Brazilian billionaire hopes to court Apple for device assembly - Page 3

Originally Posted by milkmage

where in the United States are you going to find people working for the US equivalent of the Chinese wage? The cost of living (especially in CA) is so high that you simply cannot afford to live here on minimum wage (and factory workers in China get far less than even the cheapest labor in the US). Minimum wage in CA in $8.00/hr.. Chinese will work 2 DAYS for that.

Originally Posted by zoetmb

While I agree that it would be great to produce Apple product in the U.S., as they originally did (in California), there's no way that could happen without a substantial increase in retail prices...probably double. Chinese workers are currently working for the equivalent of $135 a month. Even U.S. minimum wage would cost a lot more money. Furthermore, Chinese manufacturing works on very short margins. (And this is why I think pushing the Chinese to increase the value of their currency is a joke. Even if their currency doubled in value, it still wouldn't return any manufacturing to the U.S.)

Originally Posted by Roos24

Always the same answer.

In Germany, people keep buying Mercedes and BMW at prices twice that of a comparable Lexus. Why? Because if they would buy a Lexus their money would leave the country and they would have to pay the unemployed in their own country. It's a double-edged sword. It works there, why would it not work here?

Originally Posted by Roos24

Always the same answer.

In Germany, people keep buying Mercedes and BMW at prices twice that of a comparable Lexus. Why? Because if they would buy a Lexus their money would leave the country and they would have to pay the unemployed in their own country. It's a double-edged sword. It works there, why would it not work here?

Originally Posted by Phone-UI-Guy

If Brazil would do away with their anti-import tariffs, you wouldn't need to produce the products in-country. Their protectionism is amazing and the fact that companies have to build product there to avoid the penalties is just dumb. Let them pay twice of what everyone else does until they open up their market to the rest of the world.

Originally Posted by Middleman

It really doesn't matter where you look or locate to on Earth, the problem is still the same.
The problem we have is money itself, and how we've all been hooked line and sinker, into believing it is something that somehow magically solves all our problems, when it only exacerbates it.

Originally Posted by brlawyer

As a Brazilian citizen working overseas, I can only hope this is true, for the following reasons:

- We all speak ONE single language and have no internal terrorism/sectarian problems or natural disasters like many others (although urban violence is still a concern in some areas);

- We have the hottest girls on Earth, bar none;

- And NO, we are NOT "Latinos" in the formal US sense of the term - we have virtually NO indigenous population, we don't speak fucking Spanish and we don't share any values with other Latin American countries - Mexico is much closer in every respect to the US than to Brazil.

Originally Posted by Roos24

Always the same answer.

In Germany, people keep buying Mercedes and BMW at prices twice that of a comparable Lexus. Why? Because if they would buy a Lexus their money would leave the country and they would have to pay the unemployed in their own country. It's a double-edged sword. It works there, why would it not work here?

Originally Posted by Roos24

Always the same answer.

In Germany, people keep buying Mercedes and BMW at prices twice that of a comparable Lexus. Why? Because if they would buy a Lexus their money would leave the country and they would have to pay the unemployed in their own country. It's a double-edged sword. It works there, why would it not work here?

Originally Posted by brlawyer

As a Brazilian citizen working overseas, I can only hope this is true, for the following reasons:

- Brazil is the second-biggest Western democracy behind the US;

Originally Posted by Middleman

It really doesn't matter where you look or locate to on Earth, the problem is still the same.
The problem we have is money itself, and how we've all been hooked line and sinker, into believing it is something that somehow magically solves all our problems, when it only exacerbates it.

We are all born free men, but I believe we have been lied to since birth by our so-called leaders that it is a neccessity, when from a spiritual perspective it hardly is. Look at how we view things now in life to see how low we've gone....so afraid of this job being exported, or that job taken, or this 'competitors products' being better. We are so focused on the loss of an income or job and competing with our very own brothers whether we are Chinese, Taiwanese, Brazilian or American we are losing our focus on our own true freedom......think about it!

If we are to survive the coming years what must change first is our belief of property and ownership. Nobody should be more wealthy than the next person to them, and nobody should have more acreage either. Wealth and property should be equal amongst all, because it is only equality that provides balance. If there is no equality, then there is an imbalance in our own belief systems about rights, and this all boils down to the spiritual and how we each see things. Truthfully we all stem from the same source Creator, so in essence all Life are family. Also I have always believed that, if the world is working perfectly, ideally we don't need charities. This is because the existence of a charity means there is a problem in the 'system' that we are working in.

The other aspect, is our belief in 'working'. Most people's belief in work is that it is a toil, that there is competition and they 'must' be paid this amount to be happy. It shouldn't be. You should be happy at all times and unaffected by whatever pay you have because you are adding more value into those products.

Which brings me to automation. Automation should have helped make humanity's lives better, not worse. The reason we fear it right now is because we have automation geared towards a monetary financial model instead of a resource-based model economy (google Venus Project) where a simple work contract is all one needs to have all their other needs provided for by society. Until we work together on a system of governance based upon free and open principles, whereby we collectively combine our knowledge and resources as a race, we will never truly be free.

Originally Posted by Radar

Absolutely true! But I'd still favor Brazil over China simply because China is getting far too big for their boots these days and they need to know they can't dictate their terms to every nation on earth.

I'm not speaking of Chinese people here of course, but the Chinese government.

Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh

A diversified manufacturing base for Apple is in their own best interests. But... Brazil's popluation is under 200MM, and they don't really have expertise in this area, do they? I would think they would need to get a Hon Hai or the ilk to run the thing.

Interesting concept though. Hope a factory comes to the US as well eventually... but just for domestic consumption rates.

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

The eighth richest man in the world hopes he will be able to convince Apple to assemble its products in Brazil, rather than in sometimes-controversial facilities in China.

According to MacMagazine in Brazil, Eike Batista is looking to court businesses to fill in 90 square miles of space at the Port of Acu. He said bringing Apple to Brazil would benefit the country, as customers there would likely no longer have to "pay twice what you pay in the United States."

Batista is clearly dreaming big, as his backup plan is to pitch his plan to carmaker BMW. Construction work is already under way on the Port of Acu, a $1.6 billion project in southeast Brazil.

Batista is a Brazilian entrepreneur who made his fortune in the mining industry. As of 2010, the 53-year-old has a total net worth of $27 billion, and he has publicly stated he hopes to eventually become the richest person in the world. For comparison, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has a net worth of $6.1 billion, making him the 42nd wealthiest American.

Apple's dependance on companies in the Far East to create and assemble its products has at times been a point of controversy. Earlier this year, the iPhone maker was compelled to make a public statement after a rash of suicides occurred at the manufacturing hub of Foxconn in Shenzhen, China.

Apple began auditing its plants in 2006 after a newspaper report suggested workers at a Foxconn plant were treated unfairly and forced to operate under sweatshop-like conditions. Apple now conducts an annual audit of its overseas partners, and last year found that more than half weren't paying their workers valid overtime rates.

Originally Posted by Alonso Perez

The shining example of soaring US unemployment and manufacturing job loss is hardly going to convince Brazilians to stop protecting their economy. Opening up your market leads to cheap crap (and not-so-crap, like Apple stuff) from China, but then what?

Dell is already building in Brazil, as is Sony. Apple can play or stay out. Brazil means Mercosur, which essentially means most of South America.

This is up to Apple. I sure don't see Brazil changing a successful growth model for the sake of one brand.

Originally Posted by Jume

Then Apple store would look like:

iPad - From 1299$
iPhone - From $999$
iPod classic - Just 677$
MacBook - From 2499$
MacBookPro - From 2999$
....

Originally Posted by sjdelsur

A Brazilian asshole who doesn't know what he's talking about, and makes his own people sound so stupid and un-educated. Feel sorry for the country of Brazil who gave birth to such lowlife. Portuguese people are Latinos you dumb ass, and a large number of your people are mestizos, enough said!!! Asshole, go back to your crap pit, you'd wish you knew Spanish, one of the most beautiful sounding languages in the world with a native speaker population of almost a billion people, you asshole. I'd wish I had you in front of me so I can kick your ass.

