Remember that a little more than a year ago Mayor Sly James worked diligently to promote Kansas City as a destination for Amazon HQ2.
His efforts were derided by the tech industry, competitors and most people who hate so much advertorial garbage which clogs the Internets.
A sampling of the reaction:
ZDNet: Kansas City mayor spams Amazon reviews in bid for headquarters
In fact, the thousands of phony reviews might have even violated the Amazon TOS and proved that 12th & Oak isn't as "smart" about tech as many contend.
Money line from a critical article: "Nothing smells of desperation more than spamming Amazon with thousands of potentially 'fake' reviews."
Nevertheless . . .
IN RETROSPECT, KANSAS CITY LUCKED OUT BY GETTING CUT FROM AMAZON HQ2 COMPETITION EARLY!!!
Whilst the influx of jobs would've been nice, what we're seeing in the aftermath is a great deal of outrage about what cities offered in return.
Moreover, taxpayer cash to fund one of the biggest companies in the world has rubbed many critics the wrong way.
Finally, local tax fighters lament the dearth of information available regarding the KCMO bid . . .
"Philadelphia and Pennsylvania offered $5.7 billion to @Amazon for #HQ2. Meanwhile, in #KC, we still don't know what giveaways our leaders offered. Where's the transparency, @MayorSlyJames?"
And so, while the sketchy KCMO bid might be forever a secret . . . Right now what we know for sure is that rising rents, overwhelming subsidy and strain on the public resources confront the cities that "won" the bid whilst KC got off cheap by merely and unwittingly offering the company free promotion.
Check the links:
Wired: Why Amazon’s Search for a Second Headquarters Backfired
The Hill: HQ2 deal brings new scrutiny on Amazon
The Verge: Politicians and protestors are looking for ways to stop Amazon’s New York HQ2
Axios: Shunned by Amazon, the heartland fights to stay relevant
Atlantic: Cities That Lost Amazon's HQ2 Contest Can Still End Up Ahead
Tech Crunch: Lies, damn lies, and HQ2
Slate: HQ2 Is an Antitrust Issue
Yahoo News: Amazon got over $42 million worth of free publicity from its HQ2 search
You decide . . .
The jobs are garbage. Just working an assembly line to push Chinese junk on the public. Workers also have to pee in water bottles because they don't get restroom breaks. It's slave labor that's also anti union. A waste really.
ReplyDeleteOf course Amazon wasn't going to put the headquarters in a red state. That would be too much proof that the Trump economy really is saving the nation.
DeleteOnce again you've got this completely wrong TKC. Mayor Sly James actually did a great deal for Kansas City by asking for the bid and our city benefited from the promotion. You can try to spin everything in a negative light but our mayor showed incredible leadership that will help us bring more business and jobs to Kansas City so that our momentum won't stop.
ReplyDeleteCall it a "fail" if you want but it's actually an important step in making our city best and setting us up for the next bid that we will win.
Oh, it’s definitely a fail and a joke. The real fail is going to be the piece of shit airport. Sly fails at everything but lying and stealing.
DeleteBy the way, you really like licking Sly’s asshole out, don’t you?
^^^Blah blah blah, shouldn’t you be working instead of defending failed policy’s, maybe a call to the city’s ethics hotline will straighten you out.
ReplyDelete9:41 nice try to spin it around. KCMO was and will not be a serious finalist for a company the size of amazon. Cmon man let’s be real. Buying 1000 items and leaving 1000 5 star reviews...yeah I get it, but thats not going to close a mega deal. It’s a super submissive
ReplyDeleteMove and is embarrassing, but to be fair many other try hard towns did similar offers as well.
OK, he should have done nothing. What a bunch of dummies you all are. That's why you're posting on a blog for morons instead of running your own city. Bunch of morons. He did what any good mayor(and a lot of them did) would do. Hurry up and die geezers, your opinions are as worthless as you all are.
ReplyDeleteFail.
ReplyDelete^^Ask your dad. That chump has been tossing salads for decades!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete9:41 and 9:56 could you two clowns ever be more wrong. Kansas City couldn't afford to have Amazon come here. This city is on life support as it is and you two jackals think throwing out more money to lure private business is healthy for the residents? You live in a socialists dream world where everything is for free at the cost of the real providers. Look I like Amazon, buy a lot of stuff from them but giving them tax write offs to come here is total insanity when you look at what they claimed to have made last year in revenue. What did Kansas City make? Kansas City made a whole lot of nothing other than to sink further into a hole due to handing out cash to corporate raiders who travel the country looking for cities like Kansas City who are ran by idiots all to willing to waste taxpayers money on pipe dreams.
ReplyDeleteWake up and start voting with how your tax dollars are spent and not who is the favorite Queen for the day supporting whatever sexual cause is popular this year.
Wait!
ReplyDeleteThere's still a chance KCMO can get back in the running!
With the new $1.6 billion city budget just announced, all Sly has to do is to tell Amazon that he'll give them EVERY PENNY of it if they'll just please, please, please come to "world class" KC.
And that wouldn't be far off the rest of his mindless "eco devo" giveaway stunts.
Frosty.
This is ridiculous. I don't know what the readers of this blog have against economic development but the attitudes here are just plain backward. What we have done in KC with our investments and development has bolstered our economy more in the past 5 years than the previous 20.
ReplyDeleteCredit for our growth belongs solely to Mayor James and all of the supporters of the streetcar, the crossroads and our creative community of programmers, artists and entrepreneurs.
