Newspaper Page Text
Wednesday, June 28,2023
FAYETTE VIEWS
A4 Fayette County News
Trump - 2024
GOP Candidate
“I don’t think primary voters look at electability. I think
they look for the person they think will pursue what they
believe in.” -Sen. Mitt Romney
I’m the grandson of two Italian immigrants. As the fic
tional Don Corleone of Godfather fame said, “I am old
school; I believe in respect.” And honor is the basis for that
respect. That’s why Donald Trump is unlike Corleone.
An American with any honor
would not be indicted for espionage
and withholding classified doc
uments. Or acting like Trump has
and still does.
In 2020, Trump’s approval level
among the general public was at 39
percent. Plus, only 49 percent of
Americans believed Trump was a
strong leader, down from 60 percent
in 2016. Only 42 percent thought he,
A) managed our government effec
tively, and B) cared about people like me. Even fewer
thought he was honest, only 36 percent.
However, per 87 percent of Republicans, he was a
strong leader. An astounding 86 percent believed he was an
effective manager. Despite his antagonistic, narcistic per
sonality, 83 percent thought he cared about people like
them. Almost three fourths (72 percent) believed him to be
honest, despite the facts.
Trump says he was a tough kid from Queens. No, he was
the pampered kid of a wealthy tycoon that probably pushed
around smaller kids. He was sent to expensive private
boarding schools. Trump then went to fancy, expensive, pri
vate colleges, his entry greased by Daddy’s money. After
ward, Daddy provided him with hundreds of millions in
seed money.
He dodged the Vietnam draft... five times. Poor guy had
“bone spurs,” per Daddy’s MD. During this same period of
time, my brother dropped out of Georgia Tech and joined
the Army, although he had a metal pin holding his upper
and lower left arm together. Back then, if you could breathe
and weren’t in college, you volunteered or were drafted.
Don Corleone was tough as nails. But, true to the code
that Italians like me were brought up under, he had honor.
Not so for Trump. He is amoral. Morality, facts, and truth
have no meaning for him.
There is an old saying that accurately describes Trump:
“How can you tell when a politician is lying? His lips are
moving!” Most Americans (and our allies) sawTrump’s lack
of honesty when he was in office and since.
But his lack of ethics should surprise no one. His history
is replete with deals in which he unethically nailed his part
ners with no remorse. It is no accident that although his en
terprises went broke numerous times, Trump walked away
unscarred as his hapless, trusting partners bit the dirt. Fur-
See Bernard, A6
JACK BERNARD
The Biggest
Oxymoron of All
Act naturally. Original copy. Random order.
And then there’s everyone’s favorite, jumbo shrimp.
These are all oxymorons, a figure of speech combining
two opposite ideas to create an effect.
Here’s one that may have slipped under the radar: hu
manely slaughtered. By definition, it
means, per the Humane Slaughter
Act of 1958, that an animal should be
completely sedated and insensible to
pain prior to being slaughtered. I can
only imagine how comforting that is
for all the cows and pigs reading this
column.
I gave up eating red meat at one
time. One of the reasons was to im
prove my digestive system, specifi
cally so that running in events that
didn’t finish on the same day they started didn’t take such
a terrible toll on my stomach (Incidentally, it didn’t make
a difference). But the primary reason I stopped was because
I had seen and read enough to know that there was no such
thing as humanely slaughtering an animal.
I can hear what you’re thinking: Sure, but I bet you still
ate chicken and fish! And you would be correct, but if I
thought about it long and hard enough (and poured over
any available material on the humane slaughter of chicken
and fish), I could probably have given up those as well.
What really held me back is my wife: it’s not easy planning
meals with only vegetables and meat from animals that
don’t have four legs.
I know a lot of vegetarians that do OK with their diets,
and if I really put my mind to it, I think I could as well. I
also know a few vegans, but I seriously doubt that I could
survive on just 127 calories a day.
When she was a little girl, my mom witnessed first-hand
a chicken getting its head cut off. This was well before 1958,
of course. The headless chicken ran aimlessly around the
yard for what she said at the time seemed like hours before
finally falling over; it was then plucked, gutted, and thrown
on the grill. She never ate chicken again after that day. I
can’t say that I blame her.