Originally Posted by Prof. Peabody

I am by no means an expert on this topic, but I'm fairly certain that it's not just the wages. The way the Chinese economy is set up, it would be cheaper by far to do an automated factory in China than the USA, so even if they could find a way to make an automated USA factory competitive with the current factories in China, if they transposed that new automated factory to China instead, then they would save even more.

Originally Posted by brlawyer

Bring it on, you 2-post moron...I have nothing against Spanish, but we just don't speak it nor fancy Ricky Martin.

So if you're offended as a Los Angeles latino immigrant, just swallow it and chill out - and next time go take your stupid inferiority complex elsewhere before playing the nerdish virtual bully.

And NO, we are NOT "Latinos" in the formal US sense of the term - we have virtually NO indigenous population, we don't speak fucking Spanish and we don't share any values with other Latin American countries

Originally Posted by SockRolid

So bring the Foxconn workers to Acu and pay them more than they got in China and less than the per-capita wage in Brazil. The shorter shipping distance just might make up the difference.

Originally Posted by Noliving

No it wouldn't, lets say it costs $600 in labor costs to make one iPhone in the US and lets say the factory is able to produce 1000 iPhones per hour. Guess what the labor costs are per iPhone, its only $.60 cents. Now instead of 1000 per hour lets just make it 10 iPhones per hour, the labor cost is only $60 then. You don't add hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the product you fool!

People like you that make those arguments are the biggest fing retards, you don't know how to do math.

Originally Posted by tzeshan

Apple does not manufacture its products in China. Does he understand this. It is Foxconn in Taiwan that manufactures Apple products in China. So if an American company or a Brazillian company that can offer to manufacture Apple products in US or Brazil at a price that can compete with Foxconn, Apple will certainly accept it.

Originally Posted by nunyabinez

Actually, China is not very advanced on automation. I was in China last year and went to a GM plant in Shanghi. There was little automation because the machines cost a lot more than what it costs to pay dozens of people to do the jobs.

I also spent some time in Guangzho (Canton) where much of the worlds electronics are made. You can literally buy products there for pennies on the dollar. I was dumbfounded trying to imagine how a product I might pay $200 could be made for less than $20. It seemed like the parts would have been more expensive than that.

China will dominate this area for a long time because they have a virtually endless supply of labor for whom almost any wage is an improvement over the life they previously had out on some farm. I think it would be great to have Apple go to Brazil, but I doubt they have the economic capability to produce things as inexpensively as China can. And in addition, if China starts losing manufacturing to other countries, all the government has to do is to subsidize the industry and prices will drop again and bring it back. I wouldn't want to be competing against the Chinese for this kind of work.

Originally Posted by Jkirk3279

I saw a cooking timer in the grocery aisle yesterday for $1.99.

I was stunned. That means it was made in China for... 20 cents?

I didn't buy it.

We need to re-build America, and the first thing to do is enact tariffs against China.

Then we can move assembly of iPads to Michigan.

Buy the components from Asia, but build the product here.

Originally Posted by sjdelsur

"we don't speak fucking Spanish", and I'm supposed to take that shit from a dumbass who's so immature and doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm sure you don't speak for the whole of Brazil, but I'll bet your dumb ass a lot of your people are scratching their heads and thinking how could one of our own fools, yeah that's what you are a fool, think and speak that way.

As for for assumption that I am an immigrant, well, you got that wrong, again you dumbass. I'm fifth generation American born and raised with Latin American roots, and proud of it. Yeah, but since you're not part of Latin America, you wouldn't know the difference in which part of the world Latin America is located, would you? A Brazilian in Switzerland, let me guess who's the immigrant.

Inferiority complex? Well, if you call working for one of the largest Aerospace/Defense consortiums in the world, being a degreed engineer with over fifteen years experience and with master's degree from one of the top engineering schools in world is having an inferiority complex, it goes to show your lack of education and sensibility towards people in general. If you can call standing up for refuting unfounded statements like you have made is having an inferiority complex, so be it.

And as for Ricky Martin, no disrespect to gay people, sounds like you're still in the closet and don't want to come out because you feel safe getting banged in the ass by your boyfriend, right? You must be the woman in the relationship, right?

May I have another one Sir...next time think before you write stupidity you dumb ass.