Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations GregLocock on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

GEez, what a disaster! 3

Status
Not open for further replies.
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Sort by date Sort by votes
Last I knew Schenectady still had a few thousand GE employees, as did the surrounding municipalities. In any case, I don't know many who would fault GE or any other company for leaving NY after decades of abuse and esp the Capital Region. Not to get political outside of the pub, but the politicos there are especially skilled at giving monetary help to partially resolve the massive tax and regulatory issues they created to win small special-interest blocks of voters. Giving millions to help solve a problem requiring tens or hundreds of millions, often in the form of a slightly reduced tax burden.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Actually it has worked out for several companies to move from a high tax state or area, to a lower tax place. The taxes go down, and even with moving reimbursements, a company will still lose a good number of employees, which can work out if the company is looking to downsize anyway.
Also not to be political, but this is a business decision, as taxes affect the company bottom line.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
And lets not forget that states are 'competing' for these companies to relocate and so they are handing out, what to many people, seems like outrageous amounts of money in terms of tax-credits and taxpayer funded improvements such as streets, sewers and even a new exit off the freeway. For an example of how this doesn't always work out as planned, just look at the Foxconn deal in Wisconsin:

Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn

A huge tax break was supposed to create a manufacturing paradise, but interviews with 49 people familiar with the project depict a chaotic operation unlikely to ever employ 13,000 workers.


John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Competition has winners and losers. But not always what you expect.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Wisconsin seems to have backed out of the tax break package as well: They are only offering $80M if Foxconn attains 1454 jobs. So, despite Foxconn's denials and dissembling, they obviously couldn't come up with the employment levels they promised only 3 years ago.

But, that shouldn't be any surprise; companies figure out ways to take advantage of tax laws, and they come up with ways to take advantage of states' tax cuts/breaks. Otherwise, we'd have a glut of unemployed corporate tax lawyers, and that would be such a terrible tragedy.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
1503-44 said:
Typical. Cities shooting themselves in the foot. They're all doing it, but Amazon is the easy target ..
Click to expand...
Terrible. It really is a socially destructive company. Sure, change happens over time, farriers and blacksmiths have long since disappeared from main street. Though the fact that public funds are being used to promote such social destruction is depressing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Local govt incentivizing companies to move in isn't necessarily bad, it simply needs to be done intelligently so that it benefits the public and business alike. The part that I hear lost too often is the value (or lack) of employee paid taxes vs employer paid taxes, and also the tertiary benefits of that employer's presence. JMO but I could give two dams if a major employer's tax burden leads to govt profit bc their presence is already benefitting the community through jobs and consumption of local resources.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The problem comes about when there are not too many jobs, and the consumption of resources is too big for the community.
Examples: When a new company requires the construction of a new sewer plant, or water plant. Or the business model requires a community to build a homeless shelter (because of the type of employees).

So for a server farm, or bit coin farm, they consume a large amount of electricity, but do not employ very many people.
Or for a meat processing plant, they produce a lot of waste water, and employ transits employees. So they need homeless shelters, new schools, and lots of rental property (mobile home parks).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Agreed, its a matter of weighing pros and cons. Sometimes resource consumption helps the local community via supply chain jobs or even lowering prices by increasing volume, in other circumstances it hurts.

Growing up in NY I saw many instances of folks getting caught up trying to force companies to "pay their "fair" share," not realizing until they left that employee income taxes supported far more locally. By pushing for the company to pay more they shot their town in the foot.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Do they still use the jingle "We bring good things to life."

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
a short lived jingle I liked. Once realized, we were suppose to turn in our hard hats
card_cps0mo.bmp


Good Enough
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
GE - we bring good things to life. I attended college in Troy NY in the years 1971-74 and the local papers had reported at that time that GE had a lagoon alongside the hudson river that contained waste transformer oil ( PCB) . When the EPA ordered them to remove the PCB oil and dispose of it in an environmentally safe manner, someone at the site started up a backhoe, broke the walls of the lagoon, and allowed the oil to flow directly into the river. Since that event , every fishing license handbook issued by NY state to fisherman states on page one- do not eat the fish you catch unless you wish to be contaminated with PCB's.

Later a court case resulted in a demand for GE to clean up the hudson river to minimize the PCB exposure to people and fish. The GE CEO told the NY state governor ( Hugh Carey) that if they persist in forcing GE to clean the river, then GE will move all of its employees out of NY state , so Gov Carey obliged GE and rescinded the order. We bring good things to life.

"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
They never said WHOSE life the good things are brought to, did they? GE certainly brought "good things" the Jack Welch's life, including paying only economy airfare on GE's private jet.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Oops409
  • Locked
  • Question
Net Zero Disaster 11
2
Replies
29
Views
448
Oops409
Oops409
LittleInch
  • Locked
  • Question
Disaster averted
Replies
3
Views
105
LittleInch
LittleInch
JoshPlumSE
  • Locked
  • Question
Baldwin Hills Dam Disaster - 1963 3
Replies
2
Views
156
JLNJ
JLNJ
3DDave
  • Locked
  • Question
Dive boat disaster in California... finally 1
Replies
10
Views
190
zeusfaber
zeusfaber
TugboatEng
  • Locked
  • Question
Disaster Lite
Replies
7
Views
125
TugboatEng
TugboatEng

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top Bottom