From Don Surber:
Amazon leaving Seattle
Bloomberg reported, "Amazon CEO, citing ‘rougher’ patch with Seattle, looks to ’burbs."
This is not white flight. Seattle has become coyote ugly crazy and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wants to leave before he has to gnaw off his leg to get out of the trap.
Shades of Boeing and the Seattle Supersonics.
Bloomberg's story said, "The world’s largest online retailer is by far the biggest private employer in Seattle with more than 50,000 workers. That distinction has proved a headache in recent years, with some residents and government officials blaming the company for exacerbating homelessness and traffic."
Seattle has turned Amazon into its whipping boy, blaming the company for problems the city creates.
Jassy spoke at an event hosted by technology news site GeekWire.
He said, "I’d say the last five years, the city council has become less enamored with business or with Amazon. It’s just been rougher."
The city wanted to burden Amazon heavily with taxes. The company and others fought it back, Then the company backed a slate of city council candidates who lost.
It is time to vamoose.
I am a big believer in cycles and we are getting near the bottom of the current one.
Shades of the Seattle of 50 years ago:
Billboard reading "Will the Last Person Leaving SEATTLE — Turn Out the Lights" appears near Sea-Tac International Airport on April 16, 1971
On April 16, 1971, real-estate agents Bob McDonald and Jim Youngren put the words, "Will the last person leaving SEATTLE -- Turn out the lights" on a billboard at S 167th Street and Pacific Highway S near Sea-Tac International Airport. The two realtors, who work for Henry Broderick, Inc., put up the billboard as a humorous response to pessimism generated by the national aerospace industry's nosedive, known locally as the Boeing Bust.
Seattle is doing this to itself. They are not listening to their constituents, they are only listening to the more vocal activists who are in a profound minority. There will be a recovery but it is going to be long and painful and things will be getting a lot worse before they get better.
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