Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You gave the math for something that wasn't even being debated. I guess it's probably not changing the goal posts so much as it's introducing straw men. I never was arguing that Columbus didn't produce more jobs, and nobody ever said Cincinnati's wage multiplier was 3 or 4x larger than Columbus. You seem to do this a lot.
I was assuming 1.9x and 1.7x, for multipliers, actually, typical for jobs in those wage ranges which would give Columbus a return of $12.83 on every tax credit dollar spent and Cincinnati a return of $13.41.
You are completely misunderstanding both what I said and the intent behind it, but that's par for the course around here. You'll do very well here.
So let's recap what was and wasn't said.
My claims and/or admittances and their realities.
1. Franklin County created more jobs for less money. Reality: Fact. Based on a strict division of the total tax money by the number of jobs created, Franklin County's jobs did cost less money to create.
2. Franklin County received more money than Hamilton County. Reality: Fact, and it was never in dispute.
3. Even if Hamilton County's jobs provide a greater income tax return to the state per job, the overall difference in the number of jobs created would more than make up the difference. Reality: Fact. While on a per-job basis what you said is true, overall, Franklin County's 8,500 more created jobs would still ultimately have the larger impact for the state.
4. Case in point, Franklin County's jobs would've returned about 3x more money back to the state. Reality: Partially true, based on current tax rates on income brackets. In this case, the taxes would be $1281.10 + 4.983% for any amount over $40,000. However, I made a mistake last night and used the wrong tax bracket, so the actual difference is closer to 2.5x the amount.
5. Since you brought up multipliers, I attempted to use an example of 2 for Hamilton County and 1.5 for Franklin based on the 33% average wage difference of created jobs. Even though I had Hamilton County creating 1 full extra job vs. Franklin's 1/2 of one, the math showed that create more total jobs and 2x more payroll. Reality: True on the math, but it's based on the multiplier assumption which, again, we have no idea what it would actually be.
6. I stated that it would be unrealistic to expect a drastic multiplier difference, or something like 3 or 4 for Hamilton County vs. 2 or less for Franklin. Reality: True in that it's about logic, and I was only giving an example of an unrealistic difference, not stating that anyone had actually attempted to state that was reality. I was basically saying that the multiplier difference would realistically be pretty small.
Your claims and/or admittances and their realities.
1. Hamilton County's created jobs had a 33% higher wage than those created in Franklin County. Reality: Fact, or at least close enough to not quibble over.
2. Hamilton County's created jobs returned $1,000 more back to the state per job than did Franklin County's. Reality: Partially true. Hamilton County's individual jobs did send more back to the state per job, but it was more like $750 per job.
3. You said that, because of the wage difference, discretionary spending from Hamilton County's jobs would create more jobs than would Franklin County's. Reality: You don't actually know that, and it would be an educated guess at best and a random number at worst.
4. Coinciding with your point 3, you brought up multipliers in reference to indirect spending creating more jobs. You didn't exactly state what you believed the multipliers to be for each county's respective jobs (at least not until your last post, which given the 1.9 vs. 1.7, agree with me that they'd be pretty close), but stated that Hamilton's would obviously have a greater one. Reality: Again, we have no idea without, as you even acknowledged, some kind of economic impact study. See my point 5.
5. You said I changed the goalposts. Reality: I have no idea how.
I think the main difference in our arguments is that you're arguing more from the perspective that per-job numbers are far more important than I am. I have agreed with you on the basis that the created jobs in Hamilton County both pay more per average and would return more in taxes per job. My argument is that that really doesn't matter unless Hamilton County was creating a similar number of jobs, which it isn't. It created only about 26% of the total that Franklin County did. So for me, it's about the entire picture.
Anyway, I think we've more than beat this into the ground.
You are completely misunderstanding both what I said and the intent behind it, but that's par for the course around here. You'll do very well here.
So let's recap what was and wasn't said.
My claims and/or admittances and their realities.
1. Franklin County created more jobs for less money. Reality: Fact. Based on a strict division of the total tax money by the number of jobs created, Franklin County's jobs did cost less money to create.
