Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn • Hacker News Board

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#131

Post by JustSomeNobody » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #113

api wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#132

Post by j_walter » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #122

AzzieElbab wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you cant "give up" tax revenue you haven't collected

You're right, but you can contribute to a race-to-the-bottom where no one collects any tax.

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.

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#133

Post by danans » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #130

josefdlange wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outwa…

> 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 the…

> 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.

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#134

Post by jrumbut » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

j_walter wrote: post #132

nindalf wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, but you can contribute to a race-to-the-bottom where no one collects any tax.

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.

This is all true but it just describes why jurisdictions are willing to join the race to the bottom.

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#135

Post by bryanlarsen » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

kickout wrote: post #96

bryanlarsen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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)!

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.

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#136

Post by r00fus » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

altendo wrote: post #61

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…

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.

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#137

Post by katbyte » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

silexia wrote: post #110

api wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Provided none of the court cases he is currently involved in send him to jail or bankrupt him?

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#138

Post by efficax » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

KingOfCoders wrote: post #26

neartheplain wrote: post #7

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…

It helped Trump, mission accomplished.

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.

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#139

Post by apercu » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

KingOfCoders wrote: post #51

billyhoffman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it? His “8th wonder of the world nonsense” was after he was elected in 2017, and Trump then lost Wisconsin in 2020

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 presiden…

"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.

Re: Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

#140

Post by josefdlange » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

justaman wrote: post #123

josefdlange wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outwa…

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.

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!