There's an NPR podcast (I will try to recall a link) on how the local town / county government was willingly duped into being the gullible country folk who would agree to give Foxconn such huge subsidies for the promise of jobs. And how some more cautious citizens really fought against the secrecy being applied to the whole deal by the town council.
Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself,
here I am, a country-simple and inexperienced elected official, who's being presented with a huge fantasy of a deal (well beyond my order of magnitude experience), and being asked to keep this secret from the press and constituents.
Is it likely that I'm such a good negotiator and master of finances and state incentives and my town is so special, that the huge company I'm dealing with (with dozens of analysts) is asking me to keep it secret because they're afraid of how they're getting screwed? Or maybe the other way around?
Those town council members and mayor got taken for the ride of their lives by their gullibility and desire for national politicians to chalk up a headline, which of course, never materialized.
Edit: oh, I see someone has just posted the Reply-
all podcast link to that story, thanks!
> Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself, here I am, a country-simple and inexperienced elected official
No one thinks of themselves as "country-simple". They certainly don't throw hope for their community out the window because they're too "country-simple" to understand that it's a lie.
Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself, here I am, an educated tech enthusiast, who's being presented with a decision and self-delusion I can't empathize with. Is it likely that my narrow experience can be applied in judgment of all other people? Or maybe I have never known the desperation of living in a dying region?
> Or maybe I have never known the desperation of living in a dying region?
I'll bite.
The first thing I would do in a desperate situation in a position of power in a dying region is be radically open to feedback and transparent with my own ideas.
A desperate situation is no room for ego or selfishness.
You involve the community, and you try to listen to everyone, and if an opportunity presents itself that is above your paygrade you try to hope that the COLLECTIVE wisdom of multiple people with different strengths might somehow help offset your power imbalance.
Now, listen to the podcast that interviews this inexperienced elected official and ask yourself if he did anything of the sort, or if he just saw an opportunity to enrich and embiggen himself: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/wbhjwd
> The first thing I would do in a desperate situation in a position of power in a dying region is be radically open to feedback and transparent with my own ideas.
I'm glad that people like you exist, but it is extremely rare that they are elected or stay in office.
It's common for intellectual humility to be perceived as incompetence or weak leadership. "I don't know what to do, but I'm open to hearing your ideas!" is not confidence-inspiring. Admitting to mistakes can be the same.
> You involve the community, and you try to listen to everyone
Similar to the above, this can be seen as weakness. Look at the criticism of Jack Dorsey and Twitter. People mock him for this behavior instead of making unilateral decisions with incomplete evidence.
> if an opportunity presents itself that is above your paygrade
Again, not something a normal human in a leadership position often thinks. You don't think to yourself, "Wow, I'm just not smart enough to understand a large company promising something." Especially in the US, where people trust the legal system to force the other party to make good on its promises.
> he just saw an opportunity to enrich and embiggen himself
I agree that he did this. He wasn't the only person who saw this opportunity. It's also how democracy is supposed to work: someone wins a popularity contest and then wants to win it again.
The incentives this creates are sometimes perverse. You do stupid things that sound good just because they sound good. Can you imagine being an official brave enough to say they don't think Foxconn would follow through? No one would want to vote for you.
We've seen this repeatedly with Trump: he promises impossible things like the return of the coal industry and manufacturing jobs. Some of his rivals in the Republican Party did not promise this, and they were nowhere near as popular as him.
> It's common for intellectual humility to be perceived as incompetence or weak leadership. "I don't know what to do, but I'm open to hearing your ideas!" is not confidence-inspiring. Admitting to mistakes can be the same.
I think this is a failing of our constantly-broadcasting news cycle and incorrect belief about what leaders should be. Yes, leaders should help their people be confident. But we also need to stop putting expectations on leaders that they know the answer at every minute or communication. Otherwise we incentivize them to put out incorrect information or decisions for fear of being seen as weak.
I also have a feeling that our instant "like" culture, mass mobilization of (generally uninformed) public opinion, and belief that democracy to the lowest level is not the right way to manage situations that require contemplative expertise and specialized knowledge.
