[HN Gopher] Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back ...
___________________________________________________________________
Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with
Foxconn
Author : pseudolus
Score : 157 points
Date : 2021-04-22 11:33 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| mbesto wrote:
| No one saw this coming.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| GOod. kick em out. WI doesnt want foxconn anyways
| notional wrote:
| The absolute hilarity of HN obsession with 'both siding' every
| story and going back to see how it unraveled over the years.
|
| on Jan 22, 2017 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13457176
|
| on Jan 16, 2018 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163558
|
| on April 14, 2018 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16839542
|
| on Oct 29, 2018 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18328772
|
| on April 12, 2020 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22850723
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Can someone explain to me why Foxconn didn't build the plant? Why
| would they go through the trouble of negotiating this deal, which
| ended up phenomenally in their favor, just to throw their hands
| in the air and walk away?
| jerry1979 wrote:
| I think it shows the idea that "Americans can't do business
| well", and historically, doing business well has been one thing
| that Americans pride themselves on.
|
| _edit_ I should add that I believe that spreading that kind of
| message has geopolitical implications, and that groups might
| want to create that image for strategic reasons.
| al2o3cr wrote:
| Short story shorter: Terry Gou is a serial bullshitter
|
| https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wi...
| jcranmer wrote:
| From what I can tell, Foxconn never actually intended to build
| the plant. (I'm getting a lot of this from an interesting long-
| form article on the history of this deal; unfortunately, I
| don't remember where I found this article, sorry).
|
| Essentially, Foxconn thought that the Wisconsin deal would work
| more typically as its deals in China went. Glad-hand the
| government officials, get sweetheart deals on land and
| investment, and as long as you're not totally incompetent in
| making use of it, they won't care what you do with it, even if
| you fail to live up to the original promises. It's not clear to
| me that Foxconn actually seriously considered producing LCD
| screens here given this light; the announcement would have been
| more to make Walker and other government officials ecstatic
| about the deal than an actual commitment to follow through. The
| fact that outrage towards the deal would lead to Walker losing
| reelection and his successor keeping a much closer eye on
| performance (or lack thereof) seems to me to have caught
| Foxconn completely off-guard.
|
| I think there's another level going here in relation to
| internal Foxconn politics, but my recollection is too hazy to
| make a coherent explanation, and I don't want to make any false
| accusations here, so I won't go into any more detail.
| KZZ wrote:
| For information, the plant has been built. The building is
| there, just empty.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| The machines inside a LCD factory are dramatically more
| expensive than the building itself. The "plant" has not
| been built in any meaningful way.
| aaaaaadsfscxva wrote:
| Curious
| aaaaaadsfscxva wrote:
| en efecto
| superkuh wrote:
| Nope. The plant that was promised was never built. They did
| build some storage warehouses and started a propaganda
| program where they hired dozens to hundreds of locals to
| come in to the warehouses, sit around, and do nothing to
| appear like they were doing something.
| MAGZine wrote:
| I believe you're remembering this story:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-
| wi...
| jcranmer wrote:
| Yes, that does look like the one I was remembering.
| pen2l wrote:
| In a nutshell, it mistook the nature of labor folks are used to
| here and its costs. Indeed wildly different from China and
| elsewhere.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This is a take that's wildly generous to FoxConn, painting
| them as the "aww schucks" kinda honest guys that just didn't
| know about the challenges of the US labor market.
|
| The alternate take is that the whole deal was made in bad
| faith and FoxConn was hoping to collect subsidies and line
| its pockets. This version of events has some precedent[1].
| It's especially hard to believe that FoxConn didn't know
| about US labor when this same situation played out in
| Pennsylvania in 2013[2].
|
| [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/foxconns-history-of-
| broken...
|
| [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-
| foxconns...
| analog31 wrote:
| It's not unprecedented that someone who should know better,
| and has the best advisors in town, is blinded by their
| preconceptions about a country and its people. It's lost us
| a few wars.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| You know what's bad faith? Politicians bullshitting that
| these kind of factory jobs are ever going to come back.
|
| My smartphone will never be assembled in the US or Germany.
| npongratz wrote:
| I'm not saying it's economical, but anyone willing to pay
| 2.5x the cost of a Made-in-China phone _could_ have their
| phone assembled in the United States:
| https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-usa/
|
| (No relation to the company, though I did once have a
| very nice chat with Todd Weaver).
|
| And to the larger point: I agree completely that
| politicians opening their mouths about jobs (and also
| about anything else, IMO) is bad faith bullshit.
| dqpb wrote:
| It will never be assembled by humans in the US, but we
| should strive for US based robotic manufacturing.
| pokot0 wrote:
| This is the key people often overlook. If we stop using
| our AI geniuses to develop tracking algorithms and start
| building automation, we can have nextgen factories in the
| West. The environmental factor is yet to be solved
| though. For the most part, developing countries are
| trading environmental damage for money. Not much
| different from harvesting oil or other resources to an
| economist.
| moneybaggins wrote:
| Well let's see, work in adtech and make $1M TC and get
| treated with kid gloves by the company or work in
| industrial engineering and make $100K and be a cost
| center. How do we change the incentives? Ban advertising
| and tracking? But making the alternative more attractive
| is out of the cards...
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Physical manufacturing doesn't have the sort of profit
| margins that software provides. You can't give devs the
| kind of pay many expect when there are 10x more people in
| the production chain. Investors aren't going to flock to
| such businesses.
| Loughla wrote:
| You're 100% spot on. I cannot be convinced a multi-national
| mega-corp is ignorant of US labor and the challenges in the
| US labor market. There just is no way that's possible for a
| company this size, or am I wrong?
|
| So that leaves either bad faith, or they are just abjectly
| incompetent. I can't really see any other options. Or,
| again, am I way off base?
| jfb wrote:
| I mean, it was bullshit from jump street, but if
| Wisconsin had poured (more) money into Foxconn's pockets,
| I'm sure they'd have been happy to put _something_ up.
| KZZ wrote:
| For the record, they have put something up. Currently 1
| large empty buildings and 2 medium sized, filled
| buildings. Also one perplexing glass globe.
| chrisjc wrote:
| > I cannot be convinced a multi-national mega-corp is
| ignorant of US labor and the challenges in the US labor
| market.
|
| Especially one that is a specialist in harvesting
| laborers from all corners of the world. I can only
| imagine selecting the right labor force has to be their
| main competences.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| It's funny that they are downvoting you for stating the
| obvious no-brainer explanation.
|
| Just curious as I am seeing more of this on HN lately or is
| it just the Baader Meinhof phenomenon after I read someone
| else complain about the recent downvoting phenomenon for
| stating the obvious. Has the readership changed of HN or more
| specifically the commentariat?
| Semaphor wrote:
| > Has the readership changed of HN or more specifically the
| commentariat?
|
| My personal impression is, that it got a lot worse since
| Covid, which I attribute to more people doing home office
| and/or having more free time. Any discussion forum that
| grows gets worse.
|
| But both my impressions and the 2nd part might be wrong.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| I think you nailed it with Covid. Critical thinking
| requires discourse, and discourse on all the
| possibilities beyond the dominant narratives or
| paradigms. Downvoting does not make reality or the "ugly"
| truth go away. We should be here to discuss and not be
| afraid to ruffle feathers and have easily offended
| sensibilities.
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| Beat me to it!
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| Since You qualified your own statement as being possibly
| being wrong, I would argue that more engagement alone
| doesn't result in more down votes.
|
| I have observed that any comments criticizing anyone,
| regardless of wether they are justified or not seem to be
| recieved poorly on modern forums.
|
| I believe this is due to an ongoing effort to make forums
| safe spaces, somehow honest critical thinking is no
| longer accepted in the current environment. Right or
| wrong, it is what it is.
|
| So if You are really concerned with the fake points You
| are accumulating then just tow the line, get with the
| woke SJW movement or submit articles of interest to
| balance out the backlash from the mob....I probably
| better start looking for a good article :P
| 1cvmask wrote:
| And the downvotes on your comments begin....
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| Yup, it is what it is. Good news is the points mean
| nothing and there are plenty of critical thinkers still
| on this forum. BTW is it tow or toe the line? Homonyms
| always catch me up!
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Toe.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line
| iainmerrick wrote:
| _Any discussion forum that grows gets worse._
|
| Huh! I hadn't thought about it in such stark terms
| before, and I'd _like_ to disagree, but there may be
| something in that.
|
| Is that an original thought, or did you get it from
| somewhere? It sounds like something that should be an
| eponymous law.
| Semaphor wrote:
| While it's similar to Eternal September, it's not exactly
| the same. It's more that the more users there are, the
| more average things become. And I have a pretty low
| opinion of the average person.
|
| It's very visible on Reddit. Large subreddits have either
| very strict moderation, or they are low quality (I'm
| excepting picture subs here because they work
| differently)
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Eternal September.
| iainmerrick wrote:
| Ah, yes! But that applied to the internet as a whole,
| rather than individual forums.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It does apply to specific discussion venues. Originally
| it was about Usenet groups, not the Internet as a whole.
| It applies broadly to any forum-like venue.
| rideontime wrote:
| The downvotes might be coming from people who are actually
| familiar with the situation and know that the "obvious no-
| brainer explanation" isn't the correct one.
| bildung wrote:
| Is it really a no-brainer that a giant transnational
| company signed a multi-billion dollar deal without _anyone_
| investing half a day looking into the situation of the
| labor market of the target region?
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| You say stating the obvious and yet it simply isn't. It was
| a heavily subsidised political stunt that Foxconn could
| half-ass. They rolled out the red carpet, exempted them
| from environmental regulations and basically built the
| infrastructure for them. Even four years ago they said the
| number of jobs was a wish not a promise, they were BS
| artists.
|
| They weren't some naive tiny company.
| Loughla wrote:
| I genuinely don't understand how 'international mega-
| corporation doesn't understand international labor
| differences' is a no-brainer. Please explain that to me.
| That seems like one of the first things that any company
| should evaluate.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Honestly? I assume the people who negotiated the deal are
| a different department from the people who would have
| implemented the deal. They went big and went home and now
| it's someone else's problem.
| pen2l wrote:
| It wasn't really my take or opinion, I rather recalled it
| being cited as the reason by Foxconn itself in multiple
| instances. Also, I'm from Wisconsin, and an old EECS
| professor explained this to be the reason from his first-
| hand knowledge of some conversations with Foxconn. Here is
| one citation I was able to find quickly:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-wisconsin-
| exclusi...
|
| He said the company was still evaluating options for
| Wisconsin, but cited the steep cost of making advanced TV
| screens in the United States, where labor expenses are
| comparatively high.
|
| "In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.," he said in
| an interview. "We can't compete."
|
| Foxconn has factories in Mexico, Chennai, Malaysia etc.
| which produce a significant amount of devices but I doubt a
| factory in US will take off. This article from 2012 about
| the Steve Jobs "These jobs are not coming back" remark is
| probably still true:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-
| an...
| buran77 wrote:
| > I rather recalled it being cited as the reason by
| Foxconn itself in multiple instances.
|
| It's more plausible that any company will give the more
| acceptable, easily digestible explanation, rather than
| the real one.
|
| But really it's the politicians who won, first by banging
| their chests for all the investments and jobs they
| created, now for getting an easy out. They can't be
| blamed for not seeing through any ploy because they can
| argue Foxconn obviously had good intentions sabotaged by
| "a misunderstanding" that couldn't have been caught.
|
| It's very unlikely (by that I mean close to impossible)
| that Foxconn just "blundered", went through many rounds
| of negotiations, and started building, while genuinely
| not being aware that the US labor market is different
| from the Chinese one.
| KZZ wrote:
| The new approach is contract manufacturing for customers
| who are uncomfortable with manufacturing being performed
| in China, speaking from first-hand experience. This
| demand does exist and is what is going to be leveraged in
| the new park.
| smt88 wrote:
| You're being downvoted likely because of how naive it
| sounds when you take what Foxconn says at face value.
|
| Large companies are unlikely to ever tell the truth about
| their motivations, but they're even less likely to when
| they were doing something manipulative and dishonest, as
| Foxconn was here.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Your mistake here is taking a multinational corporation
| at its word, especially one known for playing games with
| subsidies in other countries too. These quotes are the
| cover story from corporate PR, not the truth.
| LargeWu wrote:
| The alternative is that Foxconn is lying, and they never
| had any intention of actually opening the factory, which
| I think is a far more likely explanation.
| Timshel wrote:
| Good article on the subject:
| https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wi...
|
| My take it was probably mainly a political stunt, lcd was never
| really possible (slump + wages + supply issues) and then they
| didn't know what to do.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Politics. Political capital. There are international advantages
| to having the US president endorse you, your project and your
| company. Those photos were probably worth the hassle.
| [deleted]
| Frost1x wrote:
| Not just the photos but the initial publicity. People
| remember the beginnings of things if they're broadcasted
| through mass media. I recall many people claiming this a 'big
| win' at the time and attributing to the sitting president. I
| recall also being highly skeptical and suspecting a political
| stunt but completely forgot about the status until reading
| this.
|
| Meanwhile, people at large don't follow progress of these
| endeavors. Some journalists may but there's selection bias
| from the journalist and the news consumer as to what they
| ultimately see and stay informed of. These stunts are
| forgotten by most (myself included) in the daily scramble of
| things we have to keep track of and manage. Did it fail? Did
| it succeed? Do I even remember _it_ or just the emotion it
| attributed to something else I actually do remember?
