The elephant not in the room

Instead of throwing studies and statistics at each other in a battle of the riders, we actually need to speak to each other's elephants. Or, more precisely, we need to listen and try to understand the other's elephant. Only then can we find real common ground that we can build upon. Only then can we change minds. Last week someone shared an article with me about the Foxconn deal that was announced by the Trump administration. When I read it, my elephant started to charge and my rider had no problem justifying it. I'm deeply skeptical of these kind of deals and, with the numbers presented in the article, I quickly went about presenting a pretty convincing case for why this was a ridiculous thing to do. At least, I thought it was convincing. There were a number of others who didn't. I heard from many people over the weekend that I was missing something and that my credibility was damaged as a result. Chuck, you're not taking into account all the related industries that are going to follow and the jobs they will create. Chuck, these subsidies are all tax credits so it's not like they get a handout for doing nothing. Chuck, you're not counting the property taxes or the sales taxes, which will certainly be significant. I responded to one of these comments by noting that, for the deal to make financial sense, the side aspect they claimed I was discounting would need to amount to multiple times the main deal. I responded as if that were obvious, because it was to me. Why would the state of Wisconsin want a bunch of new workers -- a bunch of people who are going to cost the state a ton of money -- when, under an ideal scenario, the state will get no revenue from those workers for more than half a century? How does this benefit anyone in Wisconsin not named or directly employed by Foxconn?