Tektronix exports some production to China

Oregon Business wire ^ | 8/19/09 | Mike Rogoway

[Salvation]

**It's another blow for Oregon's faltering high-tech sector, which employs fewer people today than at any point in the past 13 years.**

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[Clinging Bitterly]

Well ya know, it seems Oregon doesn't really want manufacturing. Tax structure, if nothing else, is quite unfriendly.

Remember the big Hyundai/Hynix wafer plant in Eugene. In spite of attacks from the “environmental” side of all levels of government, they operated as long as the enterprise zone tax breaks were in place, then walked away from it. Now the facility is to be used by a solar panel manufacturer/distributor. As a warehouse. For product made in China.

Tek, they made or make some good stuff, setting a standard against which the competitors were judged. But a lot has changed and today's technology practically squirts out of sausage machines. Sure, manufacturers could very well make the stuff here, but costs of doing business exist here that don't in places like China and Mexico, costs that don't add value to the product in any way. So there you have it.

Someone might know better but last I heard HP was still making or at least assembling some products at the Corvallis facility, and I think at near full capacity. Almost certainly not their $400 PCs or $29 printers, but something. You can bet it's not near as lucrative for the average HP worker as it was a generation ago. But for Mrs. Whatsername I'm sure it is, else she wouldn't be doing it there.

[Salvation]

And Kulongoski wants to raise taxes. Sign the AFP petition against it!

[Clinging Bitterly]

Sign it? I'm circulating it.

Actually there are two of them referring the separate business and income tax increases - and others, not so widely circulated, referring some DMV fee and gas tax increases.

They get to the ballot and the voters will throw them all down. Too bad they won't also throw throw down the people who wrote them.