Dana Blankenhorn

The 2020 Blankenhorn Christmas Letter: Our Pandemic Year

As this is written, it looks likely we’ll survive 2020.

So many haven’t. It’s beyond counting, almost beyond comprehending. For America, and the world, 2020 has been the worst year of the century. We pray things get better in 2021.

Here we’re having dinner last summer with our friend of nearly 40 years, Michael Pete. His restaurant at the Hyatt Regency downtown was closed and it looks like he’s retiring. This is the closest we’ve come to a restaurant, except to pick up food, since March.

Jenni kept her mind busy with work. She started working from home full time when the pandemic hit. She had to take a pay cut for half the year, but the money came back. She was also offered early retirement and turned it down. When work is done, she reads. And reads and reads and reads.

T for Texas, T for Tech

For Republicans, the most exciting post-election news is that some tech companies are moving to Texas.

Tesla is going. HPE is going. Oracle is going.

Supposedly, this means California sucks and that business prefers Texas, with its lower taxes, lax environmental laws, and strict caste system.

The result will be the opposite of that. Here’s why.

First, it’s mostly loser companies that are moving.

HPE is a loser company. They supply data centers. It’s a declining market. Having them in Compaq’s old city (HP bought Compaq under Carly Fiorina) instead of where HP itself was born is no big deal. This isn’t Bill and Dave’s company anyway. It hasn’t been since it went all-in on PC manufacturing in the 1980s. HP spun out the original company as Agilent in 1999. HPE isn’t even all of HP. The company broke up in 2015. The computer and printer piece is bigger.