Amazon announced on November 13, 2018 that it would split its HQ2 project between Long Island City in Queens, New York and Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia (rebranded as “National Landing”). While Amazon claimed the combined subsidies totaled approximately $2.8 billion, analysis by …
AmazonJeff BezosAndrew CuomoBill de BlasioGood Jobs Firstcorporate-welfareeconomic-extractionbillionaire-impunitywealth-extraction
Amazon announced in September 2017 that it would build a second headquarters (HQ2) equal to its Seattle campus, sparking a bidding war among 238 North American cities desperate to win 50,000 promised jobs. Cities competed to offer the largest subsidy packages—with bids averaging $6.75 billion from …
The California Gold Rush of 1849 created a lawless environment that enabled systematic land fraud and banking corruption as the region lacked effective legal institutions. When gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, California remained technically under American military occupation following …
Palmer (San Francisco banker)Pio PicoPeralta familyCalifornia state governmentsystematic-corruptionland-speculationfinancial-fraudinstitutional-failureeconomic-extraction
Congress passes and President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828, an extraordinarily high protective tariff setting a 38% tax on some imported goods and a 45% tax on certain imported raw materials—the highest rates in American history to that point. The tariff seeks to protect Northern …
U.S. CongressJohn C. CalhounAndrew JacksonSouthern plantersNorthern manufacturerssectional-conflictnullificationeconomic-extractionregional-exploitationslave-power
The United States experiences its first major peacetime financial crisis as the speculative bubble in western land collapses, triggering the Panic of 1819 and a prolonged economic depression. The crisis directly results from the Second Bank of the United States’ reckless lending practices, …
Second Bank of the United StatesWilliam JonesLangdon ChevesBaltimore branch directorsfinancial-crisisbanking-fraudspeculationaccountability-evasioneconomic-extraction