I liked Brian's hopeful suggestion that the states could band together in a non-competition agreement. Perhaps they could hold a convention and form a union to that end. Perhaps it could be called the United States of America.

We have a severe 'brain drain' in the US. Our talent pool is no longer going into the applied sciences because they can make more money elsewhere, i.e. finance and medicine.

What has not been mentioned is pharma consolidation. I work for Pfizer. Wyeth did not leave Madison- it is still there with te Pfizer name on the buildings now. Same with Schering- bought by Merck. Pfizer bought Pharmacia years ago and we still habe their offices filled with workers in Peapack. Roche is consolidating research with Genentech with whom they merged. Pharma has consolidated heavily over the last few years.
The guest has a post though- look at Stanford and UCSF in te Roche case and MIT and Harvard with the impairs moving to MA.

The following is rarely discussed from these reports but seems especially interesting this month:
"In June, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was essentially unchanged at 5.4 million. These individuals accounted for 41.9 percent of the unemployed. Both the civilian labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio were unchanged in June at 63.8 and 58.6 percent, respectively. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged at 8.2 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. In June, 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down from 2.7 million a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey."

UCSF School of Medicine is located in San Francisco.

... and also Brian, which companies are WORTH keeping or attracting, given the subsidy. Is it possible a locale LOSES from the overall deal, when all the dust settles? I would think so.

If NJ is one of the highest taxed states in the union, instead of talking about losing infrastructure, etc, why not tackle the costs of the services. It seems every time there is a budget talk at the local level it is always about cutting services, but never cutting the underlying costs of providing the services (pensions, salaries, etc.) We could employ a heck of a lot more people if the costs of employment were more reasonable.

Corporate Tax rates in some venues in Switzerland are some of the lowest in the world. St. Gallen (a small city in Switzerland) has especially low rates. Many companies use Switzerland in their strategic tax planning because of the low rates. As far as pharmaceuticals are concerned - Switzerland has a long tradition of attracting these types of industries.

In this case I think there is no other way to interpret the matter. Taxes are not the only factor, and if that is Gov. Christie's position he is incorrect. That is not a matter of opinion. Your guest PROVES that. The question is how could we find out to what degree do taxes count, how much do good universities count, how much do public amenities count. So, I would like you to focus on ways we could explore that.

Please... they are not moving to high tax stats. All these large companies shop around states and are given special deals to stay or come - they never pay the prevailing tax rate. It's all part of the game.