When Foxconn announced its plans to open facilities in Wisconsin back in 2017, it promised to invest $10 billion into bringing production to the US that was expected to lead to as many as 13,000 jobs.
Now, the Taiwanese supplier to tech giants like Apple is selling two properties in Eau Claire and Green Bay, purchased for almost $12 million in 2018.
Meanwhile, the portion Foxconn owns in a mixed-use property in Eau Claire has reportedly remained empty for years.
In 2021, however, Foxconn massively altered the scale of the project and told the local government that it would be investing $672 million instead of $10 billion like it intended.
Foxconn didn’t comment on its Eau Claire property, but it told WPR that it “will add to the vibrancy of the city’s downtown.”
Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich posted on X that he hopes a sale “will lead to better utilization of a fantastic waterfront building.”
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I regard “smart” as an epithet I want to avoid in appliances. Light switches, thermostats, refrigerators, and all the rest seem to work great without adding internet connectivity, security breaches, corporate surveillance, and vendors removing functionality, or ending support to turn the appliance into e-waste.
It helps to separate the technology from the companies. We don't need Google, Amazon, or any other company to make use of network connected technology. It doesn't have to be internet-connected, either. You can have a completely automated home with no more risk of intrusion than a standard locked door already has from a well-placed boot.
I remember arguing with a co-worker about how this deal was pure crap, and even if Foxconn delivered all the jobs they said they would, it would take 40 years to recoup the cost of the tax breaks. Scott Walker screwed over that area of the state HARD, people had land ceased/forced out, huge costly changes to the infrastructure in that area where the factory was supposed to be.
Surprise surprise, the shitty deal turned out to be a shitty deal.
"That brought the total costs for taxpayers and ratepayers to build the manufacturing campus to $683 million… with more costs likely to come.
"The debt taken on by the Mount Pleasant village government amounts to 500% of its operating revenue
"Foxconn hired hundreds of workers toward the end of 2019, claiming them on its report to the state for the 2019 year, and then quickly laying the employees off early in 2020.
“Microsoft plans to pay $50 million… to Foxconn, to reimburse it for money it spent to buy land. Meanwhile, local taxpayers will be on the hook to Microsoft, which will be eligible for up to $5 million per year based on improvements it makes to the land — this on a campus for which state and local taxpayers already spent hundreds of millions for road connections and sewer, water and electric infrastructure.”
Did everyone here forget that covid started in 2020? This article tries to knock on foxconn by suggesting that their “market fluctuations” claim is an excuse… DURING PEAK COVID. I wonder why they couldnt hire more people or have more of their building occupied… must have been BLATANT CONSERVATIVE LIES
Ohh I’m sorry I didn’t realize that now that covid is over this multi billion company is coming back to fulfill it’s promises. That’s on me, I must have missed that part.
You are throwing the baby with the bath water. Almost every company had to reduce size, reduce occupancy and reduce output. Disregarding the impact of covid when that was a major reason for companies failing is disingenuous.
This corrupt company worked with the corrupt republican governor to really hurt my state. They can get fucked and I have zero interest in giving them any benefit of the doubt nonsense. This was all planned.
Tell me how it was a sham, and tell me how covid had no effect on why
Occupancy wasnt as great as they said it was given everyone was isolating and staying 6ft distance
Supply chains were heavily backlogged due to companies not getting enough man power. My assumption is that given that foxconn is a materials manufacturer, their reduction in personnel heavily reduced their potential output.
Dude supply chain issues are things like your washing machine is back ordered for two months. And they get better. This is billions of dollars in supposed investments that never showed a sign of arriving and still has not despite the pandemic abating.
I can tell you’re feeling defensive but don’t let that stop you from just googling this topic and reading what you will easily find.
For starters it was to build lcd screens. You know…those things that were already being replaced back before 2017 by oled.
Before ground was broken the entire industry already knew LCD tvs and panels were being replaced, yet that’s what the “state of the art” facility was going to be manufacturing.
The latest deal between Foxconn and Wisconsin reduces the planned subsidies for the project, which ultimately could have cost taxpayers over $4 billion. Foxconn is now eligible for $80 million in tax credits,down from $2.85 billion. Governor Tony Evers said those credits are in line with those for which any company is eligible. They’re performance-based and will depend on whether Foxconn hits capital investment and employment targets.
Emphasis above is all mine. This is non-news. They talked about what could have been but the subsidy was based on actual invements being made and people being hired.
Foxconn created ~1500 jobs (e.g. ~11% of what they targeted) and only got ~2.8% of the subsidy. Didn’t Michigan win?
“Foxconn hired hundreds of workers toward the end of 2019, claiming them on its report to the state for the 2019 year, and then quickly laying the employees off early in 2020.”
“total costs for taxpayers and ratepayers to build the manufacturing campus to $683 million… with more costs likely to come.”
