The Carrier Deal

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The Globe & Mail: Trump’s Carrier deal is a bad economic omen

I think it's a publicity stunt. Great for the 1000+ who have jobs for the next few years, but it's a drop in the bucket nationwide.

Carrier's brand was hurt by moving jobs out of this country so this is saving face, I think it is a good thing that Trump will not sit back and let them ship jobs out of this country unabated. There should be consequences for the taking jobs out of this country, using the bully pulpit against the exploiters is exactly what should be done. Slavery was a "sound economic principle" since the beginning of time, it was immoral and a sickness in society but one could make the same arguments for it as you can with outsourcing and it does not have to be tolerated.

There aren't consequences for leaving. There are incentives for threatening to leave. A business with no intentions to leave the country could look at this as an opportunity to receive tax breaks by merely threatening to leave, despite not intending to do so.

Carrier wasn't threatening to leave, they were gone but Trump attacked their brand and the consequences of that outweighed the benefit of leaving the country. Trump has called for boycotts against certain companies which have been pretty effective, I don't think too many companies want to pick fights with the POTUS. Attack the tax credit but $7 million is not that much in comparison to 1100 well paying union jobs, do the math. If only our previous leaders cared about the workers of this country even a little bit then maybe we wouldn't be where we are today, they're even talking about making iPhones here believe it or not so this idea that jobs cannot be retained or be brought back to this country is simply not true. American companies who make their money off the American people should be making their products in the US, the exploitation of 3rd world labor needs to stop. I believe the average hourly wage at the Carrier plant in Indiana is like $23 an hour, it was going to be $3 an hour in Mexico and I don't think it is right that the American worker has to compete with that.

Trump bent over and took one for the team.

He gave Carrier 7 million dollars in tax breaks to save 1,000 jobs, which I hear may end up being as little as 500, of the more than 2,000, jobs by the time all is said and done. That's crony capitalism 101. The exact opposite of what Trump was suppose to be about.

So maybe he saved a handful of jobs. I'll give him credit when he renegotiates NAFTA like he said he would do, as well as the rest of these bad deals that took American jobs overseas. Until then all I see here are smoke and mirrors. He is fulfilling a campaign promise to make himself look good. All he did was show that he is no different than any other politician that has been ruining this country for 40 years now.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/12/01/ ... -jobs.html

When communities give tax breaks to businesses, where do they get the money to provide essential services like police and keeping the roads cleared of snow? In Connecticut, the rich towns do a much better job of keeping streets clear of snow because they have the tax base to pay workers to keep the streets plowed. People want to get paid fairly--you can't rely on volunteers.

Companies should be penalized for leaving, not given millions of taxpayer dollars ( corporate welfare) for staying.

Some people have such a knee jerk reaction to anything deemed a 'tax break', $7 million is not that much when it saves a 1000+ middle class jobs. Do the math, $45k x 1100? A lot more than $7m and I think those families that will have jobs this Christmas will be thankful.

You're completely missing the point about why this is a problem. A penalty for leaving could accomplish the same thing without costing taxpayers money. More importantly, this deal sets a dangerous precedent. A company with no intentions of leaving the country could go to the government and say "hey we're leaving, the country is going to lose 10,000 jobs. Pay up and we'll stay!"

There is a carrot and stick approach but we just can't forget the stick. I don't think Trump has as he spent the whole campaign berating Carrier and bringing attention to the plight of their workers, there is tremendous leverage to be had over American companies that make the make their money off the American people I think just by bringing attention to what they are doing. If Trump didn't talk about these workers would anybody even know or care about Carrier moving jobs out of this country? I'd say Trump has had a pretty remarkably successful transition period, he's not president yet but even as President-elect he is fulfilling campaign promises. It would be odd for anti-Trump people to turn into raging free marketeers now, they are a very confused bunch.

I think you underestimate the leverage had simply by speaking up about these companies as they are dependent on consumers(often government contracts too), announcing you're leaving the country is not a good business model if it results in the president trashing your company and calling for a boycott of it. Look at the stock prices of Macy's since Trump called for a boycott of them more than a year ago, it's had a real effect.

As for actual "consequences", sure, but remember the keys to the presidency haven't even been handed over yet. What did Obama do to keep jobs in this country? What would of Hillary Clinton done?

Automation is going to lead to many of those "saved" jobs being lost soon either way. One could argue that this deal gives Carrier more of an incentive to speed up the process of more automation (which will result in even more lost jobs.) Jobs in manufacturing will continue to decline due to advancements in technology that allows companies to use robots to build things.

We gained 15 million jobs during his administration.

Automation will happen either way, Trump had some interesting comments on it automation when asked about robots taking these jobs if they are brought back to which he replied that 'we'll make the robots too.'

As for those jobs numbers, do you believe everything the government tells you? Government measures are notoriously incorrect and purposely misleading, they cook the books to show what they want to show which is what the 15 million figure is. Look at the rate of workforce participation which has never recovered, do you believe in the 4.9% figure for unemployment? It's nonsense.

Automation will happen either way. This deal likely shortens the timeline. And as far as "we'll make the robots too" do you really thing that people will be building them when it would be cheaper to use automation to build those machines? That makes no sense.

I'm sure the figures are not 100% exact but they're pretty close. Are you denying that the economy has improved during Obama's presidency?

Good point. The conditions where they make our products are often in need of improvement and are sometimes downright dangerous.

So true. Progress cannot be stopped. I just wonder what all the people will do.

I don't buy that it will make automation happen quicker and what does it matter if the jobs would be gone anyways? I think automation is a serious issue that will likely eventually require the implementation of some sort of guaranteed income but we're still a ways off from that happening. I don't think anybody is advocating for a radically different approach, Obama and Clinton represented the corporate status quo so do not be mistaken in thinking they are friends of the American worker. It may be inevitable but there is no reason to think the globalist outsourcers who created this economic environment would handle it any better or that we should surrender to their whims.

I would say growth has been paltry and the 'recovery' almost non-existent with almost all the gains going to the most wealthy, most jobs that have been added are not good ones but are we better off now than when our economy was collapsing? Sure, in the same way someone who gets paralyzed might be 'better off' some years after they get laid up in the hospital but that doesn't mean good. What is job created is worth more? A part time dishwasher for someone who isn't even a citizen or well paying union manufacturing job? Waiters and bellboys don't drive the economy.

Where are you from originally Alex? I came from the urban inner city of a post-industrial rust belt so asking me whether things have gotten better doesn't work because it hasn't, a lot of this country was left to rot for decades while elitists on the coast became richer than anybody in history. We've had to leave our home and become internal immigrants to find any hope at a better life, this happened during Obama's presidency but it was set in motion decades ago.