The following appeared in a memo from the mayor of Brindleburg to the citycouncil.
"Two years ago, the town of Seaside Vista opened a new municipal golfcourse and resort hotel. Since then, the Seaside Vista Tourism Board hasreported a 20% increase in visitors. In addition, local banks reported a steeprise in the number of new business loan applications they received this year.The amount of tax money collected by Seaside Vista has also increased, allowingthe town to announce plans to improve Seaside Vista's roads and bridges. Werecommend building a similar golf course and resort hotel in Brindleburg. Wepredict that this project will generate additional tax revenue that the citycan use to fund much-needed public improvements."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to beanswered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have thepredicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions wouldhelp to evaluate the recommendation.
==============================================================================
==============================================================================
While it might be true that the Brindleburg government should build asimilar golf course and resort hotel in the city, the mayor doesn't make acogent inference in this memo. We can easily tell that the government wants toearn more money by tax and uses it to fund some public improvements, but thisargument is rife with holes and weak assumptions. Hence, readers can come upwith many questions which will make the mayor's recommendation unconvincing.
By talking about the 20% increase in visitors after the beginning of golfcourse and resort hotel, the mayor wants to connect this one-period blossom oftourism in Seaside Vista to the building the new municipal golf course andresort hotel. But we have to consider the assumptions of this seeminglyreasonable connection. Are those 20% more tourists are really attracted by thegolf course and resort hotel? Is it the start of the usual busy season fortraveling to Seaside Vista just after this action? Is the statistical datareported by the Seaside Vista Tourism Board correct? Does the tourism boardcheat to boast so that it can arouse more interests of people? Indeed thesehidden factors can effectively prevent the building recommendation from beingtaken into account. Unless a further comprehensive survey is held to make sureof all of these possibilities, what the mayor says in this memo is notpersuasive enough.
Likewise, the author cites the example that after the action by SeasideVista, local banks experienced a steep rise in number of new business loanapplications. This information is quite ambiguous and vague. Although thenumber of new business loan applications went up, it was quite possible thatthe total amount of money they applied decreased because each bill became less.Granted that the total amount of loans increase, there were probable otherreasons that caused it rather than the new golf course and resort hotel. Didthe interest rate for loans go down? Or was the stock market experience an uptickduring that period of time? Did the investing policy encourage firms to loanmoney from banks? To evaluate and answer these questions can effectively helpthe city government recognize the real causes of this phenomenon, and anappropriate borrow will make sense in Brindleburg.
Last, the author doesn't consider the opportunity costs of building thesimilar golf course and resort hotel so he claims the additional tax revenuegenerated by this project can fund public improvements. Many costs will be paidby the government deriving from this project. For instance, the money usedbuilding and maintaining the course and hotel may be quite a lot. Consequently,the taxes made from running this project can possibly even less than thegovernment costs on it. Furthermore, it may be hard to find a site to build thehotel and we are likely to achieve this project in the expense of destroying apiece of nice forest or a peaceful lake in the city. Obviously, we will neveragree to the mayor's recommendation if the marginal costs for it are muchgreater than the benefits of it.
Prosperity of Brindleburg is no doubt needed by the people and thegovernment. Nevertheless, whether we should achieve it by this similar projectborrowed from Seaside Vista need to be scrutinized. To strengthen the mayor'sargument, some more information has to be offered and many questions need to beanswered in this memo. Otherwise, the argument can be easily toppled and turnedout to be unwarranted. | 
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2013-1-13 14:56:16
收藏
收藏
楼主
