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Comment by JohnStudio | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a big fan of Elon Musk, but let's not get political.

I do however, want to point out Buffalo .. its troubles with Solar City .. and its troubles with Elon Musk.

Key (non-disputed / non-political points)

- Tesla did not hire local workers, and did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force - SolarCity received 750$ million in the Billion to Buffalo at a time it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 years (I believe) - Ciminelli, Buffalo's prior largest construction company that built SolarCity was charged with bid rigging / bribery by the Federal Government and it has all but folded up shop. - Panasonic / Tesla agreement / partnership existed in 2006, yet Cuomo said he brokered this deal (fabrication)

The Riverbend site that SolarCity started has all but been successful in Erie County. That's my 2c, and the above is factual, non-disputed points.

So .. my real question, is why is this not brought to the national level for discussion to what Elon is doing to communities like Buffalo, where I live? That's my question ...

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> So .. my real question, is why is this not brought to the national level for discussion to what Elon is doing to communities like Buffalo, where I live? That's my question ...

Because Buffalo isn't a place that attracts much attention about anything outside of lake-effect snow and how terrible the Buffalo Bills are.

These silver-bullet projects that promise to bring large number of high-paying jobs rarely pan out. Remember when Yahoo put in that data center in Lockport (just outside of Buffalo for everyone not familiar with the area)? It was touted as a big win...as of two years ago they have a whopping 98 employees (most making less than 6 figures according to Glassdoor.)

https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/science-and-technol...

(I was born in Buffalo and lived there for 35 years before moving south.)

The Bills comment gave me a chuckle. :)

Oddly enough its not the amount of snow, but rather the severity of it. I was born in Virginia - dad in Florida, mom in Georgia. :) I'm here because pops moved to Syracuse and I lived in Cortland area, before moving here (and a stint for college in AL).

What really WAS the catalyst for downtown was not SolarCity or anything major, but the total opposite.

Chris Collins (R) - despite his negative reputation - started out as our County Executive and in combination with Brian Higgins, balanced our budget and make Buffalo profitable for once after some dark economic times, while Higgins asked Bass Pro its intentions at the for Aud site (previous home of the Sabres). They (after several years of promising to build a mega-store) backed out and we created a ton of smaller projects - not continuing on the path of the "silver-bullet" approach to anchoring the downtown on.

So ... Republican ideas (not dominant liberal thinking) IMHO was the catalyst. Collins comes from the business sector, much like Trump. Mind you, I am not trying to make a political point here - merely a strategic small business / economic en-devour that helped Buffalo get back on its right track.

Mayor Brown is actually a good mayor. Thoughtful even .. but Collins set him up to be - again subjective opinion. I like Byron personally ... and lukewarm on his politics, however ... he has maintained great en-devours here. I just hope he goes into the East Side of Buffalo with as much as we have here as downtown.

I remain optimistic that the leadership we have now, will see the benefits of making our minority populations ... better.

Higgins asked Bass Pro its intentions at the for Aud site (previous home of the Sabres). They (after several years of promising to build a mega-store) backed out and we created a ton of smaller projects - not continuing on the path of the "silver-bullet" approach to anchoring the downtown on.

That sound a lot like liberal thinking to me. Traditional Republican philosophy is generally to seek out one or two major storefronts to anchor an entire town. It's pretty much the entire economic premise of the extremely red Midwest. I'm not trying to make a political point, just pointing out that copying the strategy most frequently used by large, liberal cities like LA, Chicago, SF, and NYC (lots of economic projects spread out over the metropolitan area) helped Buffalo get back on the right track.

>Traditional Republican philosophy is generally to seek out one or two major storefronts to anchor an entire town.

How can you make a generalization like that with a straight face? I spent a significant number of years in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho and most of the Republicans I interacted with there were pro small business and disliked dominating large chains owned by out of state corporations. A single store without meaningful competition is antithetical to the message of the Republican party.

You are confusing what naturally happens when you have small cities (<200k) not filled with rich people with a political view. When you have small cities, anyone with a large war chest can pretty easily bully everyone else on price and a regular middle class population will not pay a significant premium to 'support local'.

Talk to folks in a town dominated by a Walmart. Tons of people hate going there but still do because it's the best price.

Finally, the only thing that gets a smaller city on the right track is businesses that attract outside money. A small city will never thrive regardless of building one huge retail store vs tons of small ones if the same small population are the only folks shopping there. The easiest way for city to get external money pouring in is to accept a deal for a big industrial operation.

> Finally, the only thing that gets a smaller city on the right track is businesses that attract outside money. A small city will never thrive regardless of building one huge retail store vs tons of small ones if the same small population are the only folks shopping there. The easiest way for city to get external money pouring in is to accept a deal for a big industrial operation.