|
| Ambiguity hiding in complexity of daily life lets people say
| and do a lot of things and get away with it. It's often far
| too difficult and time consuming to unravel the ambiguity and
| complexity to show if something succeded, failed, or to even
| have cognitive capacity to keep track of. The end result, as
| you point out, is political capital people walk away with.
| The emotional impression at the time is what was sold and
| stuck to most people. "MAGA", "bringing back
| manufacturering", links to nostalgic economic golden eras for
| many workers.
| sct202 wrote:
| Scott Walker, the governor, who signed the deal lost his office
| a year after it was signed in part due to backlash over the
| deal.
|
| Think about it from Foxconn's perspective, if you got a
| sweetheart deal and the person who gave it to you got canned
| for it, are you going to follow thru and put in billions of
| your dollars on the assumption that you'll still get billions
| of government subsidies in return?
| analog31 wrote:
| I wonder if it might have been water. They may have needed
| more than a sweetheart deal with the state. I think a big
| reason for the location was the water supply via Lake
| Michigan. They got a waiver of state environmental laws as
| part of the deal, but they still had to contend with federal
| laws, _and_ a treaty with Canada that governs water use in
| the Great Lakes watershed.
|
| There was quite a controversy over the environmental impact
| of this plant. The "word on the street" is that LCD
| manufacturing is a dirty industry requiring a lot of water.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Realized Americans don't want to live in factory compounds for
| 10 months doing repetitive labour.
| bongoman37 wrote:
| They should make a law that if a deal is offered to one company,
| it should be offered to all. That keep the playing field fair and
| level.
| tfehring wrote:
| For comparison:
|
| - The deal negotiated by former governor Scott Walker was
| expected to cost taxpayers between $172k and $290k in government
| funding per job created. [0]
|
| - $80 million for 1,454 employees, the provisions of the updated
| deal per TFA, is $55k each.
|
| - The US average cost of similar programs is $24k. [0]
|
| It's not obvious whether this is a good deal, but unlike the
| original it's not obviously a bad deal.
|
| [0]
| https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1244...
| luckylion wrote:
| Is it just me or has it become more common for journalists to
| write about decreases by saying "X-fold" or "x times"?
|
| I always get confused, I find it much easier to say "by 97%".
| myrmidon wrote:
| I believe everyone (with a basic education) _should_ be able to
| understand both, but I think the X-fold representation is much
| clearer-- just compare how similar decreases by 80%, 90%, 95%
| appear at first glance-- but there is a full order of magnitude
| between EACH of those (while 50% and 55% is basically the same
| thing)!
|
| Calling it a 5-fold, 10-fold or 20-fold decrease makes the
| difference between them much more immediately obvious, IMO.
|
| Its similar with the miles/gallon vs. liters/100km metrics for
| fuel consumption, where one of them just seems immediately more
| intuitive to grasp and use (to me).
| luckylion wrote:
| I find x-fold to be totally clear and intuitive for
| increases, but I find it weird for decreases. "We've
| decreased it by 5 times" sounds to me like "We've decreased
| it by 500%", which it obviously doesn't mean. "We've
| decreased it to 1/5th", "we've decreased it by 80%" makes
| more intuitive sense to me.
|
| Maybe it is similar to miles/gallon vs liters/100km and
| depends on where you grew up. I feel like the usage frequency
| changed, but it could just be that I'm noticing it more.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| Many people don't have a clue what "30-fold" even means, and
| therefore it sounds big and scary. Basically, it's just one of
| the tools in the sensationalist headlines toolbox.
| afavour wrote:
| ...is that true? I understand "30-fold" to mean "30x" and I'm
| pretty sure I have from a very young age. I haven't checked
| but I'd be surprised if my peers weren't the same.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I think people understand 30-fold to mean 30x, but don't
| always intuit that "slashed by 30-fold" is equivalent to a
| reduction by 97% of the original deal. They especially
| don't understand that the difference between a 20-fold,
| 30-fold, and 50-fold reduction is the same as a 95%, 97%,
| and 98% discount.
|
| This is especially evident in the mental gymnastics
| required to understand retail sales pricing. How good is a
| "Buy two, get one 50% off!!" deal? Brains easily give up on
| the hard questions and substitute easy answers. "What's it
| actually worth? Bought one at another store last month, do
| difficult pricing history memory, or easy answer, the
| original price is listed right there. How good is the deal?
| Complicated math, or easy answer, it's at least a good
| enough deal to merit a big sign, bright colors, and two
| exclamation points. And it's good for a limited time only?
| Better not miss out, buy now!"
|
| Here, the scope of the reduction is kind of irrelevant.
| They basically scrapped the old deal and tried to write a
| new, smaller one. Had they scrapped the megafactory plans
| and decided to open a fast food franchise it could have
| been reduced a million fold!
|
| The new agreement offers $80M and asks Foxconn to spend
| only $672M on a factory that will employ only 1,454 people
| by 2025. The original deal offered Foxconn $2.85B (or
| $2850M) to spend $10B ($10000M) and hire 13,000 by 2032.
| Big numbers are hard, but running the math it's now
| $55k/job and $0.13/dollar of capital investment, it was
| $220k/job and $0.285/dollar. $80M is 2.8% or a 30-fold
| reduction from $2.85B, but the full story is they've
| simultaneously reduced the ratios of the incentives and the
| scope of the required investment.
|
| A complete understanding of what those numbers mean is
| really hard to develop, and isn't really distilled by a
| substitution in the headline of 30-fold to 30x. Human
| brains in general are busy and don't like to work too hard,
| and whether we use "30 fold" like "four score" in our daily
| vernacular or they say 97% and 80, the headline's effect is
| the same. It conveys to readers who don't want to run all
| the numbers about average salaries and payroll taxes and
| capital depreciation and so on that the previous
| administration tried to offer an excessively generous deal
| but the current government has rolled that back to
| something a lot smaller, don't worry about exactly how much
| but just trust that it's a lot.
| notRobot wrote:
| This phrasing always confuses me, slashes 30 fold means that it
| is now 1/30th the ordinal?
| notRobot wrote:
| This phrasing always confuses me, slashes 30 fold means that it
| is now 1/30th the original?
| clankyclanker wrote:
| Yes.
| phailhaus wrote:
| It's because percentages are more misleading for humans than
| "x-times". 95% and 97% sound very close, right? They're not.
| 95% is a 20x reduction, while 97% is a 30x reduction.
| Percentages create a singularity at 100, which is why the
| effect is more pronounced the closer you get to 100.
