Curt Schilling: Hypocrite

By adamg on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 8:40am

The Outraged Liberal makes the case.

Free tagging:

Curt Schilling

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Comments

great american jobs scam

By anon on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 9:16am.

http://www.greatamericanjobsscam.com/

That book is superb reading for anyone who has ever wondered about these "deals" and why they're a complete scam.

Deval Patrick's handouts for that battery company are a perfect example.

That's because the only

By Anon² on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 9:23am.

That's because the only coherent GOP platform now a days is "I got mine, frak you".

He's just following the reflexive group think. He probably wants government out of his medicare too.

Dumb move for 38 Studios

By Steve Stein on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 10:27am.

Well, this isn't personal, it's just business. Even though I dislike his politics, I'm not going to jump on the "Schilling is a hypocrite" bandwagon.

I will jump on the "This is a dumb move for 38 Studios" bandwagon. I'm a software developer, and there are reasons I live in Massachusetts and not Rhode Island. I don't know many developers (or any, as a matter of fact) who would want to live there. That's why the software business is good here in Massachusetts. It's going to be tougher to find good people there than here.

RI

By johnmcboston on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 12:24pm.

Along those lines - what makes them thing these 'new' jobs will go to Rhode Islanders? RI is a tiny state - unless they start discriminating by location, a lot of these jobs, while being IN RI, aren't going to go to Rhode Islanders...

Schilling himself stated he was staying in Medfield.

By Pete Nice on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 12:36pm.

And that his commute was going to be 10 minutes shorter. I also assume most of the people who already work for him are going to stay on the job and not move anywhere.

And software developers might

By anon on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 7:25pm.

And software developers might not want to put down roots in RI anyway, with not that many employers. Game companies, more than other software development companies, tend to do two things that make them non-ideal employers: work people ragged during a big project, and lay off people at the end of a project when they don't immediately have enough new work to assign those people to.

Most of the action is in places other than RI and MA anyway.

Who said they have to live in RI?

By merlinmurph on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 9:33pm.

And it isn't as if RI is far away. There are tons of software types on the I-495 belt who are very close to RI.

I don't know many developers

By anon on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 1:30pm.

I don't know many developers (or any, as a matter of fact) who would want to live there.

I thought writing code required a logical mind. It doesn't occur to you that you don't know people who want to live in Rhode Island because you don't know people from Rhode Island? Have you ever been to Rhode Island? I mean beyond I-95?

Who would ever want to live in the middle of North Carolina? Research Triangle? What's that?

I know lots of people in RI

By Steve Stein on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 5:16pm.

But none of them are SW Developers. Except for Hasbro, I can't think of a major employer of developers in RI. I know plenty of SW people with degrees from Brown, but none of them stayed in RI for SW work.

But perhaps I'm mistaken - except for Hasbro, what companies hire a lot of developers in RI?

My son works for IBM at RTP and lives in Chapel Hill. Tons of SW work there, but maybe it's a chicken and egg thing... but now there are a lot of chickens down there! According to him the tax load seems to be a little heavier in NC than here for individuals. Perhaps it's different for businesses.

Great blog post, and MA actually did the right thing

By Sarcastic Sam on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 11:40am.

First off, that was a great blog post. Remarkably balanced in this independent reader's eyes, for a blog that calls itself "Outraged Liberal"

About Schilling's company: according to what I read on boston.com this morning, they haven't even put out a product yet, and have not earned one penny of revenue. I guess they're a newer company than I'd thought, but I thought they'd been out for at least a couple years already. Rhode Island is taking a BIG risk by using loan guarantees on a video game company that hasn't even released a game yet.

I'm normally *in favor* of tax incentives for *certain* businesses, under certain circumstances, to make/keep jobs in the state. But not this company. I think Massachusetts did the right thing in this case. Give the incentives to someone with more of a track record *and* better potential for longevity.

They actually have been

By anon on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 11:47am.

They actually have been around for a couple of years. Also, tax incentives are different than loan guarantees,since a tax incentive may free you from some taxes, but given they aren't making any money they probably aren't paying much taxes.

RI decided to become an investor in a sports stars vanity project. Sad.

"A few years" = 5 I think

By Steve Stein on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 12:49pm.

and 5 years without a product for a software company is deadly unless you have real software credibility. Especially with a 450-employee burn rate (which could translate into $100M/yr easily).

The only company remotely comparable in this regard is Groove, and they had Ray Ozzie cred. (And got bought by Microsoft, Ray and all.)

Groove also had a real

By mike on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 3:07pm.

Groove also had a real (albeit mediocre) product. It wasn't a product anyone was clamoring for, but it existed.

Oh, yeah, Groove

By adamg on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 3:12pm.

Whatever happened to the product? Did it just disappear when Microsoft bought Ozzie?

Microsoft bought Groove, not

By Steve Stein on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 5:21pm.

Microsoft bought Groove, not just Ray, and most of the Groove guys are still there. And Groove is still mostly in Massachusetts. Jack Ozzie is still around here I think, although Ray sold his Manchester castle and moved west.

As for the product, it's now Microsoft Sharepoint.

the last time schilling had a big contract....

By bostnkid on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 12:12pm.

he showed up to camp fat and injured. he basically stole that last year of money from the sox. good luck rhode island!

Let's see if I understand

By anon on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 1:43pm.

Let's see if I understand this: Curt Schilling is politically inconsistent, and John Kerry committed tax fraud to the tune of a half million dollars.

Yep, that Curt Schilling is a bastard.

Nope, you don't understand

By Sock_Puppet on Wed, 07/28/2010 - 2:47pm.

Curt Shilling is taking his vaporware to whoever fronts him the most. Net gain to MA: he can go broke on some other state's dime. And John Kerry didn't commit any tax fraud whatsoever - he just knuckled under to a rabid pack of mouth-breathing scum and sent the MA treasury 1/2 million it had no rights to. Net gain to MA: 1/2 million. So that's two wins for the Commonwealth.

For a possible useful data point, it's been 2005 days since he agreed to release his military service records.