[brycesbeard]

I don’t think it’s clear it would bring in net revenue. Also, the idea of cities bidding for companies, using tax dollars, strikes a lot of people the wrong way.

I thought the consensus was that NYC is better off providing those incentives to smaller companies and not having hq2.

[chance_state]

Just from the wiki on HQ2:

>The subsidies offered to Amazon in New York include performance-based direct incentives of $1.525 billion based on whether the company created 25,000 jobs. This included a refundable tax credit through the state's Excelsior Program of up to $1.2 billion, calculated as a percentage of the salaries Amazon expects to pay employees over the following 10 years. Additionally, the Empire State Development Corporation would give Amazon a cash grant of $325 million based on the occupancy rates of HQ2 buildings over in the following 10 years.[47][73] Under an agreement with New York City's government, half of the property taxes for the city's HQ2 campus would be waived, and the exempt amount would go to the city's PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) fund to pay for infrastructure improvements in New York City.[74][75] Both states proposed that Amazon be given access to a helipad, and the New York state government also promised to upgrade infrastructure in conjunction with HQ2's construction there.[73]

Seems completely reasonable to me.

Then, some local politicians made public statements that showed that they either did not understand how the incentives would work or that they were willing to lie to get Amazon to leave.

Ex:

>New York governor Andrew Cuomo blamed Democrats in the New York State Senate for the cancellation, and New York City mayor de Blasio said that Amazon "threw away that opportunity," by making the announcement.[84][85] In response, Ocasio-Cortez stated: "If we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest $3 billion in our district ourselves if we want to. We could hire more teachers, we can fix our subways, we can put a lot of people to work for that money if we wanted to."[86][87][88] Mayor de Blasio, among others, criticized her, and those who had made similar remarks, for suggesting the money, mostly in the form of tax credits, was now free to be spent elsewhere.

[brycesbeard]

What about this seems reasonable? The positive ROI could easily be overwhelmed by quality of life changes for current residents. Also not clear that this type of tech hq is great for a neighborhood.

How beneficial is this kind of a deal, compared with the other options of what could be done w the resources?

There is also an ick factor of negotiations like this, between private for profit enterprises and governments. It sounds a bit like publicly funded sports stadiums, which have been very popular yet financially terrible.

[javagram]

“Consensus” is unclear here, there were public opinion polls that were favorable toward HQ2 at the time. https://nypost.com/2019/02/12/majority-of-new-yorkers-want-a...