I launched our kickstarter project in the midst of more disturbing news in Maine. Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Steve Woods wants to relocate the inhabitants of 109 towns that the have been insolvent for 10 years, citing that the affluent urban communities get 93 percent of the investment dollars in Maine and that "more than 100 Maine communities that cost hundreds of millions of
dollars a year to sustain while making very little contribution to the
wealth and capacity of our state.”
Mr Brooks is the CEO of TideSmart Global- a company that benefited from the Obama Stimulus funds that financed TideSmarts campus. I haven't been able to find the amount in stimulus funds granted to TideSmart but I found the map of Maine on recovery.org which gives a visual picture of which communities received stimulus dollars, clearly showing that the recipients are very highly concentrated in Southern Maine and in the locations were Mr Woods wants to relocate urban populations in what will likely become inner city ghettos- but that is not our Mr Woods problem. He is just a money man who wants to be the next CEO of Maine State Inc.
One can also see that there are large portions in Maine that received no stimulus money. The BDN article in which Mr Woods reveals his concept for macro managing the Maine economy -and by extension, just about everything else, discusses Milo Maine. A map of Maine, showing where Milo is located places it in -or in close proximity to -one of the empty areas on the map showing the locations that received tax payer dollars from the Obama stimulus. Mr Woods complains that the "communities" ( plural) cost "hundreds of millions of dollars :" a year to sustain, while making little contribution to the wealth of our state.
TideSmart's campus looks very costly. The taxpayer dollars spent there are not for roads and infrastructure but are a business investment that allegedly enables TideSmart to contribute wealth and capacity to our state, although one would have to dig to find confirming information- and so we just take that on the word of Mr Brooks, Maine State Inc, and President Obama.
Mr Brooks said the following, regarding the money that he was able to procure to subsidize his business interests "
And I say This:
Mr Brooks is not as generous toward others as the taxpayers have been toward Mr Brooks. Perhaps he has good reasons for taking such a cold attitude toward those that did not receive the generous federal and state handouts that have been lavished on Mr Brooks. It may be that Mr Brooks just wants to relocate the inhabitants of 109 Maine municipality so that he can create more campuses of his own design to bring "global corporations" to Maine - why the entire state ought to be covered with them! Why settle for anything less!
With all due respect for your grandeur, Mr Brooks, I have no desire to live in the type of society that you want to create. a society that labors for large global companies and lives in communities designed from the top down by overlords. THAT is called a collectivist society- NOT the philosophy upon which the greatest country on earth was founded!
I was raised on Southport Island, Maine where I attended grade school with kids from the local year round community, many of whom have lived in the area for generations. Summer visitors flocked to my parents ceramic gallery, many of them from families that have vacationed in the area for generations. We moved to East Boothbay in 1958 where I have seen people come and go in the neighborhood. Many of the people who discover East Boothbay are amazed because it actually is a village- A real village! not a campus but a village and because the houses are all unique- no two alike. it is an organically grown community -increasingly becoming a rarity. Such communities should be preserved-not destroyed. They are what makes Maine a unique place-distinct from the megalopolis.
I like living in my small town, away from urban life. I like that there are places to go that are still towns and villages grown organically, not designed from above by a master class who believes that they know the way that everyone should live - because we do not all want to live the way that you, Mr Brooks, and your comrades want us to live. Small towns are like families- no two are alike.
I can't say I have the facts, and I don't believe any ordinary citizen does, but I'll wager that the biggest investments in Maine have to be the generated by the state government with its endless funds stashed in various economic development programs- funds derived primarily from taxpayers .Mr Woods company TideSmart was the recipient of some of that redistributed wealth from both the state and federal taxpayers. What ever happened to "spreading the wealth around " - and what about the mission of the Maine Development Foundation formed to macro manage the economy of the entire state- not just the urban centers ! If 109 towns are insolvent, then isn't the Maine Development Foundation accountable? The socioeconomic community does not exist on global corporations alone.
There is one insolvent town that I would love to see deconstructed and that is the MRRA, which when I read the annual report in 2010 was being subsidized by the federal government to the tune of around about 85% of its revenue. But Mr Brooks is unlikely referring to Maine' State Inc's newest crown jewel, in fact he would probably like to see the populations of those 109 towns relocated so that the state can create more city states like the MRRA- as insolvent as they are without their life support systems of funny money from the federal government, which probably accounts for much of that 93% capitalization that the urban Maine cities receives. If not, then why is the Maine State taxpayer subsidizing a high growth investment company to the tune of 10%?(The Small Enterprise Growth Fund) - If the 93% of investment money includes a large proportion of private investment capital, then why does Maine have to bribe investors to the state through the Small Enterprise Growth Fund, which takes the tax payers money and keeps on "rolling it over" into the fund like a non-profit investment, while the private high growth investors are exactly as the name says they are?
