Former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr is actually talking about AIG, but he makes it clear the same principle applies to Dell, which has just laid off anywhere from 150 to 300 workers:
“I would ask this: Does AIG need to answer to the public? I think the public would say right now, ‘You’re damned right they need to answer’…..
“All this incentive stuff is just like bailout money,” said Orr, who mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit in 2005 to block the incentives deal. “That money could have been used for bonuses, corporate junkets, who knows what that’s being used for. It could have been used overseas to outsource jobs. Yes, I think they have an obligation to discuss this.”
I know I just harshed on John Robinson and his newspaper, but Richard Barron does a pretty good job of exposing Dell’s ‘code of silence’ when working out its fat incentives deal with the state and local governments.
