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AOC gets what she wants: [NYT] Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Headquarters

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Os Trigonum, Feb 14, 2019.

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  1. glynch

    glynch Member

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    This is a good start in cities wising up and ending the race to the bottom as these corporations play cities off against each other as to who can give these wealthy corporations the most government money.
     
    #81 glynch, Feb 15, 2019
  2. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Airball post.

    There's this thing called a net.
     
    #82 SamFisher, Feb 15, 2019
  3. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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    NYC Mayor de Blasio rips into AOC as the Dems begin to eat their young over the amazon fallout:

    It’s a progressive civil war.

    A hot-under-the-collar Mayor Bill de Blasio tore into Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday as he blistered both the online giant and local politicians who opposed bringing it to Queens.

    “As a progressive my entire life — and I ain’t changing — I’ll take on any progressive anywhere that thinks it’s a good idea to lose jobs and revenue because I think that’s out of touch with what working people want,” the mayor said on WNYC radio.​

    https://nypost.com/2019/02/15/de-blasio-rips-into-aocs-amazon-opposition-working-people-want-jobs/
     
    #83 Os Trigonum, Feb 15, 2019
  4. Major

    Major Member

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    I wonder if you realize you just disagreed with yourself?
     
    #84 Major, Feb 15, 2019
    Rashmon and dmoneybangbang like this.
  5. Major

    Major Member

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    So I take it your stance on corporate tax subsidies has completely changed now that your old stance is inconvenient?
     
    #85 Major, Feb 15, 2019
  6. Major

    Major Member

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    ​

    Why do people act like this is a bad thing? Disagreement is good - it indicates people are being honest about their own views and beliefs and standing up for them. Contrast that to the entire GOP just falling in line with Trump and dropping their core beliefs in things like free trade, or with the Freedom Caucus suddenly not caring about deficits or debt after being willing to threaten to crash the entire economy over it just 8 years ago. What does that say about any of those people's beliefs?
     
    #86 Major, Feb 15, 2019
    DonnyMost, London'sBurning, Rashmon and 4 others like this.
  7. Major

    Major Member

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    From the National Review...

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/capitalism-politics-cold-war-amazon-headquarters-controversy/

    Snippets:

    Amazon exploited that new reality in a fairly vulgar way when it went from city to city shouting, “Dance, monkey!” at sundry mayors and councilmen eager to have their municipalities host the company’s supplementary headquarters. They came bearing gifts worth billions of dollars, laying them at the feet of the world’s wealthiest man in an unseemly display of obsequiousness. Amazon settled on New York City, the greatest of our cities and the proving ground of many of our greatest businessmen and enterprises. New York rejoiced, until it didn’t.

    ...

    There have now been over 100 peer-reviewed academic studies of targeted subsidies. The overwhelming majority of these fail to find any evidence that subsidies benefit the broader communities that offer them. What does matter is the overall environment. Policymakers who stick to the provision of public goods, keep their taxes low and their regulations reasonable can see their states and cities grow. Those who offer targeted subsidies to high-profile firms like Foxconn and Amazon do nothing to improve the lot of their constituents.

    ...

    The balance of power has decisively shifted toward capital away from politics. But rather than deal forthrightly with that new reality, politicians have adopted an ever-more-frantic carrot-and-stick routine: bribing Amazon to choose New York City on the one hand, threatening businesses and their high-income executives with punitive regulation and confiscatory taxes on the other. The politicians should instead take Matthew D. Mitchell’s advice and work on their potholes. Which is to say, government should govern rather than try to act as a dealmaker and kingpin in the business world.
     
    #87 Major, Feb 15, 2019
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  8. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    AOC is the other side of the coin to tea party, I don't agree with many of her views as they are too extreme, but I hope the conservatives are enjoying this, especially when in the future an even more extreme candidates than AOC is elected to the white house. MAGA LOL.
     
    #88 pirc1, Feb 15, 2019
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  9. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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    maybe I've missed it, but here's what I thought I was saying. You wrote:
    to which I responded with the excerpt from the City Journal piece that included among other things the description of the site where amazon had been planning to build:

    the point being I don't necessarily think that absent amazon, "plenty of companies should be willing to move there on their own, without tax subsidies." Hence the "maybe not." The land has been parking lots, storage units, and vacant city-owned land forever, and will likely now continue along that path for the foreseeable future.
     
    #89 Os Trigonum, Feb 15, 2019
  10. BruceAndre

    BruceAndre Member

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    Seems like objective and balanced journalism/s :rolleyes:
     
    #90 BruceAndre, Feb 15, 2019
  11. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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    Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway with his summary of what happened:

    The plan to bring Amazon into Long Island City was supported by all of the top politicians at the state and local levels in New York, and that it had significant support from the politicians that actually represent the area where Amazon would have been located and by New Yorkers generally. Despite that, activists in other parts of New York City mobilized against the deal and managed to misrepresent significant parts of it before the Governor, the Mayor, or Amazon could set the record straight. While it’s true that Amazon was receiving some tax abatements in exchange for locating part of its second headquarters in Queens, the anti-Amazon activists misrepresented the nature of these abatements to make it seem as if actual taxpayer dollars were going to Amazon in exchange for their agreement to locate part of their headquarters in New York. This led several anti-Amazon activists, including Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Octavio-Cortez to incorrectly state that Amazon was “taking away” tax dollars from schools, mass transit, and other responsibilities of government. In reality, that, of course, was not the case and Amazon and the people who would have worked in Long Island City would have ended up paying taxes and otherwise contributing to the economy of New York in innumerable ways. Indeed, according to even the most conservative estimates, the Amazon project would bring something close to $1 billion per year in revenue and economic activity to the region over the course of 25 years, perhaps even more than that. Instead, New Yorkers will get nothing and the activists will get a pyrrhic victory at best. There will be no “saved” tax money to spend, there will be no 25,000 jobs, there will be nothing.

