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New York State Spent Millions On Program For Startups That Created 76 Jobs
Nerval's Lobster writes Last year, the New York state government launched Start-Up NY, a program designed to boost employment by creating tax-free zones for technology and manufacturing firms that partner with academic institutions. Things didn't go quite as planned. In theory, those tax-free zones on university campuses would give companies access to the best young talent and cutting-edge research, but only a few firms are actually taking the bait: According to a report from the state's Department of Economic Development, the program only created 76 jobs last year, despite spending millions of dollars on advertising and other costs. If that wasn't eyebrow-raising enough, the companies involved in the program have only invested a collective $1.7 million so far. The low numbers didn't stop some state officials from defending the initiative. "Given the program was only up and running for basically one quarter of a year," Andrew Kennedy, a senior economic development aide to Governor Cuomo, told Capital New York, "I think 80 jobs is a good number that we can stand behind."
Wait a second -- this program has only been running for one quarter of a year?
76 jobs doesn't sound that bad, on such a short time frame.
Sounds like a pre-mature judgement.
You could eliminate H1-B visas since there are plenty of people who are out of job and highly skilled in the USA. You could modify the tax code such that wealthy people and corporations have to pay their fair share of taxes. The wealthiest people make more than ever, but the middle class is gutted and can't pay taxes for infrastructure. Maybe even look into a basic income society for people who are totally jobless. We could pay people more who advance their education in their spare time online. Eventually with enough education, people will either be qualified for jobs or start their own business, right?
This would benefit the company for a short time but, it would really hurt the employees. No thanks, I would rather move to North Korea.
Looks like about 20k per job. Probably 100k paying jobs...
This is hardly a case of government waste by comparison.
Is equally bad. So how many "millions" were spent? 2? Or 20? Are these stats from a quarter of a year or a whole one? Hard to get angry when the details are so purposefully vague to fill a story.
"Last year, the New York state government launched Start-Up NY, a program designed to boost employment by creating tax-free zones for technology and manufacturing firms that partner with academic institutions."
See, this is what you are supposed to think, but here is how the truth of the matter reads:
"Last year, the New York state government launched Start-Up NY, a program that allows state politicians to give tax money to their buddies while having the appearance that they care about jobs and the general public."
Wait a second -- this program has only been running for one quarter of a year? 76 jobs doesn't sound that bad, on such a short time frame.
Damn right!
It takes a substantial time to set up a company. (The startup I just helped start up took over five months before I was actually "employed" (and over 6 before the payroll was in place to pay me as an employee with a W2 rather than a consultant with a 1099).)
Three months and they ALREADY have 76 new jobs? It sounds like there are some bats exiting hell!
Come back in a year and see how many there are, and how fast more are being added.
And when counting the cost of the program versus the benefits of it, don't forget to take into account that investments provide their payback over time - so count those costs against the paybacks from several years.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Microsoft, Tetris and Google wire created by less than a dozen people, in total. Anything more than that could be regarded as a success. :)
Woah wait a second.
You're saying that creating Tax Free zones helps create jobs? So why doesn't New York lower taxes for the companies that still reside there, that are threatening to leave to Texas or other lower taxed states?
This is like Cable companies screwing existing customers and favoring customers that are new. I guess it works.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Yes, it seems way to early to evaluate the program. This is the very first report; basically it's saying "the program just started". Clicking through the links leads to this one: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/a...
with more numbers in the summary:
The state agency responsible for economic development across New York says companies last year created 76 of the nearly 2,100 new jobs promised over five years in return for tax breaks under the Cuomo administration's Start-Up NY program.
The first annual report from the Department of Economic Development says 30 companies began operating in 2014 among 54 initially approved for the program.
According to the report, they made $1.7 million of some $91 million investments promised over five years as part of Start-Up NY. The program has established 356 tax-free zones at 62 colleges and universities that act as sponsors.
The agency says another 26 businesses have been approved so far this year, while 12 have withdrawn applications.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You could just pay those 76 people $600,000 a year for doing nothing and you'd have enough left over that you could use to hire another 12 at the same rate.
