Category Archives: Business

Apparently, the NLRB is trying to save the country from us stupid Southerners

Meant to share this with you the other day when I saw it. It was an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, sticking up for the NLRB for attacking Boeing’s plans to produce Dreamliners in SC:

We should be aghast that Boeing is sending a big fat market signal that it wants a less-skilled, lower-quality work force. This country is in a debt crisis because we buy abroad much more than we sell. Alas, because of this trade deficit, foreign creditors have the country in their clutches. That’s not because of our labor costs—in that respect, we can undersell most of our high-wage, unionized rivals like Germany. It’s because we have too many poorly educated and low-skilled workers that are simply unable to compete.

We depend on Boeing to out-compete Airbus, its European rival. But when major firms move South, it is usually a harbinger of quality decline. Over and over as a labor lawyer in the 1980s and ’90s, I saw companies move away from Chicago, where the pay was $28 an hour, to some place in South Carolina or Louisiana where the pay was about half that. While these moves aggrieved me as a union lawyer, it might have consoled me as an American if those companies went on to thrive globally.

But too often, alas, it was the beginning of the end, as it was for Outboard Marine Corporation, where I once represented workers. In the 1990s the company went from the high wage union North to the low wage South and was bankrupt by 2000. There are reasons workers in the North get $28 an hour while down in the South they get $14 or even $10. Adam Smith could explain it: “productivity,” “skill level,” “quality.”

Here is yet another American firm seeking to ruin its reputation for quality. Why? To save $14 an hour!…

This gross insult not only to SC workers, but to the ability of our technical college system to train them (which the system is perfectly capable of doing — ask BMW), is apparently supported by nothing more substantial than the fact that in SC, we will work for less money. I don’t suppose you can be in actual need of a job unless you’re a stupid Southerner, huh?

This was so over-the-top that I found myself wondering: Did the WSJ deliberately pick this piece because it was so ham-handed, just to make the NLRB’s case look worse than it already did? Surely not.

The first moment it really felt like summer

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Summer is felt not in furious action, but in the almost motionless intervals BETWEEN actions...

Last night, I went to a Chamber of Commerce “Business After Hours” reception out at the ballpark before the Blowfish game. As I told Ike McLeese, it was the first time I’d been there since the Bombers days.

And there was for me, as the sun was lowering to a more acute angle in the west, and the ballplayers were warming up and wandering about lazily the way they do before a game, with their uniforms still clean and fresh, and the markings on the red clay of the infield still white and clear, and the smell of the grass, a sort of magic moment. Something like what Ray Liotta (as a very unconvincing Shoeless Joe Jackson) was getting at in “Field of Dreams” when he talked about “the ball park in my nose, the cool of the grass on my feet… The thrill of the grass,” and observed, “Man, I did love this game. I’d have played for food money. It was the game… The sounds, the smells. Did you ever hold a ball or a glove to your face?”

It was like that, one of those hard-to-define, quintessentially American moments of anticipation. Like the time I was at a Braves game, and Greg Maddux was wandering about back and forth slowly on the mound during a commercial break, with nothing happening on the field, staring absently at the ground, and the P.A. system was playing “Strawberry Fields Forever”… OK, maybe not exactly like that, but you know, transcendental…

It was, among other things, the moment that it first felt like summer to me. Yeah, I know we’ve had really hot weather the last week or two, and I also realize that according to the calendar it’s not technically summer, but for me, this was when it started.

Summer is felt not in furious action, but in the almost motionless intervals between actions…

These iPhone photos don’t perfectly capture it, but I thought I’d share them anyway.

I framed this one this way because I liked that kid's hat. And the two nonplayers lounging against this side of the fence...

“Again with the negative waves, Moriarty!” (Redux)

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Yeah, I used that headline once before. But I’m making the point again.

This morning’s lead headline in The Wall Street Journal was tiresome:

Economic Outlook Darkens

Markets Stumble as Factories, Hiring Slow Down; Biggest Drop in Stocks in a Year

The drumbeat of bad news about the U.S. economy got louder on Wednesday, rattling financial markets and driving stocks to their biggest drop in a year.

The U.S. factory sector, which has been an engine of the recovery, notched its biggest one-month slowdown since 1984 as companies hit the brakes on hiring and production. Another report showed private-sector hiring dropped precipitously in May, prompting economists to ratchet down their expectations for the closely watched nonfarm payrolls report due on Friday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 279.65 points, or 2.2%, to 12290.14, its biggest point decline since June 4 of last year. Investors piled into the safety of Treasury bonds, sending yields on the 10-year note below 3% for the first time this year. Yields move in the opposite direction of price….

Sheesh. I’m not going to go on and on about my own unified field theory of the economy (after all, I couldn’t even get y’all to watch that hilarious Keynes and Hayek rap video), but in a nutshell it is this: All the bad economic indicators result, at some point down the line, from someone having a lousy attitude.

That applies whether you’re talking the stock market, or manufacturing figures, or retail sales, or jobs, what have you. We start tightening up, and things get as bad as we thought they were, or even worse.

