Mayor Bloomberg Address - Clip 1: Transcript
Part 1
I think there's every reason to feel confident about New York City's prospects in the year to come. I think it is well-founded optimism, not irrational exuberance. We have our problems, as does every other city, but I think we are trying to address each of those problems.
And they are getting better. We have a school system that still leaves many kids behind. On the other hand, we're graduating 20 percent more kids than we did five years ago, and math and English scores are up roughly 20 percent.
Part 2
With its customary insight, The Economist recently, and very astutely, published a special report on global financial centers that noted for many skilled professionals, who can pick up and choose where to work, it's really quality of life that matters a lot, and, I would argue, most.
Our strategy has been not to give tax incentives to businesses to come here or stay here. There are some certain as-of-right things, and we'll try to tailor those to help a particular business. And the state and the city together, we're a little bit more generous, I think, to Goldman Sachs when they chose to commit to building a new headquarters downtown.
But generally, I would argue we should take our money, invest it in clean streets, safe streets, culture, parks, that sort of thing, and that is what's going to keep businesses here. Because businesses that depend on intellectual capital need to have a workforce that can take them forward. And I can just tell you my company never would have been anywhere near as successful if we had put it anyplace else.
And people that we hire around the world, a lot of them want the opportunity to eventually come to New York. That's what they're working up to. And so not trying to bribe companies, but you can think of it as bribing employees, makes a lot more sense to me than doing the reverse.
And in the case of Goldman Sachs, I don't think we should have any apologies for it. It was a case right after 9/11 when people were worried about keeping companies here. And Goldman had a brand new building already built just across the river. You could just see it - a couple of football fields away. And so to keep them in the city really sent a message to everybody.
But any of you who are thinking of building new buildings in the city and expect us to pony up a lot of money, forget about it. This is where you have to be, I would argue. This is where my company's staying. That's how much I believe this.
Anyways, whether it's financial services or biotech, competition for the most talented people is what makes it work. And it's Broadway. It's the museums. It's having your kids grow up in a cosmopolitan society. These are the things that make New York New York and let us keep a critical mass.
You know, New York City actually employs 500,000 people in industry. But if you look at the industries, they're specialized industries where it's really intellectual capital.
We have a garment industry, but it's not making 10 million dresses. It is making those dresses that Oscar de la Renta needs and has to have something changed at the last minute and has to have the ultimate in seamestry, if that's a world. It probably isn't - whatever - being able to sew. That's what we bring to the party.
We're going in the right direction. We can't take New York's appeal for granted. I mentioned Paris and London, where I was in the last two days, but you can add Shanghai or Tokyo or Singapore. Or some other big cities - Buenos Aires and San Paolo have a lot of potential and are getting there. And there are cities all over the world that want to have our business.