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Wisconsin's $4.1 Billion Foxconn Boondoggle (theverge.com)
"A story from The Verge reports on Foxconn's substantially scaled-back plans for the heavily subsidized Wisconsin "Gigafactory," writes Slashdot reader kimanaw. Here's an excerpt from the report: The details of the deal were famously written on the back of a napkin when [Foxconn chairman Terry Gou] and the Republican governor first met: a $3 billion state subsidy in return for Foxconn's $10 billion investment in a Generation 10.5 LCD manufacturing plant that would create 13,000 jobs. [...] But what seemed so simple on a napkin has turned out to be far more complicated and messy in real life. As the size of the subsidy has steadily increased to a jaw-dropping $4.1 billion, Foxconn has repeatedly changed what it plans to do, raising doubts about the number of jobs it will create. Instead of the promised Generation 10.5 plant, Foxconn now says it will build a much smaller Gen 6 plant, which would require one-third of the promised investment, although the company insists it will eventually hit the $10 billion investment target. And instead of a factory of workers building panels for 75-inch TVs, Foxconn executives now say the goal is to build "ecosystem" of buzzwords called "AI 8K+5G" with most of the manufacturing done by robots.
Shortly after the Wisconsin deal was signed, Walker was touting the Foxconn deal in campaign-style speeches across the state. But by October 2017, just a month after the legislature passed the Foxconn deal, a poll showed only 38 percent of the people in southeastern Wisconsin, where the plant would be located, thought the plant would be a net positive for the state. This was followed by March 2018 poll, which showed that 66 percent of people in the state believed their local businesses wouldn't benefit from the Foxconn deal, and only 25 percent thought it would be beneficial. This was dreadful news for Walker, who suddenly stopped talking about Foxconn. He didn't even mention the deal in a November 2017 speech announcing his run for re-election. It was also bad news for Foxconn, as every Democrat running for governor proceeded to condemn the deal. Both Walker and Foxconn now needed to sell this deal to the voters.
Shortly after the Wisconsin deal was signed, Walker was touting the Foxconn deal in campaign-style speeches across the state. But by October 2017, just a month after the legislature passed the Foxconn deal, a poll showed only 38 percent of the people in southeastern Wisconsin, where the plant would be located, thought the plant would be a net positive for the state. This was followed by March 2018 poll, which showed that 66 percent of people in the state believed their local businesses wouldn't benefit from the Foxconn deal, and only 25 percent thought it would be beneficial. This was dreadful news for Walker, who suddenly stopped talking about Foxconn. He didn't even mention the deal in a November 2017 speech announcing his run for re-election. It was also bad news for Foxconn, as every Democrat running for governor proceeded to condemn the deal. Both Walker and Foxconn now needed to sell this deal to the voters.
... company insists it will eventually hit the $10 billion investment target ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Where is Paul Ryan in the Foxconn Boondoggle?.
How has this "great leader of Republicans" dodged responsibility?
That's better than teflon.
They completely lost sight of what made the USA an economic powerhouse in the first place: In the past, corporate welfare was always doled out to American companies.
There are two issues with subsidies like this. One is that most companies will look for loopholes and try to take advantage of the deal, doing only the bare minimum to get everything they can. The other is that the government usually doesn't structure the deal such that the payouts are tied to meeting promises.
I'm under the impression that Nevada's deal with Tesla is a case where both issues were handled correctly, because Tesla really wanted to do everything they promised, so they had no reason to try to wiggle out, and because the deal was well-structured and tied to jobs.
I expect in most cases the people writing the deal for the government just don't have enough experience to put all the right teeth in them. I know from my experience in my town's government, we have sometimes failed to correctly specify details in agreements that have come back to bite us.
Corporate welfare like this has to stop. (Also, see Amazon for another example.)
and the Republican governor first met: a $3 billion state subsidy in return
If you're a Republican, be sure to chant the mantra:
Corporate welfare: GOOD
Individual welfare: BAD
These bug tech companies only GO to a place that is willing to give up so much that it eats up any benefit for the citizen. That particular race to the bottom is already pretty much at the bottom.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
...22% of those are under 18, so that leaves about 4.5 million. Figure at least half a million of those are too old or disabled to pay taxes, so that's about 4 million taxpayers. A $4.1 billion subsidy means Walker took over $1000 from each taxpayer and handed it to Foxconn. No wonder he doesn't want to talk about it.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Foxconn is nothing in comparison to the $100B boondoggle known as the high speed bullet train in California.
So are you saying that the FoxCon 4 billion is a really good thing that you support?
You whataboutism types don't realize that what you think is condemning the Liberal stuff that you hate is actually saying that it is good because you support the other side of your whatabout statements.
Awaiting your APK emulation.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I guess the sun ain't gonna shine any more for him.
...from the 38 Studios debacle. All you have to do is dangle the promise of providing theoretical jobs to a politician for their reelection efforts, and you'll get state budget dollars hanging off your hook in no time at all.
I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further.
Foxconn knows, once they have promised jobs, that the governor will try to salvage the deal to avoid being accused of chasing jobs out of Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, the governor screams: Look, over there, a unicorn...
Facts no longer matter...
2+2=5
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Base tax cuts on the number of jobs created (and of course the pay)
13K jobs would create additional state tax revenue from the newly employed.
Worse, neither politicians, journalists nor many public servants can do arithmetic. That is about $200,000 subsidy per job! There are not many small businesses that could not create jobs for a fraction of that!
3 billion USD for 13,000 jobs means taxpayers give 230,000 USD per created job. Let us hope the factory will remain active for a few few years .
Look, this probably will get modded to nothing, but Trump and Hillary both SUCK ASS. They are BOTH utterly corrupt and are both unfit to be president. Crap like pretending that either of them was going to be good for the country and the average citizen, and not the rich and corporations is just you being god damned retarded.
Trump sucks, Hilary sucks and our country is worse off because of both of them, and yes the third party candidates were pretty much ass too. Welcome to the bed of shit your 2 party first past the pole system has created for us all.
I just love people who expect responsibility and good-faith from a mega-corporation that thinks putting up suicide nets is a good response to non-existent worker morale. Hey... I might just have a bridge I can sell you...
So, how is this a boondoggle? Maybe if you've never worked in architecture, engineering or business you expect plans to remain like government projects and not evolve in concept or execution but otherwise you are just misrepresenting a normal process. Tech moves quickly, the legislature structured a deal that gives Foxconn very little unless they follow through. The potential economic multipliers are massive in this project. Think about a smart device maker. Right now you base yourself in California and then fly to your Asian production resources regularly. Since there is no overall infrastructure for domestic production you simply deal with all the problems. Now you have a plant like Foxconn in the US, then you have entire supply chains open up and move into the domestic environment. These suppliers will fight to supply new domestic manufacturers. It's a very nice problem and helps leverage the "ballpoint pen problem" found in China. It also helps the Midwest become attractive for data center providers. Base yourself in one area to build your web app and devices with a single engineering team that is highly integrated. (It also helps a Taiwanese company prepare for the potential "challenges" being in China, when they might need to nationalize some businesses or otherwise take charge of their island) If Wisconsin had spent $4 billion on a high speed rail then we'd likely have the few miles of track to nowhere like California and no economic growth to show for it. That would have been an awesome way to use money. Finally, a rant with some collected facts isn't persuasive. A few weeks ago their civil engineer didn't check quickly enough after a storm and footage of muddy water and an overturned silt fence was turned into a emergency.... that same weekend the sewerage district used its EPA approved permit right and dumped millions of gallons of "partially treated" sewage right into the Great Lakes a few miles away without a whisper from any of the enviromentalist pearl clutchers. Before that the water was going to be taken from the lake and used in the process and evaporate processes like cooling and that was an emergency, then the plant announced a close loop system and evaporative uses only and suddenly the critics moved onto the next thing.
