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Foxconn Will Only Create 1500 Jobs, says Wisconsin Governor (theverge.com) 203

The Foxconn factory in Wisconsin will only create 1,500 jobs when it starts production next May, Gov. Tony Evers said yesterday. From a report: That's the same number Foxconn has been saying since it shifted plans for the factory a few months ago, and far short of the 13,000 jobs that were promised when President Trump broke ground a year ago. Evers has been negotiating with Foxconn since he replaced former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, and he says he now has "clarity: on Foxconn's plans. 1,500 jobs is short of the 1,800 jobs required for Foxconn to get the next set of tax credits under its $4 billion deal with the state. Foxconn already missed its first jobs target under that contract, hiring only 156 employees instead of the required 260 last year. Instead, Foxconn has bought a series of empty buildings for "innovation centers" around the state as part of a promised "AI 8K+5G ecosystem" (although it's never specified what that ecosystem actually is). Timeline: Wisconsin's $4.1 Billion Foxconn Boondoggle; Foxconn Is Reconsidering Plan For Wisconsin Factory; Foxconn Says It Will Build Wisconsin Factory After All; Foxconn is Confusing the Hell Out of Wisconsin; and One Year After Trump's Foxconn Groundbreaking, There is Almost Nothing To Show For It.
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Foxconn Will Only Create 1500 Jobs, says Wisconsin Governor

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  • by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @02:12PM (#58902894) Journal

    This has been going on before anyone here was born. Chalk it up not to idiocy of this governor, or this president, or this party, but of government in general.

    To quote Barry from American Dad, "Boy, we've had a lot of schemes mess up badly, but this is the most recent."

    • Re:So (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TomR teh Pirate ( 1554037 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @02:29PM (#58903048)
      "Government" doesn't make decisions any more than "Random Corporation" makes decisions. There are effective decision-makers and ineffective decision-makers at all levels of government, and in businesses. The ones in bureaucracies will have varying levels of talent and skill. The ones who are appointed will vary as well. Think about responses to natural disasters and compare / contrast appointed leaders of FEMA in New Orleans vs. most other, high-profile disasters. It was the people in those positions who made all the difference.

      You get to the Wisconsin deal, and it stinks. The current governor inherited the contract from his predecessor, and there's not much he can do about a contract he didn't negotiate. "Government" gets a bad rap all too often because people fail to recognize that government is perpetual no matter how well or how badly it performs on businesslike decisions whereas businesses are (generally) allowed to fail as a function of their bad decisions, economic climate, etc. Frankly, I take some comfort in knowing that government is allowed to soldier on when the alternative is no government to keep things running reasonably well. Wisconsin will continue to survive as an entity, even if the Foxcon deal ends up failing.
    • Chalk it up not to idiocy of this governor, or this president, or this party, but of government in general.

      Remember one thing. Insulting the government is insulting the people that vote for it. The government is just following orders with the consent of the vast majority.

      • Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Daemonik ( 171801 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @03:48PM (#58903662) Homepage

        The government is just following orders with the consent of the vast majority.

        Or in the case of most red states, with the consent of a minority of hand selected voters and against the consent of the vast majority of voters who were gerrymandered or otherwise defrauded of their voting power by various nefarious means couched as "voter integrity".

        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by Solandri ( 704621 )
          The opposite was true in the 1950s-1980s, which led to the Democratic party controlling the House for a staggering 40 continuous years [wikipedia.org]. Gerrymandering only became an "issue" once the GOP got better at it than Democrats. The press basically ignored it when it favored Democrats. If you don't believe me, here are the 1980 House election results for California [wikipedia.org].Republicans won 51% of the popular vote (Reagan's coattails) but only got 20 House seats. Democrats won 45% of the popular vote but got 23 House seats
        • Seems that gerrymandering is the mantra talking point.

          Just curious. Do you think a city should be able to vote to steal the resources of smaller communities because it outnumbers small towns?

      • by geekoid ( 135745 )

        It is in no way the simple.

        • I'm afraid it is. Each person simply has to make the choice. A cohesive voice is formed naturally with little to no effort.

