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Economic development agencies are, in my opinion, a terrible idea. If the people deciding where the money should go had any ability at all, they would be worki
by debacle 14y ago
Economic development agencies are, in my opinion, a terrible idea.
If the people deciding where the money should go had any ability at all, they would be working in private investment. Instead, what you have are politically motivated nit-wits spending someone else's money on pipe dreams.
Locally, we have IDAs (industrial development associations) who are allocating county grants to local organizations that aren't going to create value on the order of what the grants presuppose.
This is a gross malappropriation of taxpayer money.
With regards to Curt Schilling, you can't blame the guy. He's personally wealthy and wanted to make an MMO. That's the dream of almost any gamer out there, and Rhode Island was foolish enough to not do due diligence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdoms_of_Amalur:_Reckoning#Reception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdoms_of_Amalur:_Reckoning#R...
If you look at the lineup, you have RA Salvatore, Todd MacFarlane, and Grant Kirkhope (the guy who wrote the score to Golden Eye and Perfect Dark). I haven't played the game itself, but anecdotally I've heard it's a great game but with a niche audience. You can create a successful game studio on that, but you can't create a billion dollar company.
- twelvechairs 14y agoThere is a purpose for development agencies, but yes, it is not this. Development agencies are effective when they direct money towards projects that have a definite positive impact on a broad variety of businesses within a specific geographic area, but are not seen as attractive to private investors (often because they tend to recoup costs slowly over the long term). Mostly this is real physical infrastructure (roads, ports, power, etc.). When development agencies start being seen as a funding source for businesses that should be able to stand on their own (as in this case) and provide little more knock-on-benefit to the local area than any other businesses of comparable size, then you know that you are in trouble.
- rprospero 14y ago> If the people deciding where the money should go had any ability at all, they would be working in private investment. Just curious: do you think that economic development agencies would be improved if governments were willing to pay salaries equivalent to private investment firms, thus attracting better talent?
- masterleep 14y agoNo. The problem is lack of accountability, not talent-for-hire.
- debacle 14y agoSee masterleep's comment. Governments will always be bad with money because they never are dealing with their own money.
- jbooth 14y agoPrivate organization stakeholders aren't usually dealing with their own money either, with similar results depending on the org. You know how much multi-million dollar business gets done over a few grand worth of Yankees tickets? This was a case of garden variety corruption, where the gov wasn't even getting kickbacks, he just liked the Red Sox, Schilling's a hero in New England, and he saw him as a fellow traveler conservative. If Schilling was going to George Clooney's fundraisers, this deal doesn't happen.
- debacle 14y agoPrivate investment management is usually performance based.
- jbooth 14y agoIf you're going to restrict it to specifically the investment business, then yeah, typically. But pretty much anyone who purchases for a living is awash in kickbacks, the kind of stuff you'd be fired from a government for. FWIW I agree that the government shouldn't be in the investment game except for strategic investments by the federal government (ball bearings, green tech, DARPA, stuff like that). Certainly not video game companies. There is still a role for development agencies, doing stuff like helping streamline paperwork, advocating for sewer hookups, stuff like that. They shouldn't be investors.
- koeselitz 14y agoIf the people who govern and the people who give the government money are two different sets of people, something ought to change.
- kaonashi 14y agoWho is to blame is the wrong question to ask, the questions to ask are "why is government money being doled out in such a fashion", "what problems are the programs involved intended to solve, and how are they failing to solve those problems" and "what level of corruption is involved".
- Steko 14y ago"With regards to Curt Schilling, you can't blame the guy. He's personally wealthy... and Rhode Island was foolish enough to not do due diligence." Let's stop apologizing for Curt Schilling. Blame is a pretty deep well and there should be more then enough for both him and the RI government. The idea that it's fine for the wealthy to capture the government for their own uses if they can is as farcial as Curt Schilling whining about how working class folk need to get off the government teat while angling for a $75 mil loan guarantee.
- onetwothreefour 14y agoNo, it's not a great game. It's an uninspired and linear Fable 3 knockoff (Fable 3 wasn't great either).