Amazon Flees

For John, BLUF:  When folks say "do the math" I usually do, to check their sums, which are often off.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

HOW DUMB IS OCASIO-CORTEZ?

From Powerline, by John Hinderaker, 15 February 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

The two hottest commodities in the Democratic Party are Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Earlier this week, Omar exhibited stunning ignorance in her hostile questioning of Elliott Adams Abrams.  Similarly, Ocasio-Cortez has often displayed a surprising lack of knowledge for someone who apparently is a college graduate.  Don’t get me started on the “Green New Socialism.” But she outdid herself yesterday.

The context was Amazon’s announcement that it would not, after all, build a second corporate headquarters in Long Island City, which I understand is close to, but not within, Ocasio-Cortez’s district.  The project reportedly would have entailed 25,000 new jobs–normally considered a good thing by Congressmen.  But Ocasio-Cortez thought it was wonderful that her constituents would not have the option to compete for those jobs:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC

Anything is possible:  today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world.

Here is where it goes sideways:

What’s great is that our economy, our local economy, is already growing.  So I firmly believe that if we want to take that $3 billion dollars that we were willing to give to Amazon and invest it in our local community, we can do that.

The thing is, there is no $3 Billion now free for alternative uses, like job training.  That was future tax revenue to be forgone as an incentive to Amazon to bring jobs, which would mean workers earning and spending and all that financial activity being taxed.  Those jobs will now go elsewhere.  Some other tax jurisdiction will face a reduced tax intake from the acquisition of some 25,000 new jobs.  That is, before there was nothing, but now there will be, somewhere else, 25,000 new jobs and some new tax revenue.  Somewhere other than New York City.  Maybe someplace like Boston, Massachusetts, which had made the "short list".

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff