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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the nice-dough,-if-you-can-get-it dept.

Kasia Tarczynska reports via Common Dreams:

Tech giants are successfully pressuring cash-strapped states and municipalities to provide massive subsidies to support their data centers, but the data centers create few permanent jobs for local workers.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, America's most well-known brands and most prosperous firms, are demanding that states and localities provide them ever-larger economic development subsidies to support their data centers. Last year these five tech giants reported nearly $120 billion in pre-tax profits, and yet they told states and localities they needed financial help to build new data centers, structures essential to their business operations. Their efforts resulted in more than $2 billion in public support to build 11 new data centers. The facilities would create 1,174 long-term jobs, amounting to an enormous per-job subsidy of $1.95 million, according to Money Lost to the Cloud ,[PDF] a new report from Good Jobs First, which I authored.

Data centers have enormous footprints. Apple's one in Maiden, NC has 500,000 feet of floor space, enough to fit nine football fields inside--and it is expensive, costing more than $1 billion, most of it for the endless racks of expensive servers and the powerful air conditioning required to keep the heat-spewing electronics cool. But despite this cost, the data center will employ fewer than 50 permanent workers, a subsidy of $6.4 million per employee, the most of any deal in our survey.

[...] Offering seven-figure-per-[job] subsidies is a losing proposition for taxpayers and communities. Utah officials realized this when they backed out of a recent $260 million 20-year data center subsidy deal with Facebook. They understand there were other opportunities for the industrial land where the project would be located, opportunities that would result in more jobs for local residents.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:39AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:39AM (#416068) Journal
    It shouldn't need Federal intervention. Why does anyone who voted to provide this kind of subsidy have the slightest chance of reelection? In a functioning democracy, they'd be out with no chance of ever standing for a public position again.
    --
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:52PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:52PM (#416128)

    Why does anyone who voted to provide this kind of subsidy have the slightest chance of reelection? In a functioning democracy, they'd be out with no chance of ever standing for a public position again.

    Here's why: Because there are typically no more than 2 candidates for office, both of which completely agree on this issue, which means you can't vote it out of office no matter what you do.

    You'll notice that the 2 major parties will rage at each other over social issues like which bathroom transgendered people use, but won't make so much as a peep about, for example, massive bailouts and subsidies to politically connected banks, or buying hundreds of useless tanks the army doesn't want because the companies that make them line the pockets of the right congresscritter. Both major parties do everything they can to maximize the opportunity for graft, because their politicians and party hacks are all part of the bribery food chain.

    In general, when you see "bipartisanship", watch out!

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:27PM

      by Francis (5544) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:27PM (#416144)

      The solution is campaign finance reform. Banning polling firms from polling would probably help as well, unfortunately, that's almost certainly a violation of the first amendment.

      This year we've got an initiative on the ballot here that's supposed to reform finance at the state level. I'm sure it's going to be tossed by the courts, but just getting the thing passed ought to be a signal to politicians that the voters are fed up enough with the blatant corruption and various groups blatantly violating the current set of campaign finance laws.

      It's been kind of a routine thing over the last few years for groups to break our laws knowing that the consequences won't come until after the election is over; at which point the remedies are mooted by the election being over.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:40PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:40PM (#416177)

        The solution is campaign finance reform.

        No, it isn't: Even if you completely fix campaign finance, the graft will continue to flow in the form of funding for seemingly independent superPACs, think tanks, foundations, etc.

        The real solutions are:
        - Substantially reduce government subsidies for specific businesses or industries. I'm OK with the government creating an incentive for a little while to push a new technology or something, but once that technology is established then the subsidy needs to go away.
        - Substantially reduce government contracting. If the government wants to do something, they should hire people and buy equipment to do it. For example, road work should be handled by a government department - it is in a number of places I've lived in, and the result is better roads at lower costs than the areas that do everything by contract.

        As for how you get there, what needs to happen is a political party that is all about anti-corruption. The Republicans sometimes pretend to be that party, but they definitely aren't [wikipedia.org]. Neither are the Democrats, despite all kinds of protestation to the contrary. If I were a strategist for the Libertarians or Greens, I'd pick a relatively small state that is completely controlled by the major party closest to me ideologically as a place to take over and gain a foothold, e.g. the Green Party targeting Rhode Island's thoroughly corrupt Democratic state government rather than sending Jill Stein running around trying to become president.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:19PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:19PM (#416324)

          Francis got halfway there--but stopped short.

          To **completely** fix the problem would require public elections to be publicly funded.
          Hat tip to Ralph Nader on this one.

          the graft will continue to flow in the form of funding for seemingly independent superPACs, think tanks, foundations, etc

          If "graft" means a private entity paying another private entity for an opinion ("research"), ISTM that that's protected by the 1st Amendment.

          Now, if any money crosses over the line into the public sector (bribing gov't officials) after a constitutional amendment is passed prohibiting that, some folks should be going to prison for a long stretch.

          Substantially reduce government contracting. If the government wants to do something, they should hire people and buy equipment to do it

          I like your idea and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

          rather than sending Jill Stein running around trying to become president

          That's what gets the ink.
          You can blame a poorly-regulated press infrastructure (media consolidation, loss-leader news operations turned into infotainment profit centers, etc.).
          Thanks, Ronnie Raygun for destroying The Fairness Doctrine--and every prez since (who have all failed to reinstate that).

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:41AM

            by Francis (5544) on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:41AM (#416445)

            Right, I didn't specify what I meant by campaign finance reform, but restricting it to public financing would cure pretty much all of it. I'm not necessarily sure if that would work better than banning non-people from donating to campaigns, restricting advertising to the campaigns and limiting the size of donations to a low limit, but all of that kind of feels like an unnecessary compromise.

            But, ultimately, any solution that doesn't involve a constitutional amendment isn't going to work. The Supreme Court already ignores the Constitution when it comes to free speech and is more concerned with the legal interpretation than whether or not it makes any sense. Citizens United is hardly the first time they've crossed the line on the issue and without an amendment, it won't be the last.

            http://www.yes1464.org/about [yes1464.org] is a step in the right direction, but I doubt very much that it's anywhere near sufficient. And I'd be shocked if it didn't get set aside by the courts.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:45PM (#416243)
      Yeah it's very simple. One candidate goes for "anti-abortion"/pro-life, the other for "pro-choice", and that covers like 90% of the voters?

      Then the corporations give both candidates $$$$$$ for stuff the corporations want. The voters don't care much about that corporation stuff and the corporations don't really care about abortion. There are plenty of people who are supporting Trump just because they think he is anti-abortion. They are willing to overlook _everything_ just for that single issue.

      So after the election, the majority of the voters get what they want the most, the corporations get what they want and the candidates get what they want (they both got money anyway ;) ).

      Everyone gets what they want the most. Win-win. So Democracy is working well!

      Now if most voters had different priorities then it would be more complicated but that's seldom the case. There's always some hot button topic the politicians can use. If it's not abortion, it's gay marriage or transgender bathrooms as you mentioned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @12:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @12:35AM (#416416)

      2 candidates? In many cases for jobs such as that there is 1. With those it is not even worth my time to vote. They by default 'got the job'.