Foxconn founder Terry Gou to run for Taiwan's presidency Terry Gou, who founded contract manufacturer to the stars Foxconn, has delivered on his previous promise to stand for election as president of Taiwan. Gou launched his candidacy with a speech and a Facebook post. The billionaire's pitch may sound familiar to followers of US politics in recent years. He has promised that if …
In direct contrast to a separation of church/religion and state which has happened or is happening across most countries, we now see an increased or at least more obvious interlinking of business and state.
Not a good idea - too much power in the hands of those who can then shape the state and legislation for their continued enrichment or protection.
"increased or at least more obvious interlinking of business and state."
IIRC it's been 60-ish years since the "military-industrial complex" was identified as a cancer to democracy. It had already set in by then, and it's been getting worse ever since. Industry and big business have evolved in the meantime, and their hold on government policies has only gotten tighter.
The logical end point of merging business and state interests -- subsuming the interests of society to that of business -- is Corporatism. Dressed up with a heapin' heplin' of patriotism it becomes fascism.
Taiwan has already had its fill of this -- the KMT government when it fled to Taiwan and took over the island instituted what we politely call a 'military regime' these das. Its possible that Terry Gou is strong enough to push back against this.
"Military-industrial complex" is generally said to have been coined by Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address. So 62 years; your recollection was right on the money.
Remember when Republican presidents were like Eisenhower? It'll be a long time before we see that again from the GOP. They've done an excellent job of turning the party into an authoritarian dumpster fire. (Lindsey Graham crying like a televangelist asking people to donate to Trump's legal defense fund is a splendid example: complete ideological bankruptcy, utter lack of shame. I don't know if the remaining handful of Republican politicians who still have any backbone are enough to rescue the party in their lifetime.)
"Use his entrepreneurial experience to cut through political morasses that incumbent parties have proved they cannot address;"
The "political morass" in a typical liberal democracy is *by design*, because of long and painful experience showing that giving most of governmental power to a single person or small group of people is a BAD IDEA. Slow-moving decision-making is simply a by-product of having multiple stakeholders be able to not only just give their input, but to have a meaningful and constitutionally-protected power to keep government excesses in check. Using "entrepreneurial experience" in this respect sounds to me like operating a government like a company, ie oligarchy or dictatorship
Exactly. This is why a successful businessman is likely to be disastrous in a leading political position in a democracy. I wouldn't go as far as disqualifying them, but before someone can be elected to be a president, he should have succesfully served a term in some elected position, even if it is just a local councilman.
Isn't Foxconn the same outfit that has, on at least two occasions in the states, a history of promising multi-billion projects but then not having them happen?
Sounds like this guy is really like FloridaMan.
And before you argue those points-
1 Ask the citizens of Wisconsin how many jobs were actually created from the multi billion dollar tax break and infrastructure build out there
2 Ask Lordstown Motors how their partnership is working out with FoxConn
Ask the citizens of Wisconsin how many jobs were actually created from the multi billion dollar tax break and infrastructure build out there
@HausWolf, I mean this in a friendly way, since you don't seem to be from the states and you've raised an esoteric aspect of the US tax system...
Foxconn never received those tax breaks because most could only have been collected as a discount to an equal or larger tax bill. That was a deliberate feature of the legislation that authorized them. It contained quite a few other prerequisites, such as building general purpose infrastructure using in-state labor and materials, and hiring a minimum number of full-time employees at each of several qualification levels and pay grades. By a wide margin it wasn't a givaway to Foxconn.
Some have a different take. While they didn't get the initial billions promised in the deal because of non performance, they are still collecting and taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions that they will probably never recoup.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/20/wisconsin-foxconn-deal-cost-taxpayers-millionsand-it-will-continue-to-cost-more-millions#:~:text=By%202021%2C%20Wisconsin%20spent%20%24683,expected%20to%20spend%20even%20more.
While they didn't get the initial billions promised in the deal because of non performance, they are still collecting...
As noted in your link, Foxconn isn't collecting money from the government of Wisconsin. They were allowed to buy building materials from local suppliers without paying local sales tax, a waiver equal to ~10% of what they spent on construction in Wisconsin during the same period.
That's unlikely to have cost Wisconsin tax revenue because the state has excess industrial capacity that would otherwise be idle, and most of the work was done during the worst part of the COVID downturn.
Speaking of which, your source also accused Foxconn of laying off employees 'as soon as subsidies expired,' but didn't acknowledge to their readers that in the same period (early 2020) the entire US economy lost 10% of our workforce due to lockdowns.
...taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions [on infrastructure improvements] that they will probably never recoup.
The roads that were expanded aren't in a low traffic area; they're adjacent to the main highway between Chicago and Milwaukee, on the southwestern edge of Kenosha.
Foxconn never received those tax breaks
And OP never claimed they had, so what's your point? The text you quoted said that there were tax breaks, not that Foxconn profited from them.
Foxconn promised large developments. They did not deliver.
And, of course, Foxconn did not engage in these projects out of the goodness of Gou's heart. Some of it may have been hedging – entering into the venture to see whether it would turn out to be profitable – and some of it may have been quid pro quo, which might have been anything and everything from kickbacks to political capital (though Trump is wildly unlikely to repay such debts, and Walker's political worth is now minimal).
Give a president the power to dissolve the legislature? That would appear to mean that the only vote you cast that matters is for president, and if you mistaken elect a wanna-be dictator good luck getting him out of office - if he can dissolve the legislature he could easily pressure them to vote the way he wants under that threat.
I wonder if the legislature is dissolved voters choose a new one ASAP, the president chooses a new one, or the government operates without one until the next scheduled election and the president holds their power as well as his own?
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