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Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

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Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#241

Post by rhino369 »

jonstewart wrote: post #216
pg_bot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew someone would bring up Citizens United v FEC when I said worst. I know this will be an unpopular opinion on this forum, but I believe that case was decided correctly. I agree wholeheartedly with Justice Kennedy's opinion that "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech" Read the opinions and d…

The essential problem, which Justice Kennedy seemed not to understand, is that money is not speech. The easy test to show this as nonsense is quantification, i.e., it’s clearly the case that some citizens have more money than others, but it’s nonsense to think that some citizens have more free speech than others. One of Justice Kennedy’s clerks in 2009-2010 was Misha Tseytlin, a Federalist Society member who undoubte…

Whether or not money is speech, most of the time speech needs money.

Banning spending money on newspaper is banning the newspaper. Banning spending money on advertisement is banning the advertisement.

Under the dissenting view in Citizens United, Congress could ban the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc. from talking about politics. That's just absurd. Congress could have banned the Federalist Papers!

I've always tried to find a middle ground that prevented for profit corporations from spending money. But like 99% of our media is for profit corporations. It doesn't make sense to ban Amazon from political speech, unless they buy the Washington Post, in which case they can do whatever the fuck they want.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#242

Post by sudosysgen »

rsynnott wrote: post #190
sudosysgen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly shameful, but sometimes the utter disregard they have for the taxpayer is so stunning and brazen that you can't help but admire.

It's... quite weird to blame _Foxconn_ for this. It's a company, a government offered it free money for no real commitments (as a fairly nakedly obvious political ploy), it took it. That's what companies do; if it hadn't been Foxconn it'd have been someone else. Most of the blame lies with the government. This is really a story of failure upon failure; the political ploy didn't work out for Walker, either. No-one's h…

I mean, Foxconn is happy.

Most of the blame does lie within the government, but the government did this because of decades of corruption by various multinationals. It didn't come out of nowhere.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#243

Post by rhino369 »

freeone3000 wrote: post #122
Accujack wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. People blame the court for doing the correct (if not right, because courts don't really do "right") thing. The problem is that there's no constitutional amendment making an exception to the first amendment to limit or forbid contributions to campaigns. It should never have been an ordinary law in the first place.

I fundamentally disagree with this, but on different grounds. I absolutely believe that groups of people have fewer rights than individual people. A corporation should have no right against self-incrimination, for instance. An LLC should have no right for freedom of religion. Groups are, by definition, not a monolith, and defending the rights of the group often infringes on the rights of the individual. Extending ind…

In a nation with 330 million people, freedom of speech that cannot be aggregated is not freedom of speech. You'd shrink the first amendment to just covering someone arguing in a bar or shouting on the street corner.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#244

Post by rhino369 »

chillwaves wrote: post #158
aetherson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing like the very egalitarian principle that says, "One rich man can advocate for his interests, but 100 poor men may not pool their resources to advocate for theirs."

It takes 100 poor men to match the rich guy and that is fairness to you? What makes more sense is limiting both groups.

Leveling the playing field by banning political speech entirely? I don't really get your suggestion here.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#245

Post by kd0amg »

uxp100 wrote: post #221
evan_ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says they failed to qualify for a subsidy so I assume they were planning on getting money from that.

They were tax credits with requirements they did not meet. If they were planning on taking advantage of those credits, it seems like they would have put in the minimum effort to at least appear to meet them. Something a little stranger happened here. I think related to global politics, not just something with Trump or Scott Walker.

I got the sense that they did try to put in that minimum but misjudged how high the bar would be. They sent in their "we hired enough people so give us the money" message, but then (unexpected, I suspect) scrutiny by some civil servants revealed that they hadn't hired enough.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#246

Post by Jon_Lowtek »

AaronFriel wrote: post #240
Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure about that, it sound like they lost money. Who is the con artist who lined their own pocket in this story? Is this about tariffs?

Had the state of Wisconsin not wised up last minute and begun a legal battle over the billions in subsidies Foxconn would receive, then they would have done quite nicely. Fortunately the political pressure mounted as the plant didn't materialize as promised.

from what i known of the contracts foxconn would need to return the subsidies if they fail the even higher target numbers in the next years, and they don't just get the money, it is in escrow for years, and those multi-billion sums are figures calculated against decades ... i mean i know of Trumps pump&dump deals and everyone wants this whole thing to match some simple scam with foxcon on the evil side, but this doesn't look like the corporation is benefiting at all from failure. That's why i asked if this is a tariffs thing, if they get benefits on some other track, because it looks like they are loosing big for even trying to invest in the USA.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#247

Post by jariel »

rsynnott wrote: post #193
jariel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First - 'Licking the boots of politicians' is something that happens in every country involving politicians of ever stripe. "but perhaps benefit greatly from avoiding trade sanctions." - I don't think this is the case directly, there doesn't seem to be evidence of that, however, it might be true. Trump hasn't really singled out Chinese manufacturers. Second - the populist/lazy/naive theme here is the supposed belief…

> I would say this is a good example of 'How even good Chinese companies do Business in 2020' and the results should be on display for bureaucrats and would-be belt-and-roaders everywhere. This is a Taiwanese company. Belt and Road is a PRC thing. That said, this is more of an example of "how practically any company will behave when offered poorly designed subsidies". There's a _place_ for state subsidization of indu…

""how practically any company will behave when offered poorly designed subsidies""

No, it's not at all - again - these cases are not that common.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#248

Post by staticautomatic »

ummonk wrote: post #129
staticautomatic wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations don’t have speech interests. The majority’s opinion in Citizens United is premised upon the assertion that they do.

"Corporations" here typically being not for profit corporations such as unions or public advocacy groups (including the eponymous "Citizens United").

We don’t face a binary choice between granting all money-earning organizations speech rights and depriving all public interest non profits of speech rights because we have a legislative process.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#249

Post by sudosysgen »

zdragnar wrote: post #84
gruez wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You need to measure and factor in the methane generated by the decaying biome behind the dam. how much are we talking about? does it work out to about the same as other fossil fuels, or order(s) of magnitude less? Also, is it possible to mitigate this by burning the vegetation prior to flooding the area?

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/nov/14/h... About 1.3% of all human caused gas emissions, made worse because it is primarily methane. As for burning first, that only works for new dams, and you need to de extensive excavation to get at the roots as well- depending on the plant, upwards of half of its mass is below the surface. Biomass decay isn't the only problem; the article also cites downstream…

It's important to consider that Methane has a very short atmospheric half life, so that 1.3% becomes 0.06% in a few decades.

Moreso, this can be minimized.

In the end, it's clear that hydro, long term, is indeed clean, moreso than a battery+solar solution would be.

Indeed, this is 1.3% going to 0.06%, despite the fact that hydro represents almost 15% of global electricty generation.

Re: Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

#250

Post by rsynnott »

jariel wrote: post #247
rsynnott wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would say this is a good example of 'How even good Chinese companies do Business in 2020' and the results should be on display for bureaucrats and would-be belt-and-roaders everywhere. This is a Taiwanese company. Belt and Road is a PRC thing. That said, this is more of an example of "how practically any company will behave when offered poorly designed subsidies". There's a _place_ for state subsidization of indu…

""how practically any company will behave when offered poorly designed subsidies"" No, it's not at all - again - these cases are not that common.

Frankly, offering subsidies this silly is not that common, at least on this scale. This stuff is usually quite carefully designed.
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