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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 woul

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!

dec0dedab0de 7y ago
If someome asks you to keep a secret, that secret is a lie. -Jack Dahl
- asdf21 7y ago
  Are nuclear secrets lies?
save_ferris 7y ago
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] 0: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandoned-athens-olympic-2004-venues-10-years-on-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abando... 1: https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a15531/brazil-world-cup-stadium-is-a-bus-parking-lot/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a15531/bra...
- orblivion 7y ago
  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.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  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...
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    You make it sound like someone got duped and it isn't pure corruption by the powerful insiders.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    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.
- at-fates-hands 7y ago
  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. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941216/Extraordinary-images-Vladimir-Putin-s-Sochi-Olympic-park-lying-desolate-abandoned.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941216/Extraordina...
pragmatic 7y ago
If only every "country-simple" had a wise Californian to advise them how not to be duped by a large multi-national cooperation.
- jonstewart 7y ago
  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.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Like it or hate it, Prop 13 was democratically selected. This is different from giveaways like Foxconn and sports stadiums.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > 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.
  - state_less 7y ago
    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.
PakG1 7y ago
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.
smt88 7y ago
> 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?
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > No one thinks of themselves as "country-simple" 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.
  - smt88 7y ago
    > 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.
    - 7y ago
jjeaff 7y ago
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.
- arcticfox 7y ago
  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
ackbar03 7y ago
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.
- jrumbut 7y ago
  Every leader is selected by a popularity contest, the only difference is who judges the contest.
windthrown 7y ago
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.

dec0dedab0de 7y ago

If someome asks you to keep a secret, that secret is a lie. -Jack Dahl

asdf21 7y ago
Are nuclear secrets lies?

save_ferris 7y ago

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] 0: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandoned-athens-olympic-2004-venues-10-years-on-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abando... 1: https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a15531/brazil-world-cup-stadium-is-a-bus-parking-lot/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a15531/bra...

orblivion 7y ago
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.
cosmodisk 7y ago
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...
- lonelappde 7y ago
  You make it sound like someone got duped and it isn't pure corruption by the powerful insiders.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  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.
at-fates-hands 7y ago
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. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941216/Extraordinary-images-Vladimir-Putin-s-Sochi-Olympic-park-lying-desolate-abandoned.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941216/Extraordina...

pragmatic 7y ago

If only every "country-simple" had a wise Californian to advise them how not to be duped by a large multi-national cooperation.

jonstewart 7y ago
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.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Like it or hate it, Prop 13 was democratically selected. This is different from giveaways like Foxconn and sports stadiums.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> 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.
- state_less 7y ago
  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.

PakG1 7y ago

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.

smt88 7y ago

> 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?

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> No one thinks of themselves as "country-simple" 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.
- smt88 7y ago
  > 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.
  - 7y ago

jjeaff 7y ago

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.

arcticfox 7y ago
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

ackbar03 7y ago

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.

jrumbut 7y ago
Every leader is selected by a popularity contest, the only difference is who judges the contest.

windthrown 7y ago

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.