And clean they are... Just not as clean as the pr machine would like it...
I think it's safe to say that if from the impetus of apples' "report" we ended up talking about window cleaners because of apple's glass design cues then the story was indeed rubbish...
....it has however made me think a lot about my contribution to the economy and all the job opportunities I have created mostly unbeknonst to me by virtue of my car usage (garages, car mechanics, car manufacturers), occasional bar fights (farmers, alcohol distillers, bouncers, coppers, lawyers, judges), computer misusage (repairmen, apple, computer manufacturers, ups, computer shops) and occasional clumsiness with various stains and spills in clothing (washing machine manufacturers, detergent manufacturers, sweatshops, clothes manufacturers, shops)... Feels good to that my shit is offering so much work for people around me, I feel wam and fuzzy in a very self righteous way inside me, it's good to create job opportunities.
That all depends on how narrow-minded and bigoted your definition of humanity is. Obviously, you only consider white, Anglo-Saxon Americans as part of humanity.
For most of the employees in China who are working indirectly for Apple, that job is a matter of life or death for them and their families. Or, at the very least, it's the difference between a nice office job that hundreds of thousands of people want or a backbreaking job in the fields that everyone is trying to get away from.
If you get off your high horse, Apple's doing a great deal for humanity in China.
The point I was making was beyond Apple, beyond the US, beyond anywhere...
Also I'm a Black man...I'd be damned if I didn't consider myself or my family humans.
edit: Addition...let's say that Apple is projected to pull in 50B profit in 2012...they pull in 25B PROFIT instead...their stock drops, the haters (slapppy) say Apple is doomed...etc, etc, etc...Business is not only designed to make a profit, that's fine, business is designed to increase profits at almost all costs.
And clean they are... Just not as clean as the pr machine would like it...
I think it's safe to say that if from the impetus of apples' "report" we ended up talking about window cleaners because of apple's glass design cues then the story was indeed rubbish...
....it has however made me think a lot about my contribution to the economy and all the job opportunities I have created mostly unbeknonst to me by virtue of my car usage (garages, car mechanics, car manufacturers), occasional bar fights (farmers, alcohol distillers, bouncers, coppers, lawyers, judges), computer misusage (repairmen, apple, computer manufacturers, ups, computer shops) and occasional clumsiness with various stains and spills in clothing (washing machine manufacturers, detergent manufacturers, sweatshops, clothes manufacturers, shops)... Feels good to that my shit is offering so much work for people around me, I feel wam and fuzzy in a very self righteous way inside me, it's good to create job opportunities.
I believed in the free market years ago. It doesn't exist in the USA. Why, because bribery and influence pedaling are rampant in every part of the US government and state governments. Corporations give campaign contributions for favors. Those favors come back as regulations or taxes that prevent competitors from entering markets to compete with existing companies. They also include special tax breaks that aren't available to other companies.
I honestly don't know when the USA last had a free market or if it ever did.
Think about this...
Thousands of years and human history and it we finally get a Standard Oil. How many times in those thousands of years did an oppressive government arise murder, enslave, and torture its citizens? I think it was a few more times then we wound up with "monopoly" businesses. Of course the government jumped in and offered to do something about it. God knows it should be politicians oppressing us and not the companies.
Most conservatives and progressives agree on what the problem is: corruption. One just blames companies and one blames the government. I just can't see why a person would want to give the government more power and control over their lives, wallets, and freedoms when they have already shown time and time again throughout history that they will screw us royally. In countries where a free market and "mega corporations" do not exists, the people controlling the government are the drug lords, terrorists, and religions nuts. Personally, I'll take the companies. They need me and my money to survive.
Or, ya know, we could do something REALLY crazy like limit the powers of the government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes. Few people will argue that. So if you agree with that, how is it so hard to believe that limited power limits corruption?
Look at these comments from the Washington Post article.. not a SINGLE positive one. Most refer to the 'slave labor' in China. Are people this fucking stupid? I can understand a percentage of trolling comments not giving credit, but 100% of them? I assume not many kids read the WP, so these are adults? Just an example:
Quote:
OK so because you created over 500,00 jobs in the Us we should feel that what you did in China is OK.
Yeah right thats something you'd expect in "family Guy" or the "Simpsons" but not in real life.
Apple is worth 500 billion and for the price's they charge they should not even need china to manufacture their products in the first place but then again then they could not get away with this slave work force and profits.The most valuable company in the world yeah right at what cost !! No more as in my family we will never support Apple again even if they gave it away for free.
for your labor costs ipads should sell for 99 bucks not 799 so you can't even say your doing it to keep the price down its only because of your greed and anyone buying your products are only supporting a company that has no morals at all. shame on you !!!
Look at these comments from the Washington Post article.. not a SINGLE positive one. Most refer to the 'slave labor' in China. Are people this fucking stupid? I can understand a percentage of trolling comments not giving credit, but 100% of them? I assume not many kids read the WP, so these are adults? Just an example:
Amazing.
It's an insult to the memory of anyone that did suffer as a slave to suggest that one has traveled for days hoping they would get picked to work at factory is somehow a slave. They don't get paid well but neither doesn't anyone in any country for easily had jobs that require no special skill or background. Foxconn hires employees the way my first jobs as a teenage hires me.
What gets me is I think some of these people actually think these people would be better off but are they thinking about the consequences of such actions if this forced Foxconn to hire less people or completely pick and move to another country? Where would that leave all these poor rural workers with no education? Where would this leave the women whose only chance for supporting themselves financially without resorting to prostitution or other illegal actions?
China is rough, these employees were born under less than ideal circumstances, and they don't have a great job but they do have a job and they do have the choice whether to work or not to work. Calling it slavery is ignorant and offensive.
What gets me is I think some of these people actually think these people would be better off but are they thinking about the consequences of such actions if this forced Foxconn to hire less people or completely pick and move to another country? Where would that leave all these poor rural workers with no education? Where would this leave the women whose only chance for supporting themselves financially without resorting to prostitution or other illegal actions?
Why do you pose these bizarre "solutions"? The answer to poor worker's conditions is to eliminate the jobs completely? Huh?
Here's something that makes a bit more sense: The solution is not to make things worse, but instead, to make things better. Maybe shorten the work week, maybe pay more, maybe otherwise improve the plight of the oppressed? Workplace safety? Dignity? A living wage?
Why do you pose these bizarre "solutions"? The answer to poor worker's conditions is to eliminate the jobs completely? Huh?
Here's something that makes a bit more sense: The solution is not to make things worse, but instead, to make things better. Maybe shorten the work week, maybe pay more, maybe otherwise improve the plight of the oppressed? Workplace safety? Dignity? A living wage?
Geez, whoda thunk it?
In your eagerness to fake moral concern, you miss his point entirely. Emphasis on fake.
And clean they are... Just not as clean as the pr machine would like it...
I think it's safe to say that if from the impetus of apples' "report" we ended up talking about window cleaners because of apple's glass design cues then the story was indeed rubbish...
....it has however made me think a lot about my contribution to the economy and all the job opportunities I have created mostly unbeknonst to me by virtue of my car usage (garages, car mechanics, car manufacturers), occasional bar fights (farmers, alcohol distillers, bouncers, coppers, lawyers, judges), computer misusage (repairmen, apple, computer manufacturers, ups, computer shops) and occasional clumsiness with various stains and spills in clothing (washing machine manufacturers, detergent manufacturers, sweatshops, clothes manufacturers, shops)... Feels good to that my shit is offering so much work for people around me, I feel wam and fuzzy in a very self righteous way inside me, it's good to create job opportunities.
Factor in sewage workers and your "shit" is indeed creating jobs.
I'd pay extra for Apple products manufactured in the EU, but we're not offered that choice nor ever will be. Even Nokia are moving their manufacturing out of Finland and to China. It's all rather pathetic and leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
I'd pay extra for Apple products manufactured in the EU, but we're not offered that choice nor ever will be. Even Nokia are moving their manufacturing out of Finland and to China. It's all rather pathetic and leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
The cost of manufacturing in China could be a lot higher than some people think. It is not inconceivable that China and the US could get into a military conflict. Unfortunately the US has no ability to manufacture much of anything without electronics from China. Air Force planes won't fly without iPads, from another thread, and the US does not know how to make iPads.
Look at these comments from the Washington Post article.. not a SINGLE positive one. Most refer to the 'slave labor' in China. Are people this fucking stupid? I can understand a percentage of trolling comments not giving credit, but 100% of them? I assume not many kids read the WP, so these are adults? Just an example:
Amazing.
I agree. Sometimes I despair of the level of thinking that most Americans do. Too much faux news for starters, but the bandwagon effect is amazing.
This is one of the reasons I strongly believe Apple has to fight FUD with FUD. People need to hear that there are two sides to the story.
I read through this thread (some good thoughts) but skipped the comments at Washington Post after some minutes.
To be honest I don't get the conceited, double standard posts, hopefully simply based on a lack of knowledge and experience.
Unfortunately the US decided some decades ago to ditch production business in favor of the services sector and financial operations.
A lot of people now complaining were glad to ditch their noisy and dirty production worker life for an office chair.
What the US lost is the necessary infrastructure. It's simply not enough to slap a factory elsewhere and hire some workers.
To ramp up a very well running production line from e.g. 100 units per week to 1000 or even 10000 is nearby rocket science if there's not the necessary infrastructure in place.
You need reliable suppliers able to scale (in best case nearby) , efficient supply chain management, production know how, stable quality management processes, well trained managers, gangers and worker.
In addition you need first class routes of transportation, energy and raw material supply and last but not least straight (not equal to weak!) laws enabling a minimum of efficiency killing bureaucracy.
To reduce the discussion on "cheap labor" is misleading because it's influence on the selling-price is low compared to the total of processing cost, especially at highly optimized production units.
It's pretty interesting that Apple/Foxcon are willing to take the hard route to improve and buildup some necessary infrastructure components for their production units in Brasil.
There are obviously some incentives like tax advantages and trained, but not too expensive production employees, but I there are still a lot of things to improve.
Perhaps there's a chance to learn enough to bring at least some component manufacturing back to the US some day.
What Tim Cook as basically saying is that Apple has created jobs and infrastructure in the US in areas where the US is top like engineering, software and hardware development, customer support, retail etc.
It's absolutely OK to ask Apple to think about ways to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, but it's not OK to demand that they should spent their whole fortune on fixing issues generated by collective negligence of the production sector in the US.
Those 100 billion would just be vaporize like a drop on live coal in a country with more than 14 trillion national dept.
It would help if those two most vocal groups, young guns that apparently never have worked in a factory and old conservatives stuck in the glory of the last century, would get their act together and provide their part to fix the national deficits.
The cost of manufacturing in China could be a lot higher than some people think. It is not inconceivable that China and the US could get into a military conflict. Unfortunately the US has no ability to manufacture much of anything without electronics from China. Air Force planes won't fly without iPads, from another thread, and the US does not know how to make iPads.
The US has never known how to make microelectronics, other than chip fabrication. All mass manufacture of consumer electroncs went to Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, etc. decades ago.
The US never made VCRs, cameras of any quality, video cameras, solid state radios or televisions, most computers and computer parts, LCD screens, and so on. There is no reservoir of expertise here, maybe the most important factor besides parts proximity when anyone contemplates opening a plant.
Steve Jobs could have been a bit misleading when he said "those jobs aren't coming back." They were never in the US to begin with! Yes, Apple manufactured here when the electronics were an order of magnitude less fine, but practically all the large-scale production experience of micromanufacturing is in Asia. Even robot design and manufacturing, I would imagine—correct me if I'm wrong on that.
You anti-union, anti-government memeopaths are missing the point by miles, thousands of miles.
Silicon Valley is where brilliant things are designed and engineered. THIS reservoir of expertise must be protected, appreciated, encouraged, insead of hated. (And hated for the stupidest possible reasons—looking at you dasanman69 and myapplelove).
Is there another phone maker based in the US for you to appreciate? Or computer maker? Or large-scale innovator? No there is not.
Unbelieveable the treachery in this thread, and duplicity. Bitching at Apple because they don't manufacture here. NOBODY can DO the micromanufacuring here. In all the world, only Apple is doing an honest job of ORIGINATING and DESIGNING the products here to be manufactured where they should be, where the expertise is, elsewhere. And that is creating jobs, both here and aound the world. And they're just getting started. A whole lot of money that has been going to Asia is now going to start coming back. They are going to outgrow their new headquarters in five years, just watch.
Better figure out how to meet the Chinese halfway and stop pretending the US is king of the world. We all have our talents. This is what Apple has built its business on, working with people around the world. It's one of their core values, expertly developed by Tim Cook, obviously.
I wish you guys would enlarge your horizons. Your narrow focus, antievolutionary as it is, is what's killing political economics in this country.
Edit: nicely anticipated by DominoXML above. And jragosta and slurpy, as usual, doing yeoman anti-FUD work.
I read through this thread (some good thoughts) but skipped the comments at Washington Post after some minutes.
To be honest I don't get the conceited, double standard posts, hopefully simply based on a lack of knowledge and experience.
Unfortunately the US decided some decades ago to ditch production business in favor of the services sector and financial operations.
A lot of people now complaining were glad to ditch their noisy and dirty production worker life for an office chair.
What the US lost is the necessary infrastructure. It's simply not enough to slap a factory elsewhere and hire some workers.
To ramp up a very well running production line from e.g. 100 units per week to 1000 or even 10000 is nearby rocket science if there's not the necessary infrastructure in place.
You need reliable suppliers able to scale (in best case nearby) , efficient supply chain management, production know how, stable quality management processes, well trained managers, gangers and worker.
In addition you need first class routes of transportation, energy and raw material supply and last but not least straight (not equal to weak!) laws enabling a minimum of efficiency killing bureaucracy.
To reduce the discussion on "cheap labor" is misleading because it's influence on the selling-price is low compared to the total of processing cost, especially at highly optimized production units.
It's pretty interesting that Apple/Foxcon are willing to take the hard route to improve and buildup some necessary infrastructure components for their production units in Brasil.
There are obviously some incentives like tax advantages and trained, but not too expensive production employees, but I there are still a lot of things to improve.
Perhaps there's a chance to learn enough to bring at least some component manufacturing back to the US some day.
What Tim Cook as basically saying is that Apple has created jobs and infrastructure in the US in areas where the US is top like engineering, software and hardware development, customer support, retail etc.
It's absolutely OK to ask Apple to think about ways to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, but it's not OK to demand that they should spent their whole fortune on fixing issues generated by collective negligence of the production sector in the US.
Those 100 billion would just be vaporize like a drop on live coal in a country with more than 14 trillion national dept.
It would help if those two most vocal groups, young guns that apparently never have worked in a factory and old conservatives stuck in the glory of the last century, would get their act together and provide their part to fix the national deficits.
Well said. What people don't realize is that even if Apple were able to afford the labor costs (or were able to have a fully automated lights out factory), it wouldn't solve anything. US manufacturing is at a huge disadvantage due to:
- Labor laws (even in a lights-out factory, there are employees)
- Liability laws
- Health, safety, and environment laws
- Administrative overhead
- Tax policies
- And so on
And that doesn't even get into the fact that, as you point out, the infrastructure is gone. Apple can't single-handedly rebuild the infrastructure of the U.S.
It also fails to consider that Apple is a global company. It is not unreasonable for their supply chain to be global, as well.
Very few Americans would want those repetitive and boring manufacturing jobs Apple shipped to China..
Is that a fact now. Well contrary to popular mythology, Americans aren't lazy and generally never have been. I think what you mean is that Americans can't afford to work at the Chinese equivalent of slave labor wages with the US cost of living.
Jobs' comment that 'those jobs aren't coming back" seems to have been saying "As CEO I will place shareholder profits above American manufacturing jobs." It has to be one of the least imaginative statements the man ever said. The government in the US is weak about these things and should tie corporate tax rates to the numbers of jobs these companies create overseas to make it in their interest to create and keep those jobs at home. After all each job shipped 'over there' is a source of tax the government loses 'over here'. Even the most right wing hawk will have to admit that without a tax base you simply can't afford to go to war.
Well said. What people don't realize is that even if Apple were able to afford the labor costs (or were able to have a fully automated lights out factory), it wouldn't solve anything. US manufacturing is at a huge disadvantage due to:
- Labor laws (even in a lights-out factory, there are employees)
- Liability laws
- Health, safety, and environment laws
- Administrative overhead
- Tax policies
- And so on
And that doesn't even get into the fact that, as you point out, the infrastructure is gone. Apple can't single-handedly rebuild the infrastructure of the U.S.
It also fails to consider that Apple is a global company. It is not unreasonable for their supply chain to be global, as well.
I agree, but I want to relativize two of your points.
- Health, safety, and environment laws
Apple has improved these points a lot in the past e.g. by banning toxic substances and cutting overtimes. Their might be a chance in the future to fulfill reasonable adjusted laws in the US without the need to ditch necessary standards.
- Labor laws
I'm not convinced that this point is a show-stopper. I have seen great collaboration with workers' representations at companies in countries with much stronger labor laws.
It's all about productivity and productivity not necessarily implies abuse.
It's an insult to the memory of anyone that did suffer as a slave to suggest that one has traveled for days hoping they would get picked to work at factory is somehow a slave. They don't get paid well but neither doesn't anyone in any country for easily had jobs that require no special skill or background. Foxconn hires employees the way my first jobs as a teenage hires me..
Uh, no not really. Slaves got a roof over their heads and had very little else to show for their 14 hours a day at the end of a month. They were beaten or even killed if they tried to organize other slaves to change things. The fact that unions are basically illegal in China - and that people are jailed, beaten and also killed for trying to press for worker's rights there - levels your comparison of Chinese labor with that of unionized workers in the west (who are (*were*) often far from unskilled). The only difference is that in China they're "free" to quit and go take another job under the exact same conditions and with the exact same lack of protection. You need to factor in poverty and what that can make people do to put food in their bellies - crazy things like travel for days in the hope of getting picked to work in a dead-end factory job so they too can get a roof over their heads, also without much more to show for it at the end of the month.
The US has never known how to make microelectronics, other than chip fabrication. All mass manufacture of consumer electroncs went to Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, etc. decades ago.
Japan, Korea etc are not a military threat. China is huge and can produce everything faster and without any outside resources unlike the US which can't even protect their borders from illegal immigrants let alone agree on any sort of coherent foreign policy. China is not encumbered by any such bureaucratic red tape and could become the premminet world power within the next decade.
If you don't find that a bit disconcerting then you are totally in denial. Loss of high tech manufacturing in the US, whenever it began, is a very dangerous situation.
Comments
I think it's safe to say that if from the impetus of apples' "report" we ended up talking about window cleaners because of apple's glass design cues then the story was indeed rubbish...
....it has however made me think a lot about my contribution to the economy and all the job opportunities I have created mostly unbeknonst to me by virtue of my car usage (garages, car mechanics, car manufacturers), occasional bar fights (farmers, alcohol distillers, bouncers, coppers, lawyers, judges), computer misusage (repairmen, apple, computer manufacturers, ups, computer shops) and occasional clumsiness with various stains and spills in clothing (washing machine manufacturers, detergent manufacturers, sweatshops, clothes manufacturers, shops)... Feels good to that my shit is offering so much work for people around me, I feel wam and fuzzy in a very self righteous way inside me, it's good to create job opportunities.
That all depends on how narrow-minded and bigoted your definition of humanity is. Obviously, you only consider white, Anglo-Saxon Americans as part of humanity.
For most of the employees in China who are working indirectly for Apple, that job is a matter of life or death for them and their families. Or, at the very least, it's the difference between a nice office job that hundreds of thousands of people want or a backbreaking job in the fields that everyone is trying to get away from.
If you get off your high horse, Apple's doing a great deal for humanity in China.
The point I was making was beyond Apple, beyond the US, beyond anywhere...
Also I'm a Black man...I'd be damned if I didn't consider myself or my family humans.
edit: Addition...let's say that Apple is projected to pull in 50B profit in 2012...they pull in 25B PROFIT instead...their stock drops, the haters (slapppy) say Apple is doomed...etc, etc, etc...Business is not only designed to make a profit, that's fine, business is designed to increase profits at almost all costs.
And clean they are... Just not as clean as the pr machine would like it...
I think it's safe to say that if from the impetus of apples' "report" we ended up talking about window cleaners because of apple's glass design cues then the story was indeed rubbish...
....it has however made me think a lot about my contribution to the economy and all the job opportunities I have created mostly unbeknonst to me by virtue of my car usage (garages, car mechanics, car manufacturers), occasional bar fights (farmers, alcohol distillers, bouncers, coppers, lawyers, judges), computer misusage (repairmen, apple, computer manufacturers, ups, computer shops) and occasional clumsiness with various stains and spills in clothing (washing machine manufacturers, detergent manufacturers, sweatshops, clothes manufacturers, shops)... Feels good to that my shit is offering so much work for people around me, I feel wam and fuzzy in a very self righteous way inside me, it's good to create job opportunities.
Awesome.
I believed in the free market years ago. It doesn't exist in the USA. Why, because bribery and influence pedaling are rampant in every part of the US government and state governments. Corporations give campaign contributions for favors. Those favors come back as regulations or taxes that prevent competitors from entering markets to compete with existing companies. They also include special tax breaks that aren't available to other companies.
I honestly don't know when the USA last had a free market or if it ever did.
Think about this...
Thousands of years and human history and it we finally get a Standard Oil. How many times in those thousands of years did an oppressive government arise murder, enslave, and torture its citizens? I think it was a few more times then we wound up with "monopoly" businesses. Of course the government jumped in and offered to do something about it. God knows it should be politicians oppressing us and not the companies.
Most conservatives and progressives agree on what the problem is: corruption. One just blames companies and one blames the government. I just can't see why a person would want to give the government more power and control over their lives, wallets, and freedoms when they have already shown time and time again throughout history that they will screw us royally. In countries where a free market and "mega corporations" do not exists, the people controlling the government are the drug lords, terrorists, and religions nuts. Personally, I'll take the companies. They need me and my money to survive.
Or, ya know, we could do something REALLY crazy like limit the powers of the government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes. Few people will argue that. So if you agree with that, how is it so hard to believe that limited power limits corruption?
Look at these comments from the Washington Post article.. not a SINGLE positive one. Most refer to the 'slave labor' in China. Are people this fucking stupid? I can understand a percentage of trolling comments not giving credit, but 100% of them? I assume not many kids read the WP, so these are adults? Just an example:
OK so because you created over 500,00 jobs in the Us we should feel that what you did in China is OK.
Yeah right thats something you'd expect in "family Guy" or the "Simpsons" but not in real life.
Apple is worth 500 billion and for the price's they charge they should not even need china to manufacture their products in the first place but then again then they could not get away with this slave work force and profits.The most valuable company in the world yeah right at what cost !! No more as in my family we will never support Apple again even if they gave it away for free.
for your labor costs ipads should sell for 99 bucks not 799 so you can't even say your doing it to keep the price down its only because of your greed and anyone buying your products are only supporting a company that has no morals at all. shame on you !!!
Amazing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...all_&#comments
Look at these comments from the Washington Post article.. not a SINGLE positive one. Most refer to the 'slave labor' in China. Are people this fucking stupid? I can understand a percentage of trolling comments not giving credit, but 100% of them? I assume not many kids read the WP, so these are adults? Just an example:
Amazing.
It's an insult to the memory of anyone that did suffer as a slave to suggest that one has traveled for days hoping they would get picked to work at factory is somehow a slave. They don't get paid well but neither doesn't anyone in any country for easily had jobs that require no special skill or background. Foxconn hires employees the way my first jobs as a teenage hires me.
What gets me is I think some of these people actually think these people would be better off but are they thinking about the consequences of such actions if this forced Foxconn to hire less people or completely pick and move to another country? Where would that leave all these poor rural workers with no education? Where would this leave the women whose only chance for supporting themselves financially without resorting to prostitution or other illegal actions?
China is rough, these employees were born under less than ideal circumstances, and they don't have a great job but they do have a job and they do have the choice whether to work or not to work. Calling it slavery is ignorant and offensive.
What gets me is I think some of these people actually think these people would be better off but are they thinking about the consequences of such actions if this forced Foxconn to hire less people or completely pick and move to another country? Where would that leave all these poor rural workers with no education? Where would this leave the women whose only chance for supporting themselves financially without resorting to prostitution or other illegal actions?
Why do you pose these bizarre "solutions"? The answer to poor worker's conditions is to eliminate the jobs completely? Huh?
Here's something that makes a bit more sense: The solution is not to make things worse, but instead, to make things better. Maybe shorten the work week, maybe pay more, maybe otherwise improve the plight of the oppressed? Workplace safety? Dignity? A living wage?
Geez, whoda thunk it?
Why do you pose these bizarre "solutions"? The answer to poor worker's conditions is to eliminate the jobs completely? Huh?
Here's something that makes a bit more sense: The solution is not to make things worse, but instead, to make things better. Maybe shorten the work week, maybe pay more, maybe otherwise improve the plight of the oppressed? Workplace safety? Dignity? A living wage?
Geez, whoda thunk it?
In your eagerness to fake moral concern, you miss his point entirely. Emphasis on fake.
And clean they are... Just not as clean as the pr machine would like it...
I think it's safe to say that if from the impetus of apples' "report" we ended up talking about window cleaners because of apple's glass design cues then the story was indeed rubbish...
....it has however made me think a lot about my contribution to the economy and all the job opportunities I have created mostly unbeknonst to me by virtue of my car usage (garages, car mechanics, car manufacturers), occasional bar fights (farmers, alcohol distillers, bouncers, coppers, lawyers, judges), computer misusage (repairmen, apple, computer manufacturers, ups, computer shops) and occasional clumsiness with various stains and spills in clothing (washing machine manufacturers, detergent manufacturers, sweatshops, clothes manufacturers, shops)... Feels good to that my shit is offering so much work for people around me, I feel wam and fuzzy in a very self righteous way inside me, it's good to create job opportunities.
Factor in sewage workers and your "shit" is indeed creating jobs.
Best post I have seen in some time, tnx...
Are you really that naive?
Well, I can't dispute that descriptive counter point, I guess you're right. I shouldn't use their own statements to prove my point. Sorry.
I'd pay extra for Apple products manufactured in the EU, but we're not offered that choice nor ever will be. Even Nokia are moving their manufacturing out of Finland and to China. It's all rather pathetic and leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
The cost of manufacturing in China could be a lot higher than some people think. It is not inconceivable that China and the US could get into a military conflict. Unfortunately the US has no ability to manufacture much of anything without electronics from China. Air Force planes won't fly without iPads, from another thread, and the US does not know how to make iPads.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...all_&#comments
Look at these comments from the Washington Post article.. not a SINGLE positive one. Most refer to the 'slave labor' in China. Are people this fucking stupid? I can understand a percentage of trolling comments not giving credit, but 100% of them? I assume not many kids read the WP, so these are adults? Just an example:
Amazing.
I agree. Sometimes I despair of the level of thinking that most Americans do. Too much faux news for starters, but the bandwagon effect is amazing.
This is one of the reasons I strongly believe Apple has to fight FUD with FUD. People need to hear that there are two sides to the story.
To be honest I don't get the conceited, double standard posts, hopefully simply based on a lack of knowledge and experience.
Unfortunately the US decided some decades ago to ditch production business in favor of the services sector and financial operations.
A lot of people now complaining were glad to ditch their noisy and dirty production worker life for an office chair.
What the US lost is the necessary infrastructure. It's simply not enough to slap a factory elsewhere and hire some workers.
To ramp up a very well running production line from e.g. 100 units per week to 1000 or even 10000 is nearby rocket science if there's not the necessary infrastructure in place.
