Boy that Texas Corporate Welfare Fund sure is money well spent! (merged threads) (Houston: sales, real estate)

[texdav]

Well;Looking at the stae of the state in this recession and before;I would say texas is well offf compared to so mnay others. It especailly loos good when the US has gone from the number #1 country to invest in business to number two last year and number 4 this year . From first to fourth in two years under curent leadership.

[loves2read]

plenty of corporations have chosen to provide jobs OUTSIDE of the US vs keeping jobs in the US in operation...
they have done this because they CHOOSE in a profitable business model to boost their bottom line and ensure that their higher level employees (i.e. excutive vps, ceo, cfo, board members) enjoy tremendously profitable paychecks and benefits...vs the average worker

case in point HP--once revered as a technology company on the cutting edge of design/research with a great training program and satisfied competitive work force...
NOT ANY MORE...

check out what HP when through when it hired Mark Hurd who took great pains to slash the budget for research and development, laid off/fired/downsized thousands of worker on all levels/areas of the company and yet managed to snag a salary and bonus and stock optins that amounted to 24.2 MILLION dollars in 2009--when the economy was going in the tank and HP was down 29% in revenue...
HP under Hurd bought EDS to provide a service arm to HP and allow it to compete against IBM--what a joke!
he has gutted EDS, totally screwed over the employees, there is no management willing to make a decision...and of course his personal morals are abysmal...

yet Oracle stock went up when his hiring was announced...

Oracle's Larry Ellison has been a bosum buddy of Hurd's for years--and was a loud voice decrying how Hurd was treated by HP--so he hired him...
let's see if he will allow Hurd to drive HIS company into the ground like Hurd did HP...
I bet Hurd does not last a year...

AND Barak Obama is not running ANY of the companies in the US--he made no decisions to layoff workers in companies that actually suffered not a lot of harm in 2008 or even part of 2009 before the economy really tanked--and there were plenty of companies who MADE money and laid off thousands of workers knowing that was exactly the best time to do it--that they could lay the blame on the economy and frankly the news media would be too stupid to ask by a company that was making a profit had to lay off 10% of its workforce...
check out how much cash money some of these companies are sitting on and still are laying off their workforce and moving operations out of the country--
some of these same companies have BILLIONS of $$$ in cash they are sitting on--they have cut paying into workers' 401k plans,cut back on their share of medical insurance plans, all sorts of cut backs to everything but high level executive pay---

greed is rampant where there is no one to say stop--most boards of companies are complicet in making these decisions because all they care about is stock price...
and frankly so many US business are models of us against them--where the us is the company's fair hair boys and the them is the regular worker...

[artsyguy]

Welfare recipients receive a minute amount compared to corporations therefore they would never be able to provide jobs. Corporations should hire the "underclass" and put them into training camps to do work around the corporations. How hard can it be to offer easy jobs to the "underclass." At least they wouldn't be taking welfare. They would be getting trained, indoctrinated into the corporate culture, and then working. That's better IMHO.

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

But corporations provide jobs.

Welfare recipients do not.

[Wonderful Jellal]

Jobs have been created, it's the most important in this economy
Texas can be proof about its economic policies when you see states hating them as California, NY, Illinois, Oregon.
Great Texas

[mezman]

Originally Posted by RenaudFR

Jobs have been created, it's the most important in this economy
Texas can be proof about its economic policies when you see states hating them as California, NY, Illinois, Oregon.
Great Texas

There is a reason they set a minimum amount of jobs that need to be created to get the tax incentive... because that's how many jobs are needed to make the incentive worthwhile for Texas. With these companies not creating the number of jobs they "promised" these funds could have been better used elsewhere to create the jobs necessary to cover the expenditure.

No matter what you think Renaud this is not a great situation for Texas (nor for other states where this happens all the time).

[Sandstorm214]

Originally Posted by killer2021

Just goes to show stimulus isn't the way to create jobs. Low taxes and low regulation is the way to that!

Yes, we've all seen the great effects of reduced regulation in offshore drilling and banking. Sensible regulations are vital to our nation's economic interests.

[loves2read]

the article also says that for some companies the goals (meaning persons hired) were revised downward--so companies get a large incentive and time to enforce the agreement--
they benefit during that time and only after the time is up does the inability to meet the standards come out...then (most of the time) standards are revised downward (and maybe their tax incentives are reduced but that is not clearly set out)
but another year still goes by before status is reevaluated--
this is just a stalling game--
corporations are very good at knowing how to take advantage of rules written to their advantage anyway...
I think corporations should get rebates if/when they prove they can meet the standards set out for successful completion--and pay their full taxes to start with--

doing it THAT ways seems to be fair to both sides and actually guaranteed to generate the hiring gains that the tax incentive is designed to create...puts the burden on the corporation to DO what it promises in the first place...

[mezman]

Originally Posted by loves2read

the article also says that for some companies the goals (meaning persons hired) were revised downward--so companies get a large incentive and time to enforce the agreement--
they benefit during that time and only after the time is up does the inability to meet the standards come out...then (most of the time) standards are revised downward (and maybe their tax incentives are reduced but that is not clearly set out)
but another year still goes by before status is reevaluated--
this is just a stalling game--
corporations are very good at knowing how to take advantage of rules written to their advantage anyway...
I think corporations should get rebates if/when they prove they can meet the standards set out for successful completion--and pay their full taxes to start with--

doing it THAT ways seems to be fair to both sides and actually guaranteed to generate the hiring gains that the tax incentive is designed to create...puts the burden on the corporation to DO what it promises in the first place...

Well that would be a sensible thing to do but the problem is that everyone needs to be doing the same thing. The problem with having decentralized regulations (i.e. each state setting its own rules) is that if you don't do it someone else will. So if Texas doesn't give the incentives up-front some other state will (or another country for that matter). It's a race to the bottom and the states with the least regulation and loosest requirements win. Only problem is that corporations are like locusts they'll go to those places and use all or the resources, pollute, won't provide living wages, etc. When all of the resources are gone or people finally realize they're being screwed the corp just moves on to the next place.

Corporations don't have incentives to think long-term and they certainly don't care about average person. So they won't think twice about bleeding a place dry and moving on... but hey at least they provide jobs .

[loves2read]

corporations create wage slaves for the most part...

[orbius]

Originally Posted by killer2021

Just goes to show stimulus isn't the way to create jobs. Low taxes and low regulation is the way to that!

Houston is the ultimate low tax and low regulation city and its a freaking dump in most parts.

Why do you think Austin grew so much and was so attractive to business because the city elders built a liveable city and did what was necessary to preserve the natural beauty of the place. That took regulation and taxation.


A well run, attractive city, with happy people, and good education are what attracts business. What the 'government is evil' crowd dont want to hear is that creating this type of city takes the kind of coordination and money that only a robust and well run government can provide. Business doesnt care about rules and taxes as much as you think as long as they're fair relatively speaking.