Foxconn’s boosters each day inch closer to a corporate welfare version of Scientology: it doesn’t make any sense, but adherents keep to themselves and repeat a shared list of crackpot claims.
The latest news to pierce the cultists’ bubble:
Molly Beck and Rick Romell report Wisconsin taxpayers could pay Foxconn for work done outside of Wisconsin, audit says:
Taxpayers could pay Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn for work done outside of Wisconsin unless changes are made to how the state’s jobs agency issues tax credits, a state audit shows.
The Legislature’s Audit Bureau is recommending the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. make changes to its procedures to avoid awarding tax credits to Foxconn Technology Group for work that isn’t being done in the state.
The bureau’s audit released Wednesday shows the agency’s procedures don’t comply with the state’s contract with Foxconn and state law.
(Emphasis added.)
In an interview, Sruthi Pinnamaneni describes What Foxconn’s really doing in Wisconsin:
A transcribed excerpt from the full interview appears below:
Nilay Patel: They’re moving people out of their homes, and they’re paying a lot of money — they’re paying $30,000 an acre — but they’re asking people to leave. There was one gentleman who was in a wheelchair, and he needed to make his new house accessible, and they won’t give him the money. And just listening to that, I was heartbroken.
Sruthi Pinnamaneni: Yeah. It’s so hard to imagine why the village decided to do it this way. In the negotiations with Foxconn, the parcel of land that they needed to get ready for Foxconn right away — so they gave themselves a deadline of August 1st. So by August 1st, they had to get about 60 homeowners off of this very large, almost two-square-mile area of land. And the way they did it was the village said, “Foxconn, you don’t need to go individually and do the buyouts and buy the land. We will do it for you.” In fact, the village is also paying for that land. They took out, I believe, over $100 million in loans just to pay for the land. So the village, your village, is paying a mortgage on land that they collected from their own residents, and gave — not sold, not rented — gave to Foxconn.
Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers, Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition and Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere.