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Richard Rider

San Diego loses Websense to Austin — 445 GOOD jobs are heading to Texas

San Diego is losing a(nother) good employer to Texas.  Websense is leaving, moving to Austin.  See the article below (and the many comments after — many of my comments are also posted on my Facebook blog on this).

445 San Diego jobs — GOOD jobs — are about to disappear into the Lone Star State.  445 of our local friends and neighbors are about to join the ranks of the unemployed — unless they move to Texas with Websense, which I suspect a fair number will.

The press and public are putting too much importance on the $4.5 million the state of Texas is paying to entice Website to come to Austin.  That money was NOT nearly enough to entice a company of that size to decide to disrupt operations, pull up stakes and leave sunny San Diego.

The money probably DID help Austin get the nod — but only in preference to the many OTHER states more business friendly than California.  In other words, the company owners had correctly deduced that San Diego and California were no longer “bottom line” friendly governments.  The Texas subsidy only helped them decide WHICH state to move to — and probably was not the determining factor.

Think otherwise?  Imagine New Jersey offering TWICE that amount to move Websense to the Garden State.  [NOTE:  NJ is one of the few states competing with us in a number of “worst” rankings in various economic categories.  Generally Illinois and New York are our other main “competitors” in this race to the bottom.]  Any chance Websense would have fled California for New Jersey?  Not hardly.

The responses from liberals demonstrate how clueless, and sometimes downright heartless they are. One cereal liberal troll commenter in the U-T dismissed the move with “Good riddance.”  Here’s what I wrote in response:

Remember, Steve Hart is a “compassionate liberal.” “Good riddance” — says, Hart — to 445 good San Diego jobs. 445 of our friends and neighbors shortly will be unemployed. Other businesses and their employees harmed by lost customers. Less tax revenue for government, while more will be drawing unemployment.

I”m sure glad that Hart is compassionate. Imagine his comments if he weren’t!

Steve Hart is indeed Hartless.

The article, seeking to provide balance, says: “But not everyone is leaving. Northrop Grumman relocated 300 jobs from New York and Florida to San Diego in the last year to work on unmanned aerial systems, or drones. The EDC also reports that a biotech called Microdermis moved here from New Jersey, bringing 20 jobs to the region.”

True — but pathetic. One company already here is doing some relatively minor internal reorganization, and the other company truly moving here has (drumroll) 20 employees.  Companies cited are supplied by the state’s EDC – and were likely the best they could come up with to counter business departures. And these are the companies coming — not to San Diego — but to all of CALIFORNIA.
Did I mention “pathetic”? The departure of Websense — a single no-name company from San Diego — is costing the state more jobs than BOTH the incoming company jobs combined.
 —
In the article’s comments, I post many facts about why CA businesses will find other states more appealing.  It’s largely nothing my readers haven’t seen before.

But here’s one part that might be of interest, responding to a liberal’s contention that Texas utility rates are going up:

Yes, Texas electricity rates are rising — just like ours. The huge gap in rates is NOT closing.

Consider:
 
California residential electricity costs an average of 27.6% more per kWh than the national average. CA commercial rates are 44.4% higher. For industrial use, CA electricity is 74.4% higher than the national average (October, 2013). NOTE: SDG&E is even higher. 
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_06_a

 

To compare Texas to CA, go to the URL and compare CA with TX. All sector electrical average:
  • Texas — 8.51 cents per kWh
  •  California — 14.66 cents per kWh — 72.3% higher than TX.  Moreover, the CA industrial rate is more than DOUBLE the Texas rate.

And I say again — SDG&E — one of the three highest utilities in the NATION — charges much higher rates than the CA average.

When will this California job hemorrhaging be recognized as a pressing problem? I don’t know.  But I bet the shock to the Websense employees is causing some to reassess their blind support for the Democrat People’s Republic of California.  Too late for them, unfortunately.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/feb/06/texas-austin-perry-jobs-economy-websense/

Thanks to a $4.5 million check from the Texas government, San Diego-based software company Websense is moving its corporate headquarters to Austin, capital of the Lone Star State.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s office announced Thursday that the Texas Enterprise Fund will send the cash to Websense, which in exchange will relocate 445 jobs to Austin and also make a to-be-announced $9.9 million capital investment. Websense, which opened in 1994, was purchased by Vista Equity Partners in June for $910 million cash.. . .