Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/01/foxconn-long-con.html
Foxconn says the factory plan is back on after Trump personally reached out.
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This seems like a good business model - promise all sorts of stuff, get massive up-front subsidies, then be very coy about actually reinvesting those subsidies back into the communities that bent over backwards to woo you there.
I wonder if I could do that with my boss?
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I can imagine the conversation, with Il Douche telling Foxconn that this bait-and-switch was so obvious that even his suckers could see right through it.
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Well, it will be cool if Trump can get Wisconsinites some amount of value for their massive investment. His track record for things like this (General Motors) is not good, though.
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With these types of
Tax-Payer funded
Private companies,.
are ANY actual contracts
SIGNED?
Or are these “wink and a nod”
type scams…(the kind where everyone
knows it’s all a scam, but nobody speaks
it out loud)?
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Foxconn identified a weakness in the GOP designed system, and exploited it. I’m sure this is a momentary setback, no way they aren’t smarter than the hacks in the cabinet. Pay up, people of Wisconsin.
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He’d probably just fire you… it’s not a two way street in the capitalist system…
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Today’s statement saying that the Gen 6 factory will be built after all does not contain a timeline or any further details.
Details, schmetails. When you’re dealing with people as honest and forthright as Donald J. Trump and Foxconn, their word is their bond. Factory workers might as well start heading toward the site now to get in line early for imminent mass hirings.
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I expect Foxconn will want to obtain the same inexpensive workforce that The Donald himself uses. Prospective employees should look for their recruiting tents along the US - Mexico border rather than in Michigan.
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Sure, sure Donnie - it’ll have several heated indoor Olympic sized swimming pools for the employees too.
Is he off the line now? Great- back to our original plan.
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People have pointed out that, no, the market didn’t particularly change between when they announced their initial plans and the recent statements, so it’s pretty clear their stated plans were never true. So presumably yet again nothing has changed.
Even if the deal was what it was supposed to be (but never was in reality), it wasn’t good value for public investment. (The jobs brought in were never going to refund the state money lost/spent, for instance.) I suspect part of that was because the project was intended to be a cornerstone to encourage other companies to bring manufacturing back to the state, so what the state was willing to spend/give up went beyond what was reasonable for one factory. The problem being that it clearly was never going to actually even be a factory, so all the money spent and concessions made were wasted from the start.
Trump was always a laughably terrible negotiator, but by consistently lying and breaking deals as president, he’s put himself in a position where he isn’t capable of negotiating anything, and certainly not convincing a company to do something that makes no economic sense for it. So all that’s likely changed is how they’re going to talk about the “factory,” unless he’s set them up with further money and/or concessions (which would make this an even worse deal for the state). But I don’t think he could manage even that.
Yeah, basically. It was decided it was best to be vague for a few more years at least, and deflect whenever anyone anyone points out they never made good on their promises, I guess.
It sounds like, with this deal, the tax credits were contingent on how many people they employed, at least. They already got lots of freebies and tax breaks (on the construction material, for instance) just by constructing an empty building there, though, and presumably they’ll get various benefits regardless of what they do in the future. But at least the full tax credit assumes a certain number of workers.
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Pretty sure he just told Foxconn they made a mistake in telling the truth and to just go back to the original lie and to actually go do whatever they want in the end like he does.
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Given that literally yesterday, Foxconn was very upfront about saying “Yeah, thanks for the subsidies, but we have literally no need to build a factory, have no projects to work on in the USA, and would have nothing for a factory full of people to do,” I’m fascinated to see how they justify doing exactly the opposite 24 hrs later.
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Foxconn has a long history of bilking communities for tax subsidies that more than pay for the entire project, then underdelivering in a variety of ways.
It’s not just a scam, it’s a scam and their business model.
And it only worked because Trumpers in power in Wisconsin sold their souls and filled their pockets an the say-so of Agent Orange.
Wisconsin pols won’t suffer, but the people have, and will.
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So we have that combined with Tangerine Shitgibbon’s direct interventions where he claims to have saved manufacturing jobs, except, it inevitably turns out, he did nothing and no jobs were saved.
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I wonder what he told them? “Look, just pretend like it’s still going to be a huge factory, at least for a couple years, OK?”
[edit: I called it, sure enough Trump asked them to fake it for him.]
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this episode of the Reply All podcast will teach you everything you need to know about this total scam/farce that may ruin a city.
https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-pleasant
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I’m sure that Trump promised them something if they promised not to pull out.
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Or Carrier in Ohio, remember all those promised jobs that ended up going to Mexico anyway?
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