- Amazon pulls out of plan to build HQ2 in New York City amid political opposition by USA Today.
- Coffee Meets Bagel announces a data breach on Valentine’s Day by The Verge. Payment details and passwords were not stolen, so that’s a plus.
- Amazon Moments lets developers reward customers with actual gifts, not just virtual ones by TechCrunch.
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We are trying something new where we also post some of the most popular posts from the previous day (this includes all posts from Friday, Saturday & Sunday for today’s edition):
Note to self:
If running for office in NYC, run on a platform of driving out jobs.
Solution to high cost of living:
Ban all kinds of business.
I find it absolutely bizarre that ~some~ liberals are celebrating the loss of 25,000 jobs to NYC. Former bartender AOC has now made economic illiteracy in vogue among the progressive wing of the democratic party. Does she know about the economic concept of opportunity cost? If you stand to gain $30 billion in tax revenue when a corporation moves to your locality, and you agree to reduce that tax liability by $3 billion dollars to incentivize the deal, that’s a net gain of $27 billion. If the corporation doesnt come, that’s a net loss of $27 billion. Amazon can go anywhere it damn well pleases, the only net effect here for NYC is a loss of substantial tax revenue and a loss of significant numbers of jobs for its constituents. In what political world is that something to celebrate? One in which the overriding dogmatic hate for corporations and capitalism takes precedence over the interests of the people. Its like we’re living in some kind of alternative reality where job creation is deemed a political threat to keeping people poor and dependent on the government. Wake up NYC
I suppose you didn’t see the latest headlines: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/430088-amazon-to-pay-0-in-federal-income-taxes-report
And it’s not the first time Amazon has not paid taxes: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/03/bernie-sanders/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-taxes-2017/
does the distinction between federal and state/local taxes mean anything to you? how bout corporate income vs employee income vs property tax? if youre thinking too hard, please stop, dont want you to hurt yourself
At the end who cares what they paid? They were going to bring in 25,000 new corporate jobs with an average salary of 150k. Guess what, those people would be taxed at the federal, state and local level. Also now you have 25,000 people who are making 150k on average meaning they will spend it in NYC by getting breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks for happy hour. Meaning they are spending that money. Those businesses around are going make more money now because you have these corporate people spending at their business which means they will now have to pay a higher tax because they made more. Since they made more they will get to spend more. It’s an endless cycle that was easily going to generate way more taxes at the local level (and every level) than incentives they were going to give Amazon. Learn some basic economics.
I’m not a fan of taxes in NY and some others in the northeast, but at the same time Amazon tried to bulldoze itself in the city. One thing I despise more than unfair taxation (not oppose to them in general) is billionaries getting sport stadiums and company getting handouts.
I’m not against Amazon coming into NY, but they misplayed their hand. Anyway the area will eventually be utilized one way or another because well it is NYC.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/nyregion/amazon-queens-real-estate.html
Some people went out and bought real estate when the news first broke NYC was chosen. I wonder how those people feel today about the ROI they won’t be getting since Amazon backed out.
All investments carry risks, the chances of Amazon pulling out should have been priced into the market.
The losses people are gonna take on the Amazon centric NY real estate are going to be epic.
Probably not, NYC has a fairly robust real estate market so while Amazon can drive prices the announcement alone wouldn’t have done as much as you would see elsewhere (like say Detroit). It was still going to be a decent amount of time before the jobs came to the area and the announcement was only live for a few months so market could only react so much
According to this article the area had a bit of an oversupply problem actually. After the Amazon announcement they say even land prices went up 25% in asking price and sellers got it from developers.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/new-york-s-amazon-adjacent-real-estate-not-so-prime-n971861 I’m not seeing the apartnemnt price data but they mention one apartment selling firm saw 15x as many sales in one of the weeks following the announcement. Yeah, they got themselves a fast bubble. And how about those Amazon employees who bought apartments ahead of the announcement? That just turned into a “long term investment”.
Yeah, now that NY will not have to pay $3 billion to Amazon in tax subsidies, it will teach NY a lesson.
Amazon I’d uniquely positioned for developers top send it actual gifts instead of virtual. In hindsight you think what took them so long.
Also. If cities stopped competing against each other the corporations wouldn’t get away with all these zero tax incentives. In any case let’s hope all the speculators buying real estate in NYC lost some big coin.
Have mixed feelings on Amazon. I think in the end they should have never played up so much media hype around an “HQ2” selection only to select a split market location both in the densely populated east coast which is already overloaded and overpriced. Everything about the process backfired. Not that I feel any of it was justified, but the fact that amazon wasn’t prepared to endure bad press just shows how thin skinned some of the overly competitive veign executives are within that company. Does not bode well for their future as their luster as a new market dominator wears off. Same time I feel AOC and her publicity hungry political pals deserve a nice firm golf clap for their roll in ensuring other companies will reconsider nyc for major new offices. The rest of the country that reside in their shadow thanks them.
Not specific to whether they end up in NYC or not, but I found Amazon’s egocentric request for bids on their HQ2 location extremely distasteful. Not sure how else you describe their “hey I’m super rich and I’ll be your friend if you bend over backwards for me.”
I like Amazon and I buy from them all the time, but they are not a company taxpayers anywhere need to invest in.
To add to that, I found the cities to be over the top in their pursuit of “winning” the contest without regard to their residents’ desires.
The facade of the HQ2 ‘bid’ process – with likely-predetermined ‘winners’ in obvious locations – caused thousands of cities to provide lots of often-non-public data to Amazon, at no charge, which Amazon can now freely use for internal planning on where to put future warehouses, delivery services, stores, etc. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/01/04/thanks-to-hq2-amazon-now-has-a-database-of-private-information-about-us-cities
Not just that I’m super rich but that I pay zero taxes and the taxpayers have to subsidize my business with a $3 billion dollar tax cut. F*** Amazon.
[Goes off to amazon’s site to order stuff because it’s $1 cheap r and comes in two days]
What people from the outside don’t see is that NYC is unique in every respect. Losing 25k jobs is tough for any city, and I believe NYC is the exemption. The jobs would have been great, but At what cost to locals? Space is scarce in NYC and there is no place for people in this middle income and adjacent neighborhoods to go. Many of those jobs are going to be imported from other states and many to H1B visas. The #1 priority of Local government should its constituents, and Amazon did not win their hearts or set a mindful plan to work with the community. Specially when you give tax breaks to the most valuable corporation in the world, helipad and so forth.
I think there should have been more dialogue and more inclusion, rather than some clandestine agreements push onto the public.
Oh none of NYC’s negotiations made sure to include hiring locals first? That’s crazy.
Why did they submit a proposal in the first place then?
“Many of those jobs are going to be imported from other states and many to H1B visas. The #1 priority of Local government should its constituents,”
Just this week Governor Cuomo was crying about Florida stealing New York’s citizens.
Maybe Amazon would pull into Miami!
Not if it doesnt want it fall off.
Just Virgina man. Although given the headlines of the last month probably should have opted for another of the 48 states just to avoid the contestant PR headaches being that close to VA politicians can cause….