Ahhh. OK. Can we safely assume that you not only do not take any of the tax deductions available to you, but also pay additional over and above what you legally owe? How about when you go shopping for goods and services? When you buy your latest product from Apple, do you offer to pay them more than they ask for? At the grocery store do you regularly avoid sale prices and insist on paying the highest price? When your employer offers you a pay raise or bonus do you decline it?
Holy cow! That's not what he said at all! What I read from what he's saying is that he would be happier if corporations looked at the ethical consequences of their actions in their pursuit of profit, rather than "profit above everything else". A lot of people, when they get bonuses, or have extra wealth, donate it to charities, or other organizations that are doing good and helping the less fortunate, which could be seen as a "voluntary tax".
This whole idea of clouds and centralised storage seems totally bonkers to me. Apple's market is worldwide and it does a significant proportion of it's business beyond the shores of the US.
The proposal that all European based users of Apple products will be happy to have all their data stored on US servers the other side of the Atlantic, just because Steve Jobs is philosophically opposed to moving parts, is seriously flawed. Not to mention the sheer cost and inefficiency of sending all data back and forth across the Atlantic for no good reason.
Bandwidth - the transmission of data really - costs. Perhaps it is a dirt cheap commodity in the US but it certainly isn't in Australia and Europe. Mobile data roaming charges anyone? So on the basis of the sheer communications costs alone, I think the cloud idea and remote storage would not be viable globally. The very reason Apple made the iPhones GSM was the potential global market.
There is the security aspect of remote storage also, as in the lack theirof. Just two years ago we had this:
Quote:
\t
Last Updated: Thursday, 31 January 2008, 10:22 GMT
E-mail this to a friend \tPrintable version
Severed cables disrupt internet
Saudi Arabian men browse the internet
Internet outages have hit businesses and home use
Internet services have been disrupted in large parts of the Middle East and India following damage to two undersea cables in the Mediterranean.
There was disruption to 70% of the nationwide network in Egypt, and India suffered up to 60% disruption.
UK firms such as British Airways have told the BBC that call centres have been affected by the outage.
Industry experts said it could take up to one week to repair the damaged cables and resume full service.
Sort of takes the shine off the idea of extra-national remote storage, if you ask me.
Then there is national security. Under the Bush administration it became clear that the US security agencies were above the law and could bestow such protection on US Telecos that did their bidding in good faith. No government is going to allow any Apple products to be used within their public services if they rely and operate on the principle of remote US based storage.
While the Airs are nice exercises in design, there is no pressing need for laptops to be even that small. My 13" MBP has accompanied me as cabin baggage the equivalent of twice round the planet. Carrying it has been no trouble at all, apart from the hassle of taking it out of the bag multiple times for x-raying..
The truth is flash memory is too expensive compared to HDs. The idea of cloud computing and remote storage being necessary because Flash is too expensive and Apple don't want to use hard drives seems illogical to me. Effectively it is an acknowledgment that flash is too expensive, given the practicalities of peoples storage requirements, and attempts to address that reality by replacing local HD's with remote ones. Bonkers!
There are so many negatives and impracticalities that I don't think the data centre is intended for what people assume, otherwise they would be springing up around the world like mushrooms. I think the data centre is to take on Google on their home turf - search services.
No one has addressed the issue of telecoms links to this data centre. For streaming , remote storage and cloudiness, I would imagine there would be a need for massive bandwidth to this data centre. Have there been reports that such bandwidth has been provided?
My guess is that "Data Center and Call Center" is a zoning category in the area.
Also, right wing/glibatarian talking point people please keep it to the lower forum. You have plenty of space there to spin your mania.
That's an excellent point. If just a zoning designation it could be anything in the tech area ... do you know what that zoning designation is limited to or includes?
This whole idea of clouds and centralised storage seems totally bonkers to me. Apple's market is worldwide and it does a significant proportion of it's business beyond the shores of the US.
The proposal that all European based users of Apple products will be happy to have all their data stored on US servers the other side of the Atlantic, just because Steve Jobs is philosophically opposed to moving parts, is seriously flawed. Not to mention the sheer cost and inefficiency of sending all data back and forth across the Atlantic for no good reason.
Bandwidth - the transmission of data really - costs. Perhaps it is a dirt cheap commodity in the US but it certainly isn't in Australia and Europe. Mobile data roaming charges anyone? So on the basis of the sheer communications costs alone, I think the cloud idea and remote storage would not be viable globally. The very reason Apple made the iPhones GSM was the potential global market.
There is the security aspect of remote storage also, as in the lack theirof. Just two years ago we had this:
Sort of takes the shine off the idea of extra-national remote storage, if you ask me.
Then there is national security. Under the Bush administration it became clear that the US security agencies were above the law and could bestow such protection on US Telecos that did their bidding in good faith. No government is going to allow any Apple products to be used within their public services if they rely and operate on the principle of remote US based storage.
While the Airs are nice exercises in design, there is no pressing need for laptops to be even that small. My 13" MBP has accompanied me as cabin baggage the equivalent of twice round the planet. Carrying it has been no trouble at all, apart from the hassle of taking it out of the bag multiple times for x-raying..
The truth is flash memory is too expensive compared to HDs. The idea of cloud computing and remote storage being necessary because Flash is too expensive and Apple don't want to use hard drives seems illogical to me. Effectively it is an acknowledgment that flash is too expensive, given the practicalities of peoples storage requirements, and attempts to address that reality by replacing local HD's with remote ones. Bonkers!
There are so many negatives and impracticalities that I don't think the data centre is intended for what people assume, otherwise they would be springing up around the world like mushrooms. I think the data centre is to take on Google on their home turf - search services.
No one has addressed the issue of telecoms links to this data centre. For streaming , remote storage and cloudiness, I would imagine there would be a need for massive bandwidth to this data centre. Have there been reports that such bandwidth has been provided?
These are all valid points. But why do we assume that Apple will be overly concerned with global and/or governmental business in whatever they plan to use this data center for. This actually seems doubtful (specifically the governmental business). Secondly, when or if they pursue the wider global market for all of their cloud-based services, perhaps they will build another data center (say in Europe or Asia).
I suspect there isn't really anything terribly mysterious about this facility. It's just a data center to operate (perhaps in redundancy) their collection of online services.
I suspect there isn't really anything terribly mysterious about this facility. It's just a data center to operate (perhaps in redundancy) their collection of online services.
Apple has created the mystery by not stating what the centre is intended for when asked. If the intended use is mundane, then I doubt they would bother with the secrecy. Where Apple is concerned, they usually evoke secrecy to maintain the element of surprise when they introduce something new.
If they were going to need data centres in Europe and Asia, I think they would have been building them in parallel with the one in the US, otherwise anything new that was introduced that relied on them in order to function, would only work in The US initially and would be delayed elsewhere by the time it would take to build new centres from scratch - after the planning and environmental impact processes and requirements had been satisfied first of course, so add another year or so ;-)
Apple has created the mystery by not stating what the centre is intended for when asked. If the intended use is mundane, then I doubt they would bother with the secrecy. Where Apple is concerned, they usually evoke secrecy to maintain the element of surprise when they introduce something new.
Maybe. I think people are reading a lot more into this than is really there.
If they were going to need data centres in Europe and Asia, I think they would have been building them in parallel with the one in the US, otherwise anything new that was introduced that relied on them in order to function, would only work in The US initially and would be delayed elsewhere by the time it would take to build new centres from scratch - after the planning and environmental impact processes and requirements had been satisfied first of course, so add another year or so ;-)
But considering the costs of it (vs. the benefits of having data centers in other parts of the world), maybe they're taking it more slowly.
Ahhh. OK. Can we safely assume that you not only do not take any of the tax deductions available to you, but also pay additional over and above what you legally owe? How about when you go shopping for goods and services? When you buy your latest product from Apple, do you offer to pay them more than they ask for? At the grocery store do you regularly avoid sale prices and insist on paying the highest price? When your employer offers you a pay raise or bonus do you decline it?
It's not quite as simple as you would have us believe.
Are you a fan of the companies (mostly chemical manufacturers) that operate on the Mexican side of the border, even "tho their customer base is largely in the US of A, because the environmental laws in that country allow it to do what they cannot do "at home", thereby lowering disposal costs, even when they are aware that the toxic waste that they dispose of in irresponsible ways have disastrous results on citizens health?
Are you a fan of logging operations that clear cut the forest to "harvest the trees", leaving it mostly barren, because it's cheaper than doing it in a more responsible way, thus saving forests for future use?
Are you a fan of companies that have a customer base that largely resides in North America, but off loads jobs that, at times, include manufacturing, call centers, and even the book keeping services, to the cheapest part of the world, at any given time.
Are you a fan of companies that will set up dummy corporations in foreign countries, for the singular purpose of avoiding taxes in the country where they reside ... you know ... the country where they enjoy a standard of living that is, at least partially, paid for by ... taxes???
Do you see any CEO today that would imitate this behaviour of Henry Ford?:
The $5-a-day Workday
After the success of the moving assembly line, Henry Ford had another transformative idea: in January 1914, he startled the world by announcing that Ford Motor Company would pay $5 a day to its workers. The pay increase would also be accompanied by a shorter workday (from nine to eight hours). While this rate didn't automatically apply to every worker, it more than doubled the average autoworker's wage.
Henry Ford had reasoned that since it was now possible to build inexpensive cars in volume, more of them could be sold if employees could afford to buy them. The $5 day helped better the lot of all American workers and contributed to the emergence of the American middle class. In the process, Henry Ford had changed manufacturing forever. (bolded part mine)
The point I'm trying to make is simply this: .... Just because a company can fatten up it's "bottom line" by using techniques that some may question ... doesn't justify it doing so, but sadly, that is being ignored by the majority nowadays.
I took some small business courses last year due to considering some ideas I had. The biggest surprise was finding out how much I had to make to take home the same wages I make now. In NY it is very close to double. It only gets worst if you want good benefits. Contrary to what has been said in this thread the tax situation is getting worst, not better.
Just imagine what it costs Apple to keep engineers employed in California. It is likely in the range of 160000 a year. California is another example of a state where the entittlement mentality has out striped the ability of the tax payers to pay for all the goodies they demanded.
I'm not hear to say manufacturing over seas is a good thing as clearly it isn't. What I'm saying is that it is very difficult to compete in the current climate. Sadly there is a large machine tool building and automation base in my local area, a common theme you here these days is yes there is work but most of the systems are going to The far east. The builders aren't happy about it but they have families to feed too.
By the way it isn't just an issue of taxes either though that is a significant issue. There are numerous other goverment mandates that greatly increase the burden on American manufactures. Some of these are good but some highly debatable but all can be seen as taxes or mandates that make manufacturing very difficult in the USA.
It would be really nice if some part of Apple's manufacturing were to come back to the US wouldn't it.
If it effected the non US price of an Apple product it would be a terrible thing to happen. Getting a few jobs in the US doesn't help the 50% of Apple buyers that are not in the US
If it effected the non US price of an Apple product it would be a terrible thing to happen. Getting a few jobs in the US doesn't help the 50% of Apple buyers that are not in the US
Seriously, all these people wishing for Apple to manufacture in the US really don't understand global economics and the electronics manufacturing base in Asia. They say things like, "Bring the production of the iPhone to US and I'll be glad to pay $10 more for one." It just makes me laugh when I read stuff like this. At the very least, the iPhone will end up being at the very minimum 50% or, more likely, much more. It just isn't going to happen. How do these people expect Apple to compete with the likes of Samsung, LG, Sony, Nokia, HTC, etc. as well as other American companies like Motorola, Dell, and HP who also get their products manufactured in Asia?
Apple only started becoming more competitive price-wise and getting their operations act together when they closed down their US factories and moved manufacturing overseas shortly after Jobs came back and hired Tim Cook. There's no going back (or, more literally, coming back) now. As has been pointed out by other posters here, it's not just the cheaper labor wages overseas. The myriad taxes, unions, and environmental laws and regulations have made it virtually impossible to keep manufacturing competitive here in the States. Virtually all of the components (chips, displays, cases, etc.) would have to be bought from various suppliers in Asia anyway, so what would be the point?
The basic truth of the matter is that we (the American consumers) drove all this to happen and the Pandora's Box was opened decades ago when most Americans hadn't heard of Sony or Toyota. We want more for less. We want bargains. If it's free, so much the better. So American corporations competing for our dollars look at the situation and decide that they can get stuff made overseas much cheaper for basically the same things being made here and pass on the savings to us. So people here earning $30-and-up-an-hour (not including benefits, insurance, Workman's Comp, taxes, and other expenses for each head) for monotonous assembly line work (even janitorial work) are let go and they outsource. How can you blame them? We want the products cheap and aren't willing to pay more for the benefits of these unproductive and expensive workers.
How many people here in the US want to work in an assembly line putting phones together all day long for minimum wage or a little more? For that kind of money, they'd rather be working at a local mall selling shoes or sit in an office processing credit card orders. It's just how things are because, ultimately, we made things this way. Do we want to pay $150 for a pair of American-made Nike basketball shoes when exactly the same thing made in China can be had for $50? Oh, we still make a lot of stuff here. Caterpillar is an example of a badass American manufacturing company. As is Boeing. But these companies have something of real value that they can add to relatively very small volume but big-ticket products. They can do things that most foreign competitors just can't match. Manufacturing the iPhone or the iPad or Macs here just wouldn't add any value, just exorbitant costs. That's just the reality of the situation.
By the way, I've been traveling all over Asia (mainly China although I've also spent much time in Japan and Korea) since '93 for outsourcing and supply chain management work for several companies and still go there on a regular basis. East Asia is just where electronics manufacturing is at (besides various other industries). I've seen some amazing changes and progress being made there during my 17 years of regular travel. Their competitiveness is their manufacturing efficiency. Ours is creative ideas and engineering. Think about it. Why no software firms of note from Asia that could even dream of challenging the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google (although Baidu seems like it may end up dominating search in Asia) and Oracle, etc.? Our competitiveness is in what we can create and innovative ideas that we can come up with, not putting things together in massive assembly lines. And in this area, no one does it better than Apple.
Yes, and look at all those ginormous mansions all those tax-receiving teachers live in!
