Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by throwaway0a5e » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:20 AM UTC

rjmunro wrote: post #194

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I read somewhere that Louisiana loses about 20% of its local municipal revenue per year due to corporate welfare and tax breaks.

That's an unfair way to say it. You could equally say "Louisiana spends about 20% of its local municipal revenue supporting local businesses." I have no idea if that is a big number or how it compares to other states. I also have no idea if it's a good investment - perhaps it results in lots of jobs and ultimately more than 20% increase in tax take (you should also factor in if it's just pulling jobs and therefore ta…

Furthermore, the end number is just going to be a reflection of how in-vs-out sourced the state .gov is anyway.

Does it really matter if the state is patching its own roads or running its own homeless shelters or cutting checks (aka "corporate welfare") for 3rd parties to do it? At the end of the day those things are state funded whether or not the people doing the work have state letterhead on their pay stubs.

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

#202

Post by throwaway0a5e » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:29 AM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #183

> In the base case scenario the state would break even in 2042. The government ended up paying over $200k for each job created. It sickens me what people will do to push their own little kingdom of power. This guy wanted to get reelected so he was willing to give away $3 billion of people's hard earned money and screw up hundreds of people's lives (all the students and others that were hired, left better jobs, then g…

When you put it that way it doesn't actually sound that abnormal or out of line for state politics.

States in the Boston-DC corridor are rife with bullshit state police task forces that mostly just collect paychecks, government departments staffed with cronies, etc. etc. They spin up programs that do things and then shut them down and leave people and businesses hanging with similar results to all the people this left hanging.

Boondoggles are universal. I really don't see how laundering it through the mechanism of corporate welfare makes it any better or worse than any other boondoggle. It's just a different way of doing things so that the boondoggle can be marketed to a different political demographic.

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

#203

Post by starfallg » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:29 AM UTC

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #130

freeone3000 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Supreme court cases build upon precedent. It sounds like your real issue is with corporate personhood. That was decided in a case that Citizens United built on, so I would recommend barking up that tree instead. In any case, I personally feel corporate personhood actually does make sense. It’s absurd that I as an individual can engage in speech but if I communicate through a company that I solely own now I can’t. Try…

> In any case, I personally feel corporate personhood actually does make sense. It’s absurd that I as an individual can engage in speech but if I communicate through a company that I solely own now I can’t.

Because then you have 2 voices via 2 distinct legal entities - you as a natural person and through controlling your limited company.

You also have an issue with foreign ownership of these entities having directly electoral influence.

On the corporate personhood movement, the problem is that it is cheery picking all of the rights of natural persons while trying to shy away from as much responsibilities as possible. This needs to be re-balanced somewhat.

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

#204

Post by rayiner » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:30 AM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #164

Thorrez wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the church itself doesn't have freedom of religion. But for the members of the church to have freedom of religion they need to be able to exercise their freedom as an organized group. The end result is the same: the government is limited in what restrictions it can place on the group, because to restrict the group is to restrict the members.

I don't understand your argument. The church members individually have the right to practice their religion however they want so long as it doesn't impinge on others' rights or laws. The group aspect really doesn't come into play at all. In the same way, those same individuals can contribute as individuals to whatever cause they choose. The problem is when resources get pooled and an organization rather than its indi…

Very few religious people would consider allowing the practice of religion “without the group aspect” to be “freedom of religion.” That freedom, especially in the United States, necessarily encompasses groups of religious people pooling resources to build houses of worship, educate their children, participate in the community, and advocate for causes.

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

#205

Post by rayiner » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:34 AM UTC

tyre wrote: post #178

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…

I would still put Citizens up there. We have rules around elections in the same way that we have some limits on individual speech (yelling fire, and all that) to effect the fundamental right that the First Amendment is meant to protect. Similarly, PACs were an unforeseen (and in some ways unforeseeable to eighteenth century framers) exploit of a well functioning democracy as it relates to people . Kucho vs. Common Ca…

Citizens United doesn’t have anything to do with PACs.

I’m amenable to the idea there is a core of campaign finance law that’s non-objectionable. But prosecuting a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation for making a political movie about a candidate isn’t in the scope of that. That’s what the government chose to prosecute in that case. The “slippery slope” outcome—using a law ostensibly meant to keep Exxon from speaking to bludgeon a little non-profit—happened within a decade of the campaign finance law being enacted.

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

#206

Post by someperson » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:35 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #118

jariel wrote: post #65

This is very good information, but the wrong narrative. This was not some 'fake deal' by a Chinese firm to get subsidies, it looks like they probably barely broke even on this one - if that - and no company wants to have big ugly stain failures like this. It looks like Foxconn just bit off more than they could chew, maybe saw an opportunity, but then realized they couldn't make use of the plant. They knew what the th…

Foxconn is Taiwanese, not Chinese.

True, but Foxconn and Terry Gou have a very tight knit relationship to China and its ruling party

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

#207

Post by delusional » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:42 AM UTC

pg_bot wrote: post #45

kenned3 wrote: post #19

This is a great article around why "corporate welfare" rarely works out. Also, semes like a textbook example of "eminent domain" abuse? We call this "expropriation" in Canada and it is rarely abused like this. Taking peoples property to give it to a private corporation? I can understand the need to take property for public use (roads, infra) but the US needs to end eminent domain abuse. If Foxconn needed the property…

You can blame the worst supreme court decision in the 21st century for that. (Kelo v City of New London) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

Even if the local politicians are allowed to do it, do they have to?

Sure, it would have been nice if the supreme court had stopped it, but it's a deeply broken system that even requires the supreme court to decide it. Political decisions like this NEED political consequences.

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

#208

Post by credit_guy » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:42 AM UTC

I see a lot of popular outrage here, and I love me some popular outrage against the big bad boy just like everyone else, but still, what was Foxconn's gain here? The billions in subsidies were in the form of tax relief, they will not see a dime if they don't build the factory. The bulldozed houses in Wisconsin, while a loss for the state, don't make Foxconn any richer. In the end, the only thing Foxconn achieved was some horrible PR in the US.

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

#209

Post by rayiner » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:47 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #167

klyrs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a state passed a law that corporations may not put a kosher or halal marking on foods they sell, would you find that law constitutional? No, but not for the company, but for the harm that would cause harm to practitioners of their respective religions.

But the companies are under no obligation to include this information. If they are legally forbidden from including it, how does it become a violation of my rights as a practitioner when it is not a violation for them to just not bother? Though maybe bringing in religion makes this distracting... Do you think a state government may permissibly make a law banning the sale of transgender flags? You're still free to mak…

This is the basic problem with the government’s case in Citizens United. There is no real limiting principle to the law; the government actually prosecuted a dinky little non-profit, not a giant corporation, making for a fantastic test case; and the government admitted at oral argument before the Supreme Court that there was no limiting principle to its theory of the first amendment that would keep the government from banning books.

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

#210

Post by rayiner » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 11:47 AM UTC

Lazare wrote: post #88

ecf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s say it loud and clear for everyone to hear. MONEY. IS. NOT. SPEECH

Money isn't abortion either, but the Supreme Court would toss out a law instantly that claimed not to ban abortion, but to ban spending money to obtain an abortion. Money is a tool which enables people to exercise a right. Limiting your ability to exercise the right is a limitation on that right. If I have a right to do a thing, then I have the right to spend money on doing that thing.

Or using corporate funds to provide abortions.