Your dream house is blighted -- Foxconn comes to America -- What does the Foxconn say? -- Who made that TV? -- The land grab -- Racine, poster child of the Rust Belt -- Sherrard, Illinois -- Monkey business in the middle -- Wassily Leontief and input-output economic impact -- Flying Eagle economic impact -- A tea party for Foxconn -- A bright, shining object -- The problem with picking winners -- An ill wind blows -- All politics are local -- The trouble with TIF -- Following the money -- Foxconn on the ground -- Breaking the cycle -- Postscript: The new contract

"In 2018, the Republican-led State of Wisconsin signed a economic-development deal with Foxconn, the China-based electronics manufacturer, nominally securing 13,000 jobs. Yet as journalist Lawrence Tabak powerfully shows, the deal is a disaster in every dimension: economic, political, cultural, legal, and environmental. Disfranchising American citizens of power, money, and land, the Foxconn deal demonstrates all the ways that the pursuit of jobs can ruin American communities nationwide. Tabak demonstrates that such packages of incentives cannot make economic sense on this scale. Subsequently, the proposed size of the plant has shrunk and grown and shrunk again, and its purported function has changed repeatedly. It's possible most of Foxconn's plans will turn out to be mirage. Yet the story of the dealmaking is complete, and its impacts on Wisconsin and its people will be permanent."--