you see, that is the attitude that is horrible

 

A lot of that Red is not empty space ... a lot of that Red is made up of hardworking people, who live in rural areas, who just want to survive, raise their family and concern themselves with the important things in life

 

The democrats don't know how to cater to the real working class, although that has always been their claim ... they are out of touch with the farmers, non-union laborers and millions of other people who they pledge to help

 

These same people who live in empty land decided this election and many others ... this will continue

:lol WOW!!! I had no idea my county voted Bush...man..im tellin you...i would have bet any amount of money that they would have gone with Kerry...that is all i hear around here. But I guess that just shows that the Kerry supporters were just way more vocal!!

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That's the silent majority for you

cuomo was notorious for catering to the city and crushing upstate with his taxes and social programs that did nothing but enhance poverty

 

 

Taxes and social programs don't enhance poverty. If you don't have anything, there's nothing for them to tax you on.

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When you take taxes from a guy on the edge, its not hard to push'em over.

 

You need to look at how well FDR's taxation worked, I think you'll be suprised.

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tonyi - thanks, glad that you understood

 

Fish Fry - actually the guy on the edge usually doesn't get much in the form of programs

 

In upstate NY wages are a lot lower than other places throughout the state .. however, many of the base taxes on products are the same state wide .. this is fine if you are earning a city income, not as much if you are making country wages

 

Also the taxes go across the board ... currently my home county in NY is having problems with progams first put in by Mario .. the tax burden has shifted to the point where property taxes will eat up a high percentage of income .. for example the house I'm buying in Phoenix has the same value as my grandmothers house in upstate NY and I will pay considerably less in property taxes and that is without the forthcoming raise in the upstate taxes (based on pre-existing escalators)

 

Furthermore, these high property taxes make home ownership difficult for those on the cusp to buy a house and make that investment

 

In that instance you are right .. they can now go live in subsidized housing .. how wonderful for them .. they were pushed down into a social program

 

Another neat little thing that has happened is that NY offers better welfare and programs than a state like PA ... the fun effect is that people will move from PA up to NY for welfare and the like ... I've seen it happen and it amazes me

 

So lets tax the rich, the businesses, etc to pay for it all .. well that was done for well over 20 years ... and if you look at upstate you see many businesses that could no longer operate and have scaled back operations or moved completely ... a lot of their money got funneled down to the city

 

Upstate is really kind of sad right now ... it is a beautiful area, full of great schools and people, however they are taxed to death, live in a competative job market with low wages and are treated like they make 3x the income they actually do

 

A good majority of the smart and capable people who grow up there move off to better opportunity, leaving a dying generation to deal with many problems .... crap doesn't roll uphill and that goes socially as well

 

You take away the talented people and what usually fills the void are people who don't bring as much to the table ... it was kind of sad the last time I was home .. my nice town of 8 thousand people is building it's 3rd housing project, has drug dealers and welfare bums loitering down town at all hours and is full of people who just want to get some tax relief, use their tax money on schools, a community center, etc instead of projects and free rides

 

It's very sad and is a result of lingering over taxation and social programs that benefit not the people who work hard and want to develop a strong community, but reward those who don't strive to enhance their own lives on their own accord

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Someone needs to buy this person an award.

Steuben is hurting as are a lot of other places in the Southern Tier .. also Rochester & Buffalo aren't exactly what they used to be

 

Really sad

 

Corning has kept afloat through it all, but even with that strong company things look a lot bleaker than they should

Chicago is in grey (judging by the map) so it seems like I'm going to have to wait and see if this city went with Bush or Kerry. Either way, my candidate won and that's all that matters.

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Are you serious? Chicago is like 80% Kerry if I'm not mistaken.

 

If I remember correctly, Chicago is about the only blue part of the state.. but obviously that gets the electoral votes.

What social programs does the guy on the edge get anything from??

 

 

What social programs are you bitching about?

 

None. You claim they somehow bennefit the guy on the edge. Knowing a lot of those type people, I find this claim hard to accept.

 

Home loan programs that benefit lower-income people. That's a big help.

you see, that is the attitude that is horrible

 

A lot of that Red is not empty space ... a lot of that Red is made up of hardworking people, who live in rural areas, who just want to survive, raise their family and concern themselves with the important things in life

 

 

Compared to the blue areas they are empty space, and you write as if people in the blue areas don't care about the same things. They just happen to also care about not having their freedoms impinged upon just because some farmer is scared of some sh*t he sees on TV that has nothing to do with him and can't figure out how to change the channel.

I grew up 15 miles outside the Albany NY area and watched it collapse for 20 years. Taxes, excessive regulation, and social programs turned it from a regional economic force into mess. Hard to get anyone to start a business in Albany county now...but surrounding counties are booming.

 

 

And, what, pray tell, is the difference in the cost of living between Albany and these other counties? You might find your answer there. Judging from the population figures from Albany county vs. Schohaire, Greene, Montgomery, and Columbia counties - I think it's a safe bet to say that it's probably higher as well as the cost of land. I know rich people like to bitch about taxes, and I know conservatives like to think rich = right, but don't believe the hype. If a company is getting killed by taxes, then they really need to fire their accountant.

I grew up 15 miles outside the Albany NY area and watched it collapse for 20 years.? Taxes, excessive regulation, and social programs turned it from a regional economic force into mess.? Hard to get anyone to start a business in Albany county now...but surrounding counties are booming.

 

 

And, what, pray tell, is the difference in the cost of living between Albany and these other counties? You might find your answer there. Judging from the population figures from Albany county vs. Schohaire, Greene, Montgomery, and Columbia counties - I think it's a safe bet to say that it's probably higher as well as the cost of land. I know rich people like to bitch about taxes, and I know conservatives like to think rich = right, but don't believe the hype. If a company is getting killed by taxes, then they really need to fire their accountant.

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The best arguments on this topic have been made by phx, however, you cant argue with what hes saying b/c its the truth. Social programs that were originally meant to help people get back on their feet have now caused a culture of dependancy and has not allowed them to get back on their feet. Where are gingrich's work requirements for welfare aid?

The best arguments on this topic have been made by phx, however, you cant argue with what hes saying b/c its the truth.

 

 

 

It's easy to argue with what he's saying, because he hasn't shown a causal connection. It's strictly anecdotal, and sounds like something straight out of the Republican party line. A lot of the people making these arguments obviously have little or no formal business training, which is why they are making a lot of half-baked claims. What's funny is a lot of people who are actually in a position to be more hurt by taxes were voting more for Kerry. That ought to tell you something.

 

If you want to know why jobs move from highly populous areas to the boonies, it's quite simple, and I'll break it down for everyone in a way that anyone can easily understand.

 

Let's say you have a plant in Buffalo, NY. You built it in 1950 and by now the plant is fully depreciated and the technology is obsolete, and that obsolescence is eating into your margins because of the efficiencies gained by competitors from new technology. After running the numbers, you see it's cheaper just to start over with a new plant rather than retro-fit the old one. So now you say to yourself, "Hmmmm....where should I build my plant?" For the sake of this example and to keep it on topic, we'll leave out the option of moving overseas and just stick to building our plant in the U.S.

 

Now, you could either: 1. raze the plant that you have right now and build a new one, 2. build a new plant somewhere else in Buffalo, 3. build a new plant somewhere else. Option 1 is, of course, financial suicide. You'll be knocked out of the market for years and losing a crapload of money, since you'll have nothing to sell and a whole lot of costs to bear with the construction of the new plant; so let's examine options 2 and 3.

 

Option 2 is build a new plant in Buffalo and Option 3 is build a new plant somewhere else. Since we're talking manufacturing jobs, you're talking about skills that are (largely) easily taught, so you could pretty much move your plant to anywhere in the US and not have to worry, too much, about brain drain not giving you enough human capital to work with. So now we're going to compare the costs of building here vs. there. To narrow down the example the lucky city for option 3 is Meridian, MS.

 

Now let's break the numbers down (mind you these aren't real numbers, just numbers for the example):

 

Market value cost of land

Buffalo - $500/acre

Meridian - $200/acre

 

Average wage of contractor/construction personnel:

Buffalo - $30/hour on average

Meridian - $20/hour on average

 

Average wage of unskilled/semi-skilled labor to work the plant:

Buffalo - $14/hour on average

Meridian - $10/hour on average

 

Now, let's say that Meridian, MS is offering to give you the land for free plus no taxes for the next 30 years to move down there (since there's pleny of available space), but we'll factor in the tax break later. Buffalo, of course, can't offer you free land due to the expense and the lack of available non-owned land, but they can offer to give you a break on the land, by sharing costs, and the cost of land is now down to $250/acre. So if the plant takes 100 acres, let's tally up our costs so far.

 

Buffalo - $25,000 (100 acres x $250/acre)

Meridian - $0 (100 acres for free)

 

Now, the plant has to be built and let's say it takes 1000 man hours to build the plant. So, let's tally up our costs again.

