National Cash Register Sneaks Off To Georgia—The Advantages Of Treating People Like Dirt For 200 Years

The National Cash Register (NCR) company is relocating it’s corporate headquarters from Dayton, Ohio to Georgia.

For many years NCR made cash registers. Today they also make, among other things, ATM machines  and barcode scanners.

An additional profit center for the company is scamming tax-breaks from taxpayers as NCR moves jobs from a community that has long supported the company.

( Above–Dayton, Ohio. Please click here to learn about visiting Dayton.)

National Cash Register has been in Dayton since 1884. Dayton will lose over 1,200 jobs because of the move.

After all those years in Dayton, and despite the job losses in an already suffering community,NCR officials would not even return the phone calls of officials in Dayton and with the State of Ohio.

Georgia’s conservative Republican Governor Sonny Perdue offered NCR a $60 million package of incentives.

I’m sure Governor Perdue would not call it socialism.

The CEO of NCR, Bill Nuti, said that the cost of living in Georgia had some impact on the decision to relocate the firm.

It’s a wonder what 200 years of racial apartheid, keeping your white folks uneducated, offering poor government services and union busting can do for your economic climate.

Here is a viewpoint on Governor Perdue’s recent backing of a Confederate History/Heritage Month in Georgia. 

Here is an excellent report on the economic fate of Dayton from a diary on Daily Kos.  The factory jobs are gone and no realistic replacement for these jobs exists.    

Will President Obama ever question and challenge our economic system to the point where we have jobs for the jobless and where we stop poaching jobs from one state to another based on unfair advantages and secret deals?

The Case For Kinky Friedman For Governor Of Texas In 2010

The 2010 race for Governor of Texas is, regretfully, already under way. Republican U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson is a primary candidate for 2010 against incumbent Governor Rick Perry. Neither of these two candidates of the far-right offer much hope for Texans looking for a change from years of misrule by George W. Bush, Tom Craddick and….Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry.  

The two announced Democratic candidates for 2010 are Tom Schieffer and Kinky Friedman.

(Oops! I left out former Railroad Commission candidate Mark Thompson as a primary candidate.)  

Mr. Schieffer was Ambassador to Australia and then Japan under George W. Bush. He has supported Mr. Bush in his campaigns. Despite this connection to Mr. Bush, Mr. Schieffer is running as a Democrat.    

I can’t say I’m enthused by Mr. Schieffer.

Kinky Friedman, a performer and author, sets me on edge just looking at him. Some sort of hip singing cowboy walking around with a cigar all the time. What the hell is that?  What does any of that have to do with my majority-minority home city of Houston?

I can hardly stand to look at that picture I’ve put at the top of this post.  

Here is Mr. Friedman’s campaign web home.

Mr. Friedman ran for Governor of Texas in 2006 as an Independent. I talked to him for a few minutes during that campaign and found him to be a jerk.

But you know…..I want Texas to have a Democratic governor. I’ve lived in Texas since 1998 and as far as I can recall I have yet to see a Democrat win a statewide race for any office. How long can this go on? 

At this point, I’m at least willing to give Mr. Friedman a hearing. The candidates our Democratic Party of Texas has offered have been a string of clunkers. 

One of the best political boggers in Texas is Ted McLaughlin of Amarillo who writes the blog Jobsanger. Ted is a good liberal and a loyal Texan. His views merit consideration. 

Ted supported Mr. Friedman in 2006 and is supporting him for 2010. I asked Ted to tell me why he backs Mr. Friedman.

Here is what he wrote— 

The other day I got an interesting question from a friend of mine. Neil,… (who) wanted to know “Why do you support Kinky Friedman for governor in 2010?” Let me see if I can collect my thoughts and coherently answer that question. First, Kinky’s talent and his belief in social justice are not new to me.

I first heard of Kinky Friedman in 1973, when he put out an album named Sold American. You don’t have to listen to very many cuts off the album to know this talented Texan is a fighter for civil rights and women’s rights. And he didn’t just do that in his music. When he ran for governor in 2006 as an independent, there were some young bloggers who, in their zeal to support their own candidate, accused Kinky of being a racist. They should be ashamed of themselves for that. Kinky was on the streets in Austin protesting for civil rights before these bloggers were even a gleam in their parents’ eyes.

I’m talking about the sixties, when it took some courage to stand up for civil rights anywhere in Texas. And in all those years since that time, Kinky has not really changed. He is still an independent thinker who wants to make the lives of ordinary Texans a little better. In his own words, Kinky says, “It’s time to end corporate handouts, get rid of the death penalty, get rid of the TAKS Test, and get rid of the Republican stranglehold on this state.”