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If this happens (and I'm not all convinced it will, I think this is just Amazon posturing) then Cuomo, De Blasio and Amazon will have no-one but themselves to b
by untog 8y ago
If this happens (and I'm not all convinced it will, I think this is just Amazon posturing) then Cuomo, De Blasio and Amazon will have no-one but themselves to blame for it.
The secrecy around bids for HQ2 was already a joke, but the announcement for NYC even more so: De Blasio and Cuomo basically just announced that it was happening whether people liked it or not. Then said they were going to do an end-run around the NYC city council to ensure it does. Some of the objections to Amazon moving to Queens are legitimate and some are not, but you can't blame residents for freaking out when a huge, huge change like this is just dumped on their neighborhoods with zero consultation or warning.
(It should also be noted that the timing of this is probably not coincidental. An outspoken critic of the Amazon deal has been nominated to the state's Public Authorities Control Board, which has to approve of the deal. But he hasn't been confirmed yet, so I suspect this is an attempt on Amazon's part to stop that approval:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/nyregion/michael-gianaris-amazon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/nyregion/michael-gianaris...)
- jlangenauer 8y agoIt’s worth noting that government placement of massive economic projects over the desires or even well-being of local people is a feature of Soviet and modern day Chinese economic systems. And so it seems, American capitalism as well.
- untog 8y agoI will say that I think there is a balance. NIMBYs hold back large-scale development in a lot of area where it would be very sensible (high density housing in SF, for example). But at the same time, the community ought to have a say in a giant change like Amazon coming to town.
- humanrebar 8y agoPoliticians carving out special considerations for the powerful and other people who lobby extra well is not "capitalism". It has way more in common with government sanctioned megacorps like the British East India Trading Company than laissez faire and the invisible hand.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Politicians carving out special considerations for the powerful and other people who lobby extra well is not "capitalism". The mercantile class gaining the power previously held by the feudal aristocracy, including that of directing government, is exactly capitalism. It's not the fiction invented by defenders of capitalism in response to socialist critiques of real-world capitalism, but that fiction isn't what the term “capitalism” was coined to refer to, nor is it something ever demonstrated to be practical anywhere.
- humanrebar 8y agoI find your definition of capitalism not meaningfully distinct from already coined terms like aristocracy, oligarchy, and plutocracy. One could argue that capitalism always leads to those, but it's unclear and therefore unhelpful to conflate all of the above. Distinction and nuance let us have more interesting conversations than the yelling matches on cable news channels.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> I find your definition of capitalism I didn't provide a definition, I just pointed to a factor which is intrinsic too (and the fundamental motivation for) capitalism. > not meaningfully distinct from already coined terms like aristocracy, oligarchy, and plutocracy. The described factor is more specific than those because of the identification of which specific class is privileged. It is, however, an instance of all three of those things.
- humanrebar 8y ago