    There are, of course, good arguments to be made against some of the deals that states and localities make with businesses to locate corporate offices and factories in certain locations. This is particularly true in cases where companies are getting huge tax subsidies or where they are not contributing to the costs that are associated with new construction and the increased costs that come with the infrastructure and other changes that will be necessitated by such projects. However, in this case, it’s clear that the activists were completely misrepresenting the terms of the agreement with Amazon, and essentially lying to their supporters and other New Yorkers about the alleged “cost” of the deal with Amazon. The failure of either Governor Cuomo or New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio to adequately explain and support the deal is the main reason it failed, but one can also put some of the blame on Amazon for not doing a better job on public relations, but that may be a reflection of the fact that they were already moving toward pulling out of the New York City half of the HQ2 deal largely because it wasn’t worth the political headaches.

    What this means for the future of HQ2 is unclear, and isn’t made clear in the statement that Amazon released yesterday. Vox assumes that this means that the entirety of HQ2 will now end up in Northern Virginia, which has been far more welcoming to Amazon than New York City has been. This would seem to be the most likely outcome, and it seems likely that at least some of what would have gone to Long Island City will end up in Crystal City instead. At the same time, though, it’s also possible that Amazon will decide to take the New York half of the HQ2 deal to another one of the locations that it was considering before it made its announcement of the Virginia/New York decision in November. Whatever the case, though, the economic benefits will go to Virginia and wherever else Amazon decides to locate. I hope Ocasio-Cortez and the other ill-informed New York activists who helped torpedo this deal are proud of themselves.​

    https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/amazon-abandons-plans-for-hq2-in-new-york-city/?
     
    #91 Os Trigonum, Feb 15, 2019
  12. dmoneybangbang

    dmoneybangbang Member

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    From the conservative National Review no doubt...

    It’s amusing watching conservatives bemoan welfare queens but getting in line to support corporate welfare queens. Amazon paid no tax in 2017....

    .... did I miss where Amazon had its own carrier group protecting sea lanes or where they had their own separate infrastructure system?
     
    #92 dmoneybangbang, Feb 15, 2019
  13. dmoneybangbang

    dmoneybangbang Member

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    So corporate welfare is something you support? Did we not just slash corporate tax rates?
     
    #93 dmoneybangbang, Feb 15, 2019
  14. Nook

    Nook Member

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    AOC is crazy and on the rampage.

    [​IMG]





    When white supremacy supporters, rejects and marginalized crack pots from one side of the political spectrum are empowered........... there is a back lash from those on the other side of the spectrum that have been marginalized and not listened to.

    Well here we are........

    The authoritarian, nationalist racists that have a weird crush on Russia

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    get to square off against

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    The socialist, special interest minorities with a weird love for Scandy countries.
     
    #94 Nook, Feb 15, 2019
  15. jcf

    jcf Member

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    Have you looked into why they owed no taxes?
     
    #95 jcf, Feb 15, 2019
  16. dmoneybangbang

    dmoneybangbang Member

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    I have as there’s been many articles on the matter. I don’t think that’s good for America. Do you?

    It’s not just Amazon. We slashed the corporate tax rate and greatly complicated the tax code in order to create more loopholes that can be taken advantage of.
     
    #96 dmoneybangbang, Feb 15, 2019
  17. jcf

    jcf Member

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    I think it depends. If it creates more jobs, and those workers pay taxes themselves, and creates more businesses to provide services to those workers, I see it as good for America. I certainly see what you describe as "corporate welfare" as preferable to companies leaving the US and offshoring. That leaves you with nothing.

    I think everything is nuanced. I don't think it boils down to lower corporate taxes "bad" (or "good"). Same with subsidies. Someone with likely far more information than you or me (I'm making an assumption about you that may not be warranted) would likely need to run the models to attempt to predict impact (and even then you may be left with garbage in, garbage out.)

    As for Amazon not paying taxes this year (and last), it appears to be primarily the result of equity compensation and research and development credits. I don't think that was the Trump tax cut (which I have said numerous times that I dislike.)
     
    #97 jcf, Feb 15, 2019
  18. Corrosion

    Corrosion Member

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    Yeah , nothing operates in a vacuum ….
     
    #98 Corrosion, Feb 15, 2019
  19. biff17

    biff17 Member

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    Oh Snap!
     
    #99 biff17, Feb 15, 2019
  20. biff17

    biff17 Member

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    says the guy who thinks Breitbart is a great source of journalism.

    Oh the hypocrisy.
     
    #100 biff17, Feb 15, 2019
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