Buffalo is hampered by being in the same state as NYC - it's too far from it to reap any of the benefits. High taxes, a ton of regulation, red tape and little to no political sway at the state level. If NYC were to secede and form its own state/district/etc, Buffalo and the rest of upstate NY might be better off.

It's near and dear to my heart, but nothing will save Buffalo. Will it get better? Sure, but not fast enough to stop the bleeding:

"Buffalo, on the other hand, has experienced the sharpest rate of decline, losing 61.75 people per month."

Source: https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2017/10/31/upstate-...

Meanwhile, in the Raleigh, NC area where I moved is growing at ~62 per day or ~1860/month.

Because Buffalo isn't a place that attracts much attention about anything outside of lake-effect snow and how terrible the Buffalo Bills are.

The only movie about Buffalo I know of literally features lake-effect snow, how terrible the Bills are, and the tap dancing of Christina Ricci.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118789/

> These silver-bullet projects that promise to bring large number of high-paying jobs rarely pan out. Remember when Yahoo put in that data center in Lockport (just outside of Buffalo for everyone not familiar with the area)? It was touted as a big win...as of two years ago they have a whopping 98 employees (most making less than 6 figures according to Glassdoor.)

Meanwhile, Wisconsin is bending over backward to give somewhere near $4Billion to foxconn to build a new manufacturing facility in Wisconsin, and everytime someone asks if they should spend that much, they get "10,000 JOBS" shouted at them.. (even then, that seems like way too much per job, at $300,000 in direct state subsidy per employee, if they get to 10,000, but its an impressive sounding number). then they have local subsidies, promised freeway widening, etc..

Wait, Wisconsin wants to "give" $4Billion to foxconn? Is that in cash or tax breaks, in which case, are isn't Foxconn really just keeping their money?

Tax breaks are pretty much the same as cash-over-time, come on.

No, you come on. You are not giving me the money in my bank account just because you say I don't have to give it to you.

Dude I'm as libertarian as they come; taxation is theft. But you're doing stupid things with semantics here. The company has more money to operate with; we're just talking about this from a business-operation point of view.

There's a substantive difference between being given money vs keeping your own money: one is theft, the other isn't.

If we can't get tax cuts across the board, then I'm all for reducing taxes on whoever we can, however we can.

If you appreciate roads, education, police, fire, private property, military, food safety, breathable air, safe drugs, etc, then you shouldn't be trying to cut taxes whenever and however you can as a base principle.

It looks like you listed every sacred cow of public finance, but I'll just pick on the first... sure, for the most part, roads are publicly financed/owned (although built by privately owned companies). But, conversely, if you appreciate all the privately financed/owned driveways, toll roads, parking lots, fueling infrastructure and vehicles(!!), then you shouldn't be trying to raise taxes as a base principle either.

The truth is that there's plenty to appreciate and hate in both sectors, but there's only one that forces us to finance it, and we don't like being forced to finance something without having much say in the matter or if the results are suboptimal.

While I agree we should have some taxes, for some of these things, I think the above list could be paid for with far less than what we currently spend. Plenty of waste. Also, for example, we could likely get away with spending a bit less on some of these, like the military for one.

Not good with math I see.

If Foxconn has 10 apples and they decide to move to Wisconsin. When they arrive, Wisconsin decides to NOT take 4 Apples away. How many apples does Foxconn have left?

Personal swipes will get you banned here, so please don't post like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm curious, as a libertarian, how do you come to the conclusion that private property, which is a political construct, is a good thing, while taxation, which is also a political construct, established by the same set of laws, is a bad thing (If judging by your description of one being "theft" of the other) ?

I think that private property can be easily derived from individual rights. The right to control my own life, the right to do what I want, the right not to be interfered with. Those set a pretty strong precedent for private property. If I create something out of nothing, shouldn't I be able to keep that?

I could be down with taxation if someone actually offered me a contract to join the USA with all the provisions. But they didn't, they just implicitly assumed it, without my consent.

Why would I care about individual rights if there is no government ?

I mean if I have enough power and there’s no one to stop me, I may as well take your property AND your person and make you work for me.

It’s just a matter of who has the most guns, and my willingness to cheat on the rules of the game.(you assume individual rights, I don’t)

Do note this is more of a tongue in cheek question, than a serious one.

individual rights drive from government control law order etc., right?

Concept of private property is as old as civilisation. Whereas taxation (at current depth and scale) is barely 50yrs old and already showing cracks.

Conversely, the concept of taxation is as old as civilization, and private property at current depth and scale is barely as old as the most recent extension of the rights associated with copyright in the DMCA, and already showing cracks.