You need reliable suppliers able to scale (in best case nearby) , efficient supply chain management, production know how, stable quality management processes, well trained managers, gangers and worker.
In addition you need first class routes of transportation, energy and raw material supply and last but not least straight (not equal to weak!) laws enabling a minimum of efficiency killing bureaucracy.
To reduce the discussion on "cheap labor" is misleading because it's influence on the selling-price is low compared to the total of processing cost, especially at highly optimized production units.
It's pretty interesting that Apple/Foxcon are willing to take the hard route to improve and buildup some necessary infrastructure components for their production units in Brasil.
There are obviously some incentives like tax advantages and trained, but not too expensive production employees, but I there are still a lot of things to improve.
Perhaps there's a chance to learn enough to bring at least some component manufacturing back to the US some day.
What Tim Cook as basically saying is that Apple has created jobs and infrastructure in the US in areas where the US is top like engineering, software and hardware development, customer support, retail etc.
It's absolutely OK to ask Apple to think about ways to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, but it's not OK to demand that they should spent their whole fortune on fixing issues generated by collective negligence of the production sector in the US.
Those 100 billion would just be vaporize like a drop on live coal in a country with more than 14 trillion national dept.
It would help if those two most vocal groups, young guns that apparently never have worked in a factory and old conservatives stuck in the glory of the last century, would get their act together and provide their part to fix the national deficits.
The cost of manufacturing in China could be a lot higher than some people think. It is not inconceivable that China and the US could get into a military conflict. Unfortunately the US has no ability to manufacture much of anything without electronics from China. Air Force planes won't fly without iPads, from another thread, and the US does not know how to make iPads.
The US has never known how to make microelectronics, other than chip fabrication. All mass manufacture of consumer electroncs went to Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, etc. decades ago.
The US never made VCRs, cameras of any quality, video cameras, solid state radios or televisions, most computers and computer parts, LCD screens, and so on. There is no reservoir of expertise here, maybe the most important factor besides parts proximity when anyone contemplates opening a plant.
Steve Jobs could have been a bit misleading when he said "those jobs aren't coming back." They were never in the US to begin with! Yes, Apple manufactured here when the electronics were an order of magnitude less fine, but practically all the large-scale production experience of micromanufacturing is in Asia. Even robot design and manufacturing, I would imagine—correct me if I'm wrong on that.
You anti-union, anti-government memeopaths are missing the point by miles, thousands of miles.
Silicon Valley is where brilliant things are designed and engineered. THIS reservoir of expertise must be protected, appreciated, encouraged, insead of hated. (And hated for the stupidest possible reasons—looking at you dasanman69 and myapplelove).
Is there another phone maker based in the US for you to appreciate? Or computer maker? Or large-scale innovator? No there is not.
Unbelieveable the treachery in this thread, and duplicity. Bitching at Apple because they don't manufacture here. NOBODY can DO the micromanufacuring here. In all the world, only Apple is doing an honest job of ORIGINATING and DESIGNING the products here to be manufactured where they should be, where the expertise is, elsewhere. And that is creating jobs, both here and aound the world. And they're just getting started. A whole lot of money that has been going to Asia is now going to start coming back. They are going to outgrow their new headquarters in five years, just watch.
Better figure out how to meet the Chinese halfway and stop pretending the US is king of the world. We all have our talents. This is what Apple has built its business on, working with people around the world. It's one of their core values, expertly developed by Tim Cook, obviously.
I wish you guys would enlarge your horizons. Your narrow focus, antievolutionary as it is, is what's killing political economics in this country.
Edit: nicely anticipated by DominoXML above. And jragosta and slurpy, as usual, doing yeoman anti-FUD work.
I read through this thread (some good thoughts) but skipped the comments at Washington Post after some minutes.
To be honest I don't get the conceited, double standard posts, hopefully simply based on a lack of knowledge and experience.
Unfortunately the US decided some decades ago to ditch production business in favor of the services sector and financial operations.
A lot of people now complaining were glad to ditch their noisy and dirty production worker life for an office chair.
What the US lost is the necessary infrastructure. It's simply not enough to slap a factory elsewhere and hire some workers.
To ramp up a very well running production line from e.g. 100 units per week to 1000 or even 10000 is nearby rocket science if there's not the necessary infrastructure in place.
You need reliable suppliers able to scale (in best case nearby) , efficient supply chain management, production know how, stable quality management processes, well trained managers, gangers and worker.
In addition you need first class routes of transportation, energy and raw material supply and last but not least straight (not equal to weak!) laws enabling a minimum of efficiency killing bureaucracy.
To reduce the discussion on "cheap labor" is misleading because it's influence on the selling-price is low compared to the total of processing cost, especially at highly optimized production units.
It's pretty interesting that Apple/Foxcon are willing to take the hard route to improve and buildup some necessary infrastructure components for their production units in Brasil.