Of course not. But this is a story of a small town government negotiating with a multibillion-dollar company. They kept negotiations secret. They didn’t seem to hire best-in-class bankers nor lawyers.
I understand the desperation. But stupid doesn’t become less stupid because it was dumb for the right reasons. Best case, they deluded themselves into believing they found a golden goose. That’s incompetent.
> But stupid doesn’t become less stupid because it was dumb for the right reasons.
I think you misunderstood my post.
I wasn't saying that what they did wasn't stupid. It was. The post I was replying to implied the following in a condescending way:
1) the poster is not "simple" enough to be conned by a massive corporation
2) all people living in rural areas are "simple"
3) all people living in rural areas should know that they are simple and never aspire to anything that we big-city people do because it is beyond their cognitive abilities
4) doing something that will probably fail (trusting Foxconn, in this case) is never a rational decision
Regarding #4, it's easy to say that Foxconn is 100% untrustworthy, but we all know that mostly in hindsight. Even if they had a 1% chance of coming through, a region with a dying economy might actually be rational to throw away an enormous amount of money. If it's their only hope, it would be rational to throw away all of their money.
> people living in rural areas should know that they are simple
Countermeasures to this stereotype can be equally damaging. It may have played into Foxconn’s advantage here.
“We don’t need an expensive coastal banker telling us what to do” is reasonable if everyone is out to screw small timers.
> a region with a dying economy might actually be rational to throw away an enormous amount of money
This wasn’t money they had. It was taxpayers’ future money. Money that could have financed education or infrastructure or a move to another city. This mindset is only rational if staying in place has infinite utility, not only for the region’s present residents, but its future ones too.
Just to jump in here to add some additional comments:
* Mount Pleasant WI is not rural (city-data.com says 95% urban). It lies on I94 just 1hr 15min from Chicago and 30min from Milwaukee.
* I doubt Mount Pleasant WI is dying.
If I remember, the deal was pretty opaque and many details were murky. I find it more likely the local officials were incentivized somehow as opposed to sheer incompetence.
Additionally, it should be noted that the WI governor (Scott Walker) who orchestrated this deal lost his re-election bid shortly after this. While there was always uncertainty about Foxconn actually following through, the lack of Walker (and thus probably Trump) basically sealed the deal.
I think you're right. I was responding to someone saying they are "country" people.
> I doubt Mount Pleasant WI is dying.
Milwaukee's metro area (which includes Mount Pleasant and Racine, the places most closely tied to Foxconn's scam) has seen a massive decline in manufacturing:
> "The Great Recession hit Milwaukee’s manufacturing industry especially hard, and the city continues to have discomfiting employment statistics..."[1].
Broad economic numbers aren't great for Racine County as far as I can tell. They're worse than the US overall. Even if they were great, we know from examples across the US that declining blue-collar jobs may be especially painful for the non-urban electorate -- people who influence the local officials who believe the wishful nonsense Foxconn peddles.
> "'This area desperately needs the investment. There's nothing here anymore,' said Tom Johnston, a 54-year-old veteran of [Racine's] once-vaunted manufacturing sector."[2]
Oh, I agree with your post and appreciate you adding real substance to this thread. I'd say the area's in "decline" as opposed to "dying" but that may be splitting hairs. I do think "dying" implies that there's no hope for revival. Like it's some remote coal town that lives or dies by that single industry. Sure yeah, the manufacturing industry is not doing well here and Racine has fared particularly poorly. That made Mount Pleasant vulnerable to Foxconn but is only one part of the story. There's a lot of political nuance when it comes to Wisconsin and Milwaukee. This deal wasn't getting done without the state government backing it no matter how naive or desperate one municipality was. My point is that it's far more likely corruption or even just normal political incentives drove this deal as opposed to stupidity.
"dying" is hyperbole. The manufacturing sector has been on decline for 40 years but other sectors are starting to build up. The downtown core has seen a boom in revitalization, particularly these past 5 years. There's a push for tech and startups.
It's basically in the same metro area as Chicago. Would you say Chicago's dying? It may have declined (or not grown as fast as other US cities) lately but "dying" seems like hyperbole, no?
