Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

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Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby JamesInTheWorld » Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:06 am

Good thing the Blackwater witch-hunt didn’t hurt anyone except working class folks

~JITW

Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in N.C.
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/04/planned ... ss-jobs-nc

By Jeff Hampton
The Virginian-Pilot
© April 4, 2010

MOYOCK, N.C.

Currituck and Camden counties, already struggling with high unemployment, could lose 240 more jobs after the sale of an aviation company operated by a private military company.

AAR Corp. announced last week plans to buy Aviation Worldwide Services for $200 million from Xe Services LLC, the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide.

AWS operates a fleet of 58 customized aircraft, including fixed-wing airplanes and helicopters. Of the 540 employees working for AWS, 240 are based at the Moyock complex known as the U.S. Training Center, AAR spokesman Chris Mason said.

Eventually, employees and aircraft based in Moyock would be relocated, Mason said. According to tax records, Presidential Airways, a subsidiary of AWS, keeps just one aircraft at the training complex and one at the Elizabeth City airport.

The complex of about 7,000 acres straddles Currituck and Camden counties and offers training and practice in marksmanship, anti-terrorism tactics, VIP convoy protection and SWAT team operations, among other things.

Over the years, Blackwater has been among the largest private employers and taxpayers in both counties.

Entrance to the training center goes through Puddin Ridge Road from N.C. 168, about a mile south of the Virginia line. Clients and workers regularly shop, eat and buy gas in the community of about 6,000 people.

"You take 240 people out of this economy and that's 240 people not spending money in the community," said

Eldon Miller, owner of E.L. Miller III and Sons Heating and Cooling.

Other local business owners share his concerns.

"That's a lot of people," said Shelby Wolf, owner of Ace in the Hole Tattoo studio. "We do a whole lot of work for people from Blackwater. There have been several just in the last couple of weeks."

Neither the state Department of Commerce nor the county has specific research on the e ffects of job losses in a small community like Moyock.

"It's really hard to put a number on it or to put an impact on it," said Peter Bishop, economic development director for Currituck County. "We're definitely going to have an impact, we just don't know what that's going to be."

In January, Currituck had an unemployment rate of 10.4 percent, the highest since 1983. Camden County's January unemployment rate was 9.2 percent.

Since 2005, Presidential Airways has flown more than 70,000 missions worldwide, transported 270,000 personnel, and delivered 50 million pounds of cargo and mail, according to a release from AAR Corp.

In 2008, Blackwater laid off an unspecified number of employees after failing to get the contract to build the Grizzly, an armored vehicle. Blackwater officials said the company employed 52 workers at a 70,000-square-foot Grizzly manufacturing facility in Moyock in 2007. Blackwater became Xe Services LLC in February 2009.

That layoff had a significant effect, said Currituck County commissioner and Moyock businesswoman

Janet Taylor.

"This is going to have a big impact like it did the last time," she said.

Taylor said the Navy could buy the complex and use it in support of a proposed airfield for jet carrier landing practice.

"That's one of the first things I thought when I heard about this," she said.

Xe spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke said she was not aware of plans to close the U.S. Training Center.

On March 15, Xe officials attended the Currituck County commissioners meeting to renew for five years a permit to operate the Moyock driving track and firing ranges.
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby coldharvest » Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:18 am

You take 240 people out of this economy and that's 240 people not spending money in the community

.......with that sort of economic insight I don't know what they're worried about.
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby Ultra Swain » Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:34 am

coldharvest wrote:
You take 240 people out of this economy and that's 240 people not spending money in the community

.......with that sort of economic insight I don't know what they're worried about.


It's just a different gov't department giving them money. But now its socialism I guess.
Geez,am I NOT ALLOWED TO BE INTENSE FOR JUST 10 FUCKING SECONDS??!!!!!!!
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby friendlyskies » Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:00 am

See, this is why I'm a socialist. Sure, these Xe guys are taking government money without providing a service that benefits the average American, so in one sense it's good for the USA to lay them off. It shrinks the size of government and lowers taxes, with no loss in overall services to most taxpayers. But let's face it, you can't get people to do shit without giving them money. How many of these people getting laid off are men between 25 and 50, which should be the most productive segment in any society? How many will have the initiative to start their own businesses that *don't* rely on government contracts? And how many will just start drinking away their unemployment and become a burden on the people who, in a traditional community, their demograph would be supporting?

If we, as a society, could just admit that war was socialism, that its main benefit was keeping the economy running, and that everyone involved in a state-sponsored war was an employee of the government, we could just re-assign them to something else. The whole thing about socialism is that you are giving people money (which is in some sense imaginary) in exchange for work (which is real - as long as it produces useful goods and services). It lights a fire under these guys' asses to make them produce. Sure, maybe some of them would bitch that building power plants wasn't as exciting as working on war planes, but that is the bummer about socialism, sometimes society needs boring things. And it's not like I'm proposing communism - if any socialist doesn't like their new assignment, he or she is free to quit and join the free market.
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby Skirita » Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:38 am

Or, god forbid, they could move instead of waiting for new jobs to magically come to a shitty rural town on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp.
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby coldharvest » Mon Apr 05, 2010 12:05 pm

Skirita wrote:Or, god forbid, they could move instead of waiting for new jobs to magically come to a shitty rural town on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp.

Yes but that would be following the age old trend of sensible human migration....and just where does historical precedence get off telling Americans how to roll?
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby RYP » Mon Apr 05, 2010 12:16 pm

"That's a lot of people," said Shelby Wolf, owner of Ace in the Hole Tattoo studio. "We do a whole lot of work for people from Blackwater"

The Ace in the Whole is confusing knuckle draggers with pilots. Erik has always been trying to sell Blackwater, even before Nissour killed that idea. The aviation business is the only exists because of 90M US contract in Afghanistan and Central Asia but the are still being sued for killing a number of clients by flying them into a mountain. But BW is essentially a war economy business not an inherent Currituck County industry. They do some work for The Farm and other drops but its just his toy airline company. The training center is not moving.
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby Zero » Tue Apr 06, 2010 4:42 am

friendlyskies wrote:If we, as a society, could just admit that war was socialism, that its main benefit was keeping the economy running, and that everyone involved in a state-sponsored war was an employee of the government, we could just re-assign them to something else.


I think it was JITW who was describing South Korean conscripts doing road work in Seoul. I personally would prefer 'border guard' to that, standing still in the DMZ is pretty safe compared to standing in the open on a road populated with Korean drivers--for whatever reason, that country has more car-vs-pedestrian spectacles than anywhere else in the developed world.
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby Rapier09 » Tue Apr 06, 2010 8:14 am

RYP wrote:"That's a lot of people," said Shelby Wolf, owner of Ace in the Hole Tattoo studio. "We do a whole lot of work for people from Blackwater"

The Ace in the Whole is confusing knuckle draggers with pilots. Erik has always been trying to sell Blackwater, even before Nissour killed that idea. The aviation business is the only exists because of 90M US contract in Afghanistan and Central Asia but the are still being sued for killing a number of clients by flying them into a mountain. But BW is essentially a war economy business not an inherent Currituck County industry. They do some work for The Farm and other drops but its just his toy airline company. The training center is not moving.


Erik Prince

Even the fucking names makes me burst into giggles.

Most fucked up company ever.
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby DrakeS » Tue Apr 06, 2010 9:34 am

coldharvest wrote:
You take 240 people out of this economy and that's 240 people not spending money in the community

.......with that sort of economic insight I don't know what they're worried about.


Yes its true, everytime you or someone else says 'you do the math'.....a kitten runs away from home and never comes back.
nice choice of words Kurt. "damn shame" My arent we eloquent. Just wait till someone has a few "choice words " for you, too. Uhhh duhhh...hmmmmh
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby JamesInTheWorld » Mon Apr 12, 2010 3:32 pm

Zero wrote:I personally would prefer 'border guard' to that, standing still in the DMZ is pretty safe compared to standing in the open on a road populated with Korean drivers--for whatever reason, that country has more car-vs-pedestrian spectacles than anywhere else in the developed world.


No way, the Middle East has Korea beat for car-vs-pedestrian spectacles

~JITW
Last edited by JamesInTheWorld on Mon Apr 12, 2010 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby JamesInTheWorld » Mon Apr 12, 2010 3:33 pm

Double post
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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby Bouncer » Mon Apr 12, 2010 8:39 pm

I dunno, I liked Presidential Airways / BW/Xe Air. Got to fly on a little bird with them. Awesome fun times zipping over Baghdad with the Magnum PI theme running through my head.

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Re: Planned sale of Xe company likely to mean loss of jobs in US

Postby JamesInTheWorld » Wed Apr 14, 2010 6:59 pm

Bouncer wrote:I dunno, I liked Presidential Airways / BW/Xe Air. Got to fly on a little bird with them. Awesome fun times zipping over Baghdad with the Magnum PI theme running through my head.

Regards,
-Bouncer-


Naaa.... the Spy Hunter tune is way more mercenary sounding

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