I know that Maine State Inc is channeling tax payer dollars to the urban areas and that largely accounts for the "93% of investment dollars that goes to the urban cities. Not exactly fair and balanced. Is it?
When ever the state takes federal money, freely printed up at the federal reserve on request, it distributes it to its "targeted sector" which is heavily concentrated in the urban cities, and simultaneously it decreases the value of money earned by all the citizens of this country including those living in the 109 towns that the bubble head Mr Woods would like to relocate.The function of taking freshly printed federal money, which is one of the primary functions of Maine State Enterprises, is that the rich get richer as the poor get poorer. Its as simple as that!
After Note : This is a list from Stimulus Watch. This is what it says to introduce the list:
Why are Portland and Lewiston the only two options in city search on this list? One would expect that all the mayors of all the cities would be aware of the same stimulus programs.
A list by city shows that Augusta received the most stimulus money- $586,327,420.49 out of a state total of $1,511,158,006 or about 39% of the total for the whole state.
Steve Woods says that Augusta should stop sending the 109 rural communities money for roads and infrastructure. Not too long ago, I came across plans from The Maine Develpment Foundation, for renovating Augusta, the elite need a proper court , don't they? - for entertaining the Bilderberg Group, Now Augusta has its own airport- . You can see why they need to de-fund rural communities. Once the power elite force the rural inhabitants to relocate to the inner cities, they can then build private jet ports in the deserted towns for themselves. to fly from the court in Augusta to their private country clubs.
Pause for Intermission:
As this news is breaking Lepage is proposing seizing the liquor industry from the private sector and designating that the profits be used for roads and bridges and other state expenses including paying the dept that Maine Care owes to the hospitals.in a manner all too similar to that of Fidel Castro.
i know this because during the course of a discussion on AS Maine Goes, I looked up the legislation. The Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages should just have regulatory and licensing functions consistent with the general model of a Bureau. Around 1997-1999 the Bureau was allotted a one million dollar budget to invest in the the wholesale liquor business. In 2003, the legislature decided that the state was not making a profit from the sale of liquor and decided to privatize the entire wholesale liquor business. Apparently they offered a private sector general contractor a 10 year lease that is up this year .
In 2011 the Republican controlled legislature decided to hold a bidding contest for the contract of which the minimum requirement includes a twenty million down payment - and there after ten payments to be made for the "contract value", which is left undefined.
To my understanding the "contract value" would be determined by the estimated profit value of the contract. One might consider that it could also mean the amount agreed to be paid in the bidding war but if that is the case, then why doesn't the statute say exactly that? Technically the interpretation of the law is in the word of the law, which can arguably be interpreted as decreeing that the state shall be paid the entire value of the contract and another designated profit on top of that.
Whether the wording of the contract is an issue, the state is demanding a minimum down payment of twenty million dollars based on a contract value that the private contractor created after he bought the contract from the state which had not been able to make a profit in the wholesale liquor business. The down payment is twenty times the amount of the allocated budget in 2003, when the state was operating the liquor business under standard business terms.
Perhaps Lepage knows that suddenly demanding a minimum payment of twenty million dollars for the contract is not an enticing deal to a general contractor. LD 239 repeals the privatization of the wholesale liquor industry with Lepage proposing to cut out the general contractor and have the state take over the general contractor's function- using the network of subcontractors that the general contractor put into place - so essentially after passing a statute to privatize the wholesale liquor industry -and after the private sector general contractor built a failing wholesale liquor business into a profitable one, the state is either attempting to charge the general contractor a huge fee for the "contract value" that the general contractor created- and demand a percentage of his profits on top of that- or they are just going to cut the general contractor out all together and literally seize control of a private sector industry, using resources that the private contractor developed.
This latest move by Lepage defines Lepage as a fiscally sane Marxist- one who understands that bills must be paid and budgets balanced- but a Marxist, none the less.
I hope that the people will protest loudly because that is what is needed to create the conditions for a new breed of politicians- a constitutionally conservative politician to emerge in the field of Maine politics.
SEE ALSO:
China’s Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities
A Ceramic Enterprise Can Revitalize a Community VS Steve Woods "Relocating" Solution.
Mr Brooks is the CEO of TideSmart Global- a company that benefited from the Obama Stimulus funds that financed TideSmarts campus. I haven't been able to find the amount in stimulus funds granted to TideSmart but I found the map of Maine on recovery.org which gives a visual picture of which communities received stimulus dollars, clearly showing that the recipients are very highly concentrated in Southern Maine and in the locations were Mr Woods wants to relocate urban populations in what will likely become inner city ghettos- but that is not our Mr Woods problem. He is just a money man who wants to be the next CEO of Maine State Inc.
