John Mozena

I started this podcast on the shower speaker as I turned the water on. I was turning the water off, having both showered (including washing near shoulder-length hair) and shaved (face only) before @edsbs.bsky.social hit the “wwwwwwwelcome!” That’s Coen Brothers-level pre-credits content right there.

ngl, I was expecting The Undertaker.

Corporate Responsibility and Taxpayer Protections with John Mozena - Free The Economy This week we cover Trump tariffs, Obama’s endorsement of housing abundance, and why the green energy industry needs more market discipline. Our interview this week is with John Mozena, president of th...

Get excited for Episode 132 of the Free the Economy podcast, "Corporate Responsibility and Taxpayer Protections with @johnmoz.bsky.social." (Interview starts ~ 7:45)
www.buzzsprout.com/2096503/epis...

Corporate Social Irresponsibility - Competitive Enterprise Institute Executive summary State and municipal governments across America are engaged in a massive transfer of public resources to private corporate interests in the name of economic development. However, the ...

The world of responsible investing has taken a hit recently, but one principle that shouldn't be controversial is "No welfare for billionaires." See the new study from @johnmoz.bsky.social and myself on why companies should swear off taxpayer giveaways and special deals: cei.org/publication/...

I, for one, am SHOCKED that a consulting firm part-owned by Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and Hank Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees would be anything but scrupulously rigorous in its assessment of the economic impact of professional sports teams on their communities.

In the last two years, Twitter/X data center was exempt from paying $12 million in property taxes in Hillsboro. This money, if paid, would go to support public services, like the local fire department which fire fighters, despite everything, rushed to help.

It was more complicated than that. Flint's elected officials were the ones pushing to get off Detroit water (which was its own dysfunctional clusterfuck; multiple people did federal time for corruption) and onto the new regional water system they'd co-founded. www.mlive.com/news/flint/2...

I had plenty of issues with Snyder, to be sure, but I think it's deeply unfair to hang Flint around his neck. He spent his governorship trying in (generally) good faith to clean up messes created by decades of mismanagement and that last one ended up unfairly defining his legacy.

The "Rick Snyder poisoned Flint" narrative was a political hit job aimed at a then-popular swing state Midwestern governor, diverting attention from the fact that Flint's own water plant poisoned its citizens because the city's elected officials had been illegally raiding water maintenance funds.

Snyder would actually have been a great Fellow there. His tenure as governor was incredibly interesting and productive - generational structural fiscal reforms, his handling of Detroit's issues was so adept and thoughtful that the city's Black newspaper endorsed him for reelection, etc.

Forget the Indianapolis 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix, I had the best motorsports experience this weekend.

@edsbs.bsky.social @hollyanderson.bsky.social Crushed to miss @channel6.bsky.social visit to Ann Arbor this year; son got me & my wife tickets to Devo show that night for our anniversary. Apologies in advance if any questions about Japanese aircraft carriers and/or GMAC Cash go unanswered. Go Blue.

Subsidizing stadiums is always dumb, but writing teams a blank check in a time of incredible economic uncertainty after voters already rejected a previous proposal is a special kind of Big Dumb.

Yes. According to my son, that's his primary appeal to a certain population of young men in their late teens & early 20s who seem to view him as some sort of hilarious living meme.

Figured it out: Stephen Miller is what would have happened if Pauly Shore had gotten sorted into Slytherin.

No, free(r) trade, especially NAFTA, did not kill American manufacturing employment. Manufacturing as a share of the U.S. workforce had been falling steadily for decades when NAFTA was signed in 1992, and it kept falling steadily afterward.

I was briefly, for my sins, the PR guy for the Not Very Nice Person who bought the Silverdome for $583,000. It was a miserable experience except for two things: I got to go up on the roof (terrible photo below), and I can say I had the key to the Silverdome on my keychain.

Will Amazon choose free markets or corporate welfare? Will Jeff Bezos put his money where his mouth is and end his company's participation in economic development subsidies?

Jeff Bezos loves free markets, but does he love them enough to end Amazon’s addiction to corporate welfare?

Please stop not putting the crest on our kits.

Caught strays in New Years Eve @cardsagainsthumanity.com

Can probably get this one used somewhere

I didn’t realize Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve was going to be open-casket.

Charlotte’s Football Stadium Renovations Named 2024’s “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” by The Center for Economic Accountability December 30, 2024 – The Center for Economic Accountability has given its “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year Award” for 2024 to Charlotte, N.C.’s city government for its deal to spend $650…

Charlotte's $650 million in subsidized renovations for privately owned Bank of America Stadium wins our Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year Award for 2024. Cost, poor transparency, bad ROI arguments and a partner's past history all played a role. economicaccountability.org/2024/12/30/c...

My car tire looks like a Mille Bornes card

My 78-y/o father today claimed that he doesn’t have a Spotify shuffle button because, and I quote, “My phone is too old.” (It is, in fact, old; it’s an iPhone 6 with the physical home button. But it does not have a non-shuffling Spotify app. He just couldn’t find it despite being sent screenshots.)

This raises the practical question of whether Chuck, Shaq, Ernie & Kenny have LinkedIn accounts.

Site Selection Group's 2024 U.S. Economic Incentives Market Report Many economic incentive awards were announced in 2023. Learn more about these projects and download our 2024 Economic Incentives U.S. Market Report here.

Source: info.siteselectiongroup.com/blog/site-se...

A chart listing the total economic development incentives handed out by each state between 2018 and 2023, with Michigan having handed out $2.663 billion, far ahead of second-place South Carolina at $1.617 billion.

There's bad economic development policy, really bad economic development policy, REALLY REALLY bad economic development policy, and then there's my home state of Michigan:

Critics call on Hobbs to complete 'independent' death penalty review A diverse collection of groups from across the political spectrum are calling on Gov. Katie Hobbs to complete an independent review of how the state carries out executions.

“If there are flaws in the system, the last thing the governor should be doing is pushing forward to kill people before those flaws are fixed,” said Nicholas Sarwark, executive director of the Libertarian Policy Institute.

www.kjzz.org/politics/202...

Some good news: At 4 pm today, the agenda for tomorrow's MI Senate Economic Development committee meeting was revised to remove the film subsidy bills. I'm hearing there's enough bipartisan opposition to make Senate passage unlikely...for now at least. Hooray!