Amazon’s Seductive Game Played America’s Suckers
Here is a story, sad but true.
Let’s see if it sounds familiar to you.
A lonely boy meets a beautiful girl. That lonely boy falls hard for the beautiful
girl. The beautiful girl knows he has
fallen for her, and, while there is nothing expressly said, it is carefully
implied, or at least suggested, that there could be “something” between them.
So the lonely boy begins a careful dance to woo over the
beautiful girl. There is time spent,
gifts purchased, meals bought, attention given, fantasies woven of the two of
them together. There is always the lure
of “something better” just over the horizon.
The payoff that the lonely boy believes will end his time alone.
But then the truth is revealed. The beautiful girl really doesn’t feel the
same way for the lonely boy as he does for her.
In truth, she really finds him somewhat pathetic. But she gave him attention and strung him
along because of the things he would give her.
He wasn’t even the only lonely boy in her life. There were several that she strung along just
like him. Sad and lonely guys who would
give her anything on the suggestion or the hint that she could be theirs. And sometimes they would know this, but they
still played the game because they would each believe that they were truly the
one for her.
And then the lonely boy learns the ultimate truth. It’s not that he had to “compete” against all
these other lonely guys just like him.
There was no competition; because she was already in a relationship with
someone else. Someone who may have
thought her little game was amusing, but still knew that, at the end of the
day, she’d only be with him.
I know this story all-to-well, because I was always that
lonely boy. And now, decades later as a
lonely guy, nothing has really changed aside from the fact that I can no longer
play those games where I always leave a little sadder and a lot poorer.
But having that experience, I cannot help but feel angry
when it is played on others, especially for amusement or even for profit. Brutally Honest supporters can recall when I
showed my anger and outrage over the game when it was played on a TV series
called “Average Joe”. It was a horrible tease that took three
seasons for the beautiful girl to finally choose the lonely boy, and she had to
be nudged by others into doing it.
We’ve seen it in movies like “Dangerous Liaisons” and the “Cruel
Intentions” series. Yes, the
tease was so good, they made it into a film series.
And now we’ve seen it nationwide.
The “beautiful girl” in this instance is the mega-company
known as Amazon. Its owner is so rich,
he can afford to play pissing games with the narcissistic President of the
United States and
not bat an eyelash, and that’s even before you remember that he also is the
owner of the Washington Post newspaper.
And the “lonely boys” in this story? Well those are all of the politicians in the
various municipalities all across the nation that were vying to be Amazon’s
much-desired second corporate headquarters.
A high-priced move that would supposedly bring in high-paying jobs. They each believed that Amazon would choose
them over all the others. This would set
them apart from all the others. This is their “Mega Millions” dream. Their “Powerball” fantasy. They would never have to worry about budget
shortfalls or poverty ever again, or so they pathetically believed.
The seduction game was nothing short of retching. Various cities and states offering Amazon the
world for this “honor”. Tax breaks, tax
credits, free parking, an exclusive airport lounge, a private transit line, one
city in Georgia even promised to change their
name to “Amazon” if they were chosen. No, I am not making that up. Over two hundred municipalities were Amazon’s
potential suitors, and they each promised everything they could possibly have
and even stuff that they couldn’t afford to give.
And then came the reveal.
After months and months of teasing and seducing, Amazon chose not
one but two locations. HQ2
would be in New York City. HQ3 would be
in a suburb of Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac from Washington
DC. Nashville would get a smaller
logistics site for 5000 jobs. Everyone
else: too bad, so sad, thanks for playing.
Of course, we wouldn’t know just what was being promised in
all our names until after the big reveal.
Each municipality was under non-disclosure agreements to prevent other
cities from trying to out-bid the other.
Amazon played the seduction game like a webcam queen.
And, when you really think about it, their big reveal was
really a joke on the rest of the nation.
New York is oversaturated with billion-dollar corporations. Adding Amazon HQ2 to that city is like
putting a slice of cheese on the world’s
largest cheeseburger. And HQ3
in Arlington? Yeah, the same
neighborhood as another business that CEO Jeff Bezos owns... the Washington
Post. Gee, what a “coincidence”.
But I’m not really going to criticize Amazon for this. Because the game is not just about the tease
but those that went along with it.
In hindsight, I always look back at all my years and on all
of the money that I spent on those fruitless pursuits that never could be. I think back to all the things that I could
have done with the money that I was spending for a dream that never could come
true. I would always ask myself “Was it
worth it?” If it led to that fruitful
relationship, then, yes. But when the
result is always no, then of course I would have to say that it really wasn’t
worth it.
And that’s what I want the taxpayers in all those other
municipalities to do as well. Think for
a minute about what your elected grifters and shysters were promising in your
names to Amazon. Think about what they
were ready to give away just for the “honor” of being HQ2 or HQ3.
I have yet to find a community that isn’t struggling for revenue. Infrastructure is collapsing everywhere. Teachers are underpaid and overworked. Police are overburdened and underpaid. Municipalities all rely on tax money for
their revenue. The streets cannot be
fixed, the traffic lights and street lights cannot be maintained, schools
cannot get new materials without that tax money. And here were over two-hundred municipalities
that were ready to give tax breaks and tax credits to one of the wealthiest of
corporations.
I wasn’t exaggerating when I made references to Mega
Millions and Powerball. This is like
spending the mortgage money on either of those lotteries on the delusional
conviction that you will win the jackpot.
It’s only worth it if you win; even though, statistically, you won’t.
So you have Amazon, a huge multi-billion-dollar corporation,
coming into your community, which is strapped for tax revenue... and you
promise them that you won’t get a dime in taxes from them?
Oh, I know... they were lured by those high-paying jobs! All of those high-paid tech jobs that would
need to be filled by the community that is currently barely getting by on
mediocre pay and being nickel-and-dimed by Big Healthcare and Big Pharma and
the rest of Big Corporate. You presume
that those jobs will be filled by people in *your* community!
The idea that Billy, your local IT guy who fixes
five-year-old computers when he isn’t selling second-hand iPhones, would
somehow be getting one of those high-paying tech jobs is yet another one of
those delusional fantasies. Amazon
wouldn’t be giving those high-paying jobs to the local people. Amazon would be bringing in those high-paid
people. People that would already have
the education and the experience that they need. And those salaries would also be tax-free
thanks to those sweetheart deals.
So you have a whole bunch of people who have a lot of money
suddenly going into your little “city”, seeing what you have and what you don’t
have, and they are saying “We need better homes than what you have here. We need better schools than what you have
here. Your roads are crap. Your traffic is crap. We want someplace better than Walmart to
shop. We need more cops to keep us
safe. Your restaurants are too small for
us. And we don’t care where the money
comes to pay for these things just as long as it isn’t from us.”
This kind of transition goes by another name:
gentrification. You’re not bringing up
the community. You’re replacing them.
Still worth it?
And then there is something else that all of those
municipalities should keep in mind.
Thanks to those hidden bids, Amazon
now knows more about all of those communities than they did previously. They know the population base, where the
communities are by general income, what kind of schools are in your community,
what kind of services you offer, and what kind of leadership your community
actually has. They know how desperate
you are. Some of that information could
be collected elsewhere, true, but some of it wouldn’t. Now Amazon has it all, to use as they see
fit.
Let’s get brutally honest here... this whole seduction from
Amazon was one of the biggest teases in the world. It dwarfs the bid for the Olympics, which, I
can tell you from two decades ago, is a nightmare. But at least you didn’t have every podunk
little community that fancies itself as a “city” thinking they could get the
Olympics. Not so with Amazon.
And the thing is... just how much was your community willing
to whore out to get it? That’s the most
dangerous part of this seductive game; that your elected officials were willing
to give up the very things that your community needs to keep going just for
that “honor”.
I did some stupid things when I was trying to win that
“beautiful girl”. I spent money and time
on women that only really wanted the former and didn’t care about the
latter. But at least it was only
that. What your elected officials were
willing to give to Amazon in your name is a whole lot worse, and you really
need to evaluate that before the next elections.
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