Blue state exodus

Will the last person leaving, turn out the lights............

Democratic reaction to the news that Waste Connections, a $3.6-billion company and major Sacramento-area employer, is headed to Houston to seek a friendlier business climate tells other businesses all they need to know about the attitudes of those who run California's government.

State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, gave these clueless and snarky remarks in response to the news: "In this instance you have a company that is, in fact, profitable, making significant revenue gains in 2011 and 2010. That doesn't speak to a bad business climate here in California when a good company is able to thrive in that way. So whatever Mr. Middelstaedt's (company CEO) reasons are to leave the great state of California, I know I'm pushing back."

Is it really the Senate president's role to determine the proper profit margin for a privately owned company? Talk about arrogance.

"The decision by Waste Connections to relocate, despite the 17 percent revenue increase and the $18 million cost to move to Texas, illustrates that businesses will endure short-term costs to ensure long-term prosperity," wrote state Sen. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel, in response to Steinberg's message. Walters quotes business-relocation expert Joe Vranich of Irvine, who notes that businesses typically save 40 percent in costs by leaving California because of lower taxes and more manageable regulations found elsewhere.

If California wants to improve its business climate and reduce its double-digit unemployment rate, its officials need to understand what companies such as Waste Connections are saying, rather than simply dismiss their concerns.

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But hey, Let's not pick on California alone, how about Illinois, the land of liberal milk and honey........

On December 12, Illinois House approved CME-CBOE, Sears tax deal. Indeed, most of the above companies negotiated huge tax breaks and will stay in Illinois at least for a while.

Small companies with no clout and no leverage as well as taxpayers in general are the ones paying the price for the seriously misguided policies of Democratic Governors Pat Quinn, and Jerry Brown.

The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.

Blue state exodus - Illinois edition

It didn't take long Tuesday for Illinois lawmakers to start talking about how Indiana just lured away a company and its 240 jobs fromBlue Island.

Modern Drop Forge is leaving Illinois and going about 40 miles east into Indiana after the neighboring state offered a tax incentive program for the company to move, a point made in opening remarks of Rep. David Harris, R-Arlington Heights, at a legislative hearing on business taxes.

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Blue state exodus - New York

For the past few days, the Gekko's have been covering the Carolina's for another sibling wedding.

What's interesting is how the groom's family (parents & four kids) ended up migrating to the Carolina's after living near Buffalo NY for the bulk of their lives.

To sum in up in one pithy statement "it's not just the snow". It's jobs. Most of the kids relocated as a result of job opportunities and ultimately the parents said to themselves "what the hell are we staying here for" and moved to be near the kids.

It's really not unlike the Gekko's experience. Most of us have moved away from a great community, Lancaster, Ohio, to be where the jobs are.

As we were driving back yesterday, the Gekko's rolled through some once great towns like Ironton and Portsmouth. These towns are now dominated by public assistance and, not coincidentally, heroin and pain killer addictions.

I keep asking myself why we continue to subsidize people so they can stay where they were born when so much of America has moved on to where the jobs are. (As an aside what do you think the political affiliation is of those who've picked up and moved versus those who stay behind?)

All I know is that the Gekko's will be heading south in our future and it won't be because of the weather. We like winter.

Unfortunately, we're not going to be the last people to turn the lights out as we leave the once great state of Ohio and we'll take our republican votes and tax dollars with us and leave behind those who can't or won't move.

Blue State exodus - Chicago edition

CME Group Inc. is evaluating whether to move some operations to other states from Chicago to reduce its taxes, but it has not decided on an exact timeline, CEO Craig Donohue said Thursday.

"Our tax situation is untenable," Donohue told Reuters, noting that CME is taxed more heavily than any of its global competitors. The company is talking with at least three states -- Texas, Florida and Tennessee -- about relocating some of its business to take advantage of lower tax rates there, Donohue said.

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Blue state exodus - New York

Massachusetts isn't the only state beset by a talent drain from young people looking to move because of the high cost of living --- New York could face a similar challenge.

