Boeing Closes Long Beach Plant (1 Viewer)

[Flylo]

I understand that Boeing is closing the former Douglas Aircraft Long Beach factory. In addition to the high costs of operating the plant in CA, they tried to expand one area and it cost them $18M in legal fees and after years of litigation in the end gave up. In contrast a similar expansion at their plant in SC was done and completed in 114 days. Boeing calculated that they could build airplanes in SC at a cost 23% cheaper than at Long Beach.

I also hear that Chic-Fil-A is closing 241 of its restaurants in CA. CA fast food worker mandatory minimum wages are now $23.50 an hour and some locations are just no longer profitable enough.

In 1980 average rent in California was $183/mo. Now? It's $2700/mo.. Minimum wage was $3.80/hr. So rent increased 14 times and wages increased by 6.
These corporations can pay, they just don't want to share their wealth with the people who make it happen. Things are nothing like when we were growing up.

 

[GrauGeist]

In 1980 average rent in California was $183/mo. Now? It's $2700/mo.. Minimum wage was $3.80/hr. So rent increased 14 times and wages increased by 6.
These corporations can pay, they just don't want to share their wealth with the people who make it happen. Things are nothing like when we were growing up.

It's a little more complicated than that.

California businesses are taxed and regulated beyond belief today, compared to fourty years ago.

 

[MIflyer]

These corporations can pay, they just don't want to share their wealth with the people who make it happen.

Should they have to pay $18M in legal fees over three years to try to build an expansion of their plant and finally have to give up? And a lot of that is lawsuits against them building it. While in SC they got the whole thing done in 114 days?

Should that cheese company in CA have to fight a lawsuit alleging too low pay, win it and then have to pay $2.5M because the minority workers said they were discriminated against? They moved to Lubbock TX and will actually expand their operation from less than 400 workers in CA to more than 600 in TX?

Should ChickFilA have to pay $87,000 annually in worker regulatory costs at each restaurant?

Know how many times the Boeing factories in WA have been shut down due to strikes as compared to how many times the one in SC has been shut down due to strikes?

And it is not limited to CA.

Back in the 1970's Republic Airlines was contacted by the FAA saying that they wanted to do a study into why the airline's overhead costs were so low. This required the FAA to sign a contract with Republic, since they could not ask the airline to give them work for free. The contract was for a purely nominal amount not at all representative of the actual work required to support the FAA study, a mere $100.

A few months after after the study was completed Republic Airlines was contacted by a Federal Govt oversight organization (e.g., GAO, DOT IG, etc.) and informed that per the terms of the $100 contract they were going to conduct a full audit of the airline. Now, Republic's "secret" was that their overhead was so low because they did not keep a hugely staffed HQ organization, so the impact of such an audit was significant.

Now do you understand why the Federal Govt pays $400 for a hammer? If you bought a hammer at the local hardware store and told them the purchase would entitle you to do a ful audit if their business, how much would they charge you?

 

[BobB]

In 1980 average rent in California was $183/mo. Now? It's $2700/mo.. Minimum wage was $3.80/hr. So rent increased 14 times and wages increased by 6.
These corporations can pay, they just don't want to share their wealth with the people who make it happen. Things are nothing like when we were growing up.

$183/month rent in California in 1980 must have been where the illegal aliens lived. Back then a decent apartment in ATL cost $300/month and when we heard that it would cost $1000/month in LA, we couldn't understand how people could afford to live there.

 

[BobB]

Billionaires don't have $1B cash in a safe in their home. Most of their wealth may be the value of stock that they own in their business. If they sell stock to pay a wealth tax, they will also have to pay capital gains tax on the proceeds and they may lose control of their business if they sell too much stock. Moving to another state makes a lot of sense and they can still keep a home in California if they don't spend too much time there.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

$183/month rent in California in 1980 must have been where the illegal aliens lived. Back then a decent apartment in ATL cost $300/month and when we heard that it would cost $1000/month in LA, we couldn't understand how people could afford to live there.

In 1981 my family rented a 3+2 house in Paso Robles for $425/mo.

 

[GTX]

Most of their wealth may be the value of stock that they own in their business. If they sell stock to pay a wealth tax, they will also have to pay capital gains tax on the proceeds and they may lose control of their business if they sell too much stock.

You actually believe that??

 

[BobB]

In 1981 my family rented a 3+2 house in Paso Robles for $425/mo.

How's the commute from Paso Robles to Long Beach, Burbank, et al? If you're just pointing out that there is a California outside of LA, point taken.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

How's the commute from Paso Robles to Long Beach, Burbank, et al? If you're just pointing out that there is a California outside of LA, point taken.

My dad's commute to Ft Hunter-Liggett was about an hour, where he did radar-work as a contractor for the Army. Not only is there a California outside of LA, there's good jobs outside of there too, which is the larger point.

You couldn't pay me cash money to live in a shithole like LA.

 

[MIflyer]

Back then a decent apartment in ATL cost $300/month

Yeah, circa 1980 I think I was paying about $300/month for 1 bedroom apartment in Torrance CA.

You actually believe that??

One of the problems in LA in the 80's was that if a man owned a good chunk of property, such as for a trailer park, and he died, then the inheritance tax his wife or other relatives would have to pay would mandate the place be sold. Then it would be bought by a developer, the tenants evicted and houses or condos built there, leaving the people with trailers no place to go. And in fact a number of innovators who started IT-related businesses had to sell them in order to pay capital gains taxes related to increases in the value of the stock they owned. They went from being the CEO of their own company to at most the VP of another small company.

