Tom Peters writes:

Every Task Leader’s Job No.1 is Inclusion, Facilitation, Motivation … and Sales.

Carlinisms…*

Why is it called after dark when it really is after light”?

From my dad, of course…

*I associate this kind of word play with the brilliant comedy of George Carlin…

I, and others like Roldo Bartimole, have made the case that tax giveaways as incentives to businesses are gifts that have no promise, or even hope, of return to the tax payers who pay the bills.

This morning’s, above-the-fold, headline in the New York Times reads: The Empty Promise of Tax Incentives.

Writer Louise Story ledes with:

In the end, the money that towns across America gave General Motors did not matter.

When the automaker released a list of factories it was closing during bankruptcy three years ago, communities that had considered themselves G.M.’s business partners were among the targets.

For years, mayors and governors anxious about local jobs had agreed to G.M.’s demands for cash rewards, free buildings, worker training and lucrative tax breaks. As late as 2007, the company was telling local officials that these sorts of incentives would “further G.M.’s strong relationship” with them and be a “win/win situation,” according to town council notes from one Michigan community.

Yet at least 50 properties on the 2009 liquidation list were in towns and states that had awarded incentives, adding up to billions in taxpayer dollars, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

Some officials, desperate to keep G.M., offered more. Ohio was proposing a $56 million deal to save its Moraine plant, and Wisconsin, fighting for its Janesville factory, offered $153 million.

But their overtures were to no avail. G.M. walked away and, thanks to a federal bailout, is once again profitable. The towns have not been so fortunate, having spent scarce funds in exchange for thousands of jobs that no longer exist.

Here are a couple more telling points in the excellent story focusing on how corporations are literally moving deck chair around on the Titanic:

Soon after [1993], economists at Federal Reserve branches were questioning the use of incentives. One, in Minnesota, used mathematical proofs and game theory to show that competition between states did not increase overall economic value. Several other economists have since called the practice a zero-sum game.

One corporate executive, Donald J. Hall Jr. of Hallmark, thinks business subsidies are hurting his hometown, Kansas City, Mo., by diverting money from public education. “It’s really not creating new jobs,” Mr. Hall said. “It’s motivated by politicians who want to claim they have brought new jobs into their state.”

For Mr. Hall and others in Kansas City, the futility of free-flowing incentives has been underscored by a border war between Kansas and Missouri.

Ohio, of course is a major flunky in all of this with Cuyahoga County [enter Cuyahoga in the search box] taking more than its share in the shorts.

Corporations, by design, cannot give back, they can only take away. Only fools think differently as clearly shown by these bits:

At the top of G.M., executives reviewed the proposals from various locations and went where the numbers added up.

“I know people like to blame the industry for taking advantage of the incentives, but you go back to what your fiduciary responsibility is to the stockholders,” Ms. Nix said. “As long as you’ve got people that are willing to better the deals, the management owes it to their stockholders to try to get the best economic deal that they can.” [emphasis mine, JH]

For towns, it became a game of survival, even if the competition turned out to be a mirage.

Moraine, Ohio, was already home to a G.M. plant in 1997 when the company pushed hard for additional incentives. G.M. said it was looking for a place to accommodate more manufacturing.

Wayne Barfels, the city manager at the time, said a G.M. representative had told officials that Moraine was competing with Shreveport, La., and Linden, N.J. After the local school board approved property tax breaks, The Dayton Daily News reported that the other towns had not been in discussions with G.M.

Officials said part of the difficulty was that communities do not get much say in a company’s business strategy.

“We, as communities, stake our futures with these people who are supposed to know what they’re doing, and sometimes they don’t,” said Arthur Walker, a businessman in Shreveport and former chairman of the city’s chamber of commerce.

Perhaps President Ronald Reagan ought to have said:

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I’m from a corporation and I’m here to help.

From Bloomberg News

Few countries blew up more spectacularly than Iceland in the 2008 financial crisis. The local stock market plunged 90 percent; unemployment rose ninefold; inflation shot to more than 18 percent; the country’s biggest banks all failed.

This was no post-Lehman Brothers recession: It was a depression.

Since then, Iceland has turned in a pretty impressive performance. It has repaid International Monetary Fund rescue loans ahead of schedule. Growth this year will be about 2.5 percent, better than most developed economies. Unemployment has fallen by half. In February, Fitch Ratings restored the country’s investment-grade status, approvingly citing its “unorthodox crisis policy response.”

You can say that again. Iceland’s approach was the polar opposite of the U.S. and Europe, which rescued their banks and did little to aid indebted homeowners. Although lessons drawn from Iceland, with just 320,000 people and an economy based on fishing, aluminum production and tourism, might not be readily transferable to bigger countries, its rebound suggests there’s more than one way to recover from a financial meltdown.

