While SCGOP legislators and consultants continue to argue that the best way to attract new business to the state is to strip workers of pretty much every right they can contemplate, in this or the next life, in other places different ideas are coming to the fore.
In New York, for example, Republican financiers are taking their checkbooks out to support legislative efforts to enact marriage equality- including NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, a multibillionaire who never takes his eye off the balance sheet:
These are important arguments for SC policymakers to consider.
As anyone with a head must secretly acknowledge, the education system here- top to bottom- will take generations of improvement to generate the volume of knowledge workers need to attract the front office staff we're not getting when Amazon, Boeing and Starbucks come here to hire back office folks to tend servers, grind beans, and bolt airplane parts together.
Lately the GOP ruling class in SC, a bit bewildered by the Teabaggists' demands that none of the old, 1950s, corporate bribe economic development model features apply any more, has only been able to articulate, as an alternative, reducing corporate taxes from ludicrously low to insanely low, and enacting guarantees that when a deal is on the line, the state will strip workers of whatever crumbs of legal protection are left.
People need to get real. Boeing's plant will be a backup for when they have strikes at the main 787 plant in Everett. Amazon, denied a sales tax break for a new box-packing-and shipping factory, relocated to Indiana, where impending presidential candidate Mitch Daniels (R) was happy to sign off on the deal. Starbucks doesn't give two slaps where they grind beans. It's not rocket science, after all. And the people who drink that overpriced coffee more than make up for the handful of grinders and packers they pay in Charleston. For all the talk of BMW expanding, most of their workers are contractors, not real employees.
And they bolt cars together. Cars they can't afford themselves.
SC sends out signals all the time that the only new populations it wants are retired military, golfers, foreigners (mostly a Greenville thing) and tourists (who spend money and leave, but not all tourists).
North Carolina used to think that way, too. Then somebody came up with an idea called The Research Triangle.
Here's a thought experiment: what would it take to convince Google to relocate some of its Silicon Valley workforce here?
In New York, for example, Republican financiers are taking their checkbooks out to support legislative efforts to enact marriage equality- including NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, a multibillionaire who never takes his eye off the balance sheet:
Aides to Mr. Bloomberg said he viewed the marriage issue in a larger context: Freedom, he argues, is New York’s “competitive advantage” and its brand, and he has become committed to vigorously defending it...Meantime, an article in Slate argues the US is running out of market share to build internally, and that the last, low-hanging, fruit is to go overseas and poach other nations' brightest.
These are important arguments for SC policymakers to consider.
As anyone with a head must secretly acknowledge, the education system here- top to bottom- will take generations of improvement to generate the volume of knowledge workers need to attract the front office staff we're not getting when Amazon, Boeing and Starbucks come here to hire back office folks to tend servers, grind beans, and bolt airplane parts together.
Lately the GOP ruling class in SC, a bit bewildered by the Teabaggists' demands that none of the old, 1950s, corporate bribe economic development model features apply any more, has only been able to articulate, as an alternative, reducing corporate taxes from ludicrously low to insanely low, and enacting guarantees that when a deal is on the line, the state will strip workers of whatever crumbs of legal protection are left.
People need to get real. Boeing's plant will be a backup for when they have strikes at the main 787 plant in Everett. Amazon, denied a sales tax break for a new box-packing-and shipping factory, relocated to Indiana, where impending presidential candidate Mitch Daniels (R) was happy to sign off on the deal. Starbucks doesn't give two slaps where they grind beans. It's not rocket science, after all. And the people who drink that overpriced coffee more than make up for the handful of grinders and packers they pay in Charleston. For all the talk of BMW expanding, most of their workers are contractors, not real employees.
And they bolt cars together. Cars they can't afford themselves.
SC sends out signals all the time that the only new populations it wants are retired military, golfers, foreigners (mostly a Greenville thing) and tourists (who spend money and leave, but not all tourists).
North Carolina used to think that way, too. Then somebody came up with an idea called The Research Triangle.
Here's a thought experiment: what would it take to convince Google to relocate some of its Silicon Valley workforce here?
Excellent food for thought, Waldo. And the huge majority of the people who run this state couldn't care less. Running a plantation still pays pretty well, apparently.
ReplyDeleteHow, then, to begin getting anyone's attention?
ReplyDeleteI doubt you going to, unfortunately. Regarding education, the powers that be in this state on just about all sides refuse to take a substantive look at the issues that have held South Carolina back for decades.
ReplyDeleteThese include: parents who simply don't give a damn about the quality of education their kids receive, teachers who aren't qualified or who have thrown in the towel and are putting in time until retirement, an educational system that often appears more interested in perpetuating bureaucracy rather than educating kids, legislators who pay lip service to "putting students first" but who pull stunts like instituting an "education lottery," then replacing existing funding for education with lottery money, rather than adding to it, and students who often go through the motions of getting an education without actually learning anything.
Is this a comprehensive list? Probably not. Am I painting the entire S.C. educational system with a broad brush? Undoubtedly. But there are serious systemic flaws in this state's educational system that will take decades to remedy.
And, as you've pointed out previously, political operatives who spread rumor and innuendo regarding the private lives of candidates and elected officials in an attempt to discredit them keeps good people away and reinforces the impression that S.C. is run by Neanderthals who have banned the internal combustion engine if they'd discovered its creator happened to be, say, gay or Muslim.
In short, we have the system we have because it's worked well for those few people at the top: Consultants, lobbyists, legislators, pr firms. For the other 99.8 percent of the state, it's been an unmitigated disaster.
Why work wih/for a political think tank then? If things are incurable, what is there to cure?
ReplyDeleteI do it because it's irresponsible to sit on the sidelines and bitch about problems if you're not willing to do something. My goal is to attempt to scrutinize the actions of individuals operating state and local government. It may not be much, but right now trying to keep the powers that be at little more honest is perhaps the best I can offer.
ReplyDeleteAnd not everything is incurable. No, I can't make parents take a greater interest in their kids' education, for example. But I can look into, say, how education funds are being squandered, or how lottery money isn't going to where it was advertised, and write about it so whomever is pullling these stunts isn't getting off scot-free.
Does it make much difference? I don't know. Change comes incrementally.
If nothing else, I'd like to think I'm earning an honest living. I see far too many people in this state who are only too happy to take money on the sly for whatever side, cause, campaign, etc., is willing to through it their way.