That's not that uncommon. We've had so many examples in Lithuania,which has less people than suburbs in New York,where some local functionaries thought that large US companies are nice and easy to deal with just to end up with the crappiest deals ever.Some were literally salivating from the fact that a few hot shots from the US will visit their god's forgotten town. One can build any experience, including dealing with multinationals, however it usually comes with very expensive lessons.
> They didn’t seem to hire best-in-class bankers nor lawyers.
Even if they had, is it likely that those people would have told them it wasn't a good deal? My sense is that everyone on the inside thought this was a sweetheart of a deal and were already counting their eggs. And if recent history is any guide, that group of people might very well be the least concerned about whether truth was being conveyed, or care to look deeper into the matter than their own pocketbooks.
Wisconsin is hardly a dying region. It's a very quiet biotech (UW is/ was the largest patent holder in the world mostly in bio, pharma and tech), software (Epic, redox, SwanLeap) and manufacturing (Trek, Kohler, Georgia Pacific, Stryker medical, Mercury Marine) powerhouse.
Though the smaller towns in the state are more dependant on lower yield industries.
What were they going to build with these displays? None of the PR identified what the actual business case was. The automotive industry is the only large domestic consumer of these parts. Otherwise they'd have to ship them back to SZ.
This reminds me of the stories that come out regarding World Cup and Olympics bids, where countries spend exorbitant amounts of money to build to infrastructure to host the games, with the promise that the long term impact of the projects are positive, only to find much of the infrastructure abandoned after the event ends. Many of the Athens 2004 events sites are now popular “abandoned porn” spots.[0]
I remember Brazil built huge stadiums for the World Cup and Olympics banking on their local teams moving into them, which wound up not happening because the teams didn’t like the lease terms. A $900M stadium became a bus garage[1]
Olympics is a once in a lifetime opportunity for a tiny groups of people in those countries ( contractors, politicians, all sorts of middle men,etc). The country decides to open money tap and everyone goes bananas. There are no long term planning (we'll sort it after the games), everything is built just to show we are better than the country before us and etc.. In most cases it's the ultimate Bentley parked just outside crumbling council estate...
The Olympics are actually significantly different than the corruption perpetrated by the cavalcade of asshats that were Governor Walker's cronies.
I mean, they actually hold an Olympics. It's not clear to me that anything meaningful will happen out in Mt Pleasant Wi. Not even anything worth the 1 billion we've already spent, and that's forgetting about what we're on the hook for if something does happen. It's put a lot of us in wisconsin in the awkward position of hoping everything there completely fails, so we can get out with just the losses we've already taken.
I attended a juggling convention at a former Olympic venue in Athens, which was in turn a hangar for their former airport. They didn't even have hot water for the showers.
Same thing happened in Sochi where everything has been abandoned and the cost to the taxpayers has been exorbitant:
A year after the $51 billion Winter Olympics, many of the key facilities built for Vladimir Putin's extravaganza have been barely been used.
While the pistes up the mountains are now often packed with skiers - the collapsing rouble means Russians have switched from the likes of Courchevel to the Caucasus - many of the key sites of the games appear to have little prospect of being filled again.
He complained that the Bolshoy Ice Dome - costing the Russian taxpayer £197 million - requires a budget of £9,900 a day to maintain, 'mainly for taking care of the ice'.
A company which owns some of the key facilities - hardly used since the games - and is close to the regional authorities, is on the very edge of bankruptcy, he reported, citing Russia's leading business newspaper Kommersant.
Sochi went from being a dump to being a somewhat popular vacation destination for middle class people.
There's room for argument on whether federal funds should have been used to make Sochi richer and nicer, but the article as written is basically fake news.
While I don't doubt that a Daily Mail article is full of lies, what you're saying (Sochi is a more popular and beautiful holiday destination) and what the gp is saying (many of the facilities are derelict) is hardly mutually exclusive.
> If only every "country-simple" had a wise Californian
Or quite literally any banker or lawyer who has negotiated such deals before.
The person on the company’s side has done this dozens of times. The person negotiating for the city has not. At some point, that asymmetry should become apparent.
The deal wasn’t done in good faith. It made as much sense as digging dirt with golden shovels. Walker, Trump and Ryan didn’t need lawyers or bankers. They needed the confidence of grandma and grandpa.
I wouldn’t pay a cent. Foxconn isn’t delivering on its promise. Put the money towards something that will matter. UW funding cuts should be reversed. Build some infrastructure (e.g. fiber, bike trails, high speed rail, solar and wind) and get Wisconsin moving forward.
As big of a bungle as Foxconn was/is, everyone in California knows that Prop 13 has been a disaster of far larger proportion, and no one does anything about it.
I somewhat agree with this one. Not to shit on democracy cause it has its benefits but I've definitely noticed that often times elected officials do seem extraordinarily simple and at times downright not very bright or competent (didn't Sacha Cohen get some republican lawmaker to pull down his pants and shout the n word) . I feel that's the risk when you choose leaders based on a popularity contest but hey, nothings perfect.
I think you should probably check your ego. There is no reason these "country-simple" city counselors couldn't be much smarter and more savvy than you or I.
While true in the general case and your comment needed to be made, the specific city counselors in question are real pieces of work. I don't think country simple is the right phrase, maybe incompetent assholes.
For example, the fire chief ran an anonymous blog commenting on city council happenings (exposed years later when his WordPress install errored and exposed his username). For years he anonymously accused a citizen who opposed the Foxconn project of sleeping with opposition friendly city council members, and then variously:
mentally ill, hypocrite, dingbat, loser, village bully, liar, vile, a joke, an
embarrassment, illiterate, a dope, a pimp, deceitful, evil, smelly, hateful, revengeful,
crazy, nut job, embarrassing, profane, psycho, stupid, lowlife, vengeful, immoral, racist,
witch, snake lady, freakshow, bitter, dumb, and much, much more
The sad thing is that if people have the self-awareness to ask themselves these questions, they're already ahead of the game. People can't remind themselves to be self-aware and skeptical like that if they're not already. Unfortunately, they either are or they aren't.
Gullible to an extent, but I didn't come away with the impression that those officials were acting in good faith.
If you truly believe what you're doing is good for your community, you don't typically shroud the entire process in secrecy, suppress dissent, and only make a public announcement once the deal is practically set in stone.
I was so angry listening to all those delusional council members who thought that suddenly their town could be silicon valley. Nothing wrong with thinking big, but to reasonably believe that you could start many multi billion dollar tech companies just with one plant is just loony.
It left me at the end of the episode thinking, foxconn came in like a fox and conned everyone involved.
There's a very good Russian film called The Twelve Chairs- an adaptation of a book with the same title.There,the main character, a professional con artist,ends up in a small town, in a middle of nowhere. In a matter of days,he convinces the entire town that because of chess games some of the residents often play,they could turn the town into the world capital of chess.They will host international tournaments, conferences,and etc.The Soviet government will build a rail link directly to Moscow and it will ultimately become a super city in no time. The film is 50 years old,but looks like the today's world hasn't changed that much...
Edit: ah, apparently that's a part of the novel, which if it's in the Mel Brooks film, I don't recall: "bamboozling a village chess club with promises of an international tournament."
It's the same story- I'll need to watch this version to compare the adaptations. The Russian adaptation is unique in a few ways:
1) I'm not sure how,but in times of heavy propaganda and censorship, these films got green light.The concepts they show were absolutely crazy at the time.I never really understood how soviet machine allowed this to be made to start with.
2) The film became an absolute cultural phenomenon that influenced generations. Some of the phrases used by lead characters continue to be used in wider context even today( I.e. "why do you need money? You've got no imagination!)
https://youtu.be/P8t2dbJ7YXY (1:44:00 the scene where they arrive to the town of gullibles.There's English subtitles option)
Wow. This story was mind blowing. I don't understand how a small town can borrow against a state's future tax earnings? Why are Wisconsin's taxpayers on the hook for the stupid mistakes of these council members? Also the story doesn't make this clear. How are the incentive payments made to Foxconn? I'm certain that it's not just a direct transfer of tax dollars from the city/state to Foxconn (?).
