Much has been written about Amazon
pulling the plug on its planned HQ2 in New York City and with that about 25,000
high paying jobs (See my thoughts at https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2019/02/amazon-to-new-york-drop-dead.html). The millennial socialist Congresswoman Alexandra
Ocaisio-Cortez whooped it up when Amazon made its announcement.
But who were the real losers? The losers
are the very millennials she pretends to represent. Why? Although Amazon would
have hired people from all over the country a decent chunk of them would come
from current and recent graduates of the City University of New York (CUNY).
For those of you who don’t know CUNY is a vast system of 275,000 students that
includes 11 senior colleges. Most of the students are first in their family to
go to college, immigrants and children of immigrants. They are real strivers
trying to better themselves. As an aside Amazon would have offered opportunity
for the graduates of the Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant, two great
specialized high schools, the opportunity to work in NYC upon college
graduation instead of moving on to Silicon Valley, Austin or Boston. Another
real loss for the city.
A few friends of mine have argued that
Amazon would not hire CUNY graduates. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Google, Amazon and Facebook are already hiring CUNY graduates and if the Amazon
deal went through they would have hired a boatload more.
I know from experience when I helped set
up the Financial Leadership Program at Baruch College (a CUNY school) in 2006
to prepare students for Wall Street careers. The naysayers said Wall Street
would never hire Baruch graduates for front office positions. Today, 13 years
later there are Baruch grads all over Wall Street at such firms as JP Morgan,
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and in several private equity
shops. With the impetus coming from
Amazon CUNY’s beachhead position with the major tech firms would have
dramatically expanded.
But alas it will take longer; thanks to
the misguided efforts of the so-called tribunes of the people. It is a real
crime to steal the hopes and dreams of so many young people and those who led
the charge against Amazon should be severely punished at the ballot box.
