No matter what Phil Condit says, in this day and age of computer networks, there is absolutely no logical reason to relocate the Boeing corporate headquarters anyplace else.
However, by removing the corporate officials from physical proximity to any of Boeing's other facilities where the employees work, these same corporate people would no doubt find it easier to close plants without fear of repercussions.
Perhaps this is the true reason for such an otherwise incredibly stupid decision.
Glenn B. Rogers
Seattle
Boeing gave us warning years ago that this could happen
Like many, I was unhappy to hear that Boeing has decided to move its headquarters from Seattle. While politicians did not seem to hear or understand, Boeing gave warning some years ago that the business atmosphere was becoming intolerable. I have sad memories of another aerospace company that moved rather than be overtaxed and overregulated. It would be an education for local and state politicians to visit the Hollywood-Burbank Airport and ask why there is so much vacant land and unused factory space where once stood the headquarters and manufacturing facilities of the Lockheed Aircraft Corp.
All the jobs, payroll dollars and tax revenues are now gone. Gone too are the commercial aircraft built there over the decades. It is time for our politicians to wake up. We can either learn from the experiences of other areas or we can pay the same price they have suffered.
Richard L. Heinmiller
Auburn
Sudden announcement like sneaking out of the party
Well, thanks a lot, Boeing. The announcement of Boeing's corporate headquarters leaving Seattle hit me hard. Not because the company doesn't have the perfect right to move its headquarters, but because of the way the news was delivered.
Members of my family have worked for Boeing for more than 50 years. My father took a job with Boeing after the war in the 1940s; my brother retired from Boeing after spending his entire working career there; now two of my nieces are employed at Boeing.
Suddenly, from Washington, D. C., the company announces it is pulling its headquarters out of Seattle.
Where are Boeing's corporate manners? Seattle is its birthplace. What a difference it would have made to those of us who have a history with the company, if Boeing had acknowledged what Seattle has meant to the growth and success of the business.
If Boeing had made the announcement in its own back yard, with a sentence or two of appreciation for the Seattle community and its workers, and the realization that this would have a huge impact on us, it at least would have made us feel like it was a proper good-bye.
Boeing's corporate behavior is like leaving the party without thanking the host and, even worse, slamming the door in our face. We expected more from Boeing.
Dottie Parcheski
Bainbridge Island
WTO protesters must have seen into the future
I can already see much of the blame for Boeing's departure being piled on the WTO protesters for having sullied the business-friendly sheen of the Emerald City.
Advocates of such misguided criticism need to wake up and smell the fair-trade coffee regarding Boeing: What we have here is yet another case of a multinational corporation showing utter disregard for local community needs and packing up to leave in search of cheaper labor and more copious tax breaks.
Now, what was it that the majority of the WTO protesters were trying to warn us about?
Jeff Stevens
Seattle
What kind of tax breaks can the company count on?
So Boeing is going to move its corporate headquarters to Chicago, Dallas or Denver. What a plum. Maybe other goodies, like the Renton plant, are on the horizon for the chosen one? Presumably, Illinois, Texas and Colorado are already falling all over themselves with proffered tax breaks here or road improvements there -- all at their taxpayers' expense.
Does anyone doubt Washington's elected officials will jump on that bandwagon, too? For example, the publicity drums have already started beating on I-405 improvements, a major Boeing goal for years. Or maybe there's a sleeper tax-exemption bill in the Legislature, just sitting quietly until the time is right. At any rate, the next step in getting the public to spend billions is to scare them. Boeing did that big time with its announcement. Hold on to your wallets, Washington.
Judith Frolich
Kirkland
Condit blackens eye of community trust
If Phil Condit would have been able to announce an already selected new location, he would have had the privilege of explaining all of the virtues of the new corporate office location. It was something very obviously missing with this blank announcement.
Instead, he delivered nothing more than a black eye to the very community that has held this company in trust for decades. The announcement, as delivered, is nothing more than a vote of no confidence to Seattle and its surrounding neighbors. The fact the decision was made in secret months ago inflames the issue even more.
