The reality is that corporate income tax never made economic sense.  It simply gets pushed on to the consumer anyway.  A corporation is not really a "person" even though the law does so for some purposes (e.g. court jurisdiction).  Corporate income taxation should occur at the dividend, capital gain stage or VAT.  State income tax "give aways" simply acknowledge that economic reality. 

It will be interesting to see how this all cycles out over the next few decades. At some point, some of these southern cities will start to feel the effects their growth in ways beyond traffic congestion. Nashville had a good county-wide school system that was a attractive to transplants. Now people are moving out of the county to escape the worsening public schools. There are no "cheap" catholic school options there like we have in Ohio. All the private schools are very very expensive. It will also be interesting to watch how sprawl effects their long-term infrastructure costs. In a few decades, there will be a lot of infrastructure that will have to be replaced at a high per-capita ratio. I'm not saying that the south is screwed, but it will be interesting to see how those regions are affected by the issues that currently face a lot of midwestern cities.

Tennessee has no state income tax and a state sales tax that is only a point or two higher than ours, depending on the county.  This has a *huge* effect on recruitment, because a $50K or $100K job is more money in Tennessee than it is in Ohio. 

 

At some point it will turn if the south continues to suburbanize, because traffic is absolutely horrible in Atlanta, Nashville, etc., and suburban residents will be brought to their knees in a prolonged oil spike. 

This exodus of companies to the south brought to you by... you.  Through your federal taxes, you have helped make the southern climate seem so much more hospitable that it really is.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31163994/

Stimulus funds spent to keep Sun Belt cool

In addition to peak oil, there's the water issue. This will be huge in the coming decades. Atlanta almost ran out of drinking water a couple years ago, and is likely to do so again in a much worse way. People in the South may or may not be able to justify a sprawl-based lifestyle when gas costs $6+ a gallon, but they'll certainly have a hard time justifying it when they turn on their kitchen faucet and nothing comes out. With increased groundwater-runoff caused by sprawl and climate change caused by global warming, combined with more and more people and businesses drawing from the well, the problems are only bound to get worse.

 

All those "rust belt" states bordering the world's largest source of freshwater, with affordable cities that have well-developed urban cores and transit infrastructure, will eventually find themselves desirable again. That's not to say Ohio shouldn't compete to lure and retain businesses in the meantime, but all that Sun Belt sprawl is nothing more than a house of cards built on sand.

Doo-wah-diddy He's the boy from New York City....well, OK, Long Island....

 

Nuti says "I want to be a winner

 

Bill Nuti, the chairman and CEO of NCR, grew up in a rough neighborhood in New York. He has translated that toughness into the business world, angering Daytonians last week when he announced that NCR would be moving to Atlanta.

... sh!tlanta, Nascarville, Bailout City, and Memphass.

 

Classic.  :evil: :whip:

>all that Sun Belt sprawl is nothing more than a house of cards built on sand.

 

I have met a few of Ohio's state legislators in person and to a man they were crusty and completely out-of-touch with national trends.  Part of this tendency can be blamed on their day jobs, since lawyers rarely leave the state where they got their law degrees, and an awful lot of lawyers end up in state politics. 

 

At the state level Ohio is in trouble because the pro-union nonsense continues to fuel a large segment of thought. All that is OVER, and those guys just can't get it through their heads or stop accepting payouts from union thugs. I work with a guy who remarked that he didn't even know unions still existed until moving to Ohio.  Until the manufacturing and union mindset is gone from northern Ohio, I don't know how the state politics can unite on a southern low-tax business model.   

 

We also need state laws to encourage and ease the formation of city-county governments, which will reduce provincialism and overlap of services.  The wages and benefits of state workers need to be cut in order to free up operations costs to be diverted to business incentives and capital improvements. 

 

The state needs high quality passenger rail links between its major cities and Detroit and Chicago and quit spending money on rural highway bypasses like the never-ending Rt. 33 upgrades, which locals don't even want. 

 

The state also needs to help fund urban transit systems for its major cities, hurry redevelopment of brownfield sites, and discourage sprawl.  It can do this by changing state laws allowing the collection of tolls on state highways to pay for urban and intercity rail, and raising car & truck licensing. 

 

Texas is a low tax state, so low that the metros have been forced to fund their light rail systems with only local and federal funds.  Dallas and Houston are of course huge so local taxes collect more money than do those in Ohio's cities.  We can change that here by urban reps telling suburban and rural reps that a dollar spent in the 3 C's is a dollar much better spent than on the damn Nelsonville bypass.  Even Oregon has refused to help fund Portland's rail.  I think it's possible to change that mindset in Ohio if young people can get these hapless lawyers out of state office.   

 

Holy S*@t!  $100 million, no wonder and good luck.  I would be appalled if even given the chance the Dayton powers that be ponied up that much.

 

 

Analysis: NCR received nearly $100M to move

Business Courier of Cincinnati - by Jacob Dirr Courier Contributor

 

 

The state of Georgia offered NCR Corp. almost $100 million to abandon its Dayton headquarters, which it called home for more than a century, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis.

 

E-mail [email protected]. Call (937) 528-4424.

http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2009/06/08/daily12.html

No one is more thouroughly f$&ked in the next oil spike than sh!tlanta, Nascarville, Bailout City, and Memphass. These southern states aren't sustainable. Corporate welfare only half-ass works in a growing economy, not a dying economy like the United States.

 

And all these corporate tax giveaways, free land, and flat out free taxpayer money, aren't any way to support infrastructure. Once it gets old, there will be no money to fix it or replace it. Hence why the South will get what's coming to them.

 

 

 

Having lived in Suburban Memphis, I can assure you, Memphis could only wish it could be on a list with Atlanta and Nashville.

I can think a lot of snarky comments that aren't suitable for a family friendly site like this.

I don't think it's at all about high Ohio taxes. If that was the case every F1000 company in Ohio would be looking elsewhere for a location to better fit their needs.

^ I can't wait until Georgia has to start paying fortune 500 companies $60 mills a year to retain then. That will be great (and they say we have a problem with unions...)

This is what happens when you don't hire from within

This is what happens when you don't hire from within

 

So true.  And then we complain about brain drain.

Does anybody have the article that the DDN did on Nuti back when he first became CEO?  A reliable source (who actually met with Nuti at the beginning) tells me that Nuti was in fact receptive and accessible to local officials at the beginning, but the door seemed to close the day the DDN did a blistering column that trashed him.  I had seen this rumor in some of the online chatter and didn't think something like that could have done it, but my source tells me that he really believes that was it.

 

I don't know, could a tiny little local newspaper like the DDN actually have the ability to ruffle the feathers of a high-powered CEO from N.Y. to the point that he'd look at moving the entire company?  Could it really come down to one man's ego?

Obviously it could, as he didn't even live in the same city as the business he ran!

And you create a lot of hate within the company by overlooking your own. I bet NCR has a pretty toxic environment.

 

Very perceptive. I realize that part of what you're saying is venting (very entertaining and with lots of takeaways, by the way  :evil:) but let's just say that the management culture within NCR is reputed to be full of grognards set in their ways. This is pre-gold chain punk Nuti, by the way, and extends back to at least the 80s.

 

I've known some people who worked at L-N in Miami Township to the south and the common complaint from Lexis veterans is that you can't get a damned thing done there because a toxic management culture pervades the place and stems from NCR veterans who were hired there.

 

My experience has been that every high tech company in Dayton is in some way a toxic place to work, and the badness is created deliberately by management in order to "keep people in line". The average programming shop in Dayton makes Initech look like paradise and makes Bill Lumbergh look like a good manager.

 

NCR has fallen a very long way in its lifetime and its management alumni in the last couple of decades have polluted a lot of local businesses.

 

Georgia basically "bought" a hollowed shell of a once great company, IMO.

Old companies have a hard time translating peak culture to declining culture. There are exceptions (P&G), but look at the automakers. Companies can change but cultures run deep. I imagine in a place like Dayton, everyone in certain sectors had cycled through NCR or its affiliates at some point (or the military).

>I don't think it's at all about high Ohio taxes. If that was the case every F1000 company in Ohio would be looking elsewhere for a location to better fit their needs.

 

New York City has lost dozens of major companies over its history due to high taxes, not just to New Jersey. It's a bit tougher for California companies to escape California due to its isolated location, which is part of how they've gotten away with an oppressive tax burden for so many years.   

NYC has relatively high taxes, but New Yorkers also expect a lot of government services and public infrastructure investment in return for those taxes. While some companies (arguably, companies typically reaching the end of their life cycle) chose to leave the city to save tax money, there are also a multitude of new startup companies in NYC each year. During the most recent economic expansion, NYC had a much healthier economy and lower unemployment than a lot of Midwestern states with relatively low taxes. Even now, it's certainly in better shape than Michigan and parts of Ohio.

 

If Ohio and the rest of the "rust belt" really wants to revive its economy, it should stop worrying about pandering to anti-tax zealots and a few dinosaur companies such as NCR, and worry more about investing in livable cities and urban infrastructure to attract creative young talent.

NYC has relatively high taxes, but New Yorkers also expect a lot of government services and public infrastructure investment in return for those taxes.

 

This is true.  However, NY (and to a lesser extent LA, Chicago, and DC) are in unique situations.  These major cities have been built into financial, art, tourism, etc "capitals" of the world.  Some companies in those industries get a huge return just by locating in or near the city.  Most other cities in the US do not have this luxury, so replicating the high tax, high infrastructure or service will not work.  It's not working in NY or California now - as those states have the biggest budget deficits.  Even when times were good, money was tight in those states. 

 

Ohio has both relatively high taxes and relatively low services/infrastructure.  This is a bad combination.

 

If Ohio and the rest of the "rust belt" really wants to revive its economy, it should stop worrying about pandering to anti-tax zealots and a few dinosaur companies such as NCR, and worry more about investing in livable cities and urban infrastructure to attract creative young talent.

 

I disagree with the first part, but I agree to some extent with the second part.  The Midwest needs a competitive advantage.  Its mid size cities can't complete to be an alternative NY or Chicago.  But they can compete to be a good alternative to cities like Atlanta and Charlotte. 

 

The first step to increase population (of all types) is to draw employment.  This is why it is imperative to keep taxes low in order to attract those companies who do not need to be located in a high-tax area, like New York. Keeping taxes consistently low would substantially reduce the effectiveness of incentive programs, such as the incentive program that lured NCR away.

 

Simultaneously, steadily rebuild the "urban core".  Focus on what can make a city unique - the OTR renewal and the Banks in Cincinnati are great examples for that city.  Public transportation generally fosters this goal as well.

 

Lastly - market the cities better! 

  Could it really come down to one man's ego?

 

Having worked at NCR for a number of years and under the Bill Nuti regime, I can tell you unequivocally, this is about his ego.  Every decision he makes always is. Whether NCR employees will admit it or not, I think everyone knew in the back of their minds that there was good chance of WHQ moving. As discussed on this thread, Bill never made the effort to move nor made an effort to really be in Dayton. There were rumors always floating around the company that WHQ would relocate to either: Atlanta, NYC or Rancho Bernardo (CA) . . .Now we know it’s Atlanta.

 

When I heard WCS was moving to Atlanta last year, there was enormous bright red flags. WCS is the division in NCR that pretty much pumps all the $$ into the Dayton economy with out of towners. NCR would fly in people from around the country/world and they would train in Dayton on how to serves the atms, kiosks. . etc. These employees were put up in hotels and spent money during their stay on entertainment, food, lodging etc. . They were pretty much the only group in NCRU which was the training center on the 2nd floor. Once it was announced WCS would move, I knew there was trouble. Wait. . .I knew there was trouble when Teradata (the most profitable division of NCR) was spun off. Also, look for teradata to be gobbled up by HP in the upcoming years. Mark Hurd wants them BAD. . and TD fits perfectly into HP’s portfolio making them uber competive in a segment where they currently are not. . .TD’s biggest competitor is IBM.  Oh yeah and the HP CEO used to be the NCR CEO and before that was Teradata’s president.

 

Anyway, back to NCR. . .they are losing the ATM war with Diebold and is now focusing on point of sell technologies. . . whether or not they can be successful is yet to be seen, however I think moving WHQ is disruptive and does more harm than good. I can tell you that they had NO shortage of talent in Dayton and the line they are feeding about being unable to recruit, is just that. . a line. They had extremely talented people beating down the doors trying to get jobs there. What most don’t know is that pretty much any job that is not customer facing or is behind the scenes had long been shipped to India or The Philippines. To NCR, this is not ‘outsourcing’ b/c they are a global company. . .they would just say that jobs were being relocated to their “Asia Field Offices”  IT and tech support wasn’t in Dayton, it was in India. Customer Service? Well, you’d talk to some in Dayton, but as soon as you hung up. . everything was sent to the Philippines and they were the ones sending out invoices, tracking shipments, making pricing corrections etc.

 

So, in some ways it will be less painful to watch a dying company from a far and not in Dayton. But, it probably won’t come to that. . see in putting the pieces together, I think Bill wants the $25 million dollar clause that’s in his contract. He’ll be able to collect it if he is able to successfully sell NCR. . .and what has he done? Shed assets, spun of divisions, cut employees and now he has moved WHQ in an effort to probably make the company more marketable. Hello Buyers! It’s a shame that the board of directors would let him get away with such a thing, but then again he hand picked them. When Teradata split, he placed all of his friends on the board, so he pretty much has free reign on anything he wants to do. . .must be good for the ego, huh?

 

^ wow, that is the most informative "insider" view of NCR I've read so far - thanks PrfctTimeOfDay!

 

That is also an angle I hadn't heard before - moving NCR to Atlanta makes it more attractive to buyers.  Thinking of it that way and considering the enormous amount of $$ Nuti would stand to personally make off a deal like that, the move really does make sense. 

On the day that P&G announces its new CEO, I'm glad they promote from within!

I wonder what the business world think of NCR now. I'm sure CEO's talk.  Their profits has been less and less yearly. Who would want to buy it?

That was a great post by PerfectTimeofDay. 

 

 

NCR still makes ATM's? I can't recall seeing one for years, the ones I see are Diebold. I also see Diebold trucks/vans every day

 

    NCR - Thanks for the boats. It's not everyday that you lose a company with history this deep.

NCR still makes ATM's? I can't recall seeing one for years, the ones I see are Diebold. I also see Diebold trucks/vans every day

 

I've seen a few here and there. I saw several in Austin last month. The auto-check in at Austin-Bergstrom Airport  AA counter was NCR also. I remember being somewhat proud of my city when I saw it at the time... but also somewhat pissed because I stood in line for quite a while before they told everyone they needed to use the auto-check in machines first.

 

Still hard to make sense of all of it. That insider post was informative

It could be as simple as the CEO not liking Dayton and not wanting to live there, and then wanting to move the entire HQ ops from Dayton. 

 

Nuti to Dayton: "You Suck".   

 

 

^^Wow, PerfectTimeOfDay, wonderful post, and now it does really all make sense. You should send this of to the DDN or something, as well, because this really explains a lot that all of the "uncompetitive" BS (labor unions, higher taxes even though we are changing our tax structure, etc.) that really made no sense is false.

 

I'm hoping this doesn't affect you, and if it does, well, sorry about the humid Georgia summer coming up. It also looks like maybe we can hope for some growth from Teradata (along with maybe even grabbing up some more of NCR's business), and connecting our region to HP would really help keep Dayton viable. Glad to hear this!

Interesting perspective from at Atlanta newspaper on the NCR move:

 

How Georgia courted a Fortune 500 firm

By Jim Tharpe

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, June 07, 2009

 

The fast-moving, top-secret deal to extract NCR Corp. from its 125-year residency in Dayton, Ohio, and bring the Fortune 500 company to Georgia involved closed-door governor-to-CEO meetings, a new law authorizing millions in tax breaks and matter-of-fact presentations on the attributes of Hope Scholarships.

 

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2009/06/07/ncr_making_the_deal.html

And all the while this was going on, Strickland was only worried about whether or not the new choo choo train would stop in Springfield!!

 

Good job Ohio!

 

And all the while this was going on, Strickland was only worried about whether or not the new choo choo train would stop in Springfield!!

 

Good job Ohio!

 

When said "choo choo train" serves as a catalyst to further integrate modes of transportation in the state in an effort to create a seamless way of going about doing business within the state and abroad, Ohio will be in a far better position to cultivate and entice new commerce than the Peachtree State.

^^From the sounds of it, Nuti had his mind made up a while ago.

Yeah, it was not so much "if" but "where and when".

 

That NCR already had a substantial presence in Georgia probably helped with the decision.

 

 

 

 

If Diebold really is kicking NCR butt, then I guess he didn't want to share the state with the guy who was running him out of business?

bitter sweet for me... hate to see this happen to Dayton

here's a nice video too...  http://money.cnn.com/video/pf/2009/07/09/pf_best_places_peachtree.moneymag/

 

CNN/MONEY.com BEST PLACES TO LIVE 2009

#8 PEACHTREE CITY GEORGIA

 

Ask any family why they chose to put down roots in this Atlanta suburb and you'll get three answers. First, the expected: an excellent school system and low crime (the low­est rate of any small town in the state). Then the unexpect­ed: the golf carts.

