Among the Kansas City elite, decision makers and pundits . . . Everybody is piling-on Gov. Brownback and what seems to be the implosion of the economic theories that have powered his administration.
Accordingly . . .
KANSAS CITY INSIDERS CELEBRATE THE UPCOMING SPRINT MOVE TO CALI BECAUSE IT PROVES THAT IT'LL TAKE MORE THAN LOW/NO TAXES TO KEEP LOCAL BIZ!!!
One insider told us:
"When Sprint leaves Kansas for CALIFORNIA of all places, that won't only hurt Johnson County, it will once and all prove that folks like Sinquefield and all the other E-Tax crybabies are just plain WRONG about their economic theories. This will finally give Missouri an overwhelming VICTORY and deal Kansas one of the most CRUSHING DEFEATS their economy has ever seen. It'll be fun to watch . . . "
Politics is a zero-sum game and if this important move happens any time soon, expect Kansas Gubanatorial Contender Rep. Paul Davis and his mostly KCMO supporters to have a good time with it . . . Right now, even the threat of moving has powered a great deal of jubilation on the Missouri side of the State Line.
Newsflash: The Missouri Vs. Kansas Economic Border War isn't even close to complete.
Developing . . .
ReplyDeleteThe "insider" is pretty small-minded if they think Sprint leaving won't hurt the entire metro area -- Missouri included.
Sprint employees don't only live and shop in Kansas, they live and shop in Missouri too. So I think reasonable folks fail to understand his "total victory" statement as people are getting pinkslips, being forced to move out of state, their Sprint-spinoff business closing shop and billions of dollars being sucked from the local economy. Yeah, total victory....
agree with 2:20. I think it's small-minded as well to relish in a "crushing defeat" in Kansas, when it's really a blow to the entire metro area.
ReplyDeleteI agree with 2:20 and 2:32. Moreover, it is this "win and lose" and "us vs. them" attitude in politics that fosters the belief that politicians care more about power than they do about accomplishing something positive for those they represent.
ReplyDeleteBlaming Brownback for Softbanks decision to move the HQ to Cali is silly.
ReplyDeleteSoft Bank doesn't want to fly from Japan to Kansas to get to Sprint. They want to fly to California. It makes it easier and over time will cut on transportation cost of executive travel.
If anyone thinks that Kansas voters are going to go against Brownback because of this, then you are living a delusion.
ReplyDeleteThe voters in Kansas vote only on two issues: abortion and fags.
The Republicans know this. It works every time.
All this does in to reinforce what has been a fact all along. Businesses don't exist for the benefit of the communities they're in. They exist to sell products or services, employ people, and make a profit.
ReplyDeleteAll these politicians and "eco devo" clowns who run around being amateur developers, giving away the tax base, making grandiose promises, and taking credit for the sun coming up in the morning aren't even close to being in the game when serious business decisions are being made.
You can throw every "incentive" you want and companies are happy to take them and have to spend less of their own money, but at the end of the day these tax breaks are small percentages of the real costs and ooprtunities of doing business.
And when that happens, the company does what's in the best interests of its shareholders, executives, and customers, and the state/county/city who gave everything away and cut all those ribbons is left with a bunch of empty buildings.
Thanks for playing.
Build places for people not for businesses.
ReplyDeleteAll the free parking lots, subsidized strip malls and overbuilt freeways in tw world don't matter to corporations. They'll take corporate welfare when they can get it and pack it up when the smallest advantage elsewhere can be found.
This is bad for the whole metro, the commenters above are 100% correct. But it should also serve as a wake up call to joco. Joco is a very average suburb. No one clanked to relocate there. It's not self sufficient and it wouldn't exist without kcmo and all that it offers.
Good suburbs are an important part of a healthy metro and no know should crow about losing jobs and industry. But joco better read the writing on the wall. Busineaa doesn't move where there are "good schools" or "good snow removal". They move where it's good for business. Forward thinking cities attract a good workforce, and that the only way for metros KCs size to survive long term. Obviously it pains some people to acknowledge the reality, but young educated people prefer walkable, lively places with transit, bike infrastructure urban neighborhoods and a sense of place.
There's a small sliver of metro kc that fits the bill and the city is starting to invest in it after 60 years if tearing it down or at best ignoring it while the metro an the nation focused on subsidizing suburban sprawl and a marketing campaign to bolster it.
Time to focus on that core or go the way of Peoria, Topeka, Tulsa etc and get left behind.
Denver Minneapolis Pittsburgh and a few others realized this about 20 years ago and now they're thriving while the KCs and st Louis's as Cleveland's and cincinnatis are just now figuring it out and trying to play catch up.
That wi probably never happen, but the slide into total irrelevance has been stopped and it's time to reverse course and reinvest in the parts of this city that make it a city again
All aboard, motherfucker, or stand at the station and wave...
Sprint has been losing in Kansas since they built that mega prison-like complex in Johnson County. The only thing left to do is tear the campus down or maybe KU can buy it and have a real Kansas City KU campus to compete with UMKC. Sam Brownback is a horrible governor.
ReplyDeleteIt will be easy to defeat him in any political contest but if the other guy is supported by KCMO that's dangerous for a host of reasons.
Anything bad that comes Kansas way is more than welcome. Those idiot voters continue to follow the likes of Brownback. Anyone that would follow a brown anything is stupid. Hopefully the whole state will blow away this spring.
ReplyDeleteThe company did not buy Sprint to sit back and watch it die of incompetence in Kansas City. If the politicians have gotten their economic eggs all in one basket as Wichita almost did with Boeing then this is the price you pay. I got a feeling the Sprint leadership is going to be practicing what they preach or they are going to join the ranks of the Sprint unemployed. Too bad! Some of those tree huggers should have been gone a decade ago. As for a local economics, if you don't think taxes is a serious player in the boarder wars ask KC how many businesses were attracted to their earnings tax last year?
ReplyDeleteE-TAX = red herring.
ReplyDeleteTaxes are higher in JoCo.
The main workforce is not going anywhere. A few upper executives might be asked to relocate.
ReplyDeleteIf they did leave Cerner will move right in. That would stick it right up the crooks downtown ass!
Which "crooks"?
ReplyDeleteThe ones who steal taxpayer money from working Kansas and fork it over to CEOs with business in Missouri?
Or the ones who "passed" TDDs no one got to vote on at Oak Park Mall, Village West, and Metcalf South?
Or the ones who subsidize strip malls in South Johnson County, the supposed free market choice of everyone?
The ones who have made their money on farm welfare????
The one who gutted education budgets to lower taxes on the richest Kansas and the out of state corporate overloards who write their legislation????
The ones who spent 5x the streetcar money on a interchange to nowhere on I 35????
Do tell...
There seems to be a lot of unemployed, jealous Missourians on the blog today.
ReplyDeletePosted at 4:20, claimed everyone was unemployed who posted during the "workday".
ReplyDeletelulzers.
Live in OP, like to say "have everything here they have anywhere else" then go out for dinner at BW3 with some of the bro-heimers from "South". Lates its back to the sweet ass apartment (1st place, yalls) with my roomies and then its time to put on my sweet jeans with the bedazzled pockets and the sick fadez pluus pair it with my Ed Hardy shirt (still sweet, dude) and go out and get some bitchez brah!!! Gonna hit up the Tanners in Olathe, dude. Time to get my dick wet!!!
Tanners in Olathe. LoL...enjoy the niggers grouping the white ho's.
ReplyDeleteopen ass brownback!
ReplyDeleteGrammar, son.
ReplyDeleteNice complete sentence comments-section, grammar guy!
ReplyDeleteWay to lead by example.
3:45 well spoken, friend.
ReplyDeleteMany of you so called "hipsters" should copy what 3:45 wrote. That is one of the best comments on the state of Metro KC that I have read in last 20 years.
It's good to read intelligent people in the Metro that see what these so called leaders are doing to a community with endless, unfulfilled potential.
Nice try 4:03. It sucks being on the wrong side all the time doesn't it.
ReplyDeleteThe KC metro consists of two states, seven counties, and 115 municipalities and the only way such a small population of only 2.3 million is going to be able to compete nationally or globally is to develop enough cooperation and collaboration so that the strengths of all the separate parts can be used together.
ReplyDeleteBut that can't happen without vision and leadership and there certainly isn't anything in evidence except for petty squabbling, nickel-dime projects, overinflated claims and hype, and counter-productive self-interest.
At the end of the day, all the money poured into downtown KCMO isn't going to mean diddly in the big scheme of things. And it takes someone from the outside with a much larger and more realistic vision of the world like Mr. Son to point out just how small-time and bush league the people who think they're the big players in KC really are.
Play to your strengths and don't try to be something you're not are not exactly complex management or marketing concepts.
8:43 best post award
ReplyDeleteLet's think about this a minute. Sprint was actually United Telecom until the management decided to "bet the farm" on cellular and sold off all their landlines. The landlines were scattered throughout the country, but quite a few locations were in Kansas and Missouri and the surrounding states. United Telephone actually started in Abilene, Kansas. At one time, the company was located in Westwood, Kansas. Westwood could not even spend all the money they received when United Telephone was located there.
ReplyDeleteNow that the landlines are gone, there is no rational reason to stay here. Sprint has also sold off its cell towers. Will Sprint leave? Of course. So what? They have managed to shrink the workforce so much that I dont even know if they will be noticed except in OP. Twenty years ago, everybody knew someone who worked at Sprint. Now, not so much. The decline has been painful, but gradual. Do you really 119th Street and all the shops and restaurants are going to go away? I guess there are people who hope so, but all indications are that OP is here to stay. If you need to see a doctor in South KCMO, chances are that you come to the area around 119th Street.
Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks. "Because that's where the money is," he replied. Medical facilities are located around 119th Street because that's where the money is. That will not change, no matter what Sprint decides to do.