I tired to use Start-Up NY. We called and were told that it was only for out of state businesses opening in New York. They referred me to a small business consulting group at Stony Brook University. They referred me back to Start-Up NY. I had the impression that no one I spoke with knew what they were talking about, and really weren't interested in helping at all. I have even considered writing to Governor Cuomo. I think that Governor Cuomo's concept here is very well intentioned and could be a great benefit to the state. But, from my experience the administrative staff are not executing the Governor's program as intended.
Government will basically claim ANYTHING improves the economy except the one thing everyone wants: lower taxes across the board.
They'll claim that welfare and UC improve the economy by giving poor people more buying power.
They'll claim tax breaks for crony corporations (auto manufacturers, green energy) give them incentive to hire.
But apparently, this doesn't work if we let everyone keep more of their money. They'll just bury it in the backyard.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
A good write-up on the current abysmal tax situation in New York: http://national.deseretnews.co...
"the program only created 76 jobs last year..."
Senior Economic Development Aides can feel free to round that up to 80.
They're just like apartment complex management companies: they're banking that you're too lazy to pack up and move, so they continue jacking up your rent year after year, while giving new renters a big discount.
All the tax-cuts since the Reagan administration actually creation millions of jobs and explosive economic growth, in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, Indonesia... The rich took all the tax cuts, shafted America and invested them all abroad. All our economic woes can be traced to middle class naively believing the Republicans promises of wealth and prosperity by giving tax cuts to the rich.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
that created only 76 comments
So your argument is that because some Republicans fucked up, it's OK for Democrats from NY to get a free pass when they fuck up and waste tens of millions in taxpayer money? Your attitude is the absolute embodiment of everything that's wrong with this country, and literally how we got into the mess we're in now.
Simple google search will reveal that "October 22, 2013 was the official day the program has started by CUOMO".
Typical distortion and deception from the governmental officers.
The problem with NY is that they are offering as a perk something which is offered by other states for free, without even asking, such as low taxes and pro-business government.
despite spending millions of dollars on advertising
Quite obviously, this program's goal wasn't creating jobs, but PR. Its efficiency should be judged accordingly.
The ubiquitous Start-Up NY promotional campaign has cost taxpayers $53 million since the program's inception in late 2013, while it has led to $1.7 million in private investment so far, state records show.
The state spent $47 million on the ads alone since the program started in December 2013, and the total cost included production expenses and other marketing efforts through last month, according to Empire State Development Corp. In July, the agency said $28 million had been spent on the ads.
We're a society that depends heavily on the service sector. Over 3/4 of the GDP comes from services. And over 3/4 of the people depend in one way or another on them for their job.
Services are awesome when it comes to generation of GDP. Because it's pretty hard to store them. They have to be used when produced. More, they usually have to be consumed. And only by consumption, value is generated. Yes, consumption. Not production. That's hard for the supply side preachers to wrap their head around, but tell me, what did you create when you produce something? Revenue? No. You accrued cost. You had to invest material and manpower to produce something. Without having someone to sell it to, it's quite worthless.
Value is generated when you sell it. But that doesn't contribute to the GDP yet. Because if whoever purchased your good or service uses it to produce other goods and services, the value of your product becomes part of the cost for his product. That's, globally speaking, a zero sum game. The 100 bucks you just earned might have gone into your pocket, but the economy, the supply side, did not generate anything at all yet. Because some other supplier is now 100 bucks short and needs to find an end customer, a consumer, that not only pays those 100 bucks on top of whatever he has to ask for to cover the other costs he has for material usage and his manpower.
Only when someone buys such a good or service and removes it from existence by consumption, actual revenue is generated. That, or when you export it.
Now, as stated in the entrance sentence, we're pretty dependent on the service sector. And it's damn hard to export services. How do you sell a haircut to some Frenchman? Only if he comes to you as a tourist. And ... well, let's say the US didn't really make themselves very attractive as a tourism destination lately.
If you want to sell services, you need people with money. And most services are simply bought and paid for (and consumed) by average people. For a simple, logical reason: I only need one haircut. No matter how rich I may be. I only need one gardener to cut my grass and I only need one house cleaning service to clean up my mess. I won't hire another one.
Services, though, are something you need to be able to afford, and they're usually also the first thing people cut back on when money gets tight. When facing the decision between having something to eat for the rest of the week or getting a haircut, I guess it's easy to determine which one it's going to be.
