Well, the politicians in my town/county/region are desperate to land an auto plant because, well, everyone else in the south has one so we must be missing out. So, they are gearing up to spend tens of millions of dollars on a patch of dirt to be given away to the first auto plant that comes calling, plus they'll spend tens of millions more to run infrastructure out there, plus they'll probably give tens of millions in tax incentives, plus they might throw in some blowjobs if asked nicely.
Now there's nothing wrong with auto manufacturing per se. My problem with all this is that those millions could be spent on more incremental changes to improve the quality of life in the region (transport, parks, "culture", education) to build up entrepreneurs instead of multinationals. It's slower and it's not the home run ribbon cutting that these politicians lust after. But think about the end result, which is that the entrepreneurs create the jobs and the locality gets both the jobs AND the corporate profits stay local and continue to move around the local economy. With the home run auto plant, we get the jobs, which are great, BUT, all the profits are extracted to non-local shareholders and upper management, AND to get the plant we have to give away the farm on the taxes the plant should be paying. The end of the business cycle of an auto plant is not pretty, either. Ask Detroit.
I think if you analyze it on the basis of what is most likely to get the best ROI for the tax dollar, the small ball entrepreneurial approach wins every time.
