Consider for a moment that those 50+ new employees will be paying Michigan state income taxes and bringing the state back well more than the tax break value over the ten year span. The state isn't doing this for charity. Even placing everyone at the bottom end of the software dev payscale, we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars net gain for the state, just for the term of the tax breaks. Most likely much more, and after the ten years are up, even more still. And if those people are moving in from elsewhere, add on MI property taxes, etc., for extra gravy.

That's completely ignoring the 100+ auxiliary jobs mentioned by the article.

Nevermind that the "300k in Brad's pocket" doesn't exist--the property development costs pale in comparison to the operational costs of an expansion, and that 300k over ten years (note, not an up-front lump sum, unlike the 900k up-front cost of expansion) is barely enough to pay half of one brand new developer over that ten year span.

Didn't take you long to revert to your normal habit of quoting things I never said. You basically seem to be arguing it's better for the government to spend 3 times as much on child benefits with those children being spread over several families than it is to make those child benefits be used in the most efficient manner (assuming you don't want children+their parents out on the streets starving, which thinking about it is probably a fairly big assumption), since I'm arguing for the 'more efficient' spending and you're disagreeing with me.

Yeah, looking after 14 children is 'sitting on your ass doing nothing'. No doubt you aren't the primary carer of any children.

So you have no problem with a society that leaves women and children to starve on the streets? Because that is the inevitable result if you don't have the government ensure that people can at least survive. Charity will help some people, but not all, since by it's nature it's unreliable. Better to just take a small amount from the super-rich to ensure those not as fortunate as them can at least scrape by. In the rich persons case it means they may not have quite such a massive private yaught. In the poor person's case it can be the difference between life and death. I know which I consider more important.

The same goes for children. Furthermore LW said that Brad was going to expand anyway. In other words, if that was the case the government would have gotten most if not all of the extra employee income/payroll taxes without needing to offer the bait. Seems a bit amusing though that Brad is a beneficiary of redistribution given how much he's opposed it.

~230k* is still a lot of money to have in his pocket

Not if he'd opted to build the new studio in another state or move the entire company to a lower-tax locale. The state recognized they had a lot more to gain by giving some incentive to stay put; if they hadn't granted the break, they'd be getting nothing more at all (if not much less).

How is it redistribution when he's already paying more than what he was given a break for (a scant $120k/yr for 10 years)? Calling it that would imply that he's getting some sort of handout, which couldn't be further from the truth. Paying less, but still paying a significant amount all the same. And as the business grows, the state will get more and more back from its investment.

I probably should have said relative redistribution to make it a bit clearer; relative to a business(/individual) without such tax breaks - that is if you didn't have the tax break for Brad then both him and the other one could benefit from being taxed at a slightly lower rate. Alternatively Brad could  get the tax break while the other pays more, meaning relative to the two some of the money from the second person/business is effectively going to fund the tax break for the first.

Even with your incredibly conservative $50k per figure, that's $2.6m per year in wages. Much of which will end up going to local stores, local apartments, local real estate, etc. This is contrasted with the state basically agreeing to take reduced tax income from those people; ignoring the property taxes, sales taxes, etc., that these new Michigan residents would be paying, the state still nets a small gain tax-wise on income taxes (after the breaks) alone versus not having those jobs at all.

And should something catastrophic happen to the company and the jobs dry up, there won't be a company around to utilize those tax breaks. Brad doesn't magically keep getting tax breaks when there's no company to pay taxes, and that $120k/year gets cut short at that point. At any given point prior the state will still have had a net gain from doing so.

Bottom line: the state would not have made such an agreement if it were not in its own best interest, and they're well aware of exactly what they stood to gain or lose by the choice they were faced with. They recognize it's the best scenario for them--they give up on a tiny bit of tax income, and get a huge chunk of real local economic stimulus in return (along with enough new taxes to surpass what they gave up).

LW: You're an idiot.

If Stardock pays say $1.8M in taxes but the state of Michigan wants us to stay in Michigan despite it costing more by reducing how much it charges us in taxes to merely be say 1000X more than whats ay you pay, that's hardly the same as what the Octoplet mom is doing.

Only a total moron confuses a tax cut with welfare.  

LW, I think it's time you find another blog site.  I'll give you 24 hours to backup your stuff.

We were going to expand in Washington, not Michigan because it's cheaper to have a tech company in Washington than Michigan. Michigan wanted those jobs here and has agreed to reduce our tax burden in order to make the state competitive with Washington.

The problem with liberals, beside  not understanding basic economics or being foolish enough to go out of their way to insult the owner of the site is that they can't grasp the difference between a tax cut and getting welfare.

For instance, Little Whip gets checks from the government. Sure, when she had jobs that she paid taxes on.. in the day or whaever she paid some piddly amount in in taxes but she's probably gotten a lot more back from the government than she already paid in. That's welfare.

By contrast,  if we don't pay taxes, we don't get taxes cut.  It's a matter of the state government reducing its take in order to offset the other expenses we face because our business is located in Michigan. 

Which makes two points I've been trying to make for years on this site:

1) If you want to actually help the economy, reduce the money you take from those who create wealth so that they have more of it to invest.

2) Those who do things will always have an advantage over those who don't. They have the leverage.

It's a good policy for states or townships (heck, even Simcity gave the player the ability to set tax rates on different types of businesses) to use the tax code to attract and support different types of businesses.

Incidentally, I have exiled LW. I'm sick of seeing threads hijacked by her just so that she can smear me.  It pisses me off seeing some asshat trying to argue that the government confiscating less of what we earn as being equivalent of someone who cranks out kids and stands back and gets checks from the government with nothing in return.

I missed the part where anyone was whining.  LW has just lost her mind bitching about how she's a "have not" and anyone who has more than her has no right to complain about anything.  Not knowing what she's talking about doesn't prevent her from spewing at every opportunity even when it means hijacking threads to spew it.

This is rich coming from someone who is doing the opposite of either.  The tax payers aren't investing anything in Stardock.  MI just agreed to bleed Stardock a little less in exchange for Stardock staying in MI and creating jobs in a state that has about the worst employment situation anywhere right now.

This shows her ignorance of how Brad has built such a successful business.

LW is just writing this as an attempt to defend herself even though she knows as well as everyone else that it is a personal attack.  If it wasn't personal, she wouldn't name Brad and Stardock and quote our particular situation.  LW has just succumbed to her raging jealousy that some people make good decision all the way along in life and end up being financially well off.

I guess she won't have to worry about any "uber rich whining" around here anymore.

IVF is expensive (like all things medical), and followed by the cost of having 8 kids in intensive care for... I think 3 months, she's probably given her fellow state citizens somewhere bewteen $1.5-2.5 million in hospital bills.

That sounds about right.  ~ $3000 per kid, per day, 90 days = $2,160,000 total.

Lucky Californians!

Right.  Somehow I doubt that Congress would bail Brad out if Stardock went belly-up.

Ask Ralph Nader ...

If by "taxpayer" you mean "The suckers in the middle" ... then that is yours truly .... and the funny thing is that i am not complaining ...

Both areas of government's speding, if done properly, are needed to make the economy grow, the rich richer and the poor from being destructive.

The trick is to make that spending "properly" .... that is what we should be talking about not about whether we spend on both areas.

wait a minute ... isn't the price the consumer pays for the product suppose to pay for that?

of course you know that i am exiled from the site and also BL from your Blog, but i just wanted to tell you something.

First relax and take a deep breath and get off your high horse.

Second, LW did not equate the validity or the sense behind the two areas, she merely equated the fact that the "suckers" i.e. middle cass taxpayers like me, had no say in the matter. The rich have their connection to present their case to the gov and mostly get what they ask for and the poor have "the suckers" like me defending their right to some services.

But who is representing us to the gov once we elected it? I am sure you agree with that. and yes we are the ones who actually decide what type of gov the country gets ... we are suckers but we are the majority ... and vote is our only way we can speak or get heard by the powers to be. unforthunately ... it is usually after the fact ... not when it counts.

that is what she was saying. not equating your tax cut to the money that stupid woman is getting.

why is that insulting to you. You got what you asked for in a normal way that makes sense to the state and benefits you .. what is insulting in that? that you got a tax break? and that is insulting? .... 

everyone gets tax break of some kind ... the question is does the gov give those breaks where it benefits the country the most? and that is the gov job not yours.

