Omaha Forums

Yeah, there was a pretty steady loss of density from the 1950's on, with a few big spikes in demolition with Gene Leahy Mall and the extension to HoAP, and of course the loss of Jobbers. Losing the Butternut to fire was another gaping wound. Hopefully we're headed back to denser development downtown again. Losing the Old Woodmen of the World was a big loss, considering what it was replaced with. At least the Medical Arts was replaced with something bigger....FNB. That is the key. If you're going to tear something down, you damn well better replace it with something more substantial and urban.

It's too bad the McKesson Robbins building (Nash Block) had to lose it's twin to the north for the GLM extension. They had to make the connection down to HoAP somehow though. Unfortunately, that helped set the precedent for more demo to follow.

480 caused a lot of density loss as well. It would be interesting to see maps of population density of downtown in 1920-2010.

Hearing that many of the employees that are being relocated to Chicago are considering not making the move. Up to 2/3rds of them. Suppose that it will not be that high once the decision actually has to be made. Also many of the Naperville are thinking along the same lines, not wanting to make the long commute downtown.

The last Grow Omaha had a camber member on. While it is his job to be upbeat about Omaha's market he made a number of comments about Omaha's ability to absorb all of those that lost jobs and that anyone that wants to stay here will have opportunities. Said a number of businesses are considering accelerating their growth timelines with this influx of talent ready to hit the market.

Guest wrote:Hearing that many of the employees that are being relocated to Chicago are considering not making the move. Up to 2/3rds of them. Suppose that it will not be that high once the decision actually has to be made. Also many of the Naperville are thinking along the same lines, not wanting to make the long commute downtown.

I think that was a big part of the decision to move. They don't want the old guard to follow them. Instead, they want to recruit new MBA graduates and Big Four up-and-comers to help create the new ConAgra.

Guest wrote:

Guest wrote:Hearing that many of the employees that are being relocated to Chicago are considering not making the move. Up to 2/3rds of them. Suppose that it will not be that high once the decision actually has to be made. Also many of the Naperville are thinking along the same lines, not wanting to make the long commute downtown.

I think that was a big part of the decision to move. They don't want the old guard to follow them. Instead, they want to recruit new MBA graduates and Big Four up-and-comers to help create the new ConAgra.

What a diçk move.

Cheaper for them to quit and then no severance or moving packages.

bigredmed wrote:Cheaper for them to quit and then no severance or moving packages.

And that is why corporate America is evil - all they care about it money. They don't give a single f*** about people. This country has been on this path for a while now and unless something changes, these CEOs are going to destroy everything in the name of profits. Money isn't everything...wish people could see that...

My Dad saw this in the 70's when he stressed to.me the importance of getting yourself independently certified and a profession that is not dependent on the company you work for.

Best advice I ever got.

HR Paperstacks wrote:

bigredmed wrote:Cheaper for them to quit and then no severance or moving packages.

And that is why corporate America is evil - all they care about it money. They don't give a single f*** about people. This country has been on this path for a while now and unless something changes, these CEOs are going to destroy everything in the name of profits. Money isn't everything...wish people could see that...

daveoma wrote:

HR Paperstacks wrote:

bigredmed wrote:Cheaper for them to quit and then no severance or moving packages.

And that is why corporate America is evil - all they care about it money. They don't give a single f*** about people. This country has been on this path for a while now and unless something changes, these CEOs are going to destroy everything in the name of profits. Money isn't everything...wish people could see that...

And that is the problem with capitalism without checks and balances, with a Wall Street/(Lobby Group/PAC) that can buy seats in Congress, why Middle Class America has almost disappeared, and why we have now become a Plutocracy.

Coyote wrote:And that is the problem with capitalism without checks and balances, with a Wall Street/(Lobby Group/PAC) that can buy seats in Congress, why Middle Class America has almost disappeared, and why we have now become a Plutocracy.

Exactly.