 

[MIflyer]

You couldn't pay me cash money to live in a shithole like LA.

There were times when I lived in the Torrance CA area that I felt like it was the place to be. Usually, though, if I took some aspirin and a nap I felt better later.

I was so glad to get out of LA and up to the Vandenberg AFB area, where eight cars in a row was a terrible traffic jam and when you woke up on Sunday mornings your first impression was that you'd gone deaf overnight. Finally you'd realize you could hear the refrigerator.

 

[SaparotRob]

You couldn't pay me cash money to live in a shithole like LA.

Hol' on there, pardner. Just how much cash we talkin'?

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

There were times when I lived in the Torrance CA area that I felt like it was the place to be. Usually, though, if I took some aspirin and a nap I felt better later.

I was so glad to get out of LA and up to the Vandenberg AFB area, where eight cars in a row was a terrible traffic jam and when you woke up on Sunday mornings your first impression was that you'd gone deaf overnight. Finally you'd realize you could hear the refrigerator.

I lived in Ventura County for about 15 years. Aside from the cost-of-living it was nice. That was as close as I'd get to LA unless I had to fly. I love the Central Coast too, anywhere from SB to SC.

 

[MIflyer]

I lived in Ventura County for about 15 years. Aside from the cost-of-living it was nice. That was as close as I'd get to LA unless I had to fly. I love the Central Coast too, anywhere from SB to SC.

After VAFB they wanted me back in LA. Shuttle blew up and we ELV people were back in business in a big way. Told the O-6 down there I would consider working for him if I did not have to go further south than Camarillo. Open a program office at the former Ventura AFB and I'd drive down to LA when Ab-So-Lute-Ly Necessary.

That's how I ended up at the Pentagon.

 

[SaparotRob]

The burritos are great. The pizza, not so much.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

After VAFB they wanted me back in LA. Shuttle blew up and we ELV people were back in business in a big way. Told the O-6 down there I would consider working for him if I did not have to go further south than Camarillo. Open a program office at the former Ventura AFB and I'd drive down to LA when Ab-So-Lute-Ly Necessary.

That's how I ended up at the Pentagon.

I went to night-school there after I left the USAF, it was Camarillo Airport by that time, and hosting a CAF wing.

 

[MIflyer]

I went to night-school there after I left the USAF, it was Camarillo Airport by that time, and hosting a CAF wing.

Drove in there while going to and from VAFB any number of times. In 1978 it still looked very much like an AFB. Flew in there only once. Displaced threshold on the runway was longer than the runway, it seemed. Not many things need a runway as long as an F-94.

 

[MIflyer]

It seems that Boeing also is closing a spacecraft manufacturing facility in Hawthorne, CA. I guess that must be the former Hughes facility, bought first by GM and then by Boeing.

I last visited that area in Aug 2001. I was struck by how much more of a bedroom community it had become compared to when I got there in 1978. Across the street from the Space and Missile Systems Organization had been what looked like an old farmhouse with a large vegetable garden. They tore that down and a Large Scale Integration solid state component facility was built there. Now where SAMSO was are townhouses and the former LSI facility is a Big 5 Sporting Goods store. Where there were manufacturing facilities and an oil tank farm on the north side of Torrance airport are now big box stores.

 

[BobB]

My dad's commute to Ft Hunter-Liggett was about an hour, where he did radar-work as a contractor for the Army. Not only is there a California outside of LA, there's good jobs outside of there too, which is the larger point.

You couldn't pay me cash money to live in a shithole like LA.

The old timers said that LA was nice in the 1940's & 1950's. One of them also said that we were headed in the same direction, just 20 years behind them.

 

[syscom3]

The largest producer of Mozerella cheese in the US is closing its biggest plant in CA and relocating to a new $1B plant in Lubbock, TX. Employment at the new plant will be around 600 people as opposed to the less than 400 people in CA, so it is not part of an overall downsizing.

Meta is relocating its HQ to Miami, FL.

When I got to CA in 1978 the biggest problem the various leaders were worried about was how to deal with the fact the place was so popular that they could not handle the influx of new people arriving. People were arguing that it was unfair to be forced to move from their apartments in the Manhatten Beach/Redondo Beach/Torrance area just because rents were increasing to more than they could afford. Companies were having trouble finding new hires because the costs of housing were so high. The folks at MDAC in Huntington Beach would invite new people from the Midwest and East to apply. But after being flown out to LA, given a tour of the factory, and a nice dinner, they did not even show up for the job interview the next day. Turns out they would go back to the hotel, buy a newspaper and look at the listing of places for rent and sale - then decide it was pointless to interview, since they could not afford to live there. Some companies already were relocating out of the LA area to other CA locations, just to be able to hire new people.

Now, 40 years later, the "CA leaders" seem to be like aging movie stars, dreaming of the days when they were successful, and still thinking that they could do no wrong, that it's impossible to make CA undesirable no matter how hard they try to screw it up.

The 5% Total Wealth Tax being pushed by some labor unions is having a huge impact, even though it has not even been voted on yet. One reporter said, "Well, say I had a million dollars. Would a tax that reduced that to $900,000 change my lifestyle and make me move out of the state? No!"

A tax that took 5% or 10% of my total worth would indeed make me change my lifestyle. Step One would be buying more guns. Step Two would be severely thinning out the herd of people trying to rob me. So moving is indeed the better option.

I moved to the South Bay in 1981. Right at the start of the Reagan defense buildup. Do you remember how thick the help wanted section of the LA Times was for their Sunday edition?