Is This The Ohio Miracle?

USA Today: October unemployment rates fall in 28 states.

Ohio’s unemployment rate in October rose slightly to 7.5 percent, even though the state says it added jobs in the past two months, according to data released Friday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

The Columbus area’s strong growth in employment since the recession ended might be showing signs of dimming. The region has lost 8,000 jobs over the past three months, including 6,100 in October, according to data compiled by Bill LaFayette, owner of the economic-consulting firm Regionomics, based on state figures released yesterday.

In spite of more than a billion dollars of tax dollars* being transferred to the quasi private and unaccountable Jobs Ohio organization, new jobs don't seem to be happening.

*The long-awaited transfer of Ohio’s wholesale liquor franchise to JobsOhio was completed Friday along with sale of $1.5 billion in bonds to finance the acquisition.

The transfer means Jobs Ohio, the state’s private, nonprofit economic development, can begin tapping about $100 million in annual liquor profits to fund its job-creation efforts.

Added to this news our state government attack on local governments and public education.:

Reducing or eliminating the return of tax revenue to local governments and schools.

According to Shttp://www.policymattersohio.org/4percent-oct2013 Senate bill 210 would take the savings from Medicaid expansion and use it for an across-the-board income-tax cut that might buy a cup of coffee for low-income Ohioans but would give the average top earner enough for a trip to Paris.

“The proposed income-tax cut would further tilt the tax system in favor of affluent Ohioans,” said Zach Schiller, research director at Policy Matters Ohio. “Ohioans would be better served if we rehired police and firefighters, put teachers back in our classrooms, and invested more to protect vulnerable elderly from neglect and abuse.”  A Policy Matters Ohio policy brief last week identified some of the ways that savings from the Medicaid expansion could be used.

Under Senate Bill 210 as it is now, libraries and local governments would see additional annual reductions of millions of dollars a year, since each receives 1.66 percent of tax revenues. It is also far from clear that the anticipated savings from Medicaid expansion will match the size of the tax cut that has been proposed.- See more at: http://www.policymattersohio.org/4percent-oct2013#sthash.AZzvJZOa.dpuf

Paul Hunter

In My Opinion

If the right wing, a supposed defender of capitalism, is unable to accept guidance from the epitome of entrepreneurial capitalism, they are phonies, using immigration as a political stick with which to beat on centrist proponents of reform.

Paul Hunter

Two months after going to Capitol Hill to fight for immigration reform, 29-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is continuing his push.

ZUCKERBERG: "They really don't know any other country besides that, but they don't have the opportunities that we all enjoy. It's really heartbreaking. It seems it's one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time." (ViaABC)

During his interview with ABC 'This Week,' Zuckerberg said there are a lot of misconceptions about undocumented immigrants — including children of illegal immigrants who face being deported from the U.S. once they're adults. (Via WABC)

It's such a big issue for Zuckerberg, he has co-founded a group with 12 others, including Bill Gates, called FWD.us.

According to the site, supporters include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer. Its goal is to push for immigration reform. But Zuckerberg and his supporters might be facing an uphill battle....................

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/national/zuckerberg-calls-immigration-major-civil-rights-is/nb4Sf/

The Trolley Problem 

There is a runaway trolley barrelling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. Unfortunately, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options: (1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track. (2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the correct choice?

My view, aided by the accelerating advancements in genome and neuroscience, is that there is no free choice available. People's actions are dictated by genetic inheritance and past and present environmental circumstances.

Those conditioned for survival of the species will not pull the lever while the person concerned only with personal survival may just walk away from the problem because it doesn’t affect them. After all they are not tied to the tracks and they don't want to get involved.

See Murder of Kitty Genovese @  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese
.

Paul Hunter

Council Meeting

November 21 Wilmington City Council Meeting 

Council approved the expenditure of $79,000 of 'Sugartree St. Corridor” grant money to acquire three Dupree properties on the east side of S. Mulberry bordering the old railroad tracks. The plan is to connect the existing trail to the newly created Xidas park on the former site of the Manhattan Lounge on South St.

I'm not convinced that the purchase price was a sound use of the funds. The auditor's appraised value for the three properties, totaling three quarters of an acre, is only $57,600 and that may be high considering the location and condition of the real estate. It's very difficult to accept that any lots in the city are worth $105,000 per acre.

In contrast the city does not think a similar property at 142 N. Mulberry is worth $12,000.

PaulHunter

By Any Other Name

Abatement:

When Airborne's parent company ATSG applied for a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) scheme, a form of tax abatement, for its new $15 million maintenance and paint, (JUMP) hangar. A senior representative of the company maintained that the TIF was not a tax abatement and that local governments were not putting any money into the project.

The representative did not mention that the City, County and CIC donated more than half a million dollars to get this project started. The financially troubled Port Authority is also chipping in $212,000 per year in lease reductions to ATSG.

While the TIF agreements are not considered abatement schemes like Enterprise Zones (EZ) or CRAs the effect is still the same.

ATSG will make service payments in lieu of taxes to the city. The city, in turn, will redirect that money, minus a small portion going to the schools, to help pay down ASTG’s 23 year loan obligation. It’s as if ATSG paid no property taxes (abatement) and paid down the loan with that money. Airborne Express used taxabatements to pay for the development of the airport. DHL also used abatements to support the construction of the huge sort “F” building that now sits empty.

While the TIF resembles an EZ the 25 year term of the TIF makes the 7 year EZ and CRA look like a bargain for the taxpayers.

The property tax revenue recipients will be sacrificing the same amount of dollars under TIF as they would have under other forms of abatement.

