Your tax dollars at work: "green" bribery
The race to the bottom has never been more apparent. If you live in Portland, you pay money to a company in Spain to keep some well connected local landlord's office building occupied. All in the name of saving the planet -- and "jobs," of course.
| Posted at 6:43 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (12)
Port of Portland should subsidize international flights using the Fedex hub model. The spokes would be every green company corporate office in the world.
Posted by dhughes609 | February 2, 2012 7:56 AM
The math is a little screwball. If $1.15 million is what Iberdrola wants to make it possible to keep 350 jobs in Portland for 10 years, that's about $3,000 per job, or $300/year, meaning that Iberdrola would get savings equal to the PDC subsidy simply by paying its workers $300 per year less.
Posted by Isaac Laquedem | February 2, 2012 8:42 AM
Iberdrola would get savings equal to the PDC subsidy simply by paying its workers $300 per year less.
But then with this economic model how could the blackmail ever work?
Posted by John Rettig | February 2, 2012 8:56 AM
Looks like Iberdrola pays right around $100k a year. A $300 a year haircut is less than 1%.
Remember when the MultCo ITAX came to town and the cheerleaders gave us that "less than a daily cup of coffee" lecture?
Posted by Garage Wine | February 2, 2012 9:25 AM
What's sustainable about Iberdrola? Subsidies?
Posted by Bark Munster | February 2, 2012 10:24 AM
I predict Iberdola leaves within 2 years, and there won't be any way to recoup the subsidy Portland gave them.
PGE Park/Portland Family Entertainment/Glickmans? $35 million
Emily Boyles? $120,000
Multnomah County Commission who defaulted on her loans? $500,000
We don't even TRY to collect on our bad debts in P-town. Not from the well connected or the insolvent.
Posted by Mister Tee | February 2, 2012 10:40 AM
It would be fun to draw the well-connected, the insolvent, and the lucky recipients of the sweetheart deals as a Venn diagram.
Posted by Isaac Laquedem | February 2, 2012 2:59 PM
And of course the aricle didn't go near anything close to a WTF? type question...
Posted by paul | February 2, 2012 7:11 PM
Where I'm from, if you run out of money, you go out of business. Harsh, I know! Start over, or something.
On the flip side, if you don't run out of money, you might get to keep some of it, instead of being shaken down continuously.
This entire green industry is going down fast, all over the world. Spain bankrupted itself trying to shift to a green renewable whatever economy.
Portland doesn't really want sustainability, it just wants to stay cool for one more year, one more month when the fad is already long over... and nobody will sign it's yearbook anymore.
Posted by Downtown Denizen | February 2, 2012 10:42 PM
At least I have stock in Iberdrola, formerly Scottish Power and before that Pacific Power. But the stock is down and the dividends get whacked with I think an 18% Spanish tax. So Portland is subsidizing the company so I can pay a tax to support the government of Spain. Which of course needs all the income it can get right now. And the tax is a deduction against income on my 1040. It's complicated.
And the subsidy is wrong.
Posted by Don | February 2, 2012 11:30 PM
Adams said "the city's proposed contribution is an investment in an industry that provides high-skilled, well-paid jobs." It's the welfare state turned upsdide down. Those with low-skilled poorly paid jobs get to subsidize the jobs of the young creatives. What next? Subsidized housing for those making $95K ??
Posted by Frank | February 3, 2012 6:02 AM
Frank: we already subsidize housing for those making $95k in Portland.
There's an "affordable housing project" in Hillsdale built with public subsidies and full of middle-high income earners, and the Mirabella (Luxury Retirement Living for Doctors, Dentists, and Lawyers) built with Multnomah County Guaranteed tax free bonds.
Those are just the two examples I'm aware of...
Posted by Mister Tee | February 3, 2012 8:50 AM