Jeff Bezos: tech tease

Amazon passes over the heartland; big surprise

Amazon’s decision on its new HQ2 proves the old song true: “Them who has, gets, and them what don’t, won’t.” And so, the already job-rich regions of New York City and Washington, D.C., will share the windfall of 50,000 highly paid jobs from the e-commerce giant.

They will also share an even greater squeeze on incredibly highpriced housing, over-crowded roads and public-transit systems, and tuition at the private schools where the upper and middle classes in these two capitals send their children.

The Amazon decision says a lot about CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man. Reaction to the decision says a lot about those who populate and govern the cities he selected.

Some critics have called the whole process — in which many smaller cities, such as Pittsburgh and Columbus, competed — a sham, a fake competition designed to leverage maximum incentives from the two cities Mr. Bezos already preferred.

To her credit, Alexandria OcasioCortez, a Democrat newly elected to represent the New York neighborhood Amazon chose, has decried the $1.5 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives going to this very rich company and the lack of benefits or protections for the struggling low-income neighbors likely to be displaced by the Amazon effect. Shouldn’t all progressives in NYC and D.C. have these concerns — and more? Aren’t they worried about the uneven distribution of opportunity and access across the nation? About the lack of affordable housing for the low-income earners who shuttle them to work and clean their houses and raise their children? That only “them who has, gets”?

Progressives are correct to identify these inequities as important social problems. Conservatives should worry, too, because these trends, though natural, stress and tear our social fabric and foment civic unrest.

The problems are real, but most government solutions diminish both liberty and economic vitality. The best remedy is for decision-makers to choose to mitigate the downside of the universal law of momentum. For “them who has” to break the cycle and voluntarily spread the wealth.

Doing so requires wisdom and imagination. Failing that — and Mr. Bezos and his crew have failed to display wisdom and imagination — the next best remedy is the pressure of society’s disapproval.

As a country, we have successfully shamed big companies into keeping factories, call centers and jobs in the U.S. Likewise, everyone could and should have been clamoring for Amazon to select a lessblessed region of the country.

Those also-ran regions just can’t compete, claims an article in The Atlantic. “Amazon sent a clear signal about what it takes to lure a major tech company in the 21st century. It’s not weather — L.A. didn’t make the cut. It’s not subsidies — other regions offered more. It’s talent.”

This analysis seems incorrect for several reasons.

First: Wasn’t the tech revolution supposed to mean that geographical location doesn’t matter? Didn’t it promise that “creative class” workers — the brainiacs — could be anywhere in the world and still collectively advance human achievement?

After all, the products Amazon sells, from clothing to used books, come from all over the world, and until now, the people selling and tracking them have been congregated in Seattle.

Second, New York and D.C. universities are not first-rank in producing the data specialists Amazon needs. Those specialists train in places like Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, and its graduates go to wherever the jobs are.

Third, Amazon’s selection of Nashville as a third site, slated for 5,000 jobs, seems to support my first two points.

Amazon could have chosen five or six cities, or 10, distributing jobs and economic empowerment to many regions. Instead, Mr. Bezos chose the global hubs of political and financial power. It’s not power- and resourcesharing he’s after, but power- and resource-consolidation. Having so much, he wants more. What a shame.

The upside is, having dissed most of the country, this billionaire businessman can’t run for nationwide political office. What a relief.