I have a friend who is close to retiring who lives in Arlington. She likes DC but has been considering cashing out and moving back to the Midwest where she grew up. A few thousand Amazon workers would certainly help her selling price.

But DC Metro is already a shambles, I have no idea how they're going to handle more large-scale growth in Arlington.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

DMV needs to commit to actual commuter rail if the suburbs are going to keep sprawling the way they are. MARC and VRE exist but not on a level commensurate with a metropolitan area of that population and area; they've tried to have it both ways with the Metro bringing people into the city and then around it as well.

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MARC is a disaster if you want to try and take it off-peak. Or if there is 1.5 inches of snow on the ground.

DC is the one city where I will just Uber everywhere, even out to the first ring of suburbs. Even in San Francisco I'll take the subway over to our office in Oakland.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

It is funny that someone from Indianapolis had to wake up today and be like "I really thought we had a shot at this. What does New York have over us?".

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

25,000 NY/LIC $1.7 billion in New York state tax incentives/grants
25,000 NOVA/Crystal City>>National Landing $573 million in tax incentives
5,000 Nashville $102 million in tax incentives

MSA Population:
20 million NYC
6.2 million DC
1.9 million Nashville

https://therealdeal.com/2018/11/13/its- ... nashville/

Meanwhile, Google's building out capacity for 20,000 jobs in the West Village on Manhattan and, afaik, receiving no special or extra tax incentives to do so.

That is funny, but I like that it feels as if going through this whole dog and pony show only to arrive on New York has gotten everyone who has the misfortune of not being from New York to say "hey, wait, this race to the bottom for subsidies to billionaires is actually really unfair and stupid." (That's to say nothing of the actual New Yorkers who have to watch the Subway continue to crumble while Jeff Bezos gets handed his own personal airport or something.) When corporations run this scam to completion on Detroit or Racine, they can at least get some people to shrug and admit that it's a necessary cost of doing business if someone is going to bring jobs back to depressed cities between the coasts, and that keeps the grift going. But when you get pitted against all these other cities only for New York and Northern Virginia, already two of the wealthiest and most white-collar economies in the country, to swoop in and even beat you at that game, then what's the point of playing? And as bad as outlandish corporate welfare offers are, is a country whose future only seems to be concentrated on four metropolitan areas (NY, LA, SF, DC) much better?

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yeah, in the early days of the internet (1990's) the talk was about how in the future (now) population/corporations/power would disperse b/c you could do your job from anywhere.
hasn't worked out that way, as jobs and companies consolidate in a few favored locales.

With Bezos owning the Washington Post and Amazon wanting to sell their AWS to the government, DC area seemed like a no-brainer for an increased amazon presence. And if Amazon's trying to compete with NetFlix and Hulu et al in the streaming content provider space, without placing an HQ2 in LA (which I think they wanted HQ2 to be out of the Pacific time zone at least), New York's the next best spot to engage with film/tv production. Might be one reason why Austin was rumored to be a among the handful of final finalists.

Memphis makes more sense than Nashville for Amazon to locate retail supply chain capabilities. But I get the sense someone at Amazon really wanted a Nashville outpost. As Nashville was a short-list favorite from the get-go.

Chicago always made the most sense to me -- in terms of logistics, even Memphis can't beat us when it comes to road/rail/air/water -- but the incentives to come here were always so onerous as to not make it worth it for the rest of us. I'm sure we'll make do without them.

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I think the answer to all the cities that missed is to build new football stadiums.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

This is why I do not get the final decision of the two sites. So many other areas make more sense if logistics and profit are their main goals. I am not up on the finances of the promises and bribery but just look at airlines, UPS or Fed Ex to see where logistics make more sense.

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Elections have consequences.

Could someone explain to Andrew Cuomo what crony capitalism is?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I don't get it, those 25k jobs are mostly paying chump change. Seems like a very poor investment.

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Or idk realize you can fix the over taxed problems for everyone and even more good things happen?

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Elections have consequences.

It's brazen because it can be.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Trump is the Fascist here for daring to say bad things about Amazon. He's such an elitist that he questioned the motives of a company who is on track to take over the world and whose CEO is the richest person in the history of mankind. He really needs to be nicer.

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Trump is just jealous.

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Elections have consequences.

Anyone who believes that Donald Trump (or any other politician) is more of a threat to their freedom/way of life than Jeff Bezos and/or Larry Page/Sergey Brin is deluded.

Has there every been an entity in world history- the Roman Empire, the British Empire, post-WWII America?- that is more hegemonic than Google?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

No. It's fucking crazy, and it defies political ideology. Liberals and Conservatives alike should be wary of these gigantic tech companies.

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Google's AI project is especially frightening. https://youtu.be/3CJE6XheubM

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Why are only 14 percent of black CPS 11th-graders proficient in English?

You guys keep forgetting the only thing Americans love more than freedom is convenience.

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That's true. I paid $8.29 for a twelve pack of Diet Coke at a gas station the other day. When the Indian rang it up I almost couldn't believe it. I started to just put the pop back but then I thought, I don't feel like walking through a parking lot and standing in line at Mariano's.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

"Don't be evil."

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i paid more than 30 cents a gallon in gas because the exit out of the expensive gas station was easier to get back into traffic than the cheaper options down the street.

Had the exact opposite time yesterday and ended up at the Jewels. Ended up saving a whopping $2-3. But at least the store was directly on the route I drove home on.

Next time I'm paying for convenience.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

This x 1,000

I am the laziest consumer of all-time. I hate standing in line, and I hate big stores. I would probably pay 20 bucks for a 12 pack of pop if I could get it at the drive thru. I will probably never be able to retire due to my laziness.

I actually had an argument with one of my economics professors in college over it. I told him that the price of gas had no bearing on where I would buy it. He argued that once it reached a certain price, I would drive out of my way to get it. He was probably right, but it would have to be a big difference.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/nyre ... yists.html



Who is Amazon so scared of that they’re hiring lobbyists to keep things going? AOC

There was a big court fight here as well for FOIA requests to try to get any info on Pittsburgh's proposal at the time. Lots of secrets.

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Elections have consequences.