Foxconn Is Reconsidering Plan For Wisconsin Factory (cnn.com) 287
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Foxconn, the giant Taiwan-based company that announced plans for a $10 billion display-making factory in Wisconsin, now says it is rethinking the project's focus because of "new realities" in the global marketplace (Warning source may be paywalled; alternative source). The company said Wednesday that it remained committed to creating as many as 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, and continued to "actively consider opportunities" involving flat-screen technology. But it said it was also "examining ways for Wisconsin's knowledge workers to promote research and development." "The global market environment that existed when the project was first announced has changed," Foxconn said in a statement. "As our plans are driven by those of our customers, this has necessitated the adjustment of plans for all projects, including Wisconsin." But the company said its presence in Wisconsin remained a priority, and said it was "broadening the base of our investment" there. The statement followed a Reuters report quoting Louis Woo, a special assistant to Foxconn's chairman, Terry Gou, as saying that the costs of manufacturing screens for televisions and other consumer products are too high in the United States. "In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.," Mr. Woo told Reuters. "We can't compete." Some Wisconsin Republicans blamed the company's change in plans on the election of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, to succeed Mr. Walker, a Republican, in November. In a joint statement, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and the Senate majority leader, Scott Fitzgerald, said it was "not surprising Foxconn would rethink building a manufacturing plant in Wisconsin under the Evers administration." The lawmakers added: "The company is reacting to the wave of economic uncertainty that the new governor has brought with his administration."
The sooner they leave the better (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you seen the deal that Wisconsin was going to give them [washingtonpost.com] at the expense of the taxpayers? No one was going to benefit from that arrangement except for Foxconn. They could have put all that money towards encouraging tech development in their state instead.
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Except for 13,000 people paying taxes, I'm sure that doesn't bring any money in. Corporations are good at not paying any taxes out, regardless of any 'breaks' they get. Tax breaks are just PR stunts for politicians, what really makes a company stay or go is whether or not the government is good towards business, having a government hell bent on a takeover of private industry is not good for the trust of companies, you see that in places like Venezuela. Government hell bent on sucking dry corporations throug
Re:The sooner they leave the better (Score:5, Insightful)
Pro tip: If anyone tells you they 'might generate up to' something, it will never happen. Doesn't matter if it's a person or corporation, telling you this about jobs, cash in your pocket, pounds of cheese. It is not going to happen.
Re: The sooner they leave the better (Score:2)
Except that at the rate foxcon pays workers 12,000 of the employees would be on food stamps and other public subsidies to make ends meet.
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"Except for 13,000 people paying taxes, I'm sure that doesn't bring any money in."
I've a much better bit of sarcasm for you. Do The Maths.
For your 13,000 tax payers (the *original* estimate foxconn gave was 5,200 workers BTW), the investment was $4 Billion. That's an investment of $307,000 ish per worker. The average tax paid for an American over their *entire* working career of 40 years is around $188,000 (Source: Forbes).
At the current expected number of 1,000 workers, that's about $4m per worker.
Still l
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If that is all you are going for you can just kick off infrastructure.
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I think the idea is that Foxconn is doing the "reconsidering" now that they otherwise would have done later after only making a tiny investment. This was never going to work out as it was promoted.
Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Shenzhen, all these economic hubs generally crop up and persist in a single geography because of the benefits of physical proximity. I can't ever think of a time where somebody was able to clone an existing industry hub elsewhere. Plus it always seems like they're trying to recreat
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Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Shenzhen, all these economic hubs generally crop up and persist in a single geography because of the benefits of physical proximity. I can't ever think of a time where somebody was able to clone an existing industry hub elsewhere. Plus it always seems like they're trying to recreate the past rather than the future.
I don't think it happens often, but it does happen. Look at the rise of an automobile manufacturing hub in the southern United States when Detroit, MI was the firmly entrenched existing industry hub. I believe that some government subsidies were used to get that going. Some background on that https://cargroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/The-Auto-Industry-Moving-South-An-Examination-of-Trends.pdf [cargroup.org].
A relevant quote from the article I linked to above: "The incentives offered southern firms average $143 m
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Technically, you are moving the goalposts from the original argument. A statement was made that a new industrial hub couldn't just be cloned someplace else, because of a lack of physical proximity. I gave an example where it had been done, and quite successfully. I don't see how the fact that Mercedes and BMW are European brands changes the original analogy, although it certainly explains why those manufacturers were incentivized to create a hub/hubs outside of Detroit.
I think you will find that the pa
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Well Grasshopper, when the Republicans threw their Hail Mary pass to Foxconn, they fully expect it would help them win re-election. Foxconn had nothing to lose, and they could pull out again as they are doing now. The State on the other hand was stuck with an agreement. They couldn't arbitrarily pull out on their own without a locust swarm of lawyers descending on their state.
Now that the election is over, Foxconn realizes it was a silly idea and is pulling back. I'm willing to guess the State is readying t
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None of that does them any good if they don't utilize it. Hell, Wisconsin can (and probably should) simply take it back and find someone else who wants the spot.
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I don't see any provision for clawbacks by the state or local officials.
