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Businesses United States

One Year After Trump's Foxconn Groundbreaking, There is Almost Nothing To Show For It (washingtonpost.com) 192

Posted by msmash from the dude,-where's-my-eighth-wonder? dept.
Josh Dzieza, reporting for The Verge: It's been exactly one year since President Trump pushed a golden shovel into a field in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, breaking ground on a planned Foxconn factory he called "the eighth wonder of the world." "This is one of the great deals, ever," he said at the ceremony. The proposed facility would employ more than 13,000 Wisconsin workers and manufacture high-resolution LCD screens. And it would be huge, he said. "Think of it: more than 20 million feet, and that's probably going to be a minimal number," he claimed. The factory, Trump said, was evidence he was bringing manufacturing back to the United States, "restoring America's industrial might."

But Foxconn's plans were already shrinking. When then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker wooed the company to the state with a subsidy package that came to total $4.5 billion, Foxconn had agreed to build a "Generation 10.5" facility that manufactured 75-inch LCD screens. But days before Trump's groundbreaking, the company acknowledged it would build a much smaller "Gen6" LCD factory, a type that makes smaller screens and requires far fewer workers. It would be the first of many changes. The last year has seen the factory shrink, get canceled, reappear, and undergo other shifts chronicled below. Even now, as concrete is finally being poured, it's unclear what exactly Foxconn is building in Mount Pleasant. Industry experts shown Foxconn's building plans say it does not appear to even be the scaled-down Gen6 LCD factory. If the last year is any guide, the whipsawing is far from over.
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One Year After Trump's Foxconn Groundbreaking, There is Almost Nothing To Show For It More

One Year After Trump's Foxconn Groundbreaking, There is Almost Nothing To Show For It

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  • there has to be one. I know there were direct cash payments in that $4.5 billion but I thought they didn't get paid until some hiring took place. Maybe the plan is to get those direct subsidies by just barely meeting the requirements (or not meeting them but getting them anyway, like what Verizon did/does with fiber optics for decades)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Foxconn did the same thing in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. They promised a new plant that would hire 500 local residents. The governor boasted about the deal and the company got a property tax break. The mayor was on site with company officials in 2013 for the ribbon cutting and six years later it is still an empty lot.

      Foxconn does this all over the world (Brazil, India, Vietnam, Indonesia), they promise billions of dollars in new facilities, get tax breaks, and never deliver.

      The boy that cried wolf.

      • That's the part I don't get. Don't they need income due in the jurisdiction to get the tax breaks? I could see putting up a factory at the government's expense. But they don't even seem to be doing that. Or are they using these phony factories to hide money from their (very corrupt) government. Now that I could see.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Its lobbying - at a bizarre scale - but nothing more. Foxconn is stringing Trump along in hopes he doesn't take stronger trade action against China. He is so enamored with them because he believes (or his supporters believe) this over the top plan. How much is that worth? At this point most of Foxconn's business (Apple) has been exempted from new US tariffs. If that changes potentially billions of dollars of ANNUAL revenue are at risk.

          So far Foxconn has probably put $100 million into the project. L

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            To add on, Foxconn doesn't care if it ever makes a dime from this project or ever gets a single tax break. Its just a balance between the cost of their minimal "investment" and the utility of having the president in love with you.

          • Foxconn is stringing Trump along in hopes he doesn't take stronger trade action against China.

            If Foxconn also did this in Pennsylvania back in 2013, as well as in other countries (Brazil, India, Vietnam, Indonesia), then what evidence is there that Foxconn did this because of Trump's tariffs?

    • Scam 1: seizing land by eminent domain. Scam 2: feed the flow of lies to the drooling deporables. Scam 3: <fill in here, maybe paid public money to friends for services related to scams 1 and 2?>

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by nwaack ( 3482871 )

        Scam 2: feed the flow of lies to the drooling deporables

        Ahh yes, there's that liberal "tolerance" that got Trump elected. Well done!

        • Re:Has anyone figured out what the scam is yet? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cpurdy ( 4838085 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @02:31PM (#58841790)

          Scam 2: feed the flow of lies to the drooling deporables

          Ahh yes, there's that liberal "tolerance" that got Trump elected. Well done!

          It has nothing to do with being a liberal. I'm a conservative, and I voted Republican my entire life until 2016. That's when "selling out conservative principles, and selling out our country while we're at it" became the all-consuming rallying cry of the Republican Party.

          Trump is evil. The Republican Party is evil. At this point, anyone who is a Republican, supports Republicans, or supports Trump is a deplorable person.

          Period. End of story. Sorry if it hurts your feelings, but this isn't a safe space, dickhead.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by nwaack ( 3482871 )

            Sorry if it hurts your feelings, but this isn't a safe space, dickhead.

            Does it make you feel like a big man to call people names? Actually it doesn't hurt my feelings at all. I didn't vote for Trump last time and I won't this time, but the "drooling deplorables" you're referring to are the good people of Wisconsin on both sides of the political aisle who got screwed out of a LOT of jobs by this shady company. How does that make them drooling deplorables?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by cpurdy ( 4838085 )

              Does it make you feel like a big man to call people names? Actually it doesn't hurt my feelings at all. I didn't vote for Trump last time and I won't this time, but the "drooling deplorables" you're referring to are the good people of Wisconsin on both sides of the political aisle who got screwed out of a LOT of jobs by this shady company. How does that make them drooling deplorables?

              I'm really not interested in "both sides of the political aisle". There are decent political servants who are conservative, and decent political servants who are liberal. I'd take either one of those over what we have today. Hell, I'd take a pile of dog shit over what we have today.

              Politicians either work for the good of the people, or they don't. I'm a conservative, which means that I think before I take action. Other people are liberal, which means that they take action and don't think. Usually, that me

              • this ignorant 30% of the country has been duped by propaganda

                So what is to be done about that?

              • You are a lying sack of shit, not a former Republican. It's just as likely that you're a Russian imposter.

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by cpurdy ( 4838085 )

                  You are a lying sack of shit, not a former Republican. It's just as likely that you're a Russian imposter.

                  Hard to believe in a conversation like this, that neither one of us is posting as Anonymous Coward. That is such a nice change for this site; perhaps they should try it more.

                  However, before calling me a "lying sack of shit", maybe a little bit of Google would have saved you the embarrassment of being so obviously wrong. I've worked Republican campaigns, starting as a teenager. I have (until recently) generally voted almost straight line Republican, not because I was a blind partisan, but because I look fo

              • I am not what you would call a conservative, and yet I find many of your points interesting. However:

                I'm a conservative, which means that I think before I take action. Other people are liberal, which means that they take action and don't think. Usually, that means that I'm right and they're wrong.

                I don't see much evidence of thinking before you "took action" with this statement.

                Broadly speaking, conservatives tend to resist change, and liberals tend to embrace it. That does not mean that liberals are impulsive by definition.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by nwaack ( 3482871 )

                And to answer your question, no it does not make me feel like a big man to call people names.

                Actually, that question was rhetorical. I put it in there simply because you called me a dickhead. My main question was "how does getting duped by a shady company make the people of Wisconsin drooling deplorables? You said a lot but I didn't actually see an answer to that.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Trump is evil. The Republican Party is evil. At this point, anyone who is a Republican, supports Republicans, or supports Trump is a deplorable person.

            Period. End of story.

            That's not how opinions work, and your level of emotional vigor is not a measure of validity.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Livius ( 318358 )

            Trump is evil. The Republican Party is evil. At this point, anyone who is a Republican, supports Republicans, or supports Trump is a deplorable person.

            Entirely true, but that's not the point, not as long as voters believe the alternative is worse. "Trump is bad" is a statement of fact, but by itself it's not a persuasive argument.

          • But... What is the deal with the fundamentalist Christians that believe Trump was selected by god? I haven't figured out how that started.

          • Trump is evil. The Republican Party is evil. At this point, anyone who is a Republican, supports Republicans, or supports Trump is a deplorable person.

            It is good that you can identify evil sometimes. Now look around you and see if you can spot any more evil. If you can't, then you have a mental issue. Voting Democrat is not a cure to voting Republican.

  • Wrong article? (Score:4, Funny)

    by richy freeway ( 623503 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @01:08PM (#58841286)

    Now we're not even linking to the right article?

    • Well, which would you rather read about - the "nerdiest presidential candidate ever", or some stupid factory?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bird ( 12361 )

      That's been a recurring problem lately. What's more distressing is that none of the earlier commenters seemed to notice, because reading the FA before holding forth is so old school. Yeah, I've caught myself doing that, too, because attention span and urgency to have an early word on the topic.