According to the latest NY1/YNN-Marist Poll of New York State, 36 percent of New Yorkers under 30 years old say they're likely to move to another state.

The survey looked at New York state residents of all ages. Of residents who expect to leave New York, 62 percent cited economic reasons such as jobs, the cost of living, or taxes, the poll found.

(This telephone survey of 941 New York State adults was conducted on April 25 through April 29, Marist said.)

"Right now, many young people do not see their future in New York State,” Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said in a statement. “Unchecked, this threatens to drain the state of the next generation.”

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Blue state exodus - African American edition

You know how all those racist whites left town because of the racist beliefs and raise their racist kids out of the city?

Apparently, there's a lot of blacks more than happy to live near them................

Two milestones in the long, painful decline of the blue social model were reached this week and reported, of all places, in the pages of the very éminence grise of the monde bleu: the New York Times.

The first was a piece of national and historical news: The Census reported that waves of blue state blacks fled the stagnant job opportunities, high taxes and rotten social conditions of the mostly blue northern states to seek better lives for themselves in the south. The second milestone was local and literary: Bob Herbert, for many years the only regular Black columnist on the New York Times‘ op-ed page, has written his last column before stepping down.

The Census story is a shocker. First, according to the Times, the Blacks leaving tend to be the “younger and better educated”. Second, the three states Blacks left in largest numbers don’t just include snake-bit Michigan; the other two are Illinois and New York. Within those states, Chicago and the city of the New York (widely considered among the most successful cities in the country) are the places Blacks are deserting. 17 percent of the Black flight from Big Blue is from the Empire State; after almost a century of trailblazing social policy, New York State has succeeded in creating the most hostile environment for Blacks in the country.

It's the story of "progressive" governance. The day a government shifts it's focus from the people who pay tax to the ones who use them is the very day the exodus begins.

I can provide more scientific evidence of this than a "progressive" can global warming. Yet do you think they care about the former?

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Blue State exodus - Illinois edition

Where's john Galt?

The chairman and CEO of Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc. is raising the specter of moving the heavy equipment maker out of Illinois.

In a letter sent March 21 to Gov. Pat Quinn, Caterpillar chief executive officer Doug Oberhelman said officials in at least four other states have approached the company about relocating since Illinois raised its income tax in January.

"I want to stay here. But as the leader of this business, I have to do what's right for Caterpillar when making decisions about where to invest," Oberhelman wrote in the letter obtained Friday by the Lee Enterprises Springfield bureau. "The direction that this state is headed in is not favorable to business and I'd like to work with you to change that."

Oberhelman said he's being actively courted to move.

"I have been called, 'cornered' in meetings and 'wined and dined' -- the heat is on," Oberhelman wrote. "Before, I never really considered living anywhere else and certainly never considered the possibility of Caterpillar relocating. But I have to admit, the policymakers in Springfield seem to make it harder by the day."

Cat spokesman Jim Dugan said the letter was designed to show Quinn that Oberhelman wants to be involved in finding solutions that benefit the company, which employs 23,000 people in Illinois.

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Life in "Progress" City - Detroit edition

So just how "progressive" is Detroit.

Just look at the last three election results from theblogprof.........

2008 General Election results-DEM: 96.93% GOP: 2.65%
2006 General Election results-DEM: 95.05% GOP: 4.33%
2004 General Election results-DEM: 93.61% GOP: 5.93%

So you can see that Detroit has managed to purge it's city of nearly every republican.

Now ask yourself, is Detroit a more livable city today?

Of course, maybe it is and the only people leaving the city are those damn nasty conservatives.......

Detroit's population fell to 713,777 in 2010, its lowest level in a century, according to U.S. Census figures released today.

The loss of 237,493 residents since 2000 is a sobering statistical stamp on a decade's worth of job losses, plant closings and foreclosures in a city that was home to 1.8 million residents in 1950. Detroit's nearly 25 percent decline in population was the most by far among the top 20 cities. The population of Chicago, by contrast, dropped 6.9 percent. It's the largest 10-year drop in Detroit's history, including the years after the 1967 riots. Already, at least two council members are calling on Mayor Dave Bing to contest the results.

The dirty little secret is that the people who can leave, do. The people who can't stay. As a result, you have a burgeoning underclass with no rich people to pay for them.

How's that working out for you?


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Blue city exodus

It's not just white flight depleting our once great cities of residents..........

The number of black people living in major cities is declining as a growing number are choosing to move to the suburbs or warmer parts of the country.

2010 Census data released so far this year show that 20 of the 25 cities that have at least 250,000 people and a 20 per cent black population either lost more black people or gained fewer in the past decade than during the 1990s.

According to USA Today, the decline happened in some traditional black strongholds such as Chicago, Oakland, Atlanta, Cleveland and St Louis.

Let's face it if you want to live in a place with high taxes, high crime, shitty schools and business communities, the city if the place to be.

Maybe these blacks that decided to leave didn't want that for their families.

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Life in "Progress" City - Costa Mesa edition

So what happens when you don't get those pension costs in check.

It looks like this............

Nearly half the city workers in Costa Mesa received layoff notices last week. Street sweepers. Firefighters. Mechanics. Payroll clerks. Animal control workers. In all, about 210 of the city’s 472 employees, many of whom have worked there for decades. On Thursday, as the notices were being handed out, one maintenance worker committed suicide by jumping from the city hall roof.

“It’s like they decided to blow up the city,” said Billy Folsom, 58, a mechanic who got a pink slip. “It’s devastating.”

The cutbacks are necessary because the escalating costs of providing pensions for police, firefighters and other unionized employees are draining the city’s revenue, city leaders say.

Within three years, city projections show, more than one of every five tax dollars will be spent on employees’ retirement benefits, which were made far more generous in the years before the stock market crashed in 2008.

“Just do the math — this is unsustainable,” said Jim Righeimer, the city’s recently elected mayor pro tem. He campaigned on the pension issue, eliciting anger and a counter-campaign from the city’s police and firefighters. “Under these kinds of burdens, we can’t do everything the city needs to do.”

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Blue state exodus - Illinois edition

Roger Keats, a former Illinois state senator and Cook County Board president, is packing up and leaving the Land of Lincoln for good. The 62-year-old Keats was a good government reformer who helped clean up the rampant corruption in the Chicago-area courts uncovered by Operations Greylord and Gambat.

But now he’s throwing in the towel, and he and his wife are heading for Texas. “I am tired of subsidizing crooks," Keats told the Wilmette Beacon.

In “Good Bye and Good Luck,” a letter to all the friends and political supporters he’s leaving behind after 60 years, Keats says he is leaving what he calls “the most corrupt big city…and most corrupt state in America” with “a heavy heart.”

“But enough is enough!” he writes. “The leaders of Illinois refuse to see we can’t continue going in the direction we are and expect people who have options to stay here.”

Indeed, Illinois has already lost a quarter of its population and will lose another seat in the next Congress.

And that’s not the only sign of serious, and possibly irreversible, decline.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/03/ill-state-senator-leaves-texas-im-tired-subsidizing-crooks?utm_source=feedburner+BeltwayConfidential&utm_medium=feed+Beltway+Confidential&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BeltwayConfidential+%28Beltway+Confidential%29feed&utm_content=Netvibesfeed&utm_term=Netvibesfeed#ixzz1HKJxUEGj

Blue State Exodus - California edition

Who needs those stinkin' jobs......

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The Boeing Company says it is relocating two programs from Long Beach, Calif., to Oklahoma City, a move expected to bring 550 engineering jobs to the state.

Boeing announced in a news release Monday it is moving its C-130 Avionics Modernization program to Oklahoma City beginning in the first quarter of 2011. The move of the B-1 program is expected toward the end of 2012.

"Part of our decision was affordability," said Jennifer Hogan with Boeing in Oklahoma City. "Oklahoma City is a great place to do business. We are conscience of the budget cuts Defense is going through and this move will also make us competitive for future work."

