So it turns out Lowe's is a greedy, sneaky, opportunistic corporation.
Surprise!
Let's build some ill-will together.
They want their stores revalued in Alabama and elsewhere, to save a gazillion dollars in taxes by arguing - with an implied threat to cut and run - that their stores really aren't worth beans. They want them valued as if they were empty shells.
And Alabama state and county officials are up in arms, worried about losing $1.5 million every year if the do-it-yourself weasels do it their way. If Lowe's succeeds at getting these tax breaks, everyone else will try to do the same, they say.
Imagine.
There'll be no end to the greed.
The fearful are right, of course. It's unctuous and slick and it feels as if Lowe's took one of their many screwdrivers and stuck it to us.
But if Alabamians are shocked at corporate greed and tax scamming big box bandits they need to take a hard look at themselves.
The problem for Lowe's is that it didn't get in on the ground floor of flim-flammery. It didn't come in with its hand far enough out. It didn't get it when the getting was good.
It's laughable to see Alabama so outraged over the loss of $1.5 million in annual revenue. Alabama has, according to a database maintained by the group Good Jobs First, offered $3.4 billion - that's billion with a "B" -- on fat corporate cheese.
It handed a billion-plus to the company formerly known as ThyssenKrupp, and hundreds of millions to the big-Alabama-three carmakers. It gave almost $70 million in incentives to the more controversial Remington plant, and more than $11 million to troubled Austal, a client of former Gov. Bob Riley.
Alabama was so happy to lure a promised 300 jobs to the Black Belt that it gave $200 million in incentives to China's aptly named GD Copper plant. But the resulting jobs have been met with disappointment, especially with incentives that come to $666,000 a job.
It's not just Alabama, of course. Companies across the nation have made an art of pitting state against state and county against county. They demand infrastructure and tax breaks and sometimes cash up front, with no guarantee the companies won't bolt to the next highest bidder when the freebies run out.
But Alabama is notorious.
Good Jobs First, which tracks subsidies across the nation, wrote that "Alabama's remarkable tax giveaways have not brought the state broad prosperity; indeed, it still has one of the nation's highest poverty rates - and one of the most regressive tax structures. Despite its $586 million FY 2011 budget deficit, Alabama raised the borrowing limit on its Capital Improvement Trust Fund by $400 million to provide $195 million to ThyssenKrupp."
And on it continues. Because every politician believes every job they claim - real or imagined - gets them re-elected.
But the key to prosperity, to jobs, jobs, jobs, is not to rent them until corporate greed and shareholder expectations cause companies to seek a bigger patsy elsewhere.
Studies have shown increasing high school graduation rates has the same economic impact as luring a ThyssenKrupp. And the best incentive for a business you'd want in your state is an educated workforce, a healthy and safe community, and a stable government.
Alabama needs to invest in itself as if it were a business looking for a place to land.
Lowe's is no different from the others. Just another company seeking an unfair advantage in a government-subsidized marketplace.
That ain't capitalism. It's just greed. And foolishness.