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AOC was Right About Amazon

ecofarm said:
Female optics. If a man is right, nothing else matters. A man could dance and sing, and they'd say, "well, he was right".
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Odd that gender even factors into this in your mind, to be honest - also, whole statement hinges on IF he was RIGHT which means a whole different argument
 
Keridan said:
Odd that gender even factors into this in your mind, to be honest - also, whole statement hinges on IF he was RIGHT which means a whole different argument
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She was right. Deal with it.
 
ecofarm said:
She was right. Deal with it.
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She was right to cheer the loss for over 23,000 jobs and 10s of billions in tax revenue?

EDIT: Or she was right to act smug about it?
 
Keridan said:
She was right to cheer the loss for over 23,000 jobs and 10s of billions in tax revenue?

EDIT: Or she was right to act smug about it?
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She was right in that the government should not steal from the poor to give to the rich.
 
calamity said:
She was right in that the government should not steal from the poor to give to the rich.
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Sure, why accept only 27 bil when you can get a full zero!?

EDIT: I should probably admit it's a good thing all those high-income jobs didn't come in or that all that additional tax revenue couldn't be used to help fund aid programs - it could have just destroyed the local economy and we just can't have people thinking that jobs and tax revenue help an area if it means having to give up a small portion to help people
 
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Checkerboard Strangler said:
Outfits like AMZ routinely make pie-in-the-sky predictions as to how many jobs will be created
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dairyair said:
You don't know how many jobs were going to be there.
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Deuce said:
False claim. There's no evidence these jobs would have been created.
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Keridan said:
As Checkerboard pointed out, there is no real number here, BUT the predictions for the HQ they were planning were put at 25k higher end jobs (I believe averaging 150k)
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GreatNews2night said:
Year one. The 25K was to be achieved by year 10. But you wouldn't know the facts, would you?
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I would have loved for AOC to be right, but I think this whole episode is a negative for her, not a positive considering that Amazon is NOT not going to add anywhere close to what was discussed and AOC apparently pretending like Amazon is doing same thing as they would have done anyway.

To be clear, I am not saying she was wrong about her opposition to HQ2 since I don't know if $3B would have been worth it or not. But what she is doing now - pretending like she was right is clearly wrong based on what I see going on here.

Amazon indeed said it would create 25,000 jobs in each of the two HQ2 locations and also listed up to 8 million square feet to be available for its expansion. A far cry from 1,500 jobs in 335k sq ft.

Further, Amazon has ALWAYS claimed it would continue to expand its NYC workforce, even without the HQ2 there:

When it dropped the Queens project in February, the company said it had more than 5,000 employees in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island, where it operates a warehouse, and that it planned “to continue growing these teams.”

On Friday, it put the size of its New York City work force at over 8,000, with 3,500 of those employed at what it calls its New York City tech hub. It was unclear whether the 1,500 people expected to work in the 10th Avenue building starting in late 2021 would fill newly created positions.
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Now, all these points about who knows how many jobs they would have created would be valid EXCEPT look at what the OTHER HQ2 location did: it provided incentives to Amazon "based on whether Amazon created 25,000 jobs".

So, if Amazon does not keep up with their promises of jobs (and I assume level-of-jobs could also be part of that agreement), they don't get as much money.

This will assure that the city will pay ONLY IF Amazon grows as much as it claimed.

Nothing prevented NYC from structuring the deal the same way.
 
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Slavister said:
I would have loved for AOC to be right, but I think this whole episode is a negative for her, not a positive considering that Amazon is NOT not going to add anywhere close to what was discussed and AOC apparently pretending like Amazon is doing same thing as they would have done anyway.

To be clear, I am not saying she was wrong about her opposition to HQ2 since I don't know if $3B would have been worth it or not. But what she is doing now - pretending like she was right is clearly wrong based on what I see going on here.

Amazon indeed said it would create 25,000 jobs in each of the two HQ2 locations and also listed up to 8 million square feet to be available for its expansion. A far cry from 1,500 jobs in 335k sq ft.

Further, Amazon has ALWAYS claimed it would continue to expand its NYC workforce, even without the HQ2 there:



Now all these points about who knows how many jobs they would have created are value EXCEPT look at what the OTHER HQ2 location did: it provided incentives to Amazon "based on whether Amazon created 25,000 jobs".

So, if Amazon does not keep up with their promises of jobs (and I assume level-of-jobs could also be part of that agreement), they don't get as much money.

This will assure that the City will pay ONLY IF Amazon grows as much as it claimed.

Nothing prevented NYC from structuring the deal the same way.
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A thorough and intelligent analysis - thank you
 
Slavister said:
I would have loved for AOC to be right, but I think this whole episode is a negative for her, not a positive considering that Amazon is NOT not going to add anywhere close to what was discussed and AOC apparently pretending like Amazon is doing same thing as they would have done anyway.
...
Amazon indeed said it would create 25,000 jobs in each of the two HQ2 locations and also listed up to 8 million square feet to be available for its expansion. A far cry from 1,500 jobs in 335k sq ft.

Further, Amazon has ALWAYS claimed it would continue to expand its NYC workforce, even without the HQ2 there:

So, if Amazon does not keep up with their promises of jobs (and I assume level-of-jobs could also be part of that agreement), they don't get as much money.
...
Nothing prevented NYC from structuring the deal the same way.
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Exactly. Excellent post, with a total demolition of other points made here. /thread.

AOC is being disingenuous, like you've proven above. Once more, it is demonstrated how some people don't understand the realities of the workforce in our corporate capitalist system. People then issue misinformed, arrogant, and utterly unjustifiably condescending statements about it, completely ignoring how harmful this whole ordeal was to the community that AOC was supposed to represent.

See, this is why I don't like AOC. She is divisive and a lot less honest than the people who idolize her think. She issues half-baked ideas, falls flat on her face, then tries to twist it, and finally when it all fails, goes after people in her own party who are trying to undo the damage.

I think that an immature and inexperienced congresswoman like AOC is causing damage to the very causes she seems to believe in. She becomes an easy target for ridicule by conservatives, and drags down the whole party with her. When she pretends that 1,500 = 25,000, it is not hard for conservatives to say "see how these progressives are dishonest and completely misguided and hurt their communities? Vote conservative instead, if you want to get ahead in life." And I'm sorry to say, at least in this particular episode, they have a point.

AOC should keep a low profile and learn the ropes, and think twice before speaking. If she did that, maybe in a few years she would be a real positive force for the party, for her constituents, and for her progressive ideals. The way she's been operating, she is actually hurtful to these causes, and she is too arrogant to realize it.

I blame Nancy Pelosi. She should have been able to rein in disruptive members of her caucus who end up bringing the party down.
 
Slavister said:
I would have loved for AOC to be right, but I think this whole episode is a negative for her, not a positive considering that Amazon is NOT not going to add anywhere close to what was discussed and AOC apparently pretending like Amazon is doing same thing as they would have done anyway.

To be clear, I am not saying she was wrong about her opposition to HQ2 since I don't know if $3B would have been worth it or not. But what she is doing now - pretending like she was right is clearly wrong based on what I see going on here.

Amazon indeed said it would create 25,000 jobs in each of the two HQ2 locations and also listed up to 8 million square feet to be available for its expansion. A far cry from 1,500 jobs in 335k sq ft.

Further, Amazon has ALWAYS claimed it would continue to expand its NYC workforce, even without the HQ2 there:



Now, all these points about who knows how many jobs they would have created would be valid EXCEPT look at what the OTHER HQ2 location did: it provided incentives to Amazon "based on whether Amazon created 25,000 jobs".

So, if Amazon does not keep up with their promises of jobs (and I assume level-of-jobs could also be part of that agreement), they don't get as much money.

This will assure that the city will pay ONLY IF Amazon grows as much as it claimed.

Nothing prevented NYC from structuring the deal the same way.
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That is how all incentives should be structured. IMO. Don't know if this was that way or not.
But I think there was more than just the structure, but the upheaval(for lack of a better word) Amz was going to cause getting that infrastructure in place to accommodate all those people.
Current residents likely would have been uprooted?
 
GreatNews2night said:
Exactly. Excellent post, with a total demolition of other points made here. /thread.

AOC is being disingenuous, like you've proven above. Once more, it is demonstrated how some people don't understand the realities of the workforce in our corporate capitalist system. People then issue misinformed, arrogant, and utterly unjustifiably condescending statements about it, completely ignoring how harmful this whole ordeal was to the community that AOC was supposed to represent.

See, this is why I don't like AOC. She is divisive and a lot less honest than the people who idolize her think. She issues half-baked ideas, falls flat on her face, then tries to twist it, and finally when it all fails, goes after people in her own party who are trying to undo the damage.

I think that an immature and inexperienced congresswoman like AOC is causing damage to the very causes she seems to believe in. She becomes an easy target for ridicule by conservatives, and drags down the whole party with her. When she pretends that 1,500 = 25,000, it is not hard for conservatives to say "see how these progressives are dishonest and completely misguided and hurt their communities? Vote conservative instead, if you want to get ahead in life." And I'm sorry to say, at least in this particular episode, they have a point.

AOC should keep a low profile and learn the ropes, and think twice before speaking. If she did that, maybe in a few years she would be a real positive force for the party, for her constituents, and for her progressive ideals. The way she's been operating, she is actually hurtful to these causes, and she is too arrogant to realize it.

