Wisconsin's $4.1 Billion Foxconn Boondoggle (theverge.com) 183
"A story from The Verge reports on Foxconn's substantially scaled-back plans for the heavily subsidized Wisconsin "Gigafactory," writes Slashdot reader kimanaw. Here's an excerpt from the report: The details of the deal were famously written on the back of a napkin when [Foxconn chairman Terry Gou] and the Republican governor first met: a $3 billion state subsidy in return for Foxconn's $10 billion investment in a Generation 10.5 LCD manufacturing plant that would create 13,000 jobs. [...] But what seemed so simple on a napkin has turned out to be far more complicated and messy in real life. As the size of the subsidy has steadily increased to a jaw-dropping $4.1 billion, Foxconn has repeatedly changed what it plans to do, raising doubts about the number of jobs it will create. Instead of the promised Generation 10.5 plant, Foxconn now says it will build a much smaller Gen 6 plant, which would require one-third of the promised investment, although the company insists it will eventually hit the $10 billion investment target. And instead of a factory of workers building panels for 75-inch TVs, Foxconn executives now say the goal is to build "ecosystem" of buzzwords called "AI 8K+5G" with most of the manufacturing done by robots.
Shortly after the Wisconsin deal was signed, Walker was touting the Foxconn deal in campaign-style speeches across the state. But by October 2017, just a month after the legislature passed the Foxconn deal, a poll showed only 38 percent of the people in southeastern Wisconsin, where the plant would be located, thought the plant would be a net positive for the state. This was followed by March 2018 poll, which showed that 66 percent of people in the state believed their local businesses wouldn't benefit from the Foxconn deal, and only 25 percent thought it would be beneficial. This was dreadful news for Walker, who suddenly stopped talking about Foxconn. He didn't even mention the deal in a November 2017 speech announcing his run for re-election. It was also bad news for Foxconn, as every Democrat running for governor proceeded to condemn the deal. Both Walker and Foxconn now needed to sell this deal to the voters.
Shortly after the Wisconsin deal was signed, Walker was touting the Foxconn deal in campaign-style speeches across the state. But by October 2017, just a month after the legislature passed the Foxconn deal, a poll showed only 38 percent of the people in southeastern Wisconsin, where the plant would be located, thought the plant would be a net positive for the state. This was followed by March 2018 poll, which showed that 66 percent of people in the state believed their local businesses wouldn't benefit from the Foxconn deal, and only 25 percent thought it would be beneficial. This was dreadful news for Walker, who suddenly stopped talking about Foxconn. He didn't even mention the deal in a November 2017 speech announcing his run for re-election. It was also bad news for Foxconn, as every Democrat running for governor proceeded to condemn the deal. Both Walker and Foxconn now needed to sell this deal to the voters.
Uh huh ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... company insists it will eventually hit the $10 billion investment target ...
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The whole op-ed seems contradictory in what Foxconn is saying it is doing and what the writer speculates is happening (without hard proof or facts to back it up).
Foxconn promised this factory but then a supplier company wanted subsidies too so they decided to go with another model - what a failure
Foxconn promised 13,000 blue collar factory jobs but now is saying that they will hire 90% higher paid knowledge jobs and 10% blue collar - what a failure
Foxconn is buying land all across the state close to Univers
They went off the rails (Score:5, Insightful)
They completely lost sight of what made the USA an economic powerhouse in the first place: In the past, corporate welfare was always doled out to American companies.
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True but now this type of welfare is less about creating jobs than bleeding the budget so the perpetrators can say:
"Oh we have no money for your liberal spending programs and there's a deficit now so we need to Cut Cut Cut".
It's all part of the wealth transfer operation against the middle class perpetrated by the republicans.
Um... that's not what makde American a powerhouse (Score:5, Interesting)
You need manufacturing to have a strong economy because you need lots of workers all working together in the same place with the same interests. In other words, Unions. What made the US middle class grow was Unions fought (and died) to pry money out of the hands of the working class. You can't do that at a WalMart, there's just not enough of a concentration. Also, the ruling class got this Union busting down pat.
