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Foxconn Is Reconsidering Plan For Wisconsin Factory (cnn.com)
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."
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 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.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-06/wisconsin-s-deal-with-foxconn-is-the-worst-of-corporate-welfare
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".
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
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.
in the first place.
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.
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not quite, If some offers to pay you a million dollars and you offer them a 200,000 tax break you aren't paying 200,000 you are gaining 800,000. the problem with this is people like yourself that can't convert the agenda driven press articles into real math. You have not saved ANYTHING by them not building, you have LOST tax income and jobs.
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.
none of it actually. they were tax subsidies, it isn't money they ever had and would only have had if they built their. No build, no tax subsidies, so if anything the tax payers will actually be far worse off.
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.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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 qualify for the subsides in a year by year basis. They already didn't make the 2018 criteria, so they lost some of the money already. Since they are most likely not going to hit the planned targets, The tax breaks are basically null and void.
The most it cost Wisconsin so far is the initial tax breaks, infrastructure upgrades and the land that they leased to Foxconn, which is nowhere near $1 Billion right now let alone $4 Billion. If Foxconn bails, the infrastructure and land is sill owned by the state and can be used to entice other companies to build there.
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.