Why should a teacher live any better than the people of the community where they work? Frankly I don't get this constant whine about teachers and their supposed low pay. Back in my day I wasn't all that impressed with the intelligence level of the teaching staff at the school I attended.
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It's weird how people talk about taxes as if they're worse than death.
The problem isn't taxes per say as most people realize a need for government. The problem is related to what those taxes go for.
Quote:
The truth is, taxes pay for police.
Here is a good example, everybody realizes the need for police, but do we really need a squad car parked every quarter mile down the street? More so we need to stop crime in its tracks by drastically increasing executions, which would quickly and completely remove much of the criminal element fron society and greatly reduce the need for police in the first place.
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Taxes pay for fire fighters.
Never heard of volunteers?
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Taxes pay for roads.
Yes they do. At least taxes for tires and gas are suppose to, but many state governments have ethical problems here. They sell the taxes as as supporting the infra structure and then use the money for pet projects or to make up for short falls in the general fund.
Quote:
Taxes pay for public schools (you know, all those tax-receiving teachers!).
And public schools are something to be proud of? Not that I blame the schools as liberal judges have gone way to far with this idea that children have a right to an education. Many of your public schools could be cleaned up significantly by hanging the trouble causing students and thus drastically lowering the need for police. If you can't hang them the least you could do for society is to make their lives as miserable as humanly possible. As a society it has amazed me all my life that we put up with defective children in or schools and then wonder why they turn to a life of crime as adults
Oh by the way research seems to indicate that yes people exhibiting criminal behaviour are in fact defective and born that way.
Quote:
Taxes pay for public parks.
I'm all for parks but have mixed feelings on this idea of public as in free access. I'd much rather that people that use the facilities pay a bit just to hopefully cause a bit of thought on their part. Public parks are often abused by the users simply because of their free and "public" status.
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In a lot of modern, industrialized nations, taxes pay for public healthcare?i.e. so if you get sick, or are injured, you won't have to worry about if you'll be taken care of, or if you can afford it!
And what good has that done those countries? Besides it isn't an issue in the USA as we have public health care now for the poor. What many reject is giving up choice and the ability to tailor your insurance to your personal needs. The secondary issue is that public health care in many counties has been a failure. How good or bad it is depends upon many things including the political climate and the wealth of the country.
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Sure, it stings seeing a chunk of money taken out of each paycheck, but think about that next time you're driving down a smooth, well-maintained interstate highway,
Using your logic and being that I live in NY, we should have the smoothest roads in the world. A drive to PA or Ohio certainly and very quickly dispells that idea. In our case the vast majority of our taxes go to things the state should not be spending our money on. Hundreds of millions that could be spent on infra structure ends up being spent on welfare. Welfare that mind you is freely handed out without any expectations at all that the reciever attempts to better themselves.
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or enjoying a summer concert series in your local park?paid for by taxes!
There is no rational reason for the government to spend our tax money on concerts.
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Rather than anti-tax, people should be pro-fiscal responsibility.
Which you demonstrate a strange concept of. Your comment about concerts demonstrates that you have no idea what the role of government should be in society.
They could start digging for their own rare earths, since china seems to hold them back.
Not too far off Rabbit....last July China had 27% of the treasuries...this July it's down to 22%...they're investing the money in buying the mines in Africa instead of buying Treasuries!
Don't mean to sound alarmist...I think the best analogy I've heard is that if I owned a lot of stock in GE, would I be very interested in what GE did? Yes. Would I have any control on what GE did? No.
Their competitiveness is their manufacturing efficiency. Ours is creative ideas and engineering. Think about it. Why no software firms of note from Asia that could even dream of challenging the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google (although Baidu seems like it may end up dominating search in Asia) and Oracle, etc.? Our competitiveness is in what we can create and innovative ideas that we can come up with, not putting things together in massive assembly lines. And in this area, no one does it better than Apple.
This is basically so much BS. When the Japanese, for example, flooded the Amarican markets with cheap transistor radios, we were told, let them make the cheap stuff because American manufacturing is superior and we will continue to produce TVs and the big ticket items. It was widely believed that Americans would always dominate high end manufacturing. How did that work out? Likewise, There is nothing inherently deficient about Asians and other people that keeps them from being innovative. In fact, the next apple could verry well come from China in 20 years time ...maybe less.
Your general analysis of the situation (your travels notwithstanding) is completely devoid of deep thinking and simply parrots the party line of state capitalists. When you finally wake up to that fact, it could be too late for you to do anything to extricate yourself from your gloomy future. You see, capital moves globally quite easily, but labor, not so much. Once conditions are finalized, Americans (even many professionals) will be trying to maintain a 1st world standard of living at 3rd world salaries. Then the fun will really begin. My advice is to emigrate now if it's possible. If not, time to learn what scrappy really means.
Comments
For fuck's sake go back to your cave in PO.
Ahhh. OK. Can we safely assume that you not only do not take any of the tax deductions available to you, but also pay additional over and above what you legally owe? How about when you go shopping for goods and services? When you buy your latest product from Apple, do you offer to pay them more than they ask for? At the grocery store do you regularly avoid sale prices and insist on paying the highest price? When your employer offers you a pay raise or bonus do you decline it?
Holy cow! That's not what he said at all! What I read from what he's saying is that he would be happier if corporations looked at the ethical consequences of their actions in their pursuit of profit, rather than "profit above everything else". A lot of people, when they get bonuses, or have extra wealth, donate it to charities, or other organizations that are doing good and helping the less fortunate, which could be seen as a "voluntary tax".
The proposal that all European based users of Apple products will be happy to have all their data stored on US servers the other side of the Atlantic, just because Steve Jobs is philosophically opposed to moving parts, is seriously flawed. Not to mention the sheer cost and inefficiency of sending all data back and forth across the Atlantic for no good reason.
Bandwidth - the transmission of data really - costs. Perhaps it is a dirt cheap commodity in the US but it certainly isn't in Australia and Europe. Mobile data roaming charges anyone? So on the basis of the sheer communications costs alone, I think the cloud idea and remote storage would not be viable globally. The very reason Apple made the iPhones GSM was the potential global market.
There is the security aspect of remote storage also, as in the lack theirof. Just two years ago we had this:
\t
Last Updated: Thursday, 31 January 2008, 10:22 GMT
E-mail this to a friend \tPrintable version
Severed cables disrupt internet
Saudi Arabian men browse the internet
Internet outages have hit businesses and home use
Internet services have been disrupted in large parts of the Middle East and India following damage to two undersea cables in the Mediterranean.
There was disruption to 70% of the nationwide network in Egypt, and India suffered up to 60% disruption.
UK firms such as British Airways have told the BBC that call centres have been affected by the outage.
Industry experts said it could take up to one week to repair the damaged cables and resume full service.
Sort of takes the shine off the idea of extra-national remote storage, if you ask me.
Then there is national security. Under the Bush administration it became clear that the US security agencies were above the law and could bestow such protection on US Telecos that did their bidding in good faith. No government is going to allow any Apple products to be used within their public services if they rely and operate on the principle of remote US based storage.
While the Airs are nice exercises in design, there is no pressing need for laptops to be even that small. My 13" MBP has accompanied me as cabin baggage the equivalent of twice round the planet. Carrying it has been no trouble at all, apart from the hassle of taking it out of the bag multiple times for x-raying..
The truth is flash memory is too expensive compared to HDs. The idea of cloud computing and remote storage being necessary because Flash is too expensive and Apple don't want to use hard drives seems illogical to me. Effectively it is an acknowledgment that flash is too expensive, given the practicalities of peoples storage requirements, and attempts to address that reality by replacing local HD's with remote ones. Bonkers!
There are so many negatives and impracticalities that I don't think the data centre is intended for what people assume, otherwise they would be springing up around the world like mushrooms. I think the data centre is to take on Google on their home turf - search services.
No one has addressed the issue of telecoms links to this data centre. For streaming , remote storage and cloudiness, I would imagine there would be a need for massive bandwidth to this data centre. Have there been reports that such bandwidth has been provided?
Or the 19th century. Your choice.
Or the 19th century. Your choice.
Yes sweetie.
My guess is that "Data Center and Call Center" is a zoning category in the area.
Also, right wing/glibatarian talking point people please keep it to the lower forum. You have plenty of space there to spin your mania.
That's an excellent point. If just a zoning designation it could be anything in the tech area ... do you know what that zoning designation is limited to or includes?
This whole idea of clouds and centralised storage seems totally bonkers to me. Apple's market is worldwide and it does a significant proportion of it's business beyond the shores of the US.
The proposal that all European based users of Apple products will be happy to have all their data stored on US servers the other side of the Atlantic, just because Steve Jobs is philosophically opposed to moving parts, is seriously flawed. Not to mention the sheer cost and inefficiency of sending all data back and forth across the Atlantic for no good reason.
Bandwidth - the transmission of data really - costs. Perhaps it is a dirt cheap commodity in the US but it certainly isn't in Australia and Europe. Mobile data roaming charges anyone? So on the basis of the sheer communications costs alone, I think the cloud idea and remote storage would not be viable globally. The very reason Apple made the iPhones GSM was the potential global market.
There is the security aspect of remote storage also, as in the lack theirof. Just two years ago we had this:
Sort of takes the shine off the idea of extra-national remote storage, if you ask me.
Then there is national security. Under the Bush administration it became clear that the US security agencies were above the law and could bestow such protection on US Telecos that did their bidding in good faith. No government is going to allow any Apple products to be used within their public services if they rely and operate on the principle of remote US based storage.
While the Airs are nice exercises in design, there is no pressing need for laptops to be even that small. My 13" MBP has accompanied me as cabin baggage the equivalent of twice round the planet. Carrying it has been no trouble at all, apart from the hassle of taking it out of the bag multiple times for x-raying..
The truth is flash memory is too expensive compared to HDs. The idea of cloud computing and remote storage being necessary because Flash is too expensive and Apple don't want to use hard drives seems illogical to me. Effectively it is an acknowledgment that flash is too expensive, given the practicalities of peoples storage requirements, and attempts to address that reality by replacing local HD's with remote ones. Bonkers!
There are so many negatives and impracticalities that I don't think the data centre is intended for what people assume, otherwise they would be springing up around the world like mushrooms. I think the data centre is to take on Google on their home turf - search services.
No one has addressed the issue of telecoms links to this data centre. For streaming , remote storage and cloudiness, I would imagine there would be a need for massive bandwidth to this data centre. Have there been reports that such bandwidth has been provided?
These are all valid points. But why do we assume that Apple will be overly concerned with global and/or governmental business in whatever they plan to use this data center for. This actually seems doubtful (specifically the governmental business). Secondly, when or if they pursue the wider global market for all of their cloud-based services, perhaps they will build another data center (say in Europe or Asia).
I suspect there isn't really anything terribly mysterious about this facility. It's just a data center to operate (perhaps in redundancy) their collection of online services.
I suspect there isn't really anything terribly mysterious about this facility. It's just a data center to operate (perhaps in redundancy) their collection of online services.
Apple has created the mystery by not stating what the centre is intended for when asked. If the intended use is mundane, then I doubt they would bother with the secrecy. Where Apple is concerned, they usually evoke secrecy to maintain the element of surprise when they introduce something new.
If they were going to need data centres in Europe and Asia, I think they would have been building them in parallel with the one in the US, otherwise anything new that was introduced that relied on them in order to function, would only work in The US initially and would be delayed elsewhere by the time it would take to build new centres from scratch - after the planning and environmental impact processes and requirements had been satisfied first of course, so add another year or so ;-)
Apple has created the mystery by not stating what the centre is intended for when asked. If the intended use is mundane, then I doubt they would bother with the secrecy. Where Apple is concerned, they usually evoke secrecy to maintain the element of surprise when they introduce something new.
Maybe. I think people are reading a lot more into this than is really there.
If they were going to need data centres in Europe and Asia, I think they would have been building them in parallel with the one in the US, otherwise anything new that was introduced that relied on them in order to function, would only work in The US initially and would be delayed elsewhere by the time it would take to build new centres from scratch - after the planning and environmental impact processes and requirements had been satisfied first of course, so add another year or so ;-)
But considering the costs of it (vs. the benefits of having data centers in other parts of the world), maybe they're taking it more slowly.
Ahhh. OK. Can we safely assume that you not only do not take any of the tax deductions available to you, but also pay additional over and above what you legally owe? How about when you go shopping for goods and services? When you buy your latest product from Apple, do you offer to pay them more than they ask for? At the grocery store do you regularly avoid sale prices and insist on paying the highest price? When your employer offers you a pay raise or bonus do you decline it?
It's not quite as simple as you would have us believe.
Are you a fan of the companies (mostly chemical manufacturers) that operate on the Mexican side of the border, even "tho their customer base is largely in the US of A, because the environmental laws in that country allow it to do what they cannot do "at home", thereby lowering disposal costs, even when they are aware that the toxic waste that they dispose of in irresponsible ways have disastrous results on citizens health?
Are you a fan of logging operations that clear cut the forest to "harvest the trees", leaving it mostly barren, because it's cheaper than doing it in a more responsible way, thus saving forests for future use?
Are you a fan of companies that have a customer base that largely resides in North America, but off loads jobs that, at times, include manufacturing, call centers, and even the book keeping services, to the cheapest part of the world, at any given time.
Are you a fan of companies that will set up dummy corporations in foreign countries, for the singular purpose of avoiding taxes in the country where they reside ... you know ... the country where they enjoy a standard of living that is, at least partially, paid for by ... taxes???
Do you see any CEO today that would imitate this behaviour of Henry Ford?:
The $5-a-day Workday
After the success of the moving assembly line, Henry Ford had another transformative idea: in January 1914, he startled the world by announcing that Ford Motor Company would pay $5 a day to its workers. The pay increase would also be accompanied by a shorter workday (from nine to eight hours). While this rate didn't automatically apply to every worker, it more than doubled the average autoworker's wage.
Henry Ford had reasoned that since it was now possible to build inexpensive cars in volume, more of them could be sold if employees could afford to buy them. The $5 day helped better the lot of all American workers and contributed to the emergence of the American middle class. In the process, Henry Ford had changed manufacturing forever. (bolded part mine)
The point I'm trying to make is simply this: .... Just because a company can fatten up it's "bottom line" by using techniques that some may question ... doesn't justify it doing so, but sadly, that is being ignored by the majority nowadays.
