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From https://sherwood.news/tech/hyperion/ https://sherwood.news/tech/hyperion/ >> Per the report, the package of tax breaks and incentives was achieved through

From https://sherwood.news/tech/hyperion/ https://sherwood.news/tech/hyperion/ >> Per the report, the package of tax breaks and incentives was achieved through local officials bound by nondisclosure agreements, quietly struck legislative deals, and parliamentary sleight of hand to avoid public scrutiny of the deal. >> So the residents of Richland Parish did not have much of a heads-up on what was coming. No voting, no public interests, only closed-door politics.

laweijfmvo 4mo ago
but there will be voting; all of the elected officials will have to face elections at some point, and voters can put their feet down right now: everyone is voted out.
- TFYS 4mo ago
  The new people voted in are likely to be corporate stooges as well, as they have good and well funded infrastructure behind them for getting elected.
- pertymcpert 4mo ago
  That's already factored in the cost of doing business for them.
- nomorewords 4mo ago
  When the damage is already done?
  - philipallstar 4mo ago
    That is how everyone decision works, yes. That's why you want limited government. Voting where you can't vote with your money is a very low-quality, delayed signal.
    - tech_ken 4mo ago
      If you assume that decision makers operate entirely in silo from their constituents then yes, that's how this works. Howver if you are operating in the normal mode of democracy where decision makers consult impacted parties through town halls, solicited feedback, subcommittees, etc etc then there are ample opportunities to obtain high-quality, low-latency signals. "Voting with your money" is (IM personal O) a scapegoat for government leaders to avoid doing their due-diligence (not to mention the massive power imbalance that results from people with lots of money 'voting' way more than people with less money).
      - philipallstar 4mo ago
        > If you assume that decision makers operate entirely in silo from their constituents then yes, that's how this works. Most places have two parties, each of which has a position on several thousand issues. You have two choices: combination A of the several thousand issues, or combination B. You don't get to choose with any more granularity than that. > not to mention the massive power imbalance that results from people with lots of money 'voting' way more than people with less money This is a power rectification. If you have two streaming services and one is bad, that bad one will fairly quickly receive far less money as people vote with their wallets. That's not rich people with thousands of accounts "voting" for the winner, it's just a more direct system of people choosing with money. Politics has a far stronger link to an individual's money swaying decisions than that.
  - shimman 4mo ago
    It's okay, as the on-going damage continues Americans tend to be well armed enough to go on a few rampages here and there.
    - hgoel 4mo ago
      Americans are very good at talking tough like that, only to use their arms against innocent randos.
      - shimman 4mo ago
        That's the point. Society suffers and continues to suffers while the elites run havoc.
- kovek 4mo ago
  What negative consequences does being unelected have?
- rjbwork 4mo ago
  And then those companies can give them their due ~~bribes~~ totally free and unrelated gifts out of the goodness of their hearts to such illustrious paragons of American governance, as legalized by the supreme court recently.
- tstrimple 4mo ago
  You're underestimating just how much damage conservative mindsets can do to a state/country/world. From a US perspective, Donald Trump isn't the problem. The tens of millions of American citizens who are willing to vote for someone like Trump in 2024 are a huge fucking problem that will outlive Trump. Even today he has something like an 80% approval rating from conservatives. Some people cheer the concentration camps. And if your only hope is to outvote them, welcome to Nazi Germany.
JuniperMesos 4mo ago
[flagged]
- Tostino 4mo ago
  So, the massive tax breaks that were given at the expense of the residents...how do you explain that away?
- lesuorac 4mo ago
  What back-deals are yimbys doing? There's a huge difference between extremely publically pushing for laws that allow buildings to be built vs private negotiating tax breaks that only affect a singular building.
- amluto 4mo ago
  This is a strange comparison. If a real estate developer already owns land and wants to build at their expense on their own land, quite a few people think that, in general, they should be permitted to do so as long as they comply with applicable laws. But this set of tax breaks is modifying the effect of the applicable laws (namely sales and use tax, according to the article) for the benefit of a landowner. That seems rather different.
- drtz 4mo ago
  There's a lot of ground between gifting $3.3 billion in tax incentives to a megacorp for a short-term increase in construction employment and allowing a homeowner build a second dwelling on their lot. Incidentally, that same $3.3 billion could build around 10,000 accessory dwellings in Baton Rouge.
  - bombcar 4mo ago
    What are the details of the tax incentives? Some are "real loss" (e.g., the area produced $10k a year in property tax before, and now produces $0) and others are "lost future taxes" where it produces nothing now, and now will produce nothing for 10/20 years (this is the type often used to convince Walmart to build here rather than there).
  - 4mo ago
heylook 4mo ago
Yet another moment where Strangers in Their Own Land[0] is prescient. From an interview[1] given by the author: "I think the next most important reason they distrusted the federal government is their experience with protective agencies in the state of Louisiana, and they thought, “Gosh, these are a lot of people we pay taxes to but they don't really protect us.” And they’re right, because Louisiana is an oil state - that was a big discovery for me - and it outsources, in a way, the moral dirty work to the state. So, the state actually pretends to protect the citizenry from hazardous waste and pollution of air and water and ground, but it doesn't actually protect it very much. It gives out permits, as one Tea Party person said "like candy." And so, they felt the federal government is just a bigger, badder version of a state government which isn't protecting us. So, they'd had bad experience. They’d been burned, and I think that's the second kind of source of resistance to the government. But the third is that they saw the government as an instrument of what I'll call “the line cutters.”" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_in_Their_Own_Land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_in_Their_Own_Land [1] https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=18-P13-00032&segmentID=4 https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=18-P13-000...
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago
  Man, "instrument of the 'line cutters'" describes my government to a tee and I live in one of the wealthiest states.
LogicFailsMe 4mo ago
Which is what we keep electing so boohoo. I'd like to be less pessimistic but people are irredeemably irredeemable. I am hugely pro-AI, but the tech bros need to channel more Ronald Reagan* and less f**ing Homelander or this ends very badly for everyone. *And I hated Ronald Reagan at the time Now bring me some downvotes to show me the error of my ways... Thank you for restoring my lack of faith in humanity...
malshe 4mo ago
I'm not at all surprised to learn that Republican politicians royally screwed their constituents. I was going to say maybe these people will vote better next time just to read that Colorado governor is commuting the sentence of Tina Peters. Democratic leadership is so freaking weak it's unbelievable. With one party full of grifters and the other with full of weaklings, we need to abolish this two-party system.
- selimthegrim 4mo ago
  Louisiana had a Democratic governor from 2016-2024.
  - Forgeties79 4mo ago
    This is missing enormous amounts of context. JBE came in before Trump made it a sin to vote Democrat in Louisiana and after Jindall (2 term republican) did such a horrific job that the GOP couldn’t recover no matter who they ran. He also faced possibly one of the worst candidates in history in Rispone for his second term. He was one of the last blue dog democrats, had decades of great reputation built up, and had no problem being extremely cozy with oil/gas. He walked a very thin line super confidently and basically was a 1990 Democrat. It didn’t hurt that he basically saw him nothing but success during both of his tenures. He was an incredibly capable governor. Frankly he’s an anomaly. They won’t have Democrat Governor for decades just like WV won’t have a democrat senator again for a long time since Manchin left. Keep in mind Louisiana has had a Republican legislature for literally decades now, a super majority years-running currently. The current state is the result of Republican policies and it’s a red fortress for the foreseeable future, especially with the changes they made to primaries and voting, coupled with the recent SCOTUS ruling on gerrymandering. No matter what happens in the coming midterms, I guarantee you the legislature will remain a super major majority for the Republicans. It is a cartel state now where they literally remove positions when Democrats win, as New Orleans learned with their court clerk who was recently elected. Louisiana is THE Republican state and offers too few electoral votes for the Democrats to pay attention to it. And every year they stay away from it the deeper entrenched Republicans become as they pass more and more laws of favoring their ability to keep their seats. The current legal landscape is so dire it’s an understatement to call it an uphill battle for non-republicans.
selimthegrim 4mo ago
There was a public hearing of the state public service commission I attended which essentially boiled down to well all these big Wall Street banks are guaranteeing payment so it should be fine and plus we need jobs up there.
- pesus 4mo ago
  I wonder if they actually believed it would bring more than a handful of permanent jobs or whether they're just saying to get their bribe.
  - selimthegrim 4mo ago
    Foster Campbell is a famously honest person. He also famously drove his car into a gap in pavement on an under construction interstate at 40 miles an hour so you decide for yourself what that says about him.

laweijfmvo 4mo ago

but there will be voting; all of the elected officials will have to face elections at some point, and voters can put their feet down right now: everyone is voted out.

