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Wisconsin doesn't need to give out money, either. If anything, they need to not give out money. The story of the Foxconn factory, for example, is one of Wiscon
by bunderbunder 8y ago
Wisconsin doesn't need to give out money, either. If anything, they need to not give out money.
The story of the Foxconn factory, for example, is one of Wisconsin acting as if you can give a bunch of money to a company that smells of technology, and they will plunk a bunch of jobs for highly educated and skilled people in the middle of a region with relatively few highly educated and skilled workers. Which, it never worked that way. It never will work that way.
Companies go to places that can fill their staffing needs. Wisconsin, which has been systematically defunding its education system in order to re-route that money toward corporate subsidies, is undercutting its own ability to fill those staffing needs. I don't know that everyone in the state realizes it, but Wisconsin is stumbling all over itself to become the darling dumping ground for companies that are founded[1] in cities and states with the kinds of intellectual and entrepreneurial ferments you get around well-run and well-funded university systems to put their call centers, distribution centers, big boxes mostly full of robots, and other things they don't want to waste money putting in a more affluent area.
[1] I think "founded" is a key word, here, too. Supporting local entrepreneurship is the key to prosperity. Which mostly means getting out of the way of your entrepreneurs. If you get into a bidding wars to acquire the office where a company puts all their jobs that didn't merit being located at HQ, not only do you end up overspending - the people deciding what to bid aren't playing with their own money, so what else did you expect? - but you're also draining the talent pool that supports their growth.
tl;dr: The cart goes behind the horse.
- Spooky23 8y agoIt depends on the business. If you’re capitalizing a big facility, even things like sales tax exemptions are big value adds. As long as some places in strategic areas do the incentive thing, it’s hard not to.
- taurath 8y agoIf you keep participating in the race to the bottom, you eventually end up on the bottom. The belief that any price in tax cuts will benefit your citizens in the form of "jobs" is a particularly toxic form of economic fundamentalism, and its hollowing whole states out.
- Spooky23 8y agoTotally agree. In my neck of the woods one county nearly bankrupted a neighboring one by offering an existing business a deal that led them to move a few miles away. The old county was stuck with sewer bonds and other costs while the revenue vaporized. It’s difficult though as it’s a prisoner’s dilemma type situation.
- taurath 8y agoIt sounds like the county that was bankrupted left themselves at the mercy of the business.
- Spooky23 8y agoYes and no. I believe in this case they had an obligation to provide the sewer, and water/sewer ratepayers are responsible for costs. You can’t make an individual ratepayer responsible for the sewer. Definitely a bad situation and a story told a thousand times in the US
- Justsignedup 8y agoKentucky was a perfect example of this. They gave the best corporate welfare money can buy. And everyone left. There were no decent roads, schools, police. So there were no decent workers. The companies were basically given the best deal in a place with no workers. If anything the workers left even more because there was even less attractiveness to be there.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- taurath 8y agoIts really hard to make a thoughtful reply to a thread like this without seeming like its just ivory tower dumping on red states. My feeling is that they've set up a basically every person for himself sort of society with (usually multinational or national) businesses as the primary benefactor rather than people.
- bunderbunder 8y ago> ivory tower dumping on red states If dumping on ostensible conservatives for wantonly doling out government largesse is wrong, I don't want to be right. That said, FWIW, the greater context here is an article about New York getting in on the game, too.
- rcpt 8y agoPuerto Rico to