Foxconn in Wisconsin

xenon

https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump

It's a longer article. Some interesting tidbits below.

A contract with WEDC signed in November made it official: nearly $3 billion in “refundable” tax credits, most likely to be made in the form of direct payments to Foxconn. Combined with infrastructure the state promised to build, approximately $800 million in additional incentives mostly from the small town of Mount Pleasant, where the “Fab” was to be located, and other contributions, the package totaled more than $4 billion. In a best-case scenario, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau found the state wouldn’t break even until 2043. Depending on how many people Foxconn hired, each job would cost taxpayers somewhere between $200,000 and more than a million dollars. The average subsidy in the US is around $24,000 per job.

“They asked me to create a business in Wisconsin, to come up with a business model, whatever I thought would make money,” said one of several engineers who was training in Taiwan when Foxconn called him home to help figure out what to do. He came to a conclusion shared by many who joined the project: “The most common misunderstanding with Foxconn is people here thought Foxconn had a strategy and a business plan when they were coming into Wisconsin. They did not. They had no plans at all.”

employees began convening to discuss literally any other idea to make money. They searched for things in Wisconsin they could export to China: cosmetics, designer handbags, ice cream, carp. Yeung asked them to draw up a plan for building an aquaponic fish farm in Mount Pleasant, having been inspired by a company in northern Wisconsin and reasoning that Foxconn had access to cheap water the state provided for LCD manufacturing. They briefly explored doing something with esports, maybe sponsoring a gaming team that could use the empty innovation centers, according to one source. A plan to export dairy to China got as far as a meeting with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture before collapsing.

That illusion has had real costs. State and local governments spent at least $400 million, largely on land and infrastructure Foxconn will likely never need. Residents were pushed from their homes under threat of eminent domain and dozens of houses bulldozed to clear property Foxconn doesn’t know what to do with. And a recurring cycle of new recruits joined the project, eager to help it succeed, only to become trapped in a mirage.

Months after the 2018 groundbreaking, the company was racing to hire the 260 people needed to receive the first tranche of payments from the lucrative subsidy package passed by then-Gov. Scott Walker. Recruiters were told to hit the number but given little in the way of job descriptions. Soon, the office began to fill with people who had nothing to do. Many just sat in their cubicles watching Netflix and playing games on their phones.

jon-nyc

Nice.

Axtremus

@xenon said in Foxconn in Wisconsin:

Soon, the office began to fill with people who had nothing to do. Many just sat in their cubicles watching Netflix and playing games on their phones.

They get healthcare insurance, dental, vision, and 401k too?

Maybe Foxconn can organize many events to have them to charitable work for the public, like cleaning up the parks or build houses for Habitat for Humanity and such.

taiwan_girl

Wow. Interesting story.

mark

We had a fucking corrupt idiot running this place who made this deal.

We fired him too late.

Axtremus

Foxconn mostly abandons $10 billion Wisconsin project
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/foxconn-mostly-abandons-10-billion-wisconsin-project-touted-by-trump.html

When the deal was first announced, Foxconn was supposed to invest $10 Billion and create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin. Now the new deal requires Foxconn to invest only $672 million and create 1454 jobs. And the state is still supposed to subsidize that to the tune of $55,000 per job. That’s on top of the hundreds of $millions state and local government already spent (1) relocate residents to make space for and roads to the originally anticipated Foxconn plant and (2) build roads and other infrastructure to support the originally anticipated Foxconn plant. These are now roads to no where.

The late night talk show version:

Link to video
Fast forward to the 6:10 mark for the Foxconn-in-Wisconsin stuff.

Axtremus

Biden to tout new $3.3 bln Microsoft data center at failed Foxconn site Trump backed

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-unveil-33-billion-microsoft-ai-investment-battleground-wisconsin-2024-05-08/

The Microsoft facility in Racine County, in southeastern Wisconsin, will be built on the same land where Taiwan electronics manufacturer Foxconn had planned to build a $10 billion factory that former President Donald Trump once called "the eighth wonder of the world," before Foxconn drastically scaled back its plans.

Microsoft's plans will result in 2,300 union construction jobs and around 2,000 permanent jobs over time, the White House said. It said nearly 4,000 jobs had been added in Racine since Biden took office, while about 1,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the Trump administration.