Democracy for Vancouver

From The Beeb:

US state Michigan has agreed to give Ford Motor $300m (£155m) to keep open six of its factories in the state.

The move, which amounts to subsidies of about $23,000 per worker, could help safeguard 13,000 jobs in the state.
…The firm had threatened to go to other neighbouring states, such as Minnesota and Indiana, which had also been prepared to offer subsidies.

Ford’s investment will pay for the retooling of its Wayne assembly plant to produce the new 2008 Ford Focus small car and a $200m investment to produce Ford F150 trucks on the old River Rouge site.

No new jobs

Half of the $300m will come from the state government, which will borrow $150m against an already-swollen budget deficit.

The other half will come in the form of property tax abatements, where the plants’ home towns will forego additional taxes that Ford would have normally had to pay on its investments.

Ford cannot guarantee that it will create any new jobs, nor offer a guarantee that it will continue to employ all of its existing workforce.

This is in contrast to similar deals where states offer
car companies incentives to build car factories specifically to create
new jobs.

Read whole story

It’s appalling that a paltry workforce 13,000 people (Geez!- you hear about that many or more people being laid off in a single merger!) are being used as hostages while Ford, GM and other US companies continue to produce the majority of their goods out of the country.
Often companies reneg on the agreements for tax breaks or subsidies with respect to local hiring or workforce retention, but seldom are they held accountable.
Somebody ought to do something about them abusing the welfare system.