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Is Maine's Industrial Partnerships Act based on the Scandinavian Model?



Camoin Associates used Esri data compilation software to produce a master plan for the Boothbay Peninsula.The software allows one to run reports for a designated radius of any address  I tried it out for our business, but found hat it doesn't have data relevant to our field. One report. called "tapestries" categorizes demographic segments, but if you believed their segments to reflect reality, the only thing people buy in today's world are electronics. The truth is more likely that the electronics market is the only data compiled. I soon became bored with reading the homogenized descriptions of different classes of people.

I have heard it said that recorded history is selective, limited by the stories historians elect to tell while true history encompasses the whole spectrum of generational cultural interactions. The Camoin Report was created by running reports with the Esri data compiler and that is its limitation. Neither the Esri data, nor the Camoin Report includes issues uniquely specific to the Boothbay Peninsula. It reports what is common knowledge about our region. We have an aging population. We need to attract a younger generation and to develop year round jobs, and of course, our assets are defined by our looming non-profits, Coastal Gardens Inc, and Bigelow Labs with a special mention for the Country Club, all of which defines the demographic segment that the Camoin Report acknowledges in service of the group which paid them 79000.00 to create, from afar, a master plan for the Boothbay Peninsula,

The report barely mentions that we have a migrant working community descend upon us every summer and that they are primarily young people. The report does not recognize the migrant young workers as a source of potential youth who could move to our area on a more permanent basis. The report makes recommendations based on the same agenda advanced by the State. It barely mentions that the tourist industry has monopolized our housing, but instead recommends extending the shoulder seasons of the tourist industry. The report does not mention that the Boothbay Peninsula has a developer buying up properties every where and transforming everything he touches into something that serves the upper income vacationer demographic. The report does not say that the Peninsula is a target of re-gentrification, that would replace an existing rural culture with a suburban culture. The report does not mention the proximity of the Boothbay Peninsula to the municipality-authority of MRRA. The report does, however, mention the GATEWAY 1 CORRIDOR ACTION PLAN, created the same year that the municipality of MRRA was chartered by the Maine Legislature. In this transportation plan Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor are classified as "micropolitan' areas, which means a suburban area.
A micropolitan area contains an urban core of at least 10,000, but less than 50,000, population.
The core urban area is not exactly the same thing as the incorporated city limits.  For example, both the City of Anniston and the City of Gadsden have less than 50,000 population, but Anniston and Gadsden are both legitimate OMB metro areas. https://cber.cba.ua.edu/asdc/metro_micro.html
Definition of urban
: of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city
Definition of rural
: of or relating to the country, country people or life, or agriculture Miriam Webster Dictionary
The report does not explain that the nearby town with the odd name, for a municipal corporation, of "The Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority", is authorized by its legislative charter to  redevelop the entire Midcoast region.
§13083-G. Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority established; goals
The Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority is established as a body corporate and politic and a public instrumentality of the State to carry out the purposes of this article. The authority is entrusted with acquiring and managing the properties within the geographic boundaries of Brunswick Naval Air Station. [2009, c. 641, §1 (AMD).]
The authority is established to facilitate the rapid development of the properties within the geographic boundaries of Brunswick Naval Air Station. In order to achieve this objective, the authority shall make every effort to: [2009, c. 641, §1 (NEW).] (emphasis mine)
§13083-I. Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority; powers; membership; obligations
1. Powers.  The authority is a public municipal corporation and may:
   (emphasis mine)
The municipal corporation of MRRA is known not as a municipality, not as a town, but as an "authority"over the surrounding region, as its name states. It is reasonable to speculate that the Boothbay Peninsula is targeted to be redeveloped as a suburb and recreational retreat for the town of Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority. Existing populations, not useful to the MRRA's purposes, will be nudged to relocate or move into modular housing and the demographic for which the Camoin Report is written will move in. The only jobs that make living on the Boothbay Peninsula affordable are in the upper sector of the economy. In the wealth redistribution economy of Maine, this often means tax subsidized jobs, arranged by the State. To realize the full benefits of the tax subsidies, a corporation needs to be in a Pine Tree Zone, like MRRA. While Industrial Partnerships might train high school students on the Boothbay Peninsula for state approved jobs, such jobs are concentrated in tax exempt Pine Tree Zones. The GATEWAY 1 CORRIDOR ACTION PLAN will transport workers living in designated suburb communities to the Pine Tree Zones.That is called REdeveloping the Midcoast region. Simon says "Out with the old! Clap! Clap! In with the new!"Clap! Clap!

No! The Camoin Report does not tell you this.

