W. E. Heasley on Allen Johnson's Editorial on Greensboro's downtown Performing Arts Center Propagandafest

“And when asked where they believe the best site would be in Greensboro,
they didn’t hesitate: downtown.”

Why is downtown a better place to shift more government transfer payments?

Maybe a better question is why is downtown a place to escalate government transfer payments
beyond its current elevated level?

If private resources had been migrating away from downtown over the years
why has government stepped in the recent past
to cause the allocation of resources back to an area
that private resources had deemed inefficient or ineffective?

What is more special about downtown than say West Wendover or Friendly Center?

Is downtown a merely a pet project
in which a misallocation or resources is purposely caused by politicos
through the mechanism of government
given that the historic trend was private resources moving away from downtown
prior to government intervention.

Private resources, the trend thereof,
moving away from downtown means that private resources
were being allocated to their most efficient use.

For government to step in and redirect resources
through escalating the transfer ...to downtown
is likely a misallocation of resources to their most efficient alternative use.

“This legal tempest lays bare continuing tensions between those who want the arts center downtown and those who prefer it at the coliseum. From where we sit, the ideal choice is clear: a downtown facility stands a greater chance of creating positive economic ripples by increasing pedestrian traffic and stimulating business for center-city shops and restaurants. Durham leaders told a visiting contingent from Greensboro last week that the Durham Performing Arts Center has had precisely this effect in that city’s downtown during its first year of operation. And when asked where they believe the best site would be in Greensboro, they didn’t hesitate: downtown.”

An implicit assumption in the above statement is that government,
or more succinctly politicos through the mechanism of government “create”.

Government creates nothing as government is only a transfer agent,
a purposefully expensive transfer agent too boot.

Why does government create or produce nothing?

Government in the U.S. is created only by a transfer [tax] on the private sector.

That is, nothing was produced, only a transfer took place.

Stated alternatively, absent the tax,
the private sector would produce a basket of goods and services Y.

With the tax the private sector produces Y – t where t is tax.

(t) is then transferred to government with Y = Y – t + t.

Absent the tax the private sector basket of good produced Y
is a different basket of goods and services produced
then those goods and services produced by Y – t
where t is a transfer that changes the configuration of the basket of goods and services
but the basket is of the same size and value.

That is, nothing was produced or created by government.

Therefore more transfer payments are allocated to locale X [say downtown vs. anywhere else]
and this disproportionate allocation somehow, some way creates “positive economic ripples”?

That’s nonsense as whatever value is represented by (t)
is then not available elsewhere.

That is, only a shift of (t) has occurred.

Moreover, if (t) did not exist in the first place
then (t) would still be in the private sector
which means an opportunity cost exists regarding the notion of “positive economic ripples”
due to a shifting of the allocation of (t) as absent the tax and consequential transfer payment
the private sector could/would cause “positive economic ripples”
with the additional resources not transfer to government."

W. E. Heasley