Apparently Dr. Clyde Barrow has taken academic precision to a whole new level of Monty Python like absurdity in his assertion that taking money from a golf course that wants a casino is TOTALLY different from taking money from a casino that is a casino (and maybe has a golf course).
Barrow, director of the UMass Center for Policy Analysis, said he was paid $11,000 for a feasibility study for Green Meadow Golf Club in Hudson, N.H., which has proposed a 4,000-slot machine casino and 300-room hotel called Sagamore Crossing…. The study, he said, was done over a six-week period and is not a conflict of interest because he was hired by a golf course, not a gaming company. (emphasis mine)
And these are his estimates:
In his report for the Green Meadow Golf Club, Barrow said a $300 million casino would generate $531 million in revenue, including video lottery terminals at New Hampshire racetracks, if a casino is built in greater Boston and $667 million without one.
nI would love to see the citation because $500 million is equivalent to more than twice what the entire New Hampshire lottery brings in.
I think he is lowballing this. The official moonbat estimates are that over the next 700 years it would bring in $65 trillion moon dollars, which will be able to be spent on the moon when we have a base there.
Mocking is often the appropriate course of action given such an extreme disconnect between what is proper scholarly behavior and what is good for Clyde Barrow. I actually posted about this too, but surprisingly didn’t go for the snarky root. I contemplated cross posting it, but after reading this, I’m very glad I didn’t… it was a chuckle.
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p>Thanks for the post!
I’m sure you read the Boston Herald article on this, too. With this latest revelation, the $11k he just made, I have a new favorite comment in the B.H. article:
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p>Who else considers $11k “not much?” Who else would consider that extra $11k “not much” when it was earned over only 6 weeks? Even with a $144k/year salary (working 37.5 standard hours in a tenured position), $11k is some serious cash. Not a bad extra gig on the side!
…for academic researchers to take ANY outside money, especially from entities that might have a connection to studies they are conducting.
for a Governor, Senate President, AFL-CIO and other supporters of legalizing more gambling with slots and casinos to use this guy’s research to rock the Commonwealth with the bogus projections about revenues and jobs.
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p> Ethics anyone?
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p>AG Coakley and Governor Patrick should go after Barrows and demand that the public taxpayer supported institution, UMass Dartmouth do a thorough investigation of his moonlighting and disclose how much money the gambling industry has funneled in the center for “public policy” (barf!)
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p>Conflict of bloody fudgin’ interest.
…it should be illegal to cite a source. Certainly others should be free to point out the conflict however.
It is the lack of disclosure that is problematic but it is also that his work has proven to not be accurate.
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p>His model for the 3 resort casinos was the basis of the 3+ times over reality estimates for jobs and revenues that have been refuted by scholars, casino insiders and apparently both the Administration and the union.
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p>Has he ever done a data-driven regional impact study? Without hard data how could a researcher propose percentages of revenues for mitigation? It’s junk.
If so, the halls of Harvard Medical School, Stanford and MIT would be empty…
…either out of the public coffers or by the university that employs the researchers. General think tanks such as Brookings would probably be OK too. Funding from a source with a stake in the outcome raises red flags.
http://www.ryanstake.net/2009/…
… reality stranger than fiction.
He was actually arrested a while ago, but still relevant information.
Apparently when someone posts criticisms of some of your more rabid and reactionary members, the post is taken down. How else to explain why my posts regarding the irrational and maniacal antics of Rypepower seem to have disappeared from BMG. I suppose political correctness on your website is more important than free speech. Well, suffice to say that deleting posts, no matter how unsettling in questioning someone’s veracity and balance, isn’t really reflective of the Democratic tenets you allegedly espouse. Oh, and as a longtime member of the ACLU, I find it equally humorous that a blog allegedly deciated to progressive voices, has to impose censorship on a voice that doesn’t follow political correctness tenets 100%.
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p>My original post still goes though: there’s something wrong with someone like Ryepower who continually attacks and impugns someone because of a differing opinion. I question his sanity. It may be news to you, but in a democracy, that’s an accepted right — whether its a feeble and inarticulate poster like Ryepower, or a president.
Do you not see that you are doing exactly what you accuse Ryepower of doing?
No “dude,” YOU don’t get it.
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p>I’m ot criticizing Ryepower for his policy position, I’m criticizing Ryepower for using a difference on policy position to harrangue, lie, mislead, impugn and attack the veracity, integrity and honesty of a university professor.
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p>I could care less that Ryepower has an opinion different than mine. But his criticism of the professor borders on the bizarre. And it’s apparent that Ryepower is unstable. It’s dangerous to give a forum to someone who is so unstable and possessed over his righteousness. It’s these very kind of blogs on the far right that led to other unstable people being whipped into such a frenzy that they go out and shoot doctors at family-counseling clinics.
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p>You need to speak up, and others on BMG need to speak up when people take their policy differences beyond civil discourse. I taunt and ridicule Ryepower solely to draw his focus away from the professor and others in the hope that Ryepower finds so many others with opinions different than his that a moment of normalcy overwhelms him.
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p>But make no mistake, his litany of angry diatribes and almost foaming-at-the-mouth rhetoric — he once wrote in a fit of rage that he would “fucking shoot” himself — seem to be more than just bluster and exaggeration. His are not the articulate responses of someone in full possession of their faculties. He is unstable and prone to god knows what? I would be very nervous at BMG giving a forum to someone so hyped on their own correctness that they view character assassination as a reasonable pursuit. I shudder at what follows “character assassination” in Ryepower’s unbalanced mind.