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Originally Posted by woj I think you might be mistaken about the details... before this "evil" corporation came in, there was an empty lot of land with nothing on it... = minimal tax revenue then this "evil" corporation comes in and invests $400M to build a factory, how is the local government any worse off after the factory is built? the corporation probably worked out a deal that they won't pay taxes on that $400M investment for 20 years, but why would that make anyone worse off? it seems pretty clear that everyone is better off, as there are more jobs, more economic activity in general as a result of this $400M investment that was made....

I'm originally from the Detroit area.

State and local governments gave away a fortune in property tax and income tax abatements to auto plants here and stuck everyone with the bill.

The recipients of these tax abatements got their business equipment taxes reduced or abated stuck everyone with the bill.

Worked out well for who?

Other landowners and income tax payers got stuck with the bill and when the recipients of these tax abatements bellied up or just closed the plants (for completive, redundancy or obsolescence reasons) . Where tax abatements were given the workers had no jobs. The State and local government units received less income tax revenue and asked for more property tax millage increases.

The city of Detroit is bankrupt now. The greed of the automakers and the unions is the reason.

I left the City of Detroit in 1973. I saw the writing on the wall.

How much does that new road or widened road to the new factory cost? How much do the street lights cost a month? How much do the extra police and fire personnel and their equipment that are required cost? If there is a net inflow of new residents to work in the new plant how much does it cost to build a new school (or add classroom capacity and teachers)?

Who do you think pays for it?
Landowner property taxpayers (and indirectly -- renters -- property taxes are passed through in rent cost ) that's who!

Drink the Koolaid and you have another Detroit -- that is what happened -- the money left, the factories closed with some never paying property taxes to the community. The net result: The City of Detroit (and adjacent counties,) all of Southwest Michigan, went to shit. So share croppers now have BMW jobs and cotton pickers have Mercedes jobs --LOL. Those same folks from the southern US migrated to Detroit for auto assembly jobs in the first half of the 1900s. One of my Grandfathers came all the way from Russia to the USA to end up working in the Ford Highland Park Plant. That was then and this is now. The workers in that BMW plant have the benefits, but not the wages, they do because of the UAW and the German Trade Unions setting the standard.

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In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germany’s big three car companies—BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz ), and Volkswagen—are very profitable ... [“w]hen they are operating in Spartanburg [in South Carolina] they have become very, very easily adaptable to Spartanburg business culture.” At Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, the nonunionized new employees get $14.50 an hour, which rises to $19.50 after three years ... http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederic...twice-as-much/

So we give them tax incentives and property tax abatements to be their cheap labor? Sukkas ....

If you cannot afford to be a property owner and property tax payer in the community go live on the moon or something. I don't want to pay for your property's services with my property tax. That is just a cost transfer to me.

My business is global I receive no real benefit of these property tax abatements. Where ever I live I will bring my own money. If the community wants to buy their jobs -- in essence that is what they are doing -- use their new found money not my money. So you think I should have an altruistic interest in their well being at my personal expense? The new jobs should pay the property tax abatement DIRECTLY -- a new job tax -- no real benefit of this will trickle up or trickle down to me. I would just as soon "vote with my feet" then I won't have to make up the difference of their next property tax abatement.

If anything, I deserve a tax abatement because I import my income to this community and country from offshore and pay taxes on it -- the community is a net beneficiary of my "evil corporate" income ...

Tax abatements are bullshit -- I will change my mind when they hand one out to me -- when chickens grow lips.

The only way to create jobs is by creating new demand like the Digital Revolution did during the 1990s, The industrial Revolution of the 1870 - 1915 period. Creating wealth and jobs is when innovation creates demand leading to production.

"Passing the hat" only transfers wealth. We (the industrialized world) gave our manufacturing of old technology to the second and third world -- we gave the jobs away.

We (the industrialized 1st world nations) are the new Rome we export our manufacture to the provinces, build out factories there and sell them high value tools to manufacture with. Those same "evil" corporations are making money in foreign lands owning the new factories with local partners -- commerce is global today. Nationalism and protectionist thinking is a dead end this is not 1930.

But we not creating much new technology wealth. We refuse to make the research investments we need to and bicker over this social problem and this tax.

Show me a solid government new technology program that has promise to yield results and I will "donate" my share of the tax burden. It will take massive federal investment to develop a new Technology Revolution. I have what I have because of the massive federal spending on the space program and the internet -- Computers and an Internet business that can harvest the wealth of many countries. Anyone that earns their living on the interwebs should realize the same. Who would have thought that in many countries we would all share in this exchange of wealth?

The sort of jobs that existed 30 years ago are no more. Adapt or die. Sorry if someone in China or Eastern Europe has your job today. The foreign worker can do the same work for less than you and his work is good enough for the price -- they were the low bidders in the global marketplace -- you lose.

</end book> ™ Markham wall of words Hi Paul!