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Foxconn Considers $7 Billion Screen Factory In US, Which Could Create Up To 50,000 Jobs (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturing company best known for its partnership with Apple, has said that it is mulling a $7 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing that could create between 30,000 and 50,000 jobs. According to The Wall Street Journal, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou says the company is talking with the state of Pennsylvania among others about getting the land and electricity subsidies it would need to build a factory. "If U.S. state governments are willing to provide these terms, and we calculate and it is cheaper than shipping from China or Japan, then why wouldn't Sharp build a factory in the U.S.?" said Gou. The factory would build flat-panel screens under the Sharp name -- Foxconn bought Sharp around this time last year for $5.1 billion. Sharp President Tai Jeng-wu hinted in October of 2016 that U.S. manufacturing could be a possibility for Sharp, and he also indicated that Apple could begin using OLED display panels in future iPhones. Apple currently uses OLED in the Apple Watch and in the new MacBook Pro's Touch Bar, but otherwise it hasn't pushed to adopt the technology as some Android phone manufacturers have.
Sad to see the Trump MAGA's once again fooled by companies recycling old press releases.
No way flat screen manufacture is going to create 50k permanent jobs.
Trump has been in direct negotiations with them and several other major manufacturing companies. That's something Obama never did. He's already done more good in 3 days than Obama did in 8 years.
is talking with the state of Pennsylvania among others about getting the land and electricity subsidies
I'm sure with Pennsylvania's current $600 million budget deficit the folks in Harrisburg will be more than willing to hand over tens of millions of dollars in subsidies with a payback timeframe of decades.
Who wouldn't?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Like a comedian said lately "I need a job to get decent money, not to be occupied. I can keep myself busy all by myself just fine".
Are those jobs paying enough to live off them?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And why would they do that? It strikes me that no sane company would go around intentionally trying to piss off the executive branch of any government they were thinking of making an investment in.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I don't know that it's fair to attribute this to Trump (and I voted for him). However, even if it was, why would this make anyone sad? Are you so partisan that you would actually lament the fact that 50,000 people in Pennsylvania are going to have new jobs? Have you become so cold and heartless that you would have people suffer just to advance your own political agenda?
I'm old enough to remember a time when the Democratic Party stood up for the working class; when they were the party of compassion; when they stood up for civil liberties like free speech. Sadly, the party has long since left all that (and me) behind. And if the last election was any indication, a lot of people in formerly blue states think the party has left them behind too, states like Pennsylvania.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If Foxconn executives have a clue on how to run a business, they have considered total costs and risks. Six months ago, there was a big question mark: there was a 70% chance that it was about to become more difficult and expensive to operate in the US, because the "fuck corporations, tax and regulate them to death!" party was likely to take control of the legislative and regulatory machinery. That would mean they could expect costs and time frames to increase. There was a 30% chance that the more business-friendly party would take power, with a president focused on making it easier to produce things in the US. Unless the Foxconn executives are idiots, six ago they were saying "let's wait until at least November to make a definite decision".
A few years ago, Obama's own radio ads had him promising to "go after corporations". Hillary promised to "put a lot of companies out of business". Foxconn can hear those promises.
The election of Trump and Republican control of Congress, along with Trump's actions since the election show companies, including Foxconn, that the US wants jobs here, and we're not going try to "put a lot of people out of business". That has to influence their decision, if they are competent executives. Given Foxconn's success, it appears that Foxconn executives are in fact competent, they do have a clue - so they pay attention to the political and regulatory trends before committing $7 billion.
Because many recognize that just one number like "50k jobs" isn't the only number that matters. How much is the State giving away in freebies of taxpayer money to subsidize these jobs? How permanent are these jobs? If it's a large subsidy for temporary (like construction) jobs which will dry up long before the return-on-investment has been reached, the State would be better off just hiring these workers themselves to do something more long-lasting instead of having Foxconn skim off the top, make a killing in profit with very little cost, only to layoff these workers in a few years.
The problem with Trump and most of his campaign is that he's promising a quick, easy solution to a difficult problem: how do American workers stay competitive in a stage of increasingly easier global shipments? This is yet another example of something that feels good in the short term but can be a terrible deal in the long term.
They better watch it - Foxconn is thinking of opening a $7 Billion display screen factory in the USA, on top of $50 Billion, and you know darned well that fear of Trump putting duties on them is part of it.
Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, is considering setting up a display-making plant in the United States in an investment that would exceed $7 billion, company chairman and chief executive Terry Gou said on Sunday.
The plans come after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to put "America First" in his inauguration speech on Friday, prompting Gou to warn about the rise of protectionism and a trend for politics to underpin economic development.
You really have to admit that 30-50k new jobs is significant.
Gou said he told Son that the United States has no panel-making industry but it is the second-largest market for televisions. An investment for a display plant would exceed $7 billion and could create about 30,000-50,000 jobs, Gou told Son.
You can hate on him all you want, but if fear of Trump can bring manufacturing jobs back, the people whose livelihood depended on manufacturing jobs and who voted for him are going to be happy they did. As for the rest, you should all wish for more success stories, despite your personal opinions. It's not like any other president hasn't been an asshole. Why? "It's the economy, stupid!"
