Wisbusiness Excerpt:
Governor Scott Walker announced today that Spectrum Brands Holdings has received a $4,000,000 award from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) to maintain jobs at its corporate headquarters in the Madison area and make capital investments at its Wisconsin operations.
That's not quite exactly the real story here, at least not according to new media investigative sources.
The story about Spectrum Brands winning a $4 million dollar hand-out seems to revolve around the idea that Spectrum was gearing up to make about $40 million worth of capital investments in its Wisconsin operations and hire up to 60 persons to fill key positions at their Madison headquarters, all on their own. Which means that Scott Walker was either first left out of the "economic expansion" publicity loop, but was able to buy his way into "saving" jobs after the fact for a cool $4 million dollars OR handed out the money simply for the asking.
Blue Cheddar Excerpt:
When asked by a local radio reporter if the company had planned to leave, a Spectrum spokesman answered “No, not really.” They got the money because they asked for it. Jobs were not threatened. They were paid for promising to do what they had already planned to do. The WEDC press release gives details of the “award”: “This award has been provided to preserve jobs at Spectrum Brands headquarters as part of the company’s investment in its operations,” according to Paul Jadin, CEO of the WEDC. The terms of the award require Spectrum Brands to maintain up to 470 existing full-time [...]
At this point, that there are "conditions" to the forgivable loan award is irrelevant if not somewhat comical. But I don't blame Spectrum Brands at all for jumping at ridiculously easy money. This is the dawn of new era of reverse robin hood taxpayer funded ransom package entitlements where only the wealthiest "job creators" can qualify.
Audio: Sly Radio Show Excerpt
Sly in the Morning - Full Radio Show Audio
Democurmudgeon - Walker gives away $4 million for the heck of it
Blue Cheddar - 4 million? For what??
No comments:
Post a Comment