6 ms·

In a nutshell, it mistook the nature of labor folks are used to here and its costs. Indeed wildly different from China and elsewhere.

by pen2l 5y ago

1cvmask 5y ago
It’s funny that they are downvoting you for stating the obvious no-brainer explanation. Just curious as I am seeing more of this on HN lately or is it just the Baader Meinhof phenomenon after I read someone else complain about the recent downvoting phenomenon for stating the obvious. Has the readership changed of HN or more specifically the commentariat?
- pen2l 5y ago
  It wasn't really my take or opinion, I rather recalled it being cited as the reason by Foxconn itself in multiple instances. Also, I'm from Wisconsin, and an old EECS professor explained this to be the reason from his first-hand knowledge of some conversations with Foxconn. Here is one citation I was able to find quickly: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-wisconsin-exclusive-idUSKCN1PO0FV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-wisconsin-exclusi... He said the company was still evaluating options for Wisconsin, but cited the steep cost of making advanced TV screens in the United States, where labor expenses are comparatively high. “In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.,” he said in an interview. “We can’t compete.” Foxconn has factories in Mexico, Chennai, Malaysia etc. which produce a significant amount of devices but I doubt a factory in US will take off. This article from 2012 about the Steve Jobs "These jobs are not coming back" remark is probably still true: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-an...
  - buran77 5y ago
    > I rather recalled it being cited as the reason by Foxconn itself in multiple instances. It's more plausible that any company will give the more acceptable, easily digestible explanation, rather than the real one. But really it's the politicians who won, first by banging their chests for all the investments and jobs they created, now for getting an easy out. They can't be blamed for not seeing through any ploy because they can argue Foxconn obviously had good intentions sabotaged by "a misunderstanding" that couldn't have been caught. It's very unlikely (by that I mean close to impossible) that Foxconn just "blundered", went through many rounds of negotiations, and started building, while genuinely not being aware that the US labor market is different from the Chinese one.
  - smt88 5y ago
    You're being downvoted likely because of how naive it sounds when you take what Foxconn says at face value. Large companies are unlikely to ever tell the truth about their motivations, but they're even less likely to when they were doing something manipulative and dishonest, as Foxconn was here.
  - CydeWeys 5y ago
    Your mistake here is taking a multinational corporation at its word, especially one known for playing games with subsidies in other countries too. These quotes are the cover story from corporate PR, not the truth.
  - LargeWu 5y ago
    The alternative is that Foxconn is lying, and they never had any intention of actually opening the factory, which I think is a far more likely explanation.
  - KZZ 5y ago
    The new approach is contract manufacturing for customers who are uncomfortable with manufacturing being performed in China, speaking from first-hand experience. This demand does exist and is what is going to be leveraged in the new park.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  > Has the readership changed of HN or more specifically the commentariat? My personal impression is, that it got a lot worse since Covid, which I attribute to more people doing home office and/or having more free time. Any discussion forum that grows gets worse. But both my impressions and the 2nd part might be wrong.
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    I think you nailed it with Covid. Critical thinking requires discourse, and discourse on all the possibilities beyond the dominant narratives or paradigms. Downvoting does not make reality or the “ugly” truth go away. We should be here to discuss and not be afraid to ruffle feathers and have easily offended sensibilities.
    - sigmaprimus 5y ago
      Beat me to it!
  - sigmaprimus 5y ago
    Since You qualified your own statement as being possibly being wrong, I would argue that more engagement alone doesn't result in more down votes. I have observed that any comments criticizing anyone, regardless of wether they are justified or not seem to be recieved poorly on modern forums. I believe this is due to an ongoing effort to make forums safe spaces, somehow honest critical thinking is no longer accepted in the current environment. Right or wrong, it is what it is. So if You are really concerned with the fake points You are accumulating then just tow the line, get with the woke SJW movement or submit articles of interest to balance out the backlash from the mob....I probably better start looking for a good article :P
    - 1cvmask 5y ago
      And the downvotes on your comments begin....
      - sigmaprimus 5y ago
- Loughla 5y ago
  I genuinely don't understand how 'international mega-corporation doesn't understand international labor differences' is a no-brainer. Please explain that to me. That seems like one of the first things that any company should evaluate.
  - saalweachter 5y ago
    Honestly? I assume the people who negotiated the deal are a different department from the people who would have implemented the deal. They went big and went home and now it's someone else's problem.
- bildung 5y ago
  Is it really a no-brainer that a giant transnational company signed a multi-billion dollar deal without anyone investing half a day looking into the situation of the labor market of the target region?
- DaedPsyker 5y ago
  You say stating the obvious and yet it simply isn't. It was a heavily subsidised political stunt that Foxconn could half-ass. They rolled out the red carpet, exempted them from environmental regulations and basically built the infrastructure for them. Even four years ago they said the number of jobs was a wish not a promise, they were BS artists. They weren't some naive tiny company.
- rideontime 5y ago
  The downvotes might be coming from people who are actually familiar with the situation and know that the "obvious no-brainer explanation" isn't the correct one.
AlexandrB 5y ago
This is a take that's wildly generous to FoxConn, painting them as the "aww schucks" kinda honest guys that just didn't know about the challenges of the US labor market. The alternate take is that the whole deal was made in bad faith and FoxConn was hoping to collect subsidies and line its pockets. This version of events has some precedent[1]. It's especially hard to believe that FoxConn didn't know about US labor when this same situation played out in Pennsylvania in 2013[2]. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/foxconns-history-of-broken-promises-casts-a-shadow-on-wisconsin-news-2017-07-27 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/foxconns-history-of-broken... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-foxconns-broken-pledges-in-pennsylvania-cast-doubt-on-trumps-jobs-plan/2017/03/03/0189f3de-ee3a-11e6-9973-c5efb7ccfb0d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-foxconns...
- Loughla 5y ago
  You're 100% spot on. I cannot be convinced a multi-national mega-corp is ignorant of US labor and the challenges in the US labor market. There just is no way that's possible for a company this size, or am I wrong? So that leaves either bad faith, or they are just abjectly incompetent. I can't really see any other options. Or, again, am I way off base?
  - chrisjc 5y ago
    > I cannot be convinced a multi-national mega-corp is ignorant of US labor and the challenges in the US labor market. Especially one that is a specialist in harvesting laborers from all corners of the world. I can only imagine selecting the right labor force has to be their main competences.
  - jfb 5y ago
    I mean, it was bullshit from jump street, but if Wisconsin had poured (more) money into Foxconn's pockets, I'm sure they'd have been happy to put something up.
    - KZZ 5y ago
      For the record, they have put something up. Currently 1 large empty buildings and 2 medium sized, filled buildings. Also one perplexing glass globe.

