Foxconn & Sharp Considering Plans To Build $8B LCD Plant In U.S.

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Foxconn and Sharp are thinking about building a liquid crystal display panel plant in the U.S. Of course, this would be a move that correlates well with the wishes of the President-Elect, who wants to see more stuff getting made in the States.

The Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturer, also known as Foxconn, and its Japanese alliance partner SoftBank Group reportedly told Donald Trump they would jointly make significant investments creating new jobs in the U.S. when SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son met the President-elect in New York last month. The joint investment plan was proposed by Son, the Sharp executive said. With Trump urging American manufacturers to bring operations back to the U.S., Hon Hai is considering production in the U.S. due to its huge market for TVs and other home appliances.
 
One plant is already decided to be build in Guanzhou and the price is 61 billion RMB or 8.8 billion USD. I cant imagine a second plant in the US.

There is already being invested over 25 billion $ in gen 10.5 plants in China that will go online in 2018-2019. It covers sales of over 35 billion $ per year.
 
Shintai said:
I thought it already was decided to be build in Guanzhou and the actual price is 61 billion RMB or 8.8 billion USD.
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As the article says, they are building the plant at Guanzhou, but also considiring building another one in the US
 
Is there even the knowhow left in the US for LCD production? I cant recall any current LCD manufactors in the US. Else that part needs to be transferred too.

But I have problems seeing the profitability with that much capacity. Unless a war to the death will begin for LCD makers.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
FTFY!
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The alternative is people not having jobs at all. You may not think about the lower class in your day to day life but they make up a large percentage of our population.

Low paying jobs are the lifeblood of every economy. They also set the trend for inflation and currency value. Give everyone a "liveable" wage and the only thing you will see is everyones quality of life decline.....much like what has happened over the last 20 years.

6 figures used to mean something worthwhile. Now it means middle class.
 
westrock2000 said:
The alternative is people not having jobs at all. You may not think about the lower class in your day to day life but they make up a large percentage of our population.

Low paying jobs are the lifeblood of every economy. They also set the trend for inflation and currency value. Give everyone a "liveable" wage and the only thing you will see is everyones quality of life decline.....much like what has happened over the last 20 years.

6 figures used to mean something worthwhile. Now it means middle class.
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There is no future in unskilled low paid jobs. Either you educate your workforce or they will be jobless. Plain simple. Dont expect more than 4-6 hours work days in the future either.
 
If they do this in the US, where are they going to find Chinese factory workers that get paid $2 an hour? The US minimum wage and other working condition laws makes high volume manufacturing very prohibited compared to other options.
 
hardware_failure said:
If they do this in the US, where are they going to find Chinese factory workers that get paid $2 an hour? The US minimum wage and other working condition laws makes high volume manufacturing very prohibited compared to other options.
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Quite a lot of production is moving back to where they came from before outsourcing. But its being done by robots now. China for example lost a lot of jobs to Vietnam etc. But they focus on education so they can move up the ladder and replace low paid with high paid.
 
"Remember guys, Ford, Chrysler, and Carrier cancelling their plans to invest in Mexico and increase investment in the US, and now Alibaba, Foxconn, and Sharp wanting to invest in the United States again has NOTHING to do with the threat of tariffs and promise of honey from the President Elect. Its merely coincidence!" - CNN, probably

I love how everyone made fun of him saying "what's he going to do, wave a magic wand" to stop the massive outsourcing of US industries and jobs, and its like, uh, no, just an ACTUAL concerted effort to reward players that help us by giving them access to the single largest market on the entire planet.

The United States is effectively a united continent with a GDP beyond any other market, and its about time we have politicians that are willing to flex their muscles and use that negotiating power in the interest of the native people, instead of globalists selling out to their special interests all over the world.
The alternative is people not having jobs at all. You may not think about the lower class in your day to day life but they make up a large percentage of our population.

Low paying jobs are the lifeblood of every economy. They also set the trend for inflation and currency value. Give everyone a "liveable" wage and the only thing you will see is everyones quality of life decline.....much like what has happened over the last 20 years.
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Not necessarily.

Trump's policy, which he seems sincere in actually implementing is very simple. Fix A) SUPPLY AND B) DEMAND in the labor market.

A) The supply of entry-level labor is absolutely massive, thanks to Democrats trying to recruit new voters and opening the floodgates to illegals. Estimates are that there are 13 million right now in the US alone, not to mention all the illegals that naturalized over time, but are generally taking those entry-level jobs (that's why they weren't able to come in legally).

B) At the same time, entry-level labor positions in the last decade have been rapidly declining, due to massive outsourcing of jobs, manufacturing abandoning the country, and huge issuance of H1B visas. Too many workers (which will only increase with automation and self-driving vehicles) and not even jobs drives wages down into the dirt.

Look at the 1960s, where a sanitation worker could easily support his family thanks to the supply/demand ratio of the labor pool. It was hard dirty work, and not everyone wanted to do it, and so the pay was quite reasonable even though it wasn't high skill. Americans did all the work that illegals are doing, we just don't want to do it for slave labor wages, nor should we! Americans are absolutely willing to do hard work for fair compensation, and they deserve it and can get it if we fix that supply/demand imbalance.

And the way you fix that is by getting serious about immigration control, restrict the issuance of H1B visas to reasonable levels to give preference to the native population, and stop the exodus of and bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States through a combination of honey to attract and vinegar to introduce costs to abandoning us.

So Americans should not want to nor need to work for slave wages, and as automation increases, there's still no issue with even a "basic wage", where say you give everyone $20K guaranteed base income as long as they have some kind of job. Then the job they work is supplemental income to that "guaranteed base income" which ensures that they have food on their plate and a roof over their head, but to buy that TV or new car or new nicer couch they work to pay for those luxuries. I think this system would work, and result in a fair distribution of robotic labor in society.
 
Shintai said:
Quite a lot of production is moving back to where they came from before outsourcing. But its being done by robots now. China for example lost a lot of jobs to Vietnam etc. But they focus on education so they can move up the ladder and replace low paid with high paid.
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I wonder which is worse for humanity? (outsourcing demand to countries with lower wages vs replacing humans with robots)
 
hardware_failure said:
If they do this in the US, where are they going to find Chinese factory workers that get paid $2 an hour? The US minimum wage and other working condition laws makes high volume manufacturing very prohibited compared to other options.
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Well maybe the Companies and shareholders have to share some of the wealth, instead of the record profits all being shifted to the 10%. Some of the record profits might go back as wages for the workers. Greed will suck the system dry. Someone explain how before the eighties, roads, bridges, all kinds of infrastructure was built. Workers were making a livable wage. Everyone prospered!! This is my point " there was a balance in the system" and then something happened and it shifted. The rest is history.
 
Economics is a very complicated subject and what MIGHT be best for a US company in the short term, such as a "simple" profit margin increase through outsourcing, can be very detrimental to both in the short and long runs to the US and its general population via job loss damaging the economy. In fact this can even damage the US company itself in the long run as the people at home who were previously buying their products don't have the money anymore as more companies outsource and tons of jobs are now gone thus hurting sales.
 
With automation replacing human labor, it would make sense to build factories in the markets being served. I assume with the trucking and mining industries supposedly going 75-90 percent automated in ten years or so it becomes even more of a no brainier.
 
Uncle said:
Well maybe the Companies and shareholders have to share some of the wealth, instead of the record profits all being shifted to the 10%. Some of the record profits might go back as wages for the workers. Greed will suck the system dry. Someone explain how before the eighties, roads, bridges, all kinds of infrastructure was built. Workers were making a livable wage. Everyone prospered!! This is my point " there was a balance in the system" and then something happened and it shifted. The rest is history.
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Look up supply side economics. It is a double edged sword that did both good and harm to our economy. Blame OPEC as its their fault we went to it in the first place.
 
The real reasons companies are considering moving back to the US?

