Every so often I come up with an idea for a cartoon, and my friend, the talented Chad Essley will often illustrate it for me.

Here is one that jumped out of my brain recently:

It’s been interesting living through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Personally I haven’t been affected by it as much as others. I have a job that let’s me work from home, and for the last 20+ years I’ve lived out in the country on a horse farm, so I have plenty of space to spread out while still social distancing.

Others aren’t so lucky. I love to drink cocktails and eat good food, so a number of my friends are in the restaurant business. One of my bartender friends has been out of work for a couple of months now. Another friend of mine had to lay off his entire staff and it is just him and his wife keeping the business going through take out. As I write this a record 38.6 million people have filed for unemployment benefits in the US.

But it seems the leadership in Washington, whose slowness to respond to the outbreak got us in the mess in the first place, just wants to act like everything will just go back to normal now. That isn’t going to happen.

For example, my company does pretty well working from home. Our lease is up in June, and since we don’t expect it to be safe to return to an office environment this year, we are not renewing. As a plus to the economy I rented a storage unit to use for our office furniture.

But here are the minuses:

First, rent. Our rent was much more than the rent for the storage unit. That is taken from the economy.

Second, utilities. Add on top of rent electricity and internet access. Gone.

Third, meals. We liked to eat lunch as a group, and thus visited a number of local restaurants every week. Not going to happen now.

Fourth, commuting. If we don’t need to leave the house, why drive a car? So no spending on fuel or maintenance. We’ve even considered getting rid of a vehicle in our household.

Finally, all of the tangential spending that went along with an office, such as janitorial services, drinks and snacks, etc. And this doesn’t even begin to touch on the fact that several of us on the company used to travel quite a bit (I often spent more than 100 nights a year in hotel rooms). Not happening.

And that is just our company. Multiply that times the hundreds of tech companies in the area and you can start to see the impact. This is a sea change – I don’t think we’ll ever really get back to normal. This is the “new” normal.

Even though restrictions are easing in my home state of North Carolina, my behavior won’t change in the near future. Dealing with a viral outbreak is pretty straightforward: isolate, test and track. Rinse and repeat. We as a society haven’t really done much past the isolate part, and we did that poorly.

Of course, the stock market is rallying this week, so what do I know. I am not a medical expert, but I doubt I’ll feel comfortable being around crowds or out in public until there is an effective vaccine for Sars-COV-2. With increased globalization this is just the first of several pandemics to come in my lifetime, and based on our track record with this one I am not filled with optimism.

In George Orwell’s 1984 there was the Ministry of Truth “which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts.” While the Board of New Hanover County, North Carolina, can hardly be compared with that institution, it seems that one commissioner, Chairman Woody White, is trying to change that. Upon hearing the announcement of a performance in the County, he used a Facebook post to attack entertainer Whoopi Goldberg for the thoughtcrime of being critical of President-elect Donald Trump, stating “I think having her here is a horrible idea.”

Well, I think Chad Essley sums up my thoughts nicely in this cartoon:

Now I’m not sure what are Mr. White’s credentials in his chosen field (I believe he is a personal injury lawyer) but Ms. Goldberg’s are impeccable. She is one of only twelve people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award (EGOT), and only six of those are still alive. Bringing her to New Hanover county provides its citizens with an extremely rare opportunity to see a performer of this caliber.

She will be performing at Cape Fear Community College, which according to White is “devoted to developing the workforce” and having her perform at such a venue is “terrible”. It seems that Mr. White has forgotten that New Hanover County has a large number of jobs focused in the television and film industry, which still provides significant employment despite the State Legislature changing the tax incentives and passing discriminatory bills such as HB2. If Mr. White was truly interested in jobs versus promoting his own political agenda, one would think he would be less eager to alienate the entertainment industry from New Hanover County.

Now, in all fairness, I am somewhat sensitive to see such a personal attack on Whoopi Goldberg because I adore her.