The one thing that did _not_ make the US a powerhouse is corporate welfare. We had all that during the Robber Baron era and Gilded Age in spades. There was money, but it all belonged to our aristocracy.
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Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
The rich didn't move money anywhere. There was no money, we blew it the fuck up. It took the world decades to recover. In the meantime if anything was getting built it was getting built in America. By American workers.
And that last comment? Now you're just trolling. I mean, couldn't you just end your post with "Freedom is Slavery" or something?
Re:Huh? (Score:4)
I think you have a mistyped statement in your OP and this other commentor was discussing it without realizing it was probably just a mistyped statement.
You wrote unions take money from the middle class, but they clearly do not, they build the middle class.
I assumed you meant, unions take money from the capitalist class or factory owners, etc.
Labor costs and manufacturing (Score:4, Interesting)
You need manufacturing to have a strong economy because you need lots of workers all working together in the same place with the same interests. In other words, Unions. What made the US middle class grow was Unions fought (and died) to pry money out of the hands of the working class. You can't do that at a WalMart, there's just not enough of a concentration. Also, the ruling class got this Union busting down pat.
You have the story wrong. The US HAS manufacturing. It never left despite what you might hear from the uninformed. The US manufacturing sector is over $3 TRILLION annually which puts us neck and neck with China for the largest manufacturing sector in the world. By itself the US manufacturing sector would be one the fifth largest economy in the world - larger than the UK and just behind Germany.
What has changed since WWII is our cost of labor and the rest of the world rebuilt. US labor today is among the most expensive in the world. As a result US manufacturing HAS to focus on capital intensive [wikipedia.org] products instead of labor intensive [wikipedia.org] ones. It is literally impossible for US companies to compete on labor prices. 70 years ago US labor costs were a lot closer to the global mean AND the rest of the world was recovering from WWII. Now China has a LOT of labor and simple supply and demand means that having a lot of something means it will cost less and so their labor costs less than ours because they have an abundance of it. QED products that are sensitive to manufacturing cost of labor will inevitably migrate to locations with lower labor costs. Products not so sensitive to labor costs will go to places with low capital costs. The US has the lowest cost of capital in the world currently so we get the capital intensive products instead of the labor intensive ones. In plain english we make cars and airplanes and don't make Happy Meal toys and the cheap crap you buy in Walmart.
As for unions, basically unions were TOO successful. They priced themselves out of the market for labor intensive manufacturing in a global market. And for capital intensive manufacturing there isn't as much need for unions because the pay rates are much higher and there is a lot of automation. As a result when politicians promise to bring back manufacturing jobs they are literally promising the impossible. The only way the US will get back labor intensive manufacturing on a large scale is for the cost of US labor to fall back towards the global mean. This means paying US workers MUCH less then they currently demand. Otherwise the only alternative is to automate the work which is what capital intensive manufacturing does. So pick your poison - much lower paying jobs OR automation.
Ironically when people argue against immigration in our country, they are arguing against the only thing that will allow our demographics to compete with China and India. China has 4 people for every 1 in the US and a lot of those people are very smart and hard working. Without immigrants (both skilled and unskilled), the US will eventually lose that fight just from sheer numbers. China has more labor that costs less AND a lot of very smart high end labor too. Doesn't mean the US will become some backwater but without welcoming the best and brightest into our country with open arms we don't have a prayer of keeping up in the long run.
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The only way the US will get back labor intensive manufacturing on a large scale is for the cost of US labor to fall back towards the global mean.
At this point, it's probably too late anyway. Automation is destroying those jobs. Manufacturing still happens in the US, but we'll lose most of the last manufacturing jobs anyway since automation is currently improving rapidly. It's already taken most of the manufacturing jobs, it will take most of the rest in short order.
without welcoming the best and brightest into our country with open arms we don't have a prayer of keeping up in the long run.
