Oh this is just grand…
Apparently, the NC Department of Commerce has given $600,000 of your taxpaying dollars to a company that doesn't have a physical presence. It exists only on paper. According to the AP story:
state and local backing for a customer-service call center just four
months after it was incorporated and weeks before it plans to start
operations.
So instead of using your taxpayer dollars to cut taxes for all those struggling businesses out there currently operating in our state, the Dept. of Commerce has decided to give those dollars away to a company that may or may not ever really hire someone.
Really? Is this what it's come to? Our state is so desperate for someone to create jobs that they'll give away millions of dollars to a start-up venture that doesn't even have a business model?
And get this, the company's CEO, William Rocker, "has no experience running call centers." And their corporate website is nothing but a title-holder page. Yet we're going to hand them a check for $600,000 and hope for the best.
Commerce Sec. Jim Fain defended the decision because it was made, as he said, “based on business facts that suggest that the company will be successful.”
With all due respect, Fain has no idea which businesses will succeed or fail. If he did have such omniscience, he would be a billionaire based on his stock investments.
Further, if the business is such a surefire success, why does it even need a government handout?