It is very interesting ... this thread put in plain sight and in details what i was exiled for.

1- taxes are necessary to pay for busn incentives and create new and more customers

2- more and new customers make bus grow and make the rich richer and keep the "suckers" employed

the suckers know that and they dont complain much

the funny thing is .. the two groups who benefit the most, other than having a job, are the ones who complain the loudest all the time.

besides, isnt it better and more interesting to debate with opposing views .... i think it is ... but apparently you have very thin skin and get insulted easily.

I always tell my sons, almost your age by the way, dont put your dignity that low so it gets insulted easily. Keep it way up there where it should be.

No ThinkAloud, I black listed from participating on my threads because you, like LW, have the IQ of a gnat.

If someone breaks into your house and steals everything in your living room but decides to leave the TV, he's not giving you a TV.

The government isn't giving me anything. They're simply agreeing to not take as much in exchange for me agreeing not to move to another state where I can run my business more profitably.

The problem is, losers like Little Whip waste their lives because they make poor decisions. LW certainly had more advantages than I did growing up. The difference comes down to the decisions we make. She made poor decisions, I made better decisions.

The government isn't giving me anything. I make relatively little use of the government. But yea, I'm going to use whatever leverage I have to try to get the government to get off my back as much as possible. Because at the end of the day, the people who actually have power are the ones who actually DO things. 

It chaffes liberals because they don't want to take any responsibility for what they do. That's why they rationalize the checks they get in the mail as being the same wiith the government taking less from successful businesses.

The middle class have little to complain about. Given that 10% of the population is paying 75% of the taxes, that means the middle class is getting more services out of the government than they are contributing. How in the world can they possibly complain?

First of all the burglary analogy isn't really comparable - you have the right to move to a different state and work there, for example, and you're not being forced to work either. If you do work, then the price of being able to work in x state in y country is that you pay a small amount of your proceeds. Furthermore the taxing of the profits made is legal, while burglary isn't.

As to the government giving you anything, they are. Relative to the alternative of you working in the same state with no tax break, you're gaining around $230k. Even just looking relative to the alternative of you relocating with no tax break, it's almost impossible that the government will have got the size of promised in tax cuts that is over and above what was needed to make you stay, meaning compared to the alternative of receiving a lower tax cut that's only just enough to make you stay, you've been given money.

It depends what you mean by 'poor' and 'good' decisions - if for example someone goes out and buys a lottery ticket, and wins millions, I'd say that it was a poor decision, since the expected gain on say a $1 lottery ticket would have been negative. However that person is now rich because they made a poor decision and got lucky. I'm not trying to say that's the case with you, just giving an illustration of how luck can mean someone that makes a good decision loses out and someone that makes a bad decision wins.

Similarly, you might have the choice between earning a save $40k a year, or you could try a job that initially would give you nothing for several years, and then skyrocket up to $100k a year (meaning over the medium-long term you'd make far more going for the second option). It might seem that the good decision is to go for the second option (it gives you the best expected result, afterall), but what if you have several children who are dependent on you? If you go for the second option and get 0 income, you end up with massive hardship for them, far worse proportionately to $40k than the $100k is better than $40k. In that situation the best decision would likely be to go for the safe job.

Anyway back to the original topic, I haven't heard many people give alternatives to the current situation that they'd support - either you give money to people in cases like this so they can survive, or you end up with (some of) them suffering, and possibly being out on the streets starving+eventually dead. You might say that's what the mother deserves (for making poor decisions, or being unfortunate, or having the misfortune of not being born with as high an intelligence as someone else), but is that what the children deserve?

And I suppose once all of the states are bad that Brad should move out of the USA entirely.  Nobody should be forced to leave the country just because of a few idiots in business suits think socialism is a good idea and pass a few laws for it.

I might move out of the USA myself, at the rate we're going, we won't be here much longer anyway.

And as for not being forced to work - that is unfounately true with the government welfare programs and other such socialistic things.

That is, it's true until the system collapses, and all those freeloaders find themselves in the cold, cruel world (aka reality).  Where will all of those precious handouts come from then?