So snap out of it, people! I’m a veteran of the front lines of this singularly monotonous war, and have no glory or medals to show for it. Just a lot of PTSD. Don’t need any more, thanks…

A video interview about comprehensive tax reform

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Recently, I interviewed (for Alan Cooper’s MidlandsBiz) Michael Fanning of the Olde English Consortium about the need for comprehensive tax reform in SC. It’s an old favorite cause of mine, and he speaks about it ably, so if you have ANY interest in such wonkish-but-important things, you might want to watch.

Here’s the link, in case you have trouble with the embed.

The free market at work in the SC General Assembly

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A couple of weeks ago, I appeared on Cynthia Hardy’s TV show to talk about tort reform. Because I was asked. Which just goes to show, if asked, I will talk about pretty much anything. Seriously, though… I forgot to mention it to y’all at the time, but as far as my comments are concerned, you didn’t miss much. My position on the issue is what it’s been for years — I’m not convinced on caps, and I think punitive damages (that is to say, those damages above and beyond what it takes to make the winning plaintiff whole) should go to the state — just like other punitive fines for criminal offenses. Basically, you would actually punish people who might otherwise write off lesser damages as the cost of doing business, but you remove the incentive for individuals and their attorneys to use the tort system as some sort of lottery.

For more, you can look at The State‘s editorial from earlier this year, and Cindi’s column from last year. I generally agree.

Beyond that, I’ve sort of lost track of the debate this year. I do that sometimes when neither side is pushing the position I would go for, and I have other things to do.

Seems that, according to Wesley Donehue (who works for the Senate Republicans) things are coming to a head today:

@wesleydonehue

Wesley Donehue

Watching the trial lawyers in the SC Senate block tort reform.

36 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

Hmmm. Well, I don’t suppose anyone can argue with that. I mean, it’s the free market at work, with each individual selfishly protecting his own economic interests. The Tea Party types and Sanfordistas should be thrilled. And the trial lawyers should certainly be happy.

But come to think of it, not too great for the Chamber of Commerce, or the legislative leadership. Or for the rest of us. But then, unless the legislation has changed considerably since the last time I looked at it, I’m not sure our interests would have been all that well served either way…

Amazon compromise appears to be a good one

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I’ve sort of run out of time to go very deeply into the Amazon compromise today, but I wanted to go ahead and put up something about it…

A deal reached early today paves the way for online retailer Amazon to open a distribution center employing 2,000 people.

The state Senate agreed shortly after midnight to give the company a sales tax exemption it wants for the project, ending a two-day talkathon that opponents launched to stall the measure.

“We’ve got a deal,” Sen. Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, announced after resistance ended when all sides agreed that Amazon will send customers in South Carolina notices that sales tax is owed on purchases.

It was quickly approved on a unanimous voice vote.

Amazon’s $125 million project near Cayce would be one of the largest recent developments in the Midlands.

The agreement moves the proposal to the verge of final legislative approval. The plan approved in the Senate will need to go back to the House, which approved the deal last week. But House leaders promise to accept changes that Amazon allies have made in the measure….

Basically, I was impressed at what the lawmakers came up with. No, Amazon won’t be collecting the tax on SC sales, and I think that it should. It won’t be calculating the amount for customers, either.

But what it WILL do is notify customers of something that many seem to be unaware of now — that they most likely DO owe taxes on the purchase (the reason why it says “may owe” instead of “owe” is to step around the complication of all those exemptions we have, such as the fact that you don’t owe taxes if what you bought from Amazon was a Bible) — and point them in the direction of finding out how much, and paying it. Here’s what the amendment requires (for more, search for “Amendment No. 230” on this link:

(E)(1) A person to whom this section applies who makes a sale through the person’s internet website shall notify a purchaser in a confirmation email that the purchaser may owe South Carolina use tax on the total sales price of the transaction and include in the email an internet link to the Department of Revenue’s website that allows the purchaser to pay the use tax. The notice must include language that is substantially similar to the following:

YOU MAY OWE SOUTH CAROLINA USE TAX ON THIS PURCHASE BASED ON THE TOTAL SALES PRICE OF THE PURCHASE. YOU MAY VISIT WWW.SCTAX.ORG TO PAY THE USE TAX OR YOU MAY REPORT AND PAY THE TAX ON YOUR SOUTH CAROLINA INCOME TAX FORM.

(2) The Department of Revenue shall cooperate with any person to whom this section applies and provide the person with the information and assistance necessary to comply with the provisions of this subsection and the means to link to the applicable portion of the department’s website. The department shall develop the webpage required by item (1) and develop a means to allow the purchaser to pay any required tax through the webpage. The department shall include on the webpage a table of the various sales tax rates of the State by location that permits the person to calculate the tax based on the total sales price and delivery location.

(3)(a) A person to whom this section applies shall also by February first of each year provide to each purchaser to whom tangible goods were delivered in this State a statement of the total sales made to the purchaser during the preceding calendar year. The statement must contain language substantially similar to the following:

YOU MAY OWE SOUTH CAROLINA USE TAX ON PURCHASES YOU MADE FROM US DURING THE PREVIOUS TAX YEAR. THE AMOUNT OF TAX YOU MAY OWE IS BASED ON THE TOTAL SALES PRICE OF [INSERT TOTAL SALES PRICE] THAT MUST BE REPORTED AND PAID WHEN YOU FILE YOUR SOUTH CAROLINA INCOME TAX RETURN UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY PAID THE TAX.