I can understand the naivete of Americans on the receiving end of this, like Walker or the president of the town for just being lured in by the idea "investment => profit". Foxconn however is obviously much more sophisticated and the story alludes to how manufacturing is cheaper in Asia; so the premise of why they'd invest in a plant here doesn't make much sense. Although it flirts with answering this question I still don't have a clear answer. It sounds like they received tax incentives, which, maybe were incentive enough for production demand that they at some point may have? It just doesn't make sense to me if they weren't planning on actually hiring 13,000 workers, what's the incentive? Tax breaks do you no good if you generate no revenue.
> "I don't understand how a small town can borrow against a state's future tax earnings?"
states are the canonical units of governance in the US. towns/cities have no budget or power on their own. that's all delegated from the state, analogous to allowing VP's access to their company's credit line. since it's (literally) a ward of the state, the responsibility for debts also fall on the state in cases of insolvency of the municipality.
note that state and local muni bonds are the same thing--borrowing against a state's future tax earnings (often at great cost).
Corruption works the same everywhere and America isn't an exception. Remember a film with Travolta,where he plays a lawyer trying to get this massive company on a hook for water poisoning. The very people living in the town and drinking the same water were the ones polluting it.Ffs, it's like I go to work, pour poison into a water well just to return home and open a tap to fill up a glass and then pass it on to my children. And all this for probably a few grand more a year.People are cheap
Corruption isn't the same everywhere, and America is an exception in the western world (along with italy).
It is partly caused by the (1) extreme levels of devolution; (2) politicisation of every level of public life (eg., even judges are elected); (3) barriers to removal of elected people from office.
Kind of a perfect storm: elect everything, make being directly elected sacred, and nearly impossible to undo.
In the UK almost everything is appointed, including the prime minister who is not directly elected to the office. The PM is then quite often removed from office, along with the whole class of unelected civil servants whose entire careers are spent working for the government regardless of who is in office.
The huge levels of institutional professionalisation this allows basically makes corruption nearly impossible.
> perceived levels of public sector corruption, according to experts and business people.
A major issue in corruption research is this "perception" point -- this method relativizes the definition, at best, and largely renders it useless.
The issue here is that Americans mostly think of corruption in terms of bribes, etc. rather than the "abuse of public trust".
eg., a judge decides to appoint a guardian with a conflict of interest to manage the estate of a elder person -- is that judge corrupt?
In the UK most people would say, "yes". In the US, "no". That while his action may not be the best / moral / right, etc. it's not seen as an abuse of the office -- he has the power to decide and therefore his decision isn't corrupt.
I think this view comes from the written-constitution approach to defining the powers of offices. In the UK many powers are held by convention and only under the assumption that they are being used justly -- an extra legal criterion.
It's very hard to measure corruption due to these issues. Personally I'd say most senior office holders appointed by trump are corrupt -- from the EPA to the FCC, to the consumer protection bureau. I think many people in the UK would agree: these appointees deliberately undermine the operation of these agencies -- and are therefore abusing the public trust.
(some) Americans however would see frustrating good government as a valid way to govern.
Under this "public trust" definition, corruption in america is routine and common place. From Sheriffs, to the police, to municipal and national executives. The trust placed in the office to execute it on behalf of the people is routinely abused.
Distinguish here: congress deciding not to have a CPB (, EPA, etc.) with an executive appointment to execute the mission of the CPB on behalf of the public.
I lived in Mount Pleasant, WI from 2005 to 2015, a few miles away from the Foxconn factory. Some of these comments are honestly extremely disappointing.
* Mount Pleasant is not some backwards county where people are "country-simple" (?), most people live in urban/sububurban areas with farmland quickly being eaten up for new construction. Milwaukee is 30 minutes away. Chicago is just over an hour.
* The economy of Mount Pleasant is not dying. Where you got that from is beyound me.
I always thought it was weird that Wisconsin was a swing state. They seem like they would always be red, tons or manufacturing and farms, not a lot of big cities. But, it seems like Wisconsin Republicans are always making the national news for corruption, the Foxconn plant, allowing a vote in the middle of a pandemic for a minor Republican gain, and when Scott Walker lost his governor seat he removed a lot of power from the governor so, the Democrat coming in couldn't do as much. I know there are good and bad people on both sides, but Wisconsin Republicans have some work to do.
Wisconsin is one of the most segregated and polarized states in the country. It's split between pure blue Milwaukee and it's pure red suburbs (the "WOW" counties).
It's also one of the more corrupt states. From Scott Walker level public theft, to a DA that actually exchanged light charges on drug gangs for charity donations. (Of course, all of the "donations" had to go to "charities" run by his friends in his municipality. That way he could make sure the money went to help "the children".)
What can I say? Wisconsin is crazy bad. But it's home for me.
Wisconsin is a swing state for votes that can't be gerrymandered, i.e., the governor, US senate, and president. It's strongly republican for the two houses of the legislature and the state supreme court.
Yes, I read that 53% of voters voted for Democratic legislative candidates but Democrats only hold 36% of seats in the legislature.
Republicans have discovered how to "hack" democracy. I think it's pretty clear both sides have engaged in some pretty egregious gerrymandering in different parts of the country, but only Republicans have become so hostile to allowing people to actually vote. And while both parties' positions on voter laws may be due to self-interest (marginal voters are more likely to vote Democratic, so barriers to voting are more likely to negatively affect Democrats) it doesn't really matter - the Republican position of things like shortening early voting, closing tons of polling places in spots like university towns, forcing a vote during a pandemic is bad for democracy.
The core Wisconsin Democratic constituencies (blacks, public employees, and college students) are very concentrated geographically. Any reasonably compact districting is going to produce the same results.
This is just blatantly false. The gerrymandering in Wisconsin was what was taken to the Supreme Court in the political gerrymandering case, precisely because it heavily favored Republicans.
The Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs (not surprisingly, 5-4 I might add), but in the grounds that the federal courts didn't have the power to intervene in cases of political gerrymandering, but no one really debated that the Wisconsin maps heavily favored Republicans over what a more normal, compact map would produce.
Wisconsin is just corrupt. You wouldn't believe the geometric gymnastics they jump through to try to get districts that will always vote liberal or conservative. Districting maps look like something from mc escher.
Those groups are also concentrated in places that have higher population density, hence more representatives. The only way to prove that districting produces fair and unbiased results is to have it happen in a fair and open fashion.
One additional thing to add. I live in Wisconsin, and know a lot of people inside and outside of the cities. It's a misconception that rural whites are exclusively red. Sure, there are reliable "base" groups, but also a huge swath of people throughout the state who are generally swing-y. For instance I know farmers and "white working class" people who are staunch liberals.
Progressivism has historically had a strong bulwark in Wisconsin due to the legacy of Bob La Follette and the “Wisconsin Idea” [0]. The Republican Party was founded in Wisconsin (in Ripon) though it shares, of course, very little other than the name with the modern Republican Party.
While neither the most racially diverse nor tolerant of places, the upper Midwest still had a strong Northern/Union identity when I was growing up there a few decades ago. Folks are socially and fiscally conservative, but that cultural identity coming out of the Civil War, the Grange, then the New Deal, and strong union membership post-WWII distinguish the region as purple, in contrast to the solid red of the South (which was formerly solid blue decades ago, in the Dixiecrat era, as no one wanted to vote for the party of Lincoln).
This is pretty accurate. Up here in Wisconsin, I'd definitely say we're the "True Believers" in the whole Union side of the civil war thing. Labor unions are also not viewed quite as negatively up here.
Never really thought about all that until you mentioned it. When you grow up in it you don't really see it unless someone points it out to you.
Like Iowa, Northern Illinois and Minnesota, Wisconsin was historically pretty centrist and humanitarian. It's only recently that the rural areas have swung to the right.
The Revolutions Podcast also introduced me to the history of the Forty-Eighters, who had a tremendous impact on the politics of the Upper Midwest. Particularly in Wisconsin. And that's on top of a substrate of communitarian values brought by the original European settlers pushed westward from Massachusetts.
It's really a post-millennial phenomenon that the politics are now dominated by a pan-US urban-rural divide.
The justice system here did get it wrong originally and then got him for a crime he for sure did commit.
There was no need for the police to frame him. He was a known lifelong criminal and the running joke with LE was that he will get arrested again because he is that stupid.
If law enforcement there was bad enough to get the first rape charge wrong, and had a lot to lose reputation-wise from Avery, what makes you think they would be incapable of framing him? What pieces of evidence make you so sure he committed a murder?
I'm not saying the documentary was completely without bias in his favor, but there were inconsistencies that would give the most casual observer pause.
Wisconsin is, outside of Madison and Milwaukee socially very conservative. Those same social conservatives were union Democrats. Unions got hit hard the last 30 years, so those union dems are now voting their conservative social feelings. It will only get more red over time.
This is good reporting. I think it's pretty obvious the sole (ok, maybe not sole, but certainly 90%+ purpose) of these "innovation centers" was political show, on both Foxconn's and the US politicians' side.
They are -20C until you drop a bunch of heat into them. Air works well because it's a fluid. And even as a fluid it's completely ineffective at cooling a cpu. You need to pair that fluid with a heatsink that creates massive surface area and a powered fan that is blowing in a steady stream of cool air to replace the air that has heated up.
Even liquid cooling setups on earth eventually blow their heat into the atmosphere as the primary means of keeping the liquid cool.
Lots of types of rock have better thermal conductivity than water or air. The subsurface of the moon is vast and would dissipate the heat far too quickly for an appreciable temperature change.
Planet rock is actually a decent insulator in large volumes/long timescales. You’d just heat up the nearby rock quickly, assuming you plan to compute for longer than a week.
Aside from the politics, which really can't be left aside, I was under the impression the principal reason Mt. Pleasant was selected was due to its unfettered access to fresh water in the form of Lake Michigan. And also it's proximity to The Brat Stop on I-94.
Not sure why you were down-voted. Access to water with no restrictions in a location dead center between Milwaukee and Chicago was the obvious play here. There was never an honest attempt to make a new silicon valley. They got land that in 20 years will be worth 10+x what the Union Grove taxpayers paid for it with reduced tax obligations. I'm sure the 100's of other businesses in that corridor would love similar tax breaks to what Uline, Amazon, and Foxconn have gotten.
Also, Brat Stop is right there... for better or worse.
To your point tho', Uline, Amazon, et.al. know the entire geographic location hits a major distribution sweet spot. There are many built-in advantages other than those offered by state and local government.
Plus, many residents living between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line remember the huge impact American Motors had on family, friends, and neighbors. AMC, then Chrysler, workers had stand-on-your-feet jobs with good pay, good benefits, and good retirement.
It was not an insignificant event when that plant closed 32 years ago.
Every city council from Kenosha to Milwaukee knows the meaning of 13,000 manufacturing jobs firsthand.
Chinese style factories in the US are not going to work. See American Factory on Netflix.
Factory work should be safe and no more than 8 hours as well established, maybe even less so there can be more jobs.
If anything Chinese style management of production needs to care for workers more, even if products cost more.
Innovations can be made other ways than making people into slaves that never see their family, live a life and have a quality of life at work and time away.
Happier people are more productive workers and need less time to produce the same as crunched, overworked workers. Everyone in game development or engineering knows this. Just pressing the gas does not lead to the best results, an ebb and flow and research and development of mentally prepared, rested workers is key.
Was foxconn given tax breaks only? Or did they also spend significant tax dollars?
Its always odd to me when subsidies are advertised as a cost, i.e. lost tax revenue. That would mean not having Foxconn come to Wisconsin at all is also a cost, i.e. lost tax revenue. And that Foxconn also cost adjacent states a ton by not moving to them either. That seems odd to phrase it that way. Subsidies are not a cost.
When I buy something at Target for 50% off, did I just cost them money? Doubtful. They're still making money. And its in Wisconsin's interest to make some money, rather than nothing.
Foxconn was promised tax credits, with the requirement that they meet certain job creation and investment targets. Tax credits lower your tax owed dollar for dollar. What happens when the credits exceed the taxes due? I looked it up:
The contract[1] states that these are tax credits pursuant to Wisconsin State statute 71.28(3wm)[2], which states "If the allowable amount of the claim under this subsection exceeds the taxes otherwise due on the claimant's income under s. 71.23, the amount of the claim that is not used to offset those taxes shall be certified by the department of revenue to the department of administration for payment by check, share draft, or other draft[...]"
