Category Archives: Business

Wait, was that Vermont or Texas?

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Imagine, if you will, a high-profile statewide campaign launch held in the ballroom of a semi-swanky hotel.

In addition to the usual banners, balloons, etc., the room also contains four gas-powered vehicles (or representations thereof): a vintage tractor, a miniature race car and bulldozer, and a full-sized stock car. The candidate himself is a stock car driver; the car is decked out as a rolling campaign billboard; and his logo features a checkered flag. All that’s missing is a model of an oil derrick.

The event occurs in late afternoon. For most of the day, the same room had hosted the annual meeting of the state’s biggest construction trade association. The candidate is a prominent member of the group.

Now tell me: what kind of environmental policy would you expect from this candidate?

I’m speaking, as you already know, of putative moderate Phil Scott. The trade group? The Associated General Contractors of Vermont. (You don’t often see so many portly, pasty-faced men in one place. It was like hippos at the watering hole, except with suits and ties.)

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Phil Scott, ultraconservative

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In my previous post, I explored the fiduciary contradictions of Lt. Gov. Phil Scott’s recently posted essay on VTDigger. For those just joining us, Scott believes he can hold the line on state spending and reject any tax or fee increases, while also increasing spending in several areas and somehow hold harmless our social safety net and environmental protections. Which, hahahaha.

That was enough for one post. But there’s something else in his essay that’s worthy of attention. It’s stunningly radical, putting him way, way out in Tea Party territory on a crucial, all-encompassing issue of governance.

… the Legislature needs to set a clear standard for all legislation. If a proposal responsibly decreases the costs of living and doing business in Vermont, they should pass it. If it increases costs in any way and leaves us open to financial uncertainty, they should set it aside.

Whoa. This ain’t the bland, inoffensive, centrist Phil Scott we’ve all come to know and love. This is a hard-line stance that would warm the cockles of David Koch’s heart, if he’s got one.

It’s also completely unworkable, natch. In the abstract it’s simple and elegant; in practice, it would create all sorts of problems.

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Jake Burton’s First Amendment bullshit

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Today’s Burlington Free Press brings news of a returning product line at Burton Snowboards: a series of snowboards featuring Playboy bunnies. They tried this once before, and suffered an intense barrage of criticism for exploiting women’s bodies.

Somehow, Burton was shocked by that. I guess he was too deeply immersed in snow-bro culture to realize that much of the world has moved beyond the objectification of women.

And still is, since he’s bringing back the Bunny boards. But he’s ready for the critics:

“Since Burton was founded nearly 40 years ago, we’ve supported freedom of artistic expression. Board graphics are artwork, and we understand that art can be offensive to some and inspiring to others. I strongly back our latest snowboard collection with Playboy and was involved in the project from the beginning.”

How noble. How high-minded.

What a pile of horse hockey.

Look, I don’t mind if Burton wants to plaster naked Bunnies on snowboards. I think it’s tasteless, but I’m not in their target demographic.

I do mind the utter bullshit about artistic expression.

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Woolf’s Duplicitous Delicatessen

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Our Motto: “Where There’s Always a Thumb on the Scale”

It’s been a while since I chronicled the dishonest commentary of Art Woolf, a.k.a. Vermont’s Loudest Economist. Every Thursday, he blesses us with a few hundred words of pro-business bumpf salted with carefully chosen figures designed to conceal the flaws in his reasoning.

Heck, I could easily write a riposte every week, but that gets old after a while.

However, the two most recent entries in the Woolf oeuvre merit scrutiny, because they touch on significant public policy debates: taxes and health care reform.

His November 5 missive revisits one of his favorite themes: Vermont’s taxes are too damn high. Well, he doesn’t say so exactly; but he presents an array of misleading statistics to bolster that popular conservative argument.

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The unbelievably coincident gas price roller coaster

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This morning’s Burlington Free Press reports a development in the courts: attorneys for Chittenden County gas wholesalers have filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging price-fixing in the market, which is dominated by a handful of outfits. Former US Attorney Tris Coffin, having traded in his white hat for a shiny black Downs Rachlin Martin number, is now spearheading the gas cartel’s defense.

Sorry, make that “the alleged gas cartel.”

This news brought to mind the latest pair of coincidences in the long and suspicious history of gas prices in the Burlington area. This past July, when the suit was freshly filed, I noted a rare happenstance: gas was actually cheaper in Burlington than in Montpelier by as much as 15 cents per gallon. This reversed the usual state of affairs, in which Burlington-area stations routinely offer some of the highest prices in the state.

At the time, I connected the obvious dots: bad publicity triggers a temporary drop in prices at the pump. Or as I put it:

For years, Bernie Sanders has been alleging price fixing by the four companies that own most of Chittenden County’s gas stations. The companies have consistently denied any collusion — although, it must be noted, they usually bring down their prices for a while after Bernie kicks up a fuss. And then quietly goose them back up once the heat’s off.

Well, it’s happened again. The suit’s been out of the headlines for a few months, and whaddya know, the vast majority of Burlington-area gas stations are charging 10-15 cents more per gallon than their Montpelier counterparts.

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The Chamber’s selective complaint

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My neighbor Betsy Bishop, head of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, is pushing something she calls an “impact list” of all the burdens placed on Vermont businesses in recent years — “as well as those that could be considered in 2016,” which is a big fat asterisk in itself. Given the state’s budget situation, a whole lot of potential revenue enhancers “could be considered.” Almost all of them will never get off the floor. (The carbon tax, already sidelined, is on her list.) Many are mutually exclusive. But all of ‘em, real or imaginary, make the “impact list.”

And, as VTDigger political analyst Jon Margolis points out, more than a third of the Chamber’s list of tax hits from the 2015 session were actually tax increases on affluent Vermonters, not on businesses.

Generally, the Vermont Chamber is a reasonable actor in Vermont politics. It hasn’t followed the rabid conservative path of the national Chamber. But this is a major step into partisanship for the Vermont Chamber.

And as you might suspect, the Chamber’s “impact list” tells only one side of the story. Margolis helpfully recounts many of the ways that public expenditures and tax breaks directly benefit businesses. It’s quite a list. But it’s arguably the tip of the iceberg.

You can make a strong case that most government expenditures benefit business. Infrastructure spending? You can’t do business without it. Education? You need educated workers, and there’s a big emphasis these days on STEM and workforce-oriented two-year programs. Law enforcement? One of its primary missions is protection of property rights.

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Oh hey look: another VTGOP climate change denier

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Here’s a little compost sprinkled on your cornflakes, courtesy of one Eileen Rodgers, “communications director for the Burlington Republican Committee”:

Along with plotting to place wind turbines on 200 miles of ridge lines and scheming to occupy thousands of acres of our fields with solar panels, the central planners in Vermont are busying themselves with projects that are guaranteed to squeeze our cars off the roads.

There’s a whole lotta hate in that little paragraph, which is the kickoff of an opinion piece by Rodgers posted on VTDigger this morning. Plotting, scheming, central planners squeezing our cars off the roads.

So tell me, when exactly did Old Joe Stalin resurrect himself and take over Vermont?

In the guise of Bill McKibben, no less?

Climate change has been a very convenient phenomenon. It has given a sense of validity to all sorts of projects the big guys support. Energy from the wind and sun will take care of our electricity needs and our transportation needs will be met with … bicycles!!

Yeah, that’s… uh, wait, nobody is saying any of that. Except maybe the voices in Eileen Rodgers’ head.

And “big guys”? Since when are Republicans against “big guys”?

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Here we go again

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When IBM paid GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion to take its chip-making operations off its hands, including the Essex Junction facility, Vermont breathed a sigh of relief. All the drama, all the domestic cutbacks by IBM, the rumors, the questions… we could put all that to bed.

Right?

Not so much.

Multiple media reports say a state-owned Chinese chip manufacturer has been sniffing around. The Albany Times Union:

Anxious to grow its semiconductor industry and secure a stable supply of microchips for its high-tech economy, the Chinese government is reportedly looking into buying GlobalFoundries…

Mubadala Development Co., the Abu Dhabi government investment fund that owns GlobalFoundries, may be under increasing pressure to consider any offers for its chip-making unit as the plunge of global oil prices has put enormous pressure on the oil-rich emirate’s finances.

