The Verge Digs Into Foxconn’s Wisconsin Con Job

In-depth investigation by Josh Dzieza for The Verge:

The secrecy and vagueness are frustrating to critics. How do you prove that Foxconn won’t build an enormous LCD factory during an industry glut or create a research campus larger than MIT in rural Wisconsin other than by pointing out that experts — and even, occasionally, Foxconn executives — say it makes no sense?

State House Minority Leader Gordon Hintz recently appointed himself to the board of WEDC, and Foxconn’s continued promises of 13,000 jobs make him palpably furious. Speaking in slow, measured tones in his Madison office as he packed for a trip, he said the state needs to “right-size” the project to something realistic, likely a few hundred research jobs, and that Foxconn needs to be honest about its plans. “For something that had a 25-year payback, building a factory because the president wants you to for reasons that have nothing to do with market viability is insane.”

Hintz believes Foxconn is trying to slow-walk the project until 2020, continuing to use it to win Trump’s goodwill in the trade war and waiting to see who’s elected.

Foxconn scammed Republican officials, pure and simple — local, state, and federal. The LCD factory that President Trump declared “the eighth wonder of the world” still doesn’t exist and likely never will. It’s a scam Foxconn has played around the globe.

Previously at DF:

★ Friday, 12 April 2019