I think seeing something like that would have the same
effect on me but THANK GOD FOR THE HUMANE
SLAUGHTER ACT OF 1958 that protects me from seeing -
and, of course, all of our fine-feathered friends from experi
encing - something so cruel and vicious.
I’ve seen more than my fair share of 40-foot flatbed
trailers on the interstates carrying countless tiny cages
jammed full of live chickens being transported to whatever
place it is they go before they’re humanely slaughtered,
wrapped in cellophane, and stocked on the shelves of your
local grocery store.
Those poor chickens: cooped up in a mesh cage with
See Ludwig, A6
SCOTT LUDWIG
The New China: As Observed by Me
Ni hao! That’s pretty much the ex
tent of my Chinese vocabulary. It
means “hello,” and I practiced it over
and over so that I could impress my
Chinese hosts during my visit to Beij
ing.
They weren’t impressed. In fact, I
found the Chi
nese rude,
crude, and lack
ing in rudimen
tary social
graces.
For in
stance, the na
tional pastime
in China is spit
ting. As you
walk down the
streets of Beij
ing, a city of 13 million people and 9
million bicycles, all you hear is the gut
tural sounds of throat clearing and
then the disturbing, patooey! I kid you
not.
I shot a photograph of a man spit
ting from a high rise, nine floors up.
Spitting has gotten so prevalent in
China that the government, in antici
pation of the Olympic Games, issued a
fiat banning public spitting.
Next to public spitting, the most
egregious behavior of the Chinese is
their rudeness. At the hotels, there are
cab stands with security people around
to ostensibly regulate the cab traffic,
prevent gouging by the drivers, and in
general protect the public. It’s just the
opposite.
The hotel people tell you an amount
you should expect to pay to get to reach
a certain destination... Cab after cab re
fused to take us to Tiananmen Square
for the amount stated by the hotel.
Further, they refused to use the trip
meter. Try saying, “Use the trip meter,”
in Chinese.
They never smile; they just stand
around looking inscrutable. Mao
posters are ubiquitous, literally, yet,
when you try to engage the Chinese in
conversations of politics, they dummy
up. I asked an elderly gentleman about
the human rights protest in Tianan
men Square - Man blocks tank picture
shown on every TV in the world and on
the cover of Time magazine - he was
crickets about it.
It is as though there is a collective
ongoing joke about us Westerners and
the Chinese are the only ones who get
it.
The Modus Operandi in China is
when you meet a Westerner, talk with
them only about the great past em
perors, the great past Mao, the Great
Wall, and the funny doors with tall
thresholds to keep out short spirits. On
all other topics they just snicker up
their kimono sleeve, bow a lot, and act
all Chinese.
But to hear the Chinese brag about
their open religion policy, you would
think a Billy Graham style tent meeting
might spring up any minute right there
in downtown Beijing. To challenge this,
I told the hotel concierge that I was
very punctilious about my church go
ings and inquired about the location of
the nearest Methodist church. By his
reaction, you would have thought I
painted a mustache on one of the mil
lion or two Mao posters hanging about.
Every important decision made by
the Chinese is guided by birth symbols.
Dogs don’t marry pigs. Lions are dei
fied. A low threshold lets in evil spirits.
Water is good. Fire is bad. The number
nine is supreme and odd numbers are
preferred over even. I shudder to think
what would happen if, during a Tao
istic seance among the members of the
Chinese Communist party rank and
file, a winged lion whispers in the ear
of President Xi Jinping, “Americans
bad. Chinese good. Lions say push but
ton.”
The Lions are now in Cuba and
armed to the teeth.
JAMES
STUDDARD
Tax Incentives are a Study
of Stories, Data, and Best Guesses
When you want to explain some
thing to someone, you tell them a re-
latable story. When you want to prove
something to someone, you show
them the numbers to back it up.
In the world in which I live, which
is a cross sec
tion of journal
ism, public
relations, and
public policy,
the difference
between these
two concepts is
generally re
ferred to as“an
ecdote versus
data.” Today
I’m going to try to illustrate that the
two aren’t opposing concepts but are,
in fact, complementary in under
standing the issues of the day. And
yet, are still limiting.