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"I don't see any provision for clawbacks by the state or local officials."
They don't need one. State and local government can appropriate land at will if they decide they need it. How do you think roads get built?
Normally they have to pay "fair value" but they get to decide what that is. In a case like this they could simply call $1 fair value.
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"No one was going to benefit from that arrangement except for Foxconn"
Well, aside from the ostensibly up to 13000 people paid an average of $53,000/year that the plant was talking about employing, Oh, and the local businesses that would benefit from nearly $700 million in the local spending that would generate downstream annually. And it wasn't really COSTING the state / taxpayers anything, as it was tax breaks on activity that wasn't happening today. It just means the state wouldn't garner tax revenue
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That's what I think is mischaracterized here. People are talking about it like it's some big payout Wisconsin made to Foxconn and they can run off with. It's an opportunity, if Foxconn doesn't take advantage of it they won't actually get the money.
Also, what Foxconn is reconsidering according to TFS is their decision to employ only a 1000 workers. Now they are talking about moving R&D there rather than manufacturing. Why? They want the carrot Wisconsin offered. That will actually bring in higher salarie
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"The company said Wednesday that it remained committed to creating as many as 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, and continued to "actively consider opportunities" involving flat-screen technology. But it said it was also "examining ways for Wisconsin's knowledge workers to promote research and development."
The change is they are backing off the reduced 1000 worker plan, going back to shooting for 13,000 and planning to add R&D into the mix.
"tax breaks that a 1000 employee company could have never negotiated on
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You understand that $30k salaried employees are actually /compensated/ more than that, right?
Look, I get it, you hate Scott Walker with the fiery heat of 1000 supernovas. Check. He probably eats babies.
Just don't think that everyone else will just join in your 2 minutes of hate.
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Have you seen the deal that Wisconsin was going to give them [washingtonpost.com] at the expense of the taxpayers? No one was going to benefit from that arrangement except for Foxconn. They could have put all that money towards encouraging tech development in their state instead.
And even then it still wasn't enough to make it profitable.
The US needs to decide if it's a developed or developing nation. If you want to be a highly developed nation, then you need to stop thinking that cheap manufacturing is a good thing, it's not. You want your workforce so highly educated that they will want better jobs than screwing on toothpaste caps. You want industries that the developing world cannot compete with like high tech manufacturing, bio and nano tech and fields outside of manufacturin
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Keeping a reasonable number of low-skill, low-but-livable-wage manufacturing and service jobs around suddenly starts to sound like a decent alternative.
I like what you are saying and would like to hear more. How may I subscribe to your newsletter?
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Serious question. What is the real expense Wisconsin took on?
I could be reading it wrong, but it looks like most of the deal is in the form of tax breaks.
Wisconsin isn't putting up that money, they're just going to let FoxConn keep more of theirs.
If FoxConn does build, Wisconsin gets well paid workers, other tax revenue streams (sales taxes from employees...)
If FoxConn doesn't build, there's no tax money to collect in the first place, and those tax breaks are meaningless.
Wisconsin might incur some real cost
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The key thing is estimating how much more money the state was going to get if Foxconn had come than if they had not come. If that's larger than the incentive, it's a good investment. If not, perhaps the money should have gone elsewhere. By these criteria, these kinds of tax incentives are basically *never* worthwhile -- there has been a decent amount of research on this point. I haven't studied this particular deal in detail, but it would surprise me if it were the shining exception.
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You have also lost traffic congestion, pollution, noise, crime, infrastructure expenses, and the cost of schooling, emergency response, and many other services that services provide.
Nice try, Foxconn!
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Re: The sooner they leave the better (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also a deal that was never going to happen:
Day 1: We're pleased to announce the gazillion-dollar factory we're building.
Day 100: We're investigating the possibilities.
Day 200: We're still planning to go ahead, just on a smaller scale.
Day 300: We're looking at the long-term strategic position and may be deferring for a few years.
Day 400: We're reevaluating our plans, but still want to go ahead.
Day 500: We have a strong commitment to this factory, but perhaps on a smaller scale.
Day 600: We've carried out another study and think we can still proceed with a smaller factory.
Day 700: We're still considering the issue.
Day 800: We think we can make it happen, but perhaps as a facility to do final assembly on stuff we import from Taiwan or PRC.
Day 900: We're looking at having an assembly facility there.
Day 1000: OK, the Americans have finally forgotten about it, time to quietly bury it.
Foxconn played along because they were being strongarmed, not because they really wanted to build a gazillion-dollar factory there. So blaming the new governor is rather disingenous, it would have fizzled no matter who was in power.
That better be a big office then. (Score:2, Informative)
First off, GP is right. This wasn't Tom Walker driving up a truck with a pallet of $4 billion dollars to give to Foxconn the day they broke ground like every story on earth says it is. It was tax breaks for a supposed huge plant that if it existed as planned, would have equaled $4 billion dollars in tax revenue over 15 years. Also keep in mind that this was basically farmland. and it was generating little to no Tax Revenue as it was.
