That said, yes, there are already millions in "sunk costs" that have already been borne by the people of Wisconsin. But at a time like this, it's probably best not to let the "Sunk Cost Fallacy" get the better of you.
It's a perpetual mess in Southeast Wisconsin. The problems extend far further than just the economics of the deal, into perpetual construction, shady eminent domain and reclassification of generational farms as "blighted", etc. It's criminal how much this one "deal" cost the area.
I'm just trying to be rational.
Also, I'm just a bit bitter as someone who travels back to my hometown area (the Fox Valley) often from Chicago and it's never the same thing twice. ;)
The reason people stay is that nowhere better wants them to come. And they can at least scrape some value out of the traffic between Chicago and Milwaukee, and from the far-flung commuters, and Chicagoans looking for a cheaper place to tie up their weekender sailboats during the summer.
13000 jobs would have been a real boon for the area, if they were ever real. But the Rust Belt is rusting, and states and communities are competing against one another to be the last spots of steel left, when everything else around is grimy red holes. Kenoshans will vote for anyone that promises more jobs or better jobs, no matter how transparently false the story may be. Their dads built cars, and now they're stuck cleaning the go-karts at Action Territory, or waiting tables, or commuting for an hour or more each way. So the one who tells them the most comforting lie wins.
I think it's probably the exact same story in Janesville, after the GM plant is finally closed for good, with no backsies. In another 10 years, someone will promise them a big manufacturing plant there, and the voters will fall for the exact same trick, all over again.
Not that I'm defending this obvious abuse of power but most multi-generational farms have enough old vehicles and equipment sitting around that most white collar people would call them "blighted" if the context were different.
But, and I'm not an expert here, I assumed that deals like these have some kind of protections in place to limit exactly that sort of course reversal from happening. From an outsider, this appears to be a situation where they may not be getting handed the full 4 Billion Dollars that everyone mentions, but they still used deceptive tactics in order to receive a sweetheart deal from the Wisconsin government.
My current understanding is that this isn't as good as some people are trying to make it seem (Net positive for the state! Much Gains!) but also not as bad as others seem to assume (we paid 4 billion dollars and get 0 return on that during the lifetime of the deal) and instead seems to be somewhere in the middle (we are paying more money than this deal is actually worth)
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2018/11/27/murphys-law-is-foxconn...
> First, the fact that state passed a law with special benefits for only one party. “It’s a principle of law that you can’t pass a law for the benefit of only one business or person,” Flynn says.
> Specifically, the Wisconsin Constitution has a provision prohibiting special laws to benefit a particular party that are not general in scope. And the law providing a subsidy for Foxconn gives the company different legal treatment than any business in Wisconsin:
> -Foxconn is exempt from state law requiring an Environmental Impact Statement to be filed by any new company building a plant;
> -And Foxconn has been awarded special legal treatment under the courts, whereby any legal claims made against it can bypass the state court of appeals and go straight from circuit court to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In fact, any decision by a circuit court is automatically “stayed” or delayed, until the Republican-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court takes up the case.
> No other business in Wisconsin has been accorded these benefits. The Republican-dominated legislature sought to disguise this, Flynn notes, by targeting the benefits to any company in a designed investment area, “but then they said there can be only one company allowed in this area. That’s tantamount to saying only Foxconn can benefit from this, which is unconstitutional.”
> ...
> A second challenge to the legality of the Foxconn deal, Flynn notes, is for breach of contract. The company promised to build a Generation 10.5 plant, with a factory of workers building panels for 75-inch TVs, but it now says it will build a much smaller Gen 6 plant, with most of the manufacturing done by robots.
> The deal, moreover, was supposed to provide a state subsidy in return for 13,000 jobs going to Wisconsin workers, but Foxconn is now considering bringing workers from China, as the Wall Street Journal has reported. The company denies this, but had earlier denied the change away from 75-inch TVs, only to later concede these news reports were correct.
> Moreover the company said that while Wisconsin workers will be the first priority, “We will supplement that recruitment from other US locations as required.”
I'm really getting tired of people confusing tax rebates vs tax deductions vs outright grants.
Tax rebates are you get $X off your taxes. No profit, no rebate. There's no grants going on here.
As part of the deal, it has seemed very likely that Foxconn will use eminent domain to seize property from people. If the whole debacle really does shit the bed and "no profit, no rebate" then I think there's a valid argument to say that there was no "public good" need to seize that land. This isn't even getting into the infrastructure costs the state has to lay out on road work/etc, or the cost of legal fees, court time, etc this project draws.
There are costs. They have nothing to do with rebates. This deal has a really high probability of being a net loss for the state (plus creating a likely "fool me once..." feeling with the voters for the next project that feels similar).
i.e. from US iPhone users. I'd prefer that Wisconsin bear the costs on their own - they would think better next time when electing people like Walker as the right to elect your representatives is free like speech not like beer. There is a reason California for example doesn't elect those "pro-business low taxes" self-styled magicians.
As always, the people are getting the government they elected and that they deserve.
No, gerrymandering doesn't affect the raw number of votes for each candidate, but it undeniably affects the outcome of elections.
> it's because a majority of the people in that state have voted for that party.
That's not true, because of the affect gerrymandering can have.
Oh, absolutely. But still, if Party X has a majority in the legislature, that still means that a very, very large number of your fellow citizens (possibly not an outright majority, depending on just how the gerrymandering worked out, but probably still very close to a majority) voted for Party X.
Another thing to note is that gerrymandering does not affect all elections. For a state, gerrymandering has zero effect on the governor's election, since all votes are counted equally in that race. So Wisconsinites are entirely to blame for their choice of their governor.
False. Depending on how well you can gerry-mander, you can easily get a situation where in a two-party system, the party that gets the minority of the vote gets the majority of the seats, and a super-majority of the power.
Note, the above is for a large set of districts. Gerrymandering does work well to keep one politicians in power.
This is exactly why my favorite saying, "every nation gets the government it deserves" is so true. If the people don't like the way their democratic government is working, it's their job to demand a change. In states where ballot initiatives exist, this is even more true, as the people have a mechanism in place to go around the elected officials if necessary. If they aren't taking advantage of it, it's their own fault.
It's just like the Electoral College at the federal level. People whine and complain about it all the time, but does anyone ever push to have it changed? There's action right now to push the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment, guaranteeing women equal rights) through the ratification process as it's been short a few states for decades now, but where's the action to demand a Constitutional Amendment to rework the electoral system? There isn't any. The people are getting the government they deserve.
What government do I deserve?
No, there's no mechanism for "the people" to vote for a party in the legislature, as the people are divided up into districts.
The candidates whom I voted for, all won: Governor, assembly, senate. I didn't elect the government, and I don't deserve it. Who does?
Of course that's true for anybody who votes for any losing candidate. I think the problem for voting systems is to ensure that, if a vote falls short of a 100% consensus or massive landslide, can the government claim to be legitimately elected with no asterisk? I don't think this is a black and white question, and there is no perfect voting system, but my own opinion is that gerrymandering weighs against that claim of legitimacy.
California is a such a top heavy reliant state, one brutal year in the stock market and returns of ultra rich, California will have a really bad time.
CA is not a model governance state, not even close.