Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wisconsin has negotiated a dramatically scaled-back deal with Foxconn

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 196 posts

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

#161

Post by hayst4ck »

skinnymuch wrote: post #152
waterheater wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pol…

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.

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.

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

#162

Post by sigmaprimus »

1cvmask wrote: post #30
sigmaprimus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And the downvotes on your comments begin....

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!

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

#163

Post by shadowwolf007 »

skystarman wrote: post #85
avs733 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 co…

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!]

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

#164

Post by hayst4ck »

hnworthing wrote: post #83
waterheater wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pol…

> 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.

My understanding is that he ran under KMT, which is the much more China friendly party.

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

#165

Post by skystarman »

shadowwolf007 wrote: post #163
skystarman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

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. Agai…

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!

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

#166

Post by AzzieElbab »

jrumbut wrote: post #160
AzzieElbab wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But “the bottom” is not really a bottom then. It is like a joint private/public venture. What is wrong with that?

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'…

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.

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

#167

Post by specialist »

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…

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.

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

#168

Post by mbg721 »

api wrote: post #159
UncleOxidant wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.

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

#169

Post by munificent »

danans wrote: post #133
munificent wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 nationa…

> 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.)

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

#170

Post by munificent »

josefdlange wrote: post #142
munificent wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

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.

Post reply on HN