|
| It's just like how saying something is "95% effective" sounds
| very convincing until you realize that's a 1-in-20 failure
| rate.
| function_seven wrote:
| My favorite example of this were the labels on lunch meats
| back in the day. They'd say things like, "97% Fat Free!", or
| "98% Fat Free!".
|
| So one of them had 50% _more_ fat than the other, but they
| both look pretty close to "Fat Free"
| realityIsntHere wrote:
| Percentages can be just as bad.
|
| Increase by 100% is 2x
| lordgrenville wrote:
| I think for x > 1 "x-fold" is clearer. "Ten times bigger"
| sounds simpler to me than "1000% growth".
| dasil003 wrote:
| Yes, for growth. But in this case they are using x > 1 or
| shrinkage.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| It's terribly confusing. I made this graph to show why:
| https://i.imgur.com/7wYWWfs.png
|
| Fold decreases are parabolic, fold increases are linear.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| so confusing, I always assumed 30 fold was the same as 30x,
| meaning 30 times smaller.
| kimar wrote:
| There's a great Reply All podcast about local politics in the
| town where this plant is to be built. Beware, it's slightly
| infuriating.
|
| https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/wbhjwd
| josefdlange wrote:
| I grew up in Racine County (which contains Mount Pleasant). Let
| me tell you, SE WI is a strange place. Caught between so many
| sensibilities and hit so, so hard by economic shifts of the
| last two decades. I think it suffers, like many places in the
| American Midwest, the phenomenon of an historically working-
| class population, who, a few decades ago, would have organized
| for labor and other rights very vocally and outwardly, but who
| now are radicalized to the right for no understandable reason.
|
| I still like to believe that most of the people around there
| are good and mean well, but it gets harder and harder every day
| to believe the willful ignorance they possess of economic,
| societal, and cultural issues at hand, here and now, will fade.
| But there's hope. Younger leaders are working their way into
| local government (hi Greta!), especially over in the formal
| City of Racine. There's hope that Racine and Racine County
| might be a leader of progressive values in the area.
|
| As an aside, I think there's oodles of opportunity in the SE WI
| area for younger folks. It really is a beautiful place, is near
| to Chicago and Milwaukee, and is inexpensive. You get all four
| seasons, for better or worse. I think it's better than SF's
| summer and grey-chillier-summer. Some joke that the four
| seasons are winter, construction, construction, and
| construction, but that's an exaggeration. Anyway, I think an
| influx of more diverse people in background and ideology could
| really stimulate an area like SE WI. Add to that making it
| worth young people staying around instead of fleeing to the
| coasts, and suddenly Racine can be a really cool place.
|
| This whole Foxconn thing just makes me so sad, and angry.
| justaman wrote:
| You claim to not understand how that group of people can
| swing right and then proceed to attribute ignorance to that
| group of people. This doesn't compute. Very partisan and
| ignorant of you.
| josefdlange wrote:
| Hi friend, thanks for your response. I appreciate the
| criticism and the opportunity to re-evaluate my point. That
| said, after thinking about it, I don't believe there's a
| contradiction in what I've written. Point in fact is that I
| do not understand--in a personal sense of it "computing"
| (as you put it) to me--the forces at work that push people
| to be, as I said, wilfully ignorant of real issues facing
| the area and planet at large. It's not that I don't
| understand the people at all and simultaneously attribute
| ignorance to them, it's that how the ignorance comes to be
| is a mystery to me. An observer can see an effect without
| knowing the cause. That's usually how we begin to learn
| anything. There's a comment adjacent to yours that puts
| words to a gut feeling about it that takes a big step
| toward understanding, I think. Discourse is great!
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Why is it partisan? Let's pretend OP said "swing left".
| Being against the left isn't how partisan is normally
| defined. It's usually the bias of being for a specific
| cause/political party. What would be the cause here? Not
| being pro American politics left? That does not give much
| info about what causes the person is biased for.
| fatbird wrote:
| I lived and worked in the area for four years, working in
| Pleasant Prairie, living in Kenosha and then Oak Creak.
| Parent is right, it's a strange place because of the mixture
| of so many influences: the proximity of Chicago and
| Milwaukee, a former industrial powerhouse region, access to
| great education but full of people who've never been to
| Chicago or Milwaukee (let alone further than them).
|
| My sysadmin had a hobby of creating frankenstein cars. He put
| the powertrain of a Camaro into the body of Gremlin, for
| which he needed a second Gremlin to lengthen the chassis by a
| foot. It was so overpowered he needed a couple hundred pounds
| of sandbags in the back to give it any traction at all. This
| sort of thing wasn't that weird either.
| munificent wrote:
| _> for no understandable reason._
|
| Americans classically derive much of their sense of value
| from:
|
| 1. Work
|
| 2. Race (for many white people, especially historically)
|
| ...and that's about it. Unlike other cultures our "rugged
| individualism" means that we don't tend to derive as much
| sense of worth from family, traditions, organizations we
| belong to, etc. This is especially true for men who are
| raised to believe that who they are is what they do.
|
| The economic shift to a service- and knowledge-based economy
| with many manufacturing and ag jobs being automated or
| outsourced away has devastated 1. in many communities. The
| march towards better civil rights and equality is chipping
| away at 2.
|
| This has left a huge number of Americans feeling that they
| are worth less than they used to be. People like that are
| ripe for being exploited. People will buy anything if you
| tell them you're selling dignity. Trump's "Make America Great
| Again" slogan was really "Make You Feel Like You're Great
| Again".
| danans wrote:
| > Unlike other cultures our "rugged individualism" means
| that we don't tend to derive as much sense of worth from
| family, traditions, organizations we belong to, etc
|
| I agree with the overall premise, but there is a single
| notable exception to to this, which is the military, which
| is the intersection of family, traditions, and government
| organizations. But even there, as we have seen recently,
| there is a white nationalism problem afoot.
|
| >Americans classically derive much of their sense of value
| from:
|
| > 1. Work
|
| > 2. Race (for many white people, especially historically)
|
| > ...
|
| > People will buy anything if you tell them you're selling
| dignity.
|
| All true, and it's important that politicians who hope to
| actually heal these folks focus their efforts on restoring
| the dignity that comes from work and community, and dispel
| the dangerous sort of "dignity" peddled by ethnic/racial
| nationalists.
| munificent wrote:
| _> a single notable exception to to this, which is the
| military_
|
| This is a bit of cognitive dissonance I find fascinating
| among the far right. I have had conversations with many
| people who clearly simultaneously believe:
|
| 1. The government can't do anything right.
|
| 2. We have the world's best military.
|
| And yet for most it hasn't seemed to click that the
| military is a government program.
|
| But, again, I think this gets to my larger point that
| because the military is such a source of prestige for
| many Americans (especially poorer ones with few other
| upward mobility options), they are able to maintain that
| bit of cognitive dissonance.