Hoo boy. Out of the frying pan.

Makes me wonder two things. First, was GF’s “purchase” of the IBM operation merely a cash grab? A large-scale industrial version of “Flip This House”? Second, all of GF’s assurances to Vermont officials are worth exactly the paper they were written on. Assuming they were ever written down in the first place.

If the GF transaction turned Essex Junction into a pawn in a global game, a Chinese takeover would turn Essex Junction into a zit on a mega-corporation’s ass. I mean, if you think the Chinese wouldn’t close Essex Junction in a heartbeat if they could save a nickel by moving the whole shebang to Shanghai, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.

And it’d have nothing to do with Vermont. In the face of Chinese strategic considerations, our policies and “business climate” are insignificant. That wouldn’t stop Republicans and business types from slamming the Democrats, but it’d be pure substance-free political posturing.

This is far from a done deal. The Times Union says that even if a sale is agreed to, it’s certain to face opposition in Washington. Specifically, powerful New York Sen. Chuck Schumer “has vowed to block the sale of any U.S. technology companies to state-owned companies in China until the government opens up its markets to U.S. firms and stops stealing U.S. intellectual property.”

Which raises an interesting philosophical point. Since IBM dumped its chip business onto GlobalFoundries, is it a “U.S. technology company” anymore?

Well, that wouldn’t keep the politicians from making their hay with some juicy election-year China-bashing. They might even succeed in blocking a sale, or sufficiently fouling the waters that China decides it’s not worth the trouble.

But here’s the larger point. Even if China doesn’t buy, this certainly shines a new and unflattering light on GlobalFoundries as a “partner” to Vermont. To paraphrase the Psalmist, “Put not your trust in global corporations…”

You’re as Kold as ice

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Keurig Green Mountain, the local startup made good and then assimilated by Coca-Cola, has formally unveiled its new Keurig Kold system online. To me, it still looks like an Edsel in the making. What’s worse, the troubled company is clearly betting the farm on this overpriced gizmo.

The cost alone is a deal-breaker. Add to that the machine’s clunky performance, and you have a product fated for the dustbin of history.

Cost? The list price of a KK is $369 — by far the most expensive of any Keurig device. But that’s just the entry fee. Your $369 buys you the opportunity to make little tiny eight-ounce servings of cold beverages at a per-cup cost of more than a dollar.

And each serving takes more than a minute to produce.

Which begs the question: why in hell would anyone buy this piece of junk?

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Redirect: The view from inside the stable

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In response to yesterday’s post about the troubles in the Vermont Training Program, I got a nice call from Lucy Leriche, Deputy Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, which I believe I referred to as the Augean Stable of state government.

Well, nice to know somebody’s paying attention.

She made some good points, and some not-so-convincing points. Overall, I have to say my view of ACCD hasn’t changed much.

The #1 item she brought to my attention: “the reboot.”

The Vermont Training Program was overhauled in 2014. …The Auditor began his inquiry and report in 2015. What he had to work with was data from before the reboot. We have made a lot of changes, but the report is based on old information.

Hoffer’s response: he was aware of the reboot, and considered it in his report. His view: the reboot made some changes, but fell short in many ways. “It still relies on self-certifications [by applicants],” he wrote in an email. “The program should do some independent validation, as is recommended by the State’s Internal Control guidance. It’s a matter of adopting best practices in order to be accountable. These are taxpayer funds.”

Over to you, Ms. Leriche:

The Legislature made it clear they didn’t want us to build a big bureaucracy. They wanted as many dollars to go to grants as possible. If we did everything Doug Hoffer suggested, it would take at least one full-time person. That would take a lot of money away from grants.

Okay, let’s see here. They didn’t want “a big bureaucracy,” and following Hoffer’s suggestions would take “at least one full-time person.” That doesn’t sound like “a big bureaucracy” to me. It sounds more like a reasonable investment in protecting taxpayer funds.

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