That doesn’t sound like winning. The state spent a fortune up front on surrounding infrastructure that was needed before Foxconn could start operating, and they never started operating.
You would need to do some pre-planning before going ahead with this and it's not as simple as Google Home for sure. For example, my household went all in on Zigbee lights and switches so we had to get a Zigbee antenna to connect to our old laptop running Home Assistant and make sure all our cool LED smart lights and other cool gadgets were compatible, etc. I'm also tagging @ISometimesAdmin who did a lot of the networking stuff in case he wants to add anything.
I'm attaching an image of my dashboard setup for my room, just as an example of what can be accomplished. (This may not federate to Lemmy so I will self-reply with a link if necessary) This shows my and my household's location, the downstairs Sensi thermometer climate (which can be controlled), the light controls, temperature/pressure/humidity which is a little Aqara sensor from Amazon, and the Air Quality comes from my Winix air filter which can also be integrated to Home Assistant. You can really do a lot.
There's also purchasable hardware that comes pre-installed with Home Assistant and has zigbee built-in, it looks like, which is neat (though expensive).
Home Assistant isn't "yet another" service. It's not trying to do vendor lock in: you can think of Home Assistant kinda like a "glue" framework.
It's meant to let you systemically attach devices/software across any number of mediums, and pre-existing services, and let them play nice.
So if you've already gone and set up your Google Home, or Alexa, or Apple Homekit, you don't have to abandon them to use Home Assistant.
Sometimes you can't even get away from it: the thermostat that came with our rental basically only has a useful Samsung Smartthings integration, but we can still use it with Home Assistant.
I tried using a pi3 but it kept crashing from going OOM like every 2 days (maybe I had too many devices?). I have it running on a more proper home server now and it’s always up as long as there’s no power outage.
Home Assistant is great, but it has a steep learning curve imo and it takes time to set up. I would only recommend it to tech savvy people.
That being said, if you are tech savvy (familiar with Linux, docker, self hosting, etc) then it is extremely powerful and it works with pretty much everything.
This is very true. It does look like they've made it much easier lately with pre-purchasable hardware though. I know that it's a steep price compared to Google Home, but the advantage is that you're not tied to a Google ecosystem which can just unexpectedly shut down at a moment's notice. (Listen y'all I'm still mad about Google Inbox.)
It’s not a walled garden, it’s kind of the opposite. You can connect devices regardless of brand and it’s a server you can run locally. In theory you wouldn’t need to update it or ever connect it to the internet again, as long as your devices can run locally.
If you have an old laptop or a raspberry pi 4, you can always give it a try before scrapping what you’re currently using.
I meant with commercial stuff like Google's. The easy stuff is all walled gardens, don't want that. So hoping stuff like Home Assistant gets easier to use.
Starting today, those who receive a warning for violating the community guidelines will be able to take a training course designed to help them better understand how to steer clear of uploading videos that run afoul of YouTube’s regulations.
If they violate the policy for which they received the warning a second time in that roughly three-month window, YouTube will remove the video in question and slap the creator with a dreaded strike (which can jeopardize their chances of making a living from the platform).
YouTube started dishing out one-time warnings in 2019 for a first rule break, which it says offered “creators the chance to review what went wrong before facing more penalties” (i.e. strikes).
Nonetheless, YouTube says creators told the team “they want more resources to better understand how we draw our policy lines” and this new approach is geared toward that greater transparency.
“We ultimately want creators to have the clarity they need to stay strike free on our platform — while maintaining a healthy experience for YouTube’s entire community.”
Offering YouTubers a chance to learn and grow from their mistakes is a net positive even if some bad actors might try to abuse the system by deliberately uploading a few videos that cross the line each year.
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No thanks, I’ve had two videos get strikes and removed by them. One was a video that showed people how to remove the FireStick stock launcher and replace it with Wolf Launcher so you could use a clean, ad-free launcher like Simple TV Launcher. And the other was just a video that walked people through using ReVanced Manager. I mean, I get it, it’s their platform and they can choose what gets broadcast on it. And I’m also not entitled to them hosting a video that walks people through cutting out their revenue stream. But I read the policy they cited me breaking, and you would have to apply a very vague interpretation to say I broke it.
They gave me a warning and a 90 day revenue ban because I reuploaded a cartoon made by some guy who happened to do a mass shooting.
The description said it was there for archival purposes and I did not condone his actions… didn’t matter
The cartoon had nothing to do with the shooting and wasn’t even violent in and of itself. Didn’t matter, I got slapped with promoting a criminal organization… even though the guy wasn’t in a gang or anything…
I no longer upload to youtube. I’d risk google bans for a reason that may not even be in the rule book.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !aboringdystopia
The one thing I used the app is now not possible and I have to set up or edit a routine instead as a shitty workaround that takes five times longer. What the fuck, man.
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