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Thursday, November 15, 2018

THANK HEAVENS WE LOST AMAZON


STOP BRIBING BUSINESS AND SPORTS

My wallet starts whimpering every time politicians start throwing blandishments and billions at big business and filthy rich entrepreneurs to come to our town or please, please, please, don't move out.
It generally turns out bad for the taxpayers - whether it's the Olympics or Amazon or car makers or the big leagues....
If fabulously rich Amazon had come to the Greater Toronto Area rather than to two now-victimized cities in the U.S., it would have been wonderful for tech people aching to start making $150,000 a year (at least), the real estate market and the service industry.
It was supposed to be so wonderful that "lucky" American cities pay fortunes for the privilege of housing the commercial behemoth that is threatening to devour most of its competition in North America? And then there were hundreds of communities whose politicians just ached to land the commercial behemoth.
Those who think it would be great are the ones who daydream about the economic benefits for them.
They talk of the great economic ripple effect. FOR THEM! But for those of us who wouldn't benefit directly, the ripple becomes a tsunami of problems.
For example, if you thought it was tough to buy or rent a home in Toronto now at a reasonable cost, it would have become so bad if Amazon had set up shop here that commuters would have hungered for just two hour commutes.
The brutal reality of our urban life is that this city (and the region of the Greater Toronto Area)  is already bursting at the seams and has enormous problems in transit, transportation and infrastructure. We can't even fix potholes,  and weeds grow in our parks.
It sounds like heresy but municipal growth is not high on my agenda of wants. Civic boosterism sounds great during a City Hall debate but I would just as soon live in a city that doesn't have construction on every corner. Improving what we have should be the goal, not bribing growth.
So paying a corporate giant to come to town because of all its benefits -  and minimizing all the extra costs - is not an obvious win for a good urban life, an enormous fact not lost on critics ranging from the New York Times editorial board and insightful editorial cartoonists and TV commentators to anyone trying to live near the Amazon headquarters now.
Why is it that our governments insist on throwing our taxes at fatcat promoters, industrialists and entrepreneurs because they promise seductively it will  stimulate the economy and create jobs?
The immediate impact is to drive up our taxes while the company fattens its bottom line.
Just look at all the horror stories that just keep happening in Canada decade after decade after decade.
They range from the billions that Bombardier has sucked out of English Canada to keep Quebec happy  (and then Bombardier gave away the technology) to the simpler recent boondoggle that even a stupid bureaucrat should know is wrong - buying hundreds of expensive cars just so that the leaders of a few countries can meet here for a few scripted days.
But I have wandered off topic when there are so many easy targets over the years.  Such as:
....Taxpayers paid $628 million for SkyDome before it was sold for a pittance of $25 million to a cable company
.... Consider the waste of billions on Olympics and Expos
...  Why we couldn't even build BMO Field at the Ex without being hosed because the user, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, turned a profit on the deal and taxpayers were on the hook for $63 million.
... Must be something about politicians and the Ex because neighbouring Ontario Place cost $30 million, which was six times the original estimate, and then declined into closure after annual losses of millions.
.... I really don't want to waste our time dealing with all the grants to companies like Chrysler just to keep some plants open.
No wonder there is hatred, stirred well with rebellion, in many voters for most of their politicians, the desire that "none of the above" be printed at the end of every ballot to show the disdain that so many feel for what passes for democracy today.
No wonder what passes for modern populism flourishes in North America because of waste by bureaucrats and politicians who spend billions as if they were nickels.
I am surprised that the revolt against the sports establishment pushing for another winter Olympics in Calgary was not even larger. Is there actually a thinking adult anywhere who truly believes that such sport spectaculars break even?
What we really need is not more political promises but fewer candidates in our election campaigns giving us the latest version of the "bread and circuses" approach that kept the mob from storming the Forum in ancient Rome.
We need a tough approach when the CEO comes cap in hand to beg for just a few hundred million and in exchange says he or she will provide a few hundred jobs for maybe a decade.
Let's just stop the corporate welfare!
Let the billionaires build their own playpens for sport!
Tell the Amazons of the world, with treasuries swollen from our billions, that if they really want to come to our town, they can pay their way fully like we have to do.
And if they want to come on the cheap, then find another sucker city. Thank heavens this time they did!

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