101–110 of 227 posts
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> I think there's reason to debate whether large corps should be able to hold an auction like this It wasn't an auction. As the letter points out, each location put in a single, sealed bid, invisible to everybody else. There were no multiple rounds of bidding, as is typical for an auction.
You've literally described a silent auction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-price_sealed-bid_aucti...
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so were GE’s.
So how did Boston get fleeced? (genuinely curious, not overly familiar with the GE situation.)
https://www.universalhub.com/2019/ge-give-back-87-million-ta... , https://www.universalhub.com/ge has a long running chronology.
This reads too much like a one sided political letter by a state functionary. It's curious no such 'open letter' was forthcoming from any public functionary accounting for the losses due to the long list of bank frauds and bailouts? Many here swear by free markets, fair competition and a level playing field and yet do not see the contradiction of letting large companies play regions against each other to extract conc…
I'm glad the public stood up. The workers have power.
Guessing this was just another Amazon game to slam unions to portray a massive negative image of AOC & worker power, like they did to collect city data.
San Francisco-ization it seems. Liberals going against their own interests. Reminds me of an apartment complex under construction in SF that was forced to include a larger amount of low-income units. The builders found it would no longer be profitable, and ceased building. So lose-lose, prisoner's dilemma, vocal social media forces "won," lacking the cooperative biases that humans normally have. They all end up with…
tfw you can't make a profit renting housing in San Francisco.
And by streamlined I don't mean just rubber stamp everything. But instead have clear rules, and check the plans fast whether they are compliant with them. (Basic civil engineering stuff, fire hazard, environmental protection, noise, traffic management, historic status. What else is there to check?)
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I cant see why hq2 location cannot be based on bidding. Tax breaks are part of negotiation. Math is clear.
The math isn't clear at all. Amazon is putting countless other businesses, who employ countless hundreds of thousands, out of business. That's just the nature of capitalism and efficiency, but when they demand special treatment to do so..that's just perverse.
Part of american way of doing business, really.
Quote of the Day: "The seventy percent of New Yorkers who supported Amazon and now vent their anger also bear responsibility and must learn that the silent majority should not be silent because they can lose to the vocal minority and self-interested politicians."
1) "They are like the dog that caught the car"
2) "that 'to be a progressive, there must be progress.'"
Lately (the last couple of decades) I believe that politicians should shut up, and that technocrats should take over. Especially "progressive" politicians, they are the ones that make me hold my wallet tighter in my pocket. I am just tired of cheap words and no actions.
Note: I am 100% pro-democracy and pro-elections, without interference by ANYONE, and that includes any three-letter-agencies of this world (KGB, CIA, xyz) meddling anyone's elections.
I don't live anywhere near NY, I understand the frustration of the people who feared that the local economy would be disrupted/changed dramatically. A cousin of mine keeps saying "it's better to share a bowl of honey than having a bowl of poop all to yourself". I think that those who forced Amazon to flee will enjoy their bowl of poop, no matter how they will try to spin it.
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Did you miss the surrounding context? His point is that NY has very strong worker protections, and that it's much better to let a non-unionized company set up in NY and then organize it, rather than trying to make organization a condition to entry.
Isn't the validity and relevance of those points something for the unions to decide for themselves? Some people are still able to distinguish reality from a sales pitch.
It's not like we have to wonder whether the union strategy worked here. It demonstrably failed. Amazon didn't buckle, they didn't accept Whole Foods unionization as a condition of setting up shop in Queens, and the union will not in fact see a single additional job as a result of what happened.
Ironically, much of the visible 'local' opposition, which was happy to appear at press conferences and protest at City Council hearings during work hours, were actual organizers paid by one union: RWDSU. (If you are wondering if that is even legal, probably not). That is a pretty strong accusation to put in writing. I get the feeling that some investigation is going to happen on that one. Paid protestors presented as…
Its very common in NY for high profile issues. When fracking was the cause de jure, hundreds of people were being bussed to Albany weekly to protest. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but it’s a thing.
I'm just surprised that the NY government put it in a press release. It really seems odd, but maybe that union has really separated itself from the herd, politically.
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I'm glad we're waking up to this fact. It's not enough to hold a belief... in our system, action is required. I think this is why young people are so frequently screwed by political decisions and policy - we are, uncoincidentally, the age group that votes least often.
Voting alone is not enough. In some parts of the world, like Australia, voting is mandatory and as a result lot of people just vote randomly. A good education in civics and history is necessary, as is a belief in the political system and a desire to make a difference in the world through political action. Finally, a strong and independent media that does a lot of deep investigative journalism and does a good job of p…
Yes in Australia mandatory voting has some people who “donkey vote” or as you call it “vote randomly” that percentage is almost all the 18-22 range. It’s not till they have to sit through a full one or two election cycles before they start to give a shit.
As such my generation has seen the bullshit that’s been handed to us, we won’t stand for it. It is generational because of the two major parties, their “young” version hasn’t had anyone transition from the young party to the major party for members of GenX. It’s only now when the boomers are retiring are we starting to see some younger blood. Why? Cause those that didn’t give a shit, now care and it’s a huge wave of people.
Politics are so much more left here in Norway, because people are educated and give a shit. The fucking Christian Right party just came up with the policy to decriminalise all drugs because putting people in jail and fining them wasn’t working. So why not try to help them with counsellors instead. No fines, no jail time... just help if they want it.
What’s Australia doing? Well we just voted to dump a bunch of shit in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef because it’s inconvinent for the super rich assholes to ship their exports around it. Got to make a way through it for the ships.
That shit won’t last with my generation.
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Isn't the validity and relevance of those points something for the unions to decide for themselves? Some people are still able to distinguish reality from a sales pitch.
No? I don't understand how you're connecting these dots. It's not like we have to wonder whether the union strategy worked here. It demonstrably failed. Amazon didn't buckle, they didn't accept Whole Foods unionization as a condition of setting up shop in Queens, and the union will not in fact see a single additional job as a result of what happened.
That assumes that all union organizing will now cease or come to nothing, and the unions will get no benefit from keeping a huge, dedicated anti-union company out of their back yard.