Sounds Way Too Good To Be True? 17,000 Jobs, SkyBridge Arizona + Scaramucci?

Just an immediate reaction to a questionable statement made in a post on the Editor's blog of https://businessfacilities.com today about SkyBridge Arizona: ". . . The project is expected to create 17,000 direct and indirect jobs and increase cargo flights out of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport by 2,000 a year, eventually reaching 10,000 by 2036. . ."
Please don't get your MesaZona blogger wrong - he's all for more transnational initiatives between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico - that engagement started back in 1994 in New York City working with the Mexican Consul's office to promote Mexican culture and commerce there and visits to Mexico City and Monterrey. 

Perhaps your MesaZona blogger is having the same reaction about believe-ability here in Arizona that Anne Galloway, founder of https://vtdigger.org  another small independent news source in Vermont, had in this report published in August 2017

The Breakthrough: How a Small News Outlet Brought Down the State Hero  

Anne Galloway was suspicious the moment she heard about a too-good-to-be-true development. She didn’t know how right she was.

by Jessica Huseman Aug. 11, 2017, 8 a.m. EDT   

"Bill Stenger was a local hero. One of Vermont’s most important businessmen, he had created hundreds of jobs with mega-developments across the state. In 2011, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce named him “citizen of the year" . . .But not all of Stenger’s businesses were what they seemed, a small nonprofit news organization revealed . . . When the multimillion-dollar development was announced in 2012, it immediately smelled fishy to Galloway. It was to be built in a region known as the Northeast Kingdom — an impoverished area of the state near the Canadian border, mostly known for dairy and Christmas tree farms — and it promised 10,000 jobs.“It just seemed too good to be true,” she said. “It seemed too big.”
She was right.
Galloway and her team dug deep, . . They chronicled complaints that this development was starting to feel like a scam, and reported on the cozy relationship Stenger had with state oversight authorities. . .
It was a “Ponzi-like” operation, in which they collected millions of dollars from foreign investors, pocketed some and paid for past projects with the rest, according to the complaint. Newer projects were left incomplete, and investors were left bilked. Galloway and her team knew about almost all of this — they just couldn’t get anyone to go on the record. . ."
Hear how it all began on The Breakthrough, the ProPublica podcast where investigative reporters reveal how they nailed their biggest stories > https://www.propublica.org/podcast

Other news sources also expressed doubts:

Is this job-creating foreign investment project too good to be true? - PBS 

https://www.pbs.org/.../is-this-job-creating-foreign-investment-project-too-good-to-b

Dec 10, 2015 - And that's a real concern, says journalist Anne Galloway. ANNE GALLOWAY, Vermont Journalism Trust: If people in other countries are investing in something that they have put faith in, and that faith is lost, that has a ripple effect across all EB-5 projects. And I know that our stories have had kind of a chilling ...

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HERE IS WHY is your MesaZona blogger having some reasonable doubts about this Arizona SkyBridge
Reason #1:

Scaramucci Says SkyBridge Sale Poses No National Security Threat

Bloomberg · 1 day ago

Reasons #2 + #3

Scaramucci Defends Skybridge Deal After Buyer HNA Faces Fire ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/.../scaramucci-defends-skybridge-deal-after-buyer-hn

Dec 13, 2017 - Scaramucci discusses the pending sale of his SkyBridge stake to HNA Group. Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House aide who's selling his stake in SkyBridge Capital to China's HNA Group Co., said he still believes the deal will close days after another acquisition target made accusations that HNA ...

Scaramucci Considers Return to SkyBridge, Scraps Vegas SALT ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/.../scaramucci-says-salt-las-vegas-conference-won-t-happ...

Jan 24, 2018 - Anthony Scaramucci said he'd like to have a role again in the future of SkyBridge Capital

 the fund-of-hedge-funds firm he founded, and scrapped plans to hold his flagship SALT conference

in Las Vegas this year. “If the sale goes through I would like to -- and I've talked to the HNA people

about -- retaining ...

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Higher Ground

As President Trump visits his border wall prototypes, Arizona is busy setting up a sky bridge to Mexico.

March 16, 2018

"

In the competition between a SkyBridge and a border wall, Arizona has seized the high ground. It’s a good bet that one of these projects will be completed soon—and be a boon to prosperity on both sides of the border—while the other may never be built.
We’ll let you guess which is which. . . .
Blogger Note: 
the report in Business Facilities  makes a point about transborder collaboration 
Cross-border commerce between Arizona and Mexico also is getting a boost this week from the inaugural Arizona-Sonora Business Expo, held March 14-15 in Hermosillo, Mexico.
The Expo is designed to facilitate new connections, increase cross-border collaboration and strengthen an already prosperous relationship between two trading partners.
The Expo is a joint undertaking of the Arizona Commerce Authority and the Secretaría de Economía de Sonora, in partnership with the Arizona-Mexico Commission and the Comisión Sonora-Arizona. It represents the continuation of an alliance between two governors in a region recognized as a national model for cross-border collaboration.
“Arizona’s relationship with Mexico—our number one trading partner—can serve as a model for other states to follow,” said Gov. Ducey. The Arizona-Sonora region presents a competitive platform for growth, a robust supply chain, modern transportation infrastructure, top-ranked higher education institutions and a talented workforce.”
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Mesa Mayor John Giles  is  also quoted in the article. Unfortunately, he says things that don't always that get built 

“Consumers in Latin America want the ability to purchase goods online and receive them the next day—SkyBridge Arizona will make that a reality,” said Mesa Mayor John Giles. “This project will transform Mesa into an international e-commerce hub, benefiting not only our city but also our state and the Arizona-Mexico region as a whole.”