AOC gets what she wants: [NYT] Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Headquarters

These jobs aren't disappearing by the way. They will go to VA, which doesn't have the gentrification issues and congestions issues queens has. In reality, a lot of people are better off - NYC can't support much more growth without pushing lower income earners out - NYC is becoming another SF and a lot of the resistance was about that.

Is it such a bad thing that VA gains from this?

 

We've seen the same things happen here in Houston in the last decade or so , I remember driving down Washington Avenue not too long ago - hookers and drug dealers at every corner , junk cars lining the streets & homes in that area in various states of disrepair …. now you drive thru that same area and its sushi joints and 4 story homes that take up the entire lot with expensive imports parked in front of them.

I've often wondered what happened to those people that used to live there , that were driven out by rising property taxes as their property is all the sudden a hot commodity …. Where did they go ?!

 

Forgive me, but there is stupid and there is stupid. Politicians are supposed to back their constituents. If your point truly is that maybe this was pareto optimal because folks in VA will get more value out of this, I don't know what to say.

This was a dead spot in Long Island. How much do you want to put in the tip jar that the NY politicians who killed this campaign on how it helped VA. I'm going with none.
what is your bet?

Is there ever a case, when one camp can simply concede that we all f up, and that a particlular move was wrong?

Or does everything have to be about partisan winning?

 

This is truly an ignorant take. I don't even know how to argue this. The issue was whether the NY politicians did right by their by constituents.

Hey, India or Africa probably could have really, really benefitted from this.

Is that where you are?

You post so much. Sometimes it is smart. But sometimes it is such utter bs that you turn those who are on the fence the other way.

Maybe that is your goal. Poe's law. But, I am getting very tired of seeing obviously, frivilous arguments.

Carry on.

 

It's a fake onion-style article.

 

I actually support Amazon coming to Queens because I live in Brooklyn. But think about it - if you are working in Queens right now you face a terrible subway system that is grossly overcrowded and skyrocketing rents. If you are in LIC, adding 40K more people is going to balloon rents and snarl the subway system even further. Unless you live in NYC, you don't understand these issues.

As a politician, are you supposed to represent your constituents who have jobs and not looking for an influx of more jobs? It's unpopular in that area as it's already overcrowded. Trust me that empty space will be taken up by something - hopefully more housing.

But yes, it makes complete sense why local politicians are now opposing it - they don't want to lose reelection.

I'm not being sarcastic here. I know it's hard to grasp why an area would not want more jobs, but not ever area is like Flint Michigan. NYC is unique and has problems different than in other areas of the country.

 

I know it is a fake ... but it was very funny , in a sad sort of way ….

 

The article I read said the politicians fighting it didn't represent the area. Is that inaccurate?

Also, if something has been essentially garbage land for decases, how does one proclaim that it is soon to be filled with new businesses?

 

LOL. de Blasio and Cuomo sitting around like...

 

AOC is a smart girl. Hear me out.

By rejecting Amazon, and rejecting these high paying jobs, she is keeping her (immigrant) constituents poor. She is keeping them mired in low-paying jobs with no prospects of moving up or out. Which is where she wants them to be.

She now is able to continue her race-pedalling rhetoric. She now is able to use the bullshit claims that her constituents are poor because they are brown, because people hate immigrants, and because of white privilege -- all while avoiding the reality that SHE REJECTED 25,000 JOBS FROM AMAZON.

She knows there would have been many immigrants taking those jobs at Amazon (not something I am particularly fond of) but she does understand that these immigrants would not be brown-Hispanic immigrants.

The new immigrants would likely be south-Asian and east-Asian, and would very likely not tolerate her bullshit race-baiting, socialist loving rhetoric. Thus, voting her out. Can't have that, can she?

 

I think there's a better chance that she pulled a Susan Collins and didn't actually want to win this one, but instead wanted people to just see her as opposing it, only to then win accidentally.

She's also idiotic, so there's that too.

At the same time, there's just so much schaudenfreude to go around on this, as this is literally what Bezos has been creating with their promotion of the far left in Silicon Valley.

 

Carry on.[/QUOTE]

I don't know what you mean by represent the area. AOC district borders LIC and her constituents would certainly be affected. LIC doesn't in any of itself have many poor living - it's an industrial area with a lot of residential skyrising that boomed up due to its proximity to the 7 train that is a straight shot to the heart of midtown manhattan - it's filled with apartments running at $3k for a one bedroom. Certainly not lower income. Lower income earners are in AOC's district - which is an easy stroll (or bus ride) to where the Amazon HQ would have been. That said most of those jobs would have required a college degree and the poor low income folks wouldn't have gotten those jobs. It wasn't warehouse jobs they were offering at an avg salary of $100K plus. Sure you have building services and janitors hired but it wouldn't directly benefit the poor significantly and in fact may actually put the squeeze on them and higher end workers push up rents for miles around the HQ - where they do live.

Nonetheless it's very difficult to say whether this would benefit the local residents or hurt them more. Most people in NYC don't work a half block from their job. It certainly would generate tax revenue for NYC and increase overall revenue. But it also would put pressure on an overtaxed housing market and infrastructure system. That is why from a national perspective going to Virginia is better or rather I'd prefer a place like Detroit that really needs it.

 

So Trump like, MAGA.

 

I agree with the first half or 2/3 of that post, but Bezos is more northwesterly than Silicon Valley, for one, and Silicon Valley is much more neoliberal than far left, for another. Corporate capitalism uber alles in the valley. I know. I go there, work there, often. Sure, there are some progressive mantras in Palo Alto, around Stanford, but it's of a very clearcut NIMBY cloth.

 

Win that race to the bottom!

The constituents were pretty clear which is why it ended up not happening.

 

Pelosi needs to get these morons on the same page. Donald Trump is in the middle of self destructing but instead we have idiots spouting a new green deal and taking credit for pushing Amazon out of NY.

The optics are horrible. Just like a majority of Americans done want the nationalist BS cohete rojo and other marginalists spout, America also doesn’t want to lose good paying jobs or stop eating beef or any of the other BS the radical wing of the Democratic Party has been spouting the last two weeks.

You want to attack subsidies or put more emphasis on the environment, you can do that without jumping the shark.

These idiots already cost Gore the Presidency years ago and letting them control the party will hand the 2020 election to Trump and at least one more Supreme Court appointment, if not two.

It is just self destructive and stupid and not what the vast majority of Americans want. The handling and taking credit fork Amazon leaving is incredibly ignorant.

 

Everything I read said the people living there were for it (by that I mean the majority).