Trump's proposal to LOWER THE CORPORATE TAX RATE!

We would have the second lowest corporate tax rate in the world, behind Ireland and ~tied with Switzerland. Guess which countries outrank the US in per person/GDP? Ireland and Switzerland.

It's not magic. It's economics.
 
I'm quite certain $8b decisions are made over the course of a few weeks on the basis on vague policy proposals by politicians who don't even yet hold office, and aren't planned out quarters / years in advance.

I'm also quite certain these will be very high paying jobs that anyone can do without even a high school education and that computers and robotics can't possibly replace.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
The real reasons companies are considering moving back to the US?

Trump's proposal to LOWER THE CORPORATE TAX RATE!

We would have the second lowest corporate tax rate in the world, behind Ireland and ~tied with Switzerland. Guess which countries outrank the US in per person/GDP? Ireland and Switzerland.

It's not magic. It's economics.
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I can reveal from a nation who have lowered the corporate tax rate that it leads to nothing. Also the tax rate in the US could be 1% and companies would still way a find to pay 0% in a tax heaven. However what it does give is a loss on the national budget. Whenever someone mention dynamic future effects to do something like tax cuts it means they are full of BS and its not funded and never will be.

Since Ireland is mentioned you could point to this example:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/30/eu-apple-ireland-tax-ruling-q-and-a
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...3e51a2f424d_story.html?utm_term=.873965156d6a

You could even argue that the corporate tax rate should be close to 100% since companies would then be forced to reinvest in the company instead of accumulating wealth. Apple as mentioned with the irish tax sits on what by now, 200 billion $ that couldn't figure out how to use better production wise?

Uncle said:
Well maybe the Companies and shareholders have to share some of the wealth, instead of the record profits all being shifted to the 10%. Some of the record profits might go back as wages for the workers. Greed will suck the system dry. Someone explain how before the eighties, roads, bridges, all kinds of infrastructure was built. Workers were making a livable wage. Everyone prospered!! This is my point " there was a balance in the system" and then something happened and it shifted. The rest is history.
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Exactly, one should look when the US prospered most and why.
taxthresh3.png


Production capitalism gives progress unlike the current finance capitalism that is destructive.

There is nothing wrong with people earning a billion. The problem is when they dont spend that billion.

That's obviously leads back to the robotized Foxconn factories and some kind of robot tax as well. Else you more or less just get a fancy plant and not so much in tax.
 
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I have said it before and I'll say it again. I trust $2/hr Asian workers and robots making my tech products than $10/hr legal US Walmart trained minimum wage workers.

Same thing as I would rather hire illegals for minimum wage or very low paying jobs here in the US. They are hard workers with strong work ethic.

The reason is very simple. They're motivated by need to survive and in the second part of my statements to make it in the US and to feed their families back home. Not a single person in the US will willingly work for minimum wage jobs. The quality of work and attitude reflects on how much they're being paid. The mentality isn't there. We're not third world country.
jwcalla said:
That's pretty racist.
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Maybe you should watch this video again. Walmart Employees Throw iPads.
 
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snowcrash said:
I have said it before and I'll say it again. I trust $2/hr Asian workers and robots making my tech products than $10/hr legal US Walmart trained minimum wage workers.

Same thing as I would rather hire illegals for minimum wage or very low paying jobs here in the US. They are hard workers with strong work ethic.

The reason is very simple. They're motivated by need to survive and in the second part of my statements to make it in the US and to feed their families back home. Not a single person in the US will willingly work for minimum wage jobs. The quality of work and attitude is based on how much they're being paid. The mentality isn't there. We're not third world country.
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That's pretty racist.
 
