Ocasio-Cortez Victory: Amazon Won’t Build Headquarters in New York City
AOC actively protested against the development, which would have brought thousands of jobs & development to her district.
Amazon announced today that it will not build a second headquarters in New York City.
This is a political victory for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who opposed the deal, but that victory may be short-lived. Though the campus would not have been in her district, it would have been in Long Island City in a neighboring district. There would have been a large spillover effect of jobs and economic benefit in her own district.
From The Wall Street Journal:
“While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City,” the company said.
The decision to abandon its new headquarters in Long Island City marks a stunning reversal. Amazon spent a year conducting a public search for a second headquarters, in which hundreds of locations vied for a shot at a promised 50,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment.
Amazon stop its search for another headquarters spot. The company decided to add more more “jobs at its other headquarters location in Northern Virginia, as well as offices in Nashville and other tech hubs around the country.”
Just last week, Ocasio-Cortez celebrated when doubts started to spring up over the development, especially when state Sen. Mike Gianaris won a spot on the “state board that would allow him to veto the development plan.”
Can everyday people come together and effectively organize against creeping overreach of one of the world’s biggest corporations?
Yes, they can.https://t.co/DqQoL7VH7O
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 8, 2019
Eric Benaim, the CEO of Long Island based brokerage Modern Spaces, told Forbes NYC would make a mistake saying no to Amazon:
“By saying no to Amazon, New York City is essentially saying ‘no’ to any company that would consider coming to the city to do business,” Benaim said. “If we, as a city, reject this deal, we will send the message that New York City is closed for business.
Benaim has been a resident of Long Island City since 2006 and calls himself an “ambassador” for the city.
“If the Amazon deal falls through, it not only effects Long Island City but also New York City as a whole,” Benaim said. “Other businesses won’t be attracted to the area because they will know NYC kicked out the biggest company and rejected the biggest economic impact in the history of the state.”
Real Estate Board of New York President John H. Banks agreed:
And that economic impact would be huge. According to John H. Banks, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, Amazon’s pullout would mean losing out on tax revenues, jobs and overall economic growth across all five boroughs.
“From generating tens of billions in new tax revenue, to creating good-paying jobs, to supporting the real estate market, to making our economy more resilient, this project is absolutely critical for New York,” Banks said. “It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to position our city and our economy for the future.”
Losing HQ2 would cost Long Island City and greater New York up to 40,000 jobs. Estimated revenues over the next 25 years from a local Amazon headquarters are estimated at $27.5 billion.
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Comments
You know, if the City and state lowered taxes and dumped a bunch of those pointless regs, you wouldn’t need to do massive giveaways to get businesses to move in.
Fascist! Wrecker! Hoarder! Capitalist Lackey Running Dog! Yankee Air Pirate!* How dare you impugn the sheer intellectual and moral perfection of communism!
*I used to wear a Yankee Air Pirate patch on my flight jacket when I was in the Navy, even though I wasn’t in a paid flight status and indeed never got a hop with my squadron. Have I told you about No Loc Doc? I spent plenty of hours in USN and USMC helos (good guys all) but not a minute in Tomcats in flight. So I figure because of the time I spent in Sea Kings and Hueys I qualify as a Yankee Air Pirate,
People in her district don’t need jobs because they are certain she will find money for them so that they do not have to work.
“You didn’t build that”
But no one mentions the implicit violence directed at future Amazon employees. AOC, Antifa and others were ready to attack tech workers, especially if Asian. And people moving into new apartments or condos would be called names and made miserable for gentrifying the hood.
Amazon employees didn’t want to be in a place where they would have targets on their backs and where the mayor who would order the police to let the thugs have their fun.
New York returning to the 70’s.
The collapse of the [Amazon] deal is a victory, though, for the anti-gentrification, anti-development Left, which will be replace by the “Green New Deal”-s rebuilding of all buildings [for free] proposal.
Wait a second .. the “Green New Deal”-s rebuilding of all buildings [for free] proposal will cause massive gentrification .. unless the rebuilt buildings are done badly.
Ahh .. there’s the secret.
AOC must have missed that day in Econ class when they discuss the multiplying effect of bringing in 40,000 direct jobs out of the blue. Those 40,000 jobs represent 40,000 people – and their families – and more jobs and people to support those families – and more housing which creates more jobs – and all the services to support the business along with all those new workers and families – and all the infrastructure and the jobs necessary to build it, etc. etc. etc.
.
And keep in mind that all of these people and all of these new businesses pay all kinds of taxes. Not one of them will be looking for government assistance. Not one of them will need AOC.
.
In addition, they will need new bars and restaurants which will be good for AOC, since the only thing she’s qualified to do is food and beverage service. That’ll be important in two years when she’s looking for a new job.
I think she felt secure enough now to burn that bar waitress bridge behind her.
Not one of them will be looking for government assistance. Not one of them will need AOC.
Nailed it. The economic downsides are beside the point as far as AOC and her kind are concerned.
“Not one of them will need AOC” That’s why Amazon had to be stopped.
“AOC must have missed that day in Econ class when they discuss the multiplying effect of bringing in 40,000 direct jobs out of the blue.”
But that’s Patriarchal Economics.™ So that’s bad. Or something.
Missed that day?? Hell, considering collage academics professors today? They probably never covered it.
Besides her new Green Deal says you can get paid even if you don’t want to work, so why do we need to have jobs anyways?! Just print the money!
Hell, NYC, print more money. That’s AOC’s solution. Besides, people don’t need to work; the government will provide for them. No planes, no cars, no fossil fuels, no heat, no light, no life. What do NYers want jobs and money for?
A one woman wrecking crew.
Amazon is afraid they would eventually be forced to pay taxes in New York.
Amazon does not pay taxes. That is for little people.
They are the Leona Helmsley of Companies.
Their employees do. So do the satellite companies that spring up around every one of these megacorporate sites. So do the apartment building owners who house their workers.
Historically, AMZN has not paid much in the way of corporate income tax because the company has had very few profitable years since its founding in 1994. The company has been able to fund its rapid growth and horizontal expansion by selling equity and debt like few other companies have ever been able to do.
Just because the company hasn’t paid income taxes doesn’t mean that it doesn’t pay property taxes and that its hundreds of thousands of employees don’t pay income taxes.
While average earnings for employees of AMZN are actually rather low due to the large number of low skill warehouse jobs, the jobs that would have been comping to NY were slated to be higher paying white collar jobs that would have resulted in significant taxes for the city and state.
Amazon coming to NYC is a bad thing. The failure here is good all around.
However, don’t count NYC out. They might wake up and re-look at it. But it could be a win – AOC gets labeled as an economic destroyer (which her socialist policies are – although the subsidies offered were wrong and ridiculous) and Amazon doesn’t get a chokehold on the NYC media market.
Further they could instead locate in DC area – just as bad.
Perhaps you missed it, the other new HQ location is Northern Virginia… in Arlington I believe.
It is hard to do business on a large scale, like making a deal with the state, when the local greedy palms need to be greased. Governor Cuomo got blinded sided because he did not understand the local opposition. New York City has among the highest cost of living in the nations, and is totally union town.
So, what we see as good for her constituents is bad for her political career. I see her on the Al Sharpton career path.
Sadly, it will still get built in a blue state.
Although I agree that the tax breaks should not be legal, I would prefer that the venture occurs, then have a class action lawsuit by any store selling items in the city against both the city and Amazon arguing the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment requires that all citizens be treated equally (and the court has already labeled companies as having rights similar to people).
The Congresswoman is so intent on saving the world from total destruction in 12 years that she forgot the most important part of her job: to economically improve her district by either bringing tax money back from DC or attracting new businesses. Good job AOC. I am sure that your constituents will be very pleased that for all the tax money they are sending to DC with every paycheck nothing is being returned. Saving the world won’t end up being as important.
The company decided to add more more “jobs at its other headquarters location in Northern Virginia”
Events in Washington DC are becoming critical to Amazon’s expansion. Relatively speaking, NYC is the hinterland.
Yep. They’re going to want a lot more lobbyists and lawyers to fight off the antitrust actions that are inevitably coming their way. If they’re going to have that many people in DC anyway, they might as well put an HQ there too.
40,000 still unemployed people cheer in the warm glow of being morally right…
Striking a blow for the unwilling to work.
This was the project which was to be exempted from over $3 BILLION dollars in city and state income taxes, for company executives, as well as receive government money for educational programs hosted by the company, by one of the richest companies in the world, which has been infamous for paying its regular employees so little that many of them were on government assistance while working for the company.
Would placing this facility, even with 25,000 onsite employees making an average salary of $150,000, actually generate the kind of sustainable revenue that the city and state projected? It is doubtful that most of these executives would actually reside in Long Island City, or even in New York. As this is not a facility, like a shopping center, which will generate commercial traffic which is likely to spill over into the surrounding community, how much local business will it stimulate? Then there are the infrastructure improvements that will likely have to be made to handle the increased traffic generated by 25,000 – 40,000 employees going to and from work everyday.
This facility may have been beneficial to the area. Then again, it might not have been. But, if this was really a desirable location for Amazon, then I would think that it would have gone ahead with the project anyway.
I think AMZN underestimated “progressive” local opposition and the fact that a NY pol who has been vocally opposed to the project was just appointed to the Public Authorities Control Board which would oversee the project was the end for them. More hassle than it was worth.
What I can’t understand is how they missed this sentiment during their due diligence process.
Amazon made their initial decision based on tax rebates, then found out that the next tier of politicians will require their workforce to be unionized. Of course, they can’t state this as a reason to withdraw, else be labeled anti-union.
