Category: Indiana Writers Group

“According to Amazon, the cost per job for New York taxpayers is $48,000 for its new headquarters, compared with $22,000 for Virginia and $13,000 for Tennessee. In a statement released by Amazon, Gov.  Andrew Cuomo called the agreement ‘one of the largest, most competitive economic-development investments in U.S. history.’” — Nov. 11, 2018, Fox5 News, New York City  GOV. ERIC HOLCOMB was…

by Norman Van Cott, Ph.D. Can soybeans be turned into washing machines? The alchemist of times past might try to convince us that it can be done. But we know better. Alchemy is an early, unscientific form of chemistry that tried, among other things, to change base metals into gold. Alchemy fell out of favor…

by Leo Morris A new session of the Indiana General Assembly has just begun, and there’s not a news outlet in the state that hasn’t emphasized what a tight budget the state faces this year. Tragically, our legislators will just not have enough of our money for all the spending they want to do. Here’s…

by Mark Franke The local newspaper recently reported that my county has an official poverty rate of 13.1 percent, better than the other urban counties in Indiana. This is a good thing, right? Much of what we think of when the word “poverty” comes up involves ubiquitous government programs that provide what is popularly termed…

ALWAYS STRIVING TO PLEASE, the consummate professional Republican Eric Holcomb is pushing for hate-crime legislation. This seemingly is to demonstrate to corporate chiefs that reprobate Indiana finally “gets it” regarding shifting cultural norms. But for Indiana’s black communities such postured sensitivity merely distracts from real problems and real solutions. The killing last month in Houston…

by Norman Van Cott, Ph.D. I was a professor of economics at three colleges over a period of 47 years. For two and one-half of those 47 years I was on leave with a non-teaching job I’ve always described as a great job to have had. So what was the job? I was an international…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. What is a fair wage? Should the coach of the men’s basketball team receive more pay than the coach of the college’s women’s basketball team? Should a 63-year-old, male, principal oboist and a 44-year-old, female, principal flautist receive the same pay from the Boston Symphony Orchestra? What could be more fair…

by Leo Morris Surely, I don’t have to remind you of all the bad news in the world. Even if you’re not the type to dwell upon the negative, there has been no escape from the endless litany of human misery and failure that has been dished out in the past few weeks. Year-in-review and…

by David Penticuff A councilman took our newspaper to task this week for criticizing the council on its apparent lack of curiosity regarding the granting of property-tax abatements. It turns out we were wrong in that regard. Council members have a lot of information about the tax abatements they vote to grant. They just don’t…

by Leo Morris We live inside a buffered area – sort of a sociological DMZ – where the way others see us and the way we see ourselves collide and mutate into a whirling kaleidoscope of perception. Sometimes we fret about one or the other. What a gift, the poet Robert Burns said, it would…