Thursday, November 28, 2019

Foxconn: A New Logic-Fail and Worse

Gee.  The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has found that Libertarians and Koch Brothers are really, really, really, good people!!

That's only because Mercatus Center--a Libertarian bunch funded by the Koch Brothers--are raising questions about the net benefits of the FoxConn deal. 

It's not hard to raise questions about the deal.  Walker and his team--and President Trump, who kicked this off--obviously thought that the deal as structured would be a net benefit.  Mercatus begs to differ.....but not by very much.

...overall, the authors say the “most realistic range of estimates” indicates the Foxconn deal for the plant the company now is building will end up costing Wisconsin’s economy $1.2 billion to $6.0 billion over 15 years.

That would shave somewhere between two-hundredths of a percent to about one-tenth of a percent off what the authors estimate the state’s gross domestic product will total over the period....
Two hundredths of a percent.  ZOUNDS!!!  You can see the starving residents of the State dressed in rags, eating their kittehs and doggies in the streets, having been evicted from homes where utilities were shut off months ago........

Even at 1/10th of 1%, it's not TEOTWAWKI territory; I'd venture to guess that is far less than the cost of State government.  (Anybody measure the cost of public education against FoxConn??  Hmmmm??)

Here's the massive Logic-Fail from Mercatus--which should know better....

....Instead of subsidizing Foxconn, the study says, the state could have, say, reduced its corporate income tax rate or lowered its sales tax. That would give businesses or consumers more money to plow back into the economy....
The State of Wisconsin has NEVER, EVER, reduced its sales tax.  NEVER.  As to "reducing its corporate income tax"--that would have barely been possible, since Walker & Co. had just done so and were being flayed, daily, by the very same "newspaper" which printed this story.

But Mercatus, true to its Libertarian economic dead-headedness, doesn't consider what is perhaps the most important piece of this puzzle:  JOBS.

Anybody who knows anything about human nature knows that having a job and earning a living from it is a critical building block for human dignity.  That's what St. John Paul II meant when he said that "work is for man, not man for work."  With a job--and the income--man has dignity, and can build a family--both of which objectives should be supported by a Government.  Walker knows this, and so does Donald Trump.  That's why Trump will be re-elected, friends.

Libertarians may know it, but don't really give a damn.  See, e.g., Ben Shapiro.  Their thing?  Whatever makes more money plus sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.  Borders?  Nations??  Human dignity????  Pish-Posh.

None of that matters to the Milwaukee "news" paper--the only thing that matters is finding ways to piss all over Walker.


No comments: