Digging out from the usual week's worth of vacation e-mails, I stumbled upon not one but two inbox items from Gov. Butch Otter, praising Micron Technology's recent quarterly profit.
Last week, the Boise-based chip maker announced a $204 million profit, breaking a string of 11 straight losing quarters.
Here's the governor's statement from Tuesday:
“This is good news not just for Micron and the thousands of Idahoans it employs, but for the Treasure Valley and all of Idaho’s economy. Announcing the company’s biggest quarterly profit in eight years is an incredible way to celebrate Christmas — especially in such a turbulent economic environment and in such a tough industry. It’s a credit to a seasoned and steady leadership team who saw the big picture and who made the difficult decisions necessary to get the company back to profitability. Given this kind of performance, I’m confident that Micron will continue to be a great corporate citizen for many years to come.”
A day later, Otter used Micron's quarterly report to launch into a rosy guest opinion about the Idaho economy, including a prediction of better news to come. "I don’t want anyone to get ahead of things here, but it’s my informed impression that the economy — if not yet our state revenue picture — may be on the mend."
Chalk this up to some standard-fare election-year optimism, with a little bit of pre-election spin. In hailing Micron's reversal of fortunes, Otter worked in a plug for Micron's efforts to branch into "green" LED energy — through a $5 million federal economic stimulus money, a pass-along grant that the state awarded in September.
In truth, Micron's profitable quarter reflects changes in a historically cutthroat global memory chip market — not a grant from a federal economic stimulus bill that Otter himself sharply criticized before its passage.
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Meh
Otter is not very well versed in the intricacies of the memory market. For one thing, wholesale prices on memory have been extremely volatile the last several months, much of which was driven by not only the release of Windows 7, but an expected boost in system sales and other memory intensive products for the Christmas season. At the wholesale level, DDR2 RAM very nearly doubled in price a couple of months ago - an almost unheard of jump. It has already started to retreat by about 10% in the last 3 weeks.
In addition, the wholesale memory prices ALWAYS drop after the first of the calendar year due to the decrease in cyclical volume, and 2010 will be no different. Microns one-quarter profit gain, while admirable, may not be sustainable. It remains to be seen. I would certainly err on the side of caution until mid-2010 employment numbers are out, which in my opinion will actually be a better yardstick of economic 'mending'.
I don't use a laptop though...
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat
How about putting a negative spin on some good news?
Thanks for the "rosy guest opinion" link, however. Looks more like a press release to me that is long on facts and short on opinion. Since truth appears to be what interests Kevin the most, it should be pointed out that no where does Otter even suggest that Micron's newly established LED division contributed to its quarterly profits.
We should all hope, as Otter does, that Micron's LED business will be successful and enable them to stop the hemorraging of Idaho jobs. Should Micron be able to restore some of the lost jobs, that will be even better news whether it occurs before or after the election.
Only an Allred supporter would attempt to dampen good economic news. I seriously doubt the candidate himself would stoop so low.
difficult decisions
Otter said, "It’s a credit to a seasoned and steady leadership team who saw the big picture and who made the difficult decisions necessary to get the company back to profitability."
So what Otter is saying is that he supports Micron management who laid of *thousands* of employees (who were formerly tax paying citizens of Idaho), including sending half of Micron's 1000-plus person IT department overseas. If that's being a "great corporate citizen," I'm not sure we're ready for what's to come.
Congratulations on making a profit, though. Just don't lose site of the fact that the same management that found a way to squeeze out one quarter of profitability is the same who dragged the company over the backs of its workers (and the state legislature and the governor) for 11 straight quarters...
Shareholders rejoice
I'm not so sure that a comment from Governor Otter was in any political best interest. More likely, he was speaking as a shareholder.
Maybe he just needs 3 GB?
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat