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Business Flees California
Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com
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8 Responses to “Business Flees California”
LOL. So true.
Back in the 1980s, the major aerospace/defense contractor that I worked for served notice on Sacramento that because of oppressive regulations and taxes, they would never again open any facilities in the state of California. They stuck to it, eventually moving nearly all their manufacturing facilities to other states.
Both of you earlier users are correct. This California native knows the problem of exporting of jobs and trained people all too well, too.
The only thing holding some businesses back is the perceived inability to get people to relocate (at the employees' own expense, which has been the norm for years now) to cheaper places that are perceived as less desireable. When I was in Seattle metro, one company I was at for a while wanted to close its Seattle-metro and its Florida locations and relocate everything to the Great Plains. In this case with an exception situation of dependence on highly-trained people, these people revolted and made it clear they would quit and work elsewhere while continuing to live in Seattle metro or in Florida, so the idea was scrapped. This may be the one (1) thing that prevented Boeing's manufacturing and assembly of aircraft from being relocated from Seattle (Washington is notoriously liberal and antagonistic to business) to Wichita.
Note that the cartoon (perhaps inadvertently) depicts “spinoff” from California, which is largely, even to this day, primarily a Western USA phenomeon. (As one commentator said when I was growing up there, “If the Founders had first come to California, would they ever have bothered to go to the east?”)
I've since seen some people from California going to, say, Atlanta and to Washington, DC (which is a very expensive place for housing, etc., but which also remained a tremendous bargain compared to California), though I have to temper that observation with the thought that these may have been “transplants” that had gone to California and come back east after the boom went bust.
As a former Kansas, I must admit that Wichita is a horrible city. Had I been a Boeing worker living in WA or FL…I would have done the same.
Wichita…all of the gang violence of Los Angeles, Klan members of Mississipi, heat of Texas and cold of Canada that you'll ever need. Oh, and our schools suck too…and you're a 6 hour plane ride to the ocean.
“Had I been a Boeing worker living in WA or FL…I would have done the same.”
In better times (and we could see this now, with some Dems, if they want to fortify the businesses they want to tax as part of the health care nonsense), you know what would happen. The employers in the less desireable places would claim there's a “labor shortage” and import more foreigners on H1-B visas.
[grin]
“As a former Kansas, I must admit that Wichita is a horrible city.”
Note to Shannon Lee: The company I was at was going to relocate positions from Seattle metro (Redmond, near the Microsoft campus but this company was not Microsoft) and Melbourne, FL, to Olathe.
I have visited the site (I've lived and traveled everywhere by now). Near the Olathe facility there was a big tree — and if I recall, that was no other tree visible in any direction. (This was Great Plains, definitely removed from Kansas City metro proper.)
I grew up in Olathe. We had more than one tree, 3 if I recall correctly.
Olathe is actually a great place to relocate to, if you don't mind the radical weather and the sometimes ultraconservative population.