Heres What You Really Need To Know About Trumps Carrier Deal

[ghostsinthemachine]

Back in February, United Technologies announced that it would be moving a couple of Indianapolis factories to Mexico. One was a Carrier air conditioning plant that employed 1,400 people, and the other was an electronic controls plant that employed 700.

Donald Trump went ballistic. "I will call the head of Carrier and I will say, I hope you enjoy your new building," Trump said. "I hope you enjoy Mexico. Here's the story, folks: Every single air conditioning unit that you build and send across our border — you're going to pay a 35 percent tax on that unit."

Then, a few days ago, the world was treated to this odd tweet:. More here:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/11/donald-trump-working-class-indiana

[MurrayDelph]

1. Our Glorious Big Brother

has increased the chocolate allowance from one-third of a pound per week to one-fourth.

[femmocrat]

2. Smoke and mirrors.

Complete fakery.

[Johonny]

3. Typically how this works is that the jobs get lost anyways...

the company takes the tax incentives, lays low one year, and then goes ahead with their plans. Instead of direct firing they simply do stop loss, stop hiring lost employees until the major operation is done elsewhere. If they want to move, they move. But they love taking tax bribes to stay and move at the same time. Its amazing how often politicians get played by big business and voters fall for it.

[ghostsinthemachine]

4. Yep, that is the exact scenario

owners probably Republicans who will cut and run the very second they can anyway.

[ghostsinthemachine]

5. Cross posted

Thanks to Babylon Sister: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028319114

Dont miss the fine print in Trumps Carrier news
Posted with permission.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/dont-miss-the-fine-print-trumps-carrier-news?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Don’t miss the fine print in Trump’s Carrier news
11/30/16 08:40 AM—Updated 11/30/16 08:52 AM
By Steve Benen


Over the summer, during a campaign rally in Indiana, then-candidate Donald Trump made a specific vow: “We’re not going to lose Carrier air conditioning from Indianapolis.” And with this in mind, the news out of the Hoosier State yesterday seemed very encouraging, at least at first blush.

The incoming Trump administration and United Technologies have reached an agreement that will keep close to 1,000 jobs at Carrier Corp., which is owned by United Technologies, in Indiana.

Carrier had planned to move production from a key factory in that state to Mexico, taking with it the roughly 1,400 jobs of those who work at the Indiana plant.

But shortly after CNBC revealed that Donald Trump was expected to travel to Indiana on Thursday to reveal that a deal had been reached, Carrier itself confirmed the agreement.


Details of the agreement are scarce, and the Indianapolis Star reported overnight that many workers will very likely “still be laid off.”

But for the workers whose jobs appear to have been saved, it’s still unambiguously good news. The president-elect will head to Indiana tomorrow to celebrate the deal, take credit for the negotiations that began earlier this year (long before he even won the Republican nomination), and point to the progress as proof of Trump’s ability to boost American manufacturing.

There is, however, an important catch.

In this case, Trump didn’t use his self-professed expertise in negotiations to reach a compromise with Carrier. Rather, he and the state of Indiana gave Carrier lots of money through state “incentives” and tax breaks in order to convince the company to stay.

That, in and of itself, isn’t especially controversial. Cities, counties, and states do this all the time to keep companies happy before they pick up and go somewhere else. But it’s not the basis for a sustainable, national manufacturing strategy: the Trump administration can’t run around throwing grants and tax breaks at every CEO who’s thinking about moving production jobs out of the country.

Indeed, there’s an Economics 101 problem: if companies are led to believe the government will give them money to stay in the United States, every employer, whether they have outsourcing plans or not, will have a strong incentive to call up the Trump White House and say, “Give us a sweet, taxpayer-financed deal or we’re out of here.”

There is no scenario in which the Republican administration says yes to each of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for those Hoosiers who’ll keep their jobs. I also understand the benefits of a political p.r. campaign: Trump will hail himself as a hero for effectively bribing Carrier to only lay off some of its Indianapolis workforce.

But if you’re suddenly optimistic that the hapless president-elect knows what he’s doing when it comes to manufacturing and job creation, it’s probably best to lower expectations.

[ghostsinthemachine]

6. Report: Carrier will keep just 850 US jobs, get $700,000 a year in tax breaks (Cross posted)

From here thanks to deminks http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028319255
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-pence-carrier-deal-65e6bee054c9#.5gg8d4nmb

More than half the jobs will still leave the country, all while taxpayers hand Carrier a package of financial incentives.

After railing against air conditioning and heating manufacturer Carrier on the campaign trail for its announced plan to move production to Mexico — and therefore about 2,000 U.S. jobs — President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence will announce on Thursday that they have struck a deal to keep about 1,000 of those jobs in Indiana.

But while Trump is already bragging about the deal, the details expose it as a raw one for a lot of Americans.

Fortune reports that the actual sum is even smaller. The company has pledged to keep 850 jobs in the U.S. that would otherwise have gone to Mexico, while also retaining some headquarters and engineering jobs that would have moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Since the company had originally put more than 2,000 at risk — 1,400 at the Indianapolis plant and 700 at the Huntington plant owned by Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies — the difference between those numbers mean that at least some production will move south of the border and more than half of the jobs will go with it. Fortune reports that 1,300 jobs will go to Mexico: 600 from the Indianapolis plant and the 700 in Huntington.

(end snip)