You are talking to a libertarian and you assumed a right granted by state is a private property. Why ?

The private property I referred is land right, which IS as old as civilisation and have been acceptable by most humans ever.

Since most democracies are less than 200yrs old, the taxation cannot have been as old as civilisation.

When 100 people form a camp, they implement property rights before taxation. Historically taxations have been imposed by distant rulers not socially decided at local level.

> Since most democracies are less than 200yrs old, the taxation cannot have been as old as civilisation.

That would be true if the concept of taxation was dependent on the concept of democracy (and if it was correct that democracy was less than 200 years old, which is off by around an order of magnitude), which it is quite obviously not; taxation long precedes democracy.

> Historically taxations have been imposed by distant rulers

Historically, taxation (until fairly recently, in-kind; money taxes as the primary form is fairly new) has been imposed at every level from small bands to vast empires; it certainly is not correct that they've normally been imposed by distant rulers.

We are taking about subset of taxation not all taxation, namely "politically constructed taxation" as described by ajnin.

Historically, taxation has been imposed at every level from small bands to vast empires

Agreed.

it certainly is not correct that they've normally been imposed by distant rulers

Then by whom is it normally imposed ? Give an example of a historic taxation voted and imposed by a small-band/.../vast-empire on itself.

Coming back to the topic, my claim is that private property social contract have been more stable than taxation (the social-contract version).

One of the oldest forms of writing that we know of, Babylonian tablets, are mostly about goods exchanges and paying taxes. I think that you assessment that taxation is a new thing is blatantly wrong.

Taxation is old. Democratically-decided taxation is new.

Then democratically-decided property law is new too.

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They're boring to everyone else and not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

> taxation is theft.

So who should pay for the US military so that your private property is safe from Russian attacks.

That one's easy, no one need to pay US military to safe your property from Russian attacks because there won't by any.

These incentives are often transferable tax credits. It isn’t unusual for a company to have little or no tax liability in the state offering the incentive. There are markets where the tax credits are sold to companies that do have tax liability in the state.

It’s effectively putting cash directly into the pocket of the businesses you seek to attract.

Other companies are putting that cash directly into those businesses, not the state. The ones with the tax liability just get to keep more of their cash, again not the state's!

> it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 years (I believe)

And how much of that is a direct result of the fact they are competing against Chinese-made panels that are directly funded by the Chinese government?

There is literally no way you can have a discussion about ANY renewable energy without it being political. Either the US is going to protect US industry from Chinese goods being sold below-cost, or we're going to have to do the same thing to compete.

I don't dispute that point - however, investment in a company that can't turn a profit by a magnitude of $750 million of our tax dollars and area doesn't seem to be a wise use of dollars. That's really my overarching concern. There's no real benefit to the local economy, so why do it? That's my business mind, not my political mind on what's good or not for the environment. In the end it's tax dollars (rather high at that) that I'm putting directly into these incentives .. asking for some better investment is all.

> There's no real benefit to the local economy, so why do it?

You're assuming the politicians have the area's best interest at heart. Start by thinking - what's in it for them? Good press for bringing in a nationally recognized brand to the area. Maybe campaign contributions from said company. Maybe you get thrown some more campaign contributions from the construction companies that get work out of the deal.

The reality is, the companies have all the cards in these deals. They have more information, better information processing, and critically, they have options.

Keep in mind the opportunity cost for these deals. Cut the company a tax break, or continue to not collect taxes on a vacant lot. If Buffalo actually brought cash to the table... that was quite a gamble.

What does profitability have to do with an investment to bring a company to a region? I've never heard of a profit-sharing agreement between a company and city/local government.

Or you can say there are many way worse investments. This is actually a company that demonstrate they can make things work and have a record for deliveries

Aside from maybe your first point, what do any of those points have to do with "troubles with Elon Musk"? After the second point I'm not even sure what they could have to do with Solar City in general.

Your third point seems to be more of an issue with a local construction company and the last point seems to be an issue with Cuomo. Could you clarify? Am I missing some connections?

Yeah, if he hadn't merged solar city with tesla, it might have failed as a company. i'm just waiting till they merge tesla+solar city with space x. and the boring company.

I don't really understand this complaint (grew up in Buffalo myself and drove by the factory last week to check it out).

The factory is in an area that's been basically abandoned since Bethlehem Steel closed up shop. A large factory with people working there is likely to increase people spending money at local places in the nearby area (restaurants, stores, apartments, etc.).

The alternative for that area is a large empty field.

I also knew Chris Collins as a kid growing up (he lived near me) and he seemed reasonable at the time, but his current Trump related political comments come across as ridiculous.

I don't understand your complaint.

Can you explain further? Also would help if you can add links to for further reading.

I also live in Buffalo and would point out I agree with the sentiment. I really wish SolarCity/Tesla would hire the workers here. Talent and good skills exist here and Buffalo is only growing. Why bring ambitious projects here and then have them go bust like this? The effect on the population here would be a lot more than that of a big city where people have a lot more opportunity and don't need to hope for one big project.

Most of the articles that I have read regarding the Buffalo plant have been about what a mess that it has been. This feels like an aberration, and maybe a sign that things are improving a little bit?

I don't want to digress here, but $345 million dollars has been spent in the last 5-7 years to promote growth in our region. However, entities like 43 North (our regions YC of sorts) has failed to retain / keep new businesses that they recruit for their yearly $1million VC contest. I think all but one company has stayed here since its inception. Secondly, the dollars here have all been spent on revitalization of Main St - which if you walk the 1 block to 800 block (basically Canal Side to Theater district) - one can make the argument of gentrification (controversial on its best day).

The money / jobs / growing enthusiasm isn't reflected in a minority middle class. Bottom line, that's what I personally call success of any city trying to regain momentum. By all accounts, I am an educated, white, privileged, and successful conservative living in the suburbs.

However, I take the post-Civil War northern Republican view of reconstruction by giving the vision of today should be the vision of 1865 .. and that's equality of all minorities with their white counterparts. The death of Abe Lincoln put us back 50 - 70 years in that movement, and as Andrew Johnson favored the status quote of Southern Democrats / Aristocratic colonialism ... it bleeds into the inequities that minorities today.

I know that's long winded, but the historical throw-back .. plays out today, in cities like Buffalo .. where all I want is my black / latino / muslim communities of Buffalo to have the same equity that I have and live as well as I do. Unfortunately ... it's just not happening, despite the welfare dollar being so dominant here in New York (which I do not detest - I just want it used more strategically in regions of poverty).

Anyway .. off my soap-box.

> I know that's long winded, but the historical throw-back .. plays out today, in cities like Buffalo .. where all I want is my black / latino / muslim communities of Buffalo to have the same equity that I have and live as well as I do. Unfortunately ... it's just not happening, despite the welfare dollar being so dominant here in New York (which I do not detest - I just want it used more strategically in regions of poverty).

I grew up in Buffalo (on the west side) among the minorities you mentioned - nothing stopped my peers (white, black, hispanic, etc) in school from succeeding except their own choices. It helps to have supportive parents, but it doesn't guarantee anything (my brother never got into any trouble but he's also never been motivated/driven either.) A friend who wound up being class valedictorian had two siblings that were both dropouts.

poverty != lack of opportunity

Cannot agree with you more, but poverty is still a limiting factor for a great many people that don't have "built in" survival skills.

Poverty is like starting a race in last place. There's only one person who's responsible for making sure you don't finish last. No amount of welfare, coddling, etc is going to make up for lack of motivation and drive. My parents weren't poor, we were middle-class - but they lived paycheck to paycheck and that scared the daylights out of me as I got older. That's what motivated me to succeed IMO - and I'm obviously fortunate to have picked software dev as a profession.

My grandparents were poor (my grandfather never learned to read - he went to work in the fields in Sicily at age 8) - that didn't stop him from working hard all of his life, buying a house, raising a family.

I’m not sure if they can discriminate and just hire locals and eliminate all others Have you ever seen that happen in the US without hearing the word lawsuit?

Local governments never benefit from such incentives so this case isn't notable.

... and why is that? why can we ask for benefits? Another irony is the hydro-power we get from the Niagara Falls energy generation, yet we pay the highest energy costs in the country in Erie County .. we sell most of that hydro power to PA and OH. It seems rather upside down, IMHO.

typically these massive corporate incentives are just a part of the corporatist strategy of pitting all American cities against each other in order to get a company to set up shop there (look no further than Amazon's scheme from this summer accepting 'applications' (per-se) from different cities for HQ2 - many suspect this is just a scheme to force Seattle into more favorable tax incentives, etc which they previously were unwilling to offer).

Whether the city's leadership truly believe the corporation will aid them is up in the air, most of the time the city loses out, and the corporation leaves when the incentives dry up. If you're optimistic, than many city council members just get unlucky because it is 100% 'beneficial in theory and just not in practice'. If you're a little more skeptical, given this corporatist strong arming happens nationwide constantly, it is just the reality of corporations exploiting cities.

It's pretty difficult to parse some parts of your post ("did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force" "Billion to Buffalo", etc).

But I'm guessing these are not brought to the national level for discussion because none of them are unique to this company or that community?

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