Reply #5: There have been a number of studies over the years...

[TreasonousBastard]

showing the total costs of moving-- taxes, labor, transaction costs, transportation costs, land and capital costs... I can't point to any of them right off the top of my head, but historically the total costs tend to be lower.

And there's those state and local subsidies designed to steal businesses away from other states that make the deals so much sweeter. Sometimes, they'll even open a public school to train your workers.

Long before the export of jobs to Mexico, China or India, we in the northeast were crying about places like Alabama and North Carolina making deals that just couldn't be refused to get plants to move down there. The rust belt had the same problem.

(In NY, we even had to fight off New Jersey stealing our jobs right across the Hudson.)