Sick, sick, sick, elitist entitlement behavior. This blog addresses the lowering of expectations and general recklessness that occurs as a product of the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex. Lowering of expectations consistently allows the same people to sustain themselves and claim victory when there is no real accomplishment and recklessness needs no explanation.
Expectations for a connected workforce development system have been unfortunately lowered to that of “job fairs”. While job fairs serve a purpose, in isolation, they do not represent a connected workforce development system. The absence of a connected Memphis workforce development system is a product of the hack elitists’ disregard for the customer taxpayer while strangling local business growth and starving the community for knowledge.
With the hacks blocking solutions from the public, sadly, no one in Memphis knows what a connected workforce development solutions looks like. Generically speaking, the following non-negotiable components get everyone on the same page thru common language development in policymakers, employers, educators, parents and students: 1) authoritative known and nationally recognized centralized job board 2) employer skills/knowledge supply/demand data 3) assessment to communicate local career readiness levels to the world 5) career pathways aligned curriculum and programming 6) professional development 7) implementation plan 8) convergent technology and 9) convergent events like job fairs.
But unfortunately, on workforce development, over the last four years, the hacks have been concerned with Canadian contract awards that don’t deliver for a community in need while paving the way for a deal to be had by a billionaire in Nashville all while stifling local small business and leaving 100,000 students and a Memphis community in need without services. The cost of hack elitism to taxpayers for disconnected workforce development are estimated to be $150M+ since 2010 and recurring annually at $30M. Sick, sick, sick behavior….
And the Greater Memphis Chamber, who reported that some form of employer skills data would be available in the Spring, has produced no employer demand data resulting in a blind system. This occurs as the Greater Memphis Alliance for Workforce Board hasn’t met in over a year as everyone says that workforce development is the #1 priority. Authoritative employer demand data sets should have been published 4 years ago to inform a connected workforce development system.
But instead, the hacks have been incumbent on stifling local small business, strangling local business growth and the continuation of excessive corporate/real estate incentives within one of the lowest business cost operations centers in the country in Memphis. And, there has been no targeted plan or defined credible measurement for economic development in place for 8 years which allows the hacks to have their way. This includes, under the hacks, the construction of an abatement industry (EDGE, DMC) incented to represent corporate/real estate interests over the taxpayer which undermines the societal foundation on which commerce thrives. How sick is that behavior ???
In the end, an elitist agenda is no good for anyone to include corporations. As the elitist continue to try and solve a problem they don’t have in high business operations costs using tax abatements, corporations are not going to leave Memphis because of high operations costs. They are going to leave because of geography which is beyond local control or because of the workforce development system botched by the hacks.
The elitist hack culture drives people into poverty, starves out small business, stifles business growth and runs people out of town. Its been going on for 20 years under the elitist FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow complex.
And while much was promised with the University of Memphis (U of M) as a transformational force with investigative press partnerships and community economic development, The U of M has been neutered into a state of institutional impotence, apparently by the U of M’s FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow Board of Trustees. Sadly, the U of M’s economic development efforts have been rendered to running around town chasing pet projects and tax incentives for itself. So sad for the area’s leading public university.
Recklessness and Teachings of a Hack Culture
I was stunned at the last EDGE Board meeting and I have become accustomed to quite a bit. At the last EDGE Board meeting, only 1 of 4 tax abatement projects made sense in Patterson Warehouses which was still excessive based on benchmarking. Two others involved EDGE breaking their own rules to award 2 residential PILOTs which the U of M supported. Then another project involved, site selector, Mike Mullis and the EDGE Board, driving up the abatement for a startup from New York City to $2M while abating $1.1M in existing taxes to employ 41 people at an average wage of $33K. And as customary, all were unanimous votes as the EDGE Board gutted the public comment record, while refusing to answer questions in this case regarding a questionable $834K transaction between the Depot and GMACW. All of this recklessness occurred in one meeting !!! Stunning……
Its also unfortunate that the first EDGE abatement package for a startup, after 8 years, was reserved for a New York City entity. This is just an extension of a hack elitist culture that systematically dismisses their own people. What’s concerning is that everyone, including legislative bodies and the press, are afraid to question the cultural norm in a hack elitist culture, which by default invests the community in habits of further decline.
Its apparent, the hack culture teaches its subordinates as well as their children the following:
- Tell dissenters to stop crying and obsessing over $500M in taxpayer losses.
- Quit crying over leaving 100,000 students in a community in need with disconnected workforce development services
- If anyone ever questions the top establishment; tell your friends to block them
- Gut the public comment record if needed
- No competition is best in the community and economic development space. That way, if we run the city in the ground, we’ll still be in charge.
- What’s $834k in public funds ? Transfer it whenever you want and for whatever you want
- Trickle down baby, better tomorrow for all with excessive corporate/real estate incentives as a primary staple in a low business cost environment
- Make double sure that tax abating entities are incented to represent corporate/real estate interests and not the taxpayer
- Produce incomplete studies that document high tax rates but not low cost business environment to support the continuation of excessive incentives for the small few
- Public universities can be great partners for maintaining the status quo
- Abandon your research parameters at all costs if it threatens the status quo
- We’re socially driven. Don’t engage data driven dissent; stifle it !
- We don’t need credible defined economic development measurement; bogus projection accounting works just fine
- A positive, 3 point PowerPoint is all you need to ring the register at local government
- So, small business is locally decimated and population growth is not occurring; it will trickle down to small business and population will increase at some point. Its only been 20 years; give us a break !!!
Conclusion
Its all a reckless design for decline where no one can question the hacks. None of the mayoral candidates have mentioned or sustained any type of concern for Memphis Tomorrow’s injustice that has cost taxpayers billions. Nor has any of the advocacy organizations that you would expect like MICAH, NAACP, NCRM, Bus Riders Union or etc. questioned the hack Memphis Tomorrow complex.
Memphis Tomorrow and their agents are constantly tamping down dissent with philanthropic and campaign contribution dog bones which may be the root cause for the lack of sustained dissent against Memphis Tomorrow. Memphis is so rigged which is why it does’t grow.
But those dog bones are just one component in an elitist decline by design framework that is not good for anyone to include corporations and the small few. Sick, sick, sick behavior…..
CORRECTION: Upthe901 from previous version of this article has questioned Memphis Tomorrow thru their network of partners.