Sure, but we only need the best and the brightest. We don't need the masses of asses. We have enough asses here already. Consequently, these immigration policies won't much affect America
Immigration policy is hugely important (Score:2)
Automation is destroying those jobs. Manufacturing still happens in the US, but we'll lose most of the last manufacturing jobs anyway since automation is currently improving rapidly. It's already taken most of the manufacturing jobs, it will take most of the rest in short order.
In some cases that it true. In some cases it is not. People here tend to hugely misunderstand what automation can and cannot do and the costs involved. Manufacturing in the US is going to be a lot like farming in the sense that productivity is going to continue to increase but head counts will be an increasingly smaller percentage of the total workforce. This is NOT a bad thing. It just means that economic value will come from other sectors of the economy. A lot of manufacturing jobs are boring assemb
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(spoilers: we lose without those "masses of asses")
You could not be more wrong. We don't need more mediocre people. We have more than enough of them already due to the failings of our education system. What we need is more highly educated people. We could make more of those without any immigration. In fact, without immigration, we would have to.
You could not be more wrong. Our immigration policies will have a HUGE impact on America's performance in the future.
They won't, because we have always created exceptions when necessary. Like, say, for German war criminals who we felt were most useful developing space vehicles.
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Every time. Every. Fucking. Time.
This happens in other countries as well, and it's infuriating how the taxpayers get the shaft on shit like this, from roadworks projects, to stadiums, to pie-in-the-sky promises of new buildings and factories that "just can't seem to get built" without massive amounts of taxpayer money which then gets used to line the pockets of the private interests and with almost no benefit to the people who actually paid for the thing to get built.
These fucking thieves and their puppet p
Some deals work, many don't (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two issues with subsidies like this. One is that most companies will look for loopholes and try to take advantage of the deal, doing only the bare minimum to get everything they can. The other is that the government usually doesn't structure the deal such that the payouts are tied to meeting promises.
I'm under the impression that Nevada's deal with Tesla is a case where both issues were handled correctly, because Tesla really wanted to do everything they promised, so they had no reason to try to wiggle out, and because the deal was well-structured and tied to jobs.
I expect in most cases the people writing the deal for the government just don't have enough experience to put all the right teeth in them. I know from my experience in my town's government, we have sometimes failed to correctly specify details in agreements that have come back to bite us.
$3 Billion for 13,000 Jobs? (Score:5, Informative)
Worse, neither politicians, journalists nor many public servants can do arithmetic. That is about $200,000 subsidy per job! There are not many small businesses that could not create jobs for a fraction of that!
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That can be fine. If I offer you $10B in tax write offs if you spend $100B in the state on businesses but only hire one person to oversee that $100B in spending you aren't paying "$10B per job" since theoretically the $100B in other spending is going into local businesses and they will hire people to handle that.
Also you can offer a $10B subsidy and get 0 jobs if you are a tax shelter and stole the $100B in investment from another locality.
That's the problem with subsidies. It's a prisoner's dilemma where
Re:$3 Billion for 13,000 Jobs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where did you get that Foxvcon's 10Billion investment is spent in Wisconsin? What if they but 100 MM in land and ship 9.9Billion in parts from China?
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Except, you're 4 billion worse off,because you spent 4.1 billion to get 100 million. And that money went to (absentee?) landowners as opposed to into your state's economy.
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I'm curious if it's possible (legal) to tie the subsidy to residency requirements. "Whomever you hire must have their primary residence within Detroit city limits."
Really such a deal would just force the suburban localities to come to the table and offset some of the money in exchange for inclusion.
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Well what you are looking at is a five year pay off at an average of a little over $46k/year for 13,000 jobs. With such a large initial investment tied up in the factory it's likely to continue providing jobs for at least 10 additional years.