One can also see that there are large portions in Maine that received no stimulus money. The BDN article in which Mr Woods reveals his concept for macro managing the Maine economy -and by extension, just about everything else, discusses Milo Maine. A map of Maine, showing where Milo is located places it in -or in close proximity to -one of the empty areas on the map showing the locations that received tax payer dollars from the Obama stimulus. Mr Woods complains that the "communities" ( plural) cost "hundreds of millions of dollars :" a year to sustain, while making little contribution to the wealth of our state.
TideSmart's campus looks very costly. The taxpayer dollars spent there are not for roads and infrastructure but are a business investment that allegedly enables TideSmart to contribute wealth and capacity to our state, although one would have to dig to find confirming information- and so we just take that on the word of Mr Brooks, Maine State Inc, and President Obama.
Mr Brooks said the following, regarding the money that he was able to procure to subsidize his business interests "
"For the TideSmart Global Business Garden to grow and prosper, we need the help and support of friends, family, business associates, community members, and local, county, state and national leaders." He continued, "There has never been a better time to expand TideSmart Global's operations and the economic incentives offered through federal and state stimulus programs have enabled us to harness this opportunity."
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ENTER! |
"For the Great American Ceramic Designer Craftsmen Network Garden to grow and prosper, we need the help and support of friends, family, business associates, and community members,.There has never been a better time to expand Andersen Studio and Andersen Design, which can easily be located in low income rural communities and be a source of revitalization. In addition to providing jobs and teaching skills, A ceramic slip casting production accompanied by a retail gallery can be destination shopping which attracts other retailers.The help and support of KickStarter and our family of friends have the potential to enable us to harness this opportunity, without taking federal funny money or going into debt."
Mr Brooks is not as generous toward others as the taxpayers have been toward Mr Brooks. Perhaps he has good reasons for taking such a cold attitude toward those that did not receive the generous federal and state handouts that have been lavished on Mr Brooks. It may be that Mr Brooks just wants to relocate the inhabitants of 109 Maine municipality so that he can create more campuses of his own design to bring "global corporations" to Maine - why the entire state ought to be covered with them! Why settle for anything less!
With all due respect for your grandeur, Mr Brooks, I have no desire to live in the type of society that you want to create. a society that labors for large global companies and lives in communities designed from the top down by overlords. THAT is called a collectivist society- NOT the philosophy upon which the greatest country on earth was founded!
I was raised on Southport Island, Maine where I attended grade school with kids from the local year round community, many of whom have lived in the area for generations. Summer visitors flocked to my parents ceramic gallery, many of them from families that have vacationed in the area for generations. We moved to East Boothbay in 1958 where I have seen people come and go in the neighborhood. Many of the people who discover East Boothbay are amazed because it actually is a village- A real village! not a campus but a village and because the houses are all unique- no two alike. it is an organically grown community -increasingly becoming a rarity. Such communities should be preserved-not destroyed. They are what makes Maine a unique place-distinct from the megalopolis.
I like living in my small town, away from urban life. I like that there are places to go that are still towns and villages grown organically, not designed from above by a master class who believes that they know the way that everyone should live - because we do not all want to live the way that you, Mr Brooks, and your comrades want us to live. Small towns are like families- no two are alike.
I can't say I have the facts, and I don't believe any ordinary citizen does, but I'll wager that the biggest investments in Maine have to be the generated by the state government with its endless funds stashed in various economic development programs- funds derived primarily from taxpayers .Mr Woods company TideSmart was the recipient of some of that redistributed wealth from both the state and federal taxpayers. What ever happened to "spreading the wealth around " - and what about the mission of the Maine Development Foundation formed to macro manage the economy of the entire state- not just the urban centers ! If 109 towns are insolvent, then isn't the Maine Development Foundation accountable? The socioeconomic community does not exist on global corporations alone.
There is one insolvent town that I would love to see deconstructed and that is the MRRA, which when I read the annual report in 2010 was being subsidized by the federal government to the tune of around about 85% of its revenue. But Mr Brooks is unlikely referring to Maine' State Inc's newest crown jewel, in fact he would probably like to see the populations of those 109 towns relocated so that the state can create more city states like the MRRA- as insolvent as they are without their life support systems of funny money from the federal government, which probably accounts for much of that 93% capitalization that the urban Maine cities receives. If not, then why is the Maine State taxpayer subsidizing a high growth investment company to the tune of 10%?(The Small Enterprise Growth Fund) - If the 93% of investment money includes a large proportion of private investment capital, then why does Maine have to bribe investors to the state through the Small Enterprise Growth Fund, which takes the tax payers money and keeps on "rolling it over" into the fund like a non-profit investment, while the private high growth investors are exactly as the name says they are?
I know that Maine State Inc is channeling tax payer dollars to the urban areas and that largely accounts for the "93% of investment dollars that goes to the urban cities. Not exactly fair and balanced. Is it?
When ever the state takes federal money, freely printed up at the federal reserve on request, it distributes it to its "targeted sector" which is heavily concentrated in the urban cities, and simultaneously it decreases the value of money earned by all the citizens of this country including those living in the 109 towns that the bubble head Mr Woods would like to relocate.The function of taking freshly printed federal money, which is one of the primary functions of Maine State Enterprises, is that the rich get richer as the poor get poorer. Its as simple as that!
After Note : This is a list from Stimulus Watch. This is what it says to introduce the list:
Projects in Maine
Below are the "shovel-ready" projects the mayors of this state submitted in the 2008 U.S. Conference of Mayors report.......
The total of cost of all the projects submitted by Maine is $219,461,480
View a specific city in Maine: Lewiston • PortlandThis list is of projects ( roads and infrastructure) submitted- not projects approved. The only two cities on the list are Portland and Lewiston, - two of the cities that Mr Brooks suggests is where the inhabitants of the 109 rural communities should be relocated. Mr Brooks proposes to stop taxpayer funding of roads and infrastructure to those commutes and redirect the money to cities like Portland and Lewiston- just a little "nudge: to get the inhabitants to relocate!
Why are Portland and Lewiston the only two options in city search on this list? One would expect that all the mayors of all the cities would be aware of the same stimulus programs.
A list by city shows that Augusta received the most stimulus money- $586,327,420.49 out of a state total of $1,511,158,006 or about 39% of the total for the whole state.
Steve Woods says that Augusta should stop sending the 109 rural communities money for roads and infrastructure. Not too long ago, I came across plans from The Maine Develpment Foundation, for renovating Augusta, the elite need a proper court , don't they? - for entertaining the Bilderberg Group, Now Augusta has its own airport- . You can see why they need to de-fund rural communities. Once the power elite force the rural inhabitants to relocate to the inner cities, they can then build private jet ports in the deserted towns for themselves. to fly from the court in Augusta to their private country clubs.
Pause for Intermission:
 |
| Cool Cats in an Original Drawing on our sandwich tray by Brenda Andersen circa 1960's |
As this news is breaking Lepage is proposing seizing the liquor industry from the private sector and designating that the profits be used for roads and bridges and other state expenses including paying the dept that Maine Care owes to the hospitals.in a manner all too similar to that of Fidel Castro.
i know this because during the course of a discussion on AS Maine Goes, I looked up the legislation. The Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages should just have regulatory and licensing functions consistent with the general model of a Bureau. Around 1997-1999 the Bureau was allotted a one million dollar budget to invest in the the wholesale liquor business. In 2003, the legislature decided that the state was not making a profit from the sale of liquor and decided to privatize the entire wholesale liquor business. Apparently they offered a private sector general contractor a 10 year lease that is up this year .
In 2011 the Republican controlled legislature decided to hold a bidding contest for the contract of which the minimum requirement includes a twenty million down payment - and there after ten payments to be made for the "contract value", which is left undefined.
To my understanding the "contract value" would be determined by the estimated profit value of the contract. One might consider that it could also mean the amount agreed to be paid in the bidding war but if that is the case, then why doesn't the statute say exactly that? Technically the interpretation of the law is in the word of the law, which can arguably be interpreted as decreeing that the state shall be paid the entire value of the contract and another designated profit on top of that.
Whether the wording of the contract is an issue, the state is demanding a minimum down payment of twenty million dollars based on a contract value that the private contractor created after he bought the contract from the state which had not been able to make a profit in the wholesale liquor business. The down payment is twenty times the amount of the allocated budget in 2003, when the state was operating the liquor business under standard business terms.
Perhaps Lepage knows that suddenly demanding a minimum payment of twenty million dollars for the contract is not an enticing deal to a general contractor. LD 239 repeals the privatization of the wholesale liquor industry with Lepage proposing to cut out the general contractor and have the state take over the general contractor's function- using the network of subcontractors that the general contractor put into place - so essentially after passing a statute to privatize the wholesale liquor industry -and after the private sector general contractor built a failing wholesale liquor business into a profitable one, the state is either attempting to charge the general contractor a huge fee for the "contract value" that the general contractor created- and demand a percentage of his profits on top of that- or they are just going to cut the general contractor out all together and literally seize control of a private sector industry, using resources that the private contractor developed.
This latest move by Lepage defines Lepage as a fiscally sane Marxist- one who understands that bills must be paid and budgets balanced- but a Marxist, none the less.
I hope that the people will protest loudly because that is what is needed to create the conditions for a new breed of politicians- a constitutionally conservative politician to emerge in the field of Maine politics.
SEE ALSO:
China’s Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities
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