|
| (And, to be clear, I absolutely do not think
| conservatives have a monopoly on cognitive dissonance. I
| see many different ones all along the political
| spectrum.)
| josefdlange wrote:
| Hard to process this kind of cynicism, accurate though it
| is. Not your demeanor, by the way, friend, just the reality
| of it all. Ironic that I speak of willful ignorance and yet
| am happy to not think too hard about the very things you've
| called out here.
| munificent wrote:
| I really don't mean this to sound cynical, though I can
| see how it comes across. I think it's more about
| understanding human psychology and trying to use that
| understanding to empathize with and understand why people
| behave in seemingly irrational ways.
|
| As a tribal primate species are absolutely hard-wired to
| seek ways to provide value to our tribe. Being worthless
| to the tribe means being left in the forest, which was a
| death sentence to our evolutionary ancestors. So our need
| for social prestige is as fundamental as food and
| shelter. Perhaps even more so since for most of our
| ancestors, food and shelter came from the tribe.
|
| The ways we seek out that esteem are determined by our
| surrounding culture. If esteem is the game we're trying
| to win, culture determines the board and the moves we're
| allowed to make. We can push against culture somewhat and
| it evolves over time, but we're largely stuck with the
| one we're enmeshed in.
|
| So you get a set of people who need to feel valued. You
| raise them in a culture that says the main way to do that
| is by having a well-paying job. Then you take away the
| jobs. This is a recipe for unrest and strife.
| josefdlange wrote:
| Oh definitely -- I'm not detecting cynicism in you and
| maybe it's the wrong choice of word. I'm more feeling a
| sense of disappointment in what you're saying being true.
| It's tragic, in truth.
| pchristensen wrote:
| More than slightly!
| waterheater wrote:
| Do not trust Foxconn. I strongly believe they're playing a long-
| term game here.
|
| For example, the Foxconn plant is on a particular tract of land
| only partially within the Lake Michigan watershed. Anyone living
| within the watershed must return their water, and it must be
| cleaned up first. My understanding of the Great Lakes Compact is
| that Foxconn's land is one of legal ambiguity, that they may draw
| from Lake Michigan but not return it. I sure hope it doesn't mean
| they can bottle up Lake Michigan water and ship it elsewhere, but
| water is set to be more valuable than oil, so I bet they're
| playing it strategically.
| ThaDood wrote:
| Not to be a naysayer, but do you have any sort of evidence to
| substantiate this claim? Any evidence of exceptions to laws
| regarding the usage of the watershed and lake with specific
| regards to Foxconn? Or any kind of indication that a bottling
| facility will be built up?
| jerry1979 wrote:
| Not the parent, but there does seem to be a fair amount of
| legal shenanigans related to the Foxconn and the Great Lakes
| Compact.
|
| https://www.wiscontext.org/what-foxconn-means-great-lakes-
| co...
| waterheater wrote:
| Hard evidence? No. The exact plot of land they chose is not
| particularly remarkable, so I must wonder why they chose a
| piece of land straddling the watershed, given that the
| Compact [1] indirectly applies to corporations.
|
| There's a deeper political aspect to Foxconn's presence that
| I can't trust. I'm from Wisconsin, and the whole Foxconn deal
| leaves me feeling extremely uneasy. Leaving aside the
| Wisconsin and USA politicians associated with the deal, Terry
| Guo briefly ran for president of the Republic of China. Guo
| and Foxconn made significant donations to UW-Madison. It
| smells wrong, and all the Wisconsinites I've talked to agree.
|
| I'm glad their subsidies were slashed.
|
| [1] https://www.gsgp.org/media/1330/great_lakes-
| st_lawrence_rive...
| KZZ wrote:
| Also a Wisconsinite here. I've been involved with the deal
| and haven't noticed any care about any watershed related
| things. Most of the business they've attracted so far are
| companies who want contract manufacturing outside of
| mainland China. The large "screen factory" is still largely
| empty, and they have no concrete plans for it, but the side
| projects which piggybacked on to that plan have seen some
| success.
| waterheater wrote:
| What projects might those be? Genuinely curious, as I
| haven't heard any news about them.
| hnworthing wrote:
| > Terry Guo briefly ran for president of the Republic of
| China.
|
| I have reservations about Foxconn too, but I'm not sure I
| understand why this bit is relevant. The Republic of China
| = Taiwan, a US ally. (Mainland China is the People's
| Republic of China). This is akin to Bloomberg running for
| president.
|
| Also it's Terry Gou and not Guo.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| My understanding is that he ran under KMT, which is the
| much more China friendly party.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Foxconn is Taiwanese. Wouldn't Foxconn affiliated people
| naturally have involvement with Taiwan? Taiwan is our ally.
| Forget the Middle East for a second. If China was to take
| TSMC's factories over. It would be world war 3 most likely.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Mainland_China
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Gou#Political_career
|
| To say Foxconn is complicated would be an understatement.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > but water is set to be more valuable than oil
|
| Desalination costs less than 0.1 cents per liter, so that sets
| a pretty firm price cap on the cost of water.
| [deleted]
| kickout wrote:
| Not arguing at all--- you got a link for those costs? I
| always thought desalination was cost prohibitive. I'd be
| thrilled to know it was 0.1 cents per liter (seriously)!
| teachingassist wrote:
| A web search for 'desalination cost' will easily confirm
| this for you.
|
| e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
| S00119...
|
| "current [published in 2008] large-scale desalination
| plants are capable of producing water in the range of
| $0.50-$2.00/m3"
| zbrozek wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Costs
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I got the numbers from Wikipedia.
|
| 0.1 cents per liter is cost prohibitive for use cases where
| water is typically measured by the acre-foot.
| altendo wrote:
| I am always struck at the amount that states and municipalities
| are willing to write off in order to attract companies. On one
| hand, I understand that companies want to take the best deal, but
| on the other hand, at times local governments are willing to give
| up so much money in tax revenue. I remember reading about the
| competitions for Google Fiber and Amazon's second HQ - it felt
| absurd the amount cities and states were willing to drop,
| financially speaking.
|
| I'm glad this one has been renegotiated (especially seeing that
| the proposed plant never happened), but I'd like to see these
| deals be more level-headed before they get to this point.
| grecy wrote:
| > _local governments are willing to give up so much money in
| tax revenue_
|
| It's literally a race to the bottom, and for some reason people
| are eager to win!
| rchaud wrote:
| > but I'd like to see these deals be more level-headed before
| they get to this point.
|
| I don't think that's possible considering the incentives at
| play. Politicians always have the next election in mind, and
| what better way to try to win it then sign a deal that promises
| jobs? Doesn't matter if the numbers bandied about are too good
| to be true --- just get pen to paper and point the finger at
| your opponent and decry him as anti-business.
