Apple's overseas manufacturing operations offer flexibility, not just savings - report - Page 4

According to http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=AAPL+Major+Holders the top Institutional Holders dwarf the top Mutual Fund holders.

wouldn't be great not having to every worry about loosing/finding a job?
I am an engineer, and I work as a consultant. I believe everyone, EVERYONE is worried about loosing it job (at least on some level).

I don't give a crapt about having a cool phone, a reading/playing/touching pad, or a light laptop if that would mean I would not have to worry about getting a job.

F4ck the system... let's all work on building an Anti-matter engine, and produce food in mass quantity!. All our problems will eventually go away.

Did anyone see that the RIM co-CEOs stepped down. News at 11....

In other words I'm waiting or AI to post the story.

If you are given a choice of feeding a starving child and giving a child another jacket - which one you will do?

I agree that the Chinese workers are not enjoying all the benefits of their US counterparts and they are paid poorly ($1 per hour). However, think for a moment if they do not earn this $1. They will starve, they will have nothing to feed themselves, their families. I know you may say that it's not Apple's headche. Then why should it be Apple's headache to create more middle class jobs in the US, provide more means to waste food that can feed some entire nations?

If you, US people are so inclined to "save" peoples by bombing them, you should tolerate a little downgrade in your lifestyle to support your genorous help for those who need it.

Here's one:

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/values/


Want a few hundred more? Look here:

http://fairtradeusa.org/products-partners

Sorry to post this here...

I wanted th Giants to beat the 49ers...

But this is shit... We won... But what just happened here?

The guys that won the toss for the 15 minute overtime -- could not win by scoring a field goal...

...but the guys that lost the toss -- could!

How do you coach that?

A really pissed winning fan!

Nike.

I understand what you are trying to say, but the simple fact that Apple does not think it prudent to move jobs to the US has absolutely nothing to do with morality. Apple is not playing the morality game, they are simply making sound business decisions. Why would Apple ever consider doing this? It would be really bad for business! The problem here is our government, NOT Apple. The last thing you said was, "Apple has freedom in the USA. They should support that freedom by manufacturing products in the USA." What is the connection between freedom and manufacturing? That last statement is ridiculous and could easily be attributed to Sarah Palin. I applaud Mr. Jobs for being honest with the President. Those jobs are never coming back; That is unless many laws in this free country of ours are changed.

Tax holiday was used in the past.

1) It did not have a meaningful effect on job creation.

2) It only convinced companies to hold off as long as possible until the government finally gave in to demands.

3) Finally, and most importantly, it renewed companies interest in moving jobs OUT of America (no need to create factories or jobs in the US) since their profits generated overseas will, eventually, be collected (with lower tax no less). Plus, as a bonus, lower labor costs in other countries with fewer regulations further beefing up their bottom lines are just iceing on the cake.

Dont fall for it US Government (most likely they will).


The state of America's global competitiveness is looking bleaker and bleaker as the years go by.

This outsourcing movement isnt just happening in the manufacturing sector. Its also happening, increasingly, in the service sector as well ( accounting, design, product development etc. ).

Soon, an "American" company will only be a shell with its legal entity headquartered in the US, while the bulk (perhaps >90% of the operational assets will be in a foreign country. Would you still consider that as an "American" company?

"Buy American"..... right?

In closing, who gives a crap about Americans and their welfare, as long as I'm making my shareholders happy with capital gains in their stocks, its all good right? At the same time, if I can pay as low tax as possible, screw the government too.

If Steve were around, he'd say Apple exists to make the best products in the world.
And I would believe it.

That looks like Apple demolishing someone for patent infringement!

Wow... I hope I never have as little to look forward to as you do... Sad!

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

--Abraham Lincoln

American interests are no longer about people of America. Its just about the WallStreet and its thugs. Sorry for this more generic statement, in no sense I'm talking about Apple here.


As long as Americans own that Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and extract oil 'for' other nations (allies) they can still make money by threatening the world of wars. It feels good for some people to strike off some nations from the map once every re-election time.

SOPA/PIPA is all about war. they can manufacture everything outside the USA and keep a close vigil on American IP. Someone violating the IP will be invaded and all their natural resources captured (polite replacement for word 'stolen').

I just hope Apple one day will not become Monsanto.

Why don't you google that. You'll find the answer very quickly.

Surprise!

Oh, but it gets better.

Now have fun living on Kepler 22-b when you get there.

No no, he thinks Goldman Sachs is out there putting 10B into Apple shares and hoping to make a profit when the stock goes up. That someone at GS is sitting there trying to decide what GS should buy for itself. And he ACTUALLY BELIEVES THAT. Sadly, I'd bet most of those dummies protesting wall street believe the same thing. Those wall street fat cats!

Right. Do you understand what business Vangard is in? Try googling it and see what their main product line is. The same goes for the rest of those companies.

What exactly do you think "institutional" investors do? What do you think CALPERS does?

If you don't know the answers to those questions, you should not be participating in this debate until you educate yourself. Ignorance is not helpful here.