40 IT job cuts announced today. I would guess these are going to be off-shored, from what I've heard. It's the way of things among our nation's largest companies, many setting up, if not already having a large IT presence in India. The F500 company I'm currently with is basically moving all the coders off-shore, keeping a few 'subject matter experts' on hand to direct them. I was 'fortunate' enough to be promoted into one of those SME positions, many of my colleagues seeing what was happening, moved on. Unfortunately, this practice overlooks the need to develop those SME's from within. In most cases, you can't just hire someone off the street, to step into the role. Although in our east coast office, I noticed they're bringing over/sponsoring people from the India offices to fill some of these positions. Something seems seriously wrong with this.

Major problem with those joke H1-B visas. That |expletive| needs to be blocked off.

Beyond ConAgra we will see if the lust for cash that the few mega investors demand have a massive effect on the nation. I can't see how it wont, but who am I to talk.

David Brown on Grow Omaha right now...

Wow, the chambers effort to keep the 1500 laid off ConAgra employees in Omaha has been really successful.

So far Omaha companies have come forward with 3600 jobs that are middle management and up!

iamjacobm wrote:Beyond ConAgra we will see if the lust for cash that the few mega investors demand have a massive effect on the nation. I can't see how it wont, but who am I to talk.

Sometimes these large investors can make an impact in on a company but many tunes they fail. It's all fair in the world of business--especially in publicly traded companies. It's scary to think that any publicly traded company would be vulnerable to these kinds of activist investors. I think in the future you'll see companies who regard themselves as vulnerable buying their outstanding shares ands going private.

daveoma wrote:

iamjacobm wrote:Beyond ConAgra we will see if the lust for cash that the few mega investors demand have a massive effect on the nation. I can't see how it wont, but who am I to talk.

Sometimes these large investors can make an impact in on a company but many tunes they fail. It's all fair in the world of business--especially in publicly traded companies. It's scary to think that any publicly traded company would be vulnerable to these kinds of activist investors. I think in the future you'll see companies who regard themselves as vulnerable buying their outstanding shares ands going private.

Going private, use of preferred shares with special voting rights, and mandatory IPOs are all commonly used already.

To be fair with CAG, the stock was massively underperforming. They had sold off their barge business and a lot of their businesses that dealt with grain and meat. They sold off their trading business. Nothing got turned back to shareholders. I bought my first stock when it was a big conglomerate. Not till recently, has the stock increased any significant amount. The management should feel heat for the past 15 years.

So far Omaha companies have come forward with 3600 jobs that are middle management and up!

Yikes, do we really have a need for 3,600 new middle managers?

Stargazer wrote:

So far Omaha companies have come forward with 3600 jobs that are middle management and up!

Yikes, do we really have a need for 3,600 new middle managers?

This is a current weak spot in our labor market,thus all the openings.

With regards to Illinois being broke:

I was speaking with someone earlier this week who is a upper level manager for a manufacturing company. He was telling a story about one of their stores in Illinois. They amended a prior year tax return because of an accountant error which caused them to overpay by like $15,000. The state of Illinois sent them an IOU. Company tried to take that amount as a credit against a balance owed on a future return, and Illinois threatened to prosecute if the full amount owed wasn't paid.

Also, if you have lottery winnings over $600, you are getting an IOU instead of cash for the time being: http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/16/news/illinois-lottery/

NEDodger wrote:Major problem with those joke H1-B visas. That |expletive| needs to be blocked off.

Vote for Trump. He said he is going to end the H1-B program.

You know Bush or Clinton won't do anything but increase the sellout of the American workers.

Joe_Sovereign wrote:

NEDodger wrote:Major problem with those joke H1-B visas. That |expletive| needs to be blocked off.

Vote for Trump. He said he is going to end the H1-B program.

You know Bush or Clinton won't do anything but increase the sellout of the American workers.

H1b visas were intended to be for special needs. You need a faculty member to conserve your middle ages tapestries, so you recruit someone from England. H1b visa. We have these being abused by lots of companies who hire overseas cheap and call it a special need.

jessep28 wrote:With regards to Illinois being broke:

I was speaking with someone earlier this week who is a upper level manager for a manufacturing company. He was telling a story about one of their stores in Illinois. They amended a prior year tax return because of an accountant error which caused them to overpay by like $15,000. The state of Illinois sent them an IOU. Company tried to take that amount as a credit against a balance owed on a future return, and Illinois threatened to prosecute if the full amount owed wasn't paid.

