Arkansas Blog

Yes, but this is Saint Beebe, not old mean Huckabee we are talking about.

per DJS, these sound like "Con-Jobs"

(pardon the pun)

Well, if the New Mexico press said it, it's bound to be true. As we all know, the state's press (like everything else in Arkansas) is inferior to that found elsewhere, and is easily tricked. Poor pathetic, cheated, little Arkansas and its people.

I repeat my statement from the earlier thread:

So . . . these ARE call-center jobs being moved by H-P back onshore from Bangalore.

But in the run-up to the big announcement we were assured these were going to be high-tech jobs along the line of programmer and software-development jobs. Skills required to replace an Indian call-center worker involve the ability to open a manual to a page that describes the caller's problem and read two or three cookie-cutter solutions to the problem, then tell the caller to take the offending printer/laptop to the place where she bought it.

Acxiom/Alltel victims are too skilled for these jobs.

Holy cow. I didn't think I would ever agree with anything from this guy, but here he is making plain sense. He is just calling it as it is for once. Mabye he is getting a taste of how it feels to be on the opposing side when public sentiment grants blanket immunity to a leader based on popularity. At least Beebe didn't use the moment to begin Vietnam II like Bush/Cheney did. He is also dead on with the press falling over themselves to take Beebe's rah-rah PR at face value again and again. This year has opened my eyes to the Arkansas press slant, and boy can I see it now. I mean, Beebe had the press reporting that his gas tax had environmental protection in it until Rod Bryan had to personally go the bill-signing and make him fess up that it didn't. Also and "ahem" to the AT with the Beebe cover story that looked to, of ALL places, the Arkansas Legislature for the liberal comment. Of course Ledbetter is a moderate. He is an elected Democrat. Of course he gave the moderate party-line instead of the actual liberal sentiment on Beebe's corporate giveaway gas tax, aw- shucks death sentencing policy, non-strenghthening of any environmental protections. "Golly darn good" on the environment, Mr. Ledbetter? How exactly, Mr. Smith?

I was hoping that HP would bring some decent programming jobs here, but I just don't see that happening.

I am happy to see the jobs being brought to Arkansas. I'm happy to see the jobs being brought from India back to the US. I'll be even happier when I call HP for assistance and I get someone who is a fluent English speaker and actually understands English and is not using keywords to try and figure out what I need. I spend too much time on the phone with HP trying to support our junky HP laptops and servers. I so wish we were using Sun products!! At least they are reliable.

Note to anyone out there. Stay away from HP products, especially their laptops (man, are they just pure junk).

DOUBLE STANDARD....CHAPTER 367.....VERSE 17.....Max will now lead the choir

I think Beebe is doing a nice job as governor, but the free ride he is getting from the press is astounding. Do you not see the irony that the administration that knew nothing about the Alltel sale is now front and center at this event? If Huckabee had missed the boat on Alltel the way Beebe did and then jumped into the Conway event...you bloggers would have been all over him.

This is a phone center folks...I can't get my new computer to boot up and I call for a walk through....let's keep this in perspective.

I wonder if Beebe went to Conway on the brand new State Police airplane? Who knows....because that would have been a huge story during the Huckabee tenure, but the plane is now a non-issue. Huckabee used a plane and took heat, Beebe buys a plane and it's not a story. Warwick....you want to jump in on this one...maybe you had the Conway airport staked out?

Did I see that Beebe's former Medicaid Budget Director is about to get out of prison for his fraud when working for a county? Sorry....non story again.....I can't imagine the heat Huckabee would have taken for that one.

Again...I like a lot of what Beebe is doing.....but the free ride from legislators, the press, and the blogger world ia really somewhat amazing.

Oh, one more...the pervert Democrat who was elected to the general assembly....had that been a Republican during the Huckabee years....you all would have been whining and moaning about Huckabee doing nothing to block him being seated. Give me a break....you all know everything I'm pointing out is true.

The fact that this Huckabee supporter likes what Beebe is doing says a lot.

Agree. It is understandable for many reasons, but this type of economic news here is so totally mis-reported and I think, for the most part, not fully understood in the full context that it needs to be.

Look, this is still good news. Welcome news. And it should be seen as such. And everyone should feel great about it. And as a state we do need to be aggressive and job/economic development needs to be job number one and two beyond a doubt. And so we may need to do deals from a relative position of weakness and neediness. That's just reality. Si it will never be easy and pure and sweet smelling. It's not pretty.

What we really need to do is go back and look at our relatively recent history and see where our politicians at the state level and those that served in Congress over the last 30 years really short-changed us. That is a travesty and no one talks about it. I don't get how all the past senators and reps from here and governors etc., are held in such high esteem. One could make a great case that they basically fiddled around with the inessential while Arkansas remained mired in economic distress. they had options. Other states took them. So we're making up for much lost ground in many ways IMO. It's all related. Essentially if Clinton hadn't become President (not because of his policies but because he was from here) we'd be in pretty bad shape here in the Central Arkansas region. That's a lucky break and it jump-started a lot. And I'm not saying it isn't great to be lucky. But playing the luck card is no way to go through life.