The politicians actually cutting budgets and slashing regulation are the ones crippling the opportunities for graft... Yet, all these people who claim to be against graft are demanding I denounce those politicians and giving me one or two things where they actually were okay with government spending and shouting "corruption."
He cancelled the high speed choo-chop even after the massive penalty of you break these contracts were signed as Doyle packed up his stuff. So yeah, he has the balls.
Where was the previous republican boondoggle under Walker?
we were the only country with a functioning manufacturing base after WWII and the cold war meant companies were scared that if they invested overseas their assets would get seized by the big bad communists. Nixon showed everyone that was bullshit, the middle east gave us a way to keep our endless war machine going and that meant it was open season on offshoring and outsourcing.
You need manufacturing to have a strong economy because you need lots of workers all working together in the same place with the same interests. In other words, Unions. What made the US middle class grow was Unions fought (and died) to pry money out of the hands of the working class. You can't do that at a WalMart, there's just not enough of a concentration. Also, the ruling class got this Union busting down pat.
The one thing that did _not_ make the US a powerhouse is corporate welfare. We had all that during the Robber Baron era and Gilded Age in spades. There was money, but it all belonged to our aristocracy.
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and everyone knew it. There were klaxons going off day one. It was painfully obvious that Wisconsin was chosen because their gov't is bought off and hopelessly corrupt. It as a $4 billion dollar give away on a few hundred million in jobs. The other cities saw that and said "Hell No". Under Scott Walker though companies can get away with damn near anything.
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I seem to recall this sort of deal making news many times over the last ten years or so. Not all are at the national level importance that a $10 Billion dollar plant would be. Some, perhaps even most are along the lines of call centre chooses to establish in %Smalltown because that municipality offered a better tax break or subsidy than %otherSmallTown.
What's always bothered me about these deals is that the numbers always seem to be bigger than the actual taxes would have been. Clearly the regions making these deals expect to a) make it up on the taxes they collect from the residents and b) be able to get re-elected based on the "X brought %Num jobs to our area" campaign platform. It goes well beyond "we'll charge you no taxes for the next 10 years because you're bringing jobs to the region". And in most cases, the expected tax revenue from employed residents also seems to be lower than the total of the subsidy. Meanwhile, the municipality still has to provide all the usual municipal services for the company out of its own pocket. (fire, sewer, water, street cleaning, schools, police services, garbage collection etc)
Since the expected revenue is usually still less than the subsidies or tax breaks being given, it is effectively a case of the government paying to help the incumbents get re-elected.
The other problem is, as I said, businesses choosing where to go by effectively an auction of tax breaks. Which ever region offers the most, gets the nod. The government ends up committed to these contracts, but quite often the business is not. The company can, and often does, pack up and move as soon as they find another deal that is better by enough margin to cover the relocation costs. The bigger the company, the more likely they have a whole team devoted to finding the most pliable governments to bargain with and then doing their best to play one off the other. And they often do this re-iteratively. So first they look at the states with the lowest operating costs, then do the bargaining where states are effectively competing with each other until they have a clear winner. Then the company approaches a short list of municipal governments and tries the same game, hoping for even more breaks and incentives.
Governments, whether municipal, county or state level, tend not to do this. At the state level, instead of the governor or state legislatures doing the negotiations,(as in the article) they should have teams (departments, committees what-have-you). These teams should be working with a more cooperative attitude towards other teams in other towns/counties/states. If an elected official chooses to bargain directly, he or she should be able to convince the populace that they would get a better deal than the team of specialists they already employ. (hopefully then in addition to getting votes because they brought jobs in, they could also *lose* votes if the deal went sour for any reason)
The situation is analogous to companies moving in the chase for lower minimum wages and then unions cooperating so that the business ends up paying the same regardless of which region they are on. As far as I know, however, in most areas municipal governments are not allowed to engage in collective bargaining because that is what the state is supposed to be doing for them. And of course, local governments don't want the state bargaining on their collective behalf for a lot of reasons.
I think the biggest reason they don't do this though is that jobs are somewhat portable, as is the labour to fill those jobs, but political regions and the elected positions associated with them are not. If a big company chooses to build a big plant on the other side of your state, people will start migrating there. That's how little towns become big towns, and how towns become ghost towns after all.
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the GP's argument is that the money wasn't owed since taxes aren't really "owed" in the sense that you paid for something. Taxes are, to a lot of people, the gov't saying "mine!" to your money.
This is of course bullshit. Foxconn wants roads, and educated workforce, hospitals to treat injuries so that workforce can work, police and fire, water, even food is basically managed by our gov't (folks have no idea how deeply embedded in our food supply the gov't is, we don't leave that up to the markets and haven't since the 30s).
Better to say it this way: Foxconn wants to belong to the nicest and most exclusive club in the world: Civilization. And they don't want to pay their dues. They want you and me to pay them. Fuck Foxconn. I pay, so can they.
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and just give it away. The rest could just go into the general fund. I mean, if we're gonna waste money let's do it the most efficient way. Of course if we did that then 10% of that $3 billion wouldn't have made it into Scott Walker's reelection fund.
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Pass a federal law that taxes all corporate subsidies at 150% of the subsidy, to account for Hollywood Accounting. With the important exception being: companies can avoid the tax if the state or local entity giving the subsidy gets an ownership stake equivalent to the value of the subsidy.
Example: the Dallas Cowboys are valued at about $4 billion dollars. If Jerry Jones wants a billion-dollar stadium constructed for his team and doesn't want to pay for himself, he can choose between paying half that again in taxes, or giving 25% ownership of the team to the city of Dallas. This would allow state and local governments to work to encourage industry - but give them an ownership stake in return for asking taxpayers to engage in corporate welfare.
The unions targeted the rich, not the middle class (you rob banks because that's where the money is). The second war caused the worlds rich people to move their money to the USA (for safety) and they promptly took over. That is why the offshoring happened, because "Foreign" rich don't care about America. Corporate Wealfare is Socialism, but most Americans have no idea what socialism means. The Republican party has been moving steadily Left since Ronald Reagan, leaving the Democrats as America's only major right wing political party.
The politicians actually cutting budgets and slashing regulation are the ones crippling the opportunities for graft...
Ahh, the Librettarian shows up. You really need to name thes great politicians who have created honest via elimination of laws.
And that isn't too far off either. A true libertarian should take his views that business will be alway honest if only they didn't have to adhere to anything but making money, and translate that to humanity will all be law abiding and peaceful if we only eliminate all laws.
It is the exact same thing
And you will deny it - probably get pissed and start swearing at me like most libertarians do , but here's the proof.
Businesses are composed of people. So is the populous. If a business will always act ethically if only it has no constraints, the people will also always act ethically if they have no retraints on their activities.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Seriously, what are you on about? The Unions "targeted" the factory owners demanding higher wages for the workers.
The rich didn't move money anywhere. There was no money, we blew it the fuck up. It took the world decades to recover. In the meantime if anything was getting built it was getting built in America. By American workers.
And that last comment? Now you're just trolling. I mean, couldn't you just end your post with "Freedom is Slavery" or something?
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Picking a side is divisive. Stepping back and saying that the whole thing is broken is a start.
Who wants no constraints on business? Government graft is dependent on the ability to have pull or some other control over others. Less pull means less control means less graft opportunity. You have a small, open government with a $75 million and you can't steal a billion dollars from it. You create a dozen agencies, cloak them in secrecy, and give it a $12 billion dollar budget and watch a billion disappear from that budget and/or extra intake from the regulated siphoned off. Communism has the same issue, the powerful become rich. In capitalism the rich can become powerful which is why the country is a republic instead of a direct democracy.
I don't see how the zoo interchange expansion was a huge boondoggle. The road budget has been tight and doing two large projects at once without near Milwaukee with no support from Milwaukee does cause a lot of problems with outstate republicans. As far as Kimberly clark, they asked for state aid to affect their decision to stay, I don't see how that makes it a boondoggle for Walker. I'll admit WEDC was a waste of money, I don't like trust funds but I understand how they can encourage small business and help larger businesses in a competitive market. I understand they didn't meet their targets but $124 million isn't exactly a huge loss and boondoggle to me means something more than that. I understand how someone else may have a lower threshold. The state did blow $50 million alone in the termination clauses to contracts with Talgo in the hope that a bunch of last minute too poisonous to kill contracts would be enough to save the train.
The "deal" was dumb from the start even with all of its dubious promises. Now it promises to be much worse than even that. Wisconsin itself is pretty stupid compared to its neighbor Minnesota. Similar stories save for their political leadership. Just look at the differences that has made.
A true libertarian should take his views that business will be alway honest if only they didn't have to adhere to anything but making money, and translate that to humanity will all be law abiding and peaceful if we only eliminate all laws
That is as extremist as pushing liberals or conservatives to their extremes.
A true conservative should take his views that society must bow to God, our way is the only way, military service should be mandatory, and guns should be given to every citizen.
A true liberal should take his views that people can own nothing, businesses are evil, everyone should work for an all-seeing, all-powerful government that IS God, and we need to grind people into un-individual paste unless they are special snowflakes.
A true libertarian believes that all people have the right to life, liberty and happiness, freedom of choice, and voluntary association. That means state rights, not federal rights. Constitutionalism. Returning power to local communities. The way our founding fathers intended. Both sides of America believe in one thing: Government overreach to pursue their own agendas.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Spot on
You're not surprised because you're incapable of basic reading comprehension. If you were capable of basic reading comprehension, you'd realise that this deal involves both tax breaks and cash subsidies. You'd also know that tax subsidy is not a hyphenated word, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, eh?
A true libertarian believes that all people have the right to life, liberty and happiness, freedom of choice, and voluntary association.
Ah the old "no true libertarian" fallacy. It's also bullshit because you're tying up the notion of "libertarian" to the imagined political system of one particular country.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Libertarian ideology is a malign influence that promises people get to do what they want to others without blowback. It was made-for-hire by the Evangelicals who figure they can take their wealth with them when they go to the Great Litter Box in the Sky.
Ah, so they’ll be building 8k LCD panels with built in artificial intelligence and 5G wireless connections. What a load of shit.
The details of the deal were famously written on the back of a napkin when [Foxconn chairman Terry Gou] and the Republican governor first met
Whew! Thank goodness no Democrat governor has ever been involved in state spending boondoggles.
We can prevent this from ever happening again just by voting!
That's a pretty absolutist view and almost nobody fits fully into your definitions of what they should be. Philosophically I fit fairly well within the libertarian viewpoint but my pragmatism realizes that it can never work in the real world because too many people would be unable to make it work for them and would be left behind by such a system. I guess you can be callous enough to say tough beans and let the chips fall where they may but I'm not willing to see a society where people die because they can't afford the necessary medical treatment they need or the elderly wander the streets because they're too poor to afford a roof over their heads. No "ism" in its pure form will ever work because they all have inherent contradictions. Best to take the good parts from each to form a hybrid system that works somewhat for everybody.
Who wants no constraints on business?
A lot of people. A lot of people in here. I have some books by Libertarians who not only believe that there should be no regulations, but that businesses be exempt from any and all taxation
Government graft is dependent on the ability to have pull or some other control over others.
Siddown and listen. Remember this word. People
Government is not inherently corrupt. Business is not inherently corrupt. But a lot of people sure are.
There will be a ruling entity. Not possible to get away from that unless you maybe move to Alaska and live in the woods there.
At present, the ruling class in America is corporations. The government is corporatism. And the corporations provide the baksheesh, and their puppeticians do their bidding.
So considering that we are halfway to your ideal society we should see s large drop in corruption. But we don't. And since the puppeticians can now take dark money from out of the country, and since corporations are considered people, I find it difficult to give a lot of credence to your idea that regulations have created the corruption.
No, it isn't regulations and laws that create graft and corruption. It is the sociopathic and criminal tendencies of many humans. And they can work in wither guvmint or corporations.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You need manufacturing to have a strong economy because you need lots of workers all working together in the same place with the same interests. In other words, Unions. What made the US middle class grow was Unions fought (and died) to pry money out of the hands of the working class. You can't do that at a WalMart, there's just not enough of a concentration. Also, the ruling class got this Union busting down pat.
You have the story wrong. The US HAS manufacturing. It never left despite what you might hear from the uninformed. The US manufacturing sector is over $3 TRILLION annually which puts us neck and neck with China for the largest manufacturing sector in the world. By itself the US manufacturing sector would be one the fifth largest economy in the world - larger than the UK and just behind Germany.
What has changed since WWII is our cost of labor and the rest of the world rebuilt. US labor today is among the most expensive in the world. As a result US manufacturing HAS to focus on capital intensive products instead of labor intensive ones. It is literally impossible for US companies to compete on labor prices. 70 years ago US labor costs were a lot closer to the global mean AND the rest of the world was recovering from WWII. Now China has a LOT of labor and simple supply and demand means that having a lot of something means it will cost less and so their labor costs less than ours because they have an abundance of it. QED products that are sensitive to manufacturing cost of labor will inevitably migrate to locations with lower labor costs. Products not so sensitive to labor costs will go to places with low capital costs. The US has the lowest cost of capital in the world currently so we get the capital intensive products instead of the labor intensive ones. In plain english we make cars and airplanes and don't make Happy Meal toys and the cheap crap you buy in Walmart.
As for unions, basically unions were TOO successful. They priced themselves out of the market for labor intensive manufacturing in a global market. And for capital intensive manufacturing there isn't as much need for unions because the pay rates are much higher and there is a lot of automation. As a result when politicians promise to bring back manufacturing jobs they are literally promising the impossible. The only way the US will get back labor intensive manufacturing on a large scale is for the cost of US labor to fall back towards the global mean. This means paying US workers MUCH less then they currently demand. Otherwise the only alternative is to automate the work which is what capital intensive manufacturing does. So pick your poison - much lower paying jobs OR automation.
Ironically when people argue against immigration in our country, they are arguing against the only thing that will allow our demographics to compete with China and India. China has 4 people for every 1 in the US and a lot of those people are very smart and hard working. Without immigrants (both skilled and unskilled), the US will eventually lose that fight just from sheer numbers. China has more labor that costs less AND a lot of very smart high end labor too. Doesn't mean the US will become some backwater but without welcoming the best and brightest into our country with open arms we don't have a prayer of keeping up in the long run.
No, that's not quite it, it's more:
A true libertarian believes that all rich people have the right to life, liberty and happiness, freedom of choice, and voluntary association. People who aren't rich should try to find a way to be rich, which will be hard because of the lack of those rights, or else suck it up and do whatever the rich people tell them to.
The problem is that that pesky government is necessary if you really want people to have freedom of choice and voluntary association (not to mention liberty and life) for everyone, no matter how poor. And libertarians generally find it very, very, hard to wrap their minds around that. If libertarians generally supported state supported healthcare (right to life), employee rights (choice, association), etc, then I'd agree with you, but they tend not to.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
A true libertarian believes that all people have the right to life, liberty and happiness, freedom of choice, and voluntary association.
Ah the old "no true libertarian" fallacy. It's also bullshit because you're tying up the notion of "libertarian" to the imagined political system of one particular country.
Well to be precise, in the discussion, the part that I wrote was was a reductio ad absurdum. His was the NTL response.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Libertarian ideology is a malign influence that promises people get to do what they want to others without blowback. It was made-for-hire by the Evangelicals who figure they can take their wealth with them when they go to the Great Litter Box in the Sky.
