Posted on 01/18/2016 4:12:15 AM PST by Jim Noble
FAIRFIELD, Conn. - General Electric will leave its mark on this town beyond more than four decades of supplying hundreds of steady, high-paying jobs, and millions of dollars in property tax revenue. But it also leaves residents with many tough questions.
The giant industrial conglomerate has made significant donations to local nonprofits, while its employees shop at local businesses and volunteer their time coaching youth sports teams and working at local charities. Workers, raising families near the company's 68-acre campus in the town's Stratfield neighborhood, are active members of civic and community organizations.
The company "has always been a part of our image, our identity," said Fairfield’s highest-ranking town official, First Selectman Michael C. Tetreau. "We've always taken great pride and prestige for being the hometown for the world headquarters of GE."
But GE's announcement last week that it will pack up its central office and move to Boston leaves residents wondering who will buy the property, and whether this is the start of an exodus of companies from the area.
"Why are they leaving, what's the advantage they saw to go somewhere else?" Kristina Zalfa, an unemployed mother of two, asked over coffee at Las Vetas Lounge. "Is Fairfield, and Connecticut in general, not an advantageous enough place to have businesses stay?"
And if that's the case, "how does that affect my future and my kids' future?" she added...
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
The main support center moved to Utah years ago. EMC moved a tremendous amount of state-side manufacturing to RTP, North Carolina, quite a few years ago, too. The Dell acquisition will make EMC a privately held company (as is Dell which is HQ’ed out of Texas).
I worked there some two decades.
It’s all handwriting on the wall.
Yes - they got both state and city tax incentives plus they are getting other goodies, such as help in acquiring land. They’re a global company, they need a good international airport and they need to keep their executives happy. They will be happier in Boston than in Memphis or Little Rock.
Plus - GE doesn’t pay a lot of taxes to begin with. They have experts working full time figuring out how to avoid them.
If my memory serves me correctly, CT is in the top ten of worst tax states and MA isn't. Also, MA is more business friendly, which is not something CT is noted for. MA is generally rated in the top 10 of all states for technology and innovation, education and quality of life. It often ranks in the top 20 for workforce, access to capital and being business friendly. Where it generally ranks poorly is the cost of doing business, which is why GE got tax and benefits breaks. This is to say state officials are not as stupid as those in CT.
Newton, Iowa used to be the home of Maytag.
General Electric’s decision to leave Fairfield, Conn., for Boston is another sad marker in the downhill slide brought about by Connecticut’s high-tax, high-regulation, anti-business policies of the last 25 years.”””
Sounds like an echo of things in Delaware.
Note to major companies:
There are many places west of the Mississippi & South of the Ohio that would be glad to have you.
However, LEAVE the UNIONS behind.
Interesting. I worked there too, but only a couple of years back around the turn of the millennium. I hadn’t heard, and haven’t been able to find, anything about them moving their primary support to UT. Lots of articles about their Center For Excellence, and adding some new jobs to a new support center they opened just recently.
Compared to CT, MA is a tax haven. MA ranks 25th in biz friendly taxes.
To get DOJ approval for their merger with McDonnel Douglas. It was a payoff to Barky.
I think your premise is incorrect.
Boston is being moderately successful in making a socially liberal (very socially liberal), moderate tax and spend, education-rich model work.
I lived there for 22 years, and if you can overlook or partake of the soul-destroying aspects of cultural Marxism, it’s possible to do quite well economically.
Connecticut is very hard for me to understand. I grew up in the tri-state area and Connecticut was a bucolic, slow-paced, whiter than white Republican place. I pass through there on the way south twice a year or so, and every time I do it’s worse. The whole place seems overrun with illegal immigrants and layabouts, and the threatening atmosphere in public spaces is very striking.
What the Hell happened there?
“At least GE HQ is staying in America, if you call Boston America.”
After its acquisition of European based Alstom it will be interesting to watch where the top leaders of GE’s businesses will actually operate from.
For one thing, many Defense plants closed.
Yup! They definitely moved the primary support center to Utah.
I know a bunch of folk that moved out there.
They moved my position there, too. I’ve been out of work for a year.
It sounds like you’re from Ohio. You’ve missed so many others.
GE ceos past and present just fire 10’s of thousands of people and take in massive salaries and stock for themselves.
GE told them they would leave if they raised taxes on them again. They said GE was bluffing.
Fools.
It’s more than that.
20-25 years ago Southern CT was a bastion of ... Establishment Republicanism. It superficially embraced Reagan, but it was never really “Conservative” either socially or economically. It’s the area that was the power base of Lowell Weicksr and first sent Stuart Mckinney to Congress, then Chris Shays. Before throwing Chris Shays out of office for being too Conservative (wrap your heads around that one)
Southern CT really benefitted from it’s proximity to NYC. Close enough to be easily accessable but far enough to not have a lot of urban overhead. Having a somewhat business-friendly (crony capitalist flavor) feel but still socially Progressive. But thanks to the modern information environment that worth of thing is no longer as relevant as it once was. So it now comes down to raw economics. And the tax revenue needs of CT’s massive welfare state infrastructure make corporate abandonment a foregone conclusion.
GE is simply the first out the door.
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