2. Franklin County received more money than Hamilton County. Reality: Fact, and it was never in dispute.
3. Even if Hamilton County's jobs provide a greater income tax return to the state per job, the overall difference in the number of jobs created would more than make up the difference. Reality: Fact. While on a per-job basis what you said is true, overall, Franklin County's 8,500 more created jobs would still ultimately have the larger impact for the state.
4. Case in point, Franklin County's jobs would've returned about 3x more money back to the state. Reality: Partially true, based on current tax rates on income brackets. In this case, the taxes would be $1281.10 + 4.983% for any amount over $40,000. However, I made a mistake last night and used the wrong tax bracket, so the actual difference is closer to 2.5x the amount.
5. Since you brought up multipliers, I attempted to use an example of 2 for Hamilton County and 1.5 for Franklin based on the 33% average wage difference of created jobs. Even though I had Hamilton County creating 1 full extra job vs. Franklin's 1/2 of one, the math showed that create more total jobs and 2x more payroll. Reality: True on the math, but it's based on the multiplier assumption which, again, we have no idea what it would actually be.
6. I stated that it would be unrealistic to expect a drastic multiplier difference, or something like 3 or 4 for Hamilton County vs. 2 or less for Franklin. Reality: True in that it's about logic, and I was only giving an example of an unrealistic difference, not stating that anyone had actually attempted to state that was reality. I was basically saying that the multiplier difference would realistically be pretty small.
Your claims and/or admittances and their realities.
1. Hamilton County's created jobs had a 33% higher wage than those created in Franklin County. Reality: Fact, or at least close enough to not quibble over.
2. Hamilton County's created jobs returned $1,000 more back to the state per job than did Franklin County's. Reality: Partially true. Hamilton County's individual jobs did send more back to the state per job, but it was more like $750 per job.
3. You said that, because of the wage difference, discretionary spending from Hamilton County's jobs would create more jobs than would Franklin County's. Reality: You don't actually know that, and it would be an educated guess at best and a random number at worst.
4. Coinciding with your point 3, you brought up multipliers in reference to indirect spending creating more jobs. You didn't exactly state what you believed the multipliers to be for each county's respective jobs (at least not until your last post, which given the 1.9 vs. 1.7, agree with me that they'd be pretty close), but stated that Hamilton's would obviously have a greater one. Reality: Again, we have no idea without, as you even acknowledged, some kind of economic impact study. See my point 5.
5. You said I changed the goalposts. Reality: I have no idea how.
I think the main difference in our arguments is that you're arguing more from the perspective that per-job numbers are far more important than I am. I have agreed with you on the basis that the created jobs in Hamilton County both pay more per average and would return more in taxes per job. My argument is that that really doesn't matter unless Hamilton County was creating a similar number of jobs, which it isn't. It created only about 26% of the total that Franklin County did. So for me, it's about the entire picture.
Anyway, I think we've more than beat this into the ground.
Yeah, probably, I'm good at beating things into the ground. You reworded the claim I had the dispute with. In fact, let me go over that paragraph one more time and I'll bold the claims you made which I think are dubious:
Quote:
No, what it says is that every dollar that goes to Columbus creates more jobs than the same dollar in the other 2-Cs. Even motorman admitted that, when you are talking about business investments, it makes the most financial sense to place the largest bet on what you'll get the biggest return from. Right now, that is Columbus. So yes, Columbus has gotten more money from JobsOhio, but that money is simply going further there as well. If I was state leadership, I'd be doing exactly the same thing. I'm not exactly in love with JobsOhio, but in this instance, this makes completely rational sense. The real question remains why Columbus is able to create a job for less money on average.
Your point #1 above may not be true, even if the math you used to make the claim is true. This is a large part of my dispute. Economists looking at that table would never say what you did. You can look at that chart and you see that Mansfield (Richland Co.) was easily the most "efficient" city in the state based on tax credits, but if you look into what the company that created those 1000 jobs (Calisolar) actually received, including a $275 million guaranteed loan from the feds, and a $100 million discount on energy costs from Ohio Edison, the $800,000 given by JobsOhio is actually just a drop in the bucket of the actual taxpayer cost of creating those jobs. We can not know what the costs of any of these jobs actually are, and making claims on the basis of that incomplete information leads to likely false statements. There is no way we can say that every dollar that goes to a certain city creates more jobs than another city without knowing all of the dollars that are going into these jobs. It's a lot more complex than you've made it.
