Posted on 02/14/2019 1:55:23 PM PST by Mariner
Notch another victory for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The freshman Democratic representative celebrated online retailer Amazon’s decision Thursday to scrap its plans to build a new headquarters in her New York City district.
“I think it’s incredible,” Ocasio-Cortez responded when asked to comment on Amazon’s about-face. “It shows that everyday Americans still have the power to organize and fight for their communities and they can have more say in this country than richest man in the world.”
Earlier Thursday, the company announced it was reversing the plan, announced in November, to build new East Coast headquarters buildings in New York City and in Arlington, Virginia. The Virginia part of the plan will go ahead. The company said it would not look for a new location to replace the cancelled $2.5 billion project.
"After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” Amazon spokeswoman Jodi Seth said in a statement.
Ocasio-Cortez was one of the leaders of the fight against the proposed deal, largely over the $3 billion in tax breaks the city and state promised the company.
New York’s chronic shortage of housing and the overburdened mass transit system were also cited by opponents.
The deal would have meant an estimated 25,000 new jobs for the city.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
She really is a dope, experienced rats would have secretly extorted money out of them for their cause
What are you trying to do - scare away the riff-raff?
You may get early and/or late snow some years in Buffalo, but you also get 60 degrees in December (like it was last month) and it was 40 the other day (in February)
How stupid can you be? Proud of driving multi millions of tax revenue out of your area, the people who elected her deserve what they got. The RATS would do this everywhere given the chance.
They are putting a brave face on it, but the interviews that I’m seeing on the news tonight (politicians, locals, etc.) just never believed this could be the outcome. The city could continue its downward spiral, and continue to morph into a playground for 1%ers. The tolls, mass transit fares, high taxes, and congestion pricing are making it inevitable. Florida isn’t stealing NY taxpayers; NY is chasing them out as quickly as possible.
When Americans see those crowds of foreign-looking anti-Amazon protesters that can show up any time during a weekday while the rest of us are working, they need to understand those people are only there because our taxes are paying their rents, buying their food, and paying for their schools. They don’t want jobs; they are parasites who want a company (since taxpayers are tapped out) to just come in and fix and maintain their neighborhoods - while they sit on their arses and watch.
There were valid reasons to oppose the Amazon move into the area; the people on the news tonight (on both sides of the argument) are now pondering what this means now that Amazon isn’t coming.
You raise a good point here. Her Congressional District in NY (the 14th) borders the district in which the new Amazon HQ was going to be built so she didn't have any real connection.
That said, she might have tried to reach out to the community relations people at Amazon to see if there was anything she might do to help them grease the skids.
Doubtful that would have had anything more than negligible positive effect, but anything is possible.
But, of course, she didn't even try to have a positive impact. She instead did what socialists do, she tried her best to destroy the whole new HQ deal.
After mulling this issue overnight, I came to the conclusion that socialists may not even know how to work for positive outcomes.
For example, her Green New Deal really isn't about anything positive despite some anodyne statements about a green world. It is all about the destruction of the energy, transportation, housing, food, etc. industrial infrastructure that now exists.
Wants to tax everyone to the slums and cheers when a huge tax source opts out...that’s some real smarts...
This is what the “Green New Deal” is really about: “The outline states up front that a Green New Deal must not only “promote justice and equity” but also seek to repair harm and prevent future injury to those most vulnerable to climate change and the fossil fuel economy — namely communities of color, indigenous peoples, migrants, rural communities, the poor, people with disabilities, the elderly, and young people.”
It is about taking “green” from makers and giving it to takers - but only non-white ones.
Wrong, wrong wrong.
This was the biggest local crony capitalism corruption in history. $3B to Amazon for 25,000 low-wage jobs is $120K per job.
Even AOC apparently can stumble into being right once in a while.
“Man on the street”, that’s her rally cry. They won’t have jobs so, yes, they will be “on the street.” Thank you Occasionally Conscious”
I keep hearing that claim but no facts to support it.
Sounds more like the typical complaints from disgruntled employees, which every employer has.........
The way I understand it her “community” is the poor, dispossed and powerless. So the more there are the larger her community is -so more votes for her.
She’s a typical Leftist/Democrat. Keeping people down to acquire and retain power.
“This was the biggest local crony capitalism corruption in history. $3B to Amazon for 25,000 low-wage jobs is $120K per job.”
Abject ignorance.
Those jobs had an average annual salary of over $100k. The were HQ jobs...knowledge workers and IT.
That would mean $2.5bil PER YEAR of new income to the district, at least $750bil over 30 years, assuming no inflation.
That’s an extraordinarily positive impact and enormous rate of return on the initial $3bil in forgone revenue.
Talk about ignorance.
Even when companies move to suck up those subsidies—and this one had to be a record, they overwhelmingly don’t keep to their hiring promises or close down shop as soon as they legally can.
Just look at what GE announced yesterday as well:
https://www.boston.com/news/business/2019/02/14/ge-to-downsize-boston-headquarters
A city like NY is so built up that that is also not new income, but rather a displacement of other jobs and incomes within the city border. Especially it would push out lots of tech startup viability:
PS $100K+ is not high-paying in NYC, it is barely middle class.
Who cares about the lost jobs? She will give you a guaranteed government job!
More jobs means fewer people in need of government, thus fewer RAT voters. Party over people.
From the article you cited...
“In Amazon’s (AMZN) announcement on Tuesday, the tech giant said it would invest $5 billion in two new headquarters, each sprawled across 4 million square feet, and create over 50,000 jobs, with workers in both locations earning an average of $150,000 a year.
That’s significantly more than the $129,000 tech workers earn on average in New York City and the $116,000 tech workers earn on average in the Washington, D.C. area, according to Hired. Expect tech salaries in general to trend upwards as a result, predicts Mehul Patel, CEO of Hired, which counts Amazon as a business client. “
The median household income is $54k.
Yet, over 30 years this adds up to over $1 trillion in new income for LI City. All in exchange for forgoing $3bil in tax revenue, and that’s revenue they are not going to receive anyway.
And, just how does your delusion conclude this displaces other jobs?
You sound like AOC.
No, pal. You don’t understand how local skilled-labor markets work. You just don’t. If Amazon does actually pay that (and they tend to be both cheap and dishonest where their workers are concerned), they will effectively price a lot of startups out of the market for local tech talent.
And no reason Amazon should be getting massive tax subsidies while other tech employers aren’t.
That said, I love the way the NY "leadership" is pissed as hell that Amazon backed off.....
Absolutely!
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