Well there’s been another round of layoffs and outright dismissals at my company. To my knowledge only one of my bosses and bosses bosses over the last year will be with the company ten days from now but since that doesn’t seem to impress anybody in terms of just how bad things are let me put it another way.
Driving to mass today I was listening to sports radio and they were talking about the various free agent signings in the NFL. When the Patriots had Tom Brady getting free agents was never a problem because the chance of going to a Superbowl was 50-50 every year and at worst it meant that later in life you could say “I played with Tom Brady!” Even with Bill Belichick here there was a slight draw in the idea that you would be playing with one of the greatest tacticians and the one of the top 3 winningest coaches of all time.
But both Brady and Belichick are now gone and now when I turn on the radio I hear about the competitive disadvantage that the Patriots have in signing free agents. There are quite a few locations that don’t have a state income tax which means that you have to offer a minimum of 5-6% more as a baseline just to be even with the other guy, but with the Millionaire’s surtax added on suddenly the price of a good free agent goes up so much that another team can outbid you without even trying.
It’s not just the business people who flee, it’s the people who don’t bother to come in the first place.
But hey as always we get the government we deserve. Good and Hard.
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