Monday, January 23, 2012

Top rankings mania, United HQ, jobs, zoning, Texans, and more

The smaller misc items have been piling up faster than usual lately...
"Throughout the economic crisis, Houston has been the buttoned-down older brother to Austin's hippie slacker. 
While college-boy Austin coasts by on education and arts, Houston shrugs off the cool kids, goes to work every day with its buddies in the energy industry and does what it can to keep unemployment below 8%. Unlike Austin, though, Houston doesn't have to drop its home prices to draw new blood."
"Zoning became a game for poker sharks."
  • The Chronicle editorial board picked up on the WSJ middle-class jobs story I covered last month.  A good strength of Houston.
  • I came across this quote about the United-Continental merger and choice of HQ in a Fortune article.  Based on this and what I've heard about the radical decline in Continental service since the merger, I think I can safely say that they royally screwed up this merger picking Chicago for the HQ over Houston.  It not only raised costs, but helped the much lower regarded United culture win out.
"To be fair, there are some initial benefits to combining operations. Merging headquarters and slashing management costs does help the surviving airline, although it can be limited. For example, United has had to hike the pay of Continental employees by 20% to 30% to entice them to move up to Chicago from Houston, a person close to the company told Fortune. The bizarre reason to remain headquartered in such an expensive city, even with tax breaks, shows that airline mergers aren't always rational."
Finally, I'm a couple weeks too late in sharing this, but it's still pretty cool.  In retrospect, the lyrics at the 3:16 point were poorly chosen.  Oh well.  Next season is looking good.  Go Texans!

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3 Comments:

At 11:24 AM, January 29, 2012, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The United-Continental merger needed clear sailing through the US Department of Justice. The president of the United States is from Illinois. Do I need to draw you a picture?

 
At 4:56 PM, March 08, 2012, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I heard that they'de lose $20-30MM in tax breaks and subisidies from City of Chicago agreed upon under Daley Jr.

Plus they need quick DOJ approval.

Mike

 
At 4:59 PM, March 08, 2012, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Forgot to mention that it is the ultimate corporate cop out to pick Kellner and then the current guy, what do they know about running an airline, they're both Harvard grads with law degrees.

Bethune messed up when picking a succesor.
mike

 

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