You have to realize that I grew up in an idyllic little town called Asheboro, and much like Mayberry there weren’t any black people there. Well, there were black people, it’s just that I didn’t interact with them. My school was completely white until fourth grade when busing integrated the schools, but it wasn’t until I went off to the School of Science and Math that I truly spent time with people of color and even made some friends. So it was watching things like Goldberg on HBO in her “Direct from Broadway” special that opened my eyes to racial issues, and plus she is just incredibly funny. More than that, while I appreciate people who can make me laugh, I love it when they make me think. She is one such person, and she was even in Star Trek for heaven’s sake. She’s in my top five list of people I want to sit next to on a cross country flight.

As I do not live in New Hanover County, people like Mr. White might ask me to mind my own business, so I want to point out that I do own a house in Wilmington and have sent thousands of dollars in property taxes to the County’s coffers. But that doesn’t give me a say in how they are used, so I have to rely on the good people of that county to choose wisely. It looks like we are stuck with him through 2020, but I hope when that time comes people realize that his actions at a minimum come across as petty and at most cost jobs and devalue property. He has made New Hanover County something less that what it once was, and is preventing it from being the most it can be.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” It is up to us to remain vigilant to prevent 2024 from becoming 1984.

I live on a small horse farm in a somewhat rural section of North Carolina, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. That is actually saying something, since I’ve been able to visit 45 of the 50 States and 36 countries outside of the US.

Unfortunately, I find myself more and more often having to defend the State I love from misconceptions people have about it brought on mainly by the actions of the State government, which for the last several years has been controlled by the Republican Party. What’s ironic is that they seem to think they are doing a great job, whereas in actuality they are denigrating the State’s reputation little by little over time. My friend Chad Essley was able to put that into a wonderful cartoon:

Now, people who don’t know me outside of my occasional posts to this blog might think I self identify as a liberal. I don’t. I consider myself a moderate who leans left on social issues and right on fiscal policy. The problem is that the right has moved so far right over the last decade or so that it makes people like me seem left of Jesus.

I don’t belong to a political party, but years ago I was a Republican. I grew up in a town called Asheboro in Randolph County, and it was one of the few counties in the State that leaned Republican. For well over a century the Democratic Party controlled all levels of the State government, but Randolph was like a little red island in a sea of blue.

I grew up in a time when North Carolina didn’t have a healthy democracy. The legislature was controlled by a sub-committee called “The Gang of Eight” and my friend Barry Yeoman has written a great article for the Washington Post that reflects on that time (go read it now, I’ll wait). I experienced it first hand as I served as a page in 1980 for the two Randolph County representatives, Frank Redding and Harold Brubaker.

I was in eighth grade when Redding came to our social studies class. He asked the question “what makes the North Carolina legislature one of the most powerful in the country?” I thought about it for a second and answered “because the Governor does not have veto power” which was true at the time. He remembered that and later nominated me to serve as a page, which was an eye opening experience. I spent a week at the back of the House chamber and in committee rooms watching how government worked. It wasn’t pretty. Smoking was still allowed inside and I can remember one page having to get medical help because one of the rooms was so filled with cigarette smoke that they were overcome.

Seating in the main chamber was based on political clout. Of course the Speaker, Liston B. Ramsey, sat up front, but Redding and Brubaker, being Republicans, were in the very back row on either side of the main aisle. Redding was the very proper elder statesman (and a true gentleman, not only did he sponsor me he also drove me to and from Raleigh) and Brubaker was the cut up. He would make me laugh while he held forth on how government really worked, which was quite different from what I was learning in textbooks.

So I watched with some wonder as over the next decade or so Republicans like Brubaker managed to partner with some disenchanted Democrats to break up the Gang of Eight, and he even served as Speaker of the House for two terms from 1995 to 1998. It was a good time in North Carolina politics, but as the Republican power base grew it began to change. A new crop of far right candidates got elected and now they seem to focus more on consolidating power than what’s best for the State.

For example, the GOP used to promote smaller government, but when a bunch of hippies (hippies I’m friends with) started making biodiesel out of used restaurant grease, that started to cut into the profits of a big donor who used to charge restaurants to dispose of it. So of course regulation was required, and a whole new department was set up to “license” grease collection. If you don’t have a license, you could face fines or jail. More recently, they enacted a new tax on services (labor used to be sales tax free in North Carolina). In true Big Government tradition, the law is complicated. If you get your HVAC system repaired, that is taxed. Get a new one? Those installation services are tax free. Fix your roof? Taxed. Get a new roof? Tax free. And in one ironic twist, it seems that housekeeping services are tax free. I guess the Raleigh fat cats don’t want to have to pay more for a clean toilet.