I've never disputed your claim #2, but I'm pretty sure you did at some point. If you want, we can look it up. At any rate, I don't know why you're taking credit for claiming it.
#3 - I think you missed my point on that, I'd never disputed the claim you're making. I'm not disputing total impacts or total jobs, I am disputing that dollar for dollar spent that Columbus' jobs have more impact on the state.
#4 - Yes, they would have returned 2.5x the income tax money to the state but received 2.74x money from the state, meaning that for every tax dollar spent in Franklin Co., less apparently gets returned than it does in Hamilton Co (again, though, we can't know this for sure.) You keep shifting from a per dollar basis, which is all I'm arguing against to making claims on a total basis when it suits you, but I'm not disputing the total figures at all. This is how you shift the goalposts. Keeping the tax received to the tax spent dollar for dollar is less favorable for you, so you ignore it.
#5 - Again with the total jobs and total payroll (which I've never argued against).
#6 - I still have no idea where you came up with this 3x or 4X multiplier, nobody claimed anything remotely like that. This is a straw man argument because you came up with the numbers yourself and are arguing against them yourself.
As for the claims I've made, on #3, what you say I said is not quite accurate, as I said that from the table that each job created in Hamilton Co. would create more indirect jobs than each job created in Franklin Co. I absolutely know this is fact, again, based on those salary differences, like I know that evolution is real and the Big Bang happened despite not having the complete proof laid out in front of me. Cincinnati has a unique culture, but it's not so unique from the rest of America that the majority of citizens would be saving a quarter of their paychecks every month rather than spending it. Again, I am not arguing that more total jobs get created in Hamilton, just that for each job at that salary level more indirect jobs will get created.
As for my point #5 about you changing the goalposts, in several of the claims above (#2,#3,#4,#5 on your claims, and #3 on mine) you try to state your argument on a total jobs or a total dollars basis, which I'm not disputing at all. I keep trying to bring it back to those bolded claims from the paragraph above that Columbus creates more return on the dollar, that it creates jobs more efficiently, that money goes further there. Every time you bring up differences in total dollars or total jobs, it shifts the goalposts from dollars spent per job and dollars returned per dollar spent to a total jobs or a total dollars goal.
And yeah, I guess now we should figure out how to stop beating this well dead horse.
Yeah, probably, I'm good at beating things into the ground. You reworded the
claim I had the dispute with. In fact, let me go over that paragraph one more
time and I'll bold the claims you made which I think are dubious:
Your point #1 above may not be true, even if the math you used to make the
claim is true. This is a large part of my dispute. Economists looking at that
table would never say what you did. You can look at that chart and you see that
Mansfield (Richland Co.) was easily the most "efficient" city in the state based
on tax credits, but if you look into what the company that created those 1000
jobs (Calisolar) actually received, including a $275 million guaranteed loan
from the feds, and a $100 million discount on energy costs from Ohio Edison, the
$800,000 given by JobsOhio is actually just a drop in the bucket of the actual
taxpayer cost of creating those jobs. We can not know what the costs of any of
these jobs actually are, and making claims on the basis of that incomplete
information leads to likely false statements. There is no way we can say that
every dollar that goes to a certain city creates more jobs than another city
without knowing all of the dollars that are going into these jobs. It's a lot
more complex than you've made it.
This seems like a case of trying way too hard. First, I wasn't comparing all the cities on the list, only the 3-Cs. Second, you can't possibly know every single economic factor that may or may not come into play beyond what was listed, that's why I said "strictly based on the link". Based on the link, the claim is true. I suppose you could attempt to find every single mitigating factor otherwise, but then the picture becomes just a little too convoluted and would probably end up just as questionable anyway, or with the exact same results. Since you don't know the other factors, if there are actually any, calling it untrue on your part just seems kind of dishonest to me.
Quote:
I've never disputed your claim #2, but I'm pretty sure you did at some point.
If you want, we can look it up. At any rate, I don't know why you're taking
credit for claiming it.
I never disputed that, based on the given link, Franklin County received more dollars, and I did admit as much. Whether you want to stake claim to it, be my guest. Either way, I have not denied it.
Quote:
#3 - I think you missed my point on that, I'd never disputed the claim you're
making. I'm not disputing total impacts or total jobs, I am disputing that
dollar for dollar spent that Columbus' jobs have more impact on the state.
