Yeah, we don't know the whole story. It's not impossible that this is a situation involving both systemic flaws and someone who is just intractably and unapologetically incompetent -- for instance, someone who has habitually browsed non-work-related websites and been warned against doing so, but the harm of the distraction was never actually a danger until this fake alert incident.
For me, what partially redeems this employee's firing is that the head administrator was also terminated. If this "button-pusher" deserves to be punished for incompetence, then whoever thought it was OK to have such an incompetent person pushing the button also deserves to be punished.
It is worth noting though that some of these costs are simply tax credits for revenue that wouldn't be collected if the factory isn't build. So they are comparing the "cost" to a basis that assumes the factory gets built and pays normal taxes. Items in that group are:
* State tax credits, $2.85 billion
* Local government incentives, $764 million[1]
* State sales tax exemption, $139 million
When you add back the revenue that would be generated from 13,000 jobs the state will come out well ahead.
Note, I am not in favor of the government picking corporate winners, but I think it is fair to clarify that the state of WI is not paying FoxConn or pulling money from other places (at least in a large portion of the line items).
[1] I don't know what this actually is, but I would assume it means tax credits based on various metrics (i.e. jobs created).
A key consideration there with the hypothetical job creation is that this facility is on the border of Wisconsin and Illinois. There is more unemployment in the Illinois side of the border on the Wisconsin side suggesting that the ratio will be similarly skewed.
Lake County, IL has 4.6% unemployment; Kenosha county, WI is at 3.7%. McHenery county, IL is at 4.0%, Walworth county, WI is at 2.8%.
Most states collect income tax for all income generated in that state. For example, if you work in Minnesota and live in North Dakota, you pay income tax to Minnesota. There is an agreement between Wisconsin and Illinois that people working in state A and living in state B pay income tax to state B rather than A.
So, for the jobs created, over half of those will be from Illinois residents who pay their income tax to Illinois instead.
When companies promise x thousands of jobs how do they come up with those numbers and why does anyone believe them? There's no way Foxconn is building a factory that requires 13000 staff. More than likely they're counting jobs created temporarily during construction, and jobs created by surrounding businesses that might crop up.
I've seen this defined in some infrastructure bill (usually it's not defined). 1 job created really means 1 job for a year. If the job exists next year too, it's apparently created that year too. This doesn't match with my definition of creation, but it seems to better match up with reasonably likely job outcomes of projects advertised as job creation.
Eg: this factory will create 13000 jobs over the next 5 years doesn't mean there will be 13000 more working people in 5 years, it just means 13000 man years of work in the 5 year period.
Foxconn has a history of making large claims that they don't live up to (e.g. Pittsburgh and Brazil) [1]. It's hard to trust this deal is handled properly when we find it's actually costing 50% more in tax credits after the fact.
Every other company in the state will have a harder time hiring those workers because they aren't receiving a subsidy bolstering their after-tax profits. It's unfair to make all other business essentially transfer money to one that spins a good story to politicians.
This. Not only does giving credits and incentives to huge organizations harm other local organizations because competing on wages is more difficult for them now, it also increases systemic risk and transfers more power to the Goliath. When "everyone" is dependent on the too big to fail organization, that organization can throw around more threats that they will leave if they don't get what they want. Now everyone is beholden to it. These deals are bad all the way around.
Are they tied in the same way we gave Billions to ISP to give everyone Broadband?
I do not have any faith that government will actually enforce the requirement, I have seen it many many many where a company promises X number of jobs for Y tax break, then the actual jobs create is FAR FAR FAR less so the government just passed a new ordinance to adjust X to what ever the company did so they still get the credits even though that did not honor the original deal.
Note that the tax credits and exemptions will mostly take the form of direct cash transfers to Foxconn because the credits will be due whether or not Foxconn owes taxes, and Wisconsin exempts manufacturers from almost all corporate and income taxes.
The Foxconn plant will only start with 3,000 jobs with the 'maximum potential' of 13,000 jobs.
Note the qualifiers 'could' and 'maximum potential' before any quote of 13,000 jobs in any news article. It is in Foxconn's best interest to inflate the 'max potential' number as high as it can. 3,000 instead of 13,000 jobs makes a lot less sense for the state.
Yes. No way in hell there will be 13,000 jobs, or even 3000 for LCD manufacturing line. There are $B manufacturing facilities that employe less than 50 people. My guess it will be about 300 people in the end.
The counter point to that is that the Foxconn being there costs the state money in infrastructure and other non-fixed costs compared to not being there at all.
This rhetoric around taxes is tiresome. Once you pay your taxes it's not your money anymore. There's no magic that makes taxes different than collected rent or paying a bill. It's entirely a political framing-- a new one at that.
Oh? Um? Whatever happened to taxation without representation? Whatever happened to of the people, by the people, for the people?
The gov is nothing without you and your revenue. They work for you. They are (supposed to be) your agent/agency.
Long to short, the money belongs to you. The language should reflect that. The fact that it doesn't enabled people to forget the true nature of the relationship. Suggested reading: 1984.
> Whatever happened to taxation without representation? Whatever happened to of the people, by the people, for the people?
Representation in government is not ownership of government.
> Long to short, the money belongs to you.
It literally doesn't. By definition it doesn't. Respect the is-ought distinction.
> Suggested reading: 1984.
Suggestion: drop the certainty in your perspective. Your confidence in a wrong idea based on such shallow reasoning means you can learn a lot more than you already know.
If I buy a $10k car, and expense it to my employer I would say the car cost my employer $10k. I may have been the one with agency, but the cost is not mine to bear. The idea of representative government, is that we're employing the government to decide how our money is spent.
You hand your employee a credit card. They buy a car with it. They drive the car back to the office, hand you the keys and proclaim, "Look what I bought you."
In your world the reply is, "Golly gee. Thanks. You're so good to me."
In my world the obvious reply is, "Huh? What? Do you think I'm stupid?"
Language is a tool, and it can also be a weapon. Orwell would disagree with one of us. I'm fairly confident it would not be me.
I wasn't implying it was some outlandish misbehaviour. Company cars are a real and common occurance, as are other large business expenses, like plane tickets.
And the abstraction of the state having money is helpful? How so? It's fake. Words matter. Language matters. Ask Orwell.
The point being when the abstraction is removed and the truth repeated, perceptions, opinions, and eventually the decisions and actions of citizens will change. As it is, the abstraction enables complacency.
The government is not your employer. YOU are the government's employer. See? The conventional lexicon has confused you. Which, thank you, supports my original statement.
> And the abstraction of the state having money is helpful? How so? It's fake. Words matter. Language matters. Ask Orwell.
The state is a real, tangible entity that has a separate coexistence from the collective of individuals under its jurisdiction. The US is not a democracy--it is very intentionally not a democracy--it is a republic.
What you are arguing, although you are using language to obfuscate the meaning, is that you personally own anything the state owns. But even if you take the mistaken view that the government is nothing more than the people it governs, that ownership is not personal, but collective.
> * State tax credits, $2.85 billion * Local government incentives, $764 million[1] * State sales tax exemption, $139 million
> When you add back the revenue that would be generated from 13,000 jobs the state will come out well ahead.
The incentives cost the state & local $288692 per job-year (which is what "13000 jobs" is actually defined as according to cptskippy and toast0). And that's assuming Foxconn actually reaches 13000 job-years, which they have no reason to do if the incentives are front-loaded.
cowkingdeluxe's alternate take is that the factory will start out at 3000 jobs[0] and may eventually grow to 13000, assuming it stays at 3000 jobs that's $1250000 for each job, are these jobs really going to generate $1.5 million in revenue each so that the state will come out "well-ahead"?
[0] could actually be jobs-year as well making the entire thing even worse.
> When you add back the revenue that would be generated from 13,000 jobs the state will come out well ahead.
You haven't proved that statement. I calculate that the state will likely recoup it's taxes from personal income only if Foxconn hires 13,000 people for 20 years.
Edit: Showing math
20 years * 13,000 people * $70,000 average salary * 17% income tax is around $3 billion.
> To receive the state payments, Foxconn would essentially have to hire a sharply escalating number of workers, starting with at least 260 next year and rising to at least 5,200 in 2022 and at least 10,400 by 2027.
> Foxconn would have to pay a worker at least $30,000 a year to earn the incentives on that hire, with a required average salary for all workers of $53,900 annually. If Foxconn lies to the state, closes the plant or falls below certain jobs minimums, the company could have to repay some of the incentives.
$23k tax collected / job created with a 7.65% state tax rate, roughly means a $300k salary per job for 15 years. Sure sales tax and real estate taxes will help some, so let's be generous and say you only need $200k in average salary for 13k workers over 15 years. That still sounds completely unreasonable to me.
I feel like governments would come out ahead if they refused to negotiate. I guess with multinationals the nash equilibrium leads to governments all ratting out each other... Isn't there something game theory can do to save us here?
The prisoners dilemma ultimately proves that in the short term, while you win more if everyone works together, you ultimately risk losing less if you don't work together.
Or rather, if you think another govt might blink and screw you, blink first and screw them to avoid being screwed more by them.
> Shilling said about a $3 billion incentive package being offered by the State of Wisconsin: "Foxconn tax break could exceed $1 million per job."
> We found in a previous fact check that the state would not be paying Foxconn $3 billion for 3,000 jobs -- or $1 million per job -- because the full $3 billion would be paid only if 13,000 jobs are created.
> In Shilling’s favor, if Foxconn invests at least $9 billion in its plant as it has said it will -- but hires only 1,500 workers -- the incentives paid would exceed $1 million per job.
> Wisconsin currently has reciprocity agreements with four states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan. These agreements, provide that residents of these states working in Wisconsin will be taxed on income earned as an employee by their home state, and not by Wisconsin.
IMO, the specifics of how to secure are less important than ensuring proper cost of not securing your systems. I think having rigid rules like PCI would be significant burden and not allow flexibility as technology and business changes.
On the other hand, simply ensuring that the financial penalties are in line with the damage done should be enough to solve the issue. You said yourself that boards won’t agree to spend money. If they saw a huge financial downside risk they would be more likely to invest in security.
I agree. PCI is way too rigid. But you wouldn't want something like that for legislation anyway. I don't want Congress picking my security standards. But I think there should be some bar that companies can reach that protects them from the most serious penalties of any laws.
That bar may even move depending on factors like revenue, number of users, and sensitivity of data.
> On the other hand, simply ensuring that the financial penalties are in line with the damage done should be enough to solve the issue. You said yourself that boards won’t agree to spend money. If they saw a huge financial downside risk they would be more likely to invest in security.
I completely agree. Not sure if it came off correctly but that was the point of my edit at the end.
It could also be a way to offload sensitive processing & storage to a third party; e.g. Stripe.
I'm leaning much more toward John Young's (Cryptome) viewpoint of information security -- smoke and mirrors. Maybe nothing is secure and it is only a question of how interested the adversary is in creating a break and then what they decide to do with the information after.
Robert Cringely has the most practical advice I've read -- keep secure communications off the internet.
Agreed completely. PCI and many data protection laws and industry frameworks already dictate that you should discard data as soon as you no longer need it and not collect sensitive data unless you legitimately need it.
Right, but my point is that there isn't a deep need for a box checking exercise that gets a company out of liability, if they don't want liability they can just avoid creating it.
Conveniently this is most onerous for stupid business models.
I would assume that a CSO at a F500 company is mostly responsible for things like budgeting, hiring, and high level strategy. I would think not knowing these specifics is reasonable. What isn’t excusable though is these companies ignoring advice from internal and external sources. Companies clearly make deliberate budget choices by weighing risk/reward and a CSO at a big company often rationally doesn’t make the right security choice because the risk is small. IMO, bills like this are needed in order to force companies to properly value the risk of bad security.
The idea that you can make high-level strategy choices about security without intimate knowledge of that domain is what needs to go away. That kind of thinking is the product of a business culture designed to keeping rich people with MBAs employed over making sane decisions.
I think that's being a little extreme. I would guess that a CSO is typically somebody who has the experience, but has worked their way up. It is natural that as you progress in leadership in a company you become less knowledgeable about the details. A good executive is somebody who can hire the right people and listen to them. Somebody who has to know everything themselves is actually dangerous in my opinion - they are ignorant of what they don't know, could be unwilling to take advice, and may be inflexible about new ideas.
To clarify, I am not talking about a CSO at a 100 person startup. I am talking about somebody like the CSO of equifax or Boeing which should have hundreds of people reporting to them. They cannot possible know the specifics of everything they secure.
Auth0 is probably pretty close. I spent 3 years there (recently left, but not because of anything negative with the company). They hire remote, they are super flexible with work hours, etc. Culture is that of basically be responsible and get your work done. Really high bar on hiring though so it can be tough to get in, but if you do get in it’s an awesome place to work. Retention is super high - I was one of the few people who have ever left the company voluntarily. ;)
I know they are hiring for lots of positions as well. auth0.com/jobs
I’m all for activism, but it’s pretty clear that Pai doesn’t care what “the people” think. He isn’t an elected official, he doesn’t need to raise money, he is guaranteed a few board seats or consulting positions after his term that will pay millions. I fear there is no stopping this one. We need to spend our efforts on the long term - state laws, 2018/20/22+ elections - rather than burning energy on a lost cause. The battle is lost, but the war can be won.
I know this is off topic from this thread, but I’m honestly curious as to why you think this. What evidence exists to support your statement?
Normally, I would just assume this type of comment is simply trolling, but I looked at your profile and it seems you are a real person with generally intelligent comments so now I’m curious.
I didn't read the budget, and likely you didn't read it too. We can't do all things at the same time, so we have experts to take care of things. (Say, you get a CT scan, you are not going to view it and interpret it, your radiologist will.) The same with the budget: I trust the president and the Republicans, as I take their word for it.
Nobody does blindly anything. We make choices, and that is my choice. I trust the Republicans in Congress, and I am happy with their legislative agenda. Let's respect each other choices, and not denigrate anyone for being politically blind. We all have brains, personalities, education, and we all deserve respect.
Did you do any reading about the budget? I haven't read the whole thing but it seems pretty obvious to me that main benefits will go to the highest incomes and corporations and only a small percentage to the middle class. Unless you define middle class as people with net worth in the millions.
