Here’s the news.

Why?

Here’s one theory:

• Indiana eliminated its gross receipts tax on businesses a few years ago.
• Ohio just established and is the process of fully phasing in a Commercial Activities Tax (CAT), which is in essence a gross receipts tax.
• If it had located the new plant in Ohio, shipments from the Honda plant to dealers would be CAT-taxable sales. The tax would have to be paid regardless of whether the plant, or the company, was earning a profit.
• Indiana does have a corporate income tax (which Ohio is phasing out), but it would only have to be paid if the plant is making money.
• Honda is probably already unhappy that shipments of cars from its existing Ohio plants to dealers are CAT-taxable, and didn’t want to add any more to what they will have to pay in the coming years on Ohio shipments.

Advantage: Indiana.

Message to Ohio: Kill the CAT.
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UPDATE (HT NixGuy): The Columbus Dispatch article on Honda’s decision mentions workers’ comp costs as a possible factor. Ohio’s WorkComp benefits are more generous than Indiana’s. That’s not surprising, as it’s a government agency, and “more generous” probably means “too generous.” Solution: Privatize Workers’ Comp, and have private insurers sell varying degrees of coverage (with mandated minimums, of course).
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Previous Post: Nov. 14, 2005 — This CAT Should Be Killed

Val McQueen at TCS Daily has a great column on India today.

India has discovered capitalism, and its economy has broken relatively free of statist shackles and backward thinking. As one might expect, India’s middle class continues to swell:

In the mid-1980s, India’s middle class comprised just 10 percent of the population. Today, it’s larger than the entire population of the United States and is predicted to grow to 445 million by the end of this decade.

That is roughly 40% of India’s total population of 1.1 billion. Continued progress in the same direction would mean that the world’s former poster child for poverty may be able to eliminate it in roughly 40 years — and perhaps faster, if I am right that most of the growth in the middle class has occurred in the past decade.

Decades of socialism in India failed to bring about what has been achieved in only a couple of decades of free-market capitalism. Who wants to argue about which system is better?

Words Means Things, But the Meanings of Many Words Are Being Ruined.

Oppression, genocide, racism, torture, rape, theocracy, fascists, anti-Semites.

All these words (and more — start with “homophobia” being applied to anyone who believes in traditional marriage) are being robbed of their meaning by being defined downward by supposed intellectuals.

This language dilution undermines the battle against what is truly evil. Dennis Prager has more.

This is apparently the latest available info from Talkers Magazine:

Thoughts:

• This is before Howard Stern went off the free airwaves and joined Sirius. It will be interesting to see where his audience goes, because it has already been reported that the large majority of them didn’t plunk down the $150 per year they would have needed just to hear him again on Sirius.
• Hannity is nearly up with Limbaugh. Could there be a new Number 1 in a year?
• Michael Savage has to be the least-discussed No. 3 on talk radio of all time. That’s not his fault, unless you consider not being afraid of controversy his fault.
• The rumors of Dr. Laura’s decline, let alone demise, are obviously greatly exaggerated.
• The liberal talkers (Schulz, Franken, and Rhodes) are at least showing up, which is more than I expected.

And it’s here.

Free Links:

• Ho-hum — Another 500 jobs will be added at Comcast’s location in the Bay Area.
• Interested-Participant has an interesting referral to a report on health care in Cuba’s Workers’ Paradise. Also, here’s an article from Babula blog from a while ago, accompanied by a couple of useful Cuban hospital pictures, reproduced below:

  

  

  Both articles note how Cuba takes better care of tourists (sort of, but go to the links for more details), and that only the natives get to face what you’ve just seen.

• New single-family home sales were up 4.6% in May. Existing-home sales fell 1.2%. No need to hyperventilate; these numbers are acceptable.
• Consumer confidence “improves slightly” — Geez, it went up a bit, but it also beat “expectations” that it was going to go down.

Links Requiring Subscription:

• Many states are running significant budget surpluses:
  

  

  Unfortunately, as The Wall Street Journal notes, states are spending most of it.

• Business Weak has an article that asks whether identity theft dangers are being exaggerated. I don’t think so. Their central premise is that not many ID thefts have occurred after the recent large-scale data breaches that have occurred. My first response: Big deal. Thieves have all the time in the world to use and decipher the data they have stolen, and to steal from a relatively few victims at a time to avoid detection. My second response: How do they know? I think it’s safe to say that a lot of vets don’t scrutinize every line item of their existing credit-card and other bills; and any new accounts that have been opened and diverted to other addresses would not get picked up for a very long time unless the victim has recently obtained their credit reports. EVERY vet should have placed fraud alerts at the three credit bureaus by now, but I’ll bet that the majority hasn’t. All it takes to place the fraud alerts is a phone call to ONE of these three numbers (Equifax, 800-525-6285; Experian, 888-EXPERIAN (397-3742); TransUnion, 800-680-7289). Even though one call supposedly will cause alerts to be placed on all three reports, some observers believe you should play it super-safe and call all three.

Angelica has beaten very long odds:

A ‘little miracle’ thrives at 5
Facing daunting odds when she was born in 2001 at 1 pound, 7 ounces, this Gordonville girl today is a plucky, active survivor.

By Ryan Robinson
Lancaster New Era

Published: Jun 21, 2006 1:45 PM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - “You’re not going to have a baby today,” Bobbi Morris recalls a doctor warning her when she went into labor nearly 16 weeks early.

Only about one of three babies born so prematurely lives, she was told.

Bobbi said the doctor told her and her husband, Randy, that if the baby survived, its chance of a normal life was extremely slim.

Later that day, Bobbi understood the doctor’s dire prediction when she saw her 1-pound, 7-ounce micropreemie.

With arms the size of an adult’s fingers, newborn Angelica May “looked like she could break,” Bobbi said.

Against all odds, the Morrises’ little “miracle” baby went home four and one-half months later from The Women & Babies Hospital of Lancaster General. That milestone was five years ago this week.

Now, Angelica cartwheels across the yard and plays hide-and-seek with her sisters. She’s raring to take the training wheels off her bike.

Angelica hears just fine and sees well without glasses, thanks to eye surgery as an infant. She is very coordinated and smart.

“What a blessing,” Bobbi said last week at the family’s home in Gordonville. “We are tickled at the outcome.”

Angelica climbs to the top of the swing set. Her long, dark-brown hair and hazel eyes match those of her sisters swinging below her. Her strength surpasses theirs.

“She is solid muscle,” Bobbi says of 35-pound Angelica, who is 42 inches tall.

But big sister April, 8, noted Angelica’s most telling trait.

“Angelica obeys,” April said manner-of-factly. “She is good.”