Take Action: Stop Another Goodyear Giveaway
Concerned people on both sides of the aisle have been up in arms about corporate incentives ever since the Great Goodyear Giveaway by our "business-friendly" General Assembly this summer. Out-negotiated and out-maneuvered by a bunch of corporate lawyers, the legislature, with Mike Easley's eventual blessing, gave away the store in a stunning display of short-sightedness.
In the wake of the debacle, many of us worried that this would be just the beginning of a slide into never-ending corporate welfare, but little did we know that Goodyear itself would soon be extorting even more money from North Carolina taxpayers.
In September, Goodyear Tire & Rubber won as much as $40 million in state incentives to stay in Fayetteville. Now a lawmaker is proposing that North Carolina help lower the company's shipping costs, too.
At issue is the rubber that Goodyear uses to make tires. The Singapore shipping company that brings the material to North Carolina has asked officials at the state port in Morehead City to cut fees by 30 percent or, beginning in the spring, it will start moving rubber through New Orleans instead. That's a threat in Morehead City. If the company diverted rubber shipments, the port would lose $3.1 million in annual revenue and could lose jobs. Longshoremen spend an estimated 20,000 hours a year at the port working on vessels that bring in rubber.
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Rep. Pat McElraft, a Carteret County Republican, wants the state Department of Commerce to do so. A committee there is crafting rules to implement the General Assembly's new incentive program and has some flexibility.
It's hard to blame Goodyear. They're just doing what any other extortionist would do when dealing with an easy mark. Push, push, and then push some more.
Which is where YOU come in.
The powers that be are accepting public comments through Tuesday on proposed rules for implementing the new incentive program. They'll hold a public hearing Wednesday at 4 p.m. in the boardroom of the Commerce Department at 301 N. Wilmington St. in Raleigh. Here's what I'm going to say.
1. Not a dime more.
2. If Goodyear wants the original money, they ship through Morehead City. Period.
3. If Goodyear doesn't accept that new condition, the deal is off.
Here's the contact page which has no email addresses. So you'll have to call the main switchboard. The number is (919) 733-4151.
"Hi. I'm calling to voice my strong objection to any further negotiations to give more incentives to Goodyear. I am against giving them one dime more. If they don't ship through Morehead City, the entire incentives package should be canceled. Thank you for making sure Secretary Fain gets my message."
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Please post it here.
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Call them now.
You can leave a message on the answering machine, which means they'll have a boatload of surprises on Monday morning . . .
. . . but only if you call.
Bangladesh Giant Slave Labor Global Corporation owns PAAC
In 1992 Ross Perot warn America of a giant sucking sound that would destroy American industry and the American worker. It appears that it has suck in a North Carolina Republican fascist dingbat.........
And who owns the below International Corporations?
Columbia Multi-Tech (JV) Ltd h a n g e r s [ Supplies 45% of the Chinese Clothing Manufacturing industry]
National Accessories Ltd z i p p e r s [ supplies 30% for the Chinese Textile corporations]
Columbia Enterprise Ltd shipping agency [which owns PAAC lines] and a host of other shipping lines in Asia
NASH Logistics Ltd sea & air freight [ Air America former CIA front corporation from Nam War]
JES Holdings Ltd real estate [ 89 Shopping Malls in the USA]
Silver Soap Ltd soap
"Our MISSION is to know and understand our clients and to render the quality of services they expect, while availing opportunities to attract others by virtue of our tireless efforts and constant vigilance."
"Our VISION is to grow through services and commitments to our Customers, Investors and the Community." Unknown CEO of the CNC Group
CNC Group, Bangladesh.
And who are the stockholders and investors in the CNC?
[ Chase foreign Investments, New York bank}
[ Rothschild SA South America international Family Banking Corporation]
[ Singapore Rubber and Chemical Corporation, and guess who owns 52 % of it! Goodyear International of course]
More investors and stockholders to be listed later as it gets worst.....
Nice catch
I will get on the phone tomorrow.
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
Let air out
Just give $3 million to Morehead City to improve the port and call Goodyear's bluff. If they need rubber in Cumberland County it's going to come through Wilmington, not New Orleans.
Can we just put you in charge?
Robin Hayes lied. Nobody died, but thousands of folks lost their jobs.
