Posted on 02/16/2019 4:34:20 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Bill de Blasio: The Path Amazon Rejected
It could have answered the concerns of citizens. Instead it bolted.
By Bill de Blasio
Mr. de Blasio is mayor of New York City.
Feb. 16, 2019
The first word I had that Amazon was about to scrap an agreement to bring 25,000 new jobs to New York City came an hour before it broke in the news on Thursday.
The call was brief and there was little explanation for the company’s reversal.
Just days before, I had counseled a senior Amazon executive about how they could win over some of their critics. Meet with organized labor. Start hiring public housing residents. Invest in infrastructure and other community needs. Show you care about fairness and creating opportunity for the working people of Long Island City.
There was a clear path forward. Put simply: If you don’t like a small but vocal group of New Yorkers questioning your company’s intentions or integrity, prove them wrong.
Instead, Amazon proved them right. Just two hours after a meeting with residents and community leaders to move the project forward, the company abruptly canceled it all.
I am a lifelong progressive who sees the problem of growing income and wealth inequality. The agreement we struck with Amazon back in November was a solid foundation. It would have created: at least 25,000 new jobs, including for unionized construction and service workers; partnerships with public colleges; and $27 billion in new tax revenue to fuel priorities from transit to affordable housing — a ninefold return on the taxes the city and state were prepared to forgo to win the headquarters.
The retail giant’s expansion in New York encountered opposition in no small part because of growing frustration with corporate America.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Amazon now says they will build in Pyongyang, citing better business climate and less regulation and taxes.
Typical socialist twit - it’s not MY fault - it’s their fault.
Hey Bill — suck on it.
trying to save his loudmouthed congress woman girl friend
“Instead it bolted.”
Uh, NYT, despite Bezos being a total dork, he does have superb business sense, which is why he bailed.
Look up business sense, oh genius journalists.
It’s something that your group has no clue about.
My God! Can’t believe it. 25k jobs? Ain’t good enough? Stupid enough to be Republicans.
“Start hiring public housing residents.” Gee, there’s a tag line you see on Indeed ads. It really is different world that Mayor Bill lives in with his voters.
Amazon offering NYC potential for huge financial boon and DeBlassio accuses them of not kissing enough ass while doing so.
Isn't Bill a wealthy person who participates in wealth inequality? How about giving the bulk of your wealth away to make things more equal or are you a typical liberal hypocrite?
Good move, dumb@ss.
Amazon was coming in offering 25,000 jobs. At $15 per hour or better. Your “magic” number for minimum wage was granted faster than you can do it anywhere else in the city.
It still wasn’t good enough. You and AOC insisted on even more than you originally demanded, eventually causing your bailout company to run for greener pastures.
You and all other Democrats won’t be happy until the populace is dependent on you for food so that they can be entirely, completely, and utterly at your command. Just like Democrats 200 years ago on the plantations.
Yet you think that all of us are stupid enough to believe that you’re “shocked” by Amazons business sense.
Bill is anything but “progressive”.
They must have crunched the numbers on the payoffs needed and decided that they were too high.
When Commies collide.
I had counseled a senior Amazon executive about how they could win over some of their critics. Meet with organized labor. Start hiring public housing residents. Invest in infrastructure and other community needs. Show you care about fairness and creating opportunity for the working people of Long Island City.
That's good advice, coming from a lifelong parasite.
It made no sense to bring up to 40,000 jobs at $100K avg into an area with corrupt politics, the Mob, public scolds among the entertainment industry nitwits, and a rising cost of living, unless one doesn't care about the viability of ones business.
Have you seen "public housing residents"? Most of the ones I've seen do not look like people you want to hire. Why do you think they're in public housing in the first place? Because they are well educated geniuses? The proximity of a public housing project on a major shopping street in my area makes it a far less desirable place to shop. You have people hanging out on the sidewalk at all hours, when normal people are working. You have them discarding trash like the sidewalks and streets are just one big garbage can. If you listen to them speaking, you can immediately eliminate them from a shot at next year's Nobel Prize in science. Just another one of DumblASSio's libtard delusions.
Amazon thought they had a deal; then they saw there would be endless, ill-defined, and likely never ending demands that would escalate the more they invested and became committed.
Also, whether Cuomo paid too much is a separate question than the tax expenditures which would be based on income earned. Now those 25,000 people won’t be employed; construction won’t occur, and the multiplier effect won’t happen. People like DeB and AOC don’t understand that.
With sports stadiums, sometimes the overpayment aspect of bread and circuses is clearer, because there are state-backed bond issues. None of that was at play here. It was a pure injection into the greater NYC economy—take it or leave it.
I'm sure all of us went on enough first dates with crazy people and never went on a second date. As the old saying goes, "You only get one chance to make a first impression."
These crazy New Yorkers would have made Amazon's life in NY pure hell forever. Why put up with that. Amazon was right to walk away based on this crappy first impression.
Instead, Amazon proved them right. Just two hours after a meeting with residents and community leaders to move the project forward, the company abruptly canceled it all.
Wow. Just wow.
‘Progressive’, as in the ‘progress’ the socialists made in Venezuela..
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