Second, They had to meet certain hiring criteria each year in order to qual
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It isn't like they wrote a check to Foxconn. There are no tax breaks, land, and infrastructure that needs to be given and therefore recouped if they aren't building. The state can always just take the land back.
Foxxconn already backing out under Walker... (Score:4, Interesting)
This just gave them an excuse to go all out, instead of downsizing their overly ambitious plans, which despite the 3+ billion in tax incentives wasn't going to add more than... 1000? jobs in the near term future, and probably would never add the full 13000 jobs that was promised.
But the election of a Democrat to replace him gives them both an excuse not to lose face and blame it on the incoming administration while being able to abort their failed project that would have otherwise made both Walker/future Republican candidates as well as Foxconn look incompetent or untrustworthy.
The loss of potential jobs is going to hurt Wisconsin in the short term but if the people can support each other in the meanwhile it will work out better for them in the long term when they aren't subsidizing companies to the detriment of their local and state tax revenue, necessary for all the services they might need, including unemployment if those jobs don't work out.
Personally I would like to see the federal government stop giving out state aid and only take the money required to operate the federal government and the armed services themselves, and leave the state level infrastructure and planning to the states. That way when a state fucks themselves up they have only themselves to blame, whether that state is California, New York, Florida or Wisconsin.
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This just gave them an excuse to go all out, instead of downsizing their overly ambitious plans,
Lol, how much of that Kool-Aid did you drink?
Get back to me next year and we'll see if Foxconn is building anything in Wisconsin.
The contract failed an audit (Score:5, Interesting)
The contract failed an audit, it didn't require the employee work in Wisconsin to count as a worker at Wisconsin, it only needed them to be paid out of that office. Foxconn would have transferred their US employees payroll to Wisconsin to take advantage of the tax break.
https://dailyreporter.com/2018/12/20/audit-faults-plans-to-credit-foxconn-for-work-outside-state/
"Wisconsin’s economic-development agency needs to modify procedures to ensure tax credits aren’t awarded for Foxconn Technology Group employees who don’t do work in the state, which would violate state law and the state’s contract with the company, an audit released Wednesday said....The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation incorrectly wrote guidelines that would allow Foxconn employees who are not doing work in the state, but who are paid in Wisconsin, to be included in the tally, the audit said."
And for the workers, well they were planning to bring in Chinese workers:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/foxconn-considers-bringing-chinese-personnel-to-wisconsin-as-u-s-labor-market-tightens-1541505600
"Foxconn Technology Group is considering bringing in personnel from China to help staff a large facility under construction in southern Wisconsin as it struggles to find engineers and other workers in one of the tightest labor markets in the U.S."
It didn't pass the sniff test. It looked like one giant tax game for Foxconn.
Under the new Republican corporate tax deal, it's cheaper to earn the money abroad, and repatriate that money at the 8% repatriation tax rate into the US rather than earn it in the US (at 21% corporation tax), so Foxconns tax deal isn't as sweet as it would have been.
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Bringing engineers from China is hardly unexpected. Even if they could get all the talent they need locally, they would want to transfer some of the manufacturing knowledge and skill they developed at home, as well as some of the technology.
Japan did the same thing with car manufacturing in the US and Europe. At first they had a lot of Japanese staff on site, in time the American workers learned the processes and took over.
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Loss of potential jobs? My guess is that this plant was never going to employee the existing unemployed or "hard to employ" workers. These people were all going to be employed somehow.
Wisconsin's growth problems seem more to be a matter of geography than policy. Their only large city is in the far southeastern part of the state and it faces parasitic competition from neighboring Chicago. The rest of the state is a maze of small towns that lack much growth potential due to small populations, weak transpo
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Personally I would like to see the federal government stop giving out state aid and only take the money required to operate the federal government and the armed services themselves, and leave the state level infrastructure and planning to the states. That way when a state fucks themselves up they have only themselves to blame, whether that state is California, New York, Florida or Wisconsin.
The flaw in this plan is the spending you are pushing to the states is strongly counter-cyclical. Such as more people get unemployment when the economy is bad. States can't run deficits, and the fact that the economy is bad means tax revenue is down.
Ideally, a state would save up a "rainy day fund" during a good economy to handle this, but as soon as a state starts running a surplus Republicans demand immediate tax cuts, so nowhere near enough money can be saved.
Enter the Federal government. It can run a
Armed Services is State Aid (Score:2)
The US Military is 10 times the size it needs to be because at its core it is a jobs program. It keeps millions of high school graduates employed, teaches them job skills. It also funds thousands of researchers both in Univerisites and Private arms firms. Without all this welfare many firms, Universities would go bankrupt and street gangs would get much worse. The military is the most communist thing we have.
Politics 101 (Score:2, Insightful)
How is that news? The "other guy" or the "other party" is always to blame for every unpleasant event. Politicians point fingers out of reflex.
Re:Politics 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
They cite labor costs. https://venturebeat.com/2019/0... [venturebeat.com] If you subsidize a company to the tune of $230,000 per employee, but the employee costs are too high, well golly gosh.
You can make up your own mind who is responsible.
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People aren't even reading this. Yes this is an announcement that they aren't going to fill manufacturing jobs. Now they are talking about R&D jobs. $230k/employee means it makes more sense to bring in employees that let them take advantage of the $230k/employee.
Is this going to help the blue collar workers of Wisconsin? Indirectly since there will be support and infrastructure jobs around this. But if they actually follow through it will help create (or drastically expand) a new class of educated worke
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Inaccurate. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/the-10-most-and-least-educated-cities-in-the-united-states.html
Also, the capital is not the entire state. It isn't even likely to be science degrees, aka real degrees.
Nothing to do with massive decline in apple sales (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sure.....
Because if my biggest customer had a ~20% decrease in sales of an item I am a primary supplier for I sure as hell wouldn't re-evaluate major capital investment plans.... Nope not at all.
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I'm sure.....
Because if my biggest customer had a ~20% decrease in sales of an item I am a primary supplier for I sure as hell wouldn't re-evaluate major capital investment plans.... Nope not at all.
It couldn't be bacause they were looking for a bigger tax break? 3 Billion dollars here, 3 Billion there. After a while you are talking big money.
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Tax breaks are a reduction in expenses. It is not income received.
While it may result in a higher net profit for the company at the end it doesn't offset the reduction in free capital that investing in plant requires.
Re:Nothing to do with massive decline in apple sal (Score:5, Informative)
When this deal was originally discussed on /., there were many ignorant people pushing this incorrect narrative then. I see that you did not learn the truth at that time.
The deal calls for payments (not just tax reductions) from the state to Foxconn. They are called tax credits -- but if the company's tax is negative because of the credits, money will flow from the state to the company.
This is similar to tax credits for solar power installations -- if your taxes go negative, you get a check from the government (unlike credits for electric vehicles, which cannot result in you getting a check from the government).
They only issue now is how much of the credits are dependent on performance by Foxconn.
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That is different to a tax break to which I was replying.
Tax credits are a different thing entirely, though usually you would expect them to be a non-refunding tax credit. It would allow them to be carried forward and for them to sit as an asset on a balance sheet, but not normally claim as cash.
If it is a refundable tax credit then whoever negotiated that deal from the government side is almost criminally negligent.
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"If it is a refundable tax credit then whoever negotiated that deal from the government side is almost criminally negligent"
Or they were anticipating kickbacks from foxconn, in which case they're even more of a criminal. There's enough money involved that this becomes highly plausible.
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"If it is a refundable tax credit then whoever negotiated that deal from the government side is almost criminally negligent"
Or they were anticipating kickbacks from foxconn, in which case they're even more of a criminal. There's enough money involved that this becomes highly plausible.
The entire case makes no sense unless there is a substantial amount of money going from FoxConn to "someone" in some fashion.
Direct payments called "tax credits" is sort of a big red flag issue. There's a reason this whole deal is being scrutinized so hard. It doesn't pass the smell test. Not even remotely. As deals go, this one is pretty artless.
Not terribly surprising that after a change in party at the Governors level, FoxConn is pulling away.
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When this deal was originally discussed on /., there were many ignorant people pushing this incorrect narrative then. I see that you did not learn the truth at that time.
If I gross 100K dollars, and pay 30 percent of that in taxes, I have how much.
If I gross 100K dollars, and pay nothing, I have how much?
If I gross 100K dollars, and am paid money because reasons, I have 100K dollars plus what that payment to me is.
The funny money folks always make up schemes and cute designations. It's how money can be hidden.
Anyhow, "Although the state measures to attract Foxconn are labeled tax incentives, they largely would be paid in cash since the effective Wisconsin state t
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"They only issue now is how much of the credits are dependent on performance by Foxconn."
If they actually mean what they are saying that isn't a problem. They are talking about white collar (as in lab coat) jobs instead of manufacturing jobs. This makes sense for Foxconn which needs a lot of R&D. Those staff will have better than the $55k/yr avg salary originally estimated and actually would be an upgrade for Wisconsin.
Granted that depends on follow through from Foxconn but there is a big carrot being o
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Trump's tariffs don't help. That factory needs to be supplied from China.
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Trump's tariffs don't help. That factory needs to be supplied from China.
Oh, I'm pretty certain that the right baksheesh greasing the right palm will alleviate that little problem.
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$230k in potential subsidies per worker, new tariffs on Chinese imports and a company that needs plenty of R&D.
With this announcement Foxconn states they want to go from a plan to employ 1000 blue collar workers to a plan to utilize the plant for R&D. Much higher paid and higher education employees. This would let Foxconn make the most of the subsidy, avoid the tariff issues, and make a big push to a higher class of worker in Wisconsin.
Yes, you could argue that anything Foxconn says should be treate
Re:Nothing to do with massive decline in apple sal (Score:5, Informative)
Apple doesn't use Foxconn displays. They use a mix of displays from Samsung (for OLEDs) and LG (LCDs, and possibly OLEDs in the future if LG can fix production problems). In any case: they don't use Foxconn displays. What they use Foxconn for is assembling the iPhone, the individual components are mostly sourced from other companies.