The statement must not contain any other information that would indicate, imply, or identify the class, type, description, or name of the products purchased. Any information that would indicate, imply, or identify the class, type, description, or name of the products purchased is considered strictly confidential.

That’s more than we have now. And it gets us those 2,000 (or more) jobs. That’s a good deal for South Carolina.

Quick survey: Do you like clowns? Did you EVER?

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We all have our prejudices. Me, I don’t like clowns. Never did. I was afraid of them when I was a kid. You know the axiom about how bigots tend to dehumanize members of the groups they don’t like? Well, that’s what I did. Sort of. Actually, it was the other way around. It’s not that I didn’t like them, therefore I thought of them as not being human. It’s that I really didn’t get that they were humans, and I didn’t like them.

In fact — and I was right on this point — they didn’t seem like anything natural. They weren’t dogs, or cats, or horses, or cows, or any other species that I found totally nonthreatening. They were like something from another world, and a pretty freaky, inexplicable one, too. (Later, I was to see “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” — or some of it, anyway — and it made a lot of sense to me.)

Funny thing is, I don’t remember being afraid of much as a kid. At least, not of real things. I never had the fear of nuclear war that so many who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis shared. I do recall having an unreasoning fear of that Snidely Whiplash guy who was on the kiddie show on WIS… when we lived in Shandon back around 1957, I was convinced that that guy lived in the bushes behind the duplex we lived in. Not the one on Heyward Street, the other one we lived in… But I wasn’t afraid of much else. Except clowns.

I have this early memory — this was probably the mid-50s, ’57 at the latest — of being in the Colonial store in Bennettsville (remember Colonial stores, you oldsters?) and there was some sort of promotion going on, and there was a clown giving out popcorn. I remember wanting to check out the popcorn, but not wanting it badly enough to go anywhere near that clown. I did my best to keep at least an aisle between him and me. Or rather, between it and me. This seemed to me a completely rational response. Still does, looked at from a little kid’s perspective.

I don’t know when it was, but I remember that eventually I did finally realize that they were people, only with makeup. I think it took awhile because the premise seemed unlikely. Why would people want to make themselves look so FREAKY?

Anyway, I got to thinking about that again when I read that Ronald McDonald is in trouble:

The 48-year-old, red-haired mascot has come under fire from health-care professionals and consumer groups who, in recent days, have asked the fast-food chain to retire Ronald McDonald. But McDonald’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Skinner staunchly defended the clown at the company’s annual meeting on Thursday, saying, “Ronald McDonald is going nowhere.”

He kept his job, and I’ve got mixed feelings about that. I hate for anybody to lose their job in this economy, but… well, you know… he’s a clown…

Anyway, somewhat more seriously… I’ve always sort of wondered about this concept that clowns are a great way to appeal to kids. Because they certainly weren’t in my case. So I put it to you: Do you like clowns? And more to the point, did you ever like clowns?

Resonating, rather than governing

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Here’s an example of the kind of thing we see in a country in which democratic habits have overtaken republican ones. (And remember, I’m using those words according to the generic, original definitions, not referring to the execrable parties that go by those names.)

Just got this email from Joe Wilson:

Dear Subscriber:

This Congress, my main goal has been to bring jobs to South Carolina. Since January, I have actively encouraged job growth in South Carolina while removing barriers for job creation. I am proud to say we are close to having 2,000 more full time jobs come to South Carolina. This week, the South Carolina House brought these jobs one step closer by voting in favor of the new Amazon amendment. This legislation would allow for Amazon to invest $125 million in a distribution facility in the Midlands. I supported this creation of jobs back in December. I stood firm on the steps of the State House supporting it on Tuesday. And even today, I am urging the State Senate to follow the lead of the State House of Representatives and pass this legislation! The Second District wants these jobs!

With Amazon coming to the Midlands, more local companies will be able to expand as a result of working with Amazon. This means more hiring across the state for small businesses. It also means new and higher-paying jobs for residents of our state. Finally, it means more dollars will be spent locally in our neighborhoods, our shopping malls, and our communities.

I am thankful for your support! As many of you know, progress is made from the bottom-up. By being vocal, we were able to get our state government to change its position 180 degrees in a matter of a few weeks. You and I both know government rarely moves that quickly. It’s a testament to your hard work and effort that we now have thousands of jobs and investment on the verge of coming to our community.

However, the bill still needs to be approved by the S.C. Senate. Please go to myFacebook page and vote in the poll to let me know how you feel.

Sincerely,

Joe Wilson
U.S. Congressman

P.S. To visit my Facebook page, please click here now.

You see, Joe has determined that in the core of his constituency, being FOR the Amazon break is a winner. Never mind that it has NOTHING to do with his job as a congressman. Unless, of course, he’d like to tell us how he’s working on a national solution to the internet shopping/sales tax issue, as both I and Amazon would like to see someone in Congress do. Which he doesn’t mention.