I blame Nancy Pelosi. She should have been able to rein in disruptive members of her caucus who end up bringing the party down.
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Yes, AOC is all what you posted.
I also believe our prez is exactly the same way.
 
Interesting where these 5 areas are.... lol .... Let the typical BS from the Trumpsters about how awful California is and that it's a 3rd world country...

90 percent of growth in high-tech jobs happened in just 5 metro areas.

As a result, wealth is also being concentrated in those areas.

Technology jobs and the economic prosperity they bring are being concentrated in fewer US cities, according to a new report from The Brookings Institution.

Since 2005, five metro areas — Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Jose, Seattle, and San Diego — accounted for 90 percent of all US growth in “innovation sector” jobs, which Brookings defines as employment in the top science, technology, engineering, and math industries that include extensive research and development spending. Meanwhile, 343 metro areas lost a share of these jobs in that same period.

The result: Wealth and productivity are becoming even more concentrated in fewer, primarily coastal cities. One-third of the nation’s innovation jobs resides in just 16 counties; half are concentrated in 41 counties. These jobs are high-paying and contribute to overall faster wage growth in the areas they’re located, than in areas with fewer innovation jobs. They also result in a lot of secondary work — jobs created to help serve those workers.

These locations draw educated people and investment money from other places. Some 40 percent of adults have Bachelor’s degrees in the top 5 percent of metro areas with innovation job concentration, compared with 26 percent in the bottom three quartiles.

As the report stated: “These places enjoy the benefits of what economists call cumulative causation, through which their earlier knowledge and firm advantages now attract even more talented workers, startups, and investment, creating a gravitational pull toward the nation’s critical innovation sectors while simultaneously draining key talent and business activity from other places.”

Being an innovation city does have costs: These include worsening traffic, ballooning housing prices, and wage growth so high that smaller firms can’t compete. In theory, these spiraling costs should send jobs to cheaper areas, but the report notes that the inflection point is very high, and that when a company does move, its jobs don’t necessarily stay within the US.

Brookings: 90 percent of high-tech job growth happened in 5 metro areas - Vox
 
hang on.

she helped save them $30 billion a decade and a company that is growing like crazy is still coming.

yeah. major defeat for her. maybe she can send some welfare checks to some farmers.
 
SenorXm/Sirius said:
Interesting where these 5 areas are.... lol .... Let the typical BS from the Trumpsters about how awful California is and that it's a 3rd world country...

90 percent of growth in high-tech jobs happened in just 5 metro areas.

As a result, wealth is also being concentrated in those areas.

Technology jobs and the economic prosperity they bring are being concentrated in fewer US cities, according to a new report from The Brookings Institution.

Since 2005, five metro areas — Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Jose, Seattle, and San Diego — accounted for 90 percent of all US growth in “innovation sector” jobs, which Brookings defines as employment in the top science, technology, engineering, and math industries that include extensive research and development spending. Meanwhile, 343 metro areas lost a share of these jobs in that same period.

The result: Wealth and productivity are becoming even more concentrated in fewer, primarily coastal cities. One-third of the nation’s innovation jobs resides in just 16 counties; half are concentrated in 41 counties. These jobs are high-paying and contribute to overall faster wage growth in the areas they’re located, than in areas with fewer innovation jobs. They also result in a lot of secondary work — jobs created to help serve those workers.

These locations draw educated people and investment money from other places. Some 40 percent of adults have Bachelor’s degrees in the top 5 percent of metro areas with innovation job concentration, compared with 26 percent in the bottom three quartiles.

As the report stated: “These places enjoy the benefits of what economists call cumulative causation, through which their earlier knowledge and firm advantages now attract even more talented workers, startups, and investment, creating a gravitational pull toward the nation’s critical innovation sectors while simultaneously draining key talent and business activity from other places.”

Being an innovation city does have costs: These include worsening traffic, ballooning housing prices, and wage growth so high that smaller firms can’t compete. In theory, these spiraling costs should send jobs to cheaper areas, but the report notes that the inflection point is very high, and that when a company does move, its jobs don’t necessarily stay within the US.

Brookings: 90 percent of high-tech job growth happened in 5 metro areas - Vox
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Absolutely. Cities like those mentioned above are highly competitive. lol...I remember bailing out of Chicago in the early 90's to move down South to Nashville, mostly because I enjoyed spending countless hours sitting on my front porch "watching the grass grow." Living in a minor city is a completely different lifestyle. And, Chicago is tame compared to NYC, Boston or SF. Likewise, minor cities like Nashville, Charlotte, Cincinnati are bustling compared to the sticks.

There is nothing in the sticks but one-company towns, typically just manufacturing centers where all the engineering and management is either done from overseas or in places with populations exceeding a million. One of the jobs a headhunter is trying to recruit me into taking manages companies like that from one of the Five Boroughs. Not interested!
 
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