Wikipedia

• A July 2008 investigation by Australian Channel 7 News found a large number of cases involving forced labour in one of the largest Nike apparel factories. The factory located in Malaysia was filmed by an undercover crew who found instances of squalid living conditions and forced labour. Nike have since stated that they will take corrective action to ensure the abuse does not continue.[30]
  
  As of July 2011, Nike stated that two-thirds of its factories producing Converse products still do not meet the company's standards for worker treatment. A July 2011 Associated Press article stated that employees at the company's plants in Indonesia reported constant abuse from supervisors.[31]

Here, this story is the latest news on the Indonesia affair. It is one week old:

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/busin...vertime/490684

Nike does more than Apple, but by their own admission two thirds of their suppliers for Converse (owned by Nike since 2003 -- plenty of time to fix problems) don't meet their own standards? How does that work? Seems that unlike Apple, they are either completely ineffective at correcting problems, or they really don't care all that much.

Definitely not better than Apple in that regard.

Next? How about the Gap? How their own bylaws allow child labor in certain circumstances where Apple's prohibit the same? How about that?

It's called 'Globalization' folks. Labor is sent to where it's cheapest and capital where it can get the highest returns. Unfortunately, the semi-skilled or unskilled US worker is going to get the short end of the stick. Even if they could be trained to do these jobs, it's simply cheaper and more efficient to use foreign labor. Some parts of the US will do better than others. Namely, high-tech centers, such as Silicon Valley, and finance-centric centers such as NYC. The industrial Mid-West and parts of the South have been especially hard hit. Our political system doesn't have answers and our public education systems are ill-equipt as well. This is simply the new reality...

Apple should bring home the cash and pay taxes on it. That would help all of us. They won't create new jobs with a tax holiday. They would only use it to pay multi-million dollar salaries to their execs.

For those who want to bash Apple for being greedy, let's not forget that Apple is neither the first corporation to outsource jobs nor is it the only one engaged in it. As for Foxconn, Apple is not the only customer so I fail to understand why they should be the ones to pay Foxconn higher wages. Are Foxconn's other customers ready to pitch in to pay higher wages to Foxconn employees?

The way I'm seeing it, people seem to imply that others outsource to China and use Foxconn because they don't have a choice but Apple has the financial resources to take the hit to their margins and should create jobs in the US. I will comment on this but I want to address the topic of margins. People seem to say that Apple is greedy for maintaining such wide margins. Let me tell you people something. It's business. Every business wants large profit margins. You people criticizing Apple for having large profit margins would do the same thing in Apple's position.

Also, look at it another way. In a bad economy, profits fall and margins shrink. However, if you have a 30% margin, your margin might shrink to 10% or 5% but you're still making money. Contrast that with a company that typically runs 5% margins and sees those margins shrink to the negatives. The latter company would have to lay off people left and right. The former may not have to. In fact, Apple was still hiring.

Also, Apple contributes quite a bit to the US economy. First of all, Apple's products are designed by engineers in Cupertino. Also, if you look at the BOM for iOS devices, a lot of them are designed by American companies. For example, Qualcomm supplies the CDMA chip for the iPhone and iPad. Qualcomm is an American company. Qualcomm is putting money in the pockets of Qualcomm and its employees in the process. Also, Apple operates tons of stores in the US. That provides jobs. Apple and other players in the smartphone space, e.g. Google, have ushered in a new era in mobile applications. We have barely scratched the surface of what mobile apps can do. From 2008 to 2010, Apple paid out over $1 billion to iOS developers. The App Store has helped the mobile applications industry grow by leaps and bounds, creating thousands of jobs in the process. So manufacturing jobs aren't the only way of contributing to the US economy.

For those who want to bash Apple for being greedy, let's not forget that Apple is neither the first corporation to outsource jobs nor is it the only one engaged in it. As for Foxconn, Apple is not the only customer so I fail to understand why they should be the ones to pay Foxconn higher wages. Are Foxconn's other customers ready to pitch in to pay higher wages to Foxconn employees?

The way I'm seeing it, people seem to imply that others outsource to China and use Foxconn because they don't have a choice but Apple has the financial resources to take the hit to their margins and should create jobs in the US. I will comment on this but I want to address the topic of margins. People seem to say that Apple is greedy for maintaining such wide margins. Let me tell you people something. It's business. Every business wants large profit margins. You people criticizing Apple for having large profit margins would do the same thing in Apple's position.

Also, look at it another way. In a bad economy, profits fall and margins shrink. However, if you have a 30% margin, your margin might shrink to 10% or 5% but you're still making money. Contrast that with a company that typically runs 5% margins and sees those margins shrink to the negatives. The latter company would have to lay off people left and right. The former may not have to. In fact, Apple was still hiring.