      Correct is https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/18760240/foxconn-donald-trump-results-wisconsin-factory-progress-results

  • don't say nothing was accomplished... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The resulting fiasco and con was blown, and it got Scott Walker unelected.

    That's progress!!

  • DNC 2020 is going really crush Trump on this!

  • Who didn't see this coming? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Seriously? Foxconn is known for this sort of thing, and it makes the second syllable of their name all the more fitting. Before they even had a verbal agreement, you knew Foxconn was just looking to milk the state and federal governments for everything they can get. Then they'll move on to another state and pull the same scam, swearing up and down that this time things are different. Sadly, there will be plenty of people in that new state salivating at the chance to do a deal with them because of the headli

  • Actually, there's a LOT of road work (Score:3)

    by mark_reh ( 2015546 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @02:03PM (#58841618) Journal

    going on in the area, and we've had some spectacular, Mad Max worthy wrecks in the last couple weeks.

    I live 2 miles from the Foxconn site. The tax assessor has decided that my property value went up by 10% in the last year, so naturally, my taxes will, too. Someone has to pay for the breaks that that idiot Walker and his GOP cronies gave to Foxconn.

  • Perish the thought! How many people (outside of the Walker admin) tried to warn them that Foxconn rarely (if ever) follows through on it's pronouncements. The biggest problem was that people bought what they were selling, including politicians who should theoretically have people working for them who aren't idiots and know better than to trust Foxconn.

  • Trump wants credit not blame but deserves neither (Score:4, Insightful)

    by unimacs ( 597299 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @02:20PM (#58841724)
    Trump was quite happy to try and take credit for a deal he had nothing to do with and that says a lot about his character. The other thing that this shows is the flaw in his plans to elevate the state of the American middle class.

    The only way to bring a significant amount of manufacturing back to the US is to make it cost competitive to do so. That means that the well paying blue collar jobs that we used to associate with manufacturing in the States won't come back even if factories do. The factories will be highly automated, will have a few high paid staff, but most of the rest will be cheap non-union labor, - until those jobs are automated away.

    That's just reality. A successful manufacturing company is all about producing more while spending less. The jobs and the factories tend to go where the labor is the cheapest, - or even better, where they can eliminate most of the labor costs altogether.

    There are jobs in the trades that still pay pretty well, - plumbers and electricians, so there's some money to be made in building and maintaining the factories.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Trump's tariffs fucked it up. It's all very well having a factory in the US, but when half the components are supplied from China and suddenly getting hit with tariffs and non-tariff overheads, it makes a lot less sense.

  • wtf, still no article link? (Score:3)

    by enigma32 ( 128601 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @02:24PM (#58841748)

    The actual article:
    https://www.theverge.com/2019/... [theverge.com]

  • The tax breaks work the same as the taxes, by percentages. Reducing scope doesn't mean Foxconn keeps all the big numbers reported even without building more. More jobs Is better than no jobs. In the end it is still a win for the economy and tax incentives just get better if they bring more jobs..

  • Point all fingers at Foxconn (Score:3)

    by Hall ( 962 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @02:29PM (#58841782)

    Why the need for such biased reporting ? Foxconn pledged to build this facility, the state of WI offered incentives, and Trump hyped it or pointed it out about jobs being created. Who cares who was president at the time - Obama would have done the same, Bush would have too, and so on. Unless the state or local gov't is causing delays, this is all on Foxconn.

  • Orange Man Bad?

    - Yes

    - Hell Yes

    - Hillary is my president!

  • I drove through Mount Pleasant a few weeks ago. There was a Foxconn factory along I-94. I remember saying to my wife, "Hey, there's the Wisconsin Foxconn factory!"

  • ... the outcome of the 2020 election.

  • Thanks a lot Scooter Motherfucking Walker. I hope the door hit your worthless ass on your way out.

  • Just like Trump.

    Trump had to go get orders from his boss this week; did you see them joking about the election?

    Jimmy Carter, bless his heart, is finally right on one thing: Trump is an Illegitimate President.

    Russia stole it, using the vast number of idiots here that will believe anything.

    They own an interest in the companies that make the voting machines, so there won't be any tracks to find where that changed the votes.

    Get used to being a dictatorship, America. :)

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