If Boeing can't tell us where the new location is, and how specifically it would make a difference, then the company must be very unhappy about its current address. Had the company been more open about its displeasure, the outcome may have been very different.
Maybe it's time. At the very least we found out Boeing is not the corporate good citizen we believed it to be and we can move on.
Lee Hollaway
Federal Way
Boeing announcement an omen of things to come?
You're the CEO of a major manufacturing entity. You have intense price pressure from a competitor who is subsidized by government tax dollars. You have intense pressure from your board of directors to increase profit margins. The board of directors is receiving intense pressure from investors to improve profitability.
You are currently paying $200 a day for each person shooting rivets into sheet metal to build your product. You know you can have the same work done in other parts of the world, by people earning $5 a day. The U.S. economy has been transitioning from a manufacturing-based economy to an information-based economy for the past 40 years. It starts with moving tennis shoe and T-shirt manufacturing offshore, then electronics, then cars and trucks -- then planes?
Remember when all those textile workers were begging Americans not to buy from retailers who bought their products from overseas manufacturers? Price wins out every time, even when it costs good-paying jobs.
Transitions can be painful. Capitalism can be painful, more so when it's your job on the line. I believe that looking out over 20 years, Seattle's manufacturing base will be all but eliminated. Prudent folks will retrain themselves for other fields of work and transition themselves out of that environment before it's done for them.
Alan Cook
Seattle
FAMILY PLANNING
Where was Washington's delegation on Bush's plan?
I read in the Wednesday P-I that the following members of Congress are spearheading an effort to kill George W. Bush's policy banning federal aid to international family-planning groups: Barbara Boxer, Arlen Specter, Harry Reid and Nita Lowey.
This Green Party member takes note that not one person from Washington state's congressional delegation is identified as taking a leadership role in this effort -- not Murray, not Cantwell, not McDermott or the others.
I hope our members of Congress will take notice of a grass-roots march and rally for women's lives that takes place April 7 at noon starting at Westlake Mall. Many of the same people who organized the protests of the Jan. 20 inauguration are organizing this protest.
If the people lead, maybe the "leaders" will follow.
Sarah Luthens
Seattle
CAMPAIGN REFORM
Incumbents trying to rig the election process
Your editorial "Don't desert campaign reform" should have been titled "Three cheers for the incumbency protection act."
Unlike John McCain, someone of greater intelligence and integrity can see this for what it truly is: another unconstitutional effort by the incumbents to further rig the election process.
As Ed Crane, the president and CEO of the libertarian Cato Institute points out, "The percentage of incumbents who won re-election last fall was a stunning 98 percent." He goes on to point out what is at the heart of the pathetic McCain-Feingold proposal: "Nothing disturbs an incumbent more than a well-funded challenger. To an incumbent, the ideal contribution limit is zero; the less money in the campaign, the better his chances."
And on Wednesday the Senate added another amendment to address that problem of well-funded challengers. The "millionaire" amendment allows incumbents who are challenged by wealthy opponents to bypass the rules set up for the other incumbents and raise greater funds. Never mind that well-funded challengers would appear to be exempt from the type of corruption that McCain says runs wild in D.C. and that only his bill will fix. They must be kept out of the club.
In your editorial you mentioned that the bill would face two problems, both of which deal with the incumbents' ability to appease those affected. It is disturbing that you do not see constitutionality as a problem, for McCain-Feingold will fail this test miserably. It has been 25 years since the Supreme Court ruled in Buckley vs. Valeo that soft-money should not be restricted. Now McCain-Feingold wants to push another unconstitutional law through Congress. Such disregard for the Constitution is despicable.
All this to protect incumbents from the potential inflow of outsiders who understand that people disapprove of what these clowns do on Capitol Hill, and that they may be able finance their own campaigns (saving taxpayer funding). Please let the senators know that we would like them to save us all the juvenile whining, to quit tilting the playing field and to get back to minding the Constitution.
Tim Perman
Redmond
SCHOOL SHOOTING
Availability makes it easy for kids to get guns
Why is everyone so shocked about what happened at Santee High School?
As long as guns are freely available in this country, children will go to school and shoot and kill some of their classmates.
Walker Blincoe
Seattle
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