Did "Winners" of Cuomo "Hunger Games" expose the sham by pre-spending $2 million+ ?
Background: Cuomo and company sued some big banks over the debacle in 2008 and won a $5 billion settlement. Cuomo claims that there is an open contest among 7 regions of upstate NY and the 3 winners will get $500 million each to create "jobs, jobs, jobs." The current program is modeled on the Buffalo Billion.
August 2015: While a mid-state region has spent only $50,000 chasing the money, the Albany region has already spent over $2 million of what they will undoubtedly "win" when the announcement is made later this year to retain McKinsey & Company, purveyors of the the world's most expensive PowerPoint slides. McKinsey was the firm that helped sell Cuomo's Buffalo Billion to a scandal-weary public. So it looks like Albany is a sure winner in 2015's sham Hunger Games.
McKinsey and SEFCU are pimping the plan as a boost for areas with some of the worst poverty in upstate but the plan they advanced is to spend the money on waterfront development, hospitals and nanotech hubs. McKinsey's high dollar PowerPoint show is all about demographics and "the problem" but the solution being sold is $70K jobs that will attract workers and investment from out of state. They make no case for how gentrification of the Troy waterfront will benefit the low income people they cite as the problem.
The waterfront area is problematic for many reasons, mainly geography. Next to water is a terrible place to put any kind of job hub because it comes with transportation bottlenecks that make commutes time consuming. Add to that the rise of sea level, the oil trains and barges which can spill, and the 71% increase that the entire northeast has had in extreme precipitation events and you are literally flushing money down the river.
Shut out of the plan is any money at all that would help thousands of upstate farmers make NY agriculture profitable again, improvements for the horrible Albany schools, or any acknowledgment that the standard of living will continue to decline and therefore the government should be addressing ways to make the cost of living in the Capital Region lower -- not redesigning impoverished areas for those making $70K+. Low cost transportation, better schools, day care for working families, lower healthcare costs, planning for continued climate change events and more preventative healthcare are much needed for the future but what we are seeing is more funneling of billions to those on the inside.
http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/2015/08/03/albany-area-businesses-chip-in-to-hire-consultant.html
