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0 pointsicelancer7y ago0 comments

> Why is it morally better to get 100% of nothing than to participate in a project with incentives that give you 9 times return plus create 24-40k jobs?

Because people who rail against deals like this take zero responsibility for any of the consequences. It's all of the fun moral policing and none of the downside. It's great to be an activist.

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bilbo0s7y ago

In fairness, the real reason, at least in NYC...

is that they never end up in a situation where they get 100% of nothing. Google and Amazon have thousands of jobs in NYC, and they will move thousand more there in the future. For these people in NYC, they don't know the consequences of not having loads of places to work. For them, it really is a situation of "Heads we win! Tails we win slightly less!".

afiori7y ago

Well if Amazon could not find 25k employee in the given time they would not receive the 3 billions in tax relief

speedplane7y ago

> Well if Amazon could not find 25k employee in the given time they would not receive the 3 billions in tax relief

The problem of the deal wasn't the mechanics, it was how it was sold to the public. A competition putting cities against cities, negotiated without any public input, a large tax break to one of the richest companies in the world, choosing already popular cities rather than really investing in a newer one. Amazon could have definitely closed this deal if they pitched it properly.

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graycat7y ago

Yup. To get attention the activists want their shocking stories told, and to get eyeballs and ad revenue the media wants shocking stories to tell.

See my more general response along these lines in

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19236564

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