By Andy Manis/Getty Images.
From the moment Wisconsin struck a deal to pay Foxconn more than $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies to build a plant in the Badger State, critics decried the plan as a total scam that had Donald Trump and Paul Ryan’s fingerprints all over it. And they weren’t wrong! Writing for The New Yorker last year, Dan Kaufman laid out the many ways Trump’s “incredible” deal was poised to screw Wisconsin locals for years to come, from the billions in “direct cash payments from taxpayers” that they wouldn’t recoup for about a minimum of 2.5 decades, to forcing homeowners to sell their properties “at a price determined by the village,” to granting the company special court privileges (like the ability to make numerous appeals of unfavorable rulings in a single case), to serious concerns about the factory’s impact on the water supply, to the fact that all those billions could be better used on things like the state’s crumbling roads or understaffed rural schools. In theory, these minor downsides would have been offset by the “potential for up to 13K new jobs in Wisconsin!” Unfortunately, Wednesday’s news introduced a slight glitch into that plan:
Foxconn, a prominent supplier for Apple and other electronics makers, says it’s scrapping plans to build a giant new factory in Wisconsin.
“In Wisconsin we’re not building a factory,” Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn chief executive Terry Gou, told Reuters. “You can’t use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment.”
Per Representative Mark Pocan, this turn of events comes as Wisconsin has already poured massive amounts of cash into campus construction, new roads, and paying families who lived on what was supposed to be the factory site to relocate. And that’s not all:
Woo . . . said about three-quarters of Foxconn’s eventual jobs will be in R&D and design—what he described as “knowledge” positions—rather than blue-collar manufacturing jobs.
Thousands of blue-collar jobs were, of course, one of the most important selling points of the original deal, and undoubtedly a major factor in Wisconsin’s decision to agree to put up billions in taxpayer funds. And speaking of jobs:
Earlier this month, Foxconn . . . reiterated its intention to create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin, but said it had slowed its pace of hiring. The company initially said it expected to employ about 5,200 people by the end of 2020; a company source said that figure now looks likely to be closer to 1,000 workers.
In his interview with Reuters, Woo said the decision to scrap the factory—and plan to manufacture TV screens in Wisconsin—came about after Foxconn suddenly realized that “labor expenses” in the U.S. are comparatively much more expensive, a fact that was obvious from day one. “This big change seems so weird—it’s puzzling,” Tim Bartik, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, told The Washington Post, putting it mildly. “You’re investing over a long-term period. Relative wages will change, and the technology will change, but all of that is taken into account in making the initial investment decision.”
Trump—who previously dubbed the deal “the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen”—has not yet weighed in on the about-face, though given his penchant for promising Americans the world and then handing them a bill, he presumably doesn’t see the problem.
If you would like to receive the Levin Report in your inbox daily, click here to subscribe.
In the future, Apple will listen to 14-year-olds
On January 19, Grant Thompson, a 14-year-old in Arizona, made an unexpected discovery: Using FaceTime, Apple’s video-chatting software, he could eavesdrop on his friend’s phone before his friend had even answered the call.
His mother, Michele Thompson, sent a video of the hack to Apple the next day, warning the company of a “major security flaw” that exposed millions of iPhone users to eavesdropping. When she didn’t hear from Apple Support, she exhausted every other avenue she could, including e-mailing and faxing Apple’s security team, and posting to Twitter and Facebook. On Friday, Apple’s product-security team encouraged Ms. Thompson, a lawyer, to set up a developer account to send a formal bug report.
But it wasn’t until Monday, more than a week after Ms. Thompson first notified Apple of the problem, that Apple raced to disable Group FaceTime and said it was working on a fix. The company reacted after a separate developer reported the FaceTime flaw and it was written about on 9to5mac.com, a news site for Apple fans, in an article that went viral.
Unsurprisingly, the company has already been hit with what could be the first of many lawsuits over the bug. On Wednesday, Houston attorney Larry Williams II alleged that Apple “failed to exercise reasonable care” and that the tech giant “knew, or should have known, that its Product would cause unsolicited privacy breaches and eavesdropping.” He claimed that he was “undergoing a private deposition with a client when this defective product breach allowed” eavesdropping by a third party, causing “sustained permanent and continuous injuries, pain and suffering and emotional trauma that will continue into the future.” (Apple did not respond to a request for comment re: Williams’s suit.)
Area billionaire actually willing to pay more in taxes
All this week and last, people who fall into the “metric fuck-ton of money” tax bracket have spoken out against proposals by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as though the lawmakers had suggested injecting anyone with assets above $10 million with the bubonic plague. On Wednesday, though, J.P. Morgan C.E.O. Jamie Dimon bucked the trend, telling CNBC, “I believe that individuals earning the most can afford to pay more, and I have no problem paying higher taxes to address some of the fundamental challenges and inequities in our society.” But don’t think he’s coughing up the cash just so the government can piss it away on unnecessary crap. “However,” he added, “We need to ensure that our tax dollars are going where they can be most effective—like expanding the earned income tax credit and other programs that support the people and communities who really need it.”
Nikki Haley is doing pretty well for herself
The former U.N. ambassador is apparently cleaning up on the speaking circuit:
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is currently quoting $200,000 and the use of a private jet for domestic speaking engagements, according to seven people with knowledge of the arrangement, who spoke on condition of anonymity because such quotes aren’t made publicly available. Engagements outside the United States could cost considerably more, these people said.
Of course, none of this should come as a shock: she resigned last October, Haley said she would be taking a “step up” into the private sector after leaving the U.N., which paid considerably less well, as did her previous government gigs. (Haley’s spokesperson did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.)
Elsewhere!
Hedge Funds Are Behaving Like We Just Had a Financial Crisis (Bloomberg)
Venezuela Has 20 Tons of Gold Ready to Ship. Address Unknown (Bloomberg)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fires back at Howard Schultz after tax jab (NYP)
A Tech Firm Far From Silicon Valley Churns Out Billionaires (Bloomberg)
Fed Adopts ‘Patient’ Rate Stance With Balance-Sheet Flexibility (Bloomberg)
Elliott Looks Beyond Activism to Full-Blown Takeovers (W.S.J.)
Texas city stops, drops and rolls to Guinness record (UPI)
More Great Stories from Vanity Fair
— The leaking, gossiping, and infighting that made Kellyanne Conway a formidable White House player
— Why old news habits must die—so that real journalism can live
— Nancy Pelosi is America’s most powerful power-suit boss
— Is Kamala Harris the 2020 candidate to beat?
— Your passport to Vanity Fair’s 25th Hollywood Issue with Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Chadwick Boseman, and more
Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.
This story was originally published by Vanity Fair
via USAHint.com
No comments:
Post a Comment