| luckylion wrote:
| They don't have a choice between Amazon HQ or 50 medium sized
| new businesses, they often have Amazon HQ or nothing new. In
| that case, whatever they get is more than they have now, isn't
| it? New jobs that will bring other new businesses and local
| taxes etc are a bonus.
| wavefunction wrote:
| Places that were serious contenders for Amazon HQ definitely
| have other employers and options. There is no way that Amazon
| HQ is ending up in Sioux Falls or Laramie or something.
| insert_coin wrote:
| It looks that way in the end, with no other alternative but
| to yield, but at some point there were many options, that is
| how the town, city, county or state came to be in the first
| place. The problem is that they gave so many concessions just
| to get a short term political advantage, that real productive
| and sustainable jobs couldn't compete with corruption.
|
| Now because of the giant snowball made from all the little
| policy mistakes that sounded insignificant at first, or ever
| worse, sounded sound! I mean who wouldn't want high paying
| jobs that barely require any training? the only option in
| many places is to keep the charade, but at some point
| politics need to give way to real production, and that only
| means real competition.
| danhak wrote:
| They're not really "giving up" anything if they attract a
| business that otherwise wouldn't be there at all.
|
| It's still a net gain to have a major employer in your locale,
| along with all the other economic benefits and tax revenue that
| entails.
| avs733 wrote:
| There should be research to support this argument. Has anyone
| found evidence for or against? Otherwise the claim here seems
| aspirational rather than useful.
|
| I know that the history of stadium deals, for example, this
| claim is nearly universally made to support incentivizing
| sports teams - and the evidence nearly universally shows it
| to be false.
|
| "In every case, the conclusions are the same. A new sports
| facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative)
| effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent
| facility appears to have earned anything approaching a
| reasonable return on investment. No recent facility has been
| self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues.
| Regardless of whether the unit of analysis is a local
| neighborhood, a city, or an entire metropolitan area, the
| economic benefits of sports facilities are de minimus." [0]
|
| [0] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sports-jobs-taxes-are-
| new...
| skystarman wrote:
| I don't think the comparison to sports stadiums fit here.
| Usually there is already a stadium for a large NFL team or
| whatever in the city and the economies in the cities that
| are large enough to even host these teams are WAY more
| dynamic than where many factories are being built in the
| south or midwest.
|
| For example Walmart's HQ was built in a TINY SW Arkansas
| town. The billions that have been invested there by the
| company, not only in jobs, but amenities in the city have
| no comparison to any other option that was available to
| them. If the city and state wanted to hand Walmart a $100
| million dollar check, then that investment would have paid
| off way more than 10x. (IDK what subsidies they were given,
| probably none just using this for sake of the argument)
|
| I know WM is the evil empire and I'm not defending all they
| do, just saying that if the right business moves into your
| small community it can be worth tens, hundreds or even many
| billions of dollars to a community that has no other
| options.
|
| Amazon moving into NYC, or Atlanta giving many millions in
| subsidies to the Braves for a new stadium? Not really
| comparable.
| shadowwolf007 wrote:
| The "Tiny town" is 70,000 people who live in an multi-
| city metro area of around 600,000. That may not be like
| SF or NYC big, but it's also not just a random metro
| area. Having lived there for a few years, you're painting
| with a poetic brush a bit and I'd like to clarify how I
| see it.
|
| Walmart owns Bentonville. The city council, mayor, and
| basically anyone there is almost completely subservient
| to their interests. Again - WM never moved in to the
| small community, the small community literally is Wal-
| mart.
|
| For many years, people in the town worked in Wal-mart
| retail buildings & warehouses around Bentonville. Around
| 2013 the company started to struggle to compete and found
| that they needed to attract talent, so the Walton Family
| Foundation started spending somewhere around $300 million
| - $400 million a year in improvements and restoration
| projects. This included massive subsidies for companies
| that moved in to the area - WFF also paid partially or
| fully relocation money, but I have no idea how much they
| paid other than one restaurant owner I spoke to who was
| basically given moving costs, a building, and "free" rent
| for a year.
|
| The whole "Wal-mart HQ" thing is just another in their
| line of tactics to attract new talent in to the area
| because they are struggling to build an ecosystem of
| talented developers and analysts. Which, again, there's
| nothing wrong with this tactic if that's what you're
| hunting for.
|
| One thing I'll give WM for sure - they are 100% focused
| on building out a tech bubble for people who want a semi-
| urban lifestyle. There's a lot of TX & CA transplants and
| honestly it's working great for them.
|
| All told, none of this is even kind of comparable to
| Amazon moving to NYC or Atlanta. Nor is it comparable to
| a company moving in to a small town brand-new.
|
| [ed: oops missed an important sentence!]
| skystarman wrote:
| According to wikipedia the population of Bentonville when
| the first WM store was built was 2,949.
|
| It's now 54,909, but maybe it's 70k as you say.
|
| Either way it sounds precisely like a situation where a
| giant corporation moved in to a small town. Or more
| accurately the tiny store grew into a giant corporation
| and so did the small town.
|
| My point was merely that many small rural town mayors
| would love it if a giant corporation would move an HQ
| with tens of thousands of high paying jobs into their
| tiny communities! This is why the are willing to give
| giant incentives to them.
|
| You make great points otherwise, thanks for sharing your
| perspective!
| cabotmoose wrote:
| > For example Walmart's HQ was built in a TINY SW
| Arkansas town.
|
| Minor correction: Walmart's HQ is in _NW_ Arkansas
| (Bentonville)
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I'd just like Wal-Mart to honor Walton's rule about no
| more than two customers waiting in line.
| refurb wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| People this it's a choice between: A) company moves here pays
| $0 in tax or B) company moves here and pays $5M in tax.
|
| When in reality it's a choice between: A) company comes here
| and pays $0 in tax or B) company doesn't come here and net
| taxes are still $0
| eigen wrote:
| According to [1], its:
|
| A) company comes here and pays $0 in tax. and city "took on
| hundreds of millions in debt that was supposed to be repaid
| by property taxes".
|
| B) company doesn't come here and net taxes are still $0.
| city doesnt take on more debt.
|
| B looks better.
