Think Foxconn is going to build a factory in Wisconsin? Luz Sosa, an econ instructor in Wisconsin, observes in a local newspaper column titled Take off the rose-colored glasses about Foxconn:
How about a cold shower and some due diligence? Here’s Foxconn’s record of failed promises:Even if a factory goes up, it will just be automated, with few workers, churning out products and farming subsidies, Sosa says. Tim Culpan, probably Taiwan's sharpest econ reporter, observes in Bloomberg:
• Foxconn promised a $30 million factory employing 500 workers in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 2013. The plant was never built, not a single job was created.
• That same year, the company signed a letter of intent to invest up to $1 billion in Indonesia. Nothing came of it.
• Foxconn announced it would invest $5 billion and create 50,000 jobs over five years in India as part of an ambitious expansion in 2014. The investment amounted to a small fraction of that, according to The Washington Post’s Todd Frankel.
• Foxconn committed to a $5 billion investment in Vietnam in 2007, and $10 billion in Brazil in 2011. The company made its first major foray in Vietnam only last year. In Brazil, Foxconn has an iPhone factory, but its investment has fallen far short of promises.
• Foxconn recently laid off 60,000 workers, more than 50 percent of its workforce at its IPhone 6 factory in Kushan, China, replacing them with robots that Foxconn produces.
Just this past year, Foxconn is reported to have pledged investments of $5 billion in India; $3.65 billion in Kunshan, China; and $8.8 billion in Guangzhou. It's too early to know if those sums will ever be spent, but including Wisconsin, the tally now stands at $27.5 billion of commitments. That's more than Hon Hai has spent in the last 23 years.He also notes that the subsidies come to $519 a head for Wisconsin residents, or enough to buy an iPhone for everyone in the state.
Perhaps this is related to trying to gain Trump's support for a 2020 presidential run as the KMT candidate.
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3 comments:
"The unofficial Australian reaction highlights something often missing from Australia’s security debate: any degree of empathy for Beijing. Considering the world from Beijing’s perspective doesn’t mean that one must approve of China’s authoritarian political system, abysmal human rights record, illiberal restrictions on press freedoms, harsh repression of religious groups, etc. It is possible to both condemn China’s political system, but also accept it as an incipient great power with legitimate security concerns. Empathising does not mean rolling over at the first sign of aggression, but appreciating China’s fears could help to secure bargains, lower tensions and avoid war. The US did this, at times, with the USSR. We should encourage the same approach towards China today."
"the status quo truly is non-negotiable, then this reasoning allows for only two outcomes: China backs down, or the US and its allies enforce the current rules-based global order (at considerable risk of nuclear war)."
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This is a sensible and reasonable analysis. He sounds like a grown up.
Nice summary by Luz Sosa of Foxconn's track record of extravagant promises! I haven't seen anything of that kind of content in any of the news articles I've read about Gou's statements on the Wisonsin.
However, if he really wanted to get some sort of US support for his run at the presidency in 2020, he'd have to go through with this one, right? Otherwise he'd be vulnerable to being called out on it, as well as annoying the US government at various levels.
That's a good observation.
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