"A false witness will not go unpunished,
And he who speaks lies shall perish."
Proverbs 19:9
We've had our issues with Politi'fact' over the years, but this is brutal (and, if anything, it understates the case):
A major business group predicts billions of dollars in economic losses should Texas lawmakers advance "discriminatory" legislation including so-called bathroom bills or measures limiting local control of non-discrimination ordinances.Read the whole thing here.
We checked on whether the widely cited projections, linked to actions in other states, hold up.
Portions of the study commissioned by the Texas Association of Business proved solid. But other elements were shaky. One projection, for instance, rests in the Super Bowl set for Houston on Feb. 5, 2017 being moved to another state. Another extrapolates Texas losses from research rooted in Arizona’s immigration law--not that state’s failed proposal targeting LGBT residents. And the report’s biggest projected loss to Texas starts from an Indiana legislator’s comment that might lack documentary backup.
....
We were barred from talking to the people who made the projections. But at the association’s request, Brad Zehner, a St. Edward’s associate professor of management, addressed a set of questions in writing. We fielded Zehner’s responses by email from the association’s Belinda Matingou after a university spokeswoman, Mischelle Diaz, advised by email that faculty and students who did the study had signed non-disclosure agreements prohibiting additional commentary.
....
The TAB said a study projects up to $8.5 billion in lost GDP and up to 185,000 lost jobs in Texas if lawmakers approve a discriminatory measure like proposals in other states.
Such a law might cause economic shivers. But we find this study’s headlined figures, reached about 13 months ago, to be based on predicted or actual effects of discriminatory mandates in Arizona, Louisiana and Indiana that didn’t make it into law or were rescinded or softened. Moreover, not all the study’s numbers, calculations and assumptions proved solid and a key figure, reflecting on Indiana losing $1.5 billion in conventions, doesn't appear to have a documented basis.
We rate this claim Mostly False.
[Author's Note: Emphasis added.]
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A few thoughts:
- "Economic impact" studies by special interest groups, regardless of the specific issue, almost universally tend to be garbage.
- The whole point of academic research is for others to be able to replicate your work and on that note...who asks someone to sign an NDA for an allegedly academic study?!?
- One of the underappreciated virtues of the privacy act is the degree to which it thrust the Texas Association of Business' love affair with government into the spotlight. TAB has only ever existed to channel the spoils of government into large existing industries while attempting to strangle innovative new industries than can render the dinosaurs irrelevant. Now that TAB has endorsed the authoritarian leftist sexual agenda, it's longstanding mendacity is obvious for all to see.
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