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-
| factories-wi...
| cma wrote:
| We have a coordinating union of states though, we don't
| need states to be pitted against each other to subsidize
| existing wealthy owners.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Until our limp-dick federal government does something
| about it (which they won't), the custom will continue.
| acdha wrote:
| Or, company comes here, pays their employees less than
| expected, and leaves sooner than expected with the local
| taxpayers on the hook paying for more infrastructure than
| they need - and maybe some bonus pollution to deal with for
| decades.
|
| These deals are always more complicated than the initial
| marquee numbers and that usually seems to make them less
| favorable for the area than hoped because companies have
| greater experience and can play desperate municipalities
| off against each other with little consequence for not
| delivering.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| It could be a net gain. Dropping a few thousand jobs and a
| factory into an area changes said area. Sometimes for the
| better. Sometimes not.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| Most communities tend to prefer having lots of jobs
| available versus having too few jobs available.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Absolutely. But I don't know anyone who likes having the
| added traffic that thousands of jobs bring. And increased
| housing prices. And yada yada. More jobs isnt always
| positive and at the very least have some downsides.
| wavefunction wrote:
| Roads and infrastructure don't pay for themselves and
| considering the scale of some incentive packages offered and
| the paltry outcomes like the one we're discussing in
| Wisconsin and elsewhere the assertion that there's a "net
| gain" deserves serious scrutiny and supporting evidence.
| stevehawk wrote:
| I don't understand why people keep downvoting this sentiment.
| Cities have two options:
|
| (1) Attract a business that wouldn't otherwise come, which
| when it exists will attract more people that pay state/local
| sales taxes and increase demand for property, which in turn
| increases property price, which increases property taxes.
|
| (2) Don't attract the business. . . .. nothing comes after
| that.
| evgen wrote:
| And once again the law of the excluded middle strikes. No,
| the only two options are not the ones you suggest. The
| other option, that you conveniently ignore, is that cities
| build a good infrastructure that attracts talent and the
| businesses come to either serve the talent or employ the
| talent -- no subsidy needed.
|
| By now there must be entire libraries, or at least large
| warehouses, filled with case studies from HBS and similar
| schools that show state and municipal tax incentives are
| ALWAYS a bad deal for the city and state finances. The only
| purpose they serve is to make a politician appear effective
| and to enable that politician and his or her cronies to
| collect a bit of graft.
| emodendroket wrote:
| The New York Times investigated this notion and found most
| deals were so lopsided that the municipalities and states
| never came anywhere near recouping their investments.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/us/how-local-taxpayers-
| ba...
| 34679 wrote:
| They're giving up fairness and equality- equal treatment
| under the law. If the entire state wasn't completely devoid
| of any entities looking to compete in that space, it probably
| is now. Anyone making LCD panels in Wisconsin suddenly has a
| $80,000,000 greater financial gap from their largest
| competitor. If the lower taxes are good for creating jobs at
| a net gain to the local economy, then the lower rate should
| be applied equally among all similarly taxed entities.
| dntrkv wrote:
| > If the lower taxes are good for creating jobs at net gain
| to the local economy, then the lower rate should be applied
| equally among all similarly taxed entities.
|
| I agree with the premise here, but in reality, you can see
| that won't actually work.
|
| You have existing businesses in an area paying a certain
| amount in taxes. You want to attract a new major business.
| If you lower your taxes for all the businesses in hopes of
| attracting the new business, you just lost a huge chunk of
| revenue for something that might not come to fruition.
| Whereas if you don't lower your taxes, that new business
| has no incentive to go with your locale, and will instead,
| settle somewhere there is an already established talent-
| base/infrastructure/etc. Furthering the economic inequality
| between the regions.
|
| I am not a fan of these tax incentives, but I can't blame
| these places for using them.
| hobs wrote:
| There's an old phrase "burning down your house for the
| nails" - so yes, we can blame these places for using
| them.
| 34679 wrote:
| I believe luring in corporate giants with payouts
| collected from existing businesses is short-sighted and
| wrong both morally and economically. There are existing
| businesses in Wisconsin, and the way I see it, their
| current collective tax burden is excessive to the tune of
| at least $80,000,000.
|
| The government is essentially running around to all of
| the Davids, collecting a few dollars from each to fund
| the construction of a tower that puts the Goliath beyond
| the reach of David's sling. I don't want a government
| that builds mountains for the largest companies while
| relegating small businesses to the trenches. I want a
| government that does everything possible to keep the
| battlefield level. Innovation rarely comes from the
| established giants.
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| you cant "give up" tax revenue you haven't collected
| nindalf wrote:
| You're right, but you can contribute to a race-to-the-bottom
| where no one collects any tax.
| j_walter wrote:
| You get taxes in other ways through new building permits,
| higher property taxes, local sales tax, etc...there is more
| going on than just collecting corporate taxes in a
| municipality. The more people you draw the better your
| overall tax revenue is...and the taxes you are willing to
| put off are limited in time and generally expire after 5-10
| years.
| jrumbut wrote:
| This is all true but it just describes why jurisdictions
| are willing to join the race to the bottom.
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| But "the bottom" is not really a bottom then. It is like
| a joint private/public venture. What is wrong with that?
| jrumbut wrote:
| It's not really a problem for the partners in the joint
| private/public venture. It is a problem for the next
| jurisdiction that is now facing companies' expectations
| of massive incentives, for the existing residents and
| businesses that are paying normal taxes because they
| aren't new, for any but the largest businesses who don't
| have lobbyists on staff, etc.
|
| There's also the general wisdom that life is better when
| you're competing to offer more value for more money, not
| just cutting costs as far as you can
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| I see your point and agree that from the fairness point
| of view this is not quite right. However, I do not see
| fairness as relevant in this context. Unless it is
| Walmart that is getting tax breaks for building a bunch
| of stores in NYC, local businesses do not oppose big
| companies getting incentives to move in.
| jrumbut wrote:
| Perhaps they don't but I'm not as focused on the
| relationship between the company and jurisdiction, I'm
| talking about the externalities.
|
| Desperate places give away the store to get anything at
| all, and it depresses what companies are willing to offer
| the next place while also tilting the playing field
| toward big companies with the ability to negotiate these
| kind of deals.
| r00fus wrote:
| Let's just call it what is is: corruption. Corruption isn't
| just something that happens in 3rd world countries. Alive and
| well in the US of A.
| data_spy wrote:
| In this case, it was actually a Governor who didn't know math
| more so than corruption. At least for the original terms in
| 2017.
| r00fus wrote:
| Do you actually believe that? Gov. Walker was notorious for
| various other corrupt activities as well.
|
| In other terms, grey's law applies here: _Any sufficiently
| advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice_
| imtringued wrote:
| It would be corruption if he personally benefits from the
| project, e.g. by selling land to Foxconn. I don't know
| the specific details to know if it really was a case of
| corruption.
| r00fus wrote:
| A load of bitcoin in a hidden wallet? Not that visible.
| Easy to disguise.
|
| The payoff could be very hard to find, but the
| malfeasance in public office is clear as day.
| imtringued wrote:
| It's corporate welfare.
| fnord77 wrote:
| it's a pretty low risk gamble for the politicians and there's
| almost always a reward for them even if the deal falls through.
| vmchale wrote:
| In this case because Scott Walker lost re-election.
| specialist wrote:
| Close the deal, claim credit, move on before the inevitable
| consequences.
|
| Just like a sales driven tech company. Heroes for booking
| sales. Score fat commission. Loser developers and clients are
| left holding the bag.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| I think it's a zero-sum game. Only one of your competitors has
| to offer a concession to win the business so you have to
| compete.
| neartheplain wrote:
| The massive downward revision of this deal, and of Foxconn's
| commitment to create jobs in Wisconsin, is hardly a surprise.
| Foxconn has a history of reneging on promises to build factories,
| as was widely reported when this deal was first made in 2017:
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/foxconns-history-of-broken...
|
| https://boingboing.net/2017/08/09/potemkin-factories.html
|
| https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2017/08/20/op-ed-the-many-broken-...
