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Comment by swingandamiss | Hacker News Reader

A lot of good, hard working people in that area that would love to have these jobs open up.

somewhat topical video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dSjY4j7Ak

tl;dw -- louisiana has a ton of natural resources and wonderful harbors, but has allowed corporations to get away with almost anything without paying their fair share of taxes, cleaning up their waste, or generally being held accountable. And likely related, there is a long history of rampant corruption in the area. With sea levels rising and cancerous pollution filling densely populated areas, life in Louisiana has generally become very difficult :(

The book “Strangers in Their Own Land” covers similar ground.

> but has allowed corporations to get away with almost anything without paying their fair share of taxes

No doubt one of the more compelling reasons for SpaceX to do it there (along with their given reasoning).

I haven't had time to watch the video but my understanding was a lot of the Louisiana coast have big problems with rising sea levels and much of it in the process of falling underwater. Perhaps it's relatively trivial to reinforce the coast for the forseeable I don't know.

The plans for the site involve extracting significant amounts of natural gas to make methane to burn for the rocket fuel. If they hit the launch levels they suggest (thousands of launches per year), this is not a small amount of greenhouse gases they'll be emitting which of course helps accelerate melting of the ice caps and rising sea levels, which could threaten the very site they've built it on.

They're also the folks working on the largest co2 -> methane converters in the world. Because that's how they'll need to make fuel on Mars, and no one else on earth wants to fund an expensive technology to replace an inexpensive gas pumped from the ground. By definition, these reactors will have to be capable of producing enough fuel for a rocket in order to be fit for purpose. That opens the door for carbon neutral operation. It's tough to imagine a greener rocket than a fully reusable one that's carbon neutral running on methane. Sure beats spewing hypergolics or solid rocket fuels.

Reminds me of Africa in terms of resource exploitation and lack of re-investment.

What are the chances they'll employ cheap labor they can just use as election fodder for stealing hard-working american jobs?

Either that or pay decent wages for American workers that'll drive up construction prices and worsen the inflation which is already crazy due to these criminal tariffs.

ITAR requires them to employ US citizens.

ITAR proves it’s possible to have immigration enforcement.

To be clear, ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) restricts certain roles to "US persons". This is a weird term in US immigration/nationality law. A permanent resident (green-card holder) is classified as a "US person". As a result, SpaceX can employ non-US citizens for ITAR regulated roles.

SpaceX avoids hiring foreigners . Just like some companies/facilities only hire cleared people. Even though it may not be required.

So no matter what they do, you blame them? If they pay not enough, they are bad, if they pay enough, they are also bad. Ok.

They put themselves in that situation, the US admin, not me. I'm just commenting. Or is any of what I said wrong? I mean there's something called ITAR that requires American workers, but that doesn't mean the impact on inflation isn't real

Inflation is caused by deficit money creation. It is not caused by taxes, tariffs, corporate greed, union greed, oligarchs, or anything else.

That's a very narrow view of inflation. If you increase wages, there's more demand for goods, more demand means higher prices which means higher inflation. Same with tariffs, they are paid when importing goods, which is passed onto the consumer, resulting in higher prices and thus inflation.

And where did that money to increase wages come from?

Which money? The real money comes from the working class that make the world run, if it's manual labor, creative labor or managerial. The fake money comes from speculation.

> That's a very narrow view of inflation.

It's the only correct one. For proof, consider the inflation that happened when Spain looted gold from S. America, then during the California Gold Rush, then the Yukon Gold Rush.

All driven by an increase in the supply of money.

So you are applying economic dynamics from the... gold rush to the modern era? You do realise gold isn't the base value for dollar since 1933 at least.

That’s a very, very narrow definition of inflation

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