And, in fact, that's the problem. Manufacturing LCD displays in Wisconsin makes no sense whatsoever. This is the main problem American manufacturers have: most of the raw materials to make these things are being refined in Asia, and most of the final assembly is also in Asia, so manufacturing a component in the US means you have to ship raw materials to the US from Asia and then ship the component back to Asia for it to be put in whatever it's going to end up in. Needless to say, that's far more expensive then just shipping parts around Asia.
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Re:Nothing to do with massive decline in apple sal (Score:4, Informative)
I am aware of this.
I'm not suggesting the plant was for producing items for apple. My suggestion is that they are forecasting a significant reduction in revenue as a result of less orders from Apple. This reduction in revenue in one part of the business now means that capital investments will be reviewed across the whole business. If you have less money coming in you are going to be less bullish about expanding.
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That's a chicken an egg problem. If you build it, they will come.
It is too expensive to source locally, that is the reason for the subsidy. It isn't as if there aren't plenty of raw resources in the US that could be refined. Those industries have just diminished and stagnated. The idea here was to increase pressure to develop them again. The end result being the same supply chain but in the US instead of Asia.
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Except that a decrease in apple sales = less money at foxconn = less money available to invest = reconsidering capital investments, irrespective of whether they are dependent on apple or not.
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No my argument is that if Apple is doing terrible right now in phones and that severely affects Foxconn in parts of their business that has nothing to do with Apple (displays), maybe Foxconn is terribly managed.
Apple is one of their largest customers. It would not be surprising if a major reduction in Apple's business led to a substantial reduction in Foxconn's.
I personally think it's only one reason of several, but it does seem reasonable that it's contributory.
research and development H1B needed to get a job (Score:2)
research and development H1B needed to get a job in that there.
$1.33 million per job (Score:2, Informative)
It wanted $4 billion in tax breaks for only promising 3000 jobs ("up to" 13000 my ass), i.e $1.33 million per job, or $346k per job even if they hired all 13000.
Average wage was expected to be around $50-60k/year.
You do the math. Wisconsin would have been subsidising Chinas Foxconn between 5 years free labor and 24 years free labor.
There was nothing in the contract stopping Foxconn walking away from the factory once the free labor ended. Wisconsin would have been better investing in local companies.
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And Trump gets played again (Score:5, Informative)
See title.
Yes, Trump got played like a baby by Foxconn. They roped him like a baby calf and he was more than happy to buy their ridiculous claims. Anyone who was watching this knew that the likelihood of Foxconn building a huge plant in Wisconsin was near zero.
To all you Wisconsin voters who believed Trump's blather and his insane, over-the-top promises, sorry, but you got exactly what you voted for: a giant bag of bullshit.
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PS- Coal isn't coming back either; it's as dead as disco. Your first fucking clue should have been the Kentucky Coal Museum installing solar panels on its roof. (It's true, look it up.) But that just wasn't obvious enough for you, was it?
Still, don't worry- I hear the new Space Force rockets will be powered by "beautiful clean coal".
Trump didn't get played (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Trump didn't get played (Score:4, Interesting)
How naive are you to believe any politicians words without investigating the truth behind them
It isn't naivete. It's desperation.
If you figure you've got a 10% shot of a deal such as this working if you vote one way, and a 0% shot of any deal if you vote the other, you take the 10%.
This is why the Clinton plan that amounted to "thoughts and prayers" for the rust belt did not play very well in the rust belt. Sure, there's plenty of racists and sexists and people eating up Russian propaganda. But those weren't reachable anyway. The 5% more that Clinton needed to win looked at 10% chance vs 0% chance and went with the 10%.
Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Interesting)
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The amount of cluelessness on display there is astonishing.
She's a corporate whore, so she had no other choice. Even if one doesn't believe she always was, she absolutely has been since her husband's presidency. She championed single payer health care at that time, and then they shut her down hard and never really let her talk again until she said publicly that single payer would never happen in America — right after taking a big fat wad of big pharma campaign contributions.
Coal mining is never coming back — speaking of cluelessness, those 40 something
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They didn't forget. They understood 10% is infinitely larger than 0%.
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The attack on Huawei is probably a factor too. Aside from Foxconn not wanting to risk having too many valuable assets in the US where the US government can get at them, and the danger that tariffs make it impossible to supply the plant, the Chinese government likely told them to reconsider as a form of retaliation.
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"first fucking clue should have been the Kentucky Coal Museum installing solar panels on its roof."
I'm gonna remember this argument next time someone brings up geothermal. Calpine geothermal visitor center in Middletown, CA has solar panels on its roof, too.
Re:And Trump gets played again (Score:5, Informative)
The thing is, Trump himself played the same trick on Scotland when he built his golf course. He wanted to build on environmentally sensitive land, so promised bajillions of pounds of investment, and would make "probably the best golf course in the world". A wind farm got put in the sea miles away from his new golf course, and he suddenly decided he didn't want to spend as much as he first said. There's still a golf course there, and all the environmental damage, but a lot less investment in Scotland than they wanted.
Sound familiar?