Instead, he asks us to come to his Facebook page and tell him how we FEEL about this S.C. legislative issue.

This is sort of the kind of thing I was on about earlier.

You and your “filter bubble,” and the impact on society

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This is a fascinating little spoken essay over at TED, and as the site boasts, is indeed an “idea worth spreading.” Actually, a bunch of ideas — ideas and observations I’ve made before — although neatly tied together.

Here are some of the things that it discusses:

The idea of the personal “filter bubble,” which is unique to you and yet — and this is critical — not chosen by you. It’s chosen by the algorithms with which you are interacting, based on information that has been gathered about you. I’m not just talking about the obvious ads you see. I’m talking about — to use the example Eli Pariser uses in the video — if you Google “Egypt,” you don’t get the same information that someone else gets when they Google “Egypt.” It’s like you’re in parallel universes.
That these algorithms are the things replacing editors like me — the people who made a profession out of filtering the vast amounts of information that is available into something digestible and understandable to a person in the real world with only one set of eyes and 24 hours in the day.
That instead of empowering you, though — which is the myth of the Internet, that regular folks have been all liberated from us wicked, manipulating editors controlling what they see and what is published — this new, impersonal mechanism is manipulating you, and doing it in isolation, and in a way that you are unlikely to notice. (As I type that, I start to think more and more of “The Matrix.”) Rather than being more connected to the world, it’s like you are being fed a personalized information flow in your own little solitary confinement cell.
There is, in other words, a dark side to the my-this and my-that way that websites are often marketed to you. I’ve always had a visceral, negative response to that stuff, but I always thought it was because of my communitarianism. And the fact that it spelled the death of the mass media in which I made my living, which depended upon a notion of common space, and common concerns. This has given me another reason to be bugged by it.
To explore that isolation thing further… back in the 80s, we MSM journalists decried the plethora of specialty magazines that were increasingly popular. People were more and more subscribing to “Left-Handed Gay Bicyclist Journal” rather than publications based in the notion that we’re all in a society together. The Web really exacerbated that tendency. (But that’s not what did in the newspaper industry. What did it in was the business side of that — the fact that businesses started marketing directly to customers and potential customers directly, first through direct mail, then through those little plastic tags on your keychain, then through the Web. That shut out mass media, media aimed at whole communities.) The reason, we kept telling people, that YOU should care was that representative democracy depended upon a sense of shared interests, or at least shared sources of information, to some extent. But at least we thought people were freely choosing this. The fascinating thing about the “filter bubble” is how software is choosing it for you, largely without your full realization.
This is like 1915 again. Early in the last century, as people started realizing how important newspapers were to democracy itself, you started to see the development of certain ethics about objectivity and fairness, etc. There started to be an assumption of SOME responsibility by editors, rather than just bulling along being shills for this or that political movement — which is what newspapers had been since the founding of the republic. As imperfect as that system of safeguards was, it was at least something. Now we don’t have it. The Internet is the Wild West. If democracy is to be well served, some sorts of standards also need to emerge on the Web.

Something he doesn’t directly address but I will. What’s going on right now — in a tiny way on this blog, in lots of other ways in thousands of other places — is that people are trying to figure out the new business model for news on the state and local level. The old model has collapsed, but there’s still a strong demand for the information and commentary — as strong as ever. The thing is, the old business model wasn’t related to that demand — newspapers were paid for by advertisers, not readers. I believe in markets enough that I believe a new model for paying for newsgathering in order to meet that demand will emerge. But will it be one that supports an informed electorate, the kind upon which a liberal representative democracy depends?

And by the way, this is not about “that bad Internet.” The message is better summed up in his conclusion:

We really need the internet to be that thing that we all dreamed of it being… and it’s not going to do that, if it leaves us all isolated, in a web of one.

Anyway, that’s enough for me. Y’all are all empowered and everything now. Watch it yourself.

The Second Battle of Amazon, with a different outcome

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Had to type that headline three times. Fingers kept wanting to hit X instead of Z. Oh well; at least it’s easier to spell than “Manassas.”

Ever since this started heating back up last week, I’ve been meaning to do a post on it so we can discuss it. But so much has been happening that by the time I get set to react to one development, there are several more. There’s crazy buzz about it.

An hour or so ago someone Tweeted:

Reporter at Statehouse just saw Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt come out of secret meeting with House GOPers and Gov. Haley over Amazon.

… to which I responded, “Secret?” Which drew the response, “They’re met behind closed doors. They kicked our dude out. Not illegal, just out of sight.”

Anyway, here’s the latest, from that same source:

S.C. House has reversed course and has APPROVED tax-collection exemption for Amazon.

Boy, that happened fast, didn’t it? Just goes to illustrate something I say all the time in the face of Conventional Wisdom that this or that is going to happen, or this or that will never happen in politics: Anything can happen. It’s never over. The Fat Lady can screech all she wants.