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This deal was never going to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This deal was never going to work (Score:5, Interesting)
And what really pisses me off about this whole thing is Walker turned down government money to build a high-speed rail between Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison/Minneapolis, which would have provided many tourism and rail jobs in Wisconsin. He felt it was 'government waste' in that case, only because the money would have been from the Obama administration...
To add insult to injury, the Spanish train company Talgo had planned to build trainsets for the rail line at their plant in Milwaukee - further adding jobs. But since the rail deal never went through, they've since significantly downsized their operation in Wisconsin...
This. So much this. (Score:2)
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I doubt the "deal" was ever about creating jobs and such for Wisconsin from Wisconsin's point of view. It was merely Walker and fellow travelers (Paul Ryan) figuring that they'd get a short term pop to get through the next election without looking like knobs. Now that its failing to produce, they figured if they don't talk about it, it doesn't exist.
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The other thing is incentives are complex.
There's direct incentives. Like here Company, we give you 1 billion dollars and you build a plant and employ X workers...
There's also incentives which really don't cost the state much.
For example, if a state says Company we exempt you from paying property taxes for 10 years as a value of 1 billion dollars. That might not cost the state much. At worst you can think of in a big city like New York, where property is expensive, sure you can definitely get a more tangibl
Bad (Score:1)
Corporate welfare like this has to stop. (Also, see Amazon for another example.)
Repeat after Me (Score:4, Insightful)
and the Republican governor first met: a $3 billion state subsidy in return
If you're a Republican, be sure to chant the mantra:
Corporate welfare: GOOD
Individual welfare: BAD
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And if you have a brain, and don't vote Democrat or Republican, then you know all welfare is bad.
Fuck the left and the right.. They are bankrupting us. You deserve each other for what you've done.
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We don't actually have a conservative party anymore. We have two crony capitalist parties with opposing views on a few social issues, to keep the masses from realizing they're really just fangirling over which set of rich people get richer.
Re:Repeat after Me (Score:5, Informative)
We don't actually have a conservative party anymore. We have two crony capitalist parties with opposing views on a few social issues, to keep the masses from realizing they're really just fangirling over which set of rich people get richer.
Except there is no such thing as a non crony capitalist society, you guys are fed so much pro corproate propaganda you never check to see whether your society works as advertise. There has never been a time your government has worked for you, there was a brief moment after the great depression but after that, the rich got mad and went to claw back all working peoples gains and you all fell for it.
US distribution of wealth
https://imgur.com/a/FShfb [imgur.com]
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa... [ucsc.edu]
Princeton study
https://scholar.princeton.edu/... [princeton.edu]
Here are billions of dollars in energy subsidies, aka when politicians are saying social services need to be cut, they are speaking out both sides of their mouths because they know most people don't look at what companies are getting free handouts from subsidies.
https://www.imf.org/external/p... [imf.org]
Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Our brains are much worse at reality and thinking than thought. Science on reasoning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Manufacturing consent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://vimeo.com/39566117 [vimeo.com]
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Did you ever have an actual conservative party? History seems to be full of corporate welfare of some type or other with the rich buying politicians for as long as there has been politicians.
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If a company only has to pay $1M in taxes instead of $2M they want that to mean the same thing as if the government wrote them a check for a million bucks.
That's because they are.
If you owe me two dollars and you only want to pay me one dollar, I can either reduce the amount you owe me by a dollar, or hand you a dollar and then have you pay me two dollars. The end result is the same - You've paid a dollar less, and I'm a dollar poorer.
There's one point you're missing here (Score:5, Insightful)
This is of course bullshit. Foxconn wants roads, and educated workforce, hospitals to treat injuries so that workforce can work, police and fire, water, even food is basically managed by our gov't (folks have no idea how deeply embedded in our food supply the gov't is, we don't leave that up to the markets and haven't since the 30s).
Better to say it this way: Foxconn wants to belong to the nicest and most exclusive club in the world: Civilization. And they don't want to pay their dues. They want you and me to pay them. Fuck Foxconn. I pay, so can they.
