chip in and adopt a line. Great advertising for these businesses, lessens a municipal problem. Amazon should help with subsidized housing in Queens too.
Otherwise I just don't see the fairness to New York citizens in these tax abatements. Yes, it's great to have a mega corporation come here and give us jobs, but then they exploit their new NYC employees and everybody else in the state to make up for the taxes they aren't paying. How do we even know they're going to hire local for the best jobs, rather than relocate existing talent?
We are an awesome city and an international shipping hub. It burnishes Amazon's image and helps their business to be here, yet they want us to run to them with a begging bowl. Where is the respect?
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Good column, Kara. The core point seems to have eluded many commenters, but that is perhaps because this abrupt decision is so fresh. Still, you are (in my view) clearly correct: tech is just another business, albeit one that has been a primary growth driver for the entire economy over the past several years. Most large businesses do want to believe they are doing positive things for the world, but understand that a) they are mainly trying to create value for their investors and themselves and, b) there is an expectation that society wants them to play by the rules (whether they like those rules or not). Big Tech is in denial about the first (even though their actions suggest narrow self-interest) and fiercely resists the second. In essence, Big Tech acts as if everyone knows they’re better than the rest of us and this means we should allow Big Tech to act as they please.
I do believe it would have been good for LIC to get this employer, but if expecting Amazon to play by the rules was too much for that company to accept, good riddance.
Perhaps it was the exemptions, but the fact that it was prepared to come to NYC, with its higher cost of living, higher taxes, higher minimum wages and its more progressive politicians than most of the alternative locations demonstrates corporate behavior that is exactly the opposite of what Ms. Swisher claims Amazon is about.
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It's not Amazon's job to replace the government. Amazon is paid to sell us stuff, the government is paid to make our world a better place. Silicon Valley has numerous "self-interested businesses" that DO make the world a better place, for their employees and by extension, the world around them ... they don't do it because they are altruists, they do it because it's good for business. That's what they're supposed to do.
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To have invited Amazon, the company that threatened to put New York's vibrant publishing industry out of business, was done by those with short memories of how a monopoly smiles as it shoves a knife in its competitors.
Good riddance.
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@Taz Amazon isn't even CLOSE to being a monopoly. Its share of the TOTAL retail market is 4%. DOJ would be laughed out of court if it tried to make the argument that Amazon is a monopoly.
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@Taz "New York's vibrant publishing industry" was based on antiquated business models with fat profit margins. It's no wonder that so many early entrants on billionaire lists came from media and entertainment. In X years, someone's going to come around and do an Amazon to Amazon. To hold a grudge because company A put company B out of business ignores the history of disruption.
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Amazon told us that printed books were becoming obsolete but followed up by opening bookstores in Seattle.
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This is not Amazon but for a much better example - watch the very well done presentation Why Louisiana Stays Poor. Within one zip code, 177 separate industries realize $3.9 billion in profits yet the median income is $21,000. Towns in this zip code actually pay companies in outrageous tax breaks. Public life is suffering and citizens are waking up.
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Kara, I don't think anyone, New Yorker or not, has any illusion about Amazon. That doesn't stop people using or even working for it. I wonder how many secretly badmouthing Amazon are prime member! Or stop shopping at Whole Food! Or have some form of Alexa!
(Incidentally, I am not a prime member; I have never shopped at Whole Food - before and after the takeover - or ever interacted with Alexa, just to show I have no ax to grind here)
But employment is not about making a better world. Interesting, unlike Facebook or Google, Amazon has never made such a claim. Anyone who cares to study the company knows it has been trying to outdo Walmart in its creative destruction! So it doesn't have to follow Apple's example to put words in its mouth.
The right and the left have found a convenient villain in Amazon but in fact they could simply come together to build a regulatory wall around its unbridled ambition, which, paradoxically, I favor. It should not be allowed to behave destructively. However, do that properly, not by demonizing it when the agenda of Amazon pushback is equally self-serving. Two wrongs don't make one right, my friend!
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@Bos It's not this simple. We all fill our gas tanks, yet few support oil companies or petrol states. We eat meat, yet are horrified by the condition animals are raised. We despise privacy concerns with Facebook, yet we stay connected there. The list goes on.
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@Paulo
"it's not this simple" because you put yourself in binary mode but in fact you are not an all-or-nothing being. Sure, i use Amazon on occasions but I shop elsewhere too.
More importantly, I don't think you have read my post correctly (probably my fault for not being clear). As i said before, all you need is "to build a regulatory wall around its unbridled ambition"
Even if you eat meat, that doesn't suggest you are cruel to animal. You can get a less thirsty car. Same with Amazon, instead of making a demon out of it, which is a useful political tool to incite the masses, make it deal straight.