And yet we still have idiots saying "I hope he fails." Cut your nose of to spite your face all you want, the rest of the world thinks you're idiots to undermine anyone trying to reverse the trend of killing the middle and lower classes for the benefit of crony capitalists.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Then wouldn't it make more sense to subsidize the consumer if you're going to subsidize anything?
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Have you become so cold and heartless that you would have people suffer just to advance your own political agenda?"
I'm sorry, but I have to laugh at that. While the "left" may be guilty of this as well, the "right" is no stranger to causing harm to advance political ideals.
The republican party has left so many people behind as well. If you're lamenting the previous state of the democratic party, but express that by supporting republican party, then you're either a total fool, or yourself a political ideologue.
If manufacturing jobs inherently made countries great (at all), then China and southeast Asia would be The Best. What made America great during the golden years of blue-collar workers wasn't manufacturing per-se, it was in finding productive use of a workforce which happened to be manufacturing at the time. Today, the economy is more focused on services than products[1], and we should be focusing on how to expand service jobs rather than easily outsourced and automated manufacturing jobs.
By the way, unemployment is below 5%[2], which is quite healthy. More important than jobs is that wages for all jobs are above a subsistence level so that people actually have discretionary funds at the end of the day. We don't necessarily need more jobs (although there's nothing wrong with having them), but we *do* need better wages. Adding jobs (and demand for labor) is one way of achieving that, but it's not the only way. Minimum wage is another. Capping CEO and executive total compensation as a multiple of company-average pay is another. And for what it's worth, I'm not someone who needs better wages, but I recognize that it's important nonetheless.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com...
[2] https://data.bls.gov/timeserie...
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
If you are a woman, LGBTQ, a muslim, a black or hispanic person etc., why would you support jobs in a state that helped put Trump into power?
Because you're a decent human being?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Trump or not, it's sure good to see at least some jobs moving in the other direction for once.
According to the Reshoring Initiative, about 41,000 jobs have been returning to the US per year for the last six years. This does not even count jobs that were planned to leave but reconsidered (like Carrier) or jobs created from foreign investment (like FoxConn).
As automation becomes more capable and wages in other countries increase, it just makes sense that jobs would start to return. Unfortunately for the rust belt the jobs which return are often not the same low skill work which was off-shored over the past few decades.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
It's about politics. There's a big part of the left, not the majority thank God, that are praying the economy will crash and we will go into a rehash of the Great Depression just so they can say I told you so. If Trump supports Net Neutrality they will be against it. If he supports limiting copyright they will support expanding it. It doesn't matter what he does it will be wrong to them because they are anti-Trump. They will shriek in rage for every job this country gains over the next 4 years.
Except taking taxpayer money in subsidies and creating minimum wage assembly line jobs which will probably be replaced with automation within the decade does nothing except funnel even more money up the capitalist pyramid to the top. All that subsidy money should be spent on education for those workers so they can get better-than-minimum wage jobs. There's no benefit to the lower class if you're just keeping them enslaved as factory workers, you're just enabling the upper class.
So they want access to that market and those workers but don't want to pay any taxes to help pay for the infrastructure that society needs.
Taxes are for the poor.
And if Obama and Democrats in congress push a health care plan directly modeled on Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care plan (a plan which was considered a success by most Republicans), Republicans will be against it. This is not a new phenomenon, and it is not unique to one party or one president.
Spending LESS on education would be better. The cost of education has been way over the cost of inflation for a couple of decades - cut the fat, the stupidity, the mickey mouse courses, the diploma mills, the fat, the fat, the fat - there is no reason education costs should have been so crazy - except of course, the more subsidies and grants students get, the easier it is to charge more.
As for what type of jobs to train for? One certainty is NOT in STEM - it's only a matter of time before AI learns how to write AI code. AI will be doing the exploration in science, tech, engineering, and math - not humans.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It's all about the money, as any corporation is always about.
Thus the more accurate restatement of the headline, "Foxconn indicates it would be willing to build factory in the US in exchange for massive tax breaks and government subsidies". They know which way the wind is blowing, and how to milk it for maximum gain.
Hate to say it, but that sounds a whole lot like the anti-Obama Republicans.
Not saying it's right because "they did it first" or whatever - it was bullshit when they did it too. Ideas should stand or fall based on merit, and we should all be hoping for success, because if Trump succeeds at this, we all win. If he fails, we all take it right in the ass. Just like with Obama.
Time to grow up and govern.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
"Not STEM," for another reason:
Think piano lessons.
Many kids are forced to take piano lessons because mama and papa think it's important that their kids take piano lessons.
Mostly, two things happen:
Kids learn to hate the fucking piano lessons and damned few are ever any good at it.
Kids need exposure to many endeavors in order to determine where their natural aptitude points.
When that activity is identified, then the student should be allowed to chase that dream.
STEM education is valuable when a STEM-enabled person pursues it.
If they suck at STEM, maybe they are piano prodigies and no one, including the student, knew.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
You mean other than Obama pulling us out of the disaster of the Bush years and steadily growing the economy. Not to mention getting health care for millions of people. Oh yeah, and getting rid of the "you were off insurance for a day, sorry, that's a pre-existing condition" BS. But other than that, what did the Romans ever do for us?