Both programs are part of the Maintenance, Modifications & Upgrades division of the company's St. Louis-based Boeing Defense, Space & Security.

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Who did he vote for? #1000

Meet Mark Gerth. Besides his resemblance to Mark Wahlberg, why is he in the news........

Hamilton County Judge Robert Taylor set bond at $2.25 million on Thursday for Mark Gerth, the man accused of crashing a stolen car into a cab, killing the driver and a passenger.

Just after 9 a.m. Gerth was led into a Hamilton County courtroom at the Justice Center. His gait was slow and deliberate. Gerth's leg was gashed and closed by staples.

He appeared emotionless as the charges were read. Judge Taylor flipped through Gerth's lengthy criminal record, which includes 8 violent felonies, four other felonies and 11 misdemeanors.

Gerth moved here from Sandusky last year. He has been homeless since he was released from prison.

This guy is 39 and has 12 felonies and is not in prison? Are you serious?

Let me ask you a question. Is it "progressive" or conservative policies that allow this pile of crap on the streets?

You know, when I hear that "progressives" care about the poor & downtrodden where is their compassion for this immigrant working his ass off driving a cab? Or the passenger, who probably couldn't drive for whatever reason. If this guy were behind bars, where he should have been, those people would be alive today.

As far as I'm concerned, liberals in this country have the blood of two more murder victims on their hands because they're more worried about protecting the rights of Marky Mark here then the working people of this country.

Oh and by the way, you should also take note of the fact that this scumbag didn't head to Redville after his last stay in the clink, he headed to "Progress" City where he could victimize other liberals.

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Life in "Progress" City - Dayton edition

"You know, blacks are an inferior race who can't learn to the level of whites."

Of course, being a conservative, I'd be crucified for such a statement. Yet in "Progress" City, it's a standard operating procedure...........

The Dayton Police Department is lowering its testing standards for recruits.

It's a move required by the U.S. Department of Justice after it says not enough African-Americans passed the exam.

Dayton is in desperate need of officers to replace dozens of retirees. The hiring process was postponed for months because the D.O.J. rejected the original scores provided by the Dayton Civil Service Board, which administers the test.

Under the previous requirements, candidates had to get a 66% on part one of the exam and a 72% on part two.

The D.O.J. approved new scoring policy only requires potential police officers to get a 58% and a 63%. That's the equivalent of an ‘F’ and a ‘D’.

Apparently, they're not too familiar with the Pygmalion Effect.

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Question of the day

Would you pay someone $38.00 an hour to mow your lawn and weed your garden?

Would you believe you already do?

One of our little government entitlement programs is the process of paying prevailing wage. Prevailing wage is essentially the union scale for services. It's a way for cities and states to avoid paying non union workers a lower wage and thus making union workers less competitive.

Every month, I receive an email from some state entity updating the prevailing wage for various trade jobs.

Now I have a client who did landscape work for the city of Cincinnati. This client pays their guys somewhere between $12 and $20 an hour for their workers which is in line with my other landscaping employers.

As a result of accepting a contract with the City of Cincinnati, this employer now pays $38 for doing the same work they do for the average homeowner. (BTW it's $34 if you offer health benefits).

What's disgusting is that the employees making $12.00 actually pay the wages for someone making three times more than they do.

Why would anyone pay a wage that's more than they make for the same work?

If you believe that doesn't make sense, then you'll understand why it is that Governors Kasich and Walker are waging war on these practices.

You'll also understand why the unions will fight this one to the death.

You'll also understand why people flee to the suburbs, where they farm this crap out for a third of the price that a union friendly city/state charges the residents.

Life in "Progress" City - Cincinnati edition

How good is life in "Progress" City?

Good enough to leave as soon as you get a chance...........

Cincinnati lost more than 10 percent of its population over the past decade, falling below 300,000 people for the first time in more than a century.

