What bugs me about NYC running Amazon out of town... Let me tell you what I know as an ex-New Yorker. New York is full of loud mouth, know-it-all types... until, like with the Amazon screw-up, results prove maybe they were wrong all along.
AOC, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, looked very sheepish when reporters stopped her in the halls of Congress with Amazon questions. She called it a victory for "every day people" against Jeff Bezos. She affirmed that the stood up to the richest man in the world.
Stood up to Bezos? Bezos took his ball and moved the game to Nashville, TN and Arlington, Virginia. He walked away from the deal when it looked like New York politicians, etc.,, prepared themselves to rake him over the coals. Now they can fight and curse among themselves and put up billboards in Times Square attacking possibly the stupidest political decision ever made.
Giving up 25,000 jobs and $27 billion in projected income does not sound like a victory. Smells more like regret. New York governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill Deblasio of NYC, more seasoned Democrats, were excited to offer Amazon a deal. They wanted to bring jobs to Queens, NY and the average salaries were said to be upwards of $150,000 per year. That wasn't good enough
I tried to delve into the protests against Amazon from the left and the roots of their discontent. Maybe it's connected to the way New York City is actually thriving these days with a combination of immigrant energy and white flight back to the city.
I wondered if a weird nostalgia for the old New York can be the cause for leftist confusion. In the 50s, when I was a kid in Manhattan, the city felt polluted with smokestack industry, along with crowded streets and noisy traffic. My family was part of the white flight to the suburbs. The city became increasingly dangerous and unappealing through the 60s and 70s.
Now gentrification has flip-flopped the equation and maybe that helps explain people like AOC. They may feel things are too good-- too many rich people and young, educated types moving into the city and crowding the subways.
Amazon may symbolize more prosperous folks sipping lattes and crowding the subways. But Amazon jobs had potential for low-skill and high-skill employment-- and that's what bugs me!
You would have had construction jobs and low skill jobs available to the many people. Amazon wanted to assist with New York's infrastructure, including education. Some of those Queens College students would have had opportunities to put new found programming skills to use-- and raise themselves economically.
The deed is done. New Yorkers of various political persuasions have only to dry their eyes and point the fingers at each other to determine where the fault resides.
I call it "being too smart for your own good."
New York City will go on and continue to prosper on its upward trajectory.
Meanwhile we've got a New Yorker running the country. Trump did not win his own NY state but he looks formidable as a 2020 candidate. And the Democrats must evaluate their platform and decide if job creation is a plan they can support.
You go John! Much truth in that! Cuomo is extending an olive branch. Let's see how that goes.
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