Billions of dollars in projects from companies such as Intel are moving forward in the Phoenix region despite a 25-year megadrought, thanks in part to one of the best and most reliable water supplies of any large Western U.S. city.
As reported by WSB-TV earlier this spring, the Doraville Downtown Development Authority voted in late March to transfer former GM plant property to Dallas-based Gray Television for the construction of a 127-acre, mixed-use “Studio City” not unlike the vision for the property we reported on six years ago. Doraville Mayor Joseph Geierman said the city had worked with Gray to develop “a plan which will attract thousands of new jobs and millions of dollars of new investments,” including offices, a hotel, apartments and townhomes and 10 film and TV studios. Filming could begin as early as next year at the site that is currently home to operations from Third Rail Studios, Serta Simmons Bedding headquarters and Asbury Automotive.
Minneapolis-based Ceres Global Ag Corp. in May announced plans today to build this integrated canola processing facility that will have capacity to process 1.1 million metric tons of canola and refine over 500 thousand metric tons of canola oil, for both food and fuel, annually. “This is an exciting time for Ceres Global as we position ourselves to take advantage of the unprecedented
demand for oilseed crush in North America,” said Robert Day, Ceres president and CEO. “While there are multiple drivers contributing to this demand, the most important is the movement towards green energy and the need for vegetable oil as feedstock for the production of
renewable diesel. We have been analyzing canola crush at Northgate for several years as its location along the Canada-U.S. border is ideally located to originate canola seed from our farmer partners, and with a direct connection to BNSF Railway, it provides the most efficient access to the U.S. market and U.S. ports.”
Robert Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) who appeared this morning in one of the early sessions of the virtual SelectUSA Summit, likes debunking myths about the evils of big business. ITIF’s latest report is no exception. Refuting claims of market concentration that have fueled a push to restructure U.S. antitrust policies, the report “No, Monopoly Has Not Grown” analyzes the latest Census data to find that “just 4% of U.S. industries are highly concentrated — and 45% have become less concentrated since 2002.” ITIF examined C4 industry concentration ratios, which represent the share of sales that the top four firms capture in an industry. Among the findings from analysis of data at the 6-digit level of 851 industry classifications in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS):
In 2017, 80% of U.S. business output was from industries with low levels of concentration, up from 62% in 2002.
Producer prices rose less in industries with higher levels of concentration than prices rose in the rest of the economy from 2002 to 2017.
“It has become an article of faith that market concentration has increased to problematic levels, such that we need wholesale changes in antitrust policy to limit mergers and break up big companies,” Atkinson said in a release this morning. “The latest Census data puts the lie to that argument.”
Count of C4 concentration in 2017 NAICS codes
Graph courtesy of ITIF
PHOTO OF THE DAY
Photo courtesy of San Francisco Travel Association
This photo made available last fall by the San Francisco Travel Association shows air balloons above Pleasant Hill, California, a city about 20 miles outside San Francisco in the East Bay area. In addition to being home to the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site and The Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park, the city is near the Livermore Valley wine region, and is known for having the nation’s largest bocce ball league.