Also, if you have lottery winnings over $600, you are getting an IOU instead of cash for the time being: http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/16/news/illinois-lottery/

Illinois hasn't agreed on a budget for this year yet. There's money, but without a budget line item to draw from, no one is getting paid for anything. Even pass through funds like motor fuel taxes (collected by the state and then distributed to local governments) aren't being distributed. Various government entities are slowly shutting down due to the lack of an approved budget.

Omaha is lucky Gavilon split from Conagra. A friend that started there while Conagra owned them says it is 100% different now. Before they were about buying companies to make it look like they were as big as possible and make as much money as possible. Now that Marubeni (A Japanese firm) is the owner it is more about putting your family first. He said that their ideas of doing what is right and having a family life over making the company profits is so nice.

It would be really interesting if a group of Omaha investors banded together and bought Ralcorp from ConAgra.

iamjacobm wrote:It would be really interesting if a group of Omaha investors banded together and bought Ralcorp from ConAgra.

Only if you define interesting as losing money. Private label brands are hard to make money in because the only way you get your can on the shelf is to be cheaper or provide more costly freebies to the stores.

Smaller profit margins=/=losing money. Just because ConAgra way over paid for the company and has been writing off billions in goodwill over the past 2 years doesn't mean there isn't some value in a company.

Looks like it is in the late stages of being sold for nearly half of what ConAgra paid for it anyways.

http://www.omaha.com/money/nebraska-bus ... e9ed1.html

This article explains the whole MO behind corporate activism and what happened to ConAgra and what is going on with Cabela's.

ConAgra Foods Ends Private Label Miscue With $2.7 Billion Sale To TreeHouse Foods

http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara ... use-foods/

According to the memo, which was obtained by The World-Herald: "Today, we are communicating with individuals on our team about the impact to them as a result of this work, which includes job eliminations. Most of these employees will hear from their managers today; some will hear tomorrow."

This gives them several billion in losses to write off and to use as an excuse.

This sounds incredibly familiar...

Kraft Heinz to move Oscar Mayer HQ to Chicago

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... story.html

Chicago Tribune wrote:Kraft Heinz announced Wednesday that it will move Oscar Mayer and the company's U.S. meats business from Madison, Wis., to Chicago — a move that will add 250 jobs to Chicago's Aon Center.

The company also announced plans to consolidate its production facilities during the next two years, which will result in the shutdown of seven North American manufacturing facilities: Fullerton, Calif.; San Leandro, Calif.; Federalsburg, Md.; St. Mary's, Canada; Campbell, N.Y.; Lehigh Valley, Pa., and the one in Madison.

The closings will result in the loss of about 2,600 manufacturing jobs at the company, including 700 in Madison. About 50 non-manufacturing positions in Madison also will be cut and not moved to Chicago.

So 250 corporate jobs leaving Madison for Chicago, another 750 cut altogether.

Wouldn't be surprised to see the food companies combine to make mega companies similar to how the cellular companies have this past decade.

Wow these tax incentives must be pretty good, sad to see companies uprooting from communities they have been in for decades.

Oscar Meyer is part of Kraft, whose corporate office is already in the Chicago area. The Oscar Meyer move is standard corporate consolidation. This isn't surprising in light of the recent acquisition of Kraft by Heinz. There's probably a lot of duplication in office and production capacity which needs to be eliminated under the combined entities.

ConAgra purchased two of the buildings on their campus. They now own three out of five of them.

I wonder if they plan on getting rid of the other two then.

HR Paperstacks wrote:I wonder if they plan on getting rid of the other two then.

I have a feeling the odds of any of the buildings getting demolished are very low. Plus, those other buildings really aren't in a spot where making them into something else would bring anything worth while.

RNcyanide wrote:

HR Paperstacks wrote:I wonder if they plan on getting rid of the other two then.

I have a feeling the odds of any of the buildings getting demolished are very low. Plus, those other buildings really aren't in a spot where making them into something else would bring anything worth while.

Oh, I was just talking about them moving out of those ones.