Amazon Seeking 2nd Headquarters: Canadian Cities Pitch Interest

[kwoldtimer]

It would be hard to find fault with the choice if it turned out to be Boston, istm.

[ssiguy]

I agree with Boston having a good chance as well as Washington. Chicago and Philly have a lot going for them but they don't come close to offering the quality of life needed to get and keep a skilled workforce ie astronomical crime/murder rates.

Both Boston and Washington offer a high quality of life, have a very skilled workforce, excellent universities, good transit, and transit to their airports.

Frankly I still think Toronto has more going for it than either due to the added benefit of Canada's much lower corporate tax rates and the dollor "subsidy" which allows Amazon to hire 50,000 Canadian workers for the same price as they would get hiring just 40,000 Americans.

Of course the big problem is Trump's "America first, second, and last" economic policy so setting up shop in Canada maybe too politically unpalatable.

[jmt18325]

Toronto is probably the best fit - but if the company executives prefer Boston....

[isaidso]

^^ Have Amazon executives indicated that?

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Of course the big problem is Trump's "America first, second, and last" economic policy so setting up shop in Canada maybe too politically unpalatable.

Bezos hates Trump and the US has been the beneficiary of many Canadian companies moving their HQ to the US.

Seagram was a Montreal company but was run out of New York. Thomson-Reuters is a Toronto company but run out of Connecticut. Potash Corp of Saskatchewan is based in that province but run out of Chicago. Lions Gate Films is a Vancouver company that is run out of LA. Then there are all the tech start ups that move to the US because the US based VC companies encourage that to happen.

Amazon is a higher profile company than any of those but the US shouldn't complain now that the shoe is on the other foot. They've been the biggest beneficiary of this sort of thing for decades.

[TorontoDrew]

I wonder if they will announce a short list. That's when the competition will really gear up.

[isaidso]

^^ Some analysts have concluded that it's really a race between Denver, Atlanta, Washington, Toronto, Chicago, and Boston.

Originally Posted by kool maudit

If it's Canada it's Toronto. But it won't be Canada. Why would they introduce that level of regulatory disconnect? No Canadian advantage would be worth it; you can pretty much gerrymander yourself whatever sort of "Canadian" experience you want in the US. It's a big country.

I don't think it can be viewed as a move to Canada if the 2nd HQ comes here. It should be considered as the globalization of Amazon. They've pretty much set up a de facto HQ in London already. This is a case of a massive country wanting to capitalize on talent around the world and not being reliant on the whims/favourable conditions of any one nation.

Going to Toronto makes a lot of sense. They'd still have their Seattle HQ and many argue that Amazon will eventually be broken up if it continues to grow as it has. Having dual HQs would make a split easier. Shell has dual HQs as does Unilever and Molson-Coors.

[Me&You]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I can't find the article now but I was reading one this morning and it was saying its pretty much going to go to Denver, but the same article says that bezos just spent $23 million on a house in washington DC...

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

He bought the D.C. mansion in late 2016.

Bezos first bought the Washington Post in 2013.

[SaskOttaLoo]

Originally Posted by isaidso

^^ Some analysts have concluded that it's really a race between Denver, Atlanta, Washington, Toronto, Chicago, and Boston.



I don't think it can be viewed as a move to Canada if the 2nd HQ comes here. It should be considered as the globalization of Amazon. They've pretty much set up a de facto HQ in London already. This is a case of a massive country wanting to capitalize on talent around the world and not being reliant on the whims/favourable conditions of any one nation.

Going to Toronto makes a lot of sense. They'd still have their Seattle HQ and many argue that Amazon will eventually be broken up if it continues to grow as it has. Having dual HQs would make a split easier. Shell has dual HQs as does Unilever and Molson-Coors.

Is Molson-Coors really considered to have a dual HQ? Coors seems to be overwhelmingly dominating that 'merger'. In Colorado you're lucky if you can find Molson anywhere, whereas Bud and Coors have essentially replaced Molson and Blue as far as I can tell in Canada.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by SaskOttaLoo

Is Molson-Coors really considered to have a dual HQ? Coors seems to be overwhelmingly dominating that 'merger'. In Colorado you're lucky if you can find Molson anywhere, whereas Bud and Coors have essentially replaced Molson and Blue as far as I can tell in Canada.

There's an interesting discussion to be had - what beer is prevalent in your region?

Because in Vancouver I'd say Molson (Canadian) and Budweiser are tied at the top for visibility and consumption. Coors definitely lags, here behind Kokanee (Labatt). Blue has next to no shelf presence, and I've never actually seen someone drink one.

[SaskOttaLoo]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I agree with Boston having a good chance as well as Washington. Chicago and Philly have a lot going for them but they don't come close to offering the quality of life needed to get and keep a skilled workforce ie astronomical crime/murder rates.

Both Boston and Washington offer a high quality of life, have a very skilled workforce, excellent universities, good transit, and transit to their airports.