We all now that the sagacious, benevolent and self-reverential Dumb-o-crat apparatchiks in Big Government create jobs and prosperity for the proletariat.
Who cares about the private sector, comrades?
This nitwit (the ex barmaid), and the jihadi from Minnesota, haven’t learned the old time democrats’ modus operandi of never divulging the truth behind their vacuous pronouncements.
They know that they have to appeal to the brain dead low information swing voters, so they are careful to never let on what their true intentions are.
These two bimbos are so full of themselves and their newfound status that they haven’t yet learned to lie properly about their true intentions.
It must be driving the democratic leadership crazy to have to follow along behind these two ninnies like the the guy with the shovel and trashcan behind the Budweiser Clydesdales.
Mission accomplished, Gidget!
Between DeBlasio and this moron, New York deserves all the misery it’s getting.
Seems to me I read somewhere that the speculative property prices spiked when Amazon said they MIGHT build there. Too tired and lazy to look it up right now.
If my memory is correct, then those who sold are happy, those who bought are screwed, and those who decided to hold out and sell later are REALLY disappointed.
Oh well, not my problem either way.
You know those times when from the sidelines you go: “It’s too bad they can’t all loose.”
Policy, principles, reality — who knows? Politically, all the right people lost on this one, all at once.
#moarpopcorn
This was in the end about “Who, whom.”
Bezos wants to call the shots because he’s rich, and jobs, and so on. Get enough activity and salaries, and even the Seattle Socialists will back off on their big-company employee excise tax when The Company That Owns The Town throws a brush-back pitch. (Headquarders II — “Nice city you re-arranged for our HQ, there, Seattle. Would be a shame if anything happened to it…” BTW, how’s that trolly they put in working out … you know, economically?)
The New York model is knee-cap anything that’s making progress, then subsidize what’s left. The patronage game is that you get to make progress as long as they get their tasts. Let something work outside the interlocking system of commissions, authorities, and agencies, and people might wonder what all that machinery is for.
Bezos comes in with some value that he thinks will leave him calling the shots, while the Prconsul and DeBozo establish patronage that they think will leave them calling the shots. (Cuomo-the-Younger and DeBozo’s pissing contest: fighting over who gets to be patron.) Meanwhile all the interest groups t-up with the standard “We’ll block this until we get out taste.”
Who, whom: no ground broken, no penalties n Bezos can pull out if he’s not getting his way. Meanwhile the Overlords keep cranding up the rake-offs on an operation they think they bought fair and square.
Who, whom is the only thing this was ever about, really.
It’s actually very sad for New Yorkers. It would have begun the recovery from the damage DeBlasio and his ilk have caused.
New York has a habit of spending itself into oblivion, then crying to the federal govenment *the rest of us) for money.
Remember?
In a speech before the National Press Club on October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford denies the near-bankrupt New York City a federal bailout, prompting the New York Daily News to run the infamous “Drop Dead” headline the next day.
https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/ford-to-city-drop-dead-video
Rudy Guilani rescued New York. Now, limosine liberals tanked it again.
My sources tell me that AOC has plans to use the grounds slated for Amazon for the “Long Island City People’s Truck Garden Collective #5 Project”, an ambitious program to provide sustainable vegan dietary fare to the poor who, owing to the short-sightedness and greed of the corporate fat cats who run the country, can’t find work with a living wage.
Growler086 @growler086 5h5 hours ago
Replying to @nahmias @NY1 @AOC
On today’s episode of Ask A Bartender…..
@AOC responding to criticism that by Amazon pulling out of HQ2 in Queens, 25,000 jobs were lost: “We were subsidizing those jobs.”
Says if state/city was willing to “give away $3 billion for this deal,” investments can be made in hiring teachers and fixing the subway.
— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) February 14, 2019
KennyG @kkg63
Replying to @ArtieKGB @akarl_smith @AOC
The $3 billion doesn’t exist. Amazon would be getting tax breaks IF and ONLY IF they located the HQ in New York. So NY just kissed over $3.8 billion in annual wages goodbye not to mention the income tax revenue those jobs create.
“On today’s episode of Ask A Bartender…”
Gidget, I served with bartenders.
I know bartenders.
Bartenders are friends of mine.
Gidget, you’re no bartender.
Well that reminds me a of a joke, in walks the bar a rapist, an infanticide murder and a rapist…..oops, that is not a bar, that is Virginia government.
AOC and her GND will cause more damage than an EMP
I’m looking at the picture associated with the post and I philosophize. Occasional-Cortex would make a far better stripper than congressional rep. For most people. It seems to me that a pole dancer is exactly what the voters in her NYC district deserve.
I tend to have this conversational-killing effect and I don’t know why. Occasional-Cortex is a ditz. Does that mean I think all women are ditzes? Really? I think Marie Curie was a ditz? It would be similar to say I lump Mother Theresa in with Hillary Clinton in the same moral category because they both had ovaries.
Not going to happen. Please do not go beyond what the evidence can support.