But let's keep this news in perspective. I'm glad to see these and other perspectives and take on this coming out. It needs the keen eye of critical analysis as does all of our economic development deals. It can be a dirty, messy albeit necessary business and needs to be done under the light of day. t

Related: The governor not coming clean on all the details is a related is just bad in principle. Just show the cards. Gov. Beebe should know that. He seems like he would get that.

As long as the State and local governments insist on this outmoded style of economic development we are going to remain poor. The work of Richard Florida and others clearly demonstrate that Technology, Talent and Tolerance are the building blocks of 21st century growth. We don't invest enough in the first [would rather have a bejillion school districts and all football all the time]; we drive away the talent with our medieval "leaders" in the media [let's re-fight the civil war, seatbelts are a 4-letter word], government [part time, part-witted, visionless politicos], religion [only I have the one true way and I'm forcing it down your throat] and business [with a few exceptions those who want things to remain the same so they can continue to prosper at the expense of the people]; and the Tolerance factor is manifested continually through attacks on same sex couples and individuals, keeping the schools underfunded, vicious anti-immigration groups, and a general patina of hatred. But until the people of this state examine themselves and demand better leaders we will continue to fall further behind in the 21st century.

FYI: There are many great companies, businesses, healthcare providers, here in Central Arkansas. And they were here long before Clinton "effect" revitalized, jump-started a lot of other things. Not implying that the Clinton "effect' was responsible for a lot of great things already in place. Just that it jump-started some more diversified and brand-based business development and put in place development that makes it easier to woo employers and job candidates.

Arkansas needs HP a hell of a lot more than HP needs Arkansas.

Everyone needs to be glad their coming and quit all the bitching.

What really matters is how much do they pay to work in a "call center" not what the employees will be doing.

Conway could probably create just as many jobs and as much locally beneficial economic activity by just voting Faulkner County WET and joining the twenty-first century! It wouldn't take a $28 million handout to do it either.

1) Anyone who thought that HP was bringing programming here was not thinking. Programming is not a primary function of their business. They manufacture products and only produce software to run them.

2) At least someone is bringing a call center back to the U. S. I guess that the Indians, Fillipinos, etc. were holding out for too much money. I hope this doesn't mean that they consider Arkansas the next lowest third-world country.

"Conway could probably create just as many jobs and as much locally beneficial economic activity by just voting Faulkner County WET and joining the twenty-first century! It wouldn't take a $28 million handout to do it either." - MysteryShopper

This. I work for a fairly big company with a small office in Conway. Many of the out of state staffers were blatantly shocked when they found out they couldn't go have a Bud Light after work at the pub. Conway would grow like nuts if they would decide to join the mid-20th century and sell beer with a meal without paying for a membership to a private club.

When I first got relocated here I simply couldn't believe that there were still dry counties anywhere. That may just show how ignorant I was in general about life in many states I had no connection to. I think that just over half of our counties are dry if I'm not mistaken. I was even shocked you couldn't buy alcohol on Sundays. That I still do not understand. What is that about? why doesn't that change. It's rooted in some whacko mumbo jumbo respect for Jesus no doubt that is hard to shake.

Wow. Spooky stuff when you somehow equate the purchase of a six-pack of beer with Christianity. OK, I'm in the store. It would be convenient to buy it now but i can't because it is Sunday. That is just very, very weird local craziness for 2008. I truly do not want to know what people are thinking about that one. I've learned that it is best not to scratch too deep here on some things that are just part of the way of life here. Just too scary to know the reasons some things here are the way they are.

Perplexed, you're wrong on almost everything you said.

First, HP does produce a lot of software primarily to support it's hardware such as HP-UX, printer drivers and diagnostic tools. HP also produces a lot of software products that are a significant portion of its business. I assume you aren't familiar with their ITIL suite. ITO Openview / Measureware / OVO, Service Desk, etc. They do a lot more than make printers.

As far as the good people of India and the Philippines asking for too much money, don't delude yourself. They're over qualified. We are outsourcing a lot more programming positions to those countries than call center jobs.

The one thing you are right about is that people probably weren't thinking. A lot of people are facing a pretty desperate time and may be overly wishful.

The Only Good is Knowledge: Thanks for the correction. And now I'm remembering Friedman's book telling us how much programming and other higher order work is going to India. It seems like Conway is perfect for a call center because they can find some people who can read English and speak it fairly clearly and not have to pay them the kinds of salaries required on the West Coast. But I think we're all kidding ourselves to think that there's ever going to be a huge influx of truly high paying, high-tech jobs come to Arkansas with the education system we have. We do have the advantage of a lower cost of living than Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin, etc., but so do tons of other locations here and around the world.