$30/hour? In NYC try north of $50...
I took some small business courses last year due to considering some ideas I had. The biggest surprise was finding out how much I had to make to take home the same wages I make now. In NY it is very close to double. It only gets worst if you want good benefits. Contrary to what has been said in this thread the tax situation is getting worst, not better.
Just imagine what it costs Apple to keep engineers employed in California. It is likely in the range of 160000 a year. California is another example of a state where the entittlement mentality has out striped the ability of the tax payers to pay for all the goodies they demanded.
I'm not hear to say manufacturing over seas is a good thing as clearly it isn't. What I'm saying is that it is very difficult to compete in the current climate. Sadly there is a large machine tool building and automation base in my local area, a common theme you here these days is yes there is work but most of the systems are going to The far east. The builders aren't happy about it but they have families to feed too.
By the way it isn't just an issue of taxes either though that is a significant issue. There are numerous other goverment mandates that greatly increase the burden on American manufactures. Some of these are good but some highly debatable but all can be seen as taxes or mandates that make manufacturing very difficult in the USA.
It would be really nice if some part of Apple's manufacturing were to come back to the US wouldn't it.
If it effected the non US price of an Apple product it would be a terrible thing to happen. Getting a few jobs in the US doesn't help the 50% of Apple buyers that are not in the US
If it effected the non US price of an Apple product it would be a terrible thing to happen. Getting a few jobs in the US doesn't help the 50% of Apple buyers that are not in the US
Seriously, all these people wishing for Apple to manufacture in the US really don't understand global economics and the electronics manufacturing base in Asia. They say things like, "Bring the production of the iPhone to US and I'll be glad to pay $10 more for one." It just makes me laugh when I read stuff like this. At the very least, the iPhone will end up being at the very minimum 50% or, more likely, much more. It just isn't going to happen. How do these people expect Apple to compete with the likes of Samsung, LG, Sony, Nokia, HTC, etc. as well as other American companies like Motorola, Dell, and HP who also get their products manufactured in Asia?
Apple only started becoming more competitive price-wise and getting their operations act together when they closed down their US factories and moved manufacturing overseas shortly after Jobs came back and hired Tim Cook. There's no going back (or, more literally, coming back) now. As has been pointed out by other posters here, it's not just the cheaper labor wages overseas. The myriad taxes, unions, and environmental laws and regulations have made it virtually impossible to keep manufacturing competitive here in the States. Virtually all of the components (chips, displays, cases, etc.) would have to be bought from various suppliers in Asia anyway, so what would be the point?
The basic truth of the matter is that we (the American consumers) drove all this to happen and the Pandora's Box was opened decades ago when most Americans hadn't heard of Sony or Toyota. We want more for less. We want bargains. If it's free, so much the better. So American corporations competing for our dollars look at the situation and decide that they can get stuff made overseas much cheaper for basically the same things being made here and pass on the savings to us. So people here earning $30-and-up-an-hour (not including benefits, insurance, Workman's Comp, taxes, and other expenses for each head) for monotonous assembly line work (even janitorial work) are let go and they outsource. How can you blame them? We want the products cheap and aren't willing to pay more for the benefits of these unproductive and expensive workers.
How many people here in the US want to work in an assembly line putting phones together all day long for minimum wage or a little more? For that kind of money, they'd rather be working at a local mall selling shoes or sit in an office processing credit card orders. It's just how things are because, ultimately, we made things this way. Do we want to pay $150 for a pair of American-made Nike basketball shoes when exactly the same thing made in China can be had for $50? Oh, we still make a lot of stuff here. Caterpillar is an example of a badass American manufacturing company. As is Boeing. But these companies have something of real value that they can add to relatively very small volume but big-ticket products. They can do things that most foreign competitors just can't match. Manufacturing the iPhone or the iPad or Macs here just wouldn't add any value, just exorbitant costs. That's just the reality of the situation.
By the way, I've been traveling all over Asia (mainly China although I've also spent much time in Japan and Korea) since '93 for outsourcing and supply chain management work for several companies and still go there on a regular basis. East Asia is just where electronics manufacturing is at (besides various other industries). I've seen some amazing changes and progress being made there during my 17 years of regular travel. Their competitiveness is their manufacturing efficiency. Ours is creative ideas and engineering. Think about it. Why no software firms of note from Asia that could even dream of challenging the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google (although Baidu seems like it may end up dominating search in Asia) and Oracle, etc.? Our competitiveness is in what we can create and innovative ideas that we can come up with, not putting things together in massive assembly lines. And in this area, no one does it better than Apple.
Yes, and look at all those ginormous mansions all those tax-receiving teachers live in!