And this is on top of other embarrassments, such as limiting the access women have to healthcare or violating their privacy, or siding with a big energy firm over citizens when well water got polluted (something I’m sensitive about since my water comes from a well).

Then there is the voter ID act, which even John Oliver called out on national television as being racist (note, the link to the video has strong language). In the face of zero evidence of voter fraud impacting elections, the legislature passed a law (later overturned) requiring voters to show an “approved” ID at the polls in order to exercise their Constitutional rights. What got me was the official poster explaining it, in which the silhouette on the ID more closely resembles a person with an afro hairstyle than, say, most white people.

And of course, there is HB2, also known as the “bathroom bill” which, despite promises to repeal it, is still on the books. The bill is not only about bathrooms, but is a bold attempt by the Legislature to limit the power of all municipalities in the State and consolidate it in Raleigh. This gets worldwide press coverage, and it is sad that I have to explain that most North Carolinians are not like this when I’m in, say, England and the BBC is pointing out how backward North Carolina has become.

These actions are hurting our State, and I think it is a testament to how wonderful it is to live and work here that our economy is still managing to grow. One can only imagine how much better it would have been had Raleigh focused on all the people in the State instead of just a few.

There is a chance to change this. The voting district maps for the State have been found unconstitutional and new elections will be held, although the date of those elections is uncertain. I would love it if we, as citizens of North Carolina, would use this opportunity to bring sanity back to Raleigh, no matter the party.

Yesterday, incumbent Republican North Carolina governor Pat McCrory requested a recount of the results of the November election. This was before the first results had been certified, the delay being caused by charges from his organization of widespread voter fraud, but according to NC law November 22nd was the deadline to file such a motion. Currently his Democratic opponent Roy Cooper is up by 6000 votes. This recount will cost the State approximately $1.5 million.

The most frightening aspect of this whole situation are the voter fraud allegations. There is absolutely no evidence of voter fraud, but by making such unfounded claims McCrory calls into question the whole democratic process and the peaceful transfer of power. In North Carolina voter fraud is a felony, which carries extremely stiff penalties, including the temporary suspension of the right to vote. This makes the risks very high for very minimal rewards, so I thought I’d do a little math to show the ridiculousness of these claims.

For the most part, Republicans won handily most offices in North Carolina. Donald Trump won the presidential race by 177K votes (51% to 47%) and Richard Burr was returned to the Senate by 268K votes (51% to 45%). Since the presidential race was closer, let’s take those percentages as a starting point for what the governor’s race would have looked like had similar voting patterns happened there.

With 4.66 million votes cast in that race, McCrory would have gotten 2.376 million votes (51%) to Cooper’s 2.190 million (47%) votes, for a difference of 186K votes. Thus for McCrory’s allegations to be true, roughly 192K votes would have to be fraudulent in order to bring about the result we saw. That means that over 4% of the votes cast in the governor’s race would need to be fraudulent. It it silly to think that so many people would risk a felony conviction for this.

This also assumes that people voting fraudulently would have voted for Cooper but not Clinton and Ross, otherwise we would have seen much closer totals in those races. That seems to be a stretch.

Of course, in the big conspiracy of which McCrory claims to be the victim, these voters could have just voted in the governor’s race and not the other races, but then we should see a much larger number of votes cast in comparison. For president, 4.629 million votes were cast and for the Senate 4.639 million votes were cast. For governor, 4.658 million votes were cast, which is more than the other two races but not enough to account for the nearly 200K vote swing required.

No, what happened was that North Carolinians, both Democrats and Republicans, rejected the policies of the McCrory administration in a year that saw other Republican candidates win by decent margins. This recount is just another way, and I hope the final way, in which he’ll waste our taxpayer dollars.

[Note: vote totals for calculations taken from The New York Times]

I threw myself into bed a little after midnight last night, helped along by three stiff cocktails. It was a fitful sleep, broken up by texts and e-mail from friends home and abroad about the news that Donald Trump would be the 45th President of the United States.

It may help to know that I think people are basically good. I would rather one hundred guilty men go free than to punish one innocent. And I believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness no matter where they are born, the color of their skin, their gender or who they love.

Thus, some of the things Donald Trump has said, during this campaign and before, are abhorrent to me. There was no way I could support his bid to become President.

But, that is no longer a question. He will be the next President and so I want to focus on what that means.

Scott Adams, the guy who created Dilbert, predicted a Trump win late last summer. He also predicted the winning votes would come from people, mainly men, who would not publicly support Trump but would still vote for him. Both of those things came true.

He also said that most of the crazy things Trump did say were simply to get elected and that to the rest of us he was saying them with a nod and a wink. I really hope that comes true as well.

What I haven’t understood about modern politics is this kind of deep down, visceral hate one party holds for another. In looking back at eight years of Barack Obama he was probably the best President we’ve had during my lifetime, based solely on results. When he took office, the economy was in free fall, stock markets were low and unemployment was high. And he inherited the largest budget deficit in the history of the United States. Now the economy is stable, stock markets are at near record levels, and unemployment and the deficit are back to close to pre-crash levels.

So why do I see things like “Impeach Obama” bumper stickers and pictures of him with a target on his face? The only thing that fits is racism. While we have come a long way since the 1960s, racism is still around – it has just gone underground – and there are those that can’t stand to have an “uppity Negro” as the President. I’m certain part of that bled over into sexism against Hillary Clinton, and although she came with a lot of her own baggage, it was still disappointing to see T-shirts with “Trump that Bitch” and “Lock the Bitch Up”. Since when did the word “bitch” become acceptable political discourse?

Which brings me to our opportunity. Donald Trump will be the President and Commander-in-Chief. We must respect the rank, if not the man. Let’s do for Trump what others refused to do for Obama.

I remember someone once asking John Stewart about what he would do if he ever met then President George W. Bush, of whom he was quite often critical. Stewart replied that he would shake his hand and say “Nice to see you Mr. President, it is an honor to meet you”. I would probably say the same if I ever met Trump as President.

I seriously hope, and I write this without a trace of irony or sarcasm, that Donald Trump is the best President our country has ever seen. I want him to do such a great job that we will want to carve his face on Mount Rushmore. I’ve been to 36 other countries and can honestly say that I live in a very unique place on this planet and I don’t have plans to trade it for something else, and I want what is best for everyone in it no matter who is President.

I recently re-watched V for Vendetta which has the line “people should not be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of the people”. I hope this election has sent a wake up call to both the RNC and the DNC that they should be afraid, and that business as usual will not stand. We face some huge challenges, most of which can’t be expressed in a 140 characters, and it will take hard work to addresses them. But, as an upside, a lot of the social issues I care about are likely to solve themselves in 20 years no matter who runs the government just through changing demographics, and I have little fear of the US turning into the country in The Handmaid’s Tale.

And speaking of fear, don’t be afraid. Ever since 9/11 the message seems to have become “be afraid and buy stuff”. This to shall pass. I honestly don’t envy Donald Trump. Look at what the job did to Obama and he was over 20 years younger than Trump when he took office. Obama went in looking like Denzel Washington and came out looking like Fred Sanford.

Not being afraid of the future and wishing Trump the best are actually the easy parts. The biggest challenge for me involves, for lack of a better word, forgiving those people who voted for him. This is important to me, since people I like, people I care about and even people I love voted for Trump. It is hard for me to fathom why. I do think the truth is that we all want what we think is best for the country, we just strongly disagree on how to go about it. So I’m going to focus on the fact that we have that in common and build out from there.

The election is over, time to get to work, and remember: do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, for all the people you can.

I wanted to put down some thoughts about the upcoming US Presidential election, mostly inspired by Scott Adams’s blog.

Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, and while I like that comic and read it every chance I get, I don’t go out of my way to find it. I do, however, try never to miss a blog post or a book. Since late last summer he has been providing some interesting insights into the Trump campaign, and since he has also made me painfully aware of my own confirmation bias, I try very hard to read anything he writes with an open mind.