TFYS 4mo ago
The new people voted in are likely to be corporate stooges as well, as they have good and well funded infrastructure behind them for getting elected.
pertymcpert 4mo ago
That's already factored in the cost of doing business for them.
nomorewords 4mo ago
When the damage is already done?
- philipallstar 4mo ago
  That is how everyone decision works, yes. That's why you want limited government. Voting where you can't vote with your money is a very low-quality, delayed signal.
  - tech_ken 4mo ago
    If you assume that decision makers operate entirely in silo from their constituents then yes, that's how this works. Howver if you are operating in the normal mode of democracy where decision makers consult impacted parties through town halls, solicited feedback, subcommittees, etc etc then there are ample opportunities to obtain high-quality, low-latency signals. "Voting with your money" is (IM personal O) a scapegoat for government leaders to avoid doing their due-diligence (not to mention the massive power imbalance that results from people with lots of money 'voting' way more than people with less money).
    - philipallstar 4mo ago
      > If you assume that decision makers operate entirely in silo from their constituents then yes, that's how this works. Most places have two parties, each of which has a position on several thousand issues. You have two choices: combination A of the several thousand issues, or combination B. You don't get to choose with any more granularity than that. > not to mention the massive power imbalance that results from people with lots of money 'voting' way more than people with less money This is a power rectification. If you have two streaming services and one is bad, that bad one will fairly quickly receive far less money as people vote with their wallets. That's not rich people with thousands of accounts "voting" for the winner, it's just a more direct system of people choosing with money. Politics has a far stronger link to an individual's money swaying decisions than that.
- shimman 4mo ago
  It's okay, as the on-going damage continues Americans tend to be well armed enough to go on a few rampages here and there.
  - hgoel 4mo ago
    Americans are very good at talking tough like that, only to use their arms against innocent randos.
    - shimman 4mo ago
      That's the point. Society suffers and continues to suffers while the elites run havoc.
kovek 4mo ago
What negative consequences does being unelected have?
rjbwork 4mo ago
And then those companies can give them their due ~~bribes~~ totally free and unrelated gifts out of the goodness of their hearts to such illustrious paragons of American governance, as legalized by the supreme court recently.
tstrimple 4mo ago
You're underestimating just how much damage conservative mindsets can do to a state/country/world. From a US perspective, Donald Trump isn't the problem. The tens of millions of American citizens who are willing to vote for someone like Trump in 2024 are a huge fucking problem that will outlive Trump. Even today he has something like an 80% approval rating from conservatives. Some people cheer the concentration camps. And if your only hope is to outvote them, welcome to Nazi Germany.

JuniperMesos 4mo ago

[flagged]

Tostino 4mo ago
So, the massive tax breaks that were given at the expense of the residents...how do you explain that away?
lesuorac 4mo ago
What back-deals are yimbys doing? There's a huge difference between extremely publically pushing for laws that allow buildings to be built vs private negotiating tax breaks that only affect a singular building.
amluto 4mo ago
This is a strange comparison. If a real estate developer already owns land and wants to build at their expense on their own land, quite a few people think that, in general, they should be permitted to do so as long as they comply with applicable laws. But this set of tax breaks is modifying the effect of the applicable laws (namely sales and use tax, according to the article) for the benefit of a landowner. That seems rather different.
drtz 4mo ago
There's a lot of ground between gifting $3.3 billion in tax incentives to a megacorp for a short-term increase in construction employment and allowing a homeowner build a second dwelling on their lot. Incidentally, that same $3.3 billion could build around 10,000 accessory dwellings in Baton Rouge.
- bombcar 4mo ago
  What are the details of the tax incentives? Some are "real loss" (e.g., the area produced $10k a year in property tax before, and now produces $0) and others are "lost future taxes" where it produces nothing now, and now will produce nothing for 10/20 years (this is the type often used to convince Walmart to build here rather than there).
- 4mo ago

heylook 4mo ago

Yet another moment where Strangers in Their Own Land[0] is prescient. From an interview[1] given by the author: "I think the next most important reason they distrusted the federal government is their experience with protective agencies in the state of Louisiana, and they thought, “Gosh, these are a lot of people we pay taxes to but they don't really protect us.” And they’re right, because Louisiana is an oil state - that was a big discovery for me - and it outsources, in a way, the moral dirty work to the state. So, the state actually pretends to protect the citizenry from hazardous waste and pollution of air and water and ground, but it doesn't actually protect it very much. It gives out permits, as one Tea Party person said "like candy." And so, they felt the federal government is just a bigger, badder version of a state government which isn't protecting us. So, they'd had bad experience. They’d been burned, and I think that's the second kind of source of resistance to the government. But the third is that they saw the government as an instrument of what I'll call “the line cutters.”" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_in_Their_Own_Land https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_in_Their_Own_Land [1] https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=18-P13-00032&segmentID=4 https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=18-P13-000...

cucumber3732842 4mo ago
Man, "instrument of the 'line cutters'" describes my government to a tee and I live in one of the wealthiest states.

LogicFailsMe 4mo ago

Which is what we keep electing so boohoo. I'd like to be less pessimistic but people are irredeemably irredeemable. I am hugely pro-AI, but the tech bros need to channel more Ronald Reagan* and less f**ing Homelander or this ends very badly for everyone. *And I hated Ronald Reagan at the time Now bring me some downvotes to show me the error of my ways... Thank you for restoring my lack of faith in humanity...

malshe 4mo ago

I'm not at all surprised to learn that Republican politicians royally screwed their constituents. I was going to say maybe these people will vote better next time just to read that Colorado governor is commuting the sentence of Tina Peters. Democratic leadership is so freaking weak it's unbelievable. With one party full of grifters and the other with full of weaklings, we need to abolish this two-party system.

selimthegrim 4mo ago
Louisiana had a Democratic governor from 2016-2024.
- Forgeties79 4mo ago
  This is missing enormous amounts of context. JBE came in before Trump made it a sin to vote Democrat in Louisiana and after Jindall (2 term republican) did such a horrific job that the GOP couldn’t recover no matter who they ran. He also faced possibly one of the worst candidates in history in Rispone for his second term. He was one of the last blue dog democrats, had decades of great reputation built up, and had no problem being extremely cozy with oil/gas. He walked a very thin line super confidently and basically was a 1990 Democrat. It didn’t hurt that he basically saw him nothing but success during both of his tenures. He was an incredibly capable governor. Frankly he’s an anomaly. They won’t have Democrat Governor for decades just like WV won’t have a democrat senator again for a long time since Manchin left. Keep in mind Louisiana has had a Republican legislature for literally decades now, a super majority years-running currently. The current state is the result of Republican policies and it’s a red fortress for the foreseeable future, especially with the changes they made to primaries and voting, coupled with the recent SCOTUS ruling on gerrymandering. No matter what happens in the coming midterms, I guarantee you the legislature will remain a super major majority for the Republicans. It is a cartel state now where they literally remove positions when Democrats win, as New Orleans learned with their court clerk who was recently elected. Louisiana is THE Republican state and offers too few electoral votes for the Democrats to pay attention to it. And every year they stay away from it the deeper entrenched Republicans become as they pass more and more laws of favoring their ability to keep their seats. The current legal landscape is so dire it’s an understatement to call it an uphill battle for non-republicans.

selimthegrim 4mo ago

There was a public hearing of the state public service commission I attended which essentially boiled down to well all these big Wall Street banks are guaranteeing payment so it should be fine and plus we need jobs up there.

pesus 4mo ago
I wonder if they actually believed it would bring more than a handful of permanent jobs or whether they're just saying to get their bribe.
- selimthegrim 4mo ago
  Foster Campbell is a famously honest person. He also famously drove his car into a gap in pavement on an under construction interstate at 40 miles an hour so you decide for yourself what that says about him.