Assuming that the new hangar will be valued at $15 million, its construction cost, the following $273,000 annual tax distribution losses will be as affected as follows.

a. Schools net loss $106,000

b. County connected $60,000

c. City $44,000

d. Miscellaneous, including Laurel Oaks, Library and Senior citizens $22,000Multiply these values times 25 years to obtain the total loss.

Ff it looks like an abatement and it smells like an abatement it must be an abatement. We can only for the jobs that could generate $92,000 in annual city income tax revenue minus 33% for the schools, unknowable increase in school income taxes and county sales taxes.

Paul Hunter

Hospital money 'perfect' for new YMCA

The Hospital sale money belongs to all of the people.

http://wnewsj.com/main.asp?SectionID=49&SubSectionID=156&ArticleID=207940

A plan has been put together to build a new $8.1 million recreational and health facility near Wilmington High School - if Clinton County Commissioners are willing to pay half the cost with proceeds from the sale of Clinton Memorial Hospital.

The YMCA would serve as a tenant and manager in the facility, said Greg Law, executive director of the Clinton County Community Family YMCA during a meeting with commissioners Wednesday. About 60 various community members attended the meeting, held in the county's juvenile/probate courtroom.

My opinion:

The Hospital sale money belongs to all of the people of Clinton County. This proposition raises some questions.

1. Do to its location would all, or even most county residents, be able to take advantage of the facility?

2. Would the quasi religious nature of the prospective operator be an obstacle to the process?

3. Would county wide emergency services be a better use of the money?

4. Would all county residents have free membership and privileges at the center?

Paul Hunter

REALITY CHECK

It's time to join other States 

From the beginning of recorded history humans have made and consumed mood altering substances including alcohol and plant products. Periodically well intended but futile efforts have been made to make the sale and use of such items illegal.

The best example of the unintended consequences resulting from such efforts was the enactment of the prohibition of alcohol in the 1919

The result was an increased and untaxed manufacture and consumption of whiskey, wine and beer. The rise of a national organized crime problem led by the fabled Al Capone. The money made by those syndicates during prohibition was used to finance criminal operations that we are still dealing with today. After several years of futile enforcement efforts and a rising lawlessness the amendment was repealed on December 5, 1933. The cause may have been noble but the reality was worse.

Today alcohol sales are regulated and taxed. For example, in 2005 Ohio collected $57.7 million for beer and wine alone and does not include hard liquor taxes.

For the last twenty years or so the country has found itself in a similar situation as regards marijuana use and associated crime. The outright banning of the sale and use of this relatively mild mood altering substance has created Mexican billionaires and an unknown trail of dead bodies strewn along the trade routes. Our jails are overflowing with non-violent minor sellers and users. The war on marijuana, much like the war on alcohol, has been lost.

A marijuana use cost benefit analysis indicates that it costs the tax payer while it benefits the criminal smugglers, dealers and jailers.

http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/i-team-investigates-cost-marijuana-searches/nbpSf/

The statewide cost for the eradication program amounts to $500,000 a year. Most of that goes to pay for the helicopter and pilot. Much additional money is spent by local law enforcement in coordination with the state effort. The Drug Enforcement Administration. DEA figures show there were only 27 arrests in Ohio last year.

That works out to a taxpayer cost of about $18 thousand per arrest and $6 per plant destroyed.

In my opinion Ohio should change law and policy to: (a) Decriminalize marijuana use and. (b.)Regulate and tax the sales of the product. Some of the revenue should be spent in an anti-smoking like ad campaign describing the bad effects of habitual use.

Legal availability of marijuana might even reduce the proliferation of methlabs

Some of us have an occasional beer, glass of wine or a cocktail without dire consequences and recreational use of a natural occurring herb is little different.

Paul Hunter paulhunter45177@gmail.com

45177 Jobs

45177 Jobs 

The Mayor's “new jobs” reporting is not a net job list. When enterprises like Staples close their doors the employee loss is not calculated.

A better indicator of quality job growth is in the monthly city income tax report. One $50,000 new hire is worth more than several part time j0bs.

As of October 31^st income tax receipts for 2013 were around $100,000 less than 2012.

The big hope is that in 2014 the Port Authority’s JUMP hangar project will produce the promised quality jobs.

Paul Hunter

Nature-Nurture Revisited

Nature and Nurture II 8/21/13

At some point in the not to distant future the time tested economic model of investors forming corporation and hiring worker to produce goods that the workers, in turn, consume will have to be revised.

As discussed in Part I the need for a mass class of low and semi skilled manufacturing workers is rapidly disappearing. Low paying retail sales and service employment will not support a prospering consumption based economy.

I posit that a new wealth distribution system must evolve as the need for manufacturing labor declines.

There are trillions of dollars worth of basic public infrastructure creation and maintenance needs that are not now being accomplished.

Where will the money come from to pay for this public work as the labor tax base declines.

1. Tax the machines that have replaced the tax paying workers or 2. Corporations can assume responsibility for infrastructure in their area of interest and operation, using the huge stockpile of cash earned from reduced labor costs.

These are just two of many possible ideas and the details are too complex to be dealt with in this forum.

Maybe this is a beginning of a much needed political and social conversation.

After all “what's a society to do with the under-natured and under-nurtued demographic as low skilled manufacturing jobs disappear.

Send me your thoughts

3-D manufacturing next Industrial Revolution?

• http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/3-d-manufacturing-seen-to-be-next-industrial-revol/nbdcb/

.............The cost of producing the complex fuel nozzle part with the additive process is 20 percent less than a conventionally made nozzle, Liechty said.

“The biggest part of the savings is the direct labor that goes into assembling and inspecting the parts. That in fact speaks to additive being the next Industrial Revolution as well and how it will impact jobs in Ohio, as well as the U.S., and that’s because what really drives cost with additive is the technology itself,” Liechty said.

“Because of that technology, when we look at our production sites and doing our cost