So if Foxconn meets the investment and job creation requirements and doesn't have significant state tax burdens, the Wisconsin tax payers will have to write big fat checks to Foxconn, hoping that the indirect economic impact of Foxconn's activity is enough to offset these payments. In that case, these subsidies are a direct cost.
Significant tax dollars were spent by local municipalities. But that money was for infrastructure, not paid to the company or something. Mainly Mount Pleasant. In the state, it is popular to think of foxconn as scammers, but I don't think they have managed to get nearly as much as they could have, so uh, I have no idea what is going on.
Foxconn does employee software folks at the milwaukee "innovation center." Doing what, not sure.
There's also a loan out to Mt Pleasant for roughly $750 Million. Wisconsin tax payers have to pay that back whether or not Foxconn actually does anything. It's a sunk cost at this point. The bank's gonna want their money back. (Though I'm not totally clear where all that money went.)
Residents were displaced to build the facilities. People lost their homes and their lives were significantly disrupted, that's a cost it's difficult to put a dollar amount on.
I remember one of the first cases in my business law class was about immenent domain and how it was found that the government has no obligation to follow through with their reasoning for taking your land.
Kelo v. New London is an (in)famous Supreme Court case holding that "public use" for eminent domain can include just handing the property over to private interests, on the theory that doing so could produce economic development.
The actual New London development fell through anyway and the area is just vacant. A large Pfizer presence nearby was a major reason behind the plan in the first place; in the wake of mergers and with the tax breaks that lured them there in the first place expiring, Pfizer pulled up stakes.
I've seen comments wrt this situation that there weren't any actual subsidies given to Foxconn. That was conditioned upon the plants actually being operational, and making stuff, which they, so far, have not.
If true (which I bet it is - that's how I'd structure a deal like that), this would mean those country folks in Wisconsin are not as stupid as liberal media wants you to believe.
Foxconn officials seem to be taking the Aristotelian view that nature abhors a vacuum and consider the fact that there is air in the buildings as good enough to be classified as "not empty."
While there may be some naivety in this comment, I think it may be a better idea to address the issue or educate the folks that may not consider perils of unchecked capitalism to be a significant risk instead of just downvoting them.
I don't understand the point of the article, they are just saying that the building is empty and they are lying about it right ? But why should anyone cares ?
>>As part of the agreement, Foxconn was set to receive subsidies ranging from $3 billion to $4.8 billion (paid in increments if Foxconn met certain targets), which would be by far the largest subsidy ever given to a foreign firm in U.S. history.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn%27s_Wisconsin_plant
Why should Americans cares how there tax dollars are spent, right?
Not every tax credit had the targets set. The environmental laws changed for the site are vague enough that anything they decide to do there is okay, and many people lost their homes due to condemnation to clear the land, and roads for the plant. (Plus all the money already spent to upgrade roads, freeway off-ramps, power, and utilities in a very rural area.
1. Foxconn claims that the targets have been met, but the empty buildings obviously make some petiole suspicious.
2. There was also a lot of subsidies and government spending based on the deal that is not tied to the targets. This was mostly at the local level (which __really__ can not afford it without the project going as expected) but the state had some too
For the same reason it's worth writing articles about how taxpayers subsidizing sports stadiums is (almost?) never worth the ROI from a strictly financial standpoint: because people keeping fall for it, so it's useful to be able to have a body of evidence for the next time in hopes they won't fall for it again.
Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself, here I am, a country-simple and inexperienced elected official, who's being presented with a huge fantasy of a deal (well beyond my order of magnitude experience), and being asked to keep this secret from the press and constituents.
Is it likely that I'm such a good negotiator and master of finances and state incentives and my town is so special, that the huge company I'm dealing with (with dozens of analysts) is asking me to keep it secret because they're afraid of how they're getting screwed? Or maybe the other way around?
Those town council members and mayor got taken for the ride of their lives by their gullibility and desire for national politicians to chalk up a headline, which of course, never materialized.
Edit: oh, I see someone has just posted the Reply- all podcast link to that story, thanks!