From the beginning, it should have been clear to any reasonable person that the Foxconn project was ill-conceived, and destructive of nearby homeowners’ rights. Yet for all the bad news about that fraudulent project, there is still more bad news to relate.
John Schmid reports Wisconsin might not get a Foxconn plant of any size, analysts say:
Back in 2017, there was no ambiguity over what Foxconn Technology Group would build in Wisconsin. It was spelled out in a 29-page contract signed by then-Gov. Scott Walker and Foxconn’s top executives.
The world’s biggest manufacturer of made-in-China consumer electronics agreed to a sprawling “Generation 10.5” manufacturing campus — industry-speak for a monumental industrial facility capable of producing outsized flat-screen monitors used in the biggest TVs and liquid-crystal displays.
And now?
Veteran analysts of the flat-panel industry, which is based entirely in Asia, are openly skeptical that even the smaller cousin of that massive plant — what’s known as “Generation 6” — will be built in Wisconsin.
Lawrence Tabak writes Where to now with Foxconn? It won’t leave Wisconsin, but it won’t build what it promised:
When reached for an update this past week, industry expert Bob O’Brien of Display Supply Chain Consultants spoke of the changing dynamics driving Foxconn’s shifting plans for Wisconsin. The market is glutted by flat screens. He said a new Foxconn LCD plant anywhere appears unlikely. Even Foxconn’s 10.5 plant being built in China has been put on hold until flat panel pricing improves.
….
When reached for an update this past week, industry expert Bob O’Brien of Display Supply Chain Consultants spoke of the changing dynamics driving Foxconn’s shifting plans for Wisconsin. The market is glutted by flat screens. He said a new Foxconn LCD plant anywhere appears unlikely. Even Foxconn’s 10.5 plant being built in China has been put on hold until flat panel pricing improves.
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, Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere, Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land, Foxconn Couldn’t Even Meet Its Low First-Year Goal, Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans, WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid, Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy, Laughable Spin as Industrial Policy, Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project,’ ‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn,,’ Foxconn: When the Going Gets Tough…, and The Amazon-New York Deal, Like the Foxconn Deal, Was Bad Policy.
There is a lot of collateral damage to WI from the whole botched Foxconn episode. One of the big losers is Scott Walker. He bet (with our money) the farm on Foxconn rescuing from his dismal record on job creation. That he is not governor any more is directly attributable to Foxconn. He is now imagining he can get to be a Senator from Wisco-World. Not going to happen, no matter how much he dares to dream.
It will be interesting to see how many takers he get for his $25K/shot inspirational-speaker bridge-career. How many organizations will want to pay that much to hear how to sucker into a scam of gargantuan proportions, now that there is no political benefit in hiring Walker? Rather few, I expect.
I expect that the good citizens of Pleasant Prairie are less than pleased with the whole sugar-plum fairy of a deal leaving them with a lot of really expensive land to pay off. I fully expect that there will be some sort of legislation to spread the pain over the whole state, rather than just Racine County.
Walker advanced – as Trump is advancing – a theory of cronyism as legitimate economic and fiscal policy. It’s a tragedy that ordinary residents lost their homes over Walker’s vainglorious project. There is, however, rough justice in the ruin of his reputation.
Walker, as @ScottWalker, struggles on Twitter – he’s humorless and dull. If he can’t manage a tweet between 140 and 280 characters, one can only imagine how he could handle a high-paid speech. Every speaking contact with Walker should come with a money-back guarantee.
If he spent ninety minutes reading aloud something truly clever to his audience – Gulliver’s Travels, let’s say – he’d find a way to make the passages boring.
It would be interesting to see a list of organizations, if any, that would (1) pay him and (2) actually expect their members to sit through the experience. Simply giving him a check, without any expectation that he’d say a word, would – however wasteful – still show greater respect for an organization’s membership than asking them to listen to him.