John O’Connor reports that “35 Republicans and 17 Democrats switched their Amazon vote from April 27.” And Will Folks says “@nikkihaley also told the Caucus that she would not ‘hold it against them’ if they voted for Amazon.” Nothing like leadership, huh? But all I have for you about today’s developments are these bits and pieces.

I don’t know what happens next, either, beyond it needing to go to the Senate. But I thought I’d give y’all this chance to talk about it. For fuel, here’s a recent news story about the resurrection of the debate, and here’s another and here’s another. And here’s the latest attempt by Amazon to sweeten the deal. And here’s a radio ad from opponents.

So, what do y’all think?

He jests at scars that never felt a wound…

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Some accused me since yesterday of lacking empathy toward the feelings of those whose own sensitivity is based in experiences I cannot share (something that, if you’ll recall, I fully acknowledged in the original post).

I can definitely dig it.

Today, @haireofthedog, in reference to new GOP chair Chad Connelly, made a joke (at least, I THINK it was a joke):

hmm… thinking about a title for a column: Amway Messiah.

And @PhilBaileySC seemed to think it was funny.

Not cool, said I!

Don’t joke. Once, years ago, I was trapped with an Amway salesman in my own home. Or was it Shaklee? Traumatic.

It was truly awful. This guy was a friend of mine — a coworker. He had asked to visit my home, without telling me why, and I had agreed. My wife, perhaps sensing danger, left us alone in the living room. For at least an hour, he spoke of the fact that he had come up with this great new way to make extra money, and my eyes are glazing over, thinking how on Earth it had anything to do with me, because I was totally uninterested, and wondering how much longer it would last, and murmuring vague things along the lines of “How nice for you,” when he FINALLY mentions the outfit he’s working with. Which, of course, if he had mentioned on the front end, I would have politely told him I wasn’t interested before he bothered coming to the house.

Then, he extolled the virtues of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for maybe another hour, while I sat there in a state of helpless, polite shock. I couldn’t believe it was happening. Time I would never, ever get back.

It’s been close to 30 years. But PTSD is long-lasting, they say. It made me permanently shy about EVER hearing about wonderful business opportunities of any kind (which made it easier for me to brush off all those people calling me with “franchising opportunities” after I got laid off). So don’t joke about it.

That’ll show them Yankees!

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Missed this Robert Ariail cartoon a couple of days ago; thought I’d share it now.

Don’t forget, you can see new work from Robert most days at robertariail.com.

NLRB gives GOP chance to clearly be the good guys

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Yes, I know that was a split infinitive, but I like it that way.

I was glancing over this story on the front page this morning:

WASHINGTON — Business leaders and Republican politicians Tuesday accused President Barack Obama of punishing GOP states by trying to block Boeing from opening an aircraft plant in South Carolina.

… and it struck me what a gift the NLRB had given the Republican Party in South Carolina.

By doing something SO outrageous, so without justification, and so profoundly harmful to South Carolina (if successful), the NLRB has given our state’s Republicans an issue to rally around and present themselves clearly as champions of the state’s best interests.

This doesn’t happen often. Usually, the GOP has to manufacture nonsense to fulminate about, such as “the looming specter of Obamacare” or something equally ridiculous. But this is real, it has substance, and it is clearly an attack upon the economic well-being of South Carolinians.

No wonder Republicans are rallying together, forgetting their pettier differences, to make as much noise about it as possible.

Of course, there is some overreaching, with Jim DeMint accusing the president of the United States of “thuggery.” Because, you know, wishing for his “Waterloo” isn’t malicious enough. But that’s Jim DeMint. On the whole, this makes Republicans look good, and far less silly and ideological than usual. (YES, there are some big ideological issues at stake in this matter, but you don’t actually have to care about them to care about the outcome.)

As for Mr. Obama — it’s pertinent that Nikki Haley has asked him, personally, to weigh in on this. (Which I don’t believe he’s done yet, Mr. DeMint. If he has, someone please send me a link.) Not that he’ll want to. As much as I like Mr. Obama, we all have our faults, and one of his biggest is his unwillingness to oppose Big Labor, which crowds him into some really ridiculous positions, such as his longtime, indefensible opposition to the Colombia Free Trade agreement.

This issue puts the president right where the SC GOP wants him. Since, you know, they mean him ill and want him to look bad. More to the point, it puts them in the position to look very good.

Me, I don’t care who looks good, as long as the bid to derail this project fails.

Bachmann running DOUBLE ads at thestate.com! Where’s my taste?

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OK, this is getting ridiculous. I knew that Michele Bachmann throwing around Web ad money in SC, but multiple ads per page on thestate.com? (On one page, I saw THE SAME AD twice, with one copy of it stacked on top of the other, the way those two slightly different ones are below. But when I tried to call it up like that again to grab a screen shot, I couldn’t get it to refresh quite that way.)

And not a single ad on bradwarthen.com. Which would probably give her a better deal.

At least, not yet.

Is this right? Is this fair? Is this the way the world should be? To quote the guy in the movie that came out today, “I say thee nay!”

If this pattern keeps up, I’m going to start seriously questioning this lady’s judgment…

Is our governor politically clueless, or does she know EXACTLY what she’s doing?