Have YOU called yet?
Go ahead. You can do it.
(919) 733-4151.
Talk (back) to the (answering) Machine.
Info on the Wednesday meeting?
Where is info on the Wednesday incentives hearing? I can not find anything on a calendar.
Commerce Secretary Jim Fain
Beating a dead horse...
Rather than write out cash subsidies or discounts to specific companies, why don't we...
BUILD A BETTER RAIL CONNECTION BETWEEN FAYETTEVILLE AND MOREHEAD CITY?!?!?
Save energy
Reduce greenhouse gases
Strengthen the economy
Infrastructure that serves more than one company
Make sure the money we spend doesn't leave NC
Have you called yet?
(919) 733-4151
Sorry to be a pest, but there's only one way to make sure you're voice is heard . . . and that's to speak up.
Striking....
Interesting, and striking. Your post highlights the many places we agree, and the one where we do not.
Clearly, the Goodyear deal is outright theft. No less a libertarian than Karl Marx said, wherever capital controls the processes of government, it everywhere constitutes a system of domination.
Where we disagree, I think, is at this point in your statement:
It's hard to blame Goodyear. They're just doing what any other extortionist would do when dealing with an easy mark. Push, push, and then push some more.
I think that it is hard to blame the GOVERNMENT. Government almost always devolves into a system of taking money from the poor and the middle class, and giving it to the wealthy. That is its nature. You elect "good people," but somehow they end up selling out. How unexpected....
You and I agree, Anglico, that concentrations of economic power are frightening and dangerous. Where we disagree is over the question of whether, by and large, government can be expected to countervail, or to actively facilitate, those concentrations of power.
You have often said that libertarians trust markets too much, and are idealistic. Maybe. But actually YOU are the idealist, if you think that government can somehow be changed. Sometimes, around the margins, sure. But by and large, powerful democratic governments are going to be heavily tilted toward benefitting and paying off powerful economic interests.
Large government fundamentalists constantly (rightly) bemoan the bad things governments do. But then, somehow, you convince yourselves that this is an isolated incident. NEXT TIME, it will be different.
These incidents, Goodyear, Google, Dell, the NCHP giving fake licenses to kit cars, aren't isolated. When you look at the whole picture, together, large government fundamentalists are just too idealistic.
Oh, and all our thoughts to you about your dad, and other vets. The cowardice of our elected officials should not dim our admiration for the courage of our armed forces, in carrying out impossible missions in hellholes all over the world.
"It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795.
Much to think about
I don't consider myself a large government fundamentalist. In fact, my own libertarian streak runs deep. That said, I do see a role for government in preserving a small handful of fundamental freedoms and rights. (Much current debate iinvolves whether those rights should include access to health care. I think it should.)
Isn't it possible that many of the problems we bemoan are the result of an accumulation of decades of bad decisions, decisions which have given corporations equal rights (or more, in some cases) as human beings?
Are you saying that it is not possible to elect a sufficient number of change agents to alter that paradigm? Would you be such a change agent if you were governor? And if so . . . in what direction would the change unfold?
Are you saying the only solution to stopping powerful economic interests is to reduce the role of government so much that there is nothing those economic interests can gain from gaming the system?
Would that not leave the field to unbridled economic interests, more oppression of the permanent underclass, more rapid environmental degradation, and inevitable class warfare?
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I'm sure you find a way to conclude that your libertarian views hold hope for a more (pick your adjective) future, but I'm having trouble seeing it. Help me understand the future you see.
Let's keep this conversation going.
One more comment
And then we have revolutions that temporarily reset the balance . . . or is that just illusion, too?
Sure, that's right
Yep, and the "revolutions" can take the form of elections, I recognize that. What you are working for is worth doing, and I hope it works. You certainly have my support.
It is the steady state that concerns me. The temporary paroxysms of outrage are the aberrations.
"It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795.
Sweeping
Now there's a sweeping statement:
First invent a population that exist only in your own mind (large government fundamentalists), then criticize it using the traits you yourself ascribe to it. This method of argument will leave the tattered remains of any strawman behind swirling in the eddies created by the intellectual vacuum.
Would you have these imaginary "large government fundamentalists" be less idealistic?
When did you stop beating your boyfriend?