In a nutshell, and the TL;DR version: If you want jobs, make sure people have money to spend. It works pretty well for countries that didn't axe their social programs and ensured that there would be many people who can still spend money on more than just food&shelter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The main problem with NY is that it has a toxic climate for businesses. The taxes are only a small part of this. Unless you're a big wall street bank, NY is nearly the worst place in the country to open up shop.
The tax breaks for new companies are only a band-aid- those new businesses are going to be doing business with people and pre-existing businesses that are subject to NY's ridiculous taxes and regulatory burdens. That's most of the burden of doing business in NY, not the taxes that directly apply to the businesses.
As a sr software engineer in Florida, I make a hair over 100k a year and keep most of it. In NYC, I'd need a salary of about 250k to pay the higher taxes and then have enough left over for the more expensive rent and cost of living. And that's assuming I am happy with trading in a 1400 sq foot house with a backyard and a 15 minute commute for either a) a tiny apartment with a half hour commute b) a smallish house with no backyard and a 3 hour commute.
New York State and New York City should be separate districts. Hell, NYC should become it's own state. Most of the crappy laws/tax codes are directly related to what is happening in "the city" which is something that I have to qualify every time I say I live in New York (no, the state not the city) The upstate is left to fight for the table scraps while NYC gets all dat money.
Hey, don't ruin this political argument with factual information, you trollop!
I guess the states don't have quite so much cash to throw away as the Feds, so they have to be more selective with their boondoggles.
Paying people to dig ditches and then fill them up again suddenly doesn't sound so bad anymore, either, relatively speaking.
Just once, I'd like to see a politician stand up in front of the cameras and say "We fucked up. We fucked up royally. We blew millions and didn't get a fraction of the benefits for society we'd hoped for. I'm going to take responsibility for that mistake and fire myself."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Kills millions of people, hoses down the economy with bullshit, and doesn't give 2 shits about what anyone else thinks.
Don't disregard something after just a few months... a new startup doesn't happen overnight. There is a lot of planning involved if you want to make it successful.
I live here, and have seen the ads for this program. One of the problems facing New York, both the metro area and upstate, is the loss of old-line employers, both in manufacturing and services:
- Upstate NY had huge numbers of manufacturing jobs as recently as 20 years ago. Most of the actual jobs have either been automated or the companies themselves have moved to other states or countries. Steel mills and auto plants in Buffalo, Kodak in Rochester, Carrier in Syracuse, Corning Glass in Corning are just examples I can think of off the top of my head (yes, I'm a former upstater.)
- The huge tax generator for the state, financial services, only keeps the high end jobs in NYC. Other jobs like IT support, etc. are mostly in cheaper parts of the country.
- IBM was, and still is to some degree, a very big New York State employer. They have large operations in the Hudson Valley and HQ is in Westchester County. However, everyone sees the writing on the wall with IBM -- they are getting rid of or outsourcing any job that doesn't generate outsized revenue for the company and dumping product lines/businesses left and right. I think it won't be long before their influence is done as well.
- Kodak's bankruptcy basically dropped a bomb in Rochester's economy. Not just manufacturing jobs were lost -- tons and tons of service jobs went away too.
- In addition, New York City is no longer seen as a place where companies have to have an office. It certainly was in the early to mid 20th Century. Even if a company does locate here, you aren't seeing the 50s and 60s style "seas of desks" where people manually worked on paper records and company headquarters were the size of a city block, filled with 50 floors of this. (I worked for MetLife early in my career -- it was very interesting to hear the old timers talk of a time when 20,000 people worked in one building.)
One of the issues that I see, having lived both upstate and downstate, is that New York, like California and Massachusetts, are good places to live. Even rural school districts are adequate, the state university system is great and still a good deal, and local services are decent for the most part. The problem is that this requires money, and the anti-tax crowd is all about cutting that off. In addition, low- or no-tax states like Texas and Florida constantly go trolling for companies to move there. No taxes for 20 years? Sure. Free utilities for 10 years? No problem. Want us to build you a headquarters for free? We'll sign the deal tomorrow. I'm not saying taxes should be as high as they are, but that's a far cry from the anti-tax zealots proposing that we gut the entire state government in the name of savings. High tax states like NY, CA, CT, MA, MD, etc. can't win a game of Prisoner's Dilemma with TX, FL, TN, AL, etc.
I don't think programs like this will solve everything, nor will they fix the big mess that happened when companies got rid of all the low- to mid-skill work. But, it's a start and early on in the program. I don't really see a startup with 5 guys sporting hipster beards and writing iPhone apps replacing the labor force NY used to have, or the manufacturing base they had. I think the only long term fix is one of two things -- (1) bring manufacturing back to the level it was at, or (2) accept that a chunk of the population is going to be under- or un-employed forever and subsidize them enough to prevent increases in crime.
It is disturbing how members of the "two" parties deploy the mind-eraser during every election cycle. It would seem that your political affiliations cause a willing blindness to the malfeasance of your respective candidates.
That is about a headhunters fee, so it is not so bad.
"The problem with NY is that they are offering as a perk something which is offered by other states for free, without even asking, such as low taxes and pro-business government."
Here's a very interesting question for the business owners...what exactly is a pro-business government? What regulations exist in one state, that don't exist in another, and overly burden a business's ability to operate? I know the tax code in many states is a huge pain in the butt, but all you have to do is hire one tax lawyer/accountant and the problem goes away.
I agree that entrepreneurial spirit is good, and business owners work hard, etc...but one of the things that bothers me is how much cheerleading they do for themselves trying to drum up sympathy for the over-regulated, over-taxed plight they're in. Small business owners have it pretty good as far as taxes go -- everything they buy or do is a business expense, hence reducing their tax liability. Wage earners can't do that. Even better if the business is a corporation -- they can pay themselves a $1 salary and have the company pay for all their personal expenses. [1]
So sure, let business owners create, innovate, whatever...but they're not doing as badly as they would have you think they are.
[1] I'm not saying that's legal, and the IRS can "pierce the corporate veil" if they really suspect something shady, but it does happen.
Tax breaks as an economic development program. There is a similar giant program in Chicago called TIF. No one believes it actually creates jobs or anything. It's just a way for the mayor to reward his supporters and other rich people.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Clinton had one projected surplus that went away when .com imploded. That included the SS trust fund accounting tricks so it wasn't even an honest projection.
Aside from being completely wrong, you have a point (on your head).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A regressive tax is tax rates decreasing as income increases. A flat tax is not regressive. A progressive tax has nothing to do with progress or hope or change.
but all you have to do is hire one tax lawyer/accountant
All you have to do is forego hiring 3-4 $60k workers that actually add value and instead hire a $200k lawyer to fend off all the grifter politicos and their apparatchik bureaucrats.......................
Or, you can fuck off up out of NY and go somewhere that isn't run by anti-business fascists.
But apparently, this doesn't work if we let everyone keep more of their money. They'll just bury it in the backyard.
Worse yet, they might save for retirement, making them less dependent upon the government in their "golden" years.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Try the run you expenses through the corp trick. We'll send you a cake with a file in it when you go to federal prison.
You ought to check your facts. You are taxed on a company car. Try and have the corp pay for your house and you will go directly to jail.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Helping people get jobs more efficient than "creating jobs". Its just connecting people to opportunities, jobs and training,. Helping them to become functional and gain basic job skills or specialised skills. Creating an environment friendly to business is harder. Funding or subsidising risk has some potential but is no place for the government.
The most surefire way to create jobs is to train people to be people trainers and have them train people to be people trainers. Thats the american way.
This last method has the added benefit of supporting education, educators and regulators. Those who get jobs get benefits and become eligible for home child care payments to relatives allowing the creation of yet another job in the childcare/preschool industry. If someone gets fired then they can get a job looking for a job for up two years clearing space for others to get jobs, get fired and be paid to look for jobs.
No, there's plenty of people in government who will gladly claim that lowering taxes across the board produces miraculous economic results.
Kansas, for example.
Full of them.
They set this up at universities, so the start ups they are creating are going to be Amazon/Google likes where a 5 billion dollar company can employ 3 guys. A university is filled with the privileged, highly skilled, rich 1%. You will not going to employ hundreds of working stiffs out of a university; You will employ one or two guys in a tech focused highly automated business.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The article is misleading. I noticed this program last year and looked into it.
I operate in California which is turning increasingly hostile to any business that MAKES things (they LOVE web startups that think we can all get rich advertizing to each-other and selling each-other's private info). CA has become a plaything for the eco-crowd and the social justice warriors, so if your business uses any physical materials or needs energy or water, or if you do not want to spend piles of money on legal advice for how to hire/fire/pay/promote employees without getting sued over some rule you have never even HEARD of (they change CONSTANTLY here) CA is a becoming a BAD place and will only get worse in the future. The clever little stunt CA tried of retro-active taxes on some small businesses only made this worse (as an omen of things to come), so when the ads hit TV about "Start-Up NY" touting an apparently bold pro-business attitude in the Empire State, I was willing to take a look.
It only applied to out-of-state businesses moving to NY... (FINE with ME, but an immediate warning that there are "strings attached")
Then I started looking into the details...
When any government offers incentives (an admission that what they have in place squelched business, AND that they are unwilling to ACTUALLY FIX THAT), but then says WHERE who can use them (micro-managing business locations), WHEN you can use them (the incentives will evaporate and then you face the full-on insanity of the very bad policies that drove other businesses away), WHAT you can use them on (micro-managing the products and/or services), and on, and on, and on, you start to understand that it's just the same old top-down, uber-control-freak, massive government policies re-wrapped in faux-free-market tissue paper. I'd temporarily forgotten who the people of New York had elected as governor (junior Cuomo) and that hardcore leftists NEVER embrace the free market. (That's NOT a partisan slam here, because I'll go-on to point out that "establishment" Republicans are JUST AS BAD. BOTH types of politicians grow government and heap-on the rules and regulations, then when the arteries of the free market get clogged and the economy slows they BOTH promise more rules and more bureaucracy to "fix" it and "get America moving again". No leftist Demorat and no establishment Republican will EVER actually reduce the government and get rid of rules and regs and regulators. Sadly, there no longer seem to BE any pre-1969 style Democrats (who were defense hawks AND embraced the traditional free market system) and the closest thing the GOP has to a "Reagan Republican" (though they ALL claim to be one) is over at the TEA Party side - but even that's not an actual match.
Any REAL attempt to lure businesses to New York would begin by eliminating all the grabage that scared them off in the first place... and then no special program would be needed because the environment there would be friendly to business...
Where the link to the actual report?
If reducing taxes is such a good idea for this program, why not reduce the size of state government and lower taxes statewide? Then, the entire state would be an economic zone, like Texas.
The job providers take between 90% and 99% of the money, leaving a little left over for the peons.
Around the time Dubya took office, we had a surplus and the debt was being repaid and was going down. Then he cut taxes, income taxes, inheritance taxes, all kinds of taxes and promised millions of jobs and prosperity for all. All the money ended up with his cronies, and the economy lost millions of jobs and we came to the brink of total financial collapse. In fact all the trickle down economics and tax-cut politics are simply means to transfer wealth to the rich, keep the middle class despo enough to accept abysmal wages and working conditions. All in the names of "jobs jobs jobs" and "job creators".
All the tax-cuts since the Reagan administration actually creation millions of jobs and explosive economic growth, in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India, Indonesia... The rich took all the tax cuts, shafted America and invested them all abroad. All our economic woes can be traced to middle class naively believing the Republicans promises of wealth and prosperity by giving tax cuts to the rich.
And then Obama took office and spent the next four years doubling the amount of national debt that he started with.
I am one of those startups that this program was designed for. I am in a NYC incubator, creating jobs, in the tech sector, etc., but we've been working on the application for over 6 months now. I'm on my fifth version of the application and I am still getting feedback about what or what does not qualify. Once everyone agrees, I need to schedule a notary to have all the forms signed, on paper, in person. I'm impressed anyone is actually IN the program by now. The bureaucracy will continue throughout the program and we still don't know what this will do to the employees' and our company's tax forms. I expect we will pay more for CPAs than we will save in the first couple of years.
In the meantime, we are getting offers of real funding to move to another the incubator, relocate to California, etc, that would disqualify us from the benefit.