 

Planned in 1959, Peachtree City contains five "villages" that are connected not only by standard roads but also by 90 miles of wooded golf-cart paths. Children drive carts to school, families to either of two 250-acre lakes, and yes, golfers to any of the three courses in town.

 

While the jobless rate isn't teeny, it's two percentage points below the national average. And opportunities nearby are growing: ATM builder [glow=red,2,300]NCR [/glow]and construction equipment maker Sany plan to add a total of 1,400 positions in the next two years.

^A wake up call for what? That GA can steal jobs with stimulus money, incentives, and golf-course communities? No suprises there.

That was a very informative post, TimeOfDay.

 

However, I still think that the idea that Dayton is a turn-off to potential relocators has merit.

 

Although I have many old friends from Dayton, I think in the long-term that Southwest Ohio would be much better off with one urban center, Cincinnati, and a population of 3+ million.

^A wake up call for what? That GA can steal jobs with stimulus money, incentives, and golf-course communities? No suprises there.

 

It's not stealing jobs. Ohio has and should continue to give incentives for businesses and industry to locate (or relocate) here.

I don't buy it that Ohio can't compete.  We have a good work force, good educational system (compared to Gerogia), good housing stock, recreational opportunites, an OK climate, etc.  While I am no expert on Dayton I know that Georgia and Atlanta have its own share of problems.  What they do have (and Ohio lacks) is a shameless self promotion attitude and a highly favorable pro-business attitude.  Very few politicians in Ohio understand that sometimes to make money you have to spend money.  It is a political leaders job to take the no-taxes retired auto worker crowd, the spend the money on the poor leftist crowd, etc. and convince them that it is in their own interest (or politically overpower them) to fund business creation.  While I am no fan of Gov. Taft at least he started/maintained Third Frontier/Edison institutes which right now is the only thing we have going for us.  Former mayor of Cleveland, Mike White understood this in spite of his other problems.  Mayor Jackson, Ted Strickland, mayor of Dayton, et al. do not and are essentially anti-business populists.  They are totally out of their league when competing with theri counterparts in Atlanta and Georgia.  Between the Kucinich city populists in NE Ohio and the rural "don't spend my money" crowd in the south we are doomed without strong leadership.  Columbus (city) and Akron sort of get it.  People in the rest of Ohio need to be deprogramed from thinking that business is a dirty word. 

 

I have lived in Seattle for the last twenty years and I can tell you that for all its pro-labor, leftist reputation when it comes to business, for the most part Microsoft and Boeing have gotten whatever they wanted over the last 30 years.  The poor (both rural and urban) have been left to fend for themselves. 

I've pruned this thread of the meta discussion regarding the Peachtree City article.  If anyone believes that a post is inappropriate or off topic, you may report it to a moderator.  We will review the post, but we can't promise you'll get the call you wanted.  Please don't clog up threads with discussion of whether or not you believe an article or post belongs on a certain thread.

The Ohio legislatures should do some fact checking on this. This will NOT take any jobs from Ohio... it's just making us appear even more as sore losers.

 

Georgia city is denied $5.5M for NCR

By Jessica Wehrman, Dayton Daily News, August 14, 2009

 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Commerce has denied Columbus, Ga.’s request for $5.5 million in economic stimulus money to convert an abandoned factory into a manufacturing facility for NCR.

Sorry I didn't post that sooner myself, but all I have to say is.....

 

:clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:

What kinda facts do you know?

Atlanta poaches another one from the Midwest:

 

College Football Hall of Fame moves from South Bend to Atlanta

http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20090923/News01/909239955/-1/news&updates=1

 

$50 million package

 

Atlanta poaches another one from the Midwest:

 

College Football Hall of Fame moves from South Bend to Atlanta

http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20090923/News01/909239955/-1/news&updates=1

 

$50 million package

 

 

Wow, that really amazes me. I didn't know that you could poach museums. I can see how it makes sense for the CFHOF, but it is sad for South Bend. South Bend has 100x more college football tradition than Atlanta has.

 

Wow, that really amazes me. I didn't know that you could poach museums.

 

 

How do you think South Bend got it from Mason?