There are obviously some incentives like tax advantages and trained, but not too expensive production employees, but I there are still a lot of things to improve.
Perhaps there's a chance to learn enough to bring at least some component manufacturing back to the US some day.
What Tim Cook as basically saying is that Apple has created jobs and infrastructure in the US in areas where the US is top like engineering, software and hardware development, customer support, retail etc.
It's absolutely OK to ask Apple to think about ways to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, but it's not OK to demand that they should spent their whole fortune on fixing issues generated by collective negligence of the production sector in the US.
Those 100 billion would just be vaporize like a drop on live coal in a country with more than 14 trillion national dept.
It would help if those two most vocal groups, young guns that apparently never have worked in a factory and old conservatives stuck in the glory of the last century, would get their act together and provide their part to fix the national deficits.
Well said. What people don't realize is that even if Apple were able to afford the labor costs (or were able to have a fully automated lights out factory), it wouldn't solve anything. US manufacturing is at a huge disadvantage due to:
- Labor laws (even in a lights-out factory, there are employees)
- Liability laws
- Health, safety, and environment laws
- Administrative overhead
- Tax policies
- And so on
And that doesn't even get into the fact that, as you point out, the infrastructure is gone. Apple can't single-handedly rebuild the infrastructure of the U.S.
It also fails to consider that Apple is a global company. It is not unreasonable for their supply chain to be global, as well.
Very few Americans would want those repetitive and boring manufacturing jobs Apple shipped to China..
Is that a fact now. Well contrary to popular mythology, Americans aren't lazy and generally never have been. I think what you mean is that Americans can't afford to work at the Chinese equivalent of slave labor wages with the US cost of living.
Jobs' comment that 'those jobs aren't coming back" seems to have been saying "As CEO I will place shareholder profits above American manufacturing jobs." It has to be one of the least imaginative statements the man ever said. The government in the US is weak about these things and should tie corporate tax rates to the numbers of jobs these companies create overseas to make it in their interest to create and keep those jobs at home. After all each job shipped 'over there' is a source of tax the government loses 'over here'. Even the most right wing hawk will have to admit that without a tax base you simply can't afford to go to war.
Well said. What people don't realize is that even if Apple were able to afford the labor costs (or were able to have a fully automated lights out factory), it wouldn't solve anything. US manufacturing is at a huge disadvantage due to:
- Labor laws (even in a lights-out factory, there are employees)
- Liability laws
- Health, safety, and environment laws
- Administrative overhead
- Tax policies
- And so on
And that doesn't even get into the fact that, as you point out, the infrastructure is gone. Apple can't single-handedly rebuild the infrastructure of the U.S.
It also fails to consider that Apple is a global company. It is not unreasonable for their supply chain to be global, as well.
I agree, but I want to relativize two of your points.
- Health, safety, and environment laws
Apple has improved these points a lot in the past e.g. by banning toxic substances and cutting overtimes. Their might be a chance in the future to fulfill reasonable adjusted laws in the US without the need to ditch necessary standards.
- Labor laws
I'm not convinced that this point is a show-stopper. I have seen great collaboration with workers' representations at companies in countries with much stronger labor laws.
It's all about productivity and productivity not necessarily implies abuse.
It's an insult to the memory of anyone that did suffer as a slave to suggest that one has traveled for days hoping they would get picked to work at factory is somehow a slave. They don't get paid well but neither doesn't anyone in any country for easily had jobs that require no special skill or background. Foxconn hires employees the way my first jobs as a teenage hires me..
Uh, no not really. Slaves got a roof over their heads and had very little else to show for their 14 hours a day at the end of a month. They were beaten or even killed if they tried to organize other slaves to change things. The fact that unions are basically illegal in China - and that people are jailed, beaten and also killed for trying to press for worker's rights there - levels your comparison of Chinese labor with that of unionized workers in the west (who are (*were*) often far from unskilled). The only difference is that in China they're "free" to quit and go take another job under the exact same conditions and with the exact same lack of protection. You need to factor in poverty and what that can make people do to put food in their bellies - crazy things like travel for days in the hope of getting picked to work in a dead-end factory job so they too can get a roof over their heads, also without much more to show for it at the end of the month.
The US has never known how to make microelectronics, other than chip fabrication. All mass manufacture of consumer electroncs went to Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, etc. decades ago.
Japan, Korea etc are not a military threat. China is huge and can produce everything faster and without any outside resources unlike the US which can't even protect their borders from illegal immigrants let alone agree on any sort of coherent foreign policy. China is not encumbered by any such bureaucratic red tape and could become the premminet world power within the next decade.
If you don't find that a bit disconcerting then you are totally in denial. Loss of high tech manufacturing in the US, whenever it began, is a very dangerous situation.