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In this case, I would say it is definitely spending money, as most Wisconsin taxpayers will see little benefit from this deal.
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If you're so smart, how come you can't do a fucking NPV calculation? Not all investments are a good idea, amazingly enough. This is a prime example.
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Literally the first picture of the linked article is of Trump next to Walker pretending to use a shovel to break ground on the plant. (Props to him: it was more convincing than his pretense at using an umbrella)
Bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
Wisconsin's population is about 5.7 million.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gov, Scott Walker (Score:4, Funny)
I guess the sun ain't gonna shine any more for him.
Apparently nothing was learned... (Score:2)
...from the 38 Studios debacle. All you have to do is dangle the promise of providing theoretical jobs to a politician for their reelection efforts, and you'll get state budget dollars hanging off your hook in no time at all.
Re:Apparently nothing was learned... (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus if you do it amazon style with their "HQ2" proposal you can turn things around. Instead of you (amazon) shopping around, the states and cities will come to you with the varoius forms of coporate welfare.. you just get to select who wil give you the most.
If states really want to compete for jobs like this, we need federal laws to prevent one state from undermining its own people to "win" a "major HQ" which almost always employ far fewer people vs. the primise and the "investment" will also be a lot less.
Playing poker (Score:2)
I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further.
Foxconn knows, once they have promised jobs, that the governor will try to salvage the deal to avoid being accused of chasing jobs out of Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, the governor screams: Look, over there, a unicorn...
Facts no longer matter...
2+2=5
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I'm sorry, Registered Coward v2, you misheard the governor. He said, "Look, over there, a union..."
And then taxed you to pay for the torches and pitchforks.
Simple enough (Score:2)
Base tax cuts on the number of jobs created (and of course the pay)
13K jobs would create additional state tax revenue from the newly employed.
Cost per job (Score:2)
I'd rather we take half that (Score:2)
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Give what away? These are tax credit subsidies. Money the state never had and won't have because it won't be collected from Foxconn.
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Did you RTFA? It claims that much of the subsidy is in CASH. Other [jsonline.com] sources [prospect.org] seem to support that assertion as well:
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You are mistaken. Part of the costs are actual expenditures that the governments make, such as purchasing land through eminent domain. (I thought conservatives were supposed to dislike eminent domain, but I guess not if it feathers their beds.) Also, you are assuming that the people getting the promised jobs would not do anything else if it weren't for Foxconn, and that the stat
Responsibility? (Score:2)
Is this really "news for nerds" or the weekly "why (Score:1)
one or two things to consider: (Score:2)
I seem to recall this sort of deal making news many times over the last ten years or so. Not all are at the national level importance that a $10 Billion dollar plant would be. Some, perhaps even most are along the lines of call centre chooses to establish in %Smalltown because that municipality offered a better tax break or subsidy than %otherSmallTown.
What's always bothered me about these deals is that the numbers always seem to be bigger than the actual taxes would
Modest Proposal (Score:2)
Pass a federal law that taxes all corporate subsidies at 150% of the subsidy, to account for Hollywood Accounting. With the important exception being: companies can avoid the tax if the state or local entity giving the subsidy gets an ownership stake equivalent to the value of the subsidy.
Example: the Dallas Cowboys are valued at about $4 billion dollars. [star-telegram.com] If Jerry Jones wants a billion-dollar stadium constructed for his team and doesn't want to pay for himself, he can choose between paying half that again
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Separation of powers here. If federal governments could regulate this type of intrastate commerce then it would end this shopping around, but it would erode some fundamental aspects of our government.
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Outright banning it would be a hard sell. Taxing corporate welfare might get some grudging support from libertarians, a la the Stop BEZOS Act. Sure, they don't like regulation much, but do they really want to be paying more in taxes to go straight into quarterly profits?
