Thursday Morning Brunogate Roundup

Lying about the jobs? (4.00 / 1)

I know you are as shocked as I am that Evident might be not be um..., upfront about their job creation abilities, being that we have spent millions on them so they would do just that. My previous comment with their claim of 50 employees here .

What we learn from Newsday's article above: "According to business information listings, the company grew from seven employees three years ago to 25 this year. Its Web site says Evident is a leader in quantum dots, a material that can be drawn into fibers to detect radiation and "serve as Homeland Security devices."

That's a little far from the claims when Bruno first started shoveling tax payers money their way:

FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATE
9/13/2002
GOVERNOR, MAJORITY LEADER: 200 NEW HIGH TECH JOBS IN CAPITAL REGION
Nanotech Firm to Invest $12 Million, Create New Jobs Paying Range of $55,000 to $75,000

Governor George E. Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno today announced that Evident Technologies, Inc. will establish its operations in Troy B creating nearly 200 new high tech jobs in the fields of nanotechnology and biotechnology. The jobs will pay an average salary ranging from $55,000 to $75,000 per year.

The Time Union Evident, indeed

Why aren't job creation endeavors financed as a matter of state policy, rather than the pet interest of one very powerful legislator?

Why does job creation, especially in a region such as upstate New York, have to be such a surreptitious cause, revealed only upon the court-ordered release of the extensive list of member item projects? And how does the public keep track of the results of Mr. Bruno's $500,000 investment in job creation by Evident Technologies?

had it right, but why hasn't this ALWAYS been an issue and why haven't we seen more investigative reporting over the years? Maybe it's time we take a good look at all these tax funded "job creation" projects. It was a lot of money for 200 jobs. It's obscene for 25, it that number is even true.

How is it that we have spent all these dollars, and we can't even get a straight answer on how many people are actually employed there?

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by: am @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 16:27:22 PM UTC

counting jobs at Bruno's emerging technology champion picks (4.00 / 2)

As the previous comment points out so clearly, the NYS funding for "emerging technology" companies is not consistant with their actual job-creation-- the numbers are always inflated at the onset, but, the big expensive high-tech buildings inevitably have oodles of unutilized parking spaces.  Check out also some of the "Centers of Excellence" for a similar smoke-and-mirrors-version of job creation.
Now that Brunogate (or the Grafton Graft Gang?) is underway, maybe somebody could count how many jobs Plug Power has actually created.  With support verging on irrational exuberance from all of the 3 men in the room (throughout the past many years, riding unscathed  the bursting of the tech-stock bubble in the real, market-driven world), their state-funding-per-job ratio must be truly awesome.

Do you suppose he (Bruno) bets more successfully on horses, or when using his own cash rather than ours?

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by: robinia @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 20:49:02 PM UTC

state-funding-per-job ratio (0.00 / 0)

That's had me stumped all week. We don't know what the  funding is, and we don't know what the jobs created are. And yet, that is what is being sold to us.

I have some ideas of how to start sniffing this out. It's going to take some work that's for sure ...

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by: am @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 22:13:46 PM UTC

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Bruno's 77 years old???? (0.00 / 0)

Sorry, but that just fits.  Has had power so long he's forgotten why he got it in the first place.

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by: pontificator @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 21:30:21 PM UTC

could be (0.00 / 0)

or he knows exactly why he got power in the first place.  Its fun to travel the world in your friends corporate jets, stay at fancy hotels, spend august at the track, make all your friends and family rich....etc.  Methinks Joe probably was this way from the get go.

As he said earlier this year, he didn't care what the people thought because he "wasn't running for anything".

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by: DIA @ Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 01:42:51 AM UTC

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