Foxconn’s empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin

First - 'Licking the boots of politicians' is something that happens in every country involving politicians of ever stripe.

"but perhaps benefit greatly from avoiding trade sanctions." - I don't think this is the case directly, there doesn't seem to be evidence of that, however, it might be true. Trump hasn't really singled out Chinese manufacturers.

Second - the populist/lazy/naive theme here is the supposed belief that 'political bootlicking magically prints money' - which is ridiculous - businesses have to make money somehow, there are generally no easy/magic handouts of this kind.

So the bootlicking in this circumstance enabled Foxconn to take on some really nice subsidies (!) but there is no way Foxconn comes out of that in the black without doing something productive. Even if it's on the margin.

Foxconn blew this, and possibly lost money on this and we can all agree that 'bootlickers' do not like losing money.

Nobody does.

Foxconn makes the #1 consumer product on Earth - the iPhone, and that is definitely no joke. There are divisions of Foxconn that are not only not fuckups just the opposite, are world leaders in manufacturing, probably surpassing everyone of their peers, anywhere.

So given that 1) bootlicking gets you nice things but not free profits and 2) Foxconn has operationally superior divisions ...

... the story runs short.

There are just as many question marks as answered questions.

Finally, I would say that whatever one thinks of this guy Scott Walker is besides the point - superficially this was probably a reasonable deal. Such subsidies are not uncommon and usually done with credible companies. There was risk obviously but what happened is outlandishly weird. I don't think the politicos who made this deal are so much 'to blame' other than the subsidy thresholds should have been tighter obviously.

I would say this is a good example of 'How even good Chinese companies do Business in 2020' and the results should be on display for bureaucrats and would-be belt-and-roaders everywhere.

If I was in their position I wouldn't do the same. I'm moreso in awe that there are people that managed to get away with this.

It's kind of like if you see a horrible weapon that is however very technically impressive, but not quite.

When you realize this was all a political scam to make the Republican (ex-)governor of Wisconsin look good it makes perfect sense.

I agree that the church itself doesn't have freedom of religion. But for the members of the church to have freedom of religion they need to be able to exercise their freedom as an organized group. The end result is the same: the government is limited in what restrictions it can place on the group, because to restrict the group is to restrict the members.

Were any subsidies actually paid? My understanding is that Foxconn was ultimately not eligible for any actual credits given how their plans had changed: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/state-t...

And if that's true then didn't the state subsidy system work exactly as intended?

NY's Amazon subsidies were designed very well. They provided tax credits for the incremental progress Amazon made on the terms of the subsidy. So the state was not paying up front and then at risk of being left in the red if Amazon were to change plans. It's up to the government to design an airtight subsidy structure that protects their interests - but it can be done.