Amazon became the target of a massive backlash after helping themselves to a massive crony capitalist feast earlier this month, announcing that they’d be opening two new headquarters in New York City and Arlington, Virginia. A major point of contention between the behemoth company and area residents exploded as it was revealed that one of the world’s wealthiest private companies would be receiving $1.5 billion and $573 million respectively from New York and Virginia state and local governments for the ‘gift’ of the new facilities.
Even a sizable wealth transfer directly from taxpayers to Amazon may not be enough, it seems. The Wall Street Journal revealed that unnamed employees of Amazon now stand to become beneficiaries of the crony deal, having bought up New Jersey and Queens real estate shortly before the adjacent location of the new New York headquarters became publicly confirmed. While the conveniently timed purchase of the Amazon employees is similar in nature to highly illegal insider trading, real estate lawyers speaking to the Wall Street Journal said they didn’t believe trading laws pertaining to real estate as opposed to publicly traded stock existed, making the corporate corruption of the property grab completely legal.
The Democrat Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, sought to alleviate the backlash against the massive transfer of taxpayer funds to a company owned by one of the richest people on earth with a strawman argument. He claimed that the sum of $1.5 billion dollars in corporate subsidies handed to Amazon would “cost us nothing,” and that only an odd bedfellow’s coalition of “extreme conservatives and socialist” would oppose the crony deal.
$1.5 billion may seem like mere crumbs to the Governor of New York, but the taxpayer could be on the line for much more if the corrupt real estate dealings of Amazon employees is a sign of what’s to come for New York and Virginia residents.