In a nutshell, it mistook the nature of labor folks are used to here and its costs. Indeed wildly different from China and elsewhere.

by pen2l 5y ago

In a nutshell, it mistook the nature of labor folks are used to here and its costs. Indeed wildly different from China and elsewhere.

1cvmask 5y ago

It’s funny that they are downvoting you for stating the obvious no-brainer explanation. Just curious as I am seeing more of this on HN lately or is it just the Baader Meinhof phenomenon after I read someone else complain about the recent downvoting phenomenon for stating the obvious. Has the readership changed of HN or more specifically the commentariat?

pen2l 5y ago
It wasn't really my take or opinion, I rather recalled it being cited as the reason by Foxconn itself in multiple instances. Also, I'm from Wisconsin, and an old EECS professor explained this to be the reason from his first-hand knowledge of some conversations with Foxconn. Here is one citation I was able to find quickly: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-wisconsin-exclusive-idUSKCN1PO0FV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-wisconsin-exclusi... He said the company was still evaluating options for Wisconsin, but cited the steep cost of making advanced TV screens in the United States, where labor expenses are comparatively high. “In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.,” he said in an interview. “We can’t compete.” Foxconn has factories in Mexico, Chennai, Malaysia etc. which produce a significant amount of devices but I doubt a factory in US will take off. This article from 2012 about the Steve Jobs "These jobs are not coming back" remark is probably still true: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-an...
- buran77 5y ago
  > I rather recalled it being cited as the reason by Foxconn itself in multiple instances. It's more plausible that any company will give the more acceptable, easily digestible explanation, rather than the real one. But really it's the politicians who won, first by banging their chests for all the investments and jobs they created, now for getting an easy out. They can't be blamed for not seeing through any ploy because they can argue Foxconn obviously had good intentions sabotaged by "a misunderstanding" that couldn't have been caught. It's very unlikely (by that I mean close to impossible) that Foxconn just "blundered", went through many rounds of negotiations, and started building, while genuinely not being aware that the US labor market is different from the Chinese one.
- smt88 5y ago
  You're being downvoted likely because of how naive it sounds when you take what Foxconn says at face value. Large companies are unlikely to ever tell the truth about their motivations, but they're even less likely to when they were doing something manipulative and dishonest, as Foxconn was here.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  Your mistake here is taking a multinational corporation at its word, especially one known for playing games with subsidies in other countries too. These quotes are the cover story from corporate PR, not the truth.
- LargeWu 5y ago
  The alternative is that Foxconn is lying, and they never had any intention of actually opening the factory, which I think is a far more likely explanation.
- KZZ 5y ago
  The new approach is contract manufacturing for customers who are uncomfortable with manufacturing being performed in China, speaking from first-hand experience. This demand does exist and is what is going to be leveraged in the new park.
Semaphor 5y ago
> Has the readership changed of HN or more specifically the commentariat? My personal impression is, that it got a lot worse since Covid, which I attribute to more people doing home office and/or having more free time. Any discussion forum that grows gets worse. But both my impressions and the 2nd part might be wrong.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  I think you nailed it with Covid. Critical thinking requires discourse, and discourse on all the possibilities beyond the dominant narratives or paradigms. Downvoting does not make reality or the “ugly” truth go away. We should be here to discuss and not be afraid to ruffle feathers and have easily offended sensibilities.
