quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
A little negotiation might have gone a long way toward making the deal work.

Seems no one wanted to do that, which makes Jon's theory sound the most plausible.

To be fair, they did negotiate, with both the city and the state. Amazon thought they had a deal. Part of the deal that DeBlasio and Cuomo made was bypassing the local land use process.

The deal just needed to be ratified by the state senate. Then the senate majority leader, who happens to be my state senator and got my vote 3 months ago, effectively reneged on the state deal by putting the queens senator who was against the deal in charge of the committee that was going t approve or disapprove the deal.

By the way, he wouldn’t even meet with Amazon executives. Would only send staff.

Clever headline was in Politico:

Amazon to City: Drop Dead

I sent a tweet to Bezos suggesting he plop #2 onto the Peninsula. We've got some good schools here ...

You think he'll respond?

How much street cred do you have with him? Did you mention that one of your books is on Gates' bookshelf?

It seems like this will not age well for AOC. She can claim victory now but the stink of this decision will still be there in several years as her subways are still crumbling.

Was this actually a worst case outcome for AOC? It probably would have been better for her had she "lost" and Amazon conceded nothing and stayed. Would have given her a prominent enemy to complain about and blame stuff on. (Which is probably why Amazon left - they too saw that as the future.) Best case for her would have been for Amazon to concede something and stay.

I see this as something which will damage her and her side of the party in the future.

quote:

Did you mention that one of your books is on Gates' bookshelf?

Why it's difficult to build in NY:

https://www.politico.com/magaz...azon-new-york-225077

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
A little negotiation might have gone a long way toward making the deal work.

Seems no one wanted to do that, which makes Jon's theory sound the most plausible.

To be fair, they did negotiate, with both the city and the state. Amazon thought they had a deal. Part of the deal that DeBlasio and Cuomo made was bypassing the local land use process.

The deal just needed to be ratified by the state senate. Then the senate majority leader, who happens to be my state senator and got my vote 3 months ago, effectively reneged on the state deal by putting the queens senator who was against the deal in charge of the committee that was going t approve or disapprove the deal.

By the way, he wouldn’t even meet with Amazon executives. Would only send staff.

DeBlasio and Cuomo decided to whore themselves to Amazon--a company that does not need public assistance of any kind yet has the chutzpah to demand breaks--by skirting land use processes without input from the politicians who represent the area. Yeah, tough cheese, they got what they deserve.

It's well past time we stop kowtowing to these large corporate bullies with their sense of entitlement. I applaud the local politicians who did their job. If only every locality said, "enough!". If Amazon had any sense of decency they would have worked with Queens and the city on the problems that their move would cause for a great many people.

I cannot muster up any sympathy for Cuomo or DeBlasio on this, they ****** it up. As for Amazon, meh, let them bully someone else. PJ has given us a vivid description of what it's like to have politicians in this behemoth's pocket.

quote:

Originally posted by Bernard:

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
A little negotiation might have gone a long way toward making the deal work.

Seems no one wanted to do that, which makes Jon's theory sound the most plausible.

To be fair, they did negotiate, with both the city and the state. Amazon thought they had a deal. Part of the deal that DeBlasio and Cuomo made was bypassing the local land use process.

The deal just needed to be ratified by the state senate. Then the senate majority leader, who happens to be my state senator and got my vote 3 months ago, effectively reneged on the state deal by putting the queens senator who was against the deal in charge of the committee that was going t approve or disapprove the deal.

By the way, he wouldn’t even meet with Amazon executives. Would only send staff.

DeBlasio and Cuomo decided to whore themselves to Amazon--a company that does not need public assistance of any kind yet has the chutzpah to demand breaks--by skirting land use processes without input from the politicians who represent the area. Yeah, tough cheese, they got what they deserve.

It's well past time we stop kowtowing to these large corporate bullies with their sense of entitlement. I applaud the local politicians who did their job. If only every locality said, "enough!". If Amazon had any sense of decency they would have worked with Queens and the city on the problems that their move would cause for a great many people.

I cannot muster up any sympathy for Cuomo or DeBlasio on this, they ****** it up. As for Amazon, meh, let them bully someone else. PJ has given us a vivid description of what it's like to have politicians in this behemoth's pocket.

So, in other words, they DID negotiate, you just don’t like the product of the negotiation. And you think they didn’t negotiate with the right people, although it would certainly seem like negotiating with the governor and the mayor is the right course of action.

I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Amazon, which, like any big corporation, tends to swing its weight around. At the end of the day, though, I expect New Yorkers will be worse off without that money and those jobs.

Fine by me if Virginians are better off ...

Naive, I know, but whatever happened to the notion of corporations as city-friendly partners? Had Amazon proposed even the slightest of civic-minded partnership, such as saying they would partially fund the subway repairs or whatever to deal with transportation problems, slate more jobs for lower-income residents, they would be in NYC today, and most likely be seen as heroes.

I have long been a believer in the notion that a rising tide takes all ships. I think this was a horrible missed opportunity for both sides.

New companies don't seem to be big on the whole "corporate citizenship" thing. Microsoft was healthy and profitable for years (maybe even a decade) before it created a corporate citizenship office.

amazon is much more comfortable with dictating what they want the city to do for them. They own 20% of the business real estate in the city of Seattle, so they are the 800 pound gorilla.

San Jose, the city of no incentives.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/15...o-incentives-for-you

LA didn't have a local football team for several years because the City of LA refused to kick in the incentives the NFL wanted. Turned out the opportunity was too good to miss and the stadium is being built with $5B in private money. LA and the State if CA will of course be collecting all appropriate taxes, which should help cover some of the cost of having a facility like this in town.

If being in NYC is half as important as everyone tells me it is then Amazon will be building there anyway and will be doing so with their own money. If they don't, then maybe being in NYC isn't so important after all.

Meanwhile, the VA deal looks a lot cleaner to me. The handout is lower and I understand there is a lot of vacant office space in the area left over from when a couple of government agencies left a few years back. The local infrastructure is already close to sufficient size and the talent pool is either there or would like to live there. Much less disruptive and might even benefit the area.

A hundred pundits have written a hundred different opinions, but it seem to me that the big mistake NYC made was to fast track negotiations and cut out local voices. Had local concerns been addressed in the deal I suspect it would have gone thorough.