Time To Get On A New Path

So, is this another "blonde moment" for the all-Republican Frederick Board of County Commissioners? Or is it just business-friendly-as-usual nonsense from people who want to completely destroy the rural legacy of Frederick County?
(OK, so for all you natural blondes, I apologize for the insensitivity)
Now, not surprisingly, they want to give tax breaks to wealthy business owners to entice them move to Frederick and hire local workers. Once again, the Corporatist economic system operates on the idiotic assumption that in order to get wealthy people to do the right thing, you have to give them money, BUT, in order to get the same response from working people, you have to take money away from them!
Once again, Establishment lackeys of the Corporatist state are selling you the big lie about how the economy needs to work; we have to lure ("woo", as Young puts it) giant corporations into the county with the one promise no rich person can resist: NO TAXES.
"...this will help us compete with other counties for jobs." that Neanderthal C. Paul Smith intoned. Is that how the Corporatist economy works, it pits one group, one county against another in a dog-eat-dog battle? Is that so, when we "woo" Google headquarters to Frederick we can thumb our collective nose at Loudoun County?
Nyaa - Nyaa. We beat you! Frederick rules! Take that, PG County! How pathetic!
Frederick's unemployment rate is bad, 6.7% according to the article, but not the worst in the state. When you consider that the civilization Formicidae has a 0% unemployment rate (and there are a lot more ants than even people), our economic system could stand some improvement.
But enough bashing closed-ideology, non-thinking elected Representatives; they try.

We all understand the rationale for attracting large businesses and corporations to the area, and it's not about putting that 6.7% back to work; it's about GROWTH. And PROFITS. As Noam Chomsky observed recently, the wealthy corporate owners and their lackeys NEVER use the term. In fact, as Chomsky pointed out: the way they pronounce P-R-O-F-I-T-S is ‘jobs’.

We all understand, or at least should, that the best way to create meaningful, long-term, sustainable employment is by creating local businesses, not by bringing in immigrant corporations from outside the state. These businesses bring most of their employees with them, clog our highways as their workers seek out lower cost housing 30 to 60 miles away; they overcrowd our schools, tax our infrastructure, and drive even greater sprawl. And PROFITS.
What Frederick should be doing, of course is using that carrot to foster small, local businesses.

Here's a prescription for real economic vitality and stability:

• Frederick city and county should confiscate all commercial properties vacant for longer than 6 months and make them available to small, local businesses and entrepreneurs at reasonable rent.
• The money that was to be given to corporations should instead be used to seed micro-lending institutions in each municipality. Citizen volunteer boards in each locale then help local entrepreneurs start their small businesses as well as assist existing local businesses to expand and remain prosperous by making that money available to them at low or (preferably) no-interest loans.
• The county should redirect their vast array of departments, commissions, and individuals to focus on local business development and the needs of each community, rather than this one-size-fits-all approach to economic activity. We should not engage in a competition for big businesses that create a vacuum and community crisis when they decide to pack up and move to greener havens.
• Local communities should have the ability to develop business incubators that meet their own, unique community needs; these incubators must have the flexibility to provide support to all looking to start a business in the community.
• With then end of cheap oil, and scarce resources becoming ever scarcer, communities must have the tools necessary to maintain stable, vibrant economic activity without growth.

It's clear from his title what Tobin's job will be for the county; give the wealthiest individuals in the world more while taking from the rest of us. And it's not just money we're talking about here; it's our health, our environment, our community - what's left of it.

The time has come for fundamental change. NO...real fundamental change. We must stop the Corporatist mindset of bigger...more...growth... and start thinking small, as in Local, Community, Stability, and Vitality.

The old way is at long last, a dead horse that we can no longer afford to beat. It has been shown to have never delivered on its promises. It's time to travel a new path, a path that those, like the current Board of County Commissioners, trapped in 19th Century thinking, can not even find, let alone lead us on.