Investor rips Ocasio-Cortez as ‘financially illiterate’ at Sharpton conference By Carl Campanile
https://nypost.com/2019/04/05/investor-rips-ocasio-cortez-as-financially-illiterate-at-sharpton-conference/
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was ripped as “financially illiterate” Friday for her role in killing the Amazon deal at the same Midtown conference where she was a featured speaker a couple of hours earlier.
“The people campaigning against the Amazon campus are financially illiterate,” Tracy Maitland, president and chief investment officer of Advent Capital Management, said during a panel discussion at the National Action Network conference in Midtown.
Afterwards Maitland told The Post, “This was a disgrace. I partially blame AOC for the loss of Amazon. She doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. That’s scary. We have to make sure she’s better educated or vote her out of office.”
Maitland said the misimpression created by Ocasio-Cortez and other Amazon critics was that the state and city were giving the company a blank $3 billion check.
The reality, he said, is that Amazon was only getting tax credits based on the number of jobs created. Amazon and New York officials estimated a new headquarters in Queens would generate up $30 billion in tax revenues as well as 25,000 jobs.
Another panelist, CUNY chairman Bill Thompson, said that job opportunities were “snatched away” from the predominately black and Latino students of the City University.
“We were at the table talking to Amazon on how students could get jobs … those opportunities were snatched away,” said Thompson, the former city comptroller.
“Those students look like us … We’re talking thousands of high-paying jobs. It was a disappointment from a CUNY perspective.”
Thompson and Maitland spoke on a panel about “The Black Economic Agenda: Driving Capital into the Hands of Black Asset managers and Housing Developers” in the Empire Room of the Sheraton New York.
A couple of hours earlier, Ocasio-Cortez addressed the conference’s main audience in the ballroom across the hall and spoke mainly about inequality. Amazon’s sudden decision to withdraw from Queens — and bring 25,000 high-paying jobs — didn’t come up in that venue.
But former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr., now a New York City businessman, raised it on his panel.
“Creating 25,000 jobs is always a positive thing,” he said. “There’s a multiplier effect.”
Sharpton opened the panel discussion but left before the Ocasio-Cortez backlash erupted.
He said he supports capitalism — as long as there is a level playing field and “access to capital” for minorities.
“We’re not asking for favors. We could also play baseball before Jackie Robinson but we couldn’t get on the field,” he said, referring to the first black Major League Baseball player.
He also said he spoke to Ocasio-Cortez about the need to “see people” in the minority business community to discuss their concerns.
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