(H/T Instapundit) Walter Russell Mead’s wincing again:
Wall Street Bankers To Occupy Salt Lake City
The news that many evil bankers are fleeing New York City, pink slips in hand, will surely cheer the Occupy Wall Street crowd . But Salt Lake City has even more reason to be happy about this turn of events.
And I feel bad for the guy. Legitimately. Mead’s taking a bit long on his personal Vision Quest from liberal to conservative (while being surprised about how little actual changes have to be made in one’s opinions and policy opinions*), but everybody’s got a different Vision Quest. I imagine it must distress him to see how the Democrats simply refuse to admit that there are flaws – easily fixed ones – in the urban blue model that is making corporations amenable to voting with their feet**…
Moe Lane
*I’m given to understand that it doesn’t work like that when you go the other way from conservative to liberal. Certainly I’ve noticed (speaking from personal experience) that it’s a heck of a lot easier to be a conservative heretic than it is to be a liberal one.
**At some point some ostensibly-bright Democrat is going to try to come up with a scheme of punitive relocation fees in order to try to keep the corporations’ tax revenues – and the corporations themselves, I suppose – in one state. The fallout to that should be entertaining to watch.
I read that California was looking at doing exactly that, Moe. A tax on any wealth leaving the state. I’m not sure how they thought it was constitutional, but then again, it wouldn’t be the first provision of the constitution they’ve avoided.
There are no punitive relocation fees for moving to a different state? The folks at Boeing might like to discuss that…
Skip, CA’s Franchise Tax Board has tried that sort of thing before, with smaller business leaving for Nevada. There was a case back in 2003 in which CA tried to claim that a NV headquarted company did significant business in CA, and was entitled to all tax money from said company. Both NV and the 9th Circus told the Franchise Tax Board where to stuff said request.
Exactly JeffV, Boeing had to pay off the Washington State unions in order to get the NLRB off their back. Straight out of the Chicago Way playbook.
Looking forward, the Democrats are not going to call it relocation fees – rather they’l talk about job protection, retraining, community duty, environmental protection/remediation. Or perhaps they’ll come up a new legal doctrine once they get a few more progressive judges in place.
Can’t wait for the going out of business tax. For all the companies that have just decided that there is to much BS coming down from the Federal Government and decide to close.