Also, Apple contributes quite a bit to the US economy. First of all, Apple's products are designed by engineers in Cupertino. Also, if you look at the BOM for iOS devices, a lot of them are designed by American companies. For example, Qualcomm supplies the CDMA chip for the iPhone and iPad. Qualcomm is an American company. Qualcomm is putting money in the pockets of Qualcomm and its employees in the process. Also, Apple operates tons of stores in the US. That provides jobs. Apple and other players in the smartphone space, e.g. Google, have ushered in a new era in mobile applications. We have barely scratched the surface of what mobile apps can do. From 2008 to 2010, Apple paid out over $1 billion to iOS developers. The App Store has helped the mobile applications industry grow by leaps and bounds, creating thousands of jobs in the process. So manufacturing jobs aren't the only way of contributing to the US economy.

For those who want to bash Apple for being greedy, let's not forget that Apple is neither the first corporation to outsource jobs nor is it the only one engaged in it. As for Foxconn, Apple is not the only customer so I fail to understand why they should be the ones to pay Foxconn higher wages. Are Foxconn's other customers ready to pitch in to pay higher wages to Foxconn employees?

The way I'm seeing it, people seem to imply that others outsource to China and use Foxconn because they don't have a choice but Apple has the financial resources to take the hit to their margins and should create jobs in the US. I will comment on this but I want to address the topic of margins. People seem to say that Apple is greedy for maintaining such wide margins. Let me tell you people something. It's business. Every business wants large profit margins. You people criticizing Apple for having large profit margins would do the same thing in Apple's position.

Also, look at it another way. In a bad economy, profits fall and margins shrink. However, if you have a 30% margin, your margin might shrink to 10% or 5% but you're still making money. Contrast that with a company that typically runs 5% margins and sees those margins shrink to the negatives. The latter company would have to lay off people left and right. The former may not have to. In fact, Apple was still hiring.

Also, Apple contributes quite a bit to the US economy. First of all, Apple's products are designed by engineers in Cupertino. Also, if you look at the BOM for iOS devices, a lot of them are designed by American companies. For example, Qualcomm supplies the CDMA chip for the iPhone and iPad. Qualcomm is an American company. Qualcomm is putting money in the pockets of Qualcomm and its employees in the process. Also, Apple operates tons of stores in the US. That provides jobs. Apple and other players in the smartphone space, e.g. Google, have ushered in a new era in mobile applications. We have barely scratched the surface of what mobile apps can do. From 2008 to 2010, Apple paid out over $1 billion to iOS developers. The App Store has helped the mobile applications industry grow by leaps and bounds, creating thousands of jobs in the process. So manufacturing jobs aren't the only way of contributing to the US economy.

gosh, man, you are the reason why china is kicking our axx and keeping doing it for at least the past 10 years. if you can not wake up, 10 years later you would wake up with another trillion debt from china.

china DO have private property;
china DO speak freely as long as you don't want to explicitly overrule gov;
china DO choose their jobs freely;
china DO interact with others freely;
china DO have a free labor market;

in certain sense, china's capitalism is very much like that of japan in 80s.

it is not currency issue at all. over the past 5 years, chinese YUAN raised to 6.3-to-$1 conversion rate from 8.5-to-$1. look at our deficit with them, it is not shrinking, but increasing!!! those god damned politicians in washington all wanted to cry like baby for something they don't want to admit: they did not manage this country well. we are still importing the same stuff with higher price while american have to pay that difference from 8.5 to 6.3.

it is not the cheaper manufacture in china causing america into this madness. american have been outsourcing labor to east asia since ww2. my kitchen cabinet was made in korea in 70s. so if not china, someone will pick up these labor intensive work.

what went wrong america?

i am surprised to hear that our president asked a private sector CEO for some basic field situations. where are his advisors? can't they provide some better stuff?

we are proud of our democracy. but please take a look at the price we have to pay. don't take me wrong about democracy, but i don't think we need spend almost a billion to elect a president. yes, every 4 years, we have a new president. but take a deep look at washington, they are all the same old people your grandparents and my grandparents knew. when they are elected to be expected to fix problems for us, they would do nothing literally until their time is up. then we would have to pay to elect another one among them. we all called up chinese government as dull and undemocratic. but can anyone tell me how a god damned undemocratic country lent us a trillion dollar! ya, politicians blamed china cheaper labor or currency manipulation and unfair trade. but, i did not hear anyone among them pointing out what went wrong with us.

you know what? sometimes, i think we have to ask chinese to adopt the same political system as we do. this way, it would exhaust their money to elect their leaders and fail them and collapse completely. just like after a bank collapse, we, as owing china money, would be debt free.

I'm being a realist while you are being a "delusionist".

But then again, as a shareholder, you wouldnt want to hear the truth.

The skill most missing from American workers, is the skill to take it up the butt and happily ask for another. The monsters at Apple should keep their billions off shore, we don't want their child labor derived dollars in this country. Could Apple please stop whining about paying taxes LIKE THE REST of us. Who do they think they are? Android, anyone?

There is truly only one reason why Apple and all the other companies that do business in China will not come back and why we can't compete with them. the Chinese government helps companies like Foxcom. Almost every big company in China is government subsidized. Our idea of helping companies is giving them tax breaks. Big corps could care less about taxes. they are taxed so little right now because of all the loop holes. Say goodbye to manufacturing in the USA.