Is great wealth coming to Wisconsin?

By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor

It pains me to admit it, but I have occasionally fallen for Publishers Clearing House. Who can resist the image of those happy families swinging open the front door only to be met by balloons and life-size checks guaranteeing $5,000 a week for life or a bazillion in one lump sum? It is such fun to dream about what you might do for family, for friends, and, I suppose, primarily for yourself.

Does anyone ever actually win? The game has been around forever, but I cannot say in all that time I recall reading a news report on anyone winning. Maybe I missed it.

But never mind that. Here in Wisconsin, we had out own bonanza promising great wealth. You might have missed it. The media have been so busy covering the antics in the White House and the multiple ways one of the president’s staff can use creative, pornographic language to describe the impossible contortions of another staffer.

The ceremony in the White House Rose Garden with Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker, the president and representatives of Foxconn could not compete with the amazing obscenities from the highest level of our government.

The Taiwan-based company has struck a deal to bring thousands of jobs to southeastern Wisconsin, and it will cost taxpayers only $3 billion. Our governor is happy because it gets him closer to the 250,000 jobs he promised years ago. Trump is happy that all of the rotten things he said about Asian government and business were never taken seriously. As long as the investment is coming our way, hey, tear down the wall and swing open the gates.

Republicans and Democrats alike our heralding this as the largest-ever business expansion in the state. It will make GM look like an A&W Root Beer stand.

Naturally there are a few naysayers. Environmental groups are worried about an agreement the state made to exempt the company from regulations. They won’t even need an impact statement, something that has been required from everything down to the local Lions Club shelter.

And then there is a little matter of that $3 billion in incentives and job credits. What will that mean to the rest of the state and its needs in education and healthcare?

In Eau Claire, our governor had an answer to those who worry about those details.

“They can go suck lemons,” he said.

Well, okay then.

Anyone who anticipates Foxconn will restore that area of the state to its former glory and offer $40-an-hour jobs will likely be disappointed. Foxconn is not GM or even Organic Valley. We kind of know what to expect from our homegrown companies.

Foxconn is more like the Standard Oil of the Gilded Age, when business held sway and companies had a free rein to trample their way to great wealth. Foxconn opened its first manufacturing plant in China in 1988 at Longhua, Shenzhen. After reaching a considerably competitive level in the market, Foxconn made a deal with Intel in 2001 to make Intel-branded motherboards.

Since then, the company has grown by leaps and bounds, providing product to Apple, such as its iPhones and iPads, and to many other companies. Its owner, Terry Gou, has become a billionaire.

The workers have not fared so well. One Chinese factory employed about 235,000 workers. Crowded in company dorms, employees work long shifts and are barely paid enough to cover their housing and food. So many committed suicide that the company installed suicide nets to catch the plunging bodies.

Foxconn’s response to employee abuses is to convert its factories to robotics, something some have suspected it may do in Wisconsin once it has scooped up the state benefits.

Industry experts also are skeptical of Foxconn’s record of delivery on promises. Pennsylvania has been waiting five years for a promised plant to materialize, as have a half-dozen countries around the world.

According to CNN:

Christopher Balding, a professor of economics at Peking University, said the Wisconsin plan fits with Foxconn’s strategy of pursuing automation to counter rising labor and transport costs related to manufacturing in China.

Balding said it made no difference to Foxconn whether it employed a robot in China or a robot in the U.S.

“Three thousand jobs to Foxconn is irrelevant, so if they’re going to be doing that in the U.S., it’s not going to be people on production lines building TVs, it’s going to be a small number of people watching robots build TVs.”

So, maybe like Publisher’s Clearing House, if it sounds too good to be true …

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