Unlike Trump, I am not a master of social networks. I don’t even have a Facebook account, and most of my thoughts take more than 140 characters to express. So what follows will seem to be, for most, needlessly tedious.

First, a little political background. I self-identify as a left-leaning libertarian (small “L”), although there really doesn’t exist a political party that matches my beliefs. I was trained as a scientist and tend to view the Scientific Method as one of the best ways to understand the world. I hold individual freedoms to be paramount in any society, but I also believe that as a society it benefits us to provide basic services to all citizens (unlike most large “L” Libertarians). The only political party I’ve ever belonged to was the Republican party, but I left it long ago when they started trying to legislate morality.

How do I apply science to social issues? Well, for one example let’s look at North Carolina’s controversial HB2 law concerning transgender bathroom use. I am against it for a number of reasons, but mainly because it makes it illegal to pursue discrimination cases in State court and removes a lot of power from municipalities. I like having different cities and towns try things because it allows for experimentation and testing.

But to get back to the “potty police”, the fear that most of the sponsors of the bill prey on is that without it bathrooms would become less “safe” and sexual predators would use it to scout for victims. That doesn’t sound likely to me, but let’s take that as our hypothesis: allowing people to use any bathroom they chose results in more sex crime.

Next, we’d need an experiment. Well, how about we take Washington, DC, our nation’s capital, and allow people to use the restroom of their sexual identity. What would happen?

Well, they did that in 2006, and nothing bad happened. Now a sample size of one doesn’t give us much to go on, but it is better than a sample size of zero. What should have happened in North Carolina is that the government should have let Charlotte proceed with their plan and then examined the results. If sex crimes increased, then it should be reexamined. If not, then the original DC experiment would have been confirmed.

Of course that didn’t happen, but science is rarely used in politics. It also often isn’t simple. Take the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. By some measures crime is up, and it also appears that more people involved in fatal car crashes have used marijuana. The studies don’t claim causality, for those involved in the car crashes we don’t know if they were high at the time, but we now have some data which can help us decide if this was a good thing for society.

Most important issues like this are complex. The results are nuanced and it is often hard determine which decisions will result in the betterment of society as a whole. What I look for in a President is someone who can grasp complex issues and has the ability to understand nuance and act with subtlety.

Which brings me back to this election. It is hard for me to believe that out of nearly 320 million people in this country, the two best people to run it are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I think it is a choice between Satan and Beelzebub, and I’ll let you decide which is which. The system is broken, and I’m not sure how to fix it (I have some ideas but by this point I’m certain to have lost two of my three readers, so I won’t dwell on it).

Usually I vote third party. Last election I voted for Gary Johnson, and I am considering it again. In 2012 I saw little difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, but I have some misgivings about a Trump presidency, more so than I would a Clinton presidency.

Let me state that I don’t like Donald Trump, or at least the public figure (I’ve never met the man). I find him tacky and boorish. But there are some aspects of him I like more than, say, Ted Cruz.

I also don’t care for Hillary Clinton. She got the nomination based less on ability and more on paying her dues. Look, this country was founded to avoid royalty yet there is the potential for four of the last five presidents to come from just two families.

But when it comes to understanding complexity, nuance and subtlety, I think Clinton has the edge.

In today’s blog post, Adams takes on four objections a “Trump Hater” would have and makes an attempt to persuade you to think differently. Let’s check them out.

Trump is a loose cannon who might offend other countries and maybe even start a nuclear war.

I think Trump’s persuasion strengths could be very powerful in a President – as long as they were used for “good”. I’m not certain that would be the case as Trump has given little evidence about what he’d actually do as President with the exception of building a wall (which would be expensive and ineffective, outside of being used a symbol). But I wonder how well his persuasion techniques would work outside of the US?

What I am curious about is China. Adams writes “Trump has five decades of acting rational in business dealings, and getting along with people all over the world, including China and Russia.” Adams points out that Trump is on good terms with Vladimir Putin. That seems right – they have similar styles – although I don’t think lives of average Russians have improved under Putin’s leadership. But I couldn’t really find a reference about Trump dealing with China.

