Foxconn built a fake factory

[GrayW01f]

 Report: Foxconn accepted $4 billion in government incentives to build a Wisconsin factory and employ 13,000 people. Turns out the facility is a fake.
There's a build

 

News Story from The Blaze

 

 

Back in 2017, Taiwan's electronics giant Foxconn vowed to build what the company said would be a $10 billion factory in Wisconsin that would employ 13,000 people building LCD TV screens. In exchange, the state government offered the company more than $4 billion in incentives, including $3 billion in refundable tax credits.

 

But on March 30, 2019, the company suddenly announced it would not be building the plant after all.

[Kanna]

You better edit fast lel

[ZuckyT]

There was a Reply All episode about this about 2 years ago, when the factory was just in planning. Here's the link if anyone is interested: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/wbhjwd.

[LogicalDrm]

@GrayW01f

This thread has been moved to General Discussion as it doesn't follow our guidelines for Tech News section

 

Please put quoted parts to quotes (")-mark in toolbar. And add your own input. Failing to comply will mean lock for this thread as the topic itself isn't really about tech industry, but US jobs.

[FaxedForward]

I live in Wisconsin where this happened and it is definitely a giant clusterfuck, but OP clearly is not here to actually discuss any of the details.

[Drama Lama]

Wait what?

Not even the news are fake?

[LogicalDrm]

*** Also some off topic/politics cleaned ***

 

You know the drill people, if I have to do it again, mind just lock it for good. Plus the personal notices as always.

[RejZoR]

Well, it has a Foxconn in the name...

[Mark Kaine]

So did they built the factory or not? 

 

 

Also if they received money and didn't do what was said they'd surely pay it back?  

[HerrKaLeu]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

So did they built the factory or not? 

 

 

Also if they received money and didn't do what was said they'd surely pay it back?  

My understanding is the factory is much smaller than promised. It also employs many people from Illinois (it is close to the border) Much of the money was for infrastructure, so that is sunk cost. I assume the " party in charge from State side"  doesn't have to pay back the campaign contributions from Foxconn either. 

 

Not sure if that was the plan all along. I went to a nearby conference about 2-3 years ago. and in the same hotel was a big Foxconn event with many Asians, making it look like they were all serious. Maybe the general downturn or some better technology made the full size factory obsolete. But also could have been a plan to fake all along. 

 

I know they forced home owners off their land and out of their houses to grab the land. eminent domain and so. the city or village of Pleasantville declared the entire neighborhood " blighted"  to be able to force the owners out of their homes. I'm sure the council members got a decent " benefits package" to make this all happen. 

 

i know there also was a lot of controversy with all the water the factory was supposed to pump and dispose off. it ws one of the things one normally wouldn't get permitted, but the DNR basically bent over backwards because, you know, " jobs".

[FaxedForward]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

So did they built the factory or not? 

 

 

Also if they received money and didn't do what was said they'd surely pay it back?  

They built a bunch of giant empty buildings where nothing is happening, basically. They keep trying to use loopholes such as hiring temp workers and building show production lines for photo ops to claim they have accomplished something, but the whole area they occupy is a ghost town with no real purpose.

 

They couldn’t prove that they hired enough people so they lost out on a bunch of the promised money, but the main loss is the infrastructure the state and surrounding towns invested in to support a factory that does not exist. People’s homes literally got bulldozed for Foxconn and now there is nothing to show for it. Foxconn may not have received the subsidies that they have been vying for, but there were still billions of dollars invested to support them that will never be recouped.

 

Even if Foxconn delivered the cost to us taxpayers would have been something absurd like $70,000 USD per job created from the subsidies. Many locals including myself thought the whole deal was a terrible idea from the beginning and never took Foxconn seriously but the government was jebaited into plowing a deal through.

[Mark Kaine]

53 minutes ago, FaxedForward said:

They built a bunch of giant empty buildings where nothing is happening, basically. They keep trying to use loopholes such as hiring temp workers and building show production lines for photo ops to claim they have accomplished something, but the whole area they occupy is a ghost town with no real purpose.

 

They couldn’t prove that they hired enough people so they lost out on a bunch of the promised money, but the main loss is the infrastructure the state and surrounding towns invested in to support a factory that does not exist. People’s homes literally got bulldozed for Foxconn and now there is nothing to show for it. Foxconn may not have received the subsidies that they have been vying for, but there were still billions of dollars invested to support them that will never be recouped.

 

Even if Foxconn delivered the cost to us taxpayers would have been something absurd like $70,000 USD per job created from the subsidies. Many locals including myself thought the whole deal was a terrible idea from the beginning and never took Foxconn seriously but the government was jebaited into plowing a deal through.

 

Oh I see, yeah that's rough... Seems like a scam basically (not totally unsurprising all things considered but yeah) 

 

35 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Isn't it cheaper to manufacture in Taiwan/China than in the USA? From a cold POV it's simply not worth for the company to pay higher wages and comply with strict safety norms in america when they can go to China, hire workers for cents and avoid things like OSHA 

It makes zero sense to produce in the US, cost for work is much too high. 

[BuckGup]

I find FoxConn in Wisconsin strange. They own a fair amount of buildings in Eau Claire including the dorms for students at UWEC and other various things like Olsens Ice Cream.