re: Gun maker Remington to spend $100 million to move HQ from New York to Georgia

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While you are at it, start making 870's and 1100's that are worth a shite again

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Here here. If they can match the quality of the 1960’s 70’s and 80’s I’ll buy one of either. Maybe both.

Remington staying one step ahead of the inevitable national divorce proceedings.

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I get the joke, but let's face it: Present day LA isn't the most business friendly state out there....Our "leadership" can't get out of its own f**king way.

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I don't understand why economic development is just not a top priority for the JBE regime.

Jindal had his faults, but they were aggressive at recruiting companies that could realistically operate successfully in Louisiana. They couldn't get around the tax structure issues without a major change in the state's constitution, but they could apply tax breaks with job goals like they did for IBM in Baton Rouge. That's not a traditional employer for Louisiana, whose economy is based on agriculture and energy. Louisiana came darn close to getting Hawker Beechcraft.

I'm okay with doing that if the company has skin in the game (like building a factory or office building). I'd even be okay with ad-hoc changes to road infrastructure to support new corporate investments if they are large enough.

The problem is that Edwards just isn't doing much of anything. The only real growth industry seems to be whatever these billboard lawyers are doing and sports betting. The infrastructure funding will help in the long term, but that's a federal package and every state is getting something.

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Metro-Atlanta is about as good as your gonna get in terms in terms of finding a balance of being in a conservative state with the resources necessary for a Fortune-500 company.

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My vote would be Houston or arguably Phoenix. Low costs of living for such a massive city. Lots of jobs and not overtly "woke".

Atlanta demonstrated last summer that they might be going down the wrong path in a lot of ways that matter to residents. And I think the metro area itself can't support any more major suburban growth without a radical change in transportation and water infrastructure.

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Some would say Texas, but a lot of east coast folks may not want to make that far of a transition.

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Houston is primarily oil and gas, but it's attracting a lot of businesses from the midwest (manufacturing) and the west coast (tech). Dallas is more into finance, which makes it a more direct competitor to the northeastern metros than Houston or Atlanta.

I would agree that Atlanta has more in common with the mid-Atlantic region than any of the sunbelt cities, which might make it more attractive to yankees.

That being said, gun manufacturers don't necessarily need to be located in the largest metro areas. These aren't massive Amazon-HQ2 style relocations with thousands of high skill, high tech jobs that don't currently exist in mid sized cities. Places like Knoxville, Huntsville, Baton Rouge, Little Rock, etc would be just fine for them if they wanted to move there. All of those could support 500-1000 manufacturing and HQ jobs pretty easily without causing a spike in regional labor costs.

These gun makers might have some trouble in smaller, more isolated towns like Jackson (TN) or Alexandria (LA)...but the bigger mid-sized metro areas with 500,000-1,000,000 or smaller towns that are in a cluster of of other smaller towns seem almost ideal for them.

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I would expect this trend to continue.

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But.... is it really a good trend? IMO, it's just making those liberal states that much more liberal and giving them more electoral votes in upcoming Presidential elections. It's also concentrating all the conservatives to fewer states.

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Hence the slumping sales and bankruptcy.

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They are the General Motors of the firearm industry. Anything that isn't their core product is at risk for cancellation at any given moment.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp famously pointed a shotgun at a kid in a campaign commercial when the Republican was seeking his current office in 2018.

There I fixed it for you

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Wish one would choose the northshore, Baton Rouge, or even Shreveport.

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I have a close personal friend who works for a State Economic Development agency in another Southern State.

According to that person, for a long while no other Southern US State fears losing a potential relocation or development to Louisiana.

Amazon came here only because they had to.

Did I say “shithole”?

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Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana are redder than the blood hitting the soil in Gettysburg and they are dead last in virtually every metric of a successful society, so, having balance can be a good thing.

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:eyeroll:

You don’t have to like what he’s saying but it’s 100% accurate