 

Buffalo - $55,000 ($25,000 + ($30/hour x 1000 hours))

Meridian - $20,000 ($0 + ($20/hour x 1000 hours))

 

Right there you're starting off with a $35,000 advantage, and we haven't even started on the average wage to pay workers for continuing operations. The gap is only going to get wider. Even if Buffalo did not tax the company at all, they just can't make up for the fact that it's inherently cheaper to build a new plant in BFE than it is to build a plant in the big city when you don't have to worry much about trying to attract highly-skilled people to work for you.

 

It's just easy for CEOs to blame taxes, because it's to their benefit to say something like that, and (luckily for them) there are plenty of people out there that are more than happy to listen to what they say despite the fact that it just doesn't pass the sniff test. Just like owners of a certain baseball franchise (that shall remain nameless) in Miami can threaten to move to Las Vegas, because they

just "can't survive" here, despite the fact that they will be moving to an area that has about 4 million fewer people - which means less attendance, less people to sell product to, and a worse TV contract (since the Dodgers, Angels, and Diamondbacks have already sewn-up most of the other markets around that area). The red herring will only save them hundreds of millions of dollars - money that goes right into their pocket. Unfortunately, the only populace educated enough to see through this charade were those looney libruls in San Francisco, who told the Giants to go ahead and leave. Of course, Giants management knew that they couldn't move to an area that could draw as many people or get as lucrative a TV deal as San Fran unless the moved to DC (which Angelos wouldn't allow), so they nutted up and built the stadium themselves.

 

Company management's duty is to enrich the shareholders of the company, not make life easier for citizens of XYZ city to live. For them to do otherwise is a derilection of duty. That's drilled into you from day 1 of B-school, and something everyone would do well to keep in mind.

Fish - you are largely out of touch the country demographic

 

Also, I have a graduated with a double major - one degree in finance, one degree in economics - so yes, I'm well aware of capital budgeting decisions, basic supply/demand and market shifters ... your assumption otherwise is mildly insulting

 

Furthermore I have worked for a major derivatives firm, in the mortgage industy, in the banking industry and currently reside in the insurance industry

 

What I speak on goes beyond abstract theory, it goes into the facts of what I have witnessed .. i've seen the programs, i've seen a crushing tax burden, i've seen a dependent society reluctantly form

 

A lot of the social programs that you speak are loaded in a way where you still don't get a fair shake ... sure there may be a home ownership program, but what restrictions? How much of a rate bump, how long is the payoff penalty that restricts a refi, what are the FICO qualifications, income qualifications .... when you pare all that down you end up with an expensive program that serves few in a way that a basic private venture would probably be able to do on their own

 

I've lived in a variety of places. I grew up in the country, have lived abroad, have lived in Philadelphia, Wilmington (DE), Denver, Minneapolis and now Phoenix. I've experienced many places and many ideals.

 

And I can tell you for a fact that the country and heartland isn't full of bible thumpers. It isn't full of people who get scared by what they see on TV. It is full of people who like the same things as most anyone else. They have the same worries and concerns as everyone else and for one are very practical. They also don't buy into phony people.

 

If the democrats want to improve amongst those people, take off the flannel, don't show up on a farm in overalls like you know what you're doing ... just listen to them, let them know that their labor will benefit them, not the lazy guy down the street ... it really is simple when you get to the basics ...

Good info.

Fish - you are largely out of touch the country demographic

 

Also, I have a graduated with a double major - one degree in finance, one degree in economics - so yes, I'm well aware of capital budgeting decisions, basic supply/demand and market shifters ... your assumption otherwise is mildly insulting

 

 

Well, I'm shocked that you would come with such shaky ancectodal arguments.

 

 

What I speak on goes beyond abstract theory, it goes into the facts of what I have witnessed .. i've seen the programs, i've seen a crushing tax burden, i've seen a dependent society reluctantly form

 

 

Please, tell me an individual who has gotten "crushed" by taxes. I don't want to hear whining about some guy having to buy the Camry instead of the Bimmer, because of taxes. I mean someone who, if it wasn't for taxes, would be a wild success, but since he has to pay taxes he's living hand-to-mouth. This ought to be good.

 

 

A lot of the social programs that you speak are loaded in a way where you still don't get a fair shake ... sure there may be a home ownership program, but what restrictions?? How much of a rate bump, how long is the payoff penalty that restricts a refi, what are the FICO qualifications, income qualifications .... when you pare all that down you end up with an expensive program that serves few in a way that a basic private venture would probably be able to do on their own

 

 

It depends on what their aim is to do with the housing. These programs are designed to help people buy houses to live. It's not about buying houses to as investments. Granted people should have the investment angle in mind when they buy a house, but if they're truly in dire straights some of these programs offer real benefits.