  - sigmaprimus 5y ago
    Beat me to it!
- sigmaprimus 5y ago
  Since You qualified your own statement as being possibly being wrong, I would argue that more engagement alone doesn't result in more down votes. I have observed that any comments criticizing anyone, regardless of wether they are justified or not seem to be recieved poorly on modern forums. I believe this is due to an ongoing effort to make forums safe spaces, somehow honest critical thinking is no longer accepted in the current environment. Right or wrong, it is what it is. So if You are really concerned with the fake points You are accumulating then just tow the line, get with the woke SJW movement or submit articles of interest to balance out the backlash from the mob....I probably better start looking for a good article :P
  - 1cvmask 5y ago
    And the downvotes on your comments begin....
    - sigmaprimus 5y ago
Loughla 5y ago
I genuinely don't understand how 'international mega-corporation doesn't understand international labor differences' is a no-brainer. Please explain that to me. That seems like one of the first things that any company should evaluate.
- saalweachter 5y ago
  Honestly? I assume the people who negotiated the deal are a different department from the people who would have implemented the deal. They went big and went home and now it's someone else's problem.
bildung 5y ago
Is it really a no-brainer that a giant transnational company signed a multi-billion dollar deal without anyone investing half a day looking into the situation of the labor market of the target region?
DaedPsyker 5y ago
You say stating the obvious and yet it simply isn't. It was a heavily subsidised political stunt that Foxconn could half-ass. They rolled out the red carpet, exempted them from environmental regulations and basically built the infrastructure for them. Even four years ago they said the number of jobs was a wish not a promise, they were BS artists. They weren't some naive tiny company.
rideontime 5y ago
The downvotes might be coming from people who are actually familiar with the situation and know that the "obvious no-brainer explanation" isn't the correct one.

AlexandrB 5y ago

This is a take that's wildly generous to FoxConn, painting them as the "aww schucks" kinda honest guys that just didn't know about the challenges of the US labor market. The alternate take is that the whole deal was made in bad faith and FoxConn was hoping to collect subsidies and line its pockets. This version of events has some precedent[1]. It's especially hard to believe that FoxConn didn't know about US labor when this same situation played out in Pennsylvania in 2013[2]. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/foxconns-history-of-broken-promises-casts-a-shadow-on-wisconsin-news-2017-07-27 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/foxconns-history-of-broken... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-foxconns-broken-pledges-in-pennsylvania-cast-doubt-on-trumps-jobs-plan/2017/03/03/0189f3de-ee3a-11e6-9973-c5efb7ccfb0d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-foxconns...

Loughla 5y ago
You're 100% spot on. I cannot be convinced a multi-national mega-corp is ignorant of US labor and the challenges in the US labor market. There just is no way that's possible for a company this size, or am I wrong? So that leaves either bad faith, or they are just abjectly incompetent. I can't really see any other options. Or, again, am I way off base?
- chrisjc 5y ago
  > I cannot be convinced a multi-national mega-corp is ignorant of US labor and the challenges in the US labor market. Especially one that is a specialist in harvesting laborers from all corners of the world. I can only imagine selecting the right labor force has to be their main competences.
- jfb 5y ago
  I mean, it was bullshit from jump street, but if Wisconsin had poured (more) money into Foxconn's pockets, I'm sure they'd have been happy to put something up.
  - KZZ 5y ago
    For the record, they have put something up. Currently 1 large empty buildings and 2 medium sized, filled buildings. Also one perplexing glass globe.