Ultima99 said:
Look up supply side economics. It is a double edged sword that did both good and harm to our economy. Blame OPEC as its their fault we went to it in the first place.
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OPEC was created by the oil companies when the oil industry was being investigated by the government, before 1973, of collusion to control the oil market in the US. In simple terms the oil Industry could deflect the blame onto the New Middle east OPEC. Logically at the time, how could a tribe of nomads have so much Knowledge and economic power and control over the world price of oil without the help of the Industry. Read the book the Seven Sisters. The oil industry at the time still controlled the price and pitted one oil country against the other, simply put because the oil industry controlled the tanker movement around the world. Without the Oil tankers controlled by the oil industry the OPEC nations at the time would have to keep the oil in the ground. There was no pipelines at the time other than to port. So as you can see US oil companies still controlled the price of oil. The US government dropped their investigation because now the oil industry could say "Don't blame us blame OPEC".
 
westrock2000 said:
Give everyone a "liveable" wage and the only thing you will see is everyones quality of life decline.....much like what has happened over the last 20 years.

6 figures used to mean something worthwhile. Now it means middle class.
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The median household wage in the US is 50k not 100k. Wages have been going down not up. Also we had livable wages from the 1950's until Reagan. For 50 years one single income was enough to buy a home for a family, put the kids through college and more. Retirement wasn't an issue because everyone had pensions.

Since Reagan wages have not kept up with inflation this is the reason why the quality of life has gone down. The father figure being the breadwinner wasn't a myth it was reality.

If you make 75k per year 75% of the US population makes less than you do today. 75k actually puts you above middle class today that's how fucked we are.
 
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kac77 said:
The median household wage in the US is 50k not 100k. Wages have been going down not up. Also we had livable wages from the 1950's until Reagan. For 50 years one single income was enough to buy a home for a family, put the kids through college and more. Retirement wasn't an issue because everyone had pensions.

Since Reagan wages have not kept up with inflation this is the reason why the quality of life has gone down. The father figure being the breadwinner wasn't a myth it was reality.

If you make 75k per year 75% of the US population makes less than you do today. 75k actually puts you above middle class today that's how fucked we are.
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Real wage graph says it all.
BN-HY156_bytheh_G_20150417085434.jpg


A Danish production worker earns twice or more than of an American worker as compare and we have no problems competing with other countries.

Now match it with the previous graph in post 23 and this one and do the math:
640px-US_productivity_and_real_wages.jpg


And tax cuts will only make it worse.
 
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hardware_failure said:
If they do this in the US, where are they going to find Chinese factory workers that get paid $2 an hour? The US minimum wage and other working condition laws makes high volume manufacturing very prohibited compared to other options.
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The days that PRC workers are paid that low are history. By now, the 1:6 salary ratio vs American domestic worker no longer holds true at the pearl river delta, and PRC is trying to force investors to go inland.
The dividends from the enormous 400 million strong migrant cohorts that went to the coastal cities are just about done. Even Chinese are going to Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma to Americans) to get labor costdown themselves.
 
Why do people assume this would mean any real US jobs. lol

No one is building plants in the US that need low skill assembly work.

If they do build a plant it will be small in comparison to those in the East. It will employee a small handful of workers as 90% of the work will be done with robots. Such a plant would mean a few dock workers... a few maintenance jobs and not much more outside of that. So they open a small plant employee 100 people... and if it happens the Gov will take credit for it without ever mentioning real numbers.
 
Shintai said:
There is no future in unskilled low paid jobs. Either you educate your workforce or they will be jobless. Plain simple. Dont expect more than 4-6 hours work days in the future either.
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I don't know, that sounds pretty optimistic to me. I think what's more likely is instead of people having 4-6 hour jobs, you'll continue having people with 8-10+ hour jobs, and an increasing number of people who can't get work at all.

Shintai said:
Its far better that robots handle all the unskilled labour. Its a benefit to mankind.
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Well, in THEORY. If we have no plan at all for the people we displace, then we get kind of screwed either way. There's not going to be enough skilled jobs available to make up the difference.
 
Ducman69 said:
"Remember guys, Ford, Chrysler, and Carrier cancelling their plans to invest in Mexico and increase investment in the US, and now Alibaba, Foxconn, and Sharp wanting to invest in the United States again has NOTHING to do with the threat of tariffs and promise of honey from the President Elect. Its merely coincidence!" - CNN, probably

I love how everyone made fun of him saying "what's he going to do, wave a magic wand" to stop the massive outsourcing of US industries and jobs, and its like, uh, no, just an ACTUAL concerted effort to reward players that help us by giving them access to the single largest market on the entire planet.
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Well we know that at least in one of those cases they are getting paid literally to keep the jobs there, and likely making a profit on it, all thanks to a opaque slush fund paid for by the Indiana tax payers.

B) At the same time, entry-level labor positions in the last decade have been rapidly declining, due to massive outsourcing of jobs, manufacturing abandoning the country, and huge issuance of H1B visas. Too many workers (which will only increase with automation and self-driving vehicles) and not even jobs drives wages down into the dirt.
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They've been declining in the US primarily due to automation, not H1B (which is more of an issue for higher paid white collar jobs), nor outsourcing.

Look at the 1960s, where a sanitation worker could easily support his family thanks to the supply/demand ratio of the labor pool. It was hard dirty work, and not everyone wanted to do it, and so the pay was quite reasonable even though it wasn't high skill. Americans did all the work that illegals are doing, we just don't want to do it for slave labor wages, nor should we! Americans are absolutely willing to do hard work for fair compensation, and they deserve it and can get it if we fix that supply/demand imbalance.
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That's a nice load of BS you got there. Migrants have been apart of the US economy for literally centuries. As have illegal doing low skilled and low paying jobs. Don't look now, those damn dirty cheating illegal irish are going to steal all the jobs.
 
Uncle said:
Well maybe the Companies and shareholders have to share some of the wealth, instead of the record profits all being shifted to the 10%. Some of the record profits might go back as wages for the workers. Greed will suck the system dry. Someone explain how before the eighties, roads, bridges, all kinds of infrastructure was built. Workers were making a livable wage. Everyone prospered!! This is my point " there was a balance in the system" and then something happened and it shifted. The rest is history.
Click to expand...

There are some interesting correlations between the wealth accumulations at the top 1% and the reduction in the top income tax bracket. People forget that top income tax brackets during the 50s/60s were well north of 50%.
 
tetris42 said:
I don't know, that sounds pretty optimistic to me. I think what's more likely is instead of people having 4-6 hour jobs, you'll continue having people with 8-10+ hour jobs, and an increasing number of people who can't get work at all.

Well, in THEORY. If we have no plan at all for the people we displace, then we get kind of screwed either way. There's not going to be enough skilled jobs available to make up the difference.
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Look at history and work hours. Its just going down. 30 hour work weeks is getting popular in Europe.

You just pay people basic income that doesn't work. It will also increase innovation and new startups due to the inbuild security net. We already pay people to go to school here so money isn't a limitation for their education.
 
Shintai said:
You just pay people basic income that doesn't work. It will also increase innovation and new startups due to the inbuild security net. We already pay people to go to school here so money isn't a limitation for their education.
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The USA is a world apart from what you're describing. Under our political climate of the past 30 years or so, I'd see hell freezing over before Congress voted in basic income. On the contrary, they're looking to reduce what programs for the unemployed that we do have.
 
aaronspink said:
Well we know that at least in one of those cases they are getting paid literally to keep the jobs there, and likely making a profit on it, all thanks to a opaque slush fund paid for by the Indiana tax payers.
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I have followed these closely, and am not familiar with what you are talking about. Source?
 
aaronspink said:
There are some interesting correlations between the wealth accumulations at the top 1% and the reduction in the top income tax bracket. People forget that top income tax brackets during the 50s/60s were well north of 50%.
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They were in fact as high as 94%, and if that sounds too good to be true, its because it is and they never actually paid that.

As part of the New Deal and big government with big government spending, taxing the few wealthy was never going to provide enough funds, so it was sold as a class tax on the top 1%, but ultimately became a mass tax as taxes on the 99% increased dramatically and raised considerable revenue. They were able to accomplish this by assuring everyone that the wealthy were extremely heavily taxed, far greater than they were, to achieve a sense of fairness, when in reality the wealthy with near 100% tax rates weren't paying anything close to that. The reason was political favors, and another reason this was so popular, as the ultra wealthy would help the politicians who in turn would provide tax havens and exemptions and loopholes to ensure their tax burdens were quite reasonably low, in an incestuous "you rub my back and I"ll rub yours" relationship.

The people want to take money from the rich, that's nothing new, but the result is typically that this is implemented only as the mere illusion of high taxes on the wealthy in a "pay for play" system that allows those wealthy to purchase favors and make politicians quite powerful and wealthy.

There's nothing wrong with taxing the rich, but you have to actually tax them, and ultimately if you want class equality you have to control the market forces that create poverty. Supply and demand has to be balanced, and you have to reduce the supply of entry-level labor and increase the jobs to create a true path to a prosperous middle-class, and you can't do it by the pretense of income distribution.
 
Ducman69 said:
They were in fact as high as 94%, and if that sounds too good to be true, its because it is and they never actually paid that.

As part of the New Deal and big government with big government spending, taxing the few wealthy was never going to provide enough funds, so it was sold as a class tax on the top 1%, but ultimately became a mass tax as taxes on the 99% increased dramatically and raised considerable revenue. They were able to accomplish this by assuring everyone that the wealthy were extremely heavily taxed, far greater than they were, to achieve a sense of fairness, when in reality the wealthy with near 100% tax rates weren't paying anything close to that. The reason was political favors, and another reason this was so popular, as the ultra wealthy would help the politicians who in turn would provide tax havens and exemptions and loopholes to ensure their tax burdens were quite reasonably low, in an incestuous "you rub my back and I"ll rub yours" relationship.

The people want to take money from the rich, that's nothing new, but the result is typically that this is implemented only as the mere illusion of high taxes on the wealthy in a "pay for play" system that allows those wealthy to purchase favors and make politicians quite powerful and wealthy.

There's nothing wrong with taxing the rich, but you have to actually tax them, and ultimately if you want class equality you have to control the market forces that create poverty. Supply and demand has to be balanced, and you have to reduce the supply of entry-level labor and increase the jobs to create a true path to a prosperous middle-class, and you can't do it by the pretense of income distribution.
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One of the easiest solutions is to pay your income tax on income before deductions. As you have pointed out, too many loopholes before paying your fair share of taxes. A good start might be what they call a fixed flat tax that everyone pays before deductions. I think the low income wage earner does that now. I think our system of income taxes is so lopsided that it is strictly geared for business especially if your wealthy enough to incorporate. Just look at all the perks incorporation has for you. Maybe if everyone could establish a business and get the breaks, this conversation might not be happening. only problem is, as it is now the government wouldn't be able to function without taxes coming in. The whole system would have to change again. It would have to get back to being FAIR.
 
Uncle said:
One of the easiest solutions is to pay your income tax on income before deductions. As you have pointed out, too many loopholes before paying your fair share of taxes. A good start might be what they call a fixed flat tax that everyone pays before deductions. I think the low income wage earner does that now. I think our system of income taxes is so lopsided that it is strictly geared for business especially if your wealthy enough to incorporate. Just look at all the perks incorporation has for you. Maybe if everyone could establish a business and get the breaks, this conversation might not be happening. only problem is, as it is now the government wouldn't be able to function without taxes coming in. The whole system would have to change again. It would have to get back to being FAIR.
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I started a sole proprietorship pool cleaning and equipment repair business 8 months ago. Without deductions I am fucked and would bring home quite a bit less when everything is all said and done. So how about not fucking over the middle class in your quest to tax the rich?
 
Uncle said:
A good start might be what they call a fixed flat tax that everyone pays before deductions.
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Flat taxes are regressive and screw over the poor/middle class excessively.

Uncle said:
I think the low income wage earner does that now.
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Nope. Our current tax bracket system is progressive which is why the poor frequently pay no federal income tax but still pay various sales, gas, and local taxes or fees.
 
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