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I just don't understand the logic of politicians such as Ocasio-Cortez. Amazon HQ was going to bring 25,000 high paying jobs to the area, providing growth and opportunities for her constituents.

Her argument against is that the Amazon HQ would further gentrification and she was appalled by the government subsidies. So she'd rather limit new growth, prevent new jobs, and stifle wealth to prevent luxury condos and Starbucks from going up? Make no sense, she is literally preventing her constituents from moving up the economic ladder.

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Do you think there are 25,000 high skilled workers in new york sitting around waiting for Amazon to show up? No, those workers are in high demand. So the only option is too pull from outside the region further driving up the cost of housing. Its pure numbers. What about the low skill jobs? Amazon doesn't employ cleaners and other low skill workers. They contract those jobs out, so the low skill employees see no benefit from working at Amazon anyway. Even if we pretend that Amazon can only employ native new yorkers, there aren't enough to go around. So they'll be taking jobs from other organizations, like small businesses, who can't afford to compete with Amazon.

So, what's the benefit to new york? Yea, there are 25000 new jobs. But the choice isn't 25000 jobs or no jobs. Its 25000 jobs with amazon and some number of jobs from other businesses. Other businesses will employ those high skill workers because there aren't enough to go around.

Literally tens of thousands of students graduate each year from NYU (16K alone) and other colleges in the area. You're right that skilled workers don't sit around waiting for jobs to show up. They'll go to where the jobs are, which for tech still largely means the West Coast. And I say that as a NYC resident and tech entrepreneur. The tech scene in NY is weak, and non-existent across the river in LIC. Having an Amazon HQ in LIC would have been a great anchor around which to build a stronger startup scene: If your startup fails, hey, there's always Amazon to fall back on (instead of just the financial sector).

But I'm sure the students are actually grateful that they were spared from Amazon and living close to home, and that the Bay Area residents will continue to welcome each new batch with open arms!

As someone who worked as a software engineer in NYC for 6 years ~5 years ago, I couldn't disagree more strongly with your claim that the tech scene in NY is weak. It's second only to Silicon Valley when it comes to tech jobs.

It's second, but I do think it's weak relative to the size of the city and the unfulfilled potential of what it could be.

The NY metropolitan area is ~20M people, but it's clearly much weaker when it comes to tech than the bay area at only ~7M people (I'd say, a magnitude less in number of tech startups alone), and somewhat stronger than the Boston metro area at 4M but not significantly so. Having lived in all three (and now living in Manhattan for 4 years), I don't think for example there is significantly more tech meetups (maybe even less?) or startups (definitely numerically more, but not of better quality) than in Boston, while by numbers alone it should be a whole magnitude greater.

Seattle would like a word with you ;)

For the new grads, you're still getting tens of thousands of people moving out of campus housing and into the non-subsidized market, so it hardly seems different that bringing people from out of state.

So the ability for your own constituents children to stay in their own home state given choice and opportunities is now equivalent to Amazon bringing in 25K out-of-state employees. Gotcha. That is about as direct a FU from the "I got mine" boomer crowd and politicians that nixed this deal to the next generation as you can get.

So then, colleges are the problem, and they need to downsize, so that there are fewer grads?

> Amazon doesn't employ cleaners and other low skill workers. They contract those jobs out

Is this any different from how other companies do it?

> they'll be taking jobs from other organizations, like small businesses, who can't afford to compete with Amazon.

How many small businesses in LIC are competing with Amazon for business/workers? Does LIC even have tech jobs? I lived in NYC for 5 years working in tech, and I don't recall ever interviewing for a tech job in LIC.

> So, what's the benefit to new york?

25,000 jobs with $100k+ salaries. I get that there aren't enough native native New Yorkers to fill the jobs, but since when is NYC not a city of transplants? Amazon or not, this is already the state of things, and I don't see that changing. I mean LIC is already a ghost town of glass luxury residential apartment towers.

> the choice isn't 25000 jobs or no jobs. Its 25000 jobs with amazon and some number of jobs from other businesses. Other businesses will employ those high skill workers because there aren't enough to go around.

Is there a strong demand to build out jobs in LIC matching the 25k that Amazon would've? I'm not being facetious, genuinely wondering. I only went to LIC a few times, and my impression was that it seemed like a ghost town of glass luxury residential apartment towers. I don't recall seeing a thriving office/commercial center. Seems like everyone just commutes into Manhattan to work.

Gentrification is the opposite of people moving up the economic ladder - it's the influx of more affluent residents.

Actually no, gentrification causes existing homeowners to increase their property values. It literally gives the existing community the opportunity to move up the economic ladder.

