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Comment by watertom | Hacker News Reader

Amazon negotiated in bad faith and as such any deals should be voided. I'd like to NYC mayor call out Amazon instead of allowing the good people of NYC to be railroaded.

What the cities have submitted were nothing more than proposals, they are not contracts and are not binding. Considering the new information that has come to light mayor de Blasio.

More than anything Northern Virginia should withdraw their proposal, Amazon wants the Government cloud business so bad that Virginia has Amazon over a barrel.

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>I'd like to NYC mayor call out Amazon instead of allowing the good people of NYC to be railroaded...

To be honest this is part of the problem. The Mayor IS deadset against giving any subsidies, but it doesn't matter. The state politicians can still do whatever they want.

So you're talking about "the good people of NYC", but that's not the level at which the decisions are being made. Same thing happened to us in Wisconsin. Maybe you had some mayors around the state dead set against giving Foxconn anything, but Walker is the governor, (or WAS the governor rather), so it didn't matter.

In short, de Blasio can call out whatever he wants, but he'll get nowhere. (In fact he has been calling it out, and got nowhere with it anyway.)

The answer really is to put these deals to a vote. We need a law that makes it so that politicians can still make these deals, but they are null and void until approved by a popular referendum.

> More than anything Northern Virginia should withdraw their proposal, Amazon wants the Government cloud business so bad that Virginia has Amazon over a barrel.

Don't they already have this essentially locked in?

https://aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEc6kVAXSs8&feature=youtu.be...

Second link has the CIO of the CIA talking about it

It looks like the only public official who could change the terms now is Cuomo since he used unique powers of the NY governor's office to make the deal to override municipal laws. It might be possible for the state legislature to try to amend it but it's totally out of NYC officials' hands. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeff-bezos-is-right-at-home-in...

> I'd like to NYC mayor call out Amazon instead of allowing the good people of NYC to be railroaded.

The announcement goosed property values in Brooklyn and Queens. I wouldn't be on a call out anytime soon.

NYC is majority renter.

This renter is hoping and expecting it to put upward pressure on wages. The NYC metro area isn't the Bay Area, the incumbent landowners can't take all the surplus value.

I'm so confused by this. The people that negotiated these deals are perfectly content with what they got. You think Amazon said "jk, going to build two" and got the same deal?

Withdrawl would require politicians admitting they were duped. In NY, Democrats have a monopoly on power so they have no need to be responsive to voters.

Poppycock. One of the top stories from this election is how establishment NY Dems are facing a challenge from the left, e.g. Ocasio-Cortez who is critical of the Amazon deal.[1]

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-ama...

Cynthia Nixon was also a thorn in Cuomo's side during the primaries, and much further left.

This monopoly on power which exists in many states across the US is IMHO very bad. I always theorize that the US would be better if the red states voted blue and the blue states voted red.

Nothing would change. There's only one party in this country, the Property, War, & Corporate Party.

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