U.S. Census data released today also show that the city’s losses helped drive down Hamilton County’s population by 5 percent, leaving the county with about 802,000 residents.

The population of Cincinnati’s northern suburbs continued to boom over the past decade, with Warren County once again leading the way with a 34 percent jump. Butler and Clermont counties both grew by about 10 percent.

The Census figures showed a strengthening of a trend that took hold decades ago as growing numbers of people began choosing suburban cul-de-sacs over traditional city neighborhoods.

This should read "a trend that took hold decades ago as growing numbers of people fled to life in Redville, an area devoid of such amenities as horrible schools, high crime, high taxes, crappy city services, crumbling infrastructure, etc."

On the good side, the trolley should slow that exodus to a smooth 9.9% a decade.

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PS for the record, I'm one of those people who fled the city for friendly environs in Warren County.

Life in "Progress City - Detroit edition

Maybe, just maybe, Scott Walker is trying to make the changes necessary to keep his schools from looking like these quality schools in the "progressive" utopia of Detroit........

State education officials have ordered Robert Bobb to immediately implement a financial restructuring plan that balances the district's books by closing half of its schools, swelling high school class sizes to 60 students and consolidating operations.

This week, Bobb, the district's emergency financial manager, said he is meeting with Detroit city officials and will set up a meeting with Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency to discuss consolidation opportunities in areas such as finance, public safety, transportation and other areas.

Bobb also is preparing a list of recommended school closures and Friday said layoff discussions are under way and would be announced closer to April, when notices would be issued. "We are moving forward with the plan," he said "Right now my focus is on my transition plan and the DEP (deficit elimination plan)."

Bobb's last day with DPS is June 30. After that, the state plans to install another financial manager who must continue to implement Bobb's plan, according to a Feb. 8 letter from Mike Flanagan, the state superintendent of public instruction.

In the letter, Flanagan said the Michigan Department of Education gave preliminary approval to Bobb's plan to bring the 74,000-student district out of its financial emergency. As a condition of approval, Flanagan said Bobb cannot declare the district in bankruptcy during the remainder of his contract.

Bobb, appointed emergency financial manager in March 2009, filed his deficit elimination plan with the state in January, saying it would wipe out the district's $327 million deficit by 2014. On Feb. 9, he told state lawmakers the plan is the only way DPS "can cut its way out" of its legacy deficit.

Out of curiosity, I wonder if all these teachers soon to be laid off would have been receptive to eliminating their unions if they had had the chance?

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Blue City Exodus - Chicago

Had I known, when I left the city in 2000 to move my family to the leafy suburban paradise of Northbrook, that 200,000 of my fellow Chicagoans would follow clumping after us, fleeing en masse to the surrounding region, according to the United States Census, well, I might have given it a second thought.

OK, that’s not true. It wasn’t my fault. People left Chicago over the past decade for a variety of reasons — some were public housing residents who had their homes demolished out from under them. Some lost their jobs in the Great Recession and had to seek work elsewhere. And yes some — 20,000? 40,000? the number is unknowable — were middle class wage slaves like myself (OK, lower upper middle class wage slaves, to borrow George Orwell’s term) who couldn’t bring themselves to fling their darling children into the stormy chop of the Chicago public school system and couldn’t make the nut at a private school that might not deign to accept them anyway, whatever the price.

And yes, there are good Chicago public schools, and yes, it is possible to get one’s children into them, or so I’m told. But the question was: Is this a risk you’re willing to take?

We weren’t.

Sure, there were other factors. Our boys rode their Big Wheels around and around the dining room table, because it was too much of a hassle for them to find an adult to escort them down the flight of stairs, out the three, count ’em, three locked doors, to finally the busy street and tiny, dog-piss murdered patch of blasted grass, with its anemic locust tree, that served as their playground. A backyard was a plus, or would have been, had they ever put their video games down. But it was there.