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Either way, it’s not good for South Carolina.

If you expect her to be mindful of the opinions of South Carolinians, you have to be puzzled by this behavior:

Gov. Nikki Haley said Thursday that a sales tax exemption Gov. Mark Sanford’s administration promised to Amazon, if granted, would destroy her economic development message.

While speaking in Charleston at the Free Enterprise Foundation awards luncheon, Haley addressed the Internet retailer’s decision to cancel a planned distribution center in Lexington County after the S.C. House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected the promised sales tax exemption.

The planned facility would have brought about 1,250 jobs to the Midlands.

Haley described the tax break that her predecessor promised as a “distraction” and said it is dangerous. She drew a distinction between the retail-related jobs Amazon would have brought and manufacturing jobs such as those Boeing Co. is bringing.

When talking to companies about coming to South Carolina, Haley said she tells them, “We are going to give you a fair, competitive marketplace to do business, and we are always going to take care of the businesses we already have.”…

So you ask yourself, why would she bother coming out and saying thing like this NOW, when the debate is over? When the issue was in doubt, she studiously avoided taking responsibility for any position. (She made it clear she didn’t LIKE the incentive, but promised to do nothing to stop it — while standing by as her Commerce secretary lobbied for it.) She didn’t want her fingerprints on whatever happened in any way.

So why make a speech about it NOW, when it’s moot? After all, the people who wanted Amazon to get the break are really unhappy now — as I can attest, having had to explain my own position to some of them the last couple of days. Why further antagonize them? Why not be quiet, or just say it’s a shame it didn’t work out, without going on about how jobs that aren’t manufacturing jobs are no good? (“Retail by nature is a lower-priced job. And retail by nature is not solid and invested. It is not a Boeing. It is not a BMW. Manufacturing, high technology is very different.”)

The only explanation I can see is that Nikki Haley has never been about trying to get things done here in South Carolina. She’s always been about appealing to what she sees as a potential national constituency — the kind of ideologues elsewhere who couldn’t care less about jobs in SC, but who DO have a marked prejudice against economic incentives. With them, badmouthing the Amazon proposal is win-win. She was, after all, speaking to the Free Enterprise Foundation.

Which do you think it is? Is she clueless? Is she, as David Woodward suggested, just that much of an amateur? Or is it all on-message calculation — a calculation that leaves us in SC out completely?

Amazon takes ball, goes home — or somewhere

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Been meaning to post something on this all day, so y’all can comment:

Amazon all but told South Carolina goodbye Wednesday after the online retailer lost a legislative showdown on a sales tax collection exemption it wants to open a distribution center that would bring 1,249 jobs to the Midlands.

Company officials immediately halted plans to equip and staff the one million-square-foot building under construction at I-77 and 12th Street near Cayce.

“As a result of today’s unfortunate House vote, we’ve canceled $52 million in procurement contracts and removed all South Carolina fulfillment center job postings from our (Web) site,” said Paul Misener, Amazon vice president for global public policy.

The decision came shortly after state representatives rejected the tax break 71-47.

“People who think this is a bluff don’t know Amazon,” Lexington County Councilman Bill Banning said. “Too many other states want them.”

The partly finished center probably will be completed and then “put into mothballs,” he said.

Something, I mean, more penetrating than what I said on Twitter this morning: “So Amazon, having made South Carolinians jump obediently through one hoop (blue law), petulantly decamps when we balk at a second one…”

I didn’t mean that to sound quite so dismissive of Amazon, or of us. I mean, I’m sorry they’re leaving. I also suspect that, given the way it unfolded, there’s nothing — nothing legitimate and wise — that we could have done to stop them from leaving. Which is a shame. To Amazon, this is about bigger fish than South Carolina.

Or such is the impression I form from this rather dramatic action — abandoning a multi-million-dollar investment (which was either worth making or not) over the inconvenience of having to collect sales taxes (which ALL businesses should be required to do, whether they have a “nexus” or not).

But what do y’all think?

Scooped by The State on my own danged story

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Our late, lamented AC units, right after the deed was done.

Some of y’all were disparaging The State on a previous post. Well, I’ll say this for them: They just scooped me on my own blasted story.

Of course, I let them. Remember that list of posts I’ve been MEANING to get to, which I wrote about back here? Well, one of them was about copper theft:

Metal fabricator Stanley Bradham delivered two 300-pound concrete slabs to a Pickens Street business Tuesday, then lowered a couple of 2- to 3-ton heating and air-conditioning units on top.

But it is what Bradham did next that theft-weary business and church leaders are hoping will finally slow the alarming rate of vandalism aimed at removing copper wiring – a trend that not only inconveniences victims, but also drives up their insurance rates.

Bradham bolted a lockable, customized, 350-gauge unibody steel cage over each of the units and welded the cages to the cement pads, which are secured by 12-inch anchors in the ground.

“It stops your access to the top of the unit, so you can’t get in,” said Bradham, of the newly formed Carolina Copper Protection company in Hopkins. “For the cost factor, it’s a very visual deterrence.”

That Pickens Street business was ADCO.