      • You're assuming that peoples' votes count as expected in an actual democracy. Throw that idea out when the state house and senate have been gerrymandered by one party or the other to perpetuate their grip on power.

        • Sorry, everybody is complaining about the autopilot when the system doesn't have one. Just try pushing the other button, and see what happens.

          • Nothing happens. That's they point of gerrymandering. You lose the overall vote in the state, but still have a big majority in the legislature.

      • The vast majority voted for someone else fucktwat.
    • by geekoid ( 135745 )

      If you are Quoting American dad, then you really are clueless about the government. Because that show is bias and in fact out right lies.

  • by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @02:23PM (#58902998) Homepage Journal

    At that level of subsidy, they would be better off taking the same dollars and spending them on renewable energy in their state. Higher paying jobs with lower subsidies.

    If you were a capitalist, you'd understand that.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @02:44PM (#58903184)
      You can throw all the money you want at companies, they'll be gone as soon as the free money dries up and you'll be left holding the bag on the tens or hundreds of millions of bonds & loans you took out to pay them.

      Real growth comes from making your state the kind of place college grads want to live. That's why my kid wants to move to Denver, Co when she graduates. Companies move where the employees are, not the other way around. At least, not the kind of companies you want in your state...
      • by DogDude ( 805747 )
        Real growth comes from making your state the kind of place college grads want to live.

        Exactly. And it doesn't hurt to be a place that creates tons of college grads, too. The Triangle in NC is one of the best economies in the country because it's got UNC-Chapel Hill (medical and liberal arts), NC State (science and engineering) and Duke University. Tons of well educated people here, companies move here, and voila! Great economy and great quality of life. No need to throw money at companies to go ther
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Daemonik ( 171801 )
          But see, colleges teach kids critical thinking, and that sort of thing is just counter to Conservative ideals, as they're currently expressed by the GOP/Theocratic State. Because colleges are all run by gay liberal homosexuals who don't believe the Bible is the true and accurate and they didn't spend 12 years indoctrinating their kid in homeschools just for some commie socialist Lib to tell them otherwise.
      • Companies move where the employees are, not the other way around.

        Of course it goes both ways. SV has so many tech firms because tech talent moves there, and then other tech firms start there because that's where the talent is. The idea behind incentives is to jump-start that cycle by letting a lot of companies go to where the talent is, allowing that talent to stay. Or to relocate a branch, and bring that initial burst of talent with it.

        For somethings, it makes a lot of sense. Peoria wants to submit a b

  • by Ryanrule ( 1657199 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @02:26PM (#58903022)
    This is what they do. And y’all support them.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    WHO could have possibly foresaw that a factory built in 2019 would be mostly automated and not require 10k+ people to operate

    if only there were some way of deducing the effects of technology that currently fucking exists

  • right? And the Tax incentives? Yep. I'm sure that'll happen any day now. Any day.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      For those they can. The GOP also passed a lot of last-minute legislation that neutered the current governors ability to mitigate or modify things like this. They voted sweeping new powers for their governor when he entered office, then passed sweeping limitations on the governorship when the other party was about to gain power. Now the stacked state supreme court upheld the corruption and they're having to take it to the federal level.

  • Yes, evading taxes back home are they? I mean, that was the design of the entire scam.

  • So $4 Billion is enough for 1,500 people to receive $100,000 per year (each) for 26 years, Hell, if the state had just handed out $2 Billion directly to these same people, it would have been cheaper!

    Stupid people winning stupid prizes

  • by cnaumann ( 466328 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @03:36PM (#58903558)

    For anyone curious about the math.

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      At that rate, it would have been easier to hold a lottery and the winners get $100K/year for 26 years.

  • When Foxconn tries this scam in another US state, will the state pony up the tax incentives? Let's hope not. Then again, Foxconn could promise not to repeat what it did to Wisconsin. Ya, sure.
  • Scott Walker: The asshole that keeps on shitting
  • I doubt even 1,500 jobs will be created.

    Yes, there will be a few "key" positions and some minor worker-bee positions, but 1,500 jobs altogether?

    I may be wrong, but I just don't see it.

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