Morons (Score:1)
AI 8k 5G (Score:2)
Whew! (Score:2)
The details of the deal were famously written on the back of a napkin when [Foxconn chairman Terry Gou] and the Republican governor first met
Whew! Thank goodness no Democrat governor has ever been involved in state spending boondoggles.
We can prevent this from ever happening again just by voting!
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Same state whose governor renegged on Talgo trains (Score:2)
This is the same state whose refused to pay for the Talgo trains they agreed to have built for Amtrak lines in their state. Depending on whom you ask it was either for purely political reasons, financial reasons, both, or neither.
The completed trains were never paid for per prior agreement with the State of Wisconsin. They have been sitting, ready-to-use, waiting for a buyer for years now.
Wisconsin thinks they can reneg without negative consequences to them because Talgo is not an American company.
I live 2 miles from the Foxconn factory site. (Score:4, Informative)
There's all sorts of prep work going on. They're condemning people's homes and land. They're tearing up all the roads and traffic is hell. Oh yeah, my property tax bill jumped up this year.
At about the same time Walker was making his deal, Foxconn was laying off workers in Taiwan at an LCD plant because they were being replaced by robots. Taiwanese people earn far less than US people. Why would they hire expensive US workers when they're replacing cheaper Taiwanese workers with robots?
Walker is running for reelection but doesn't talk about Foxconn. Hmmmm.
Paul Ryan (Score:1)
Where is Paul Ryan in the Foxconn Boondoggle?.
How has this "great leader of Republicans" dodged responsibility?
That's better than teflon.
Re: Paul Ryan (Score:2, Insightful)
The Foxconn deal was a deal with the state of Wisconsin. Ryan is a member of the United States Congress. Though he represents the people of Wisconsin, he does not have a say in how the state operates.
Re: Paul Ryan (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry but you don't seem to understand the difference between politicians and whores.
Whores have ethics and morals.
Paul Ryan was all over this deal when it looked good.
If it wasn't falling apart, he would be taking credit.
For example -
Paul Ryan Lauds Foxconn Decision
https://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398716
Paul Ryan Praises Foxconn Deal During Wisconsin Stop
https://www.wpr.org/paul-ryan-praises-foxconn-deal-during-wisconsin-stop
Paul Ryan: Foxconn deal is a game changer
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/08/22/paul-ryan-town-hall-wisconsin-foxconn-deal-sot.cnn/video/playlists/paul-ryan-town-hall/
Paul Ryan calls eminent domain takeovers wrong, but won't help homeowners in Foxconn case
https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2018/03/26/paul-ryan-decries-eminent-domain-seizing-private-property-economic-development-not-foxconn-homeowner/454233002/
Congressman Paul Ryan Breaks Ground at Foxconn Development
https://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398808
Even Trump was giving it his stamp of approval.
From Wikipedia -
Foxconn and President Donald Trump announced at the White House on July 26, 2017 that Foxconn will build a US$10 billion flat screen TV manufacturing plant in southeastern Wisconsin. The Foxconn deal, promising 13,000 high paying jobs, is the largest corporate attraction deal in U.S. history, in terms of pure number of jobs. Foxconn is expected to contribute $51.5 billion to Wisconsin's GDP over the next 15 years, which is $3.4 billion dollars annually. However, the deal is being criticized for the $3 billion in tax-payer funded incentives given to Foxconn, though every $1 in state incentives is estimated to generate a return of $18 in additional state GDP.
Foxconn will also be exempt from an environmental impact statement, water quality certification and permits for some activities on or near waterways, but must comply with air, solid waste and hazardous waste standards. Given water concerns, Foxconn is spending $30 million on zero liquid discharge technology, nearly eliminating any industrial waste water discharge. Foxconn is also required to replace wetlands at a higher ratio than other companies; Foxconn must restore 2 acres of wetland for every 1 acre disturbed instead of the ratio of 1.2 to 1 for other companies.
