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Balance is certainly key, but I don't buy the "unions crippled the auto makers" line wholesale.
Management was equally culpable. My personal view is that it's a lot like the steel industry in the 1970s. Management and labor just didn't pay any attention to the world outside their own 2-party competition for dollars. Labor demanded wage rates that were absurdly high for the skill involved (train for 2 weeks and get $50K in 1970 dollars), and management gave it to them. Then management paid high salaries to themselves, and dividends on the stock instead of modernizing the mills.
There's a great book about Big Steel, titled "And the Wolf Finally Came" by John Hoerr. The author is basically a labor-oriented guy, but he was very clear-eyed about how labor shared the blame with management for driving the industry into a position where they couldn't compete. More a 'race for the top' than anything else.
Interestingly, nobody bailed out Big Steel. It went away and got replaced by a very small but more productive steel industry. Still, one has to wonder if the industry could have survived had labor and management been smarter.
I went to college at Lehigh University in Bethlehem. When I was there, I could see the immense and impressive Bethlehem Works from my room window; it was a complex of production units that extended for miles along the Lehigh River.
HeadedWest:"Interestingly, nobody bailed out Big Steel. It went away and got replaced by a very small but more productive steel industry."
Thank God. This is how it should be; demand wage rates not in sync with skill level. Lose jobs. Lesson learned. Productivity, combined with a sensible wage structure, will keep the new jobs secure.
If you want more you'll have to either wait till I'm out of work and watch my movie, or shift through my previous posts where I already found the information.
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Originally Posted by HeadedWest
Using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, Dallas Fed economists looked at state-by-state employment changes since June 2009, when the recession ended. Texas added 265,300 net jobs, out of the 722,200 nationwide, and by far outpaced every other state.
Don't say those are crappy jobs unless you can provide data to back up such a claim.
Provide data that they are good jobs. I will admit TX has one thing going for it: the petrochemical industry is booming there. But if oil drops in profitability like it should with reform of the futures markets and the natural wane of costs that whole sector will be in the deep.
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Originally Posted by HeadedWest
Exactly how would you plan to address this nationally?
Honestly, I couldn't fathom a response. I don't know the areas that well, but what they are going through has been awful from people I've talked to.
Bobtn,
You only hear what you want to hear. You took the UTC's presidents speech out of context, and ignored everything else he had to say then and since. You made your choice, and I'll give it to you it might've been the right one. But I think the situation is different. I don't think Nashville is what you claim it to be, even for yourself. It smacks of incredible buyers remorse, a heroin addict that is not too happy of his or her choice but tries to explain it in positive terms to lure people into wallowing with them.
You're a true believer I get that, but I'm not one for the idea of outside easy salvation. No company will come to CT and make my life easier, nor do I expect them to. That doesn't mean I'd rather my peers to have a shot at their own businesses and good solid work, as our parents did, and though its' very soul crushing and hard work at the end of the day we have something to show for it. That takes a support system that, yes, the government needs to help out with. We might not get the chance to live in mansions or drive the fanciest of cars but when we start a family if our culture maintains they will have an educational system we can be proud of and maybe have the chance to compete with anyone should they choose to. Something apparently your low tax haven of TN isn't doing because they have to import all of their top talent.
There's a great book about Big Steel, titled "And the Wolf Finally Came" by John Hoerr. The author is basically a labor-oriented guy, but he was very clear-eyed about how labor shared the blame with management for driving the industry into a position where they couldn't compete. More a 'race for the top' than anything else.
Exactly. It came from all angles. And don't get me wrong I think labour really missed the boat then, but to blame it all on them is wrong on its' face.
Although the loss of steel was bad for PA, it would've been eclipsed by the fall of the auto industry for MI. The Government made a loan, and collected a good portion of it back in a fairly short time. That said however, the big three did eventually see problems and fierce competition so they worked to solve some of the issues. Labour and management at a lot of factories started to get along, lines were upgraded, brands that had no business in the business were starting to be spun out. The problem they faced in 2008 was a credit crisis outside of their control, not so much the problems of old that were both of labour, governments, and managements doing.
I read the full UTC statement (as well as AETNA's), and UTC follow-up analysis covered by the Courant, Times, etc, as well as Bloomberg and Reuter reports on the things they had covered with analysts, one of which is their low-cost/high-cost state employment ratio.
Their Ct employment peaked, no doubt, in the past, and now its just a matter, like UBS, of seeing how much of what you have can be retained.
Beeker:"No company will come to CT"
I fully agree, unless like Starwood, their entire cost gap and than some is covered by the taxpayers.
Buyers remorse-not a bit. Is any area Nirvana-no, but we have sane levels of gov't and taxation, thus relos are an annuity for us. We'll get our share and than some, every single year. We'll score coups like Nissan's hq, and Chattanooga's VW, and of ,course,LP's hq, plus Dell. Most of all, we will not lose our relos, ala UBS/RBS (or numerous others amongst Stamfords' 25% office vacancy rate pre UBS changes). Several of our relos have increased their employment and square footage AFTER fulfilling any incentive agreements. That's the real test. Also, they have worked to recruit more corps, via executive affiliations/word-of-mouth.
BTW, Malloys' last UBS interview sounds concessionary regarding their Ct future.
Over 3 dozen family fled Ct for various Southern states (East and West); none are returning, although at least 2/3, including me, could easily do so. The same economic factors that plagued Ct when we left remain unsolved, and generally, worse than ever. Now a Christie or Andy Cuomo might be able to change that. I hope one awaits your state. Otherwise, your being amongst the oldest median age states will worsen, and like SS/Medicare, that means todays Ct budget woes will get far worse.
PS,Nashvilles student population is immense. Actually, far larger than Southern Ct. They take over vast parts of town for most of the year, and unlike Ct's brain drain, most stay here. They have good reason, too..opportunity in the future (Jane-Smith covered that beautifully)..not just the past. Just like most RTW states.
ctwhitechin"I just don't see the future in this place as far as attracting new business. Has Molloy mentioned any plan for that?"
51 new taxes effective 7/1/2011. Some of them were shovel-ready, too. The Malloy plan.
Malloy has been in office about six months...
He inherited a state in financial crisis mode and had a mandate to correct things. He ran saying he was going to do so without decimating state services and that tax increases were a possibility. He has done precisely that. The plan is far from perfect, but also more than Rell did in her whole time in office.
Lots, of bellyaching, but Malloy did exactly what he said he would.
He has a fine record of attracting business to Stamford...Perhaps (just perhaps) if we let the guy breath just a bit, he will attract business to Connecticut just as he did Stamford.
The people made it very clear they wanted the financial house in order first. Let's see what he does over the next year.
Perhaps, mlassoff, opinion polls for DM would not rank amongst the nations' worst if union concessions FINALIZED and 51 new taxes were passed concurrently. Notice which one he led with. Notice no other gov followed, despite major budget woes. Not even Cuomo, who is correcting the mess his Dad made.
A mandate-since when is winning via ballots found at the last minute in a city ripe with corruption a mandate? Winning by less than 20% of union members votes became a mandate..LOL! Try a squeaker.
BTW, comparing him to Rell-LOL! Low expectations, folks. Like comparing oneself to the Detroit Lions. Walking upright beats Rell the last few years. Dems owned Hartford & Wethersfield, and she folded, instead of fighting.
But I do agree on the next year concept, with the caveat that the union moves, followed by DMs' if needed, will seal the fate of his next few years. That battle is his Carter Hostage Crisis, the one battle that will mold peoples' images of DM permanently if he fails, and aid his poll numbers if he succeeds.
Assuming the data is reasonably correct (and since it is survey results, not objective data, that is a non-trivial issue) I think one reason Texas might be high is not a state-wide issue but the huge concentration of poverty in the lower Rio Grande valley.
A distinctive characteristic of Texas poverty is the concentration of extremely low-income communities along the Texas-Mexican border. Universally referred to as colonias, these settlements date back to perhaps the 1950s. They consist of irregular communities, generally created on unincorporated country land, that for the most part initially lack most basic facilities - water, sewerage, electricity, paved streets and sidewalks, and the like - and where much of the housing is at least initially self-help and substandard. In many ways they closely resemble the ubiquitous squatter settlements or shanty towns of Third World cities. ...
Colonias fill a need for low-income housing, which exists in limited supply in border counties and cities. Most low-income households have little knowledge of, or access to, standard housing. They have no collateral for bank mortgages; their incomes are low and/or unpredictable; and a lack of English-language skills may prevent them from seeking assistance.
Many are migrant workers who come and go seasonally, and some are illegals who move across the border frequently. Little English is spoken in this area.
In my view, the existence of these colonias is a scandal, and should be embarrassing to everybody. My assumption has always been that the people who created them were and are local political heavyweights who can make the county government turn a blind eye. (Just to forestall a potential derailing argument, the lower Rio Grande valley is solid "blue" territory politically.)
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If you want more you'll have to either wait till I'm out of work and watch my movie, or shift through my previous posts where I already found the information.
I would like any non-survey data you can provide.
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Provide data that they are good jobs. I will admit TX has one thing going for it: the petrochemical industry is booming there. But if oil drops in profitability like it should with reform of the futures markets and the natural wane of costs that whole sector will be in the deep.
Texas has all kinds of jobs, from retail to service to industrial to farm to oil to insurance ... the health centers in Houston are world famous, and Dallas and San Antonio have also become major centers for healthcare and research. It's a huge state with a diverse economy. Of all the states in the US, I think it's the one that would be most viable as its own country. (At one time California would have won that race, but it is currently run by insane people.)
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Honestly, I couldn't fathom a response. I don't know the areas that well, but what they are going through has been awful from people I've talked to.
Think about why your first reaction was (implictly) some kind of national economic planning initiative.
Although the loss of steel was bad for PA, it would've been eclipsed by the fall of the auto industry for MI.
I am guessing you weren't around in the 1970s. The steel industry was one of the top 2 or 3 industries in the US post WW2. PA was the home of Big Steel but the companies had facilities all over the country.
Here's where a lack of history hurts; we already knew what happens when a major industry blows up. It was painful, but less painful than blowing up the whole economy to prop up a failed business.
Too bad we couldn't figure that out this time.
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