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http://www.wral.com/nc-state-to-lead-obama-s-manufacturing-innovation-institute/13300155/
Some of you guy’s may remember that there was a faculty movement years ago that wanted NC State to be the “MIT of the South”…. And some of you may know that the same crowd had a whole lot to do with the dismantling of our athletic program in 1990.
Well… today it looks like “the other part of their dream” might come true…
In today’s economy … there ain’t a whole of difference in MIT and MII.
As with most guv-mint programs…. the devil is in the details…. and the money flows regardless. That said, we also know that the many times the tangential benefits of capital investment in technology and industry often far exceed the direct benefits from that program’s primary purpose — think Cold War, Bell Labs and the Military-Industrial complex in the 50’s & 60’s.
As important a reason — for those who actually need one– as to why NC State gets this is….
Given our historical connections as a top level land grant University with the old tobacco, furniture and textile industries AND the working people of North Carolina, we have seen the best and the worst of, and from both, sides of the table.
If “manufacturing” in the United States, in the 21st century global economy, can be “fixed”… who else is better positioned to lead. if not North Carolina State University?
So let’s do this…. and do this right.
The people of North Carolina expect no less from their flagship University.#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Some of you guy’s may remember that there was a faculty movement years ago that wanted NC State to be the “MIT of the South”…. And some of you may know that the same crowd had a whole lot to do with the dismantling of our athletic program in 1990.
Well… today it looks like “the other part of their dream” might come true…
At times it hasn’t seemed too far from both parts becoming true.
^True
Perhaps…. one reason… ‘things are so mucked up’ over in Chapel Hill is that they too have seen from a very close distance what can easily happen when the academic side of campus gets ‘too heavily involved’ in the administration of the athletics program, especially in the absence of a University President of the caliber of John Caldwell.
Under Dr. Woodson… by all appearances… and as a Flagship University should do, we have established a balance and significant common ground between those two groups who don’t normally see ‘eye to eye’.
Perhaps… our friends to the West should sit in more classes and take better notes….
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!LRM – The good doctor always brings the rosy outlook.
They can have their “Flag ship” over there. We build nuclear subs. And we sink ships.
I find it ironic that bringing manufacturing jobs to the State is such a big deal. 20-30 years ago we had lots of manufacturing jobs. Those were sent overseas. Many small NC towns suffer as a result of various plants and factories sitting idle. The “everyone needs a college degree to succeed” bandwagon hasn’t helped, either.
Consider that the “rules” have changed…. Things ain’t necessarily what they appear to be.
Today’s manufacturing in the United States in capital intensive not labor intensive — for example, let’s consider… a $300 million dollar facility that creates 88 jobs… as opposed those old textile, furniture or tobacco mills where 1000s of people worked.
That said… the reason that governments are pushing manufacturing is…
1. Under archaic property tax laws, that capital investment generates significant tax revenues for local government.
2. Smart businesses have transferred most all of their job training and pre-employment screening costs to community colleges, which are government agencies funded in large part by tax revenues.
3. The optics with “economic development” are strongly positive for government leaders. “Economic development” creates tons of good press.However, when that plant closes 3, 5, or 7 years later as a significant percentage of those brought to North Carolina in the last twenty years have– the governor and his entourage don’t hold a press conference or a ribbon “tying”.
Just as, if not more so, important…. property taxes on a closed plant are exactly equal to those paid when that plant was fully operational.
And in many cases, the front end costs absorbed by governments for job training, road improvements, turning lanes and stop lights are not fully recovered.
The industrial general contractors and their prime sub-contractors and their suppliers who build the large manufacturing plants are almost always from out-of-state so less than one fifth of the construction costs stays in North Carolina.
Consider also that in most all cases, most of the middle and top management people transfer in from elsewhere when that plant opens so less than one half of it’s operational payroll goes to local people who got those new jobs. Finally, the job skills required at the lower levels are so specialized in today’s manufacturing plants that they do not easily transfer to another employer.
The bottom line here is that “Economic Development” the way the game is played ( North Carolina wrote the book starting back in the early 1980’s which most other states read and copied) makes a whole lot of political noise and moves tons of money around but
In the end the numbers don’t really turn out that good and relatively few North Carolina people benefit long term.
From the other side of the street…. having grown up in the former “Sock capital of the world”…. I remember when the Haw River foamed and changed colors — purple, orange, red — every time the big denim mill changed their dye vats. There’s a reason that women wore breathing masks in the weave rooms of the cotton mills. Point is — we really are very happy that some Chinese people see all that now instead of us and we really don’t want those manufacturing jobs back in North Carolina.
So that’s the challenge…. find / create some kind of “manufacturing plant” that…
1. Is clean and safe, because without the approval of the environment crowd — nothing else happens,
2. Plays a living wage, teaches / trains it’s workers transferable job skills, and provides promotional opportunities,
3. Makes products or provides services where the market is broad based and value of those products or services is profitable to the business that operates the new plant
4. Pays its own training cost and its share of taxes
And
5. Has a reasonably predictable life cycle of twenty to thirty years…instead of five.There are ninety out of one hundred counties (the other North Carolina) that “need” that plant….
As for NCS-MII…. just take the money, do the research and sell the results….
It’s somebody else’s job to worry about all of the above._________
FWIW… I was a member of the EDC in one of those counties in The Other North Carolina for a few years.
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Can’t find any disagreement…Tax laws in NC are brutal, property taxes are worse than brutal, both for business and individuals…I don’t have the answer(cause I haven’t thought out the differences totally), but I’ll take the SC property taxes over NC and you cannot possibly convince me of why I should pay more taxes for no more benefits…and if you try, confine it to income and property taxes not gas taxes…
All you have to do is compare York County, SC to Mecklenburg County, NC…better school system in York County, less property taxes, less state taxes, real estate on the whole is more reasonable…actually I-77 to the NC border is better and is vastly better than I-85 north of Charlotte.
Granted both political systems needs work…Too many “Bubbas”, the North C or the South C variety…whether they carry a Dem or Republican label..
BTW, I pay more NC taxes than SC taxes…
"Whomp 'em, Up, Side the Head"!
While there are substantive differences between property tax rates between the States…. at a more fundamental level, the whole concept of “property taxes” dates to Jefferson and his ideals of the Republic governed solely by free landowners.
Without any revision, except in property valuations and the rates charged thereto, governments have clung dearly to that revenue source due their abject inability, both politically and philosophically, to do the necessary thing which would be to replace a two hundred year old broken system with something viable that matches the modern world and it’s economy.
Quite the opposite often occurs, as government extoll the virtues of such a time proven system while the hidden costs of the economic stagnation that occurs while under the property tax burden are fuzzy numbers known only to economists with letters after their names and rarely published in ways that make sense to the common man, who sadly but not unexpectedly, is quite happy having someone else pay his taxes.
POP!
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!We build nuclear subs. And we sink ships.
I always find it incredible that more State grads don’t go to do that – build subs and carriers. It’s only a couple of hours from Raleigh, and there’s some very unique engineering/construction/manufacturing work. I’d feel a heck of a lot better if we had more State grads working on them than ODU grads.
Looking at the list of labs in the institute, and its very easy to see the two directions government wants the research to go.
Back in the day…. Bell Labs and the Carolina Missile Plant were full of EEs & MEs from NC State….
Can you copy that list of labs at MII and paste here….
All I’ve seen is that most of the money is coming from the Dept of Energy… and that there’s some emphasis on ‘electronics’….
Thanks.#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Bill, that’s true, right now some navy contractors rely on ODU…probably because the bureaucracy in place does everything it can to stifle actual engineers and dumb it down significantly.
7 Universities and Labs: North Carolina State [Lead], Arizona State University, Florida State University, University of California at Santa Barbara, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
I’m sure it will be DOE, but that doesn’t mean that USNRL doesn’t have a significant interest in the research.
Thank… jr…
The only specifics I had seen was that our ‘lab’ had something to do with energy and semiconductors….
neither of which will directly impact North Carolina.However, our research is for the nation and the world so that’s not all bad.
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!I am finishing up three days of hosting technical meetings for one of our product lines today. We are headquartered in France and have operations there as well as Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia and India. Almost all of our basic research is done in Europe even though we really do most of the scale up and development work here.
The investment side of things is really interesting. We started an expansion project here, in parallel with the Germans early in 2012. Our project cost was about 30% less than theirs for a very similar scope. Interestingly enough, they get a 30% investment incentive from the German government. Wonder if those two things are connected in some way?
The entire European attitude toward jobs is one that goes to great lengths not to ever lay anyone off or eliminate positions. As long as someone is “adding value” they will keep them around.
The idea that everyone should get a college degree is one of the most damaging notions ever put forward. Most people should probably seek some kind of post high school job training, put a large percentage of those people should be doing something other going to a four year college. The media spends countless hours focusing on the minuscule portion of manufacturing that is poorly behaved and largely ignores all of the improvements in our quality of life that have come from manufacturing innovation. That is one of the key factors in driving manufacturing overseas. We don’t have any allies left in the fight and it will take a generation or more to turn that around.
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