AOC’s “challenger” in New York

if those jobs are not better than what is available they will move em out or up the pay/improve the conditions. those jobs would have probably improved the pay of 1000s of non Amazon jobs too. It should not be the gov's role to decide who can & who can't provide employment. We have a mkt. or at least we're trying to.

 

It doesn’t seem conceivable to me that you would have the ability to determine whether or not Dems are the brightest lot.

 

Lost in the discussion is these jobs were high paying headquarter jobs, not lower paying factory jobs.

 

I don’t think Amazon’s long term plan is to have many unskilled workers in their warehouses. AI robots are going to have those “jobs”. More short term jobs in construction than long term jobs picking products.

 

he wasn’t talking about a warehouse. He was talking about the HQ2 deal that AMZN made with Cuomo and DiBlasio for 20- 25,000 jobs in Long Island City that AOC most definitely had killed by starting a PR war against it and then refusing to meet with Amazon. Once the PR turned, DiBlasio withdrew his support privately and then AMZN killed the deal.

 

I give her credit for the unabashed NYC accent.

 

My understanding was Amazon wanted to be closer to DC. They wanted to be closer to those who would be coming after them for antitrust reasons.

 

Yes, there was plenty of political opposition, including state and local officials. And given that the project called for $3 billion in incentives from city and local governments, and none from federal government, it's possible they had more influence than a newly elected congresswoman from a neighboring district.

 

Amazon was going to be located in 2 districts one of which was AOC's.

Governor Cuomo had plenty of scathing things to say about AOC. That is included in the article too.

Monday morning QB advice is cheap. AOC was highly opposed to this, and she is at least partially responsible for losing those jobs.

The people who were polled at the time expressed those sentiments in the majority to boot. How did this politically ignorant nobody get elected to a second term representing the most influential city in the US after that debacle?

 

That's not accurate. They simultaneously announced 2 HQ2/25,000 employee deals, one in DC and one in Long Island City, as well as a smaller one (around 5,000 jobs) in Nashville. AOC killed the Long Island City deal after DiBlasio and Cuomo had signed off on it by turning the PR against it's tax incentives after it was announced, and once the PR was turned on its head then DiBlasio (the feckless POS that he is) withdrew his support. Amazon then pulled out of Long Island City entirely and ended up later leasing a large block of space (but creating far fewer jobs-1500 vs 25000) in Hudson Yards.

NYC has been trying to redevelop the Queens waterfront for 2 generations, finally had it done and AOC was the loudest voice in undoing it.

Amazon leases Hudson Yards office space less than year after HQ2 debacle

I have a source on this who reported directly to Jeff Bezos at the time, who told me AOC wouldn't even return AMZN's phone calls so they got tired of trying to chase her down (as it was her district) and finally just pulled the plug on the whole thing at my friend's direct recommendation (b/c the PR had turned so ugly and they didn't want it to ultimately hurt the DC deal), which Bezos did not immediately warm up to but finally did. Then they threw a bone to Hudson Yards for far smaller Tech space in Manhattan, not the HQ2 campus they were looking for.

The loss is entirely on AOC who started knocking over dominos.

 

This is laughable. AOC is a socialist communist and is proud of it. Voting for AOC is the equivalent of voting for avowed communist Bernie Sanders. Anybody okay with this is looking at the US in a completely different prism than the US was ever intended to be in a constitutional republic.

 

So you think she should have supported massive government subsidies to Amazon to get them to move there? They needed to pay a company to make sure to hire all those out of work corporate executives around New York? Or to make New York City a more desirable place for corporate headquarters?

 

Not in every case but in this case a very good argument can certainly be made for it. Around $1B of the $3B subsidy was going directly to infrastructure improvement in an area that needs it. The average job would have paid $125,000 in a community where the average per capita income is $53,000 (almost 2.5X). And once the infrastructure was upgraded and Amazon in place, there was expansion land for other companies, and similar jobs, to follow. Many real estate operators were also starting to buy surrounding land to build new apartments and community amenities, the kind of private investment Long Island City hadn't seen in years.

Seems a pretty good piece of public private economic development that also would have also returned an estimated $27B in tax revenue over time on a $3B investment. And I'm sure there were imbedded penalties if Amazon didn't deliver the requisite number of jobs, as is often the case in major public/private deals.

Now the land will sit not producing any jobs or revenue for another generation, and the surrounding area will continue to erode. But AOC made a name for herself by "beating Amazon".

Yay AOC.

 

Although it's a terrible decision politically, when AOC and Bernie Sanders use the term "democratic socialism" what they have in mind is a Scandinavian welfare state like Denmark not a communist country like Cuba, North Korea or the former Soviet Union and as far as the US losing it's status as a constitutional republic is concerned, Trump, his cult and his fellow travelers in the Republican party represent much more of a threat than AOC or Bernie. It wasn't AOC and Bernie who tried to prevent the peaceful transition of power on January 6, 2021, it's not Democrats who refuse to accept the results of elections that they lost and it's not lefties who have proposed legislation allowing partisan state legislatures (read Republican) or state election officials to overrule the will of the electorate and select electors of their choice in presidential elections if they don't like the results of the popular vote in their states.

 

Any idea how the project would have affected the price of housing, including rent, for the local population?

 

That was my thought. $3B mentioned above, and the costs to infrastructure - roads, civil services , etc.?

But if it’s 25000 jobs, as per above, at an guess of $25 an hour (avg includes many white color jobs that pay more). 25,000 emp x $25/hr x 1040- 2080 hrs a yr; part/full time. Not considering benefits some would receive that would spread in the community (docs, dentists, etc)

It’s seems AOC/local politicians could start positive and at least attempt to negotiate.

But all this is almost guessing at financial impact. it would be interesting to see the biz case.

 

I'm sure it would have increased, as it does in most if not every gentrifying area with significant public and private capital infusion and white/grey collar job creation. But opportunity would have increased as well, and the City could have implemented rent controls as they have in so many other places, or enacted hiring requirements (x% of jobs must be filled by qualified members of the local community) while the tide was rising.

Point being-AOC never got far enough along in her analysis to even try to make it better and wouldn't even sit down with Amazon to try cut a "better" deal for the locals. If her goal was something other than generating national headlines, why not even try to communicate the concerns and try to solve them? Answer: Because that was never her goal.

 

Arlington, not DC. Very close but very different