Our bespectacled governor, Rick Perry, is apparently sending more than the Texas National Guard to the border these days… Now he’s sending stockbrokers. He announced Thursday that the Texas Enterprise Fund is making two multimillion-dollar investments in the Charles Schwab Corporation, one for a new operations center in El Paso and another to boost Schwab’s presence in Austin. The TEF is providing $1.45 million for the El Paso project, which is scheduled to create 445 jobs and $21.5 million in capital investment over the next 10 years. The $4.5 million TEF investment in the Austin project would create 823 jobs and a $210 million investment over the next decade. The El Paso operation is the newest major employment center for Schwab, joining its San Francisco corporate headquarters along with Denver, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Richfield, Chicago, Orlando and Austin as cities with significant numbers of employees. The financial services company also has some 320 retail branch offices across the U.S.
Mike Kanin is the Publisher of the Austin Monitor. As such, he doesn't report on much--aside from the workings of the Monitor--any more. In his previous life as a freelance journalist, Kanin has written... More by Michael Kanin