This is potentially wasted money, but it did not go to Foxconn, and presumably created infrastructure jobs. Not defending the deal, but it is often mischaracterized. The benefits to the companies usually are tax rebates that are only valuable if the company makes real investments that are taxable. They are not direct payments.
> and presumably created infrastructure jobs
Usually you hear people complain about dig-a-hole-then-fill-it-up jobs. But if we're going to start supporting those, it would be best not to tie them to scams, I think.
Yeah. Sounds a lot like the dig-up-all-the-carbon-burn-then-bury-it-again civilizational project going on the past 100, and next 100 years.
What exactly was the purpose to "re-arranging small bits of matter near the surface of the earth" again? [1]
Basically I wanted to make a comment about greedy exploitation-exploration trade-off strategies here but will stop short at this kind of eliptical passing remark.
[1] paraphrasing Russell in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Idleness_and_Othe... it is appropriate given current moment
From the same man that proposed the idea of "re-arranging small bits of matter near the surface of the earth".
>It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.
It's a social hack to get around idiotic situations. It's like moving to mars because you are worried about a nuclear war or climate change. Dumb games require dumb players.
If Foxconn tricked a local government into providing free "useful" infrastructure it could just rent that "useful" infrastructure out to a different company and thus capture the entire tax benefit. However, they didn't even do that... The money was fully wasted.