Re:And Trump gets played again (Score:5, Informative)
To all you Wisconsin voters who believed Trump's blather and his insane, over-the-top promises, sorry, but you got exactly what you voted for: a giant bag of bullshit.
Handily ignoring that Obama won Wisconsin twice, and Trump won by less people than were purged off the rolls due to the new voter ID law. A law which the then attorney general happily admitted [jsonline.com] played a big role in the win! Please note that he is not the current AG after that bullshit, having been tossed out in the last election, along with all the Republicans in statewide office. Except the legislators in their highly gerrymandered districts, which actually picked up a Republican seat!
When you throw down partisan bullshit like that, it doesn't help anyone. There are a lot of problems with our electoral system. The voters themselves are definitely one of the problems, but there's a whole lot more that's just as important. You can't really blame the voters when they aren't allowed to vote, or their votes have been gerrymandered to not mean much.
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See title.
Yes, Trump got played like a baby by Foxconn. They roped him like a baby calf and he was more than happy to buy their ridiculous claims.
Despite the article saying specifically that it was the election of a Democrat that changed their mind?
You sure about that? Only mention of it being politically related (and not economically) was this part:
Some Wisconsin Republicans blamed the company's change in plans on the election of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat
Wait....One side is blaming the other for all the problems?! WOW! I'm shocked! Shocked! ....Well, not that shocked.
Re:Put your hatred aside, and think (Score:5, Insightful)
See title.
Yes, Trump got played like a baby by Foxconn. They roped him like a baby calf and he was more than happy to buy their ridiculous claims.
Despite the article saying specifically that it was the election of a Democrat that changed their mind?
Regarding the Trump thing, you're complaining about something that doesn't go our way in the middle of the situation. The right time to pass judgement is when it's all over, when the dust has settled, and when we can evaluate whether minor setbacks in the middle were worth the overall outcome.
Similar with the N. Korea peace negotiations. These things take time, there will be some back and forth, and possibly nothing will come of it... but now is not the time to make judgement. Let the situation play out, and *then* figure out whether we are better off. At the very least, the president talked us out of a nuclear war.
State governments giving away billions in tax benefits is arguably a bad idea. How long would it take for 13,000 additional labor-jobs to be worth the loss of $3 billion in tax credits? Even if you account for add-on benefits to the economy, it would take decades... and depending on inflation and other details, the deal might possibly never be revenue neutral.
We really don't know at this point whether this is good or bad for the US, and the tendency to blame Trump for every little thing that irks you in the country is tedious as hell.
Grow up, set your hatred aside, and post something insightful for a change.
No, the article did not say it was because a Democrat got elected. It said the REPUBLICANS said that was why.
"Republicans who control Wisconsin’s Legislature suggested that the arrival of Gov. Tony Evers, the Democrat who ousted Mr. Walker, was partly to blame."
Re:Put your hatred aside, and think (Score:5, Insightful)
Similar with the N. Korea peace negotiations. These things take time, there will be some back and forth, and possibly nothing will come of it... but now is not the time to make judgement. Let the situation play out, and *then* figure out whether we are better off. At the very least, the president talked us out of a nuclear war.
HAHA, as if Trump talked you out of a nuclear war.
NK would never launch a nuclear weapon unless it was first attacked by the South and/or the US.
If they made the first strike the nuke card would be played and NK would be turned to ash by retaliatory attacks.
It's like the BS that Trump is pushing that NK is going to give up its nukes, why the hell would they? If they did then they will have lost their only bargaining chip and the rest of the world would just go back to ignoring NK.
NK doesn't want to attack anyone with their nukes, they just want to ensure the longevity of the regime, and nukes give them that power.
Trump was played yet again.
Re:Put your hatred aside, and think (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the real fear of NK is that these nuclear developments will be exported either purposefully or "accidentally" to radical groups.
Not that NK will launch a first strike itself, but will provide the means for other groups to initiate global carnage.
Re: (Score:3)
I believe the real fear of NK is that these nuclear developments will be exported either purposefully or "accidentally" to radical groups.
Not that NK will launch a first strike itself, but will provide the means for other groups to initiate global carnage.
I doubt that very much, why would they? What would they gain exactly? The risk of being found out would severely outweigh any "benefits" from doing so. If they were found out then NK would be turned into ash.
Pakistan is more at risk of doing something like that as it has deep ties to radical groups who would love to let off a bomb in India or the US.
Re:Put your hatred aside, and think (Score:5, Insightful)
Doubtful. If the weapon traced back to North Korea, then it would be treated as a first strike by North Korea. And it's not feasible to export a nuclear weapon without someone else detecting it.
Kim wants nukes to keep himself alive. Exporting nukes does not accomplish this goal. Nor does shutting down his nuclear weapons facilities.
Re: (Score:3)
NK would never launch a nuclear weapon
We can't assume people in general - and especially self-aggrandizing authoritarians with delusions (or a facade) of supernatural providence - will behave rationally all the time. Nukes just have too much of a potential downside.
This implies they ever considered them (Score:3, Informative)
This was always just them extracting money from Wisconsin tax payers (and all of the United States, since like a lot of Red states Wisconsin takes in more than it pays out in fed taxes) in exchange for bribes.
