Foxconn's Brazil Plan Stalled 153
hackingbear writes with an article from Reuters about Foxconn's plans to move iPad production to Brazil. From the article: "A much-hyped $12 billion plan for Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn to produce iPads in Brazil, announced in April by President Dilma Rousseff during an official visit to China, is 'in doubt' due to stagnant negotiations over tax breaks and Brazil's own deep structural problems such as a lack of skilled labor and bad infrastructure, government sources tell Reuters. '(Foxconn) is making crazy demands' for tax breaks and other special treatment, the official added. Local media have reported that Foxconn is also seeking priority treatment at Brazilian customs, which is notoriously slow even by the standards of emerging markets."
What's New? (Score:5, Insightful)
It happens with every industry. If it's not physically restricted to a particular chunk of land like mining or timber, corporations will shop jurisdictions, wringing tax and legal concessions out of every potential home. It's why banks incorporate in Delaware who don't even have branches or clients there, why Microsoft does a suspiciously large amount of business in Ireland, etc.
By the time they're done shopping their future home has agreed that they'll be exempt from environmental laws or that they'll never pay taxes if they'll please just give a few thousand people a job. It's just another problem with the kind of pathetic regulation that allows a corporation to declare their profit in one nation, their liabilities in another, their employees in a third, etc. to the effect that they're no longer just people (which is bad enough) but highly privileged citizens of a dozen countries at once. Yet with so few of those pesky liabilities other citizens must endure.
I know slashdot has a large contingent of social darwinists and let-it-all-burn libertarians and I'll get modded down for this, but I have to say that I'm sure Marx is laughing in his grave watching us fulfill his nightmares.