The Bad News Report

[Matthew.Brendan]

I'm sure they could just rebrand as 'NC Mutual'

[lewy2000]

1 hour ago, Matthew.Brendan said:

I'm sure they could just rebrand as 'NC Mutual'

Heard it was going to be FortMillMutual.

[Crown]

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/energy/2016/03/duke-energy-eliminating-900-jobs-in-costcutting.html

Duke Energy’s job cuts in a recent cost-savings initiative involved 900 people, the vast majority of them in the Carolinas, according to a regulatory filing made by Duke.

[urbanlover568]

We are loosing business to SPARTANBURG!? WTH? 

Rite Aid to close Charlotte distribution center soon, affecting 270 workers

[kermit]

35 minutes ago, mpretori said:

We are loosing business to SPARTANBURG!? WTH? 

Rite Aid to close Charlotte distribution center soon, affecting 270 workers

meh, Rite Aid is unlikely to exist in a year if their merger with Walgreens collapses, if the merger happens, Walgreens is unlikely to keep the Charlotte distro center.

Edited March 9, 2016 by kermit

[urbanlover568]

Just now, kermit said:

meh, Rite Aid is unlikely to exist in a year if their merger with Walgreens collapses.

Hope so. But just the notion of them moving to Spartanburg is just confusing as hell. It seems like blue collar jobs are leaving and more white collar jobs are coming in. Isn't bad IMO, just means the city is evolving. 

[kermit]

1 minute ago, mpretori said:

Hope so. But just the notion of them moving to Spartanburg is just confusing as hell. It seems like blue collar jobs are leaving and more white collar jobs are coming in. Isn't bad IMO, just means the city is evolving. 

Trying to maintain our status as a cheap place for production and distribution activities is really not in our best interest. The sooner we move beyond our (low-wage, low-skill) blue collar roots the better!

[CLT2014]

8 minutes ago, mpretori said:

Hope so. But just the notion of them moving to Spartanburg is just confusing as hell. It seems like blue collar jobs are leaving and more white collar jobs are coming in. Isn't bad IMO, just means the city is evolving. 

This is a business decision. We win some distribution jobs and lose other ones. Spartanburg probably had cheaper land for them to build their own facility, lower cost of living, and less traffic. Also, by picking a neutral site, none of the 3 facilities being closed "won." All of the employees are being fired and told to apply at Spartanburg so they are starting fresh with a new culture at one site. Rather than the Charlotte site winning the consolidation of the WV and TN sites and having a culture that "they were here first." Stuff like this goes into corporate decision making.

Side note... their Charlotte facility near Uptown is ancient looking. I don't blame them for wanting a new facility. 

Edited March 9, 2016 by CLT2014

[urbanlover568]

1 minute ago, CLT2014 said:

This is a business decision. We win some distribution jobs and lose other ones. Spartanburg probably had cheaper land for them to build their own facility, lower cost of living, and less traffic. Also, by picking a neutral site, none of the 3 facilities being closed "won." All of the employees are being fired and told to apply at Spartanburg so they are starting fresh with a new culture at one site. Rather than the Charlotte site winning the consolidation and having a culture that "they were here first." Stuff like this goes into decision making.

Yea, thats what im thinking. Cost of living continues to go up here, so it would make it harder for workers to make a living or savings here. That's why i also said that replacing them in numbers will be white collar workers. 

[HopHead]

About that whole cost of living thing... rents in Charlotte now make it the 21st most expensive place to live. Up 6.5% from last year. While obviously we aren't at San Francisco or NYC rents, it's becoming more of a factor related to the above and blue collar jobs.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/development/article64803877.html

[videtur quam contuor]

It was about 20 years ago that I realized that every workman, tradesman, handyman, repair man that was at my house of at other homes in the neighborhood actually lived outside Mecklenburg. A few had their his company located in Meck, but his personal home was elsewhere. Where does a tradesman salary buy a decent family home, good schools, reasonable safety In Charlotte? I think I have the answer.

[Silicon Dogwoods]

6 hours ago, tarhoosier said:

It was about 20 years ago that I realized that every workman, tradesman, handyman, repair man that was at my house of at other homes in the neighborhood actually lived outside Mecklenburg. A few had their his company located in Meck, but his personal home was elsewhere. Where does a tradesman salary buy a decent family home, good schools, reasonable safety In Charlotte? I think I have the answer.

I just finished a bathroom remodel and some of the guys (they were all guys) lived in Charlotte and some in Cabarrus, York, elsewhere.

As I always say about San Francisco, there is no right to live somewhere just because you want to. If you can't afford it, you can't afford it.

But it's very important that all those people you list and many others can afford to live decent, comfortable lives that include good educations for their kids and health care when they're sick.

Even if that isn't in Charlotte.

[Spartan]

On 3/8/2016 at 1:42 PM, CLT2014 said:

This is a business decision. We win some distribution jobs and lose other ones. Spartanburg probably had cheaper land for them to build their own facility, lower cost of living, and less traffic. Also, by picking a neutral site, none of the 3 facilities being closed "won." All of the employees are being fired and told to apply at Spartanburg so they are starting fresh with a new culture at one site. Rather than the Charlotte site winning the consolidation of the WV and TN sites and having a culture that "they were here first." Stuff like this goes into corporate decision making.