Nothing distinguishes Iceland as much as its aid to consumers. To homeowners with negative equity, the country offered write-offs that would wipe out debt above 110 percent of the property value. The government also provided means-tested subsidies to reduce mortgage-interest expenses: Those with lower earnings, less home equity and children were granted the most generous support.

Via Truthdig…

Roldo Bartimole writes:

There’s a lot of anguish over a problem between RTA drivers and RTA riders. They’re beating each other up.

Some of it is blamed by some on stress among many people. That’s only going to get worse as our new economy keeps driving more and more of wealth to the upper reaches. At the same time it continues to crunch those at the other end.

The solution: Free public transportation.

Yes, free. That’s what I wrote.

If I – and many, many others – can drive free on all city streets because we own a vehicle why can’t those without vehicles ride the same streets at the same cost. Zero.

I don’t care how you finance public transportation but make it free for those who use it.

As our society keeps “rewarding” free streets to all with private transportation, why shouldn’t those same streets be free to those without private vehicles?

Don’t they really need it much more? Of course, they do.

We keep finding ways to reward those who don’t need bonuses and we keep finding regressive ways to damage those who need.

It just doesn’t make sense.

Get rid of the fare box. Get rid of the stress. Give those with needs a bit of a break. And save some cracked heads.

Carlinisms…*

Why are they called stands when they are made for sitting?

From my dad, of course…

*I associate this kind of word play with the brilliant comedy of George Carlin…

Roldo Bartimole writes:

County Executive Ed FitzGerald is going to park $100 in the bank for every kid in Cuyahoga County for some 20 to 25 years? At five years old. Some 15,000 of them. Until they’re, if unused, in their mid twenties.

Sounds like a good deal for banks. Not sure about children. Or parents.

The total amount set aside would be $1.5 million a year. (Though there will be other costs for the county.)

Say half (to be generous) of those kids actually will use the $100 for a college education during the 20 or so years.

That means that $750,000 could sit in some bank vault annually. Times a possible minimum of 20 years – more or less. So $750,000 times 20 years equals $15 million. That’s what will be awaiting the half of kids likely not to go to college.

That’s some $15 million the banks have on hand, likely at the lowest, if any, interest rate. Nice reserves.

Seems to me like a good deal for banks but a rotten deal for spurring educational desires among the young.

Couldn’t they find a better way to invest County money to help those who need a boost and are really going to go to college?

It seems they didn’t think this one through.

Carlinisms…*

Why do we sing Take me out to the ball game when we are already there?

From my dad, of course…

*I associate this kind of word play with the brilliant comedy of George Carlin…

Roldo Bartimole writes:

As I remember it when I first came to Cleveland and had the occasion to visit Cleveland City Council, the 33 members used a room outside the committee hearing chamber as their office. One office fit all.

There’s a reason I’m telling you this.

They called it “the bullpen,” says a former Councilman.

The 33 members operated out of the one room, making and taking telephone calls from constituents. Doing business. It was low budget government. Worked as well as those things do.

Things change, as you know.

Not only did they have cramped quarters but they shared the room. With reporters. Lots of them. At the time there were two newspapers with more than one assigned reporter each. There were TV stations with news reporters. And there were Continue Reading »

Carlinisms…*

Why do tug boats push their barges?

From my dad, of course…

*I associate this kind of word play with the brilliant comedy of George Carlin…

Carlinisms…*

Why does fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?

From my dad, of course…

*I associate this kind of word play with the brilliant comedy of George Carlin…

You do remember the baby milk factory, don’t you…?

Carlinisms…*

Why does slow down and slow up mean the same thing?

From my dad, of course…

*I associate this kind of word play with the brilliant comedy of George Carlin…

Glenn Greenwald writes:

There are many reasons why so many self-identified progressives in the US have so radically changed their posture on these issues when Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush. Those include (a) the subordination of all ostensible beliefs to their hunger for partisan power; (b) they never actually believed these claimed principles in the first place but only advocated them for partisan opportunism, i.e., as a way to discredit the GOP President; and (c) they are now convinced that these abuses will only be used against Muslims and, consumed by self-interest, they concluded that these abuses are not worth caring about because it only affects Others (this is the non-Muslim privilege enjoyed by most US progressives, which shields them from ever being targeted, so they simply do not care; the more honest ones of this type even admit this motivation).

But the primary reason for this fundamental change in posture is that they genuinely share the self-glorifying worldview driving Obama here. The core premise is that the political world is shaped by a clean battle of Good v. Evil. The side of Good is the Democratic Party; the side of Evil is the GOP. All political truths are ascertainable through this Manichean prism.

Carlinisms…*

Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?

From my dad, of course…

*I associate this kind of word play with the brilliant comedy of George Carlin…

Tom Peters writes:

You … ARE … who you hang out with. What does that say about your day? (Try and add at least one outlier to your portfolio of contacts.)