Best Economic News
READERS' PICK: Microsoft is coming! It wasn't a sure thing when our readers voted for this one, but the events of last week confirm all the hoopla of the last few months. The world's largest software company is coming to town, and all it will cost city, county and state governments is a mere $4 million in various tax breaks and incentives. This is a small price to pay, of course, for the theoretical potential of hundreds and hundreds of swell high-tech Microsoft jobs, which the dailies have reported will pay an average of $36,000. Never mind that sum is suddenly not looking so rock solid now that we've landed the big fish. Who cares--there hasn't been this much excitement since the Superconducting Supercollider project very nearly came to town several years ago. In any event, make sure you don't miss the cyberboat when Bill Gates comes knocking at your door. It's never too late to enroll in a technical school to bone up on your computer skills. Before long you, too, can move your family to a nice Foothills location--or better yet, a Don Diamond development near your new office way the hell out in the sticks--and enjoy the comfort, leisure and security of a Microsoft career.READERS' POLL RUNNER-UP: The (failed) minimum-wage increase, an ill-conceived attempt to boost the hourly wage to $7 within city limits, was the brainchild of naive and unorganized activists. It would have pushed more businesses outside of the city, increasing urban sprawl and annoying the hell out of anyone forced to buy stuff in town. Labor is losing ground in this increasingly right-wing Republican cesspool of a nation, but true concern for the workers must first come from the workers themselves, and not a bunch of starry-eyed socialist do-gooders.