As of October 4, 2017, Foxconn agreed to locate their plant at Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and broke ground for the plant June 28, 2018. President Trump was in attendance to promote American manufacturing.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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he may not have 'signed the check' from the state but the damn thing is in his fucking district. you know damn well shithead ryan was involved, and enough so that he collected enough 'favors' to retire from the house.
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Re: Paul Ryan (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Foxconn deal was a deal with the state of Wisconsin. Ryan is a member of the United States Congress. Though he represents the people of Wisconsin, he does not have a say in how the state operates.
Except that this plant happens to be located in Ryan's district
Re:Wisconsin (Score:4, Insightful)
Foxconn is nothing in comparison to the $100B boondoggle known as the high speed bullet train in California.
So are you saying that the FoxCon 4 billion is a really good thing that you support?
You whataboutism types don't realize that what you think is condemning the Liberal stuff that you hate is actually saying that it is good because you support the other side of your whatabout statements.
Awaiting your APK emulation.
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Huh? The Foxconn plant is a boondoggle. The Calif bullet train is a boondoggle. The train is a boondoggle 10x bigger than the Foxconn boondoggle. That doesn't make the Foxconn boondoggle ok. It just shows that Calif can run with the best of them when it comes to boondoggles, and that boondoggling is a favorite feature of all political parties.
Sorry, but mentioning Whatever is happening in California has exactly zero noth8ing nada to do with Wisconsin, unless you have an agenda that somehow the California situation excuses th eWisconsin situation.
It is the fatal flaw of whataboutism. While you are trying to show that hypocracy excuses one, it merely says that both situations are okay.
Whataboutists do not get that flaw in their whataboutism.
You hesar that your chosen people do something wrong, and you cannot accept that. So instead of sa
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Look, this probably will get modded to nothing, but Trump and Hillary both SUCK ASS. They are BOTH utterly corrupt and are both unfit to be president. Crap like pretending that either of them was going to be good for the country and the average citizen, and not the rich and corporations is just you being god damned retarded.
Trump sucks, Hilary sucks and our country is worse off because of both of them, and yes the third party candidates were pretty much ass too. Welcome to the bed of shit your 2 party first
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Picking a side is divisive. Stepping back and saying that the whole thing is broken is a start.
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Spot on
Re: No doubt (Score:1)
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The politicians actually cutting budgets and slashing regulation are the ones crippling the opportunities for graft...
Ahh, the Librettarian shows up. You really need to name thes great politicians who have created honest via elimination of laws.
And that isn't too far off either. A true libertarian should take his views that business will be alway honest if only they didn't have to adhere to anything but making money, and translate that to humanity will all be law abiding and peaceful if we only eliminate all laws.
It is the exact same thing
And you will deny it - probably get pissed and start swearing at me like mos
Re: No doubt (Score:1)
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Who wants no constraints on business?
A lot of people. A lot of people in here. I have some books by Libertarians who not only believe that there should be no regulations, but that businesses be exempt from any and all taxation
Government graft is dependent on the ability to have pull or some other control over others.
Siddown and listen. Remember this word. People
Government is not inherently corrupt. Business is not inherently corrupt. But a lot of people sure are.
There will be a ruling entity. Not possible to get away from that unless you maybe move to Alaska and live in the woods there.
At present, the ruling class in America
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A true libertarian should take his views that business will be alway honest if only they didn't have to adhere to anything but making money, and translate that to humanity will all be law abiding and peaceful if we only eliminate all laws
That is as extremist as pushing liberals or conservatives to their extremes.
A true conservative should take his views that society must bow to God, our way is the only way, military service should be mandatory, and guns should be given to every citizen.
A true liberal should take his views that people can own nothing, businesses are evil, everyone should work for an all-seeing, all-powerful government that IS God, and we need to grind people into un-individual paste unless they are special snowflakes.
A true
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A true libertarian believes that all people have the right to life, liberty and happiness, freedom of choice, and voluntary association.