I live in Wisconsin... (Score:5, Interesting)
... and it's well known here that Foxconn was never really going to bring 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin, because of what they did in Pennsylvania. The whole thing was a stunt to help get Gov Walker and Trump get reelected. It failed, Walker lost in November. Now we'll see what happens to President Shutdown.
Re:It may be well known among rational Americans.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"We need both parties brought to heel, and perhaps a few more contenders in the mix"
Nope. Third party candidates have zero chance to get elected, and they just confuse the issue. Political parties were never mentioned in the Constitution because they were seen as a plague, but just giving up on regulating them was a total failure which should immediately and conclusively put paid to the rumors of the founders' genius. At this point the only way we'll get a credible third party is if there's sufficient schism within one of the major parties that it splits in two, but thanks to partisan dumbshits in voting booths, that would all but guarantee a win for the other side. Sadly, the only party that might actually split would be the Democrats. The Republicans have demonstrated time and again that they are united in screwing over the nation, and the Democrats have ultimately proven that they are disconnected and thus ineffectual. The Republicans hang together, and the rest of us twist in the wind.
Re:It may be well known among rational Americans.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
What needs to happen is all the old fuckers that have sold their soul to take as much as they can from us to their grave need to be held accountable, no matter what "side" their on.
We need to do this for our children.
Foxconn should pull out (Score:2, Troll)
They're expensive. Wisconsin is a union state too. Which means that Foxconn will have union labor issues just building the factory and keeping it running will just be a nightmare.
As for skills, Wisconsin the state has no fiscal responsibility, it has not fiscal stability, it has an almost 3rd world infrastructure. It's educational level is #18 in the country which means the most common answer to questions asked by students in a classroom is "Duh, I don't
Re: (Score:3)
"It's better to pay more to stay in China. It's just more cost effective and the workers are smarter, more creative, more motivated and more skilled."
More motivated? Sure. Got to protect that social credit score so they don't decide to harvest your internal organs and sell them to the highest bidder. Smarter? Maybe. More creative? Horse shit. The "nail that pops up gets hammered down" mentality discourages creativity. We have it here too, but they have more of it. Besides slavery, and raping South America,
Re: (Score:2)
Value of US workers (Score:4, Funny)
Where's the value for Foxconn to use American workers?
There are numerous benefits. In no particular order:
1) Products made in the US for sale in the US do not have to worry about exchange rate fluctuations or import tariffs
2) Reduced freight costs and production lead times to the US market
3) Production flexibility - gives Foxconn the ability to produce products in the most sensible market for a given product
4) US worker productivity is among the highest in the world (it's how we compete)
5) US manufacturing workers are among the best in the world (the US has a $3 Trillion/year manufacturing sector)
6) Automation will necessarily be used extensively to offset labor costs
7) It gets Foxconn and companies that use them (Apple, etc) political points and the ability to lobby state and federal governments
8) For products with relatively low labor content US workers make tremendous sense, especially for products that are sold in the US.
Your question would apply equally to Honda or BMW or Siemens or any other large manufacturing concern. They make a products in the US because it makes economic sense to do so. Not every product of course but some will benefit.
They're expensive. Wisconsin is a union state too.
There is no such thing as a "union state". There are companies that have unions in Wisconsin but there are plenty more that do not. Just because a company sets up shop in Wisconsin does not mean a union will be able to organize that company.
Which means that Foxconn will have union labor issues just building the factory and keeping it running will just be a nightmare.
I'm sure there will be unions interested in organizing the plant just like every other large manufacturing concern. Unions mostly have been losing these organizing efforts in recent years so I doubt Foxconn is overly worried. There are things that worry Foxconn about such a big project but unions are pretty far down the list these days.
As for skills, Wisconsin the state has no fiscal responsibility, it has not fiscal stability, it has an almost 3rd world infrastructure.
Feeling hyperbolic today are we? Pretty much none of that is true. The rest of your post is just similar provocative nonsense.
Back to regularly scheduled conservative whining (Score:5, Insightful)
It's no surprise that the conservative voice here on drudgedot couldn't pass on including the GOP opinion on the matter.
Wisconsin resident here (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Wisconsin, and I voted to elect Governor Evers (and against Trump). The Foxconn deal was a huge mistake. As others have noted, the state investment doesn't justify the jobs created. Unfortunately, it's probably too late to renege on it, even though the governor is probably tempted to (the legislature is still Republican-controlled, but apparently he could do it by pulling environmental permits). There have already been massive infrastructure investments and the use of eminent domain to obtain properties. I-94 between Milwaukee and Chicago is essentially being completely rebuilt right now (it's a pain, too, because we deal with much heavier traffic whenever I go to Chicago or to visit my family in Ohio.
On a more human note, my brother-in-law just got hired by them as an engineer (and yes, he's from Wisconsin, not Taiwan or the PRC) He is spending the next several months (at least until May, and this started around Jan. 1) working in Taiwan. They've hired a ton of professional staff. I'm in a graduate program at a Milwaukee university in computer science and they have been recruiting there. I don't know about manufacturing workers, but if this deal blows up, there's going to be a lot of people who are ALREADY working there who are going to get the shaft.