Case in point, Boston lured GE to relocate from CT to Boston before its financial conditions fell apart. Two CEOs later, GE is repaying Boston the incentives after it decides it cannot fulfill its obligations. Fair and square. When we think rationally, it is that simple
At the rise of offending Ms. Swisher, I note that the primary purpose of business is to make a profit and in the course of doing so, they provide employment. The paychecks they issue and the taxes that they and their employees pay are their contributions to the community.
The notion that they ought to be contributing more of their revenue to assist public functions in NYC rests on the assumption that the sad state of everything from your public subways to your pension underfunding ought to be a shared responsibility. No - that responsibility belongs to the incompetent government of the city of New York, which already receives more revenue per citizen than any other metropolitan area in this nation.
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@Quiet Waiting
If you want to collect $3 billion in tax incentives, then working on infrastructure may have to be included in the deal and not just "to make a profit." If Amazon just decided to touch down in Queens with no tax breaks, I would agree with you.
@Darryl
Apparently, they will be touching down in places in which they already have facilities and will be doing so without subsidies from anyone.
Why is it illegal for corporations use shareholder money to bribe politicians to pass favourable laws but legal for politicians to use taxpayer money to bribe corporations to invest locally?
Local leaders should compete for investment on results - good infrastructure, educated workforce, low taxes for all.
There can be limited exceptions for areas suffering from discrimination, but if we all claim special needs, we will all get robbed and we will deserve it.
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Firstly, I believe your premise to be flawed from the aspect that they do mitigate the driving that consumers will do in order to purchase goods from a variety of store, thus lowering vehicle emissions. Secondly and most important, it is not the responsibility of companies to make the world a better place. You seem to equate the notion that a corporation has a social responsibility to improve the world. Under your premise it is the responsibility for McDonalds to only serve salads, Apple to cut production on IPhones because mobile devices are factors in so many vehicle accidents, Airlines have a responsibility to cut jet emissions as they are a MAJOR source of pollution. How I would ask do you suggest to square those circles... or do corporations simply have a responsibility to produce the goods that people choose to buy in a voluntary system of mutual transactions.
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New Yorkers are under the mistaken impression that NYC is the center of the universe and that the rest of the country is not only envious, but itching to move there.
Yes has excellent pizza, good theater and museums... but visitors probably get more of these in a few days than locals get in a year... or a decade. Its just not worth the hassles to live there.
Amazon woke up and had a what were we thinking moment..
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I am 3rd generation New Yorker and I love NYC more than anything in the world!!! But I have to say I think your comment is witty and funny
It seems to me the rhetoric about Amazon only being out for itself is self-evident but silly. Businesses hope to make a profit and they do so mostly by providing a service to their customers. At least with Amazon we are the customers and not the product.
But government subsidies used to induce companies to locate in a state are a mug's game. It's a zero-sum race to the bottom, it's unfair to local businesses and I think it should be illegal. Most states have economic development agencies to foster local business development, but that money should probably be used to incubate innovative local startups or co-ops. Opportunities that aren't zero-sum but might add to the aggregate of jobs or raise the bar in the competition for workers.
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@JR - btw with Amazon’s booming ad business, we are not only the customers, but the product too. Increasingly we are worth more for the data we bring as we browse and shop the site, rather than the dollars we spend to buy a product.
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@JR, the problem isn't that this and other businesses "hope to make a profit ... mostly (?) by providing a service to their customers." In this case, you'd have to add "and stiffing taxpayers" to make the statement accurate.
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Amazon is becoming the public utility for everything. The bad press they were getting would've threatened that.
The public good is the jobs which you don't seem to get. You ignore that making the world a better place means keeping people employed. You're taking an elitist view.
How about if they can take back and recycle their own boxes? That's becoming a public hazard. They'll figure that out though eventually. It's a race to sell things cheaper and faster. They're winning, by the way...
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A lot of people seem to have a kick ‘em in the teeth attitude about corporations in our capitalist economy. Let’s face it, yes, every corporation has its flaws. But to suggest they are the Evil Empire and have nothing else in their business models than making money seems very shortsighted. If Amazon offers nothing of benefit to the world, as it is suggested here, then why are packages being dropped on doorsteps every single day all over the world. Somebody is finding something of value there. Beyond that, here’s what I find of value. I am a retiree. I know that it in not too many years I may not be able to drive. So I am using Amazon, Uber, Lyft and other services to prepare myself for that day in order to help me age in place. As the baby boom generation ages, the benefits of these services are going to be more and more important. And I wonder how many people who complain about Amazon have any idea what their philanthropy is, let alone what it does. Just in the area of education, Amazon provides about 10 million students with after-school computer science programs, 2,000 low-income high schools with computer science classes, 100 students from underrepresented and underprivileged communities studying computer science in college with $10,000 a year scholarships. And, no I don’t work for Amazon nor do I have stock in Amazon. Finally, yes, corporations sometimes do bad things. We should challenge them and reform them when they do. But let’s have some balance.
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