# Carrier To Keep Jobs In US **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 30, 2016, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431 "2016-11-30T01:37:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/61 "2016-12-01T04:38:36Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Great news, of course. I promise will henceforth completely ignore all of Mr. Trump’s many failings as a person and lustily cheer him on for managing to arm-wrestle Carrier into only getting rid of a thousand US jobs. > > We are, sadly, imperfect beings and can only strive to emulate your admirable lack of bias where Mr. Trump is concerned, as you have exhibited in so many posts. Carrier is getting rid of those domestic jobs precisely for the same reason millions have jobs have already left. As a response to government destroying incentives or enacting disincentives that would have kept the jobs here. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/62 "2016-12-01T04:40:14Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > What makes you think I’m not? > > Trump cares nothing for the blue collar crowd, he just used them to get votes. You might be right. Trump is an enigma and I doubt he’s the right person for the job to handle the transition to post human labor economy but I don’t think all his motives are evil. Time will tell. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/63 "2016-12-01T04:41:18Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Carrier is getting rid of those domestic jobs precisely for the same reason millions have jobs have already left. As a response to government destroying incentives or enacting disincentives that would have kept the jobs here. You mean like minimum wage, safe working conditions and not being allowed to dump toxic waste in the river or local vacant lots? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/64 "2016-12-01T04:46:36Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > You mean like minimum wage, safe working conditions and not being allowed to dump toxic waste in the river or local vacant lots? Mostly one. I’m in favor of rational environmental and strong worker safety regulations. I’m also in favor of trade restrictions from countries that don’t follow some reasonable standards with regards to negative externalities. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/65 "2016-12-01T14:44:52Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Nonsense. As in most consumer good fields, there are plenty of manufacturers and losing one for any reason has negligible effect on consumer choice. The others absorb the market share and only die-hard brand aficionados are “harmed.” Really? How many manufacturers make the IPhone? How many make the Mustang? Anyway, my point being that tariffs on imports hurts consumers in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/66 "2016-12-01T14:46:21Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Of course not, but it’s not like US companies are clamoring to move to France. Nor are there many American entrepeneurs thinking that it would be a better idea to start their company outside the US. Maybe it’s because we don’t have 45 - 90% tariffs on things yet? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/67 "2016-12-01T14:48:33Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The cost is of course passed on to the consumer. n/m. I probably have to think it through more. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/68 "2016-12-01T14:54:21Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Really? How many manufacturers make the IPhone? How many make the Mustang? You’re off into brand versus product. Brands are… irrelevant. If you’re sitting in a nice, cool house or office, do you give a damn what brand name is on the A/C system? > [@](#): > > Anyway, my point being that tariffs on imports hurts consumers in the long run. That’s one view, yes. But we either have a global economy with few barriers to trade, or we don’t. Trying to selectively block products or product types, usually for political reasons or to prop up a company/region that is no longer competitive, is counterproductive. A widespread and balanced system of tariffs would probably be better than the uncertainty of “free trade” - but such a thing has proven nearly impossible to manage, even in simpler days. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/69 "2016-12-01T15:15:33Z")
Pence used his office, he is still Governor until he is sworn in as VP, to bribe Carrier to maintain payroll for some unspecified period of time using Indiana tax revenues, which, luckily for him, he doesn’t have to account for, because he is jumping ship. All so Trump can win a news cycle where he also handed Medicaid and the Treasury Department over to Wall Street. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/70 "2016-12-01T15:18:41Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Protecting companies and workers from foreign competition has always been a bad idea. If steel is made better and cheaper elsewhere, and Americans prefer to buy the foreign steel, then American steel is just screwed. Also, these types of trade problems are generally not caused by companies being greedy, they are caused by companies being unwilling to change and get better, and so they demand protection so they can keep on sucking. > > But American worker competition with foreign labor on a direct cost basis is not an issue that Americans can resolve by just being better workers. IMO, foreign competition should be thus: Toyota makes cars. Ford makes cars. If American consumers prefer Toyotas, then more power to Toyota and nice knowing you, Ford. What foreign competition should not be is: Americans like Disney, but American workers are expensive so Disney replaces those workers with foreign workers who are cheaper. What’s worse, they do it in a fashion that gets around the spirit and intent of the law. Again IMHO it’s the typical ‘reformed free trader’ juxtaposition of ‘here’s economic reality’, you reformed free traders often still acknowledge it, and ‘but here’s how I’d like things to be’ without a really practical way to bridge that gap. The Disney example is immigration. There are social implications to immigration. There are issues of public support for immigrants, etc. Immigration is again _politically_ more of a fuel for populism IMO than trade in goods, and anti-trade kind of follows in its wake. But immigration itself is not the same issue as trade in goods, so let’s not get off on that tangent. The problem suggested by the Ford/Toyota comparison in the same context as Carrier is this. The populists including their leader Trump have specifically made a point of promising to punish/coerce Ford for moving some production to Mexico, and browbeat Ford to back down on that apparently, another ‘success’ for case by case anti-trade populism. But what if Toyota sources more of its sales in North America from Mexico? Under populism it seems that’s somehow morally different because Toyota ‘isn’t an American company’ (whatever that actually means, actually Toyota has one of the higher US sourcing %'s among companies selling cars in the US). Making it about ‘American companies’ clearly detaches the policy from any rationality in an environment where Toyota, (or Daikin in Carrier’s case) can compete in the US by selling products made in Mexico (or China or Vietnam or back in Japan or where ever else). Again the basic dilemma is that a protectionist (broadly speaking, ‘fair trade’ is just a euphemism when it refers to govt coercion to ‘save jobs’) policy is either trivial cases just for show (Carrier, previous steel stuff under Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama), or else it’s broad based destructive policy, as in really ‘fixing’ the Ford issue, which would be by preventing _cars_ made in Mexico coming into the US, not just cars made by ‘American companies’. There’s no indication or reason to believe there are low hanging _economic_ fruits where you can get a lot of _economic_ gain from a little protectionism. A little protectionism is political theater. A lot will damage the economy. The appeals to morality are just political theater. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/71 "2016-12-01T15:27:46Z")
But to add, the political theater of a minor protectionist feint could be justified _politically_ if you have actual ideas for economic policies that work _economically_ (tax, regulatory, employment training etc etc, could be right or left _if they work economically_, protectionism simply won’t). If the protectionist feint is cover for those policies, and it’s fairly minor, OK. Same if the moralizing about capitalism (Ford’s management’s job is to maximize Ford shareholder value, period) is just a show for politics. If it’s taken seriously, bad policy is almost sure to follow. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/72 "2016-12-01T19:46:08Z")
The thing about all of this is that the politics of it _can’t_ be ignored. People who lose their jobs and maybe eventually their homes don’t care about, or don’t understand, the macro economics. They just want a job similar to what they had. Either you address that in some way, or they will vote to replace you with someone who will, and that someone could very well be someone who will resort to short term feel good solutions that long term make things even worse. People may even vote in a total ignoramus (as we’ve just seen). How do we address this? Damned if I know. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/73 "2016-12-01T20:03:34Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > You’re off into brand versus product. Brands are… irrelevant. > > If you’re sitting in a nice, cool house or office, do you give a damn what brand name is on the A/C system? I’m pretty sure that people do, in fact, care about the brand of the items they buy. But anyway, > [@](#): > > Trying to selectively block products or product types, usually for political reasons or to prop up a company/region that is no longer competitive, is counterproductive. A widespread and balanced system of tariffs would probably be better than the uncertainty of “free trade” - but such a thing has proven nearly impossible to manage, even in simpler days. I actually agree with you, so I’m not sure what you and I are arguing about 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/74 "2016-12-01T20:08:48Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I’m pretty sure that people do, in fact, care about the brand of the items they buy. Largely if not entirely because they’ve been conditioned to care, often against any factual basis. /hijack ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/75 "2016-12-01T20:16:02Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Largely if not entirely because they’ve been conditioned to care, often against any factual basis. > > /hijack You doubt that in a vast majority of consumer products, there exists brands that are of better quality than other brands? ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/76 "2016-12-01T20:41:45Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Nonsense. As in most consumer good fields, there are plenty of manufacturers and losing one for any reason has negligible effect on consumer choice. The others absorb the market share and only die-hard brand aficionados are “harmed.” Carrier is THE dominant player in the U.S. HVAC market, selling for example about [one-third of all new residential gas furnaces](http://trusthomesense.com/blog/new-residential-gas-furnace-carrier-market-leader/) and [a sixth of new air conditioners](http://www.slideshare.net/BSRIA/air-conditioning-usa-2014-ahr-expo-edited-market-research). That’s more than can be readily absorbed by the market without significant disruptions and/or price increases. When a big player suddenly exits the market, what typically happens is shortages, because nobody else is ramped up to fill the gap. Shortages of something in demand = price increases–if you need it now, you will be compelled to spend whatever it takes. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/77 "2016-12-01T21:39:57Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Why should they have gotten any incentives at all? 'Cause otherwise they wouldn’t have done it. No free lunch, ya know? > [@Declan](#): > > Carrier probably did not get any incentives, UT their parent company probably got either incentives, or anti incentives. What carrier may have received was the ghost of Christmas future and yada yada. Here’s what United Technologies got (my bold): [Indiana Gives $7 Million in Tax Breaks to Keep Carrier Jobs](http://www.wsj.com/articles/indiana-gives-7-million-in-tax-breaks-to-keep-carrier-jobs-1480608461) > [@](#): > > Indiana officials agreed to give United Technologies Corp. $7 million worth of tax breaks over 10 years to encourage the company’s Carrier Corp. unit to keep about 1,000 jobs in the state, according to people familiar with the matter, a deal struck after intense criticism of Carrier by President-elect Donald Trump on the campaign trail. > > The heating and air conditioning company will invest about $16 million to keep its operations in the state, including a furnace plant in Indianapolis that it had previously planned to close and shift the work to Mexico, the people said. > > Mr. Trump, who toured the Carrier plant in Indianapolis Thursday with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, said companies aren’t going to leave the U.S. “anymore without consequences.” > > After publicly shaming Carrier Corp. throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump announced a deal on Thursday with the company’s parent to keep 1,000 jobs in Indiana in exchange for state tax breaks. > > \*\*The deal would cover 800 Carrier workers from the Indianapolis furnace plant and an additional 300 research and headquarters positions that weren’t slated to go to Mexico, according to another person briefed on the deal. > > The company still plans to move 600 jobs from the Carrier plant to Mexico. It also will proceed with plans to close a second plant in Huntington, Ind., that makes electronic controls, moving 700 other jobs to Mexico.\*\* > > Carrier has previously said it expected to save about $65 million a year by shutting the plant and shifting its operations to Monterrey, in the state of Nuevo León, where wages average about $11 a day, plus benefits. The average wage of the Indiana jobs that will be retained is $30 an hour, according to a document reviewed by the Journal. > > Mr. Trump has played up the partial rescue as a sign he can deliver on campaign promises… Whoa! Eleven dollars per day v. $30 per hour! :eek: No wonder they want to move operations to Mexico. And I’m sure since the items would have been much cheaper to build in Mexico, the lower cost would have been passed onto customers in the form of really low prices.\* (Ha! Ha! Good one! I crack myself up sometimes.)\* ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/78 "2016-12-01T22:26:48Z")
More on the Carrier deal. [Behind Trump’s Deal With Carrier](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/business/economy/trump-carrier-pence-jobs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0) My bold. > [@](#): > > INDIANAPOLIS — By the time the Rust Belt turned red on election night, Carrier had to know the call was coming. > > After all, Donald J. Trump had been vowing for months on the campaign trail to call the head of Carrier from the Oval Office and hit the company with huge tariffs if it followed through on its decision to close two Indiana factories and move more than 2,000 jobs to Mexico. > > “This is so easy,” he told cheering crowds last spring. “It’s not presidential when the president\* calls up the head of a damn air-conditioning company, but it’s so much fun for me.” > … > > Since the deal was disclosed on Tuesday, critics have pounced on Carrier’s receipt of $700,000 a year in incentives from the state of Indiana — \*\*just the kind of corporate giveaways Mr. Trump knocked as he slammed Carrier on the campaign trail last spring. > \*\* > “He has signaled to every corporation in America that they can threaten to offshore jobs in exchange for business-friendly tax benefits and incentives,” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont wrote in an op-ed on Thursday for The Washington Post… - Apparently he thinks he’s already the P-word. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/79 "2016-12-01T22:38:09Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > 'Cause otherwise they wouldn’t have done it. No free lunch, ya know? > > Here’s what United Technologies got (my bold): > [Indiana Gives $7 Million in Tax Breaks to Keep Carrier Jobs](http://www.wsj.com/articles/indiana-gives-7-million-in-tax-breaks-to-keep-carrier-jobs-1480608461) > Whoa! Eleven dollars per day v. $30 per hour! :eek: No wonder they want to move operations to Mexico. And I’m sure since the items would have been much cheaper to build in Mexico, the lower cost would have been passed onto customers in the form of really low prices.\* (Ha! Ha! Good one! I crack myself up sometimes.)\* Hey, if we’ll take 10 dollars a day, then we will get all those jobs back from Mexico! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431/80 "2016-12-01T23:04:02Z")
Do you know what other nationalist was nice to companies that toed the line and produced jobs for the country? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/carrier-to-keep-jobs-in-us/773431.md?page=5)