This morning I read a headline
that “The Battery” - the Cobb County
mixed use development which is an
chored by the Atlanta Braves ballpark
- signed a tenant for a new corporate
headquarters. It is the third such
company to decide to place its home
and top executives there.
The Battery has already exceeded
its original revenue projections and
commitment to Cobb County tax
payers who invested in the devel
opment via tax abatements and
infrastructure improvements. Yet, it
is still difficult to read these stories
without the “taxpayer funded” subtext
that journalists - pro and con - contin
ually use to frame the narrative of
stories about The Battery.
That’s the first part about anec
dotes in journalism. Stories should be
consumed with the reader question
ing, “Why is this being told to me?” If
the answer is that it is trying to frame
an issue or anoint good actors versus
bad ones, it’s best to ensure that there
is corresponding data to back up the
anecdote that is being told.
This particular story appeared to
be just about a company planting its
flag at an address, so no hidden
agenda or debate about tax credits
should be presumed. It was not
written to argue or persuade. For
those inclined to do so, however,
there was another big nugget well
beyond the lede.
The company was relocating from
Wildwood, an older development that
was once the crown jewel of suburban
Atlanta corporate offices. It’s within a
decent jogging distance of The Bat
tery, also in Cobb County. If you were
trying to read the headline of the story
as an anecdote to support the conten
tion that The Battery has been an un
questioned success for Cobb County
taxpayers... you now have a valid
question as to whether this was a win.
And you need more data.
But we already have the data we
need, you say? I’ve already referenced
the net additions to Cobb County’s tax
base to prove the point.
But... what if we took a tenant al
ready paying rent to a building on
Cobb County tax rolls and moved it to
The Battery? Did Cobb County win?
Or was it a wash?
Well... we could go through the
tenant lists at The Battery - at least for
the office side - and probably deter
mine which tenants were new to the
county and which just moved within
the jurisdiction. That would be a sim
ple way to get the right answer, right?
Well... no. Because nothing in
volving money and time is ever sim
ple. Another article in the same
publication this week noted that a tro
phy office building in Buckhead could
not arrange financing for a sale an
nounced years ago, amid the declin
ing market for office real estate.
In the post-Covid world of “work
from home/anywhere,” there is less
demand for office space. Companies
are either reducing their footprint or
giving up office leases altogether as
their leases expire. Newer, trophy
properties in hip areas across the
country (like The Battery) continue to
command peak rents, but older of
fices and those off the beaten path are
struggling to find tenants, even at re
duced rates.
So... where would that HQ have
signed if The Battery hadn’t been
built? We’ll never know. Maybe in
Cobb, maybe just across the Chatta
hoochee in Atlanta’s hip new West
Midtown district.
The point here is this: Even data
has its limits. Data can tell you what
happened if it is captured correctly. It
can’t tell you what might have hap
pened under hypothetical scenarios.
This is why economics falls short of
being a science. You can’t run repeat-
able experiments to confirm you have
the right answer. You can only ob
serve what actually happens, in hind
sight.
Why does any of this matter? One
of the most closely followed study
committees by the Georgia Legisla
ture this summer will be one to review
the entire catalog of Georgia’s tax in
centives. Those for and against will
come armed with anecdotes and data.
Each side will tell compelling stories
and will then add in supportive
numbers.
With each presentation, we need
to look beyond the lede. We need to
not only see what is presented, but
ask what is not, what is missing. We
need to understand that some incen-
tivized activity would have happened
here anyway. We need to understand
that there could and likely will be a
cost to doing nothing - possibly
greater than the tax dollars invested.
At the end of the day, there will
not be a definitive answer. There will
only be best guesses.
Let us hope they guess right. A
decade of being the “Best State for
Business” is riding on these decisions.
Let’s hope the right questions are
asked - and answered - to the best
ability possible.
CHARLIE HARPER
\10\\(Pf]Amehcans-Care.com
J/|Vv»Ul/ ©2023 Creators.com