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Dell Manufacturing Facility


cityboi

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BB&T's stock hit a high of ~$46 at the end of 2006. It has been dropping ever since and currently stands, as I type this, at $17 plus some change which gives them a market cap of $9.5B. To put this in perspective, very battered Wells Fargo has a market cap of $65B.

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I'm not even a moderator on this damn board. Nevertheless I would like to point out that this topic which is, after all, about the Dell Plant, has turned into a free for all tit for tat about industries that don't even remotely pertain to Dell.

However, since I never met a bandwagon I didn't like, I'll give this one a try.

Monsoon - Comparing Wells to BB&T is like comparing apples and oranges. One is a regional bank, the other a nationwide lending institution. So your analysis is flawed right out the gate. Also, citing market cap is useless. Knowing the value of outstanding shares doesn't tell us how many billions in toxic loans are sitting on any bank's books. I'm surprised you even made an off topic post in this forum. You usually rule forums like Mussolini.

I would also like to point out the hypocrisy of one of your previous statements. You said Dell wouldn't even be in WS if it weren't for the taxpayer dollars used to lure them here. What do you have to say about the billions and billions of taxpayer dollars being used to keeping alive that zombie bank headquartered in Charlotte?

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Breaking news...Dell to close its Winston-Salem plant in January 2010....Holy smokes! this was a shock to me. What a blow to the Triad. Of course this is not going to look good for the mayor because of the millions of dollars in local incentives given to Dell. This news combined with the way the ballpark was handled may lead to a new mayor for Winston-Salem real soon. But if you can find a silver lining in all this, the good news is that Winston-Salem will already have a state-of-the-art built facility for the next big fish that comes towards the Triad.

http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/10...ton_salem_plant

dell.jpg

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I really thought WS1 would stay operative since it serves the entire East coast. So much for the "largest, most advanced" tagline. The impact of this economic blow will be felt not only in W-S, but HOT, the Triad, and even the Fed-Ex hub. This is a shame and yet another embarassing headline for the city of W-S. Pace, the ballpark, and now Dell have all evolved into complete F-ups. I think one or two Dell suppliers opened up shop in this area. I predict job cut announcements from them also.

The mayor has a 35,000 job goal that will be announced soon. I would do it tomorrow if I were him. Winston-Salem has lost close to 1500 jobs within a month, both tied to this new Triad initiative "Aerotropilis." So far, its not working in our favor.

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I just feel really bad for all those employees, both at Dell and those that will be given pink slips elsewhere because of the trickle down effect.

I down know if it would have ever made financial sense for Dell to operate in NC, or anywhere in the United States for that matter. The cost of manufacturing here is simply too high when compared to China. That's what happens when you have a cheap labor force and an artificially undervalued currency.

What a shame.

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I really thought WS1 would stay operative since it serves the entire East coast. So much for the "largest, most advanced" tagline. The impact of this economic blow will be felt not only in W-S, but HOT, the Triad, and even the Fed-Ex hub. This is a shame and yet another embarassing headline for the city of W-S. Pace, the ballpark, and now Dell have all evolved into complete F-ups. I think one or two Dell suppliers opened up shop in this area. I predict job cut announcements from them also.

The mayor has a 35,000 job goal that will be announced soon. I would do it tomorrow if I were him. Winston-Salem has lost close to 1500 jobs within a month, both tied to this new Triad initiative "Aerotropilis." So far, its not working in our favor.

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This city DOES need new leadership and James Taylor's recent win over Evelyn Terry is a step in the right direction. The mayor, city-council, and state could not have foreseen this happening, but were they right in making us look desperate and literally giving them everything for the plant? In my opinion, no. Allen Joines does not have the interests of Winston-Salem's citizens at heart. He is a product of the local business community and receives his income from them, not the taxpayers. He is held responsible by WSBI, W-S Alliance, etc., not us.

This will be a very hard building to fill and I would not be surprised if it's dramatically remodeled or torn down in years to come. Look at all the old plants on I-85 past Gastonia near Spartanburg that have been sitting vacant for YEARS...I cannot begin to fathom the millions of dollars poured into this area for road improvements, infrastructure connections, land, future developments, etc. that have been wasted.

WAKE UP TRIAD!!!!!!! GET OUT OF MANUFACTURING AND VOTE OUT CROOKED POLITICIANS!!!!!!!!!!!!! :angry::angry:

Btw, the aerotropolis is a joke IMO...

George, DOT was supposed to widen Union Cross and put in a SPUI at Union Cross/I-40. Not to mention the 6 lane I-74 beltway that was to border the Dell plant...

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Really hate it for all the employees. I heard that plant just built desktops and most people are buying laptops now. Surprised Dell did not foresee this. It would have been hard for them to predict the economy going south but you would think they would have better predicted where demand was headed.

I can't really blame this on Triad leadership though. Just about everyone wanted this. It was a huge get that unfortunately didn't work out as well we hoped. It would have been difficult to foresee this. It is easy now to sit back and say well we shouldn't have sold the farm on it but that is the incentives game. Had the region lost this to another city many would complain we were not aggressive enough in going after the jobs. Unfortunately we can't just pick and choose the types of employers we want. You have to recruit any industry you can to bring jobs to the area. Ideally those jobs will be long lasting, well paying, provide good benefits, and be friendly to the environment. But those type of jobs are not so easy to come by.

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Obama really needs to step up with his campaign promise and provide tax breaks if companies keep operations here in America. We just can't compete with China, Mexico and India. This is a major economic blow to the Triad and it hurts our ego as well. This is not just a Winston-Salem loss here.