Ah the old "no true libertarian" fallacy. It's also bullshit because you're tying up the notion of "libertarian" to the imagined political system of one particular country.
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A true libertarian believes that all people have the right to life, liberty and happiness, freedom of choice, and voluntary association.
Ah the old "no true libertarian" fallacy. It's also bullshit because you're tying up the notion of "libertarian" to the imagined political system of one particular country.
Well to be precise, in the discussion, the part that I wrote was was a reductio ad absurdum. His was the NTL response.
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Libertarian ideology is a malign influence that promises people get to do what they want to others without blowback. It was made-for-hire by the Evangelicals who figure they can take their wealth with them when they go to the Great Litter Box in the Sky.
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Libertarian ideology is a malign influence that promises people get to do what they want to others without blowback. It was made-for-hire by the Evangelicals who figure they can take their wealth with them when they go to the Great Litter Box in the Sky.
The problem with libertarian ideology is like all 'ologys, it has a fatal flaw. In the case of Libertarians, the flaw is that all people are inherently honest, and will not take advantage of others.
We'll ignore for a moment the unholy cognitive dissonance in how they manage to take greed and try to marry it to libertarianism.
But that greed underpinning of capitalism is a good example of Libertarianism's fatal flaw.
It is undeniable that greed exists, we all have some. But there are some who are endowed
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That's a pretty absolutist view and almost nobody fits fully into your definitions of what they should be. Philosophically I fit fairly well within the libertarian viewpoint but my pragmatism realizes that it can never work in the real world because too many people would be unable to make it work for them and would be left behind by such a system. I guess you can be callous enough to say tough beans and let the chips fall where they may but I'm not willing to see a society where people die because they ca
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That's a pretty absolutist view and almost nobody fits fully into your definitions of what they should be.
Not certain who you were responding to, but my definition of a libertarian was a reductio ad absurdum. The exposure of an ideology and it's fatal flaws.
Philosophically I fit fairly well within the libertarian viewpoint but my pragmatism realizes that it can never work in the real world because too many people would be unable to make it work for them and would be left behind by such a system.
Exactly. And others will profit off those people being left behind.
I guess you can be callous enough to say tough beans and let the chips fall where they may but I'm not willing to see a society where people die because they can't afford the necessary medical treatment they need or the elderly wander the streets because they're too poor to afford a roof over their heads.
The big problem when people adopt that "tough shit cupcake" approach is that when there is a increasingly extreme imbalance of resources as has been happening, eventually those who are left out will revolt. That is a self limiting aspect.
No "ism" in its pure form will ever work because they all have inherent contradictions. Best to take the good parts from each to form a hybrid system that works somewhat for everybody.
Exactly. I'm a pragmatic. I like to take things that
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I thought I was responding to Notabadguy up above but I may have messed up and posted under you. If so, sorry.
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I thought I was responding to Notabadguy up above but I may have messed up and posted under you. If so, sorry.
No problem, I'm enjoying this whole discussion.
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A true libertarian should take his views that business will be alway honest if only they didn't have to adhere to anything but making money, and translate that to humanity will all be law abiding and peaceful if we only eliminate all laws
That is as extremist as pushing liberals or conservatives to their extremes.
Now, you have to play correctly and invoke No True Scotsman. Just kidding.
The point wasn't to be extreme, but perform a reductio ad absurdum. It should be obvious that a complete lack of regulations would approximate a complete lack of laws, and both result in chaos.
But don't for a minute think that there are not people who will take advantage of people who do believe that regulations are bad for their own and possibly corrupt goals.
But name me a regulation, and I can find a lot of people that think i
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Re: Boondoggle (Score:1)
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You're not surprised because you're incapable of basic reading comprehension. If you were capable of basic reading comprehension, you'd realise that this deal involves both tax breaks and cash subsidies. You'd also know that tax subsidy is not a hyphenated word, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, eh?