Bezos to city "Drop dead"

[Mega]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...ps-plan-ny-hq2

[Mega]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

[dcarrigg]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

What a sham that whole HQ2 process was. Cities, states, and provinces all over North America bent over and dropped trou to apply for vaporware. The fact they went through the whole process and didn't even select a single location for a second headquarters proved it. The fact that they're backing out of one of the two locations for smaller satellite facilities only drives the point home. They had no intention on ever building a second headquarters. Who has 2 HQs anyways? The whole thing was nothing but a way for them to get state and local government to put all the effort in to doing siting and incentive work for them to ultimately build the smaller satellite facilities which is all they were ever going to do in the first place. They had 238 bids for a new facility that was supposed to house over 50,000 jobs. And they picked none of them. Because it was all BS. Wouldn't be the first time they BS'd. Remember this one from 7 years ago?

[Mega]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

I think they "Woke" to the fact that AOC & Sideshow Bob were going to Tax rape them................& they did a runner

[dcarrigg]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

It wasn't ever gonna be a real HQ2 anyways.

I mean, as far as I recall, the timeline went like this:

1. Bezos asks cities in North America to whore themselves, err, bid, to become the location of a second headquarters that employs over 50k people.
2. 238 cities respond and bid.
3. Bezos announces a short-list of 20 finalists.
4. Bezos announces there will be no HQ2, but both NYC and NoVA will each get a consolation prize for being finalists, a fraction of the jobs for billions in incentives.
5. Surprise! Not building NYC after all. NoVA becomes the ultimate winner. Except the prize is a fraction of the size promised.

Even before step 5, by step 4, it was obvious this whole thing was a sham. Amazon never, ever had any intention whatsoever of building a 2nd HQ.

Like I said, who has 2 co-equal HQs anyways?

[vt]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

And Northern Virginia is right across the river from D.C., which may get some lobbying jobs.

What better antitrust protection!

[seobook]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

They did want to build in NYC as they have tons of engineering talent available there & that is the heart of the ad world. Google has spent billions buying NYC real estate & also announced expansion plans there recently.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...city-expansion
Google is also expanding in Northern Virginia & a bunch of other areas
https://blog.google/inside-google/co...-billion-2019/

As expensive as NYC is, it almost sounds reasonable when compared against Silicon Valley & the bay area
https://www.barrons.com/articles/wit...nd-51550079000
"While annual salaries, on average, have reached $140,000 per person -- or twice the national average of $68,000 -- they can't keep pace with an overheated housing market in which the median home is $1.2 million, up 21% year over year."

Large global cities outside of the US have been started taking a pass on tech co expansion
https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-...ups-1540403236

And there is a real risk the Internet begins to splinter as Europe keeps layering on regulations on the US tech companies & more emerging markets admirably look at China's success growing home-grown winners in the Internet economy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/t...an-giants.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/t...ensorship.html

[Mega]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

AOC (the Ex Bar tender) & friends have killed this!

[dcarrigg]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

Just seems to me there's a broader trend at work. GE pulled out of its deal with Boston. Foxconn pulled out of Wisconsin, then got a call from the President, and maybe is back on track under duress, but we'll see. Electrolux canceled expansion plans in Tennessee. Trump's own org cancelled hotel projects. Paramount, Activision, and EBay announced mass layoffs. GM, Nissan, Tesla and Goodyear announced mass layoffs. Kaiser announced mass layoffs. So did AT&T. Vice, Buzzfeed, Huffpost, and Gannett announced mass layoffs. Bank of NY Melon & State Street announced mass layoffs. And that's all in the last couple of weeks. Everyone from Krugman to Dimon to Dalio is talking recession, and all the corporate mucky-mucks heard it at Davos last month and then again in Dubai a few days ago. They've all settled on late this year or next year. EU cut growth forecasts. Type of thing that can self-fulfill.

[Mega]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

Long over due..........
Ford is pulling out of Blighty, seeing how Landrover don't want their engines any more

[jk]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

amazon could easily go across the OTHER river bordering manhattan. i'm sure cory booker would be glad to grease the move. jersey city, with PATH service to manhattan, is as accessible as Long Island City in queens.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

amazon could easily go across the OTHER river bordering manhattan. i'm sure cory booker would be glad to grease the move. jersey city, with PATH service to manhattan, is as accessible as Long Island City in queens.

That's the whole point, right?

If you really wanted a 2nd HQ with over 50k employees, and 238 bids came in, you'd have to figure you'd want to put it somewhere nearby.

NJ offered $5 billion in tax incentives for Jersey City, more than NY. And you're right, it's just as accessible to lower Manhattan as LIC.

The fact that Amazon chose "none of the above" and instead is only building a less than half-sized satellite facility in Crystal City next to the Pentagon tells me that they never planned on building any 50,000+ person HQ2 in the first place.

Or, to be as charitable as I can, maybe they thought the tech run-up would continue unabated and the fact that their stock's down $400+ per share from where it was 6 months ago caused them to tap the brakes on their expansion forecasts.

Either way, one of the largest corporations in the USA doesn't just cancel all their plans for a giant headquarters because a single freshman congresswoman said mean things about them. These guys buy and sell Congressional majorities. The idea that a couple low-level pols who were bartenders three months ago could scare Amazon out of building a second headquarters is farcical enough to be a comedy skit.

The guy owns the Post for chrissakes. He can spin anything anyway he wants. The lowest-ranking congressperson out of 435 isn't gonna break this camel's back.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Bezos to city "Drop dead"

2018 figures are in. News orgs lost 11,878 jobs, vs 4,062 in 2017. Fewer PE funds (20% fewer) raised more capital (20% more) and executed more deals (7% more) than 2017. Payless just bit the dust nationwide. Dairy's doing awful. New England Motor Freight went down locally. Shiller's pointing out recession risk now too, with the same sort of 'late this year; early next year' timeframe.