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I can't really blame this on Triad leadership though. Just about everyone wanted this. It was a huge get that unfortunately didn't work out as well we hoped. It would have been difficult to foresee this. It is easy now to sit back and say well we shouldn't have sold the farm on it but that is the incentives game. Had the region lost this to another city many would complain we were not aggressive enough in going after the jobs. Unfortunately we can't just pick and choose the types of employers we want. You have to recruit any industry you can to bring jobs to the area. Ideally those jobs will be long lasting, well paying, provide good benefits, and be friendly to the environment. But those type of jobs are not so easy to come by.
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Here is what I don't get. Dell says that the Winston plant is the most modern and efficient plant. So why wont they keep the Winston plant open and close one of its other older plants? Especially since the FedEx hub is down the road because in the states, the east coast is the company's primary market. They could have changed over the line and started making laptops.

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My inner skeptic tells me that there's something we haven't been told as to why they would close this plant without searching for alternatives. Perhaps there's a loophole in the contract between the city/state and Dell where they think they can possibly get out of repaying the incentives? It seems fishy to me as they sold their Lebanon, TN plant to Genco. So, that one wasn't necessarily closed, and I haven't read anything about their South Florida and Austin, TX plants. It doesn't sound like they were very committed to this area to begin with and only wanted to milk us for all we were worth. If they think our city and state governments are a bunch of fools, maybe they're right...

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I do think there needs to be adjustments to how our state offers incentives. Companies pit states against states and cities against cities to get the best deal. For example, NC was competing with Virginia. After NC offered its $200 plus million we found out Virginia was only offering about $40 million. If NC offered a few million more than what Virginia offered we still would have got the plant. Its like a game of poker and the company always win. Opponents of incentives will now have more clout.

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The Dell closing is disappointing. It's worse than that for those of our neighbors that'll be losing their jobs.

In terms of its broader impact on the Triad economy, though, it won't be the death nail. Unemployment will obviously rise in the near term. But one would hope that our region would have more fight in us than to go out like that.

I suppose there's plenty of blame to go around...the recession, Dell failing to see the shift to notebook computers just four years ago, the unjustly large incentives package.

The last one is what ticks me off the most, the incentives. Not that Dell got incentives, but that Forsyth (and other counties before they were out bid) and the state gave such a huge package to a company that would be creating jobs with an average annual wage of only $28,000. $28,000! That's ridiculous. And in case you didn't know, that's much much much lower than the average annual wage in Forsyth and Guilford and most of the other Triad counties. Much lower...insultingly low.

I support incentivizing job creation, mainly because it's a fact of life these days. That doesn't mean I like it. It's corporate welfare, plain and simple. But every state in the United States is in the incentives game, and if NC stopped, even if it was the right thing to do, North Carolinians would be ones paying the price. Integrity won't keep you warm at night. And until there is a national moratorium on incentives, North Carolina should participate.

But please God, if you're going to do it, can we make sure that the jobs the incentives create at least pay a respectable wage. It can be done. It's certainly been done locally. Honda Jet received incentives and their average wade is much higher than Guilford's average. So are the jobs that were brought here by Mack Truck. Their average wage is $70k+ for 500 jobs. And they didn't get offered 1/20th of what Dell got.

Incentives can work. And as long they continue to be used around the country, I hope our local and state leaders don't cede ground to competing regions. But please do it with some common sense.

Luckily, from everything that I'm reading, Dell only received something like $100k in payments in 07-08 from the State. And Gov. Perdue had some strong words Thursday about getting every penny back. So hopefully NC and Forsyth won't be in the red when the dust settles.

Time to move on. Corporate America...the Triad is open for business.

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This Dell plant produced computers primarily for businesses, so with the downturn in corporate IT, I'm not all that surprised by the plant being closed. Companies are shifting more to wanting services for their current systems and less towards just buying new hardware, thus Dell's decision to dump this plant after consulting with its Cost Accountants and finding they would save enough money dumping this plant to invest into developing its business services, much like IBM did a few years ago and HP (albeit instead of eliminating computer-making capacity, they just moved it to China) has been doing over the past couple years. This is something that has been coming for some time, the recession was just the final push on it. It's only a matter of time before Dell sheds its other plants as well and either contracts manufacturing out (IBM did this for many years in RTP before selling the whole PC division (except for its server business) to Lenovo) or moves it to China.

As far as incentives go, unfortunately they have become an necessary evil. Personally, I dislike them, but unless your a place like NYC, its tough to attract big businesses. Some places have it easier or harder than others, so each area (even within NC) has to make a decision for itself.

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well thats the flip side of incentives: they are intended to knock down barriers that impede a company from entering new markets and siting new operations...

but ... incentives also knock down barriers that would prevent a company from abandoning markets and uprooting operations.

i'm am only surprised at everybodys' shock...

dot moved mountains of dirt to give dell optimal ingress and egress in record time...

state and local governments relaxed regs and bent over backwards in order to minimize the investment obligations for dell.

surprised?

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As far as incentives go, unfortunately they have become an necessary evil. Personally, I dislike them, but unless your a place like NYC, its tough to attract big businesses. Some places have it easier or harder than others, so each area (even within NC) has to make a decision for itself.
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I'm still not clear as to why they could not convert to a laptop facility, or why it was not that in the first place. I guess they just want to move everything out of the country eventually. However, since this is so-called state-of-the-art, one wonders why another plant was not closed first.

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