This deal may have a silver lining, however, because many people would like to see Milwaukee connected to Chicago to have SE Wisconsin essentially become part of Chicagoland. The economic benefits of that could be big. Increased rail service linking the two cities could be a byproduct of this project, which would potentially allow more Milwaukee residents to work in Chicago (and vice versa). We were going to get that with the last democratic governor but Walker pulled out of the deal because trains are for communists. If other companies came to the same region (which is a great location, because you are about 1 hour from OHare and a huge intermodal facility) it could end up being a positive. I'm not optimistic about that because I distrust everyone who was involved in the original deal.
Re:Wisconsin resident here (Score:5, Informative)
There is already rail service between the two cities, the Amtrak Hiawatha line. It's been closed the last two days due to the temperatures, but it runs around every 90 minutes or so except at night. It's not bad (about a 90 minute trip) but it is definitely not high speed --- it's about as fast as driving. It's expensive ($50 round trip) but if you are planning on parking in Chicago it pays for itself. You can pick it up downtown, or at the MKE airport. If you ever use it, you should know that Union Station in Chicago is at the western edge of the downtown area, and that many of the attractions are along the eastern edge. It may be in your interest to buy a Ventra card so that you can use the Loop trains to get around. If you talk to other Wisconsinites, they'll tell you horror stories of getting delayed because freight trains have priority (which is true). That's only happened to me once and it was a minor delay. There are also discounts for regular commuters. The trains are clean and have restrooms but no dining service or anything fancy.
Chicago commuter rail (Metra) comes to Kenosha in Wisconsin but no further. Some of us were hoping that Foxconn could get Metra running to Milwaukee or at least Racine. Metra is a lot cheaper.
Translation (pick your favorite) (Score:3)
Some Wisconsin Republicans blamed the company's change in plans on the election of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, to succeed Mr. Walker, a Republican, in November. In a joint statement, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and the Senate majority leader, Scott Fitzgerald, said it was "not surprising Foxconn would rethink building a manufacturing plant in Wisconsin under the Evers administration." The lawmakers added: "The company is reacting to the wave of economic uncertainty that the new governor has brought with his administration."
Translation A: There is going to be actual oversight for this sweetheart deal for Foxconn (unlike before) and Foxconn management is worried about that
Translation B: Certain republicans that negotiated this bad deal are worried about the bribes they took becoming public knowledge
Translation C: Circumstances that have nothing to do with the current Wisconsin governor are being used as a political point scoring opportunity
Pick the translation that works for you. Probably some truth in all of them.
Nuhone new eecunumik stuff wur complicuted (Score:5, Insightful)
Foxconn Is Reconsidering Plan For Wisconsin Factory
Not to fall on a "No True Scotsman" fallacy, but c'mon, anyone with half a brain knew this deal was crap. Only gullible yokels would fall for this mendacious nincompoopery (who keep voting against their own interests in favor for oilsnake peddlers who sell them this shit.) OMG ME BUBBAH GUNNA GIT MAH JAWB, WINNING LUK HER UP! (But you know who actually had actual economic plans for Flyover Country? HR-fucking-C, but whatever, reap what you sow.)
LOW. VALUE. ADDED. MANUFACTURING. AIN'T. GONNA. FUCKING. COME. BACK. EVER.
A sucker is made every minute. I can sympathize with an illiterate peasant in a 3rd world country not having the means to discern the fallacious nature of such promises.
But people in the richest nation the world had ever seen, with public education available for free all the way to HS, and in the 21st century, with access to the damned Internet. Nah, you fall for this shit, you are systemically on par with the Dodos in "Ice Age."
Surprise surprise! (Score:3)
"No one knew that 'muricans don't work as long hours or as cheaply as Chinese workers... so sad!"
"no one knew that very few TVs or computer monitors are made in America"
"no one knew it could get so damned cold in Wisconsin in the winter"
"no one knew that Foxconn laid off 10k workers in an LCD plant in Taiwan at about the same time they were announcing the deal in Wisconsin to employ 13k people building LCDs."
Walker got fox-conned, and the taxpayers got screwed. In the last election, in which Walker was running for reelection, Foxconn was rarely mentioned in campaign speeches. I wonder what he knew...
I wonder if my property tax (I live 2 miles from the Foxconn facility) will go back down to prefoxconn levels...
Funny way of saying (Score:2)
"The company is reacting to the wave of economic uncertainty that the new governor has brought with his administration."
That's a funny way of saying "will of the people", as in the citizens didn't like what the Republican governor was doing, so they replaced him.
Re: (Score:2)
They're not leaving, they were never there.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a German friend of mine once said about why he moved to the US. In Europe there is a left, a far left, and an even further left.
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Considering that most German elections are won by center-right parties, that implies some scary stuff about you and your friends.
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Proportional representation in results should be the goal. If it's a purple state then the candidates should be purple. It doesn't matter if a D or R is elected, they should be representing the interests of the voters who went the other way in proportion.