By now, you have no doubt heard that New York City, co-winner of the Amazon lottery, blew it by so alienating Amazon’s corporate management that HQ2 of the world’s most valuable corporation will not be located within the five boroughs. Opponents of HQ2 decried the $3 Billion tax giveaway cobbled together by the city’s mayor and the governor. Of course, they were giving away something that they weren’t going to get if Amazon didn’t choose New York in the first place and won’t get from someone else any time soon.
I am empathetic to the forces that succeeded in rejecting Amazon. Their primary motivation was to preserve their community in a city where gentrification has left few neighborhoods affordable for middle- and working-class families. They could see events trending in the direction of San Francisco and Seattle and didn’t like what would happen.
On the other hand, Republicans and center-left Democrats understand that economic growth relies upon innovation and efficiency created by high tech enterprises. The high-skilled, highly paid labor that HQ2 would attract would increase the city’s tax base and beget other high-tech enterprises. Bowing to the whims of a minority of citizens enabled by a handful of extremist politicians is a mark of how incompetent our political leaders are.
Not noticed nationally but a big story here in Rochester was a $4.2 Million private investment in Hickey Freeman that was nearly matched by $4 Million from the state. It was hailed by one and all because it retains a handful of low skilled jobs in a failing enterprise. There’s enough bad news here to make it difficult for me not to toss my cookies. I’ll try to control my gag reflex long enough to unpack it.
The Hickey Freeman news is just the latest example of Blue State Folly. The state has taken money out of the economy and reinvested it in businesses that can’t attract sufficient capital on their own. In this case, they’ve invested in a company that makes clothing for the WWII generation rather than allowing the free market for capital to do its work.
The state’s investment was made through the Finger Lakes Upstate Revitalization Initiative established by one of our governor’s famous contests. (I wrote about the perversity of taking money out of the economy just so we can compete to get it back in the Rochester Business Journal when the winners of a similar competition were announced.)
Like New York City, San Francisco and Seattle, Rochester has a highly capable workforce and business leadership with the technical skills to support any innovative enterprise owing to the legacy of the vanishing Kodak and Xerox. We are supported by a local network of more than a dozen colleges and universities and have a low cost of living. What holds us back is high taxes and a state bureaucracy that makes it difficult to operate a business.
Our greatest challenge is to continue our legacy into the next generation. Unlike New York City, we are not threatened by gentrification but rather by its opposite. We may be unable to thrive unless we, as a community, can do something about a failing school system and inner-city poverty. Perhaps the governor should focus on that for a while.
WHO WILL LEAD?
Something happened while I wasn’t paying attention. It was a slow, subtle shift that took place over many years. Consider this: the death of Elvis was barely a footnote on the evening news when it happened in 1977. When Michael Jackson died, some three decades later, it was the lead story for days. What happened? How is the death of a pop star the most important news of the day? Any day? What has this manifested?
Well, here’s an example: an actor I’ve never heard of who stars on a show I’ve never watched is accused of making a false police report alleging he was attacked by the evil forces of #MAGA. Aside from feeding the #fakenews narrative of our prevaricating president, the event has made me wonder what’s happened to our society. Perhaps if we weren’t so focused on Pop Culture, the foolish acts of a C-List actor wouldn’t be national news.
What I’m reading
Tom Freidman speculates we may become a “Four-Party State” in his weekly column in the New York Times. I hope we are…. David Houle writes in his blog about the social and economic effects of Millennials and Digital Natives (those born since 1981) now outnumbering Baby Boomers… Economist Greg Ip writes in the Wall Street Journal about the “Unrealistic Economics of the Green New Deal.”
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