But the skepticism isn't helping and shows us that some people are just looking for a reason to complain. That's fine but our progress will continue in spite of the naysayers who don't have the courage to build something and work to make KC the best in the nation.
We will see how much progress happens after the state auditor gets done with city hall.
Delete^^^^^^^^^^ What a kiss ass. That is next level cuck writing dude. KC would be a great city if it wasn't for all the damn consultants.
ReplyDeleteEvery city who went for amazon embarrassed themselves. It's a shame. I canceled my prime membership a few months back because I'm starting to think amazon is evil and the two day shipping makes it more tempting to buy more junk i don't need. They can't survive without their prime memberships
ReplyDeleteNot to get to deep in the weeds on this, but, it looks to me, like the ROA on this for cities, is around 5 to 8 years in terms of money invested by the city. It's really hard for we hoi polloi to understand all the Byzantine, back room machinations and variables that none of us are privy to. That said, it probably IS a good dead for the city that gets this miserable fuckin piece of shit Bezos to build in their metro.
ReplyDeleteThe real, underlying problem, imo, is the overall effect of a monopoly like Amazon, or, Google etc. etc. and their effect on your neighbors who run small business.
Amazon, pays NO federal taxes and gets local benefits out the ass that make them ultra competitive with your neighbors and friends, who run local business'
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/03/bernie-s/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-taxes-2017/
This destroys competition and results in an almost incomprehensible accumulation of power, in the hands of a very few, or, in this case, the hands of a Fascist-Progressive-Anti-Free-Speech Democrat, who has the hutzpah to "post" over the entrance of the doorway, to the Washington Post (That operates at a loss.), which he owns, "Democracy Dies In Darkness".
Democracy dies at the hands of Plutocrats like Jeff Bezos, who NEVER intended, in ANY fuckin way, to locate his new ever larger brobdingnagian operation in ANY place other, than very, VERY close to the seat of power, in the richest county in the United States, right next to Washington DC. There, firmly ensconced within close proximity to the seat of Federal power, he will continue to acquire even more control over you, your purchasing habits and tighten his lizard like grip around the throats of your business owning neighbors who are his competition.
His part time job, other than counting his Croesus like wealth, is providing agitprop from the Washington Post, which has now, no more, than a 1950's Soviet style Pravda publication which disseminates the soup de jour talking points for the nation's blinkered idiots and lemmings who still believe that "RUSSIA!!!!" stole the election.
Bezos is a dangerous man and his organization is an existential threat to the free enterprise system and capitalism P.E.R.I.O.D.
The mayors of cities that hoped to do business with this fuckhead piece of shit, always knew, they were doing a deal with the devil, but, short term profit at the expense of long term dystopia is so comme il faut these days.
Trying to get your arms around, just how corrupt this whole thing is, takes a minute. The stench and "gas-lighting" hypocrisy is insane.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nonpart.com/democrats-set-to-investigate-trump-actions-towards-amazon-att/
The Democrats, are set to investigate Trump, for wanting Bezos to pay the same postal rates as the rest of us. Wade through the bullshit and that, is exactly what is going on. Bezos, who is worth only 169 billion dollars, wants a better deal on his postal rates than you get to ship you horseshit made over seas by companies that put your friends and neighbors out of business.
Shut up and take it and then, "May I Have Another Sir!?!?!?!?"
We have sold our souls to the fuckin devil.
^^^zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ReplyDeleteGo4kc yeah I get the progress, but the issue is the waste and the massive corporate welfare system in the city. The airport situation is so sloppy. Millions spent on studies to do more studies that are always way off.
ReplyDeleteOf course amazon not coming to KC had nothing to do with the earnings tax.
ReplyDeleteEver notice how Go4KC runs back here pissing all over himself when ever Super Dave slaps him upside the head with the facts.
ReplyDeleteI think bezos might be Destro ... the head shape is the same all that's missing is the chrome.
ReplyDeleteCo-BRA!!!
-radish
Did sly show Beezzaros the toy train? That would have cinched the deal.
ReplyDeleteNo,@12:36Pm, I never noticed that at all. It might be because stupid dave is a moron and incapable of reciting his own name let alone facts. The only thing stupid dave slaps his his flaccid "manhood" relentlessly.
ReplyDelete12:52 TRIGGERRED AGAIN! Hahahahaha!
ReplyDeleteHey gopher boi, who’s paying for all this shit that we didn’t want? The taxpayers are, we’re holding this piece of crap town together with the last bit of money we have, skipping meals to pay for your failing pipe dreams, that’s what we do, you don’t do shit except kiss sLIE’s ass for money, give me a break loser.
ReplyDeleteWhat the City Should be concentrating on is The Thousands of Companies that would Like to Leave California, And Companies are leaving every day, THE Suburban City's are snatching some of,those Companies,
ReplyDeleteI am out here, with my Progressive Parasites, I can't be bargained with, I won't be reasoned with, I don't feel pity, or, remorse, or, fear and I absolutely will not stop, EVER, until middle class whites are dead.
ReplyDeleteGo4KC, I see you're getting an early start on legalized WEED! "more progress in the past 5 years than the previous 20"...all because of SLIE. Its always all about SLIE, ho would give away the entire City if someone would build a statue to him!!!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile the carnage goes on...KC now in top 5 of violent cities in U.S...….Thanks SLIE!!
^^You're welcome!!!! Now move!
ReplyDeleteGo4KC must have very heavily indulged in the Kool-Aid today.
ReplyDeleteI saw a gathering of hipsters down in the city market today. 5 or 6 of them all on those scooters. It looked so cheesy. Has anyone on here ridden one yet?
ReplyDelete