The problem with libertarian ideology is like all 'ologys, it has a fatal flaw. In the case of Libertarians, the flaw is that all people are inherently honest, and will not take advantage of others.
We'll ignore for a moment the unholy cognitive dissonance in how they manage to take greed and try to marry it to libertarianism.
But that greed underpinning of capitalism is a good example of Libertarianism's fatal flaw.
It is undeniable that greed exists, we all have some. But there are some who are endowed with greed to a pathological level. People have killed for greed. and as a driver for capitalism, unfettered extreme greed plus drive plus little to no constraints makes for hellava mess.
We are already in a corporatism run country. The same people who run the country already tell us that they cannot run the country with the regulations w have now.
Any 'ism needs some brakes to keep it from destroying itself. Capitalism can work pretty well if it has enough constraints to keep it from turning into fascism. Once that happens, its popcorn time, as the self destruct sequence starts.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
A true libertarian should take his views that business will be alway honest if only they didn't have to adhere to anything but making money, and translate that to humanity will all be law abiding and peaceful if we only eliminate all laws
That is as extremist as pushing liberals or conservatives to their extremes.
Now, you have to play correctly and invoke No True Scotsman. Just kidding.
The point wasn't to be extreme, but perform a reductio ad absurdum. It should be obvious that a complete lack of regulations would approximate a complete lack of laws, and both result in chaos.
But don't for a minute think that there are not people who will take advantage of people who do believe that regulations are bad for their own and possibly corrupt goals.
But name me a regulation, and I can find a lot of people that think it is bad.
Therein lies the rub. Because at some point, the lack of regulation becomes a regulation.
Let's take one you likely hate. Businesses are not allowed to discriminate based on things like race, creed, sexual preference and some other stuff. That is a regulation. You can't refuse to rent an apartment because someone is a Southern Baptist, and you don't like Southern baptists.
Now let's take something like firearms. You are not allowed to prevent someone showing up at a gun show and selling AR-15's out of he trunk of his car. or not sell a person a weapon because of mental status (this isn't pro or con, merely showing how lack of regulation can be regulation)
Confusing? Oh hell yeah. This is the shit that humans do.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That's a pretty absolutist view and almost nobody fits fully into your definitions of what they should be.
Not certain who you were responding to, but my definition of a libertarian was a reductio ad absurdum. The exposure of an ideology and it's fatal flaws.
Philosophically I fit fairly well within the libertarian viewpoint but my pragmatism realizes that it can never work in the real world because too many people would be unable to make it work for them and would be left behind by such a system.
Exactly. And others will profit off those people being left behind.
I guess you can be callous enough to say tough beans and let the chips fall where they may but I'm not willing to see a society where people die because they can't afford the necessary medical treatment they need or the elderly wander the streets because they're too poor to afford a roof over their heads.
The big problem when people adopt that "tough shit cupcake" approach is that when there is a increasingly extreme imbalance of resources as has been happening, eventually those who are left out will revolt. That is a self limiting aspect.
No "ism" in its pure form will ever work because they all have inherent contradictions. Best to take the good parts from each to form a hybrid system that works somewhat for everybody.
Exactly. I'm a pragmatic. I like to take things that work. Trickle down theory will not work. Gender as a social construct will not work. Capitalism works with some brakes. Social programs work with some brakes and incentives. But there are too few of us these days.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I thought I was responding to Notabadguy up above but I may have messed up and posted under you. If so, sorry.
This is the same state whose refused to pay for the Talgo trains they agreed to have built for Amtrak lines in their state. Depending on whom you ask it was either for purely political reasons, financial reasons, both, or neither.
The completed trains were never paid for per prior agreement with the State of Wisconsin. They have been sitting, ready-to-use, waiting for a buyer for years now.
Wisconsin thinks they can reneg without negative consequences to them because Talgo is not an American company.
