Lasso reports on a funny story about a Dell exec who tried to sway North Carolina to kiss some company butt in order to get a manufacturing plant:
North Carolina papers have unearthed some of the inside discussion between state officials and Dell Inc. Dell wanted to put a manufacturing plant in the Old North State and asked for tax incentives.
Well, actually, they did more than ask and they asked for more than just a bit:
“Here’s what’s most disconcerting,” a note written by state Commerce Secretary Jim Fain quotes Kip Thompson, Dell’s vice president for global manufacturing, as saying in a July 16 conversation. “Two thousand jobs — shouldn’t you be happy with no revenue?”
In another conversation on June 11, Thompson told Fain: “Not wowed here — not sure the state’s stepping up here. Really is going to take some signif(icant) state participation,” according to Fain’s notes.
OK, so Dell didn’t want to pay ANY taxes. The state should be “happy with no revenue.” And there’s more:
“I have to make the case; I’m not convinced enough to make a proposal for N.C.,” (Dell’s) Thompson said. “. . . If a state like N.C. can’t get after this, I’m worried for our country — there’s a certain amount of patriotism here.”
Seriously? It's unpatriotic to ask a company to pitch in and pay taxes as a way of paying a community back for all of the public resources said company takes advantage of? Curious. I foolishly thought that a true gesture of patriotism would be sacrificing a small amount of company gain for the good of the community.
You know, the Dell family makes a lot of generous contributions to Austin child care programs and I admire that. Nevertheless, shoddy business practices like the ones described above, Mike's affinity for President Bush and the GOP (including a $250k donation to the inauguration), and questionable HR practices (including outsourcing jobs to India) would make it pretty difficult for me to ever rationalize buying a computer from them.
Posted by sarah at January 21, 2005 9:37 AM | TrackBack