They say you can tell a lot about people by the company they keep. For Apple’s sake, we might hope that’s an overblown aphorism.
Foxconn, the largest manufacturer of iPhones, has long been a competent but troubling partner for Apple, mostly due to its… how to phrase this? “Labor practices” is too benign a term and “Dickensian LARPing” is too witty to describe it. After all, nobody dies or suffers life-altering disability in LARPing.
Well, other than the stigma.
But you get the idea. And if you live in Wisconsin you’ve a chance to see Foxconn’s patented dissembling first hand. Foxconn worked out a deal with the state—the company would receive huge subsidies in exchange for building a factory and “innovation centers” in the state and employing a certain number of people (credit to The Verge which has stuck on this story throughout). After high-profile ground-breaking ceremonies with Governor Scott Walker, former Senator Paul Ryan and President Trump, there was the deafening and relentless sound of some very aggressive crickets. 1950’s B-movie-style gigantic, irradiated crickets that were very angrily in peoples’ faces indicating that not much of anything was happening. Foxconn’s executives took umbrage at The Verge’s reporting of empty buildings that were supposed to be filled with happy workers and a year ago promised a statement refuting the “inaccuracies”.