_Only_ if the existing community is _also_ the existing landowners. This is not always the case, often you have a large renting population. These renters only see there costs go up, not their assets.

Increasing property value shows up on the balance sheet and the only way to access it is to sell the property and leave, or take on debt.

Increasing property values also mean increasing property taxes, which show up in expenses and are due every year whether or not you have the money to pay them.

Does taking out a home equity line to pay your taxes sound like a good idea to you? Me neither, and that's why rising property values are often not welcomed by residents who are not already financially well-off.

This does not even get into the impact on renters, who might face being evicted so a property owner can sell, or rents rising faster than their wages.

> Actually no, gentrification causes existing homeowners to increase their property values.

Property values are not necessarily wealth. It is entirely possible to gentrify existing homeowners out of their homes despite increasing their property values -- this moves homeowners down the economic ladder.

Yes, selling their house technically puts fresh cash in their pocket, but only by drastically increasing their cost of living and by making them search for new housing (which by definition will have to be somewhere cheaper than their current neighborhood, since by definition they can no longer afford their current one).

All of this is usually a large net loss in total wealth, despite the sale of their property. Owning a gentrifying home gives you the illusion of wealth building, but if you live in that home, it's really just lifestyle inflation until you sell out.

None of the above is a hypothetical, either. That is an accurate description of how real-world Gentrification usually plays out in Midwestern/Flyover USA today.

With that in mind, NYC is probably the worst possible place for that since almost nobody owns their own property there, it is mostly all rented out by multi-millionaires.

Yes and NYC is known for the many home owners and lack of renters.

Sounds like it'd be good for landlords, I'm not sure about the person living paycheck to paycheck to make rent.

So you really think Amazon was only going to hire people that already had wealth. It's not possible that somebody making $50k a year, could land a great new position at Amazon making $150k? Cortez is shooting her democrat constituents in the foot, and living up to her affiliation of democratic-socialist.

That's not what happens though. Amazon would be recruiting people from Ivy League schools, big consulting firms, other large tech companies.

> Amazon would be recruiting people from Ivy League schools, big consulting firms, other large tech companies

Amazon is not that pedigree-driven, most people I know who work there went to decent mid-ranked but not Ivy League level schools. Wall Street (front office) and big consulting firms are literally pedigree driven to the point where they often only recruit on Ivy League campuses, Amazon and most other big tech companies are more egalitarian caring more about the tech interview than your diploma.

Disagree, this constant propagation of rigged system or unfair game is not accurate. I know lots of people who came from very little and were able to work themselves up to economic success. In fact many of the people on the Fobes list came from poor upbringing and backgrounds.

And vastly more of them are not on the Forbes list.

People have done studies on income mobility and inter-generational income mobility. The studies say that it's getting worse, not better.

Yes, people can move up/down, but most don't, and it's happening less over time.

The US (I assume you're talking about the US) intragenerational mobility is actually quite strong, meaning people have the ability to impact their own economic outcomes if they choose, or in other words, the American dream (TM). Decreased intergenerational mobility in the US is actually a function of decreased fraction of families earning below 100k, meaning, less people by fraction in the lower and middle class as they've pushed up into the upper >100k tier.

Probably better to measure by where people are on the income distribution than above/below arbitrary points like 100k.

Most of the research I've seen uses quintiles as a proxy for "class".

If you look downthread, I've linked some that disagrees with you re: USA vs other anglosphere countries.

Going from the top, Jeff Bezos himself and Warren Buffet both grew up in middle class environments. Bezos worked at McDonalds as a short order cook while Buffett while young was notoriously hard working and frugal. Buffett would take his paper route earnings (mere dollars) and invest in stocks.

Anyway, I don't have the resources and time to go through the entire Forbes list, but I suspect there are a lot more people than most would believe and perhaps like to acknowledge from middle class or "lower" class environments.

Do I really need to explain anecdotes vs data?

Income is a strongly inherited trait. Look at this absurdly linear plot in section 2: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01...

The only deviations from pure correlation are that the extremely poor and rich are EVEN MORE likely to be extremely poor or rich.

Where in your mind would the affluent residents live?

AOC’s logic is very straight forward. She wants to take money from you and I through massive taxation and redistribute it to her low income constituents through massive social programs. Don’t let her “soak the rich” bait and switch rhetoric fool you, the middle class always pays for new government spending.

the whole argument of left is flawed.

she's anti status-quo but are unwilling to sacrifice short term for it.

basically her dream case scenario is to tax amazon 5B and then invest 3B it to bring them to Queens.. and then rake the returns going forward. In what fantasy world would that ever play out?

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