At least 160 businesses have left Seattle since March 2020. While some left the city due to the effects of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many more business leaders have said that it's because of the city's unwillingness to solve problems related to crime, rioting and violence.
Similar trends can be seen in California and New York, where businesses are moving their headquarters to states that do not have regressive tax policies.
"Downtown started off as a vibrant place to be. Over time, we became embarrassed [to be here]," said Megan Gluth-Bohan, CEO of TR International, a global chemical distributor based out of downtown Seattle that recently announced its intention to move its headquarters.
TR International is moving to Edmonds, a city in nearby Snohomish County, just north of Seattle. The company has called the downtown area its home for more than 20 years, but Gluth-Bohan said the ongoing riot-related violence, rampant homelessness, drug use and other criminal activities were becoming too much to deal with.
Gluth-Bohan said that her company's mostly female workforce no longer feels safe downtown.
"We had one female employee chased into a Starbucks. Business partners coming in for meetings were dodging human fecal matter and homeless people on the sidewalk," she added. "We had an employee paying for parking after work. She had her driver's side window down working the parking machine, and someone attempted to enter her car."
Gluth-Bohan remarked that Seattle's problem with crime and violence "has grown aggressive" and pervasive, and city leaders are not doing anything to try and solve it. Because of this, she said she has no intention of returning to the city.
"I looked out my window the other day and there were four deer that went by," she said about one of her recent trips to Edmonds. "I thought, that's a difference, right there."
TR International just paid $4 million towards the construction of their new headquarters in Edmonds. They have also invested $500,000 into the city's local economy for renovations. (Related: Boeing relocating to a state without Democrat lunatics who raise taxes, punish businesses.)
Businesses leaving other blue states like New York and California
Over the past few months, prominent businesses have similarly announced their departure from blue states like New York and California.
In the Golden State, many corporations based out of Silicon Valley have decided to pack their bags. Large corporations like Hewlett Packard Enterprise have announced that they want to move to cities like Houston.
"We are excited that Hewlett Packard Enterprise has chosen to call Texas home, and I thank them for expanding their investment in the Lone Star State by relocating their headquarters to the Houston region," said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The governor bragged about how Hewlett Packard is joining the growing list of Fortune 500 companies based in Texas, 22 of which are located within the Houston metropolitan area alone.
"We intend to maintain a robust presence in our historical birthplace of Silicon Valley as a hub for technological talent and innovation, including housing the headquarters of Aruba at our San Jose campus that opened in 2019," said Hewlett Packard CEO Antonio Neri.
Neri said that while it was not closing its offices in the Bay Area, Houston presented itself as "an attractive market to recruit and retain future diverse talent," which is why it was moving its headquarters there.
"There are no layoffs associated with this move, and we are committed to both markets as key parts of our talent and real estate strategies in a post-pandemic world."
Hewlett Packard is joining other California-based tech giants that are planting their roots in other states. Apple is in the process of constructing a $1 billion campus in the Austin metropolitan area. Following the announcement that Tesla was constructing a new factory in Austin, chief executive officer Elon Musk announced that he has become a resident of Texas.
Oracle Corp., the world's second-largest software maker, announced that it was making a "strategic realignment" away from Silicon Valley and into Texas because of the long-term financial benefits, including lower payroll costs and the potential to more easily recruit employees in the near future.
A similar trend is occurring in the country's financial capital. Stacey Cunningham, president of the New York Stock Exchange, is floating around the idea of leaving New York for Florida to avoid taxes. The NYSE is joining other finance corporations that have already moved at least part of their business out of New York, including UBS, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Citibank and Barclays.
Cunningham and these other financial corporations are responding to Assembly Bill A7791B, a state bill being proposed that would place a tax upon every stock that is bought or sold.
"Individuals and entities respond to incentives," said Shelton Weeks, chair of the Florida Gulf Coast University's Economics Department. Weeks said he was not surprised when he learned that the world's largest financial marketplace might move to either Florida or Texas.
"When you continue to stack negative incentives in front of an individual or entity such as the New York Stock Exchange, you're going to drive behavior," said Weeks.
And with a lot of work being done in the stock exchange going virtual, avoiding taxes has never been easier. "The ability to conduct business virtually really breaks that tie to a specific geographic area," he added.
Learn more about how the economies of Washington, New York and California are on the verge of crumbling entirely by reading the latest articles at MarketCrash.news.
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