The Chinese have this concept of “Face“. While Trump is an excellent negotiator, can he win a negotiation while letting his opponent seem to win as well? The same issue is present in Arab culture. Trump likes to devastate his opponents and stand over their bleeding bodies. China holds so much US debt that they could cripple our economy any time they wanted just by dumping it at pennies on the dollar. They are huge pragmatists so I doubt they will do it, as it would affect their economy in a negative way as well, but could Trump put them in a situation where they had to in order to save Face?

Trump is terrible at business because he has several bankruptcies.

This is a straw man of sorts. There are a number of different types of bankruptcy, and they are not always “bad”. If you fly via commercial airlines you are probably putting your life in the hands of a company that, at one time, declared bankruptcy. As Adams points out, Trump owns hundreds of businesses, so he’s actually been more successful than most if you consider the scale.

The straw man is that Adams implies that if you can explain away the bankruptcies, that makes Trump good at business. The problem is that Trump isn’t very good at business. Forbes estimated in 1982 that Trump had between $200 million and $500 million in assets. If he is now worth $10 billion, like he claims, that means he did worse that if he had taken his money and placed it in an unmanaged index fund. Since the index fund represents the aggregate performance of business in this country, it means that Trump is worse that the average person at business.

Another issue to think about is that if Trump’s main experience is in the world of business and not the world of politics, his aversion to risk may be less than optimal. Take the “start a nuclear war” comment above. You can’t create a situation that leads to say, a war, and then just declare bankruptcy and start over if it doesn’t work out. Now Trump has never, to my knowledge, exhibited a pro-war hawkish stance, but being used to mitigating risk using bankruptcy doesn’t work in the arena of international politics.

Trump is a racist.

Adams likes to point out that Trump doesn’t say anything blatantly racist. For example, his prejudices against Muslims targets a religion and not a race, and that he referred to that judge as being “Mexican”, which is a nationality, not because he is Latino.

This is splitting hairs. I live in the southern United States and the racists I come across wouldn’t know the difference between a Mexican, a Puerto Rican or a Nicaraguan. To them, all Latinos are “Mexicans”. It’s like saying “I hate Africans, but I’m not racist because Africa is a continent and not a race”.

Adams makes another statement that “Islam is unique among religions in that it includes an order from God that Muslims should overthrow any government that is not compatible with Islam.” I couldn’t find that in the Qur’an, although there are a number of passages that could be interpreted that way, but the same issues exist with the Bible. Most Christians, especially fundamentalists, hold God’s law above the law of any land. In North Carolina you can be a government official and keep your job even if you refuse to obey the law and, say, issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple.

The same thing was said about Catholics when John F. Kennedy was running for President. Would he listen to the Constitution or the Pope? I don’t think Islam is that much different.

For full disclosure I’ve been to both Syria and the UAE and both times almost died – from being entertained to death. For the most part the Islamic culture imposes a requirement of hospitality far beyond other cultures, at least in my personal experience.

The problem with Trump is that he is willing to prey on fears about people who are “different” if it suits him. That, in a nutshell, is racism.

Trump is anti-women and anti-LGBT

I’ll agree that this is not a valid objection. While it is impossible for Trump to be more “pro-woman” than Hillary short of a sex change (maybe that can be Trump’s third act) he hasn’t exhibited much that makes me think he hates women or people of a particular sexual persuasion. He has powerful women in his life and his business ventures, and before the election seemed to leave subjects such as abortion up to women.

Sure, he makes offensive comments about women and their menstrual cycles, and he also makes fun of reporters with disabilities, etc., but that is simply to promote his agenda. The question you have to ask is if that works well for a President. I had this vision of Trump at a State dinner with the Chinese delegation where he stuck two sugar cubes on his front teeth, squinted his eyes and spoke in a pastiche Chinese accent as a joke. I don’t think anyone laughed.

I am not sure how I will vote in November. I mostly likely will support Johnson again, since I’m in it for the long game and the only way to fix the broken “one party” system is to have a lot more political parties and the Libertarian party seems closest to break that 5% barrier. I don’t want to see Trump as President if for any other reason than I don’t like the message that sends the rest of the world.

I’ll end with a little story. I was doing some work in England, and after a few days had become friends with the client. He had never been to the United States, and as we were walking to lunch he sheepishly asked “I would like to know, are all Americans … loud?”

