Daily Archives: September 11, 2017


Should Philly screw over its schoolkids to make world’s 2nd richest man even richer?

The Philadelphia Inquirer has the article Should Philly screw over its schoolkids to make world’s 2nd richest man even richer?

Having said all that, I’m not against Philadelphia wooing Amazon — but on our terms. Go for the one thing that might still appeal to a gazillionaire like Bezos who has everything: His legacy and his desire to be a remembered as a great American. Philadelphia offers Amazon many of the things it wants in a headquarters but also a unique opportunity to use the tech company’s wealth and remarkable know-how for a philanthropic crusade to re-invent the city where America was founded. That would mean a partnership between the city and Amazon toward actually making the schools better — through both money and donated expertise — rather than sucking them dry, and working together on real affordable-housing solutions.

Such races to the bottom to compete for companies to locate should be legislated out of existence. It can only be done at the national level. The Constitution only allows the Federal Government to regulate interstate commerce. I wonder if the Supreme Court could be convinced that the competition among states and localities for national businesses is an attempt to illegally regulate interstate commerce.