In the last 2 weeks, a very detrimental thing happened to the residents of Long Island, New York. The reason for it was so ridiculous that I decided to wait to see if new information would emerge before creating my post.
The case was this:
Amazon was planning on building their HQ2 location. New York and many other cities put up bids to entice Amazon to build in their city because of what Amazon was bringing to the table. Amazon was going to bring 25,000-40,000 jobs by 2028 and generate roughly $27 billion in tax revenue for New York. Also these jobs would've averaged a salary of $150k.
What did New York offer? Amazon was to receive $1.2 billion in refundable tax credits and $505 million capital grant to reimburse Amazon for costs of building. Amazon was also going to take advantage of the REAP(Relocation and Employment Assistance Program) that could come to to a total of $900 million. However, the REAP is accessible for any company that meets the criteria, so it's not specific to the Amazon deal. Amazon had received subsidies of $1.61 billion over the last 2 decades from state and local governments. So all in all, if we totaled everything up, Amazon was getting somewhere in the vicinity of $3.7 billion to build their second HQ in New York.
However, before the move could happen. Some politicians and a some groups of residents got together and protested strongly against Amazon building the HQ. The backlash was so strong, Amazon pulled out of the deal. Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, took to Twitter and flaunted her "victory" over the richest man in the world.
Many people on the left cheered for her as well. But as I've posted before, leftists are emotionally based thinkers, and the higher the emotions, the lower the logic.
So lets look at the logic. New York lost 25,000 - 40,000 jobs. That's families that could've paid bills, put food on the table, save money, most all, prosper. With 25,000 new jobs come 25,000 more people who would've had more mobility to move upward, with those jobs comes the spurring of the local economy in such a life changing way for any city.
For some perspective, in Oshawa Ontario, GM is closing and laying off 2500 workers, the trickle down affect is going to impact 15,000 jobs. That is going to be life changing in a bad way. Because it's not just the auto jobs and the peripheral jobs that they support, it's also the local eateries and small businesses that rely on the traffic of those workers. Now just imagine what 25,000-40,000 new jobs would do for a city.
The whole thing this comes down to, is this "capitalism and free markets are bad" ideology the leftists are pushing. This need to covet the success of others and to feel somehow, some way, we deserve to get a piece of their pie because we do their work and we buy their products.
Lets look at the fallacy of these ideas.
First, "we do their work, the CEO's don't do much and definitely not enough to be worth 150 times what we make."
CEO's are a rare breed of people, they work insane hours that no one else would want to work. They juggle the responsibilities of every single employee and flying all over the place to keep business connections or make new business connections to sell their products and services. Products and services that if they didn't sell, we wouldn't have jobs!!
Like anything else, as workers, our skills dictate the level of compensation we receive. The lower the skill, means the more people there are who can complete the same task. Hence, the pay rate isn't going to be great because the supply outweighs the demand. If we want a better pay rate, we need to acquire and develop skills that aren't so abundant and easy to find.
We also don't assume any financial risk or responsibilities(from buying the machines to creating the LLC, to finding investors.) of the business we work for.
We as workers choose to alienate our labor for a cost, if we don't like the cost, we can take our labor elsewhere. There are definitely bad business practices that don't break the law, but again, we have the choice to look for work elsewhere.
Second, "are they worth 150 times what we as workers are being paid?" What the CEO's get paid is in direct correlation with the amount of business and profit they can bring to the board and investors who are the ones taking on all of the financial responsibilities. The board members are the ones who decide if the CEO deserves their salary and if they're bringing a lot of value to the company, then the pay they are given is what the board values them at. This value is in the form of new or extra businesses they can drum up or cut the cost of expenditures. But no matter what it is, whatever the CEO does, it changes the value of the business. The typical worker doesn't change the overall value, so their compensation is nowhere near comparable.
But instead of thinking about what the CEO makes, how about we just focus on what we make and take stock of what we have and have some gratitude for it. If we don't like what we have, than it's our duty to ourselves to make ourselves better to get what we want. Protesting and demanding to the government to put a gun to the heads of people who have more, and robbing them to give to people who clearly don't deserve it, is a bad principal value.
If we use the moral angle and ask, should they give their excess to help people out? Sure! That would be nice!
But in what way and how much is entirely up to them and no one has the right to criticize or demonize them over their decision to do what they want with their property.
If we don't agree with some businesses and CEO's, boycott the business. No one is forced into buying anything from any one business.
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