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Austerity? Indeed!

Submitted by usna77 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 6:36pm

Today the Asheville Citizen-Times is reporting that Facebook is building a $300 million-plus data center in Rutherford County. The article cites that when completed, the facility will house between 35 and 45 permanent jobs, and mentions "incentives."

I am looking for definitive data, but I understand that Rutherford County and the state will pony up some $10 million in "economic development incentives" to support the Facebook facility.

$10 million for 45 jobs comes to just under $250,000 per job. From what I understand, the jobs created must pay the prevailing wage in Rutherford County, which I understand is about $13.50 per hour. Of course, this doesn't include a couple hundred temporary construction jobs for the 15 months or so it will take to build this high-tech facility.

With GOP calls for austerity, what exactly is the rationale for pumping $10 million of taxpayer dollars into a company that reportedly in 2009 had revenue of over $800 million, with positive cash flow?

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Comments

Makes no sense

Submitted by James on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 7:11pm.

I guess that's what we've come to. American people, North Carolinians, sucking up to the corporate masters. A sad new twist on Stockholm Syndrome.

More definitive data

Submitted by usna77 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 8:16pm.

This is from Alan Wolf at the Newsless Worrier.

Facebook is receiving $1.4 million in incentives from Rutherford County.

The company is also getting an economic development grant from the county that could be worth $10 million if Facebook meets investment goals.

The project won't be a big job engine. The facility is expected to eventually employ 42 people and must pay more than $13.45 an hour, the Rutherford County average.

So, about 250 construction jobs for maybe 18 months, with an eventual 42 permanent workers. Speculation is that maybe 10 of those will be highly skilled data types, with another handful of skilled facility maintenance types, and the rest basically janitors.

The telling sentence: The project won't be a big job engine. If these economic development incentives do not result in "big job engines," why do we have them?

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Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. -- sign on Einstein's office wall.

Not related to anything...

Submitted by usna77 on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 10:12pm.

But this line from tonight's episode of 30 Rock almost caused me to fall out of my chair...

Crunchy on the outside, right wing nut job on the inside...like Ann Coulter's underwear.

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Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. -- sign on Einstein's office wall.