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> Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself, here I am, a country-simple and inexperienced elected official

No one thinks of themselves as "country-simple". They certainly don't throw hope for their community out the window because they're too "country-simple" to understand that it's a lie.

Sometimes you have to have the self-awareness to ask yourself, here I am, an educated tech enthusiast, who's being presented with a decision and self-delusion I can't empathize with. Is it likely that my narrow experience can be applied in judgment of all other people? Or maybe I have never known the desperation of living in a dying region?

> Or maybe I have never known the desperation of living in a dying region?

I'll bite.

The first thing I would do in a desperate situation in a position of power in a dying region is be radically open to feedback and transparent with my own ideas.

A desperate situation is no room for ego or selfishness.

You involve the community, and you try to listen to everyone, and if an opportunity presents itself that is above your paygrade you try to hope that the COLLECTIVE wisdom of multiple people with different strengths might somehow help offset your power imbalance.

Now, listen to the podcast that interviews this inexperienced elected official and ask yourself if he did anything of the sort, or if he just saw an opportunity to enrich and embiggen himself: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/wbhjwd

> The first thing I would do in a desperate situation in a position of power in a dying region is be radically open to feedback and transparent with my own ideas.

I'm glad that people like you exist, but it is extremely rare that they are elected or stay in office.

It's common for intellectual humility to be perceived as incompetence or weak leadership. "I don't know what to do, but I'm open to hearing your ideas!" is not confidence-inspiring. Admitting to mistakes can be the same.

> You involve the community, and you try to listen to everyone

Similar to the above, this can be seen as weakness. Look at the criticism of Jack Dorsey and Twitter. People mock him for this behavior instead of making unilateral decisions with incomplete evidence.

> if an opportunity presents itself that is above your paygrade

Again, not something a normal human in a leadership position often thinks. You don't think to yourself, "Wow, I'm just not smart enough to understand a large company promising something." Especially in the US, where people trust the legal system to force the other party to make good on its promises.

> he just saw an opportunity to enrich and embiggen himself

I agree that he did this. He wasn't the only person who saw this opportunity. It's also how democracy is supposed to work: someone wins a popularity contest and then wants to win it again.

The incentives this creates are sometimes perverse. You do stupid things that sound good just because they sound good. Can you imagine being an official brave enough to say they don't think Foxconn would follow through? No one would want to vote for you.

We've seen this repeatedly with Trump: he promises impossible things like the return of the coal industry and manufacturing jobs. Some of his rivals in the Republican Party did not promise this, and they were nowhere near as popular as him.

> It's common for intellectual humility to be perceived as incompetence or weak leadership. "I don't know what to do, but I'm open to hearing your ideas!" is not confidence-inspiring. Admitting to mistakes can be the same.

I think this is a failing of our constantly-broadcasting news cycle and incorrect belief about what leaders should be. Yes, leaders should help their people be confident. But we also need to stop putting expectations on leaders that they know the answer at every minute or communication. Otherwise we incentivize them to put out incorrect information or decisions for fear of being seen as weak.

I also have a feeling that our instant "like" culture, mass mobilization of (generally uninformed) public opinion, and belief that democracy to the lowest level is not the right way to manage situations that require contemplative expertise and specialized knowledge.

> No one thinks of themselves as "country-simple"

Of course not. But this is a story of a small town government negotiating with a multibillion-dollar company. They kept negotiations secret. They didn’t seem to hire best-in-class bankers nor lawyers.

I understand the desperation. But stupid doesn’t become less stupid because it was dumb for the right reasons. Best case, they deluded themselves into believing they found a golden goose. That’s incompetent.

> But stupid doesn’t become less stupid because it was dumb for the right reasons.

I think you misunderstood my post.

I wasn't saying that what they did wasn't stupid. It was. The post I was replying to implied the following in a condescending way:

1) the poster is not "simple" enough to be conned by a massive corporation

2) all people living in rural areas are "simple"

3) all people living in rural areas should know that they are simple and never aspire to anything that we big-city people do because it is beyond their cognitive abilities

4) doing something that will probably fail (trusting Foxconn, in this case) is never a rational decision

Regarding #4, it's easy to say that Foxconn is 100% untrustworthy, but we all know that mostly in hindsight. Even if they had a 1% chance of coming through, a region with a dying economy might actually be rational to throw away an enormous amount of money. If it's their only hope, it would be rational to throw away all of their money.

> people living in rural areas should know that they are simple

Countermeasures to this stereotype can be equally damaging. It may have played into Foxconn’s advantage here.

“We don’t need an expensive coastal banker telling us what to do” is reasonable if everyone is out to screw small timers.

> a region with a dying economy might actually be rational to throw away an enormous amount of money

This wasn’t money they had. It was taxpayers’ future money. Money that could have financed education or infrastructure or a move to another city. This mindset is only rational if staying in place has infinite utility, not only for the region’s present residents, but its future ones too.

Just to jump in here to add some additional comments:

* Mount Pleasant WI is not rural (city-data.com says 95% urban). It lies on I94 just 1hr 15min from Chicago and 30min from Milwaukee. * I doubt Mount Pleasant WI is dying.

If I remember, the deal was pretty opaque and many details were murky. I find it more likely the local officials were incentivized somehow as opposed to sheer incompetence.

Additionally, it should be noted that the WI governor (Scott Walker) who orchestrated this deal lost his re-election bid shortly after this. While there was always uncertainty about Foxconn actually following through, the lack of Walker (and thus probably Trump) basically sealed the deal.

> Mount Pleasant WI is not rural

I think you're right. I was responding to someone saying they are "country" people.

> I doubt Mount Pleasant WI is dying.

Milwaukee's metro area (which includes Mount Pleasant and Racine, the places most closely tied to Foxconn's scam) has seen a massive decline in manufacturing:

> "The Great Recession hit Milwaukee’s manufacturing industry especially hard, and the city continues to have discomfiting employment statistics..."[1].

Broad economic numbers aren't great for Racine County as far as I can tell. They're worse than the US overall. Even if they were great, we know from examples across the US that declining blue-collar jobs may be especially painful for the non-urban electorate -- people who influence the local officials who believe the wishful nonsense Foxconn peddles.

> "'This area desperately needs the investment. There's nothing here anymore,' said Tom Johnston, a 54-year-old veteran of [Racine's] once-vaunted manufacturing sector."[2]

1. https://www.badgerinstitute.org/Reports/2013/A-Fresh-Take-on...

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/as-the-economy-teete...

Oh, I agree with your post and appreciate you adding real substance to this thread. I'd say the area's in "decline" as opposed to "dying" but that may be splitting hairs. I do think "dying" implies that there's no hope for revival. Like it's some remote coal town that lives or dies by that single industry. Sure yeah, the manufacturing industry is not doing well here and Racine has fared particularly poorly. That made Mount Pleasant vulnerable to Foxconn but is only one part of the story. There's a lot of political nuance when it comes to Wisconsin and Milwaukee. This deal wasn't getting done without the state government backing it no matter how naive or desperate one municipality was. My point is that it's far more likely corruption or even just normal political incentives drove this deal as opposed to stupidity.

Milwaukee is dying. The suburbs around it are suffering as well.

That's shame, looks like a really nice city otherwise.

"dying" is hyperbole. The manufacturing sector has been on decline for 40 years but other sectors are starting to build up. The downtown core has seen a boom in revitalization, particularly these past 5 years. There's a push for tech and startups.

It's basically in the same metro area as Chicago. Would you say Chicago's dying? It may have declined (or not grown as fast as other US cities) lately but "dying" seems like hyperbole, no?

That's not that uncommon. We've had so many examples in Lithuania,which has less people than suburbs in New York,where some local functionaries thought that large US companies are nice and easy to deal with just to end up with the crappiest deals ever.Some were literally salivating from the fact that a few hot shots from the US will visit their god's forgotten town. One can build any experience, including dealing with multinationals, however it usually comes with very expensive lessons.

> They didn’t seem to hire best-in-class bankers nor lawyers.

Even if they had, is it likely that those people would have told them it wasn't a good deal? My sense is that everyone on the inside thought this was a sweetheart of a deal and were already counting their eggs. And if recent history is any guide, that group of people might very well be the least concerned about whether truth was being conveyed, or care to look deeper into the matter than their own pocketbooks.

The state government was a player in this as well. Foxconn was not the only people promising a golden goose.

Wisconsin is hardly a dying region. It's a very quiet biotech (UW is/ was the largest patent holder in the world mostly in bio, pharma and tech), software (Epic, redox, SwanLeap) and manufacturing (Trek, Kohler, Georgia Pacific, Stryker medical, Mercury Marine) powerhouse.

Though the smaller towns in the state are more dependant on lower yield industries.

What were they going to build with these displays? None of the PR identified what the actual business case was. The automotive industry is the only large domestic consumer of these parts. Otherwise they'd have to ship them back to SZ.

This reminds me of the stories that come out regarding World Cup and Olympics bids, where countries spend exorbitant amounts of money to build to infrastructure to host the games, with the promise that the long term impact of the projects are positive, only to find much of the infrastructure abandoned after the event ends. Many of the Athens 2004 events sites are now popular “abandoned porn” spots.[0]

I remember Brazil built huge stadiums for the World Cup and Olympics banking on their local teams moving into them, which wound up not happening because the teams didn’t like the lease terms. A $900M stadium became a bus garage[1]

0: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abando...

1: https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a15531/bra...

Olympics is a once in a lifetime opportunity for a tiny groups of people in those countries ( contractors, politicians, all sorts of middle men,etc). The country decides to open money tap and everyone goes bananas. There are no long term planning (we'll sort it after the games), everything is built just to show we are better than the country before us and etc.. In most cases it's the ultimate Bentley parked just outside crumbling council estate...

