But i thought they were creating jobs for us? That’s their whole argument! They won’t try to justify the noise, the expense, the pollution, the water consumption, the massive amounts of electricity they consume–none of it
The one thing they love to trot out is the jobs it will bring to the (soon to be industrially terrorized) community… Also without mention that the majority of those jobs are only going to exist during the construction phase. Once that’s done, there will be 1 employee per 50 acres of data center or some shit
I live in Arkansas where we have 6 data centers currently under construction. Clarksville, a town of ~10k people about 1 & 1/2 hours west of Little Rock, agreed to issue up to $55 Billion (with a “B”) in municipal bonds to pay for the data center being built there. They’re so excited about the [very temporary] sales tax revenue from construction workers and the promise of “up to 200 full time permanent jobs”. I think the final bill will be more like $7B but that remains to be seen.
Now, Clarksville has significant challenges. Like much of the rural US, they are experiencing a population decline. They have no real major industries, and they have to compete with a larger city 20 miles down the road for basically everything. I get why they would be looking for good high paying jobs.
But the city will own the data center, along with its construction debt. If the tenant it is being built for folds or walks away, the city will be on the hook for it. And I still can’t figure out what kind of fuzzy math supports a city with about $13 million in annual revenue taking on $6 billion in debt under any circumstances, much less 200 jobs that may or may not materialize.
Just another case of privatize profits, socialize losses.
That sounds like something that a state AG should step in on.
Ah. I see you must not be familiar with our AG.
I can make an educated guess.
unpaid labor…by whom, exactly? brown people? prisoners?
wouldn’t that be on the construction companies?
i assume microsoft isn’t out hiring its own local bricklayers and electricians etc
