How else do you explain the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce’s flippant approach to trying to measure the economic impact of one bill (HB2) on the entire state? Carolina Journal’s Don Carrington reported on their job search for a someone working part-time, 3-4 weeks for an hourly wage to craft this report based on news clippings and getting statements from people who say they probably won’t move their companies or vacation here now.
I wrote about it yesterday. A snippet:
Local media would be and no doubt are expected to seize upon such a report as if it were hard economic fact, and one would be hard-pressed to imagine any “financial impact” figure that would strike them as too large to be believable. HB2 will cost the Triangle area millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? Something in the billions?
It doesn’t seem that local media are inclined toward skepticism as they ought to be, not when politics is involved, and especially not in an election year. You’d think the bigger the part-timer’s number, the more dubious, but it seems clear that in this media environment, the bigger, the better.
Which is certainly why this short-term after-school job is so structurally averse to anything approaching proper economics.