The Olympics are actually significantly different than the corruption perpetrated by the cavalcade of asshats that were Governor Walker's cronies.

I mean, they actually hold an Olympics. It's not clear to me that anything meaningful will happen out in Mt Pleasant Wi. Not even anything worth the 1 billion we've already spent, and that's forgetting about what we're on the hook for if something does happen. It's put a lot of us in wisconsin in the awkward position of hoping everything there completely fails, so we can get out with just the losses we've already taken.

You make it sound like someone got duped and it isn't pure corruption by the powerful insiders.

I attended a juggling convention at a former Olympic venue in Athens, which was in turn a hangar for their former airport. They didn't even have hot water for the showers.

Same thing happened in Sochi where everything has been abandoned and the cost to the taxpayers has been exorbitant:

A year after the $51 billion Winter Olympics, many of the key facilities built for Vladimir Putin's extravaganza have been barely been used.

While the pistes up the mountains are now often packed with skiers - the collapsing rouble means Russians have switched from the likes of Courchevel to the Caucasus - many of the key sites of the games appear to have little prospect of being filled again.

He complained that the Bolshoy Ice Dome - costing the Russian taxpayer £197 million - requires a budget of £9,900 a day to maintain, 'mainly for taking care of the ice'.

A company which owns some of the key facilities - hardly used since the games - and is close to the regional authorities, is on the very edge of bankruptcy, he reported, citing Russia's leading business newspaper Kommersant.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941216/Extraordina...

Absolute bullshit.

Sochi went from being a dump to being a somewhat popular vacation destination for middle class people.

There's room for argument on whether federal funds should have been used to make Sochi richer and nicer, but the article as written is basically fake news.

While I don't doubt that a Daily Mail article is full of lies, what you're saying (Sochi is a more popular and beautiful holiday destination) and what the gp is saying (many of the facilities are derelict) is hardly mutually exclusive.

If only every "country-simple" had a wise Californian to advise them how not to be duped by a large multi-national cooperation.

> If only every "country-simple" had a wise Californian

Or quite literally any banker or lawyer who has negotiated such deals before.

The person on the company’s side has done this dozens of times. The person negotiating for the city has not. At some point, that asymmetry should become apparent.

The deal wasn’t done in good faith. It made as much sense as digging dirt with golden shovels. Walker, Trump and Ryan didn’t need lawyers or bankers. They needed the confidence of grandma and grandpa.

I wouldn’t pay a cent. Foxconn isn’t delivering on its promise. Put the money towards something that will matter. UW funding cuts should be reversed. Build some infrastructure (e.g. fiber, bike trails, high speed rail, solar and wind) and get Wisconsin moving forward.

As big of a bungle as Foxconn was/is, everyone in California knows that Prop 13 has been a disaster of far larger proportion, and no one does anything about it.

Like it or hate it, Prop 13 was democratically selected. This is different from giveaways like Foxconn and sports stadiums.

I somewhat agree with this one. Not to shit on democracy cause it has its benefits but I've definitely noticed that often times elected officials do seem extraordinarily simple and at times downright not very bright or competent (didn't Sacha Cohen get some republican lawmaker to pull down his pants and shout the n word) . I feel that's the risk when you choose leaders based on a popularity contest but hey, nothings perfect.

Every leader is selected by a popularity contest, the only difference is who judges the contest.

I think you should probably check your ego. There is no reason these "country-simple" city counselors couldn't be much smarter and more savvy than you or I.

While true in the general case and your comment needed to be made, the specific city counselors in question are real pieces of work. I don't think country simple is the right phrase, maybe incompetent assholes.

For example, the fire chief ran an anonymous blog commenting on city council happenings (exposed years later when his WordPress install errored and exposed his username). For years he anonymously accused a citizen who opposed the Foxconn project of sleeping with opposition friendly city council members, and then variously:

mentally ill, hypocrite, dingbat, loser, village bully, liar, vile, a joke, an embarrassment, illiterate, a dope, a pimp, deceitful, evil, smelly, hateful, revengeful, crazy, nut job, embarrassing, profane, psycho, stupid, lowlife, vengeful, immoral, racist, witch, snake lady, freakshow, bitter, dumb, and much, much more

The sad thing is that if people have the self-awareness to ask themselves these questions, they're already ahead of the game. People can't remind themselves to be self-aware and skeptical like that if they're not already. Unfortunately, they either are or they aren't.

Gullible to an extent, but I didn't come away with the impression that those officials were acting in good faith.

If you truly believe what you're doing is good for your community, you don't typically shroud the entire process in secrecy, suppress dissent, and only make a public announcement once the deal is practically set in stone.

If someome asks you to keep a secret, that secret is a lie. -Jack Dahl

Are nuclear secrets lies?