Side note... their Charlotte facility near Uptown is ancient looking. I don't blame them for wanting a new facility. 

Spartanburg also has cheaper labor and Nikki Haley probably gave them zero taxes for 25,000 years and a 20year bottle of scotch. South Carolina in general is a great place for factories who want low cost of operations, low taxes, low cost of labor. IMO, South Carolina in general is probably too focused on the blue collar side of employment development. Growth in white collar jobs seems to be primarily related to the small percentage of white collar jobs associated with industrial operations and service-based FIRE businesses. You see some white collar growth in Greenville, Columbia, and Charleston, but outside of that its few and far between.

Somewhat ironically, Spartanburg has been having the discussion about the fact that they are getting a lot of blue collar jobs and losing white collar jobs; mostly to Greenville, but Charlotte is in there too (Sealed Air, Extended Stay America Hotels, etc). We lost CH2M (formerly Lockwood-Greene), an engineering firm that was founded in Spartanburg and designed most of the railroads in the Carolinas that wanted to move to Greenville. City leaders threw everything they had at them to get them to stay, but to no avail.

Anyway, I guess my point is that there are two sides to this economic development coin. Just something to think about.

 

[Nick2]

For SC, there is just a trend of white collar jobs concentrating to only the largest cities. I'm sure it would be similar for most of the country. As far as blue collar goes, sometimes those are better for the local economy and can also pay decently well depending on the situation.

Cities are also tending to focus more and more on a specific targeted industry to represent in their business districts. Columbia has aggressively pursued insurance and is a major hub for it. Columbia is also booming on the manufacturing side of things too. I had a professor that I had a few conversations with in his offices. He was the  President and CEO of Central SC Alliance for Economic Development. He was very confident in the region and state to be able to attract new and expand existing industries due to the expansive incentives available. 

Maybe NC could pick up some potential good incentives to enact as well.

[Silicon Dogwoods]

23 hours ago, Nick2 said:

For SC, there is just a trend of white collar jobs concentrating to only the largest cities. I'm sure it would be similar for most of the country. As far as blue collar goes, sometimes those are better for the local economy and can also pay decently well depending on the situation.

Cities are also tending to focus more and more on a specific targeted industry to represent in their business districts. Columbia has aggressively pursued insurance and is a major hub for it. Columbia is also booming on the manufacturing side of things too. I had a professor that I had a few conversations with in his offices. He was the  President and CEO of Central SC Alliance for Economic Development. He was very confident in the region and state to be able to attract new and expand existing industries due to the expansive incentives available. 

Maybe NC could pick up some potential good incentives to enact as well.

The  governor and the General Assembly  just had a huge dispute over this.

State recruiters came away with a  small incentives package  with fairly onerous restrictions.

For many historical, financial and ideological reasons, we are unlikely to ever match other Carolina's incentives.

 

[Deleted.]

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2016/03/22/nearly-200-jobs-affected-by-new-layoff-notices-in.html

Out of the 4,985 job losses in NC in 2016 so far, 3,828 have affected CLT. Ouch!

[Spartan]

I moved the discussion of the NC Republican Party's discrimination enabling act to this thread in the coffee house:

 

[kermit]

A symbolic blow to the state's tech sector:

"Separately Friday, the venture capital arm of Google's parent corporation confirmed it won't invest in North Carolina startup businesses while the law is in place. GV spokeswoman Jodi Olson cited written comments by CEO Bill Maris in which he asked his firm's partners to flag possible North Carolina investments because he's "not comfortable deploying dollars into startups there until the voters there fix this." The move was first reported by Re/code, a tech-focused news site."

from: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pressure-mounting-on-north-carolina-over-controversial-discrimination-law/

 

[Silicon Dogwoods]

4 hours ago, kermit said:

A symbolic blow to the state's tech sector:

"Separately Friday, the venture capital arm of Google's parent corporation confirmed it won't invest in North Carolina startup businesses while the law is in place. GV spokeswoman Jodi Olson cited written comments by CEO Bill Maris in which he asked his firm's partners to flag possible North Carolina investments because he's "not comfortable deploying dollars into startups there until the voters there fix this." The move was first reported by Re/code, a tech-focused news site."

from: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pressure-mounting-on-north-carolina-over-controversial-discrimination-law/

 

Like water off a duck's back, as my mom once might have said.

The average GOP voter don't [sic] care about no [sic] venture capital. Some of them don't even know what that is.

It will take the loss of actual high-profile jobs to get this law repealed. And even then, the average small-town GOP voter will just rejoice that some Yankees will be leaving North Carolina.

Much if not most of the GOP electorate in North Carolina is just this stupid and bamboozled by religion.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Silicon Dogwoods

[caterpillar2]

1 hour ago, Silicon Dogwoods said:

Like water off a duck's back, as my mom once might have said.

The average GOP voter don't [sic] care about no [sic] venture capital. Some of them don't even know what that is.

It will take the loss of actual high-profile jobs to get this law repealed. And even then, the average small-town GOP voter will just rejoice that some Yankees will be leaving North Carolina.

Much if not most of the GOP electorate in North Carolina is just this stupid and bamboozled by religion.

Like many of us have always said, I-77 and I-65 goes north too. Gee, we'll miss them.

Edited April 2, 2016 by caterpillar2

[jednc]

2 hours ago, Silicon Dogwoods said:

Like water off a duck's back, as my mom once might have said.

The average GOP voter don't [sic] care about no [sic] venture capital. Some of them don't even know what that is.

It will take the loss of actual high-profile jobs to get this law repealed. And even then, the average small-town GOP voter will just rejoice that some Yankees will be leaving North Carolina.

Much if not most of the GOP electorate in North Carolina is just this stupid and bamboozled by religion.

Whew...

This Republican knows exactly what venture capital is. The attacks on religion are getting a little old as well. Please don't be so small-minded as to confuse the religious argument for this law as somehow representative of all Christians or even most Christians. I'm fortunate enough to know many, many, many, many Christians who don't come close to fitting into this mold you seem to think everyone who goes to church is made from.

And for the record, I'm sure I could find more than a few Democrats who aren't the brightest bulbs in their respective sockets.

As long as I'm replying to a post about Google Ventures withdrawing their support from NC...I'd be interested to know the amount annually they pour into NC start-ups and expanding enterprises. Perhaps this is nothing more than symbolic opposition to the new law anyway?

[Niner National]

4 minutes ago, jednc said:

Whew...

This Republican knows exactly what venture capital is. The attacks on religion are getting a little old as well. Please don't be so small-minded as to confuse the religious argument for this law as somehow representative of all Christians or even most Christians. I'm fortunate enough to know many, many, many, many Christians who don't come close to fitting into this mold you seem to think everyone who goes to church is made from.

And for the record, I'm sure I could find more than a few Democrats who aren't the brightest bulbs in their respective sockets.

As long as I'm replying to a post about Google Ventures withdrawing their support from NC...I'd be interested to know the amount annually they pour into NC start-ups and expanding enterprises. Perhaps this is nothing more than symbolic opposition to the new law anyway?

It's probably more symbolic than anything. Their total assets are $3 billion. Not that that is a small amount of money, but it looks like most of their investments are in silicon valley / west coast / other tech centers.

[Silicon Dogwoods]

4 hours ago, jednc said:

Whew...

This Republican knows exactly what venture capital is. The attacks on religion are getting a little old as well. Please don't be so small-minded as to confuse the religious argument for this law as somehow representative of all Christians or even most Christians. I'm fortunate enough to know many, many, many, many Christians who don't come close to fitting into this mold you seem to think everyone who goes to church is made from.

And for the record, I'm sure I could find more than a few Democrats who aren't the brightest bulbs in their respective sockets.

As long as I'm replying to a post about Google Ventures withdrawing their support from NC...I'd be interested to know the amount annually they pour into NC start-ups and expanding enterprises. Perhaps this is nothing more than symbolic opposition to the new law anyway?

Then if this isn't you, would you please speak up? Would you tell your church members the long-term damage this law is likely to do?

Charlotte is nothing more than red clay, gumption, bootstraps and luck. Over the years, it has built itself into an important city. It doesn't deserve this sucker punch by North Carolina Republicans. I have transgendered colleagues. A family in my church has a transgendered child. They don't deserve this, either. I must speak up for them.  And yes, I'm a gay man but my primary concerns are for Charlotte and transgendered colleagues and friends.

Charlotte has been made the whipping boy way too often in this state and I'm beyond tired of it, especially when we produce some 23% of the state's GDP. We have a very bright future but not if we're dragged backward for political reasons and held up to national and international ridicule and contempt and scorn. And make no mistake, this is not about bathroom safety. That's just the sorry hook. It's all about politics: ginning up dollars and votes, backhanding Charlotte and other North Carolina cities, forcing Pat McCrory to toe the far-right line as usual, spineless toad that he is.

I'm a Charlotte native. I will not be silent in the face of this assault on the city I love and my professional colleagues and friends. Some 200 US cities and counties already have gender identity protection on the books. But North Carolina Republicans could not let Charlotte govern itself and join them. Instead, they proved to everyone how grindingly hateful and backwards they are.

Shockingly, I have come to learn that there is no bright future for Charlotte so long as Republicans are in control of North Carolina. Never thought I would say that. North Carolina Republicans are, as my grandfather used to say, 'bad for bidness' and highly damaging to Charlotte. They make down east Democrats look like champions for Charlotte by comparison. 

Edited April 3, 2016 by Silicon Dogwoods

[GeauxCLT]

I thought we agreed to move opinionated rants to the coffe house? 

[Spartan]

We did. If there's a direct connection to economic development then please post it here and keep the conversation on the topic of economic development. The law is highly controversial and people have strong opinions on it... Let's just keep it civil and share those opinions in the appropriate thread.