Well, I’m sure there was a bit more diplomacy than that. But I’d like to believe that a not-so-small part of Comerica Bank’s (NYSE: CMA) relocation decision has to do with Michigan’s unfriendly-to-business policies, including a forthcoming 2% tax on services (like banking). Yesterday morning, Michigan Governeror Jennifer Granholm had the following to say about Comerica Bank’s announcement that it would be relocating its headquarters, from Michigan, to Texas:

Leaving aside the fact that Granholm routinely and hypocritically advocates “community”-oriented policy, with negligent disregard for the economic incentives (or, usually disincentives) such policies create for businesses – most of whom are having a rough enough go in Michigan without her “help,” and leaving aside the fact that business don’t really pay taxes, they only collect them for the government, from the “community,” it is all about money and anyone who tells you otherwise is a self-identified ignoramus. Making decisions on the basis of community! FreePress writer, Tom Walsh excoriates Granholm’s pervasive ignorance of general business principles:

But think for a minute about the implication[s of not putting] shareholders first. Perhaps banks should make whopping loans to the locals at 0% interest — the community would love that — even though bank shareholders would lose everything in the inevitable bankruptcy.

Anyone who has taken “Intro to Business & Entrepreneurship” at the local community college understands that businesses are owned by, and the property of, the shareholders who have put forth their capital in order to ensure that the workers get paychecks and that the utilities and rents get paid, in the hopes that one day in the future, the “community” just might purchase enough of the business’ product to justify the investment. Business, generally, is spending a heckuva lot of money now and in the near future, and hoping to make a comparatively modest return only in the more distant future. A business venture is a gamble, albeit a calculated one. But when the business you run is losing money – or if the opportunities are greater elsewhere, you are doing a disservice to the only people in whose best interest you are ethically and legally obliged to act: the shareholders.

But the “community” may decide it has no need for your product, whatsoever, and the entire investment is lost. Or, the “community” will coldly turn its back on you when your competitor delivers a better or cheaper product. The “community” owes you nothing, and it gave you nothing. To pretend that businesses owe some debt of gratitude to such an unforgiving bitch as the “community” is, in the nicest possible light, an absolute denial of property rights, and individual sovereignty.

It is an argument extolling the virtues of bondage.