Amazon Announces New Headquarters in Virginia and New York

Queens is generally not as expensive as the city (Manhattan) and a short commute from the suburbs.
The million dollar parking spots are in Manhattan.

Well that has been changing over the last few years. Manhattan has become too expensive for many so they have gone out to Queens. Quite a bit of new apartments either going up or renovating old factory type buildings. Existing residents in these areas have been complaining about the increasing cost in taxes as a result.
 
liberal west coast meet liberal east coast.

meanwhile Bezo's and his comrades will be speaking about diversity.
 
High tech talent has always leaned on the more progressive side, so naturally AMZN just chose the locations with large progressive talent pools with the suburban "quality" of life (better for families than big cities). Basically the east coast versions of the greater Seattle area and Silicon Valley minus the clout of venture capitalists but who cares since they aren't a startup, and now they also have a greater federal presence so maybe lobbying by proximity?
 
It might be different for total tax now that the federal brackets got shifted but I was counting ALL of the taxes combined (city, state, federal), not to mention the sales tax which is almost 9%. I have lots of friends who made $250 to $300 in NYC and they all left. After taxes, rent, utilities, you maybe have $60k to $70k for food, entertainment, transportation, etc... Food in NYC is double any other major city unless you love food carts and chipotle. NY is maybe somewhere you can live if you're single but as soon as you start to raise a kid you realize it's a joke. I know a guy still there, he pays $45k/yr for private school because the public schools are garbage.

Applying the Federal is pointless; it applies everywhere. Even then, the numbers are off; 6.85% Income Tax, the Sales/Use taxes come out to 8.875% on in-state purchases. It's the property taxes that suck more then anything these days.

And $60k takehome after all taxes are applied is still excellent,

As if NY real estate prices weren't insane already

Supply and Demand. More people with more money leads to inflation. People need to make more and more money just to stay where they are in society as a result.
 
I cannot fault Amazon because it does tend to put distribution centers in rural area where they desperately need jobs.
There is one just north of Chattanooga in a area where historically the main employer were textile mills. The mills disappeared with NAFTA and in the 90s and as Ross Perot said "That giant sucking sound is your jobs going to Mexico". (It is funny that nobody remembers that and that Perot accurately predicted the future). But at the same time; The HQs are going to Washingon DC and NY is nothing but ensconcing Amazon in the political machine to enhance it's lobbying efforts.
 
I cannot fault Amazon because it does tend to put distribution centers in rural area where they desperately need jobs.
There is one just north of Chattanooga in a area where historically the main employer were textile mills. The mills disappeared with NAFTA and in the 90s and as Ross Perot said "That giant sucking sound is your jobs going to Mexico". (It is funny that nobody remembers that and that Perot accurately predicted the future). But at the same time; The HQs are going to Washingon DC and NY is nothing but ensconcing Amazon in the political machine to enhance it's lobbying efforts.
I remember that. Perot knew what was what, but the sheep just laughed at the size of his ears.
 
This article makes the excellent point that this semi-ruse of Amazon playing the bachelor: city edition was also a massive data harvest -- they got an insane level of detailed data from 238 desperate cities just handed over to them - all kinds of proprietary information that wouldn't just be available publicly (real estate sites under development, local labor costs, etc) which they can now use for all sorts of other purposes. Nicely played I guess.
 
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I cannot fault Amazon because it does tend to put distribution centers in rural area where they desperately need jobs.
There is one just north of Chattanooga in a area where historically the main employer were textile mills. The mills disappeared with NAFTA and in the 90s and as Ross Perot said "That giant sucking sound is your jobs going to Mexico". (It is funny that nobody remembers that and that Perot accurately predicted the future). But at the same time; The HQs are going to Washingon DC and NY is nothing but ensconcing Amazon in the political machine to enhance it's lobbying efforts.


Except Amazon pays less and those workers get fewer benefits than similar jobs (which are typically unionized). Also just how many people do those centers employ? How many will they employ in 5 years when amazon is done automating the majority of the work? Its a job sure but its a step back into more grueling work for less pay.
 
But companies aren't going to care I said from the start that amazon should have put at least one headquarters in a place with a decent cost of living. They could have went to lots of big Midwest cities like Detroit put a facility in one of the decent suburbs and created a place where they could pay employees whom wanted a decent life 60k less to live like kings. Now that we know they are doing 2 headquarters its even more disturbing to think they only selected 2 other ultra high cost of living areas.

Amazon wont' want to put a HQ in a location no one wants to move to. They want to attract talent, not deter it.
 
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