 

 

And I can tell you for a fact that the country and heartland isn't full of bible thumpers.? It isn't full of people who get scared by what they see on TV.? It is full of people who like the same things as most anyone else.? They have the same worries and concerns as everyone else and for one are very practical.? They also don't buy into phony people.

 

 

I can pretty-much match you state-for-state on place that I've lived (I'm talking about years living in places like the Jackson, MS area, western TN, southern Louisiana, and northern Colorado - SURPRISE - I grew up in the South), and frankly the country and heartland are full of a bunch of narrow-minded people who do, indeed like to thump the bible. Many of them are good-hearted, nice, and friendly but it doesn't make them any less narrow-minded or suspicious of people who are different.

 

And I'd question if you've truly lived in the country if you say that they don't buy into phony people. Just because they are more polite doesn't make them any less phony. I find in cities people are more honest than in rural America, because if they don't like you, they're not going to pretend to like you; because they don't have to deal with you if they really don't want to. A New Yorker will let you know where you stand with him/her, whereas in small town America, you can't avoid each other. Southern women are some of the best at smiling to your face while stabbing you in the back.

that just may be a north/south thing

 

in philly and nyc you do know exactly where you stand ... it's also a lot like that upstate

 

however in the cities i've noticed that they accept some pandering as being part of the game ... back home it's not the case ... you come phony and you don't get into the door .. you're shut out immediately

 

also my arguements are ancedotal because i speak on what i've seen ... the theory can be twisted and argued both ways, but this is what i've seen

 

I can agree with you that it's a matter of spending choice, except the people dont' have the choice

 

It isn't a matter of what car to buy, should I get generic food or general mills

 

It is a matter of do my taxes go to something that benefits me, do they make life better for my children, do they build roads and keep my town safe or do they go to support an unsavory element that ruins my town

 

hearing where you've been I see how you are jaded to the bible belt ideal .. but not all rural areas are like that

here is an article from the local papers .. looks like this will be the first time in the past 3 years that property taxes wont increase by over 10%

 

Single-digit tax hike eyed

By Mary Perham

 

BATH | Steuben County property owners can expect a single-digit property tax increase next year for the first time in three years.

 

The proposed 2005 budget of $147 million approved by the county Legislature's Finance Committee Thursday will lead to an average property tax hike of 9 percent to 9.5 percent.

 

County property taxes have risen nearly 13 percent and 11 percent in each of the last two years.

 

The committee carved costs from the tentative budget of $153 million to reduce overall spending, but Finance Chairman Legislator Gary Swackhamer, R-Hornell, said it's possible more could be trimmed.

 

 

"If we want to approve this budget as is, that's fine," Swackhamer said after a two-hour meeting. "But I'd like to see us get this down to 9 percent if it's at all possible."

 

The budget will be presented to the county Legislature for review at 10 a.m. Nov. 15.

 

Helping lessen the tax impact are expectations some county revenues will increase next year. Those include Federal Emergency Manage-ment Agency funds, a new mortgage tax and a 6 percent rise in sales tax receipts.

 

Legislators also approved hiring a new county Clerk's Office employee in order to process the mortgage tax, provided revenues offset the position's salary and benefits.

 

The bulk of the budget reduction came from spending cuts in the county Public Works Department, rolling over unexpended balances in some welfare programs and a modest reduction in social services costs next year.

 

The committee also recommended a $50,000 reduction in the county Sheriff's Department.

 

New increases in the budget include $100,000 to pay for housing inmates in neighboring county jails, $1 million in operations costs for county 911 center and an 11 percent jump in new Medicaid costs.

 

The local share of Medicaid is pegged at $27 million for 2005.

 

County Administrator Mark Alger said local governments will continue to lobby the state to cap Medicaid spending and reform the healthcare entitlement system.??

 

"Nothing we can do can sustain this growth," Alger said. "There is no way to absorb this cost.

 

"It's very simple," Swackhamer said. "If we can figure it out, you'd think the state could."

 

The proposed budget did not call for any layoffs. Last year, a handful of part-time and full-time positions were eliminated.

 

Department heads not covered by a bargaining unit are expected to receive 4 percent pay raises in the spending plan. Supervisors did not receive a pay increase this year.