Last updated on 2021-10-12
Along with his guest column yesterday, law professor and South Dakota Task Force on Trust Administration and Review member Thomas Simmons sent me an infographic Lemonly of Sioux Falls was commissioned to create for the task force to show the “Impact and Benefits of the Trust Industry in South Dakota.” This report, which Simmons says is frequently cited in Legislative discussions of the statutes he and the industry draft for our elected officials’ rubber stamp, appears to be the source for Republican claims that South Dakota trust companies employ hundreds of South Dakotans.
In 2018, the number of South Dakota jobs created was 450, earning a total of $30 million, or an average of just under $67,000 per employee. That beats the annual mean wage reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for all South Dakota jobs two years later in May 2020, $44,960, by $22,000. It’s pretty close to the average pay of $66,540 across the business and financial operations sector that BLS reported in May 2020:
Since the creation of this flyer, Dakota Wesleyan has canceled its trust management certificate program.
Lemonly calculates that the trust industry brings visitors from out-of-state offices for 2,000 night stays contributing $500,000 to the state economy. To put that number in perspective, in 2018, people who said one of their main reasons for traveling to Colorado was to buy marijuana contributed over 3,300 overnight stays to Colorado’s economy every night.
If we ascribe any literal meaning to the graphic filler at the bottom right corner of the second page, Lemonly concludes that the benefits of trust company employment and business visitors, as represented by those gleaming gold coins, is twelve times greater than the single blue disk of risk that secret perpetual trusts pose to global democracy and the rule of law.
That 450 job number might be inflated, because they hedged by saying “…and banks with trust powers.” They need to explain that. Are those jobs all related to the trust function or does it include employees in other areas of a bank?
Well, prostitutes must conduct business SOMEWHERE.
Just like with the demon weed, people will go “somewhere” to get what they want and unlike the demon weed, these trusts are not hurting others, they just raise up the jealous envy of those who are coveting what others have.
The insular grudznick, he of the Colorado Chamber of Cannibis, is correct.
South Dakota needs weeds like it needs another ground blizzard in January.
VISIT COLORADO … you know; for the scenery #grins
Actually grudz, they are a place where people who make their money criminally off of other people can store their I’ll gotten gains and continue to have it grow. You really seem to defend these people, something from your childhood maybe? Breakfast indigestion perhaps.
That’s a great point, Mr. Lansing. If Colorado, the state of traffic jams and cannibis jellies, were to keep more of a stranglehold on the demon weed sales, well golly, wouldn’t that be swell for you guys? I’m sure it is the top notch fellows from Utah and Wyoming that trip up the road there to visit your fine, crime free metropolis.
Divining an alternate universe where Randy Scott is still cruising the Moody County back roads while a Hellbent Bill Janklow is lurking at every intersection in South Dakota’s ideological landscape is easier than imagining the decriminalization of Citibank’s prospectus.
But, a red moocher state like South Dakota is powered by sin: video lootery and a too-big-to-jail banking racket fill in the gaps created by lobbyists who enjoy the protection of single-party tyranny. Desperate to pay off those who benefit the entrenched Republican establishment criminals can always expect to have champions sitting as governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
In 2018 it was determined that the annual criminal costs of video lootery in South Dakota have soared to $42 million and the social costs an estimated $62 million. $9 million were lost because state and local sales taxes weren’t collected. When video lootery began in 1986 104 charges were filed for robbery, grand theft and aggravated theft. There were 1,037 cases in 1990 and in 2017 they went past 4,000 yet South Dakota continues to raise revenues off those least able to pay.
Crimes of opportunity in South Dakota have soared since then but to Republicans all that is a tiny price to pay for housing trillions.
That’s why the legislatures call it the “Stupid Tax”, Lar. As you and our common good friend Bill both know, you don’t have to have even an average intellect to be smart enough to not voluntarily pay grudznick’s property tax. But yet, I reap the rewards.
$3.7M in taxes an fees based on $365 (or so) billion doesn’t seem like a fair return, eh ?
Same old trickle down republicant nonsense in a different wrapper. 0.8% for you, while millions and billions for the trustees by evading generational estate taxes. They don’t give a damn about building our nation and improving its well-being.
“https://lemonly.com/ – WE MAKE INFOGRAPHICS. WANT ONE?”
In other words, if I pay them, they’ll put together a glossy double-sided infographic that will say anything I want it to say. What I want is the source material behind the infographic. Who told Lemonly that “In 2018, the number of South Dakota jobs created was 450, earning a total of $30 million, or an average of just under $67,000 per employee”? Where are the actual statistics? And for everything else? Where are the sources?
Meanwhile, the trust business stinks, much like the RV nomad industry did and does. The one in Madison – MyDakotaAddress – was shut down by the feds because it participated (we will never know if it was knowingly or unknowingly) with an interstate gang of car thieves by registering (i.e., laundering) stolen cars through South Dakota for future sales. Similarly, who knows what kind of money laundering is going on via these mysterious trusts? It just doesn’t matter who’s making money or isn’t – what matters is that it doesn’t pass the smell test.
average i.q. by state:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-iq-by-state
Lemony makes infographics for the same financial institution that regularly hosts seminars for the “future leaders” (politicians) of South Dakota.