I had to laugh and explain that I was louder than most, but in an increasingly “flat” world it is imperative that we learn to get along together and to understand one another. Building more walls is not the solution.

Some Context: I live in Chatham County, North Carolina. We have a local e-mail list called the Chatham Chatlist. It is run by a man named Gene Galin, and as you can tell by the website he doesn’t know much about computers. Every night he uses a Windows program to hand assemble the mailing list digest, and he uses that time to exercise some editorial control. The following is a post I sent to be included on the list that he refused to include, so I’m posting it here. It concerns a recent decision by the Chatham County Board of Commissioners to spend over $500K on the option to buy a “megasite” in the poorer, western side of the County.

UPDATE: Apparently Gene decided not to publish this because it is, of course, just about the HB2 bill. (sigh)

My post:

First of all, I apologize in advance for one more post about the CAM, after I said the one in Chatlist #5538 would be my last. Since that post a number of other people have joined in the discussion, both on this list and off, and I have spent a number of hours doing research on the subject and I want to share what I’ve found.

Warning, this post is long and contains a lot of references.

Summary: I think the Board made a bad decision using County funds to purchase an option for the CAM. It appears that even basic questions were not asked, the option benefits too few people at the cost of the many, and it is such a long shot the County would have done better to invest the funds in Powerball. A better solution would have been to invest in Broadband Internet infrastructure and training in that part of the county to develop more small to medium sized businesses.

I was only tangentially aware of the Chatham-Siler City Advanced Manufacturing Site until I read an article in the /Chatham Record/ that mentioned the sale price for the site was $30K an acre. With 1800+ acres that comes to over $54 million dollars. When that much money is involved my radar goes off, because unless we as citizens are vigilant it is too easy for something of that size to become corrupt.

The more I dug into it, the worse it got. No one seems to be able to justify the number. There are no references to an appraisal, etc. It turns out that most of the land is owned by two people. As Doug Nicholas points out in Chatham Chatlist #5540, the tax value on the land is a small fraction of the asking price. Since this price was determined by “a willing Seller and willing Buyer” it seems only fair that the County restate the tax value on the land, right? I mean, if someone is sitting on a $54 million asset the County should tax it appropriately, although I am certain that won’t happen. This makes me angry, as the County sees fit to tax my old horse trailer and even older work trailer, as well as the amount of printer paper my business owns, but two wealthy land owners get away with paying considerably less than their fair share.

Taxes aside, I’ve been told that the land is worth so much because it is “unique”.

That’s true. It’s as unique a the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite ten miles up Hwy 421. Or as unique as the Moncure Megasite 15 miles east.

Seems like NC is full of megasites. There’s another one in Kingsboro.

This got me thinking: how many megasites are there in the US? Turns out it’s a lot. The premiere place people go for such information is called Site Selection Magazine. For 12 years they have published a list of “Super Sites” (PDF), and the latest list is from January of 2016.

That list includes a whopping 15 sites in North Carolina, although I found it ironic that only the Kingsboro site made that list. If the CAM has been marketing that site for years, shouldn’t Google’s number one hit for lists of megasites include a mention? Again, just a data point suggesting our money may not be well spent.

We were told that the State will not market the property unless it is until County control. Is that written down anywhere? As someone who identifies as a left-leaning libertarian, I demand transparency from my government. What are the rules? How will they promote these sites? In what order? Were any promises made specifically about the CAM?

Of course, the Board wouldn’t have spent $500K+ on a handshake, right? And does this mean the County will need to buy the Moncure site as well, for it to be even considered?

The Site Selection list includes over 190 possible sites. Considering that three of the ones in North Carolina are missing, it makes sense to conclude that there are well over 200 such sites in the US, which means to compete, North Carolina is going to have to stand out.

Well, the General Assembly has made it perfectly clear that North Carolina is open for business, as long as you are white, heterosexual, Christian and preferably male. With the Assembly’s focus on such things as Amendment One, HB2, limiting women’s access to health care, a ban on sharia law, and the Voter ID Act, they have made North Carolina a “hands off” state for investment, especially by the large and diverse companies that are the target of the megasites.

