A nation has a duty to its people to see that they are protected. Protection is defined as physical, economic, and social. Import tariffs protect domestic business, and thus are vital to the survival of the nation. Every government has more than a simple right to institute tariffs–they have the duty to do so. I advocate strong foreign protectionist policies.
I also advocate strong laissez-faire domestic policy, but that’s not the topic of the thread.
The implications of implementing a new production line for a soon to be 4 year old phone have enormous impact on Apple's customers because: Typically Apple has followed a roughly 5 year product cycle. But this will obviously extend that a number of years .
I think that part of it is that the Apple infrastructure is all up to date back to the 64 bit iPhone 6 so the phone will mostly still run the current OS without major tweaks. They couldn't do that with the 32 bit hardware.
In other words: Does this mean you can count on keeping your new iPhone XI for say 6 or 7 years?
Indeed. I can verify that iOS 12 is already faster in its current state than iOS 11, which means that this fall’s 6S is better than today’s 6S. We apparently reached the point of “good enough” several years ago, and instead of fighting it Apple is embracing it.
Not bad for a company that shipped a hack that improves the life of old devices so people would feel like they... have to buy new devices, somehow?
Nice to see some people actually looking things up before commenting. Canada and the US have had a good trading system going since the initial free trade deal. It was definitely due for some tweaking but the kind or rhetoric that has been being tossed around is likely to hurt both sides more than help.
So how about import duties on Apple products imported into the United States? Would that encourage Apple to manufacture in the USA also? Harley Davidson announced it will move manufacturing overseas to avoid foreign tariffs. Why is it always a one way street for us in the U.S.? Foreign countries can level all sorts of taxes and tariffs to encourage manufacturing in within their borders. But let the U.S. try the same thing and all hell breaks loose. When we do it it’s a trade war. Canada, for example, levies a 250% tariff on milk imported from the U.S. for the express purpose of protecting its dairy farmers from vastly more efficient and productive American dairy farmers.
Again, why is it a one-way street?
That 2-way street you are asking about was more like a one way street with a bike lane on the side. Product prices have been falling for decades due to cheap (as in non-living wages) labor in Asian and African nations. Profits were being made by the those using those factories, yes Apple and other hi tech companies along with just about every other international corporation. We as a nation are NOT being taken advantage of by these workers or the countries they live in, we are taking advantage of their misfortune to be born and stuck in these impoverished nations. So you can feel like a victim if you want but you live like a king compare to those that make all that stuff in your home.
Tariffs? I'm mostly agnostic. But mostly I realize that:
1) They can only do so much
2) They have trade-offs and negatives along with the positives..
... They are to be approached carefully and with eyes open.
I grew up in Pittsburgh, the steel capital of world. Our rivers were lined for mile after mile after mile with enormous mills. Today, they are gone. Completely gone. The only trace left are the abandoned rail lines that fanned out for a 100+ miles in every direction to carry the coal to feed the hungry furnaces. The night sky would light up when they dumped the still glowing red slag but during the day it was a dull grey from the smog. But, we didn't mind: Adults would point at the smoke and say: "That's jobs!"
But then it all collapsed. Yes, we tried protectionist tariffs but all they did was slow the process a bit and provide a false hope to the steel workers who were told their jobs would last forever. Very simply, foreign competition beat our steel industry and every tariff we could lay on them.
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood: "A tariff's gotta know his limitations!"
I too grew up in Pittsburgh living between two steel mills, yes the skies glowed red at night. Even after the collapse of the mills in Pittsburgh the U.S. still out produced the world in steel production until recently. The mills that were still around produced more tonnage with fewer workers than the hay days of Pittsburgh mills. The reason the mills died in Pittsburgh was the owers did not reinvest in the mills and modernize then. In part they could not since they could not shut them down to do the work, it was easier to build new mills elsewhere.
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I also advocate strong laissez-faire domestic policy, but that’s not the topic of the thread.
Not bad for a company that shipped a hack that improves the life of old devices so people would feel like they... have to buy new devices, somehow?