Hacker News Reader

Comment by waterheater | Hacker News Reader

Do not trust Foxconn. I strongly believe they're playing a long-term game here.

For example, the Foxconn plant is on a particular tract of land only partially within the Lake Michigan watershed. Anyone living within the watershed must return their water, and it must be cleaned up first. My understanding of the Great Lakes Compact is that Foxconn's land is one of legal ambiguity, that they may draw from Lake Michigan but not return it. I sure hope it doesn't mean they can bottle up Lake Michigan water and ship it elsewhere, but water is set to be more valuable than oil, so I bet they're playing it strategically.

View on HN

Not to be a naysayer, but do you have any sort of evidence to substantiate this claim? Any evidence of exceptions to laws regarding the usage of the watershed and lake with specific regards to Foxconn? Or any kind of indication that a bottling facility will be built up?

Not the parent, but there does seem to be a fair amount of legal shenanigans related to the Foxconn and the Great Lakes Compact.

https://www.wiscontext.org/what-foxconn-means-great-lakes-co...

Hard evidence? No. The exact plot of land they chose is not particularly remarkable, so I must wonder why they chose a piece of land straddling the watershed, given that the Compact [1] indirectly applies to corporations.

There's a deeper political aspect to Foxconn's presence that I can't trust. I'm from Wisconsin, and the whole Foxconn deal leaves me feeling extremely uneasy. Leaving aside the Wisconsin and USA politicians associated with the deal, Terry Guo briefly ran for president of the Republic of China. Guo and Foxconn made significant donations to UW-Madison. It smells wrong, and all the Wisconsinites I've talked to agree.

I'm glad their subsidies were slashed.

[1] https://www.gsgp.org/media/1330/great_lakes-st_lawrence_rive...

Also a Wisconsinite here. I've been involved with the deal and haven't noticed any care about any watershed related things. Most of the business they've attracted so far are companies who want contract manufacturing outside of mainland China. The large "screen factory" is still largely empty, and they have no concrete plans for it, but the side projects which piggybacked on to that plan have seen some success.

What projects might those be? Genuinely curious, as I haven't heard any news about them.

> Terry Guo briefly ran for president of the Republic of China.

I have reservations about Foxconn too, but I’m not sure I understand why this bit is relevant. The Republic of China = Taiwan, a US ally. (Mainland China is the People’s Republic of China). This is akin to Bloomberg running for president.

Also it’s Terry Gou and not Guo.

My understanding is that he ran under KMT, which is the much more China friendly party.

I wouldn't fault a Canadian prime Minister for running with a US friendly platform.

Why? Is geography or military danger the key element, economic deals, or easy borders?

Taiwan is a vibrant liberal democracy that feels very western. China is a fascist ethnostate.

China is threatening Taiwan's ability to self determine with military force, economic sanctions, and any other means of coercion at their disposal. China has demonstrated it's bad faith via denial of 1 country 2 systems, as well as a pineapple (miliworms) and pineapple cake (ractopamine) ban done clearly in bad faith (not for the reason stated).

The equivalence you have made is absolutely false. The relationship between Taiwan and China, the relationship between foxconn and china, and the releationship between Terry, the KMT, China, and the US, are all quite complicated.

Above it was claimed that Foxconn/Terry are Taiwanese and therefore American Allies, but Foxconn's business is primarily conducted in China and the KMT are definitely the party that China is aiming to corrupt Taiwan's leadership through. It's complicated.

Foxconn is Taiwanese. Wouldn’t Foxconn affiliated people naturally have involvement with Taiwan? Taiwan is our ally. Forget the Middle East for a second. If China was to take TSMC’s factories over. It would be world war 3 most likely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Mainland_China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Gou#Political_career

To say Foxconn is complicated would be an understatement.

> but water is set to be more valuable than oil

Desalination costs less than 0.1 cents per liter, so that sets a pretty firm price cap on the cost of water.

Not arguing at all--- you got a link for those costs? I always thought desalination was cost prohibitive. I'd be thrilled to know it was 0.1 cents per liter (seriously)!

A web search for 'desalination cost' will easily confirm this for you.

e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00119...

"current [published in 2008] large-scale desalination plants are capable of producing water in the range of $0.50–$2.00/m3"

I got the numbers from Wikipedia.

0.1 cents per liter is cost prohibitive for use cases where water is typically measured by the acre-foot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Costs

Reply on news.ycombinator.com