This is a story that goes under the heading of the Jerry Ratts dictum, “News is whatever happens to, or interests, an editor.” Or former editor, in this case. Jerry was a bit of a cynic, but he had a point. I mean, you know, this copper theft was a serious problem and all, but it only became dire quite recently, and suddenly…

Several weeks back, copper thieves destroyed both of our AC units to get a few coils of copper. We’re talking $8,000-$10,000 worth of damage for maybe, maybe $400 worth of metal.

Actually, that’s the high estimate. Back right after this happened, when I was in full fury over it, I interviewed Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott about it, and he said it was probably more like between $30 and $100. Which is… mind-boggling to me. I mean, it seems way easier to actually to out and work for that amount of money. I mean, mow a lawn or something — way less risk.

But apparently, it’s not as much trouble as I thought to tear up an AC unit that way. Chief Scott says they’re in and out in 3-5 minutes. Otherwise, he’d catch more of them.

It started with empty or abandoned commercial buildings. Now, he says, they’re hitting everything — churches, law offices, even private homes. Having your unit on a roof is no defense. Thieves destroyed 17 units from the top of the Dream Center at Bible Way Church on Atlas Road. Then, after the units were replaced, they hit again.

In fact, as Roddie Burriss reports:

In 2009, Southern Mutual wrote checks for $365,000 worth of losses due to copper thefts, according to Robert Bates, executive vice president.

In 2010, the company paid $1.2 million in copper theft losses to 174 member churches. Because most of the churches it covers are located in the Palmetto State, 109 of the 174 copper theft claims were in South Carolina, accounting for losses totaling $839,000, Bates said.

Through March 2011, Bates said the company already had paid churches $552,000 in copper loss claims, putting it well on the way to a $2 million payout for the year in these thefts…

I ran into Roddie and photographer Tim Dominick in the alley outside our building yesterday — and realizing they were doing MY story, I lapsed back into editor mode. Let the reporters and photographers do the work, then comment it. It feels natural.

So here’s the commentary part… Obviously, Something Must Be Done about this problem. Back when we were without AC, I had a suggestion, which I posted on Twitter. It was on a particularly warm day last month (I told you I’d been sitting on this for awhile):

Can’t breathe. No air-conditioning all week. Thieves stole copper. We need to bring back flogging. Or keelhauling. Something painful…

Sonny Corleone would say it’s just business, but I was taking it very, very personally. Chief Scott has a more constructive, and constitutional idea than my sweaty rantings: Make it harder to fence the stuff.

He’s backing, and testified in favor of, legislation sponsored by Rep. Todd Rutherford that would stiffen penalties (although, I’m sorry to say, no flogging), and make the businesses that buy scrap metal get legitimate ID from the people who sell them copper. Which would seem sort of like a no-brainer. As the chief said, “When you ride up on a bicycle, and you have two air-conditioning coils, you’re probably not a legitimate air-conditioning repair man.”

Chief Scott, and other law enforcement professionals, have enough problems, what with people coming at them with AK-47s. And yet they are spending more and more of their time fighting this rising tide of copper theft, and it’s pretty overwhelming — and not only to the angry, sweaty victims.

During our interview (which, like so many of my interviews, took place at the Capital City Club), the Chief looked out over the city and said, wondering, “Just LOOK at all those air-conditioners…”

Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott: "Just LOOK at all those air-conditioners..."

March for Babies coming up Saturday

A few words from Amazon’s local friends

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Well, I’ve gotten my hands on audio of that radio ad I was wondering about last week from the friends of Amazon — and a second one as well. Here’s audio for the first ad, along with the script:

In the elections, politicians promised jobs.

When Amazon announced plans for a distribution facility in Lexington County, it meant 12-hundred and fifty full-time jobs and hundreds of part-time jobs.

Not only that, but millions of tax dollars for our schools.

South Carolina promised Amazon it would work to make this happen.

But Wal-Mart and other retail giants are trying to force the state to break its promise and make Amazon collect taxes from South Carolina customers. The courts say that’s wrong. If Walmart gets its way, Amazon has said that it would have no choice but to leave.

This isn’t about online sales taxes. That’s for Congress to decide.

It’s about paychecks and healthcare benefits families. Property taxes for schools. And purchasing power for small business.

Call your legislator and Governor Haley now. Ask them to keep South Carolina’s promise to Amazon by extending the Job Creation Act. Say yes to jobs. No to Wal-Mart.

And here’s audio for the second, and that script as well:

The Upstate has BMW and the Low Country Boeing.

Now it’s our turn with Amazon.

Forbes calls Amazon the number one company in America for customer service.

Fortune listed Amazon as one of the world’s most admired companies.

We NEED one of America’s best companies working with one of America’s best regions to grow and prosper.

Call your legislators and Governor Haley. Tell them to pass the Amazon bill because 1200 jobs with benefits are exactly what we need.

Paid for by Save Our Lexington Jobs.

As you see from that first item, a large part of the case being made is that the opposition is Walmart. And indeed, it is a big liability for opponents of Amazon getting the break it seeks — and a huge irony as well. The anti-break faction paints itself as being all about “main street” — and we all know that Walmart has done more to hurt ol’ Mom and Pop than anyone. Which is why that side is quick to point to local business allies.

