Gov. Nathan Deal this morning announced that Baxter International, a major medical company, plans to locate a bio-pharmaceutical manufacturing facility 40 miles east of Atlanta along I-20. The company's production center, which state officials say would be a $1 billion investment, is expected to create approximately 1,500 jobs. So says the Governor's office:

Baxter’s new Georgia facility will manufacture plasma-based therapies that treat chronic and life-threatening illnesses. The new facility will be located in Stanton Springs, a business park that spans Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton counties. The operation will also include warehouse and distribution facilities. In addition to the manufacturing facility, Baxter will locate plasma centers in a number of communities around the state.

[...]

Plasma protein fractionation, the process of separating plasma into its components, is the largest industry segment in global therapeutic protein manufacture. The $14 billion global industry supplies products to more than one million patients each year. The United States provides more than 50 percent of the world’s plasma supply, and Baxter is among the world’s leading producers.

Now, let's find out about what kind of incentives it took to lure the company here.

• WIKIMEDIA
• Prom 2012: A night you will definitely forget

Financial types are lamenting this, particularly the fact that poor people plan to spend even more than that — $2,635. Says Jason Alderman, director of Visa's financial education programs, "This is social-arms-race spending. It's extreme.

"Prom season spending is spiraling out of control. It's important to remember that the prom is a high school dance, not a wedding, and parents need to set limits in order to demonstrate financial responsibility."

OK, so parents could deprive their children a fancy dinner at Benihana, a limo bus with a stripper pole, and a set of french manicured acrylic nails to teach them a lesson about financial responsibility. OR, they could indulge their pimply progeny, splurge on all of the above, and teach them the most important lesson of all: Any event that you spend a lot of time, money, and energy preparing for will fail to live up to your expectations. Prom is among the first in a lifetime filled disappointments — and that's what makes it a rite of passage.

Did anyone have a really great prom? I vaguely remember having dinner at Buca di Beppo — HIGH CLASS — spilling beer on my dress before we got to the dance, wanting to leave the dance almost immediately after we got there, and then getting drunk at a hotel party, which was a thing we could have done any old weekend. I definitely remember that I really hated my date Gary, who'd graduated from another high school a year earlier, and who I literally never saw again after we left the dance. The entire thing was a letdown. And, look, I'm a better person for it today. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

A day after Bloomberg Businessweek called Georgians "suckers" for blowing so much of their woefully meager household incomes on lottery tickets, the Georgia Lottery tweeted this pic of Austell, Ga. resident and "Decades of Dollars" winner Vilmer Meyer (great name) holding a big-ass check in the Smyrna convenience store where she bought her winning ticket.

Sticks and stones may break our bones, Bloomberg, but words are overshadowed by pictures of people holding comically large checks for millions of dollars.

Georgians spend $50 billion dollars a year on lottery tickets [Actually, AMERICANS spend $50billion a year on lottery tickets — the article doesn't say how much Georgians spend total.] That's $470 on average or about one percent of their already below-average incomes. Massachusetts spent more on lottery tickets, but also had the highest return in the form of prize payouts. Georgia ranked second in terms of the amount its residents spend on tickets, but only ranked sixth in prize payouts.

Anyway, Bloomberg's "sucker index" says this makes Georgians the biggest suckers of them all. Does it really mean we're suckers? Or does it just mean we just really, really excel at throwing our money away?

The poor appear to excel at it, anyway ...

You’re taking from those with few means and helping those with more means,” Charles Clotfelter, a Duke University economics professor, said from Durham, North Carolina. “To link that tax revenue to a benefit that goes largely to middle-and upper-class citizens is a little stunning.”

“It’s a pro-rich wealth-redistribution technique in Georgia,” Clotfelter, co-author of “Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America,” said in a telephone interview.

And, of course, the HOPE scholarship is in danger anyway. If you'll recall ...

Last year, with the lottery-funded programs facing a $300 million deficit and “on the brink of bankruptcy,” Governor Nathan Deal enacted scholarship changes that raised grades and test scores for eligibility, eliminated funding for books and fees and cut payments for remedial classes. He also cut the pre- kindergarten program to 160 days from 180.

H/T AJC's News to Me blog.

Also, more power to Sara Blakely, the 41-year-old Atlanta woman who created Spanx and is now a billionaire as a result. Sorry, "the youngest female self-made billionaire in the world." (And the youngest-looking 41-year-old in the world.)

From Forbes:

Sara Blakely was 29 when she invested her entire life savings, $5,000, trying to come up with something flattering to wear under her white slacks. Six months later, the one-time Disney World ride greeter and door-to-door fax machine salesperson found her new line of shaping underwear, Spanx, named one of Oprah Winfrey's Favorite Things. Since then, Blakely has taken Spanx from a one-product wonder sold out of her Atlanta apartment to a billion-dollar powerhouse with just under $250 million in annual revenues and net profit margins estimated at 20%. She owns 100% of the private company, has never advertised and never taken outside investment. Blakely turned 41 in February, making her the youngest female self-made billionaire in the world.

Again, Happy International Women's Day.

What about the book? Since you asked, New York Times critic Michio Kakutani says that it's a few books in one: "It’s a lucid one-man rebuttal of the Tea Party’s anti-government agenda. A series of shrewd talking points for Democrats trying to hold on to the White House and battling for control of Congress in the midst of a sour economy and growing voter discontent. A self-serving reminder of the prosperity the country enjoyed during Mr. Clinton’s tenure in the White House, meant to burnish his legacy. And a practical set of proposals — some borrowed and some new, some innovative and some highly sketchy — for restoring economic growth and creating jobs." Sounds stressful. Probably best to stick to the "Remember how sweet it was when I was President" chapters.

So there you have it, put on your favorite blue dress and head over to your favorite big box book retailer and get yourself a copy signed by the coolest dude ever. On a side note, you will be my personal hero if you get him to sign as "Dirty Bill Clinton" or any version of any lyric from Goodie Mob, for that matter.

• WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Those offices, by the way, are:
Atlanta Main Post Office
3900 Crown Road SW, Atlanta
(Open until midnight)

Decatur Main Post Office
520 W Ponce de Leon Ave, Decatur
(Open until 9 p.m.)

Boggs Road Postal Store
1605 Boggs Road, Duluth
(Open until midnight)

Marietta Main Post Office
257 Lawrence Street NE, Marietta
(Open until 8 p.m.)

Mount Bethel Station
4455 Lower Roswell Road, Marietta
(Open until 8 p.m.)

(List from the home of The Tough Questions ™ !)

In the meantime, Slate's Explainer has a guide to all sorts of exotic tax dodges with examples from a certain ubiquitous Internet search company that made use of some of these dodges. Couple that with what Bobby Feingold posted earlier about the wealthiest taxpayers and those who paid nothing at all, and it's one heck of a Tax Day, isn't it?