Why should a teacher live any better than the people of the community where they work? Frankly I don't get this constant whine about teachers and their supposed low pay. Back in my day I wasn't all that impressed with the intelligence level of the teaching staff at the school I attended.
It's weird how people talk about taxes as if they're worse than death.
The problem isn't taxes per say as most people realize a need for government. The problem is related to what those taxes go for.
The truth is, taxes pay for police.
Here is a good example, everybody realizes the need for police, but do we really need a squad car parked every quarter mile down the street? More so we need to stop crime in its tracks by drastically increasing executions, which would quickly and completely remove much of the criminal element fron society and greatly reduce the need for police in the first place.
Taxes pay for fire fighters.
Never heard of volunteers?
Taxes pay for roads.
Yes they do. At least taxes for tires and gas are suppose to, but many state governments have ethical problems here. They sell the taxes as as supporting the infra structure and then use the money for pet projects or to make up for short falls in the general fund.
Taxes pay for public schools (you know, all those tax-receiving teachers!).
And public schools are something to be proud of? Not that I blame the schools as liberal judges have gone way to far with this idea that children have a right to an education. Many of your public schools could be cleaned up significantly by hanging the trouble causing students and thus drastically lowering the need for police. If you can't hang them the least you could do for society is to make their lives as miserable as humanly possible. As a society it has amazed me all my life that we put up with defective children in or schools and then wonder why they turn to a life of crime as adults
Oh by the way research seems to indicate that yes people exhibiting criminal behaviour are in fact defective and born that way.
Taxes pay for public parks.
I'm all for parks but have mixed feelings on this idea of public as in free access. I'd much rather that people that use the facilities pay a bit just to hopefully cause a bit of thought on their part. Public parks are often abused by the users simply because of their free and "public" status.
In a lot of modern, industrialized nations, taxes pay for public healthcare?i.e. so if you get sick, or are injured, you won't have to worry about if you'll be taken care of, or if you can afford it!
And what good has that done those countries? Besides it isn't an issue in the USA as we have public health care now for the poor. What many reject is giving up choice and the ability to tailor your insurance to your personal needs. The secondary issue is that public health care in many counties has been a failure. How good or bad it is depends upon many things including the political climate and the wealth of the country.
Sure, it stings seeing a chunk of money taken out of each paycheck, but think about that next time you're driving down a smooth, well-maintained interstate highway,
Using your logic and being that I live in NY, we should have the smoothest roads in the world. A drive to PA or Ohio certainly and very quickly dispells that idea. In our case the vast majority of our taxes go to things the state should not be spending our money on. Hundreds of millions that could be spent on infra structure ends up being spent on welfare. Welfare that mind you is freely handed out without any expectations at all that the reciever attempts to better themselves.
or enjoying a summer concert series in your local park?paid for by taxes!
There is no rational reason for the government to spend our tax money on concerts.
Rather than anti-tax, people should be pro-fiscal responsibility.
Which you demonstrate a strange concept of. Your comment about concerts demonstrates that you have no idea what the role of government should be in society.
Dave
At least this thing is in the US and not outsourced to another country.
Bravo, Wurm5150!
Best
They could start digging for their own rare earths, since china seems to hold them back.
Not too far off Rabbit....last July China had 27% of the treasuries...this July it's down to 22%...they're investing the money in buying the mines in Africa instead of buying Treasuries!
Don't mean to sound alarmist...I think the best analogy I've heard is that if I owned a lot of stock in GE, would I be very interested in what GE did? Yes. Would I have any control on what GE did? No.
Same with China.
Best
Are you in some alternate universe or something?
Perhaps he's just on Mars
Their competitiveness is their manufacturing efficiency. Ours is creative ideas and engineering. Think about it. Why no software firms of note from Asia that could even dream of challenging the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google (although Baidu seems like it may end up dominating search in Asia) and Oracle, etc.? Our competitiveness is in what we can create and innovative ideas that we can come up with, not putting things together in massive assembly lines. And in this area, no one does it better than Apple.
This is basically so much BS. When the Japanese, for example, flooded the Amarican markets with cheap transistor radios, we were told, let them make the cheap stuff because American manufacturing is superior and we will continue to produce TVs and the big ticket items. It was widely believed that Americans would always dominate high end manufacturing. How did that work out? Likewise, There is nothing inherently deficient about Asians and other people that keeps them from being innovative. In fact, the next apple could verry well come from China in 20 years time ...maybe less.
Your general analysis of the situation (your travels notwithstanding) is completely devoid of deep thinking and simply parrots the party line of state capitalists. When you finally wake up to that fact, it could be too late for you to do anything to extricate yourself from your gloomy future. You see, capital moves globally quite easily, but labor, not so much. Once conditions are finalized, Americans (even many professionals) will be trying to maintain a 1st world standard of living at 3rd world salaries. Then the fun will really begin. My advice is to emigrate now if it's possible. If not, time to learn what scrappy really means.