Learning to love big tech
Park vandals should rethink
When I worked at the Post-Star, I dined out on the GlobalFoundries deal, criticizing the state of New York repeatedly for giving the company huge amounts of cash and tax breaks to locate its chip fabrication plant in southern Saratoga County.
The $1.2 billion cost to taxpayers meant New York was paying $1 million per job for the 1,200 jobs the company promised to bring here, I pointed out in at least a dozen columns and blog posts.
Malta was already a prosperous suburban town, and if the state wanted to boost the economy by giving away money, it should have targeted farms or other small local businesses in places that needed the help, I argued.
GlobalFoundries was owned by the country of Abu Dhabi, an oil-rich emirate in the United Arab Emirates. The company is now publicly traded, but Mubadala, a sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, still owns about 90% of the stock.
Did it make sense, I asked, to give the state’s tax dollars to wealthy sheiks?
Maybe it did.
Since it began production in 2012, the Malta plant has gone through various reconfigurations and expansions that cost the company billions of dollars. It now employs about 2,500 people, and, with the announcement of a huge new federal investment, it will hire another 1,500 within the next few years.
As part of its emphasis on U.S. manufacturing, the Biden administration announced last week a $1.5 billion award to the local GlobalFoundries operation. One part of the expansion will be dedicated to prevention of the sort of shortage that developed during the pandemic, when overseas suppliers were unable to provide chips necessary for the production of cars.
Although I still balk at the way the state and federal governments hand out billions to huge corporations while local businesses scrape for assistance, this is the help that is being offered, and it makes no sense to reject it.
The federal bill that led to the award — Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act — passed with bipartisan support, although Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders opposed it, as he has opposed corporate welfare for his long career in politics.
Harder to understand is the opposition of our congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, who lives in Saratoga County about half an hour from the GlobalFoundries plant and who was one of the early sponsors of the act, known as CHIPS.
Her about-face was another example of the many ways she now prioritizes national politics over the good of her district. If obstructing legislation favored by President Biden means voting against her own constituents, she’ll do it.
She is not our congresswoman now. She is a member of Congress whose priorities align with ours only when they oppose President Biden’s. The interests of the people who put her in office have been subsumed to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
The bill passed without Stefanik’s help, however, and it’s time (for me) to recognize how fortunate we are to have a huge high-tech employer like GlobalFoundries in our region.
Like other manufacturing-heavy regions, the Glens Falls area suffered from globalization and the passage of the North American Free Trade Act in the early 1990s. Several local plants moved overseas.
Biden’s effort to resurrect and expand American manufacturing is good for us. It’s a shame our congresswoman doesn’t care.
Vandals
Bella and I have been walking with Ringo in Crandall Park, a popular spot for dog-walkers. At the risk of sounding crotchety, the digging up of the fields by people who drive over them in their pickup trucks, Jeeps, Range Rovers and who knows what else makes me angry.
A couple of weeks ago, a black Dodge Ram truck on big tires came skidding around the corner near the pavilion. When we walked past the spot, we could see where a truck had just come off the field, leaving muddy tracks on the road. The field was torn up, as were other fields in the park. Then we see two people in a silver Range Rover take a shortcut in between trees across a wooded patch of grass.
It’s hard to believe it’s so much fun to tear up the grass in your truck that it’s worth vandalizing a public park. City crews have to go out in these fields in the spring, raking out the ruts and using time that could be spent on other tasks.
The baseball field at Haviland Cove has been similarly torn up. Why? Unfortunately, I think the thrill of doing something forbidden is what tempts people to commit the vandalism. Driving across a mucky field isn’t that great. Doing something wrong and getting away with it is the payoff, even when it means damaging the very park you enjoy.
GOP = Groupies of Putin! Stefanik only follows the orders of her Dear Leader, King Donald, a puppet of Putin. Any questions?
Tracks in the park? My 17 year-old son and his cronies had a field day one evening in some poor guy's vacant lot. Luckily someone ratted out my kid. He spent the entire next day, a Sunday, raking and shoveling the destructive ruts by himself. He learned two things: 1) property destruction is nothing to sneeze at and 2) you really can't count on everyone as your friend.