And that's what I meant by we're arguing two different sides to the same thing. You're talking per-job, and I'm talking total picture. And I'm saying per-job doesn't really matter because the impact is still much smaller. It's like in nature. Take the praying mantis... a larger, pretty nasty bug and is a very efficient killer on its own. But put it up to an army of ants and it's going to die. Ultimately, which has the larger impact? 100 praying mantis' or a million ants? Maybe a silly example, but you get my point, I hope.
Quote:
#4 - Yes, they would have returned 2.5x the income tax money to the state but
received 2.74x money from the state, meaning that for every tax dollar spent in
Franklin Co., less apparently gets returned than it does in Hamilton Co (again,
though, we can't know this for sure.) You keep shifting from a per dollar basis,
which is all I'm arguing against to making claims on a total basis when it suits
you, but I'm not disputing the total figures at all. This is how you shift the
goalposts. Keeping the tax received to the tax spent dollar for dollar is less
favorable for you, so you ignore it.
Not sure where you're getting the 2.74x figure from. And I'm not shifting. The only time I have talked about per-job is the dollar cost in creation of each. The rest of the time, I've been talking about total picture. You, again, just seem to be arguing the opposite of each. I have at least admitted that your per-job figures are correct... but so it the overall picture I'm giving.
Quote:
#5 - Again with the total jobs and total payroll (which I've never argued
against).
Sure you did, when you said that Cincinnati jobs return more back to the state. They only do if you ignore the collective total. There just weren't enough of those jobs created there.
Quote:
#6 - I still have no idea where you came up with this 3x or 4X multiplier,
nobody claimed anything remotely like that. This is a straw man argument because
you came up with the numbers yourself and are arguing against them yourself.
omfg... It's not a difficult concept. I specifically said that no one said it. Again, the only reason I brought it up is just as an example of a multiplier that wouldn't make sense. It has nothing to do with anything that was stated by you or anyone else.
Quote:
As for the claims I've made, on #3, what you say I said is not quite accurate,
as I said that from the table that each job created in Hamilton Co. would create
more indirect jobs than each job created in Franklin Co. I absolutely know this
is fact, again, based on those salary differences, like I know that evolution is
real and the Big Bang happened despite not having the complete proof laid out in
front of me.
Again, you can't prove it and have no evidence for that (which is why you shouldn't be making it), but I haven't actually stated that it's untrue. In my example, I even had Hamilton County gaining 2x indirect jobs based on the salary difference. My only point is that it doesn't matter, not when the total number of jobs you're starting with is so much lower.
Quote:
Cincinnati has a unique culture, but it's not so unique from the rest of
America that the majority of citizens would be saving a quarter of their
paychecks every month rather than spending it. Again, I am not arguing that more
total jobs get created in Hamilton, just that for each job at that salary level
more indirect jobs will get created.
And I'm not arguing that they will save it either. Just that all those direct and indirect jobs have a smaller impact.
Quote:
As for my point #5 about you changing the goalposts, in several of the claims
above (#2,#3,#4,#5 on your claims, and #3 on mine) you try to state your
argument on a total jobs or a total dollars basis, which I'm not disputing at
all. I keep trying to bring it back to those bolded claims from the paragraph
above that Columbus creates more return on the dollar, that it creates jobs more
efficiently, that money goes further there. Every time you bring up differences
in total dollars or total jobs, it shifts the goalposts from dollars spent per
job and dollars returned per dollar spent to a total jobs or a total dollars
goal.
And yeah, I guess now we should figure out how to stop beating this well dead
horse.
They do create a larger return on the dollar, but that claim was based just on the total tax dollars divided by the # of jobs created. Based on that alone, jobs are indeed created more efficiently in Franklin County. You chose to take it in a different direction by bringing up multipliers and other things which the link doesn't remotely deal with, and then you tried to say that I changed the goalposts by not addressing that in the first place. I have only tried to deal with things that the link gives us data on. All the rest of the unknowns that you've introduced just create far too many questions that can't be answered.
In any event, this is going to be my last post on the matter. We're not going to agree on how to look at it and we've assuredly bored the *ell out of everyone else. You can have the last word if you so choose.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