This is not to criticize the city — Geez, hold your fire. People seem to have this bellyful of vindictiveness, boiling in their guts, and are scanning the horizon, desperate to find somebody, anybody, for them to spew it onto. Look! A guy who fled to the suburbs! The treachery of betrayal! He’s dissing our city! Get him!

Chicago’s population loss is ominous — first, because a city needs people. Detroit had a population of 2 million in 1950; it has 800,000; just 40 percent of that, now, and it’ll be interesting to see whether our elephant step in Detroit’s direction over the past 10 years will tarnish Mayor Daley’s legacy, the central leg of which is that we didn’t become Detroit under his watch. It isn’t the same if you tack “yet” at the end, “We didn’t become Detroit yet.”

Yes “we.” Because the concerns of Chicago are the concerns of Northern Illinois, which rises or falls with it, and while the bowl haircuts Downstate would like to cut off the city, out of prejudice and parochialism, and the city would like to disown suburbanites like me, out of pure spite, the truth is we are all bound together, sink or swim.

Frankly, I’m not expecting a lot of attention to the population loss story. Like global warming, it’s just too grim for many people to accept or think about. Population loss is connected to every urban problem. How to get those people back? Well, fix the schools, cut crime, create jobs, lower taxes. That’s a start.

Yeah, Ask Scott Walker how easy that is.

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There goes Jimmy Galt

The founder of Jimmy John's is moving out of Illinois...........

The founder of Jimmy John's said he has applied for Florida residency and may recommend that his corporate headquarters move out-of-state as a result of the Illinois tax increases enacted last week.

Jimmy John Liautaud told The News-Gazette on Tuesday that he is angry about the moves, which boosted the individual income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent and the corporate income tax from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent.

"All they do is stick it to us," he said, adding that the Legislature and governor showed "a clear lack of understanding."

"I could absorb this and adapt, but it doesn't feel good in my soul to make it happen," Liautaud said.

Jimmy John's, which has its corporate headquarters on Fox Drive in Champaign, has more than 1,000 sandwich shops nationwide, many of them franchise operations.

Champaign has been its corporate base, but Liautaud said it will not necessarily continue that way.

Liautaud said he has been contacted by "multiple pro-business states" that made him feel "wanted and important."

Jimmy here is doing Illinois a favor. See, most entrepreneurs or conservatives won't voice their opposition to these kleptocratic regimes, they just move out.

Blue State Exodus

Just when you thought things couldn't get worse on the left coast, along comes more bad news for the Golden State. Across the country, Republican state legislatures and governors are adopting a new economic development strategy: Raid California for its jobs and businesses.

At least three Republican governors have said as much in interviews. The idea is to offer lower taxes, a more business-friendly atmosphere and the right to be left alone from overzealous regulators. "We just keep inviting California businesses to look at the economic climate in Texas, where we treat businesses like assets not villains," said Texas Governor Rick Perry.

California has some of the highest tax rates in the country, the worst bond rating and a multitude of nettlesome regulations. Chief Executive magazine just ranked California as the most antibusiness state in the nation. A new study by Joseph Vranich, a California-based business consultant, found that 144 major companies relocated plants, research facilities, headquarters or their entire operations out of California in 2010. That was more than triple the pace of job-creating firms leaving in 2009. Mr. Vranich said that the outmigration could become "a stampede" in 2011. "Business owners tell me every day that this is just not a hospitable place to do business anymore," he said.

Other Republican governors with their sights on California include John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Scott of Florida. Mr. Scott told me in an interview that "we are going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in Florida over the next eight years, and we will advertise our pro-growth policies to businesses in places like California that don't share our pro-business policy orientation." He added: "Not having an income tax is a huge advantage over a high-cost state like California."

Mr. Kasich told Reuters earlier this month that he will try to persuade California venture capitalists to relocate high-tech firms to his state. "More of the same is not acceptable to the business community in California," he said.

Unemployment in California is currently 12.4%, and over the past two years the state's jobless rate has ranked among the five-highest in the country. Businesses complain that the extraordinary power of unions, regulators and environmentalists has been an incentive to leave or not come in the first place.

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