Frankly I still think Toronto has more going for it than either due to the added benefit of Canada's much lower corporate tax rates and the dollor "subsidy" which allows Amazon to hire 50,000 Canadian workers for the same price as they would get hiring just 40,000 Americans.

Of course the big problem is Trump's "America first, second, and last" economic policy so setting up shop in Canada maybe too politically unpalatable.

I sometimes wonder if Canada would actually do much better in terms of being able to build its own corporate champions without the option of NAFTA visas making it easy to lure top Canadian down south. Yes, Canada is easier to attract new talent to north America, but after Canada has invested in new immigrants to build their language skills, etc., it's really easy to shift them down to the US...

In my own experience, right before Trump was inaugurated, bringing a Canadian to the US was easy peasy. In our own experience, it is way easier to get a Canadian to move down to the US than vice versa. So would Amazon really gain that much by placing a 2nd HQ in Canada vs. somewhere else in the US? I'm skeptical, especially considering all of the additional headache that the cross-border complexity would bring. The US has designed its tax system to make it quite difficult for benefits to leak out, much more so than Canada has.

[SaskOttaLoo]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

There's an interesting discussion to be had - what beer is prevalent in your region?

Because in Vancouver I'd say Molson (Canadian) and Budweiser are tied at the top for visibility and consumption. Coors definitely lags, here behind Kokanee (Labatt). Blue has next to no shelf presence, and I've never actually seen someone drink one.

That's interesting to hear. I became hilariously excited when I saw Blue being sold in on draft in a dive bar in Denver, and made a point of ordering one. Something I would NEVER do in Canada! In Colorado there really isn't a prevalent beer...there's so many microbreweries that it's completely different beers wherever you go.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

There's an interesting discussion to be had - what beer is prevalent in your region?

Because in Vancouver I'd say Molson (Canadian) and Budweiser are tied at the top for visibility and consumption. Coors definitely lags, here behind Kokanee (Labatt). Blue has next to no shelf presence, and I've never actually seen someone drink one.

With the big breweries Molson dominates in Quebec. Mostly Molson. Coors is a cheap beer you bring 55 cans of to a cottage week-end or a fishing trip. Bud is the most visible Labatt product now. Also seen as cheap swill.

[casper]

Interesting analysis.

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon...t-data-decide/

I would disagree with the placement of Vancouver at number 10.

Something about the cost of buying a home drove it down the list. Cant be true.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by SaskOttaLoo

I sometimes wonder if Canada would actually do much better in terms of being able to build its own corporate champions without the option of NAFTA visas making it easy to lure top Canadian down south. Yes, Canada is easier to attract new talent to north America, but after Canada has invested in new immigrants to build their language skills, etc., it's really easy to shift them down to the US...

In my own experience, right before Trump was inaugurated, bringing a Canadian to the US was easy peasy. In our own experience, it is way easier to get a Canadian to move down to the US than vice versa. So would Amazon really gain that much by placing a 2nd HQ in Canada vs. somewhere else in the US? I'm skeptical, especially considering all of the additional headache that the cross-border complexity would bring. The US has designed its tax system to make it quite difficult for benefits to leak out, much more so than Canada has.

At the end of the day, much of it is about money. I'm on a NAFTA visa working in the US as a lawyer. I know others in a similar situation (although they're usually in STEM). Many of us prefer Canada and many of us return to Canada, especially if you decide to have kids. Canadian cities are great. But god damnit, the salary discrepancy is enormous. Hard not to expect many young people who fit within the NAFTA visa jobs (mainly professionals) to do a stint in the US to get ahead financially.

[WhipperSnapper]

That's where you want to be as a lawyer. I don't think there's another place that promotes litigation and idolizes the profession as much as the US

[esquire]

^ There's plenty of litigation but that's only one dimension... there's just so much more business to keep lawyers busy. You drive down a few KM of any random arterial road in a place like Houston or LA and there's a chance you will pass more square footage of office space than in all of a mid-sized Canadian city. That's a hell of a lot of enterprise that requires advice on mergers and acquisitions, financing, employment and labour issues, real estate, securities, tax, you name it. I can see the appeal.

[WhipperSnapper]

Yeah, the US has more business so they need more lawyers. They also have a much larger population to produce many more lawyers. It all equals out. On the other hand, someone is far more likely to frivolously sue a doctor backed by a private, for profit insurer than a doctor backed by a public, non profit insurer.

[Vixx]

Originally Posted by casper

Interesting analysis.

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon...t-data-decide/

I would disagree with the placement of Vancouver at number 10.

Something about the cost of buying a home drove it down the list. Cant be true.

I posted this article a couple pages back.

[ACT7]

Will this new ranking help? Maybe, maybe not...

http://www.blogto.com/city/2017/09/t...centres-world/

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by ACT7

Will this new ranking help? Maybe, maybe not...

http://www.blogto.com/city/2017/09/t...centres-world/

Never mind the topic at hand: if Montreal really is the world's 12th-most important financial centre in the world, then...wow.

Kinda puts a crimp in the rightwing narrative about it having shot itself in the foot with its push over the past fifty years to protect its culture and language.