Both sides are playing on emotion, of course — fairness vs. mean ol’ Walmart. That’s because this is a political battle.

Which is why one seems out of place when one cites dry policy justifications, as my friends at The State did. They were right, of course: we need to be moving TOWARD collecting taxes on online purchases, not away from it. That’s the big picture. Unfortunately, when you’re looking at that many anticipated jobs going away, that “big picture” can seem awfully abstract.

That’s why I get somewhat uncomfortable defending the position that is, in the abstract, completely right. Like when I was talking with Mike Briggs of the Central SC Alliance this morning at breakfast.

To Mike, Amazon was promised this break — which is really about reinstituting a break that existed in state law before. To me, the idea that anyone could consider anything that depended upon action by the SC General Assembly as a promise seems far-fetched. Perhaps legislatures act more predictably in other states where Amazon does business, but they certainly don’t here. A “promise” made by Mark Sanford (who’s he?) to TRY to get something enacted hardly seems binding on anyone currently in office. YES, it could indeed make the job of economic development in the future harder, to the extent that other prospects also see this as having been a promise. But do you really do something you think is bad policy because of that? Maybe you do, if you need the jobs badly enough…

Mike’s stronger point is that this distribution center is hardly the kind of “nexus” that was anticipated in the case that set national precedent on whether businesses were required to collect such taxes. He argues that it was about storefronts, not about administrative facilities. He may be right.

My response is that what we need is national law that would require Web businesses to collect sales taxes regardless of whether they have a local precedent. Web businesses have enough of a competitive advantage over bricks-and-mortar businesses that provide jobs (and, ahem, buy advertising) in our local communities. Government should not allow them another.

Yeah, I get it — that’s NOT the law now. But apparently, current law DOES hold that Amazon would have to collect the taxes once its facility is built. And granting a specific break to Amazon on this would be a move in the direction AWAY from the kind of law we should have, nationally.

Yeah, I know. Such dry policy considerations about laws we OUGHT to have are cold comfort to someone who was counting on getting a job at Amazon. And I respect that.

Which is why I’m trying to give as much exposure as I can to the pro-Amazon argument. So my readers have all the ammo they need to disagree with me, if they are so inclined. Hey, I try to do that all the time, but in this case I feel particularly obliged.

In that spirit, I call your attention to one other item from the pro-Amazon campaign — this op-ed piece in the Charleston paper, by Lewis F. Gossett, president and CEO of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance. An excerpt:

Debate about extending the Jobs Creation Act for Amazon goes far beyond the Midlands, which stands to gain 1,200 full-time jobs with benefits, hundreds of seasonal jobs, and economic investment nearing $100 million.

How the General Assembly and governor handle this project will affect every county’s ability to compete in the global economy for jobs and investment. If they fail to simply extend a tax provision that has existed for five years, leaving Amazon no choice but to go somewhere else, every state in the nation will have the same message for job creators large and small: If South Carolina will break its word to a world-class company like Amazon, it will do it to you.

Decades of work to make us a global player, from Carroll Campbell to Gov. Haley, and heroic efforts by the General Assembly to make our laws business-friendly will be compromised by a broken promise.

Make no mistake, the outgoing administration promised Amazon reinstatement of a just-expired law that did not require online retailers to collect sales taxes from South Carolina customers. Secretary of Commerce Robert M. Hitt has said so.

Detractors can parse language in the formal agreement all they want, but the fact is that every major deal between the state and private companies contains a lot of formal language, as well as verbal agreements and handshakes. Company officials from well-publicized large projects in the Upstate and in the Charleston area also trusted state leaders to get incentive packages approved by governments at all levels. And it is true for Amazon…

It’s a tough issue. And I find myself on the less-comfortable side of it.

NLRB launches attack on Boeing, SC

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Well, here’s a nice acid test on how you feel about unions and economic development. See what you think of this:

NLRB files complaint against Boeing over N. Charleston plant

By Matt Tomsic
[email protected]

The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint today, calling for Boeing to open a second 787 final assembly line in Washington state to remedy what it calls an illegal transfer of work to non-union facilities in North Charleston.

Boeing is building a multi-million dollar facility near Charleston International Airport to complement its first final assembly line in the Seattle area.

The board is pursuing an order to require Boeing to maintain a second assembly line in Washington state, though the complaint does not ask for the line in South Carolina to be closed, according to a news release from the NLRB….

You know, I’m not sure the federal gummint wants to pull something like this on SC so soon after the anniversary of our firing on Fort Sumter.

Nice of the NLRB not to “ask for” Boeing to shut down in SC. No, it’s just saying the company has to open a line it doesn’t need.

Wow. I’m with Lindsey Graham on this one:

“This is one of the worst examples of unelected bureaucrats doing the bidding of special interest groups that I’ve ever seen,” Graham said in a statement emailed from his office. “In this case, the (National Labor Relations Board) is doing the bidding of the unions at great cost to South Carolina and our nation’s economy.”