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| It helped Trump, mission accomplished.
| rectang wrote:
| The political aspect is central to the Wisconsin/Foxconn
| story, but by naming "Trump", or "Republicans", or a certain
| Wisconsin governor explicitly it guarantees that the
| discussion descends into a partisan flamewar.
|
| Consider instead something along the lines of "it achieved
| the desired political benefit for certain politicians". By
| keeping it abstract, even if it can be deduced who you're
| referring to, the discussion can remain less adversarial.
| efficax wrote:
| The wide reporting of the fallout from this move, especially
| of foxconn's demolishing of homes
| https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-
| politics/owners-n...
|
| was probably impactful on Wisconsonian's move away from Trump
| in both the midterms and in 2020. I don't know of any polling
| that connects the two but the foxconn disaster was a frequent
| topic of conversation here.
| billyhoffman wrote:
| Did it? His "8th wonder of the world nonsense" was after he
| was elected in 2017, and Trump then lost Wisconsin in 2020
| api wrote:
| Exactly. People like Trump have careers that resemble
| repeatedly pumped-and-dumped penny stocks. They rise and
| fall, rise and fall, rise and fall.
|
| Basically what they do is build themselves up through
| something like a social capital pyramid scheme. This
| eventually collapses when there are no greater fools and
| when all their promises fail, but the good ones already
| have the next grift in progress before the first one
| collapses.
|
| Trump is truly one of the greats at this. Not only does he
| do this very well but he builds the next grift off the
| previous one. He's IMHO the world's premier expert in
| "failing up."
| silexia wrote:
| Brilliant comment, I think we are going to see this in
| the future too with Trump. He has gone quiet for now, but
| he's going to come back and make far more money than he
| was making prior to the presidency.
| Solocomplex wrote:
| And during! Which was, of course, illegal.
| katbyte wrote:
| Provided none of the court cases he is currently involved
| in send him to jail or bankrupt him?
| anonAndOn wrote:
| > bankrupt him
|
| ...for the 7th time?
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for him to be
| imprisoned. But I do think he's going to be spending a
| lot of time in courtrooms for the rest of his life and
| that's at least some consolation.
| jacobolus wrote:
| Trump is a true grifter prodigy, who has managed to
| "fail" hundreds of times - while skimming billions of
| dollars away from investors, business partners, lenders,
| suppliers, employees, and customers - often in full
| public view, and both skate away from criminal liability
| and still keep finding more marks, ultimately including
| something like 40% of the general public.
| mbg721 wrote:
| That may be true, but the last piece is genuinely
| different. If he was a fraud as a candidate, then he was
| a fraud in a situation where there was no legitimate
| substitute. Few voters have changed their minds; the
| aftermath of 2020 has been a digging-in of heels in a
| culture-war, not a "We've been had!" moment.
| matwood wrote:
| Not sure why you're downvoted because this is what Trump
| has done through most of his life. While POTUS, his
| healthcare plan was 2 weeks away, his infrastructure plan
| was 2 weeks away, the wall - I guess a few feet were
| built.
|
| Great at marketing, terrible at execution.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| I am sure down votes are because he still has supporters
| here on HN. But even still, there's nothing that's been
| said that wasn't true.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > he still has supporters here on HN.
|
| Which I always find a bit surprising because you'd think
| people here would be able to see through the hucksterism.
| api wrote:
| I have a speculation that some fraction of the tech-
| libertarian crowd likes him precisely _because_ he was a
| dumpster fire. He helps discredit the state. Keep
| electing candidates of that quality and seasteading
| schemes start looking attractive.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Trump's appeal is precisely that he's the worst candidate
| apart from all the others, and the opposition keeps
| proving his point. Plenty of people would have preferred
| a non-dumpster-fire conservative, but didn't get to pick.
| Meanwhile, Biden was nominated purely to be an easy
| mouthpiece for the DNC, (certainly not on his record for
| race and crime issues,) but had every corporate and media
| voice possible behind him.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Trumps brand is still strong it seems (or at least
| Republicans think so) and it added to his brand - I do
| think the most important thing to Trump is branding, being
| president is secondary. Or the other way around: Being
| president added to the brand, that's what Trump was
| interested in* He doesn't care he lost the presidency in
| principle, but because losing tarnishes the brand. He would
| be the same losing the presidency of a golf club.
|
| *And perhaps getting immunity.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Trump's brand was name licensing.
|
| You won't license a brand that already scrunes >50% of
| potential customers in the US is and way more in the
| western world ( but the contacts seem to be solid, so
| it's very expensive)
|
| Look at all the hotels trying to get off the Trump brand.
| And all the businesses that associated themselves with
| Trump during his presidency.
| apercu wrote:
| "Trumps brand is still strong it seems (or at least
| Republicans think so)"
|
| Jeez. In all of my marketing efforts I would never
| immediately out of the gate alienate 60-65% of my
| potential customer base. And the Trump brand did nearly
| that from day 1.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Sure, but he's got an extremely loyal 40%. Of course,
| most of that demographic aren't the folks that can afford
| a night in a Trump hotel or to buy a membership at one of
| his golf clubs.
| altacc wrote:
| You probably need to consider the wider impact, not just
| Wisconsin. This was national news (I'm international and I
| remember reading about it) and would have contributed to
| his supporters general perception that he was delivering on
| promises. This isn't really an area where we can single
| Trump out as he was just being a normal politician here.
| It's common to announce an amazing deal with a big fanfare
| which then either fails to materialise, is in fact not as
| amazing as the headlines claim it to be, or includes
| previously agreed policies or agreements that are claimed
| once again as new. This is just typical PR (unfortunately).
| blueblob wrote:
| It's either a lot less common than you're making it out
| to be or it should not have made international news.
| Anyone who followed this story from the beginning
| realized it was not a good deal for Wisconsinites.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-04-22 23:03 UTC)