State Chamber Update
Like many of you, I was surprised last week by the announcement from Amazon that it would drop its plans to locate a second headquarters in Long Island City of Queens. Thomas Grech, the Queens Chamber of Commerce President and CEO was interviewed and made clear that his office, and others, were still working with local homeowner groups, local leaders and other stakeholders to refine the details of any potential agreement. Here is a
link to the interview.
All of these deals are complicated, and, as he said, “…the lengths that we go to keep a company of 50 or 25 to stay in the City of New York would astound most people…” How far and generous state and local governments should go when trying to keep or attract businesses is debatable. The Wall Street Journal addressed this very topic
here and concluded, “Amazon was right to pull out of New York City, but it would have avoided a lot of grief if it had made its original headquarters decision on the business “fundamentals.” Something to ponder.
News You Can Use
Monday was quiet because of the federal holiday. However, economic data reporting heats up this week with the release of Q4 Household credit on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Consumer Price Index details for January are made public, and Thursday we’ll see December retail sales. On Friday, January retail sales figures come out, as well as last month’s industrial production numbers.