This is a classic example of a good idea buried under government red tape. We are just a handful of people, with limited resources, trying to launch in a market that changes every day. Such distant source of 'funding' (i.e. a tax benefit that we won't realize until we actually make money) that takes so much time away from near term fundraising is difficult to justify. Especially if we might lose the benefit by responding to market forces or greater benefits elsewhere.
Tax benefits are nice, but cash is even nicer. I'd take $1,000 upfront with minimal paperwork over $10,000 in a year after months of saving receipts, collecting paperwork and doing special city and state tax filings.
Our seed round of funding took just two months and we can actually spend the money when we need it. By the time we see the first $1 of this benefit, we will either be out of business or on a $5M round of funding. In either case, the money won't be as important as it is today.
If you had been actually following the debate on not extending the Bush tax cuts, you would have known that the 10 year impact of letting the tax cuts expire for "the rich" - aka people making more than $250k - was about $700B. Let it expire for everyone was about $4T. So "his cronies" got very little of it and most of it actually went to the middle and lower income taxpayers. The problem is the amount that these people got back wasn't all that much and it was likely spent on consumer goods instead of being invested. Since most cheap consumer goods are made outside the US, the only ones really benefiting with "new jobs" are those outside the US. So in that respect, since the lion's share of the tax cuts were going to the "non-rich", they didn't have as much as an impact as they should have. BTW, the surplus was due to the .com bubble and would have evaporated without the tax cuts or even if Algore had been POTUS.
It's due to how screwed-up NY state politics are.
NY used to have a House representing "the people" and a Senate representing "geography". Similar to the US House and Senate. The result of this was upstate NY was able to get some attention and benefits from the state government, because the NY City-dominated House had to negotiate with the upstate-dominated Senate.
Then a resident of NY City sued, citing the NY State Constitution's requirement that each person be represented equally. And won. The result was the state Senate was changed to also be based on population. Since NY city is roughly half of NY state's population, upstate NY was more-or-less politically abandoned for decades. At the same time, the deindustrialization of upstate NY (and the rest of the Rust Belt) utterly devastated the upstate NY economy.
This program is an attempt to start reversing some of that pain. Resulting in a somewhat odd program - there are virtually no major industries left in upstate NY to receive the tax breaks you propose. They need to import something.
But it's going to be a very hard sale. The area has been suffering from major economic depression for a very long time. Even the "successful" cities look old and dreary, and there is the palpable sense that everything has either gone to hell, or will be going to hell soon. It's going to be very hard to get someone to decide to move their business into that environment. Heck, even the locals desperately hope their children grow up to move somewhere better. Like Detroit.
And don't forget that what debt reduction was in there, was due to Newt, and in spite of Clinton.
Newt burned his career over that shutdown, and Clinton came out smelling like a rose, as usual. Clinton's budget. Hell, I guess he signed it.
It should go in the history books as the most costly political victory ever.
"Wage earners can't do that."
They don't have to. All those regulations only apply to those with 50 employees or more. Not always 50, but never (well, usually) a one-man business, or a wage earner for sure.
And you propose that only the rich, that can afford a tax lawyer/accountant, should have access to the law of the land, and thus to profits?
And the rest of us masses should have no access to the law, or profit, because we can't afford it?
That is what you just said.
You mention the anti-tax crowd in passing, as if it is a given, but I don't think so.
I'm here in FL, and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a New Yorker. And they all have exactly the same story: High taxes ran them off. You can't afford to live there. *If* you had one of those jobs (and GE is one you left off that has quit most of their NY operations), then you could get by. But you really weren't getting rich even working in those places.
Not just taxes. Fuel oil runs you hundreds a month and electricity is even higher. Taxes and fees to own a car. Endless list apparently.
And they don't like Florida better, except maybe the winters. They would be still there if they could, with or without Kodak.
Hey, all that advertising money went to fund American workers at the ad agencies!
The cup's half full, no?
About 4 billion was spent for less than 50 permanent jobs.
The rest went the way of the Big Dig, poof...
The banking crisis was due in large part to things Congress and Clinton did - the Glass-Steagall Act was mostly crippled under Clinton's watch.