Kriston
I thought I was responding to Notabadguy up above but I may have messed up and posted under you. If so, sorry.
No problem, I'm enjoying this whole discussion.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Automation is destroying those jobs. Manufacturing still happens in the US, but we'll lose most of the last manufacturing jobs anyway since automation is currently improving rapidly. It's already taken most of the manufacturing jobs, it will take most of the rest in short order.
In some cases that it true. In some cases it is not. People here tend to hugely misunderstand what automation can and cannot do and the costs involved. Manufacturing in the US is going to be a lot like farming in the sense that productivity is going to continue to increase but head counts will be an increasingly smaller percentage of the total workforce. This is NOT a bad thing. It just means that economic value will come from other sectors of the economy. A lot of manufacturing jobs are boring assembly jobs that are a huge waste of human capital. China will be doing these low skill jobs longer than the US because their labor costs less but eventually they will have the same problem if they want to increase their per-capita standard of living.
Sure, but we only need the best and the brightest. We don't need the masses of asses.
You don't get to pick and choose if you actually want the best and brightest. There is no way to know in advance who the best and brightest immigrants are. Not with any reliability. Good luck picking the next Elon Musk or Steve Jobs (immigrant and child of immigrant) out of a crowd. You are playing a numbers game. You bring in a lot of immigrants in the (reasonable) hope that some of them will be above average performers. Children of poor and uneducated immigrants often do very well. Immigrants often are among our best performing entrepreneurs but you'll have no way to reliably know which ones they are in advance. Furthermore we still need LOTS of low skilled people to do important but low paying jobs. Our agriculture industry is a world leader but a critical factor in that is having access to abundant low skilled labor. Putting up fences (literal or figurative) to immigrants will just make it that much harder to compete with China in the long run. We're 5% of the global population but something around 15-20% of global GDP. China has 20% of the global population and is catching up fast on GDP. If we don't bring in as much talent as we can get our hands on (no matter where it was born) the results of that competition are a predictable as a sunrise tomorrow. (spoilers: we lose without those "masses of asses")
Consequently, these immigration policies won't much affect America's performance.
You could not be more wrong. Our immigration policies will have a HUGE impact on America's performance in the future.
There's all sorts of prep work going on. They're condemning people's homes and land. They're tearing up all the roads and traffic is hell. Oh yeah, my property tax bill jumped up this year.
At about the same time Walker was making his deal, Foxconn was laying off workers in Taiwan at an LCD plant because they were being replaced by robots. Taiwanese people earn far less than US people. Why would they hire expensive US workers when they're replacing cheaper Taiwanese workers with robots?
Walker is running for reelection but doesn't talk about Foxconn. Hmmmm.
Huh? The Foxconn plant is a boondoggle. The Calif bullet train is a boondoggle. The train is a boondoggle 10x bigger than the Foxconn boondoggle. That doesn't make the Foxconn boondoggle ok. It just shows that Calif can run with the best of them when it comes to boondoggles, and that boondoggling is a favorite feature of all political parties.
Sorry, but mentioning Whatever is happening in California has exactly zero noth8ing nada to do with Wisconsin, unless you have an agenda that somehow the California situation excuses th eWisconsin situation.
It is the fatal flaw of whataboutism. While you are trying to show that hypocracy excuses one, it merely says that both situations are okay.
Whataboutists do not get that flaw in their whataboutism.
You hesar that your chosen people do something wrong, and you cannot accept that. So instead of saying What a crock of bullshit, you decide that an attack on your enemies in California is exhonerating your good friends in Wisconsin, and since the amount in Wisconsin is less, your friends are innocent because it is less.
Illogical arguments 101, but widely accepted by a lot of people. For a while.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Multiple Republicans were caught on film saying they would obstruct everything Obama did just to hurt him, even if it hurt the economy. A few got caught saying they would intentionally hurt America because it would hurt Obama and the Dems more. That's literally terrorism (causing fear and suffering for political gain). But nobody outside of the extreme left press ever called them out on it.
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