You may think no one notices, but I travel a lot for my job, and the subject comes up in England. It comes up in Germany. It comes up in Japan. You don’t know how embarrassing it can be to be in England, come downstairs for breakfast and hear these things being talked about on the BBC. Wikipedia refers to House Bill 2 as the “most anti-LGBT legislation in the United States” and lists seven references.

People notice. When performers like Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Cirque du Soleil cancel shows, it reminds me of the Artists United Against Apartheid movement – just replace “Sun City” with “North Carolina”.

And before you run out and grab your label maker to print up a bunch “crazy liberal” stickers to put on me, I want to point out that, while currently unaffiliated, the only political party I’ve ever belonged to is the Republican party. I served as a page for both Frank Redding and Harold Brubaker back when the Republicans sat in the back of the chamber. He led the charge to get to the front and served for two terms as the Speaker of the House. I haven’t talked to him in awhile but I’m certain he’d be embarrassed by what his legacy has become.

The final point I want to bring up about this Board’s decision is that it sets a bad precedent. The half a million dollars spent only gets an option for a little more than a year. Based on the evidence above – many options elsewhere and North Carolina’s current business climate – no one is buying the megasite in a year.

So, about this time next year, expect debate on renewing the option. I predict we’ll hear the words “but we’re so much closer now” to justify an even higher price for the next option (on land that will still be valued at a fraction of the asking price). The Board will feel a lot of pressure to renew, since “heck, we’ve already spent a half a million
dollars so we can’t let that go to waste”.

It’s called Loss Aversion and it is well documented. I contacted Dan Ariely at Duke University as part of my research, and he sent me a link to his paper (PDF) on the subject if you are interested.

And what bothers me the most is that we come across as desperate. In The Chatham Record[1] Jim Crawford states “If we don’t do it … then we have nothing”. No one wants to invest billions in a place that is desperate.

This bothers me because I love living in Chatham County. I grew up in Asheboro, but when I turned 18 I moved to Los Angeles, never to return. Now I live in what I refer to as “God’s Own Earth” and I believe the situation is only desperate when we pin all our hopes on the CAM.

I run a computer software company based in Pittsboro. We have customers in 29 countries, including two of the Fortune 5. While small (we have about 15 people) I calculate we indirectly bring about $100K a year into the county, in food, gas, lodging and other purchases. While that isn’t a lot, if we can encourage more small to medium business, those numbers will add up, and we won’t be dependent on a single company.

The key is reliable Broadband Internet.

Look, manufacturing is down in the United States. There is a great article called “Manufacturing Moved South, Then Moved Out” that talks about it.

Manufacturing jobs in the US peaked in the 1970s. The CAM seems to be focused on luring an auto maker, but the US auto makers simply reopen shuttered facilities in Michigan (that article explicitly compared manufacturing jobs in NC to those in Michigan). I doubt foreign car manufacturers will come here due to the political climate.

However, with Broadband Internet access, we can open up a large number of doors and opportunities.

Most of Chatham County does not have access to Broadband, defined by the FCC as 25Mbps download speed. Heck, the best I can get at my home is 10Mbps DSL and I’m grateful for it.

Let’s turn Siler City into a Wired City. Not only do we need infrastructure, we need training to show people how to use it.

This doesn’t mean that I expect artists and farmers to become computer programmers. While we should encourage young people to consider programming as a career, Broadband brings so much more. I have a friend who is a technical writer, but she can work from home. When American Airlines declared bankruptcy, they closed a Call Center. The employees had the choice to move, or work from home. Many do.

While commercial agriculture has shifted to a few large companies, small, boutique organic farms are in demand and can demand much higher prices. Broadband can help create a market.

Think of the artists and other “makers” in the County. We should create an e-commerce site to manage the selling of their work. Let’s create a marketplace website, show people how to use it, and then provide facilities where high quality photos can be taken, or even videos, to best promote their work.

It can be done, but let’s approach this from a position of strength and not weakness. Let’s spend the County’s money on projects that benefit the most and most needy, and not on pipe dreams that immediately benefit the few.

Thanks for your time.

-T

[1] Randall Riggsbee, “Board OK’s option on Megasite”, The Chatham Record, Vol. 96, No. 23, 21 April 2016, page 2.