Today it is difficult for a business to locate on the Boothbay Peninsula unless abundantly capitalized because housing is so expensive. Our company will need to re-establish a production facility where we can train workers to produce our own techniques but I doubt it will be possible to do so in Boothbay. Ever since Maine State Inc took over managing the Maine economy only jobs paying the highest wages are considered to have value, but one cannot afford to train workers at the highest wages- and the minimum wage escalating with inflation seems like a very unstable way to go. Free-enterprise friendly New Hampshire makes more sense, but here I am, still here, through God's mysterious will. I am already raising our prices on a regular basis to keep up with the attack by Maine State Inc on Maine free enterprise via its inflation-escalating, inflation-escalated minimum wage. The irony of an economy having only one sector of value - that sector which provides "above average" income, is that when it is finally arranged by the artificial means of wealth redistribution, for all the inhabitants of Maine to be making an "above average" income- it is just the average income and it is in fact a stagnant economy. However it will not be that, it will be instead the economy of the haves and have nots with a great and almost impassable divide between. This is the type of society that exists today in Scandinavia, where, data compilers tell, the people are the "happiest in the world". According to a recent article in Business Insider, Why Socialist Scandinavia Has Some Of The Highest Inequality In Europe", the top 10% of wealth holders in three Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) hold between 65 and 69 per cent of those nations' wealth.

The explanation given by the supporters of socialism is that entitlements are the opiates of the masses. Opiates keep people happy:

"Strong social security programs, good public pensions, free higher education or generous student loans, unemployment and health insurance can greatly reduce the need for personal financial assets. Public housing programs can do the same for real assets. This is one explanation for the high level of wealth inequality we identify in Denmark, Norway and Sweden: the top groups continue to accumulate for business and investment purposes, while the middle and lower classes have no pressing need for personal saving."Why Socialist Scandinavia Has Some Of The Highest Inequality In Europe"

That sounds like the operating philosophy in Maine. If you pacify the people with entitlements they will not want opportunities to grow as unique individuals; Who needs unique? The new world order is all about collectivism, a tapestry of demographics compiled by carefully selected data. The government can manage the collective growth and segment opportunities as is the conceptual function of the Industrial Partnerships Act. This is in fact quite horrible, since there is no value at work in the system except materialism but in wholesome individuals there are many other factors which have to be balanced with materialism. As the old adage says. Man does not live by bread alone, but the socialist system seeks to control humanity by the distribution of the metaphorical bread. All you have to do is sacrifice your relationship to God, family, and the meaning of life. It's easy peasy!

§3303. Industry clusters of the Industrial Partnerships Act identifies which sector of the economy meets the "state approved careers" qualifications. You probably don't need to have it posted here to guess what it is:
5. High-priority occupations list.  The Center for Workforce Research and Information annually shall publish a list of high-priority occupations, which are those occupations that have been:
A. Identified by the Center for Workforce Research and Information as providing opportunity for employment in jobs with high compensation; [2017, c. 110, §30 (NEW).]B. Recommended by the State Workforce Board; and [2017, c. 110, §30 (NEW).]C. Approved by the Governor or the Governor's designee. [2017, c. 110, §30 (NEW).] (emphasis mine)

In §3304. Industry partnerships, the emphasis is on "connecting disadvantaged adults and youth to careers;" and "a diverse pool of persons seeking jobs, including veterans and individuals with barriers to employment, such as persons who are economically disadvantaged, people with disabilities, youth, older workers, ex-offenders and others; " , And yet, "the "high priority occupations list", the jobs that meet government approval, are " jobs with high compensation". How is Industry Partnerships going to take people off the welfare roles and place them in the highest paying jobs in Maine? Easy peasy again! Since in a wealth redistribution economy, everything orbits around the state, the state can just write into its corporate welfare negotiations that X number of the employees hired, to meet the corporate benefits quota, will be sourced from the social welfare roles. This may not be as problematic for the employer, if the employer is already hiring unneeded staff to meet the quota for receiving corporate welfare benefits. No problem except to the quality of the work environment and damage done to the undesirable free enterprise sector which relies on minimum wage as a training wage, which will certainly escalate as policies mandated by Industrial partnership increasingly go into effect.

Those  "quality jobs"- or in the new language "state approved careers" - are advantaged by a little help from lavish tax payer subsidies, granted to the owners of the means of production to cover capitalization, operations, and worker training costs, because the owners of the means of production are in "the top groups [that] continue to accumulate for business and investment purposes, while the middle and lower classes have no pressing need for personal saving" as quoted from "Why Socialist Scandinavia Has Some Of The Highest Inequality In Europe", The top groups are angels who only profit incidentally to the public benefit that they selflessly serve, as writ to law in the UNconstitutional charter of the FAME corporation, which can never be repeated too often; (as in this blog




            Words from The Financial Authority of Maine corporate charter: 

The authority will serve a public purpose and perform an essential governmental function in the exercise of the powers and duties conferred upon it by this chapter. Any benefits accruing to private individuals or associations, as a result of the activities of the authority, are deemed by the Legislature to be incidental to the public purposes to be achieved by the implementation of this chapter. [1985, c. 344, §5 (AMD).]
The middle and lower classes have no need for personal savings [or personal opportunities or any other kind of  individualized personal choice] because the wealth redistribution system is keeping them in place with rations.

And so it all falls into place, why in Maine, the centralized economy is not just about redistributing capital for opportunities for the top groups (quality class) to get richer, but to likewise keep growth from occurring from the the roots. That is why qualification for public housing is tied to income caps per unit, creating a dilemma in which if the occupant increases income by a very small modicum, he loses his housing. The intent of such a public policy is perfectly clear, but there are unexamined dillemnas built in Industrial Partnerships human worker reprocessing programs, unexamined because they fall outside of the range of Maine State Incs singular value- money. 


If the occupant of public housing accepts a job in a "high priority occupation', which on the scale  of Maine State Inc's value system is high priority because it provides high compensation, the occupant will have to move out of his housing. Although the high compensation granted by the high priority occupation would afford the occupant pricier digs, there is no guarantee for the permanency of his new occupation unless Maine State Inc writes it into its corporate welfare negotiations. 

But how long can Maine State Inc guarantee to the worker that he will be guaranteed employment at his new highly compensated occupation? It is not likely that it would be for more than a year. Taking in the excluded human factor, a disadvantaged person being artificially catapulted into a highly advantaged occupation, might not feel that he belongs there, for a multitude of reasons, and so would question his job security which comes at the cost of sacrificing his housing security. Maine State Inc does not support the quality of job which would make for a more natural growth transition for the disadvantaged. That sector is by definition, the free enterprise economy. The wealth redistribution economy of Maine discourages business entrepreneurship at the bottom of the economy, but, for a multitude of reasons, not recognized by the Maine State Inc values system, people at the bottom of the economy are more apt to feel that they fit in a business owned by their own peer group. 

Mikkel Clair Nissen An anti-socialism activist from Denmark, likes to say that people in Denmark have self regard but no self-esteem, Self regard says "I am entitled to such and such and so and so". Self esteem says "I am worthy of  such and such and so and so". One is a political ideology. The other is earned security firmly rooted from within. The same anti-socialism activist from Denmark claims the people in Scandinavian countries are the happiest in the world because they are all on antidepressants. When a society provides all material needs but growth and opportunity is blocked, or controlled by the government, for most of the people, providing antidepressants to the people becomes an "essential government function". I have no idea if this is yet incorporated into Maine Care. Maybe if I dig deeper I will find this essential function incorporated into the Industrial Partnerships Act. Stranger things have been found in the Maine statutes. 

ALSO SEE:

Maine's Industrial Partnership Bill - Where Does it Lead?

AFTER NOTE

Senator Eric Swalwell recently announced his candidacy for US president. I found the following in his stands on the issues page. I have not yet researched other candidates on this issue.
In my view, the opposition to this federal act has it right

Eric Swalwell on Corporations

2013 Voted NO on workforce training by state block grants & industry partners.
Congressional Summary:
    Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills Act or SKILLS Act:
  • Reauthorizes appropriations workforce investment systems for job training and employment services.
  • Requires a plan describe:
    1. strategies and services to more fully engage employers and meet their needs, as well as those to assist at-risk youth and out-of-school youth in acquiring education, skills, credentials, and employment experience;
    2. how the state board will convene industry or sector partnerships that lead to collaborative planning;
    3. how the state will use technology to facilitate access to services in remote areas;
    4. state actions to foster partnerships with non-profit organizations that provide employment-related services; and
    5. the methodology for determining one-stop partner program contributions for the cost of the infrastructure of one-stop centers.
  • Repeals title VI (Employment Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities)
Opponent's Argument for voting No:
    National League of Cities op-ed, "H.R. 803 fails because it would:"
  1. Undermine the local delivery system that has been the cornerstone of job training programs
  2. Establish a program that is based on political boundaries (states) rather than on economic regions and local labor markets, or the naturally evolving areas in which workers find paying work
  3. Eliminate a strong role for local elected officials but require that they continue to be fiscally liable for funds spent in their local areas
  4. Change what was once a program targeted to those most in need--economically disadvantaged adults and youth and special population groups like veterans, migrant farm workers, and low income seniors--into a block grant to governors
  5. Contribute to the emerging division between those American's who have the requisite skills to find employment and those who do not. (emphasis mine)

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