30%-40% off when Jobs retires (or worse, God forbid) to his new yacht. Google for the story.
Then again, why should any investor believe a company which tries to spin the state of its CEO's health? A minor bug became intestinal surgery. Healthy skepticism is the order of the day. And while no one cares who the CEO of GM is, Jobs is key to Apple and, accordingly, his continued involvement is a significant component of the stock's price.
Flat on the rest of the business as the AAPL mouse works the treadmill of growth, running faster and faster to meet unrealistic earnings expectations.
The cash has a negligible and dilutive yield representing a drag on earnings and should be dividended back to shareholders in much the same way MSFT was forced to do a few years ago. Keeping that level of unneeded reserves is hard to understand. Operating cash flow is more than adequate to dictate this action. $5bn is all they need to service all those costly prime high street retail store leases and to fund corporate layoffs over the coming global economic depression.
Any acquisition big enough to need that sort of cash will be both dilutive and subject to extreme anti-trust scrutiny from socialist governments, whether in the US, EU or points east.
Further, AAPL has failed repeatedly to materially expand its customer base to corporate consumers who have a far longer buying and investing horizon. It's a retail company operating in the worst retail environment since 1929. Corporations can afford to invest for the next boom. Bankrupt retail consumers cannot.
Disclosure: No AAPL position.
You're blowing too hard. Take a minute off to catch your breath.
We've heard all this before.
Nothing you've said so far is anything more than overblown projections on your part.
What makes you think 30% profit growth justifies that kind of stock price increase? 30% is pretty slow given Apple's high valuation, even after this decline. They need to grow faster than that if you want $200 per share.
A 30% profit increase, alloyed with a growth curve like Apple's could very well result in a 30% increase in stock price.
The main reason why Apple is down where it is, is because of the economy as a whole. If it weren't for that, the stock would likely be above $200 now, possibly more than a bit higher.
Remember that a P/E of 30 is low for Apple, which usually is closer to 40, or sometimes even higher.
This has nothing to do with "sweatshop conditions". These are highly automated production lines.
Automated to what degree? There's a tremendous amount of detailed, manual labor that goes into the manufacture of an iPhone.
Quote:
When they say that production is over "full" capacity what that means is that the production lines are not being given their normal downcycle for maintenance and QC checks. It has nothing to do with the workers themselves.
30%-40% off when Jobs retires (or worse, God forbid) to his new yacht. Google for the story.
......
Flat on the rest of the business as the AAPL mouse works the treadmill of growth, running faster and faster to meet unrealistic earnings expectations.
The cash has a negligible and dilutive yield representing a drag on earnings a....
......dividended back to shareholders in much the same way MSFT was forced to do a few years ago.
Any acquisition big enough to need that sort of cash will be both dilutive and subject to extreme anti-trust scrutiny from socialist governments, whether in the US, EU or points east.
......It's a retail company operating in the worst retail environment since 1929. ......
Your points are almost entirely b-s. Let me call you on a few:
1) Googling ≠ price forecast.
2) Flat on the rest of the business? Go look up/listen to their recent quarterly report/conf call.
3) You don't know the first thing about business valuation. Cash is simply worth cash. It is the growth opportunites in the non-cash part of the business that are being valued in the market. Any half-baked analyst knows to keep cash aside when valuing AAPL (or anybody else).
4) Yeah, and perceptions about MSFT being a growth stock turned on a dime, with the stock essentially going sideways since their dividend initiation.
5) You know little about acquisitions either. Apart from the fact that dilutive/accretive is an arcane and fairly useless concept, there are many (much larger) acquisitions that have been accretive. A case in point will be Inbev's $55B (all cash) acquisition of Anheuser Busch. Also, there are no antitrust issues there other than for proforma HSR-type reviews required by the law.
6) Worst retail environment since 1929?! Wow, surely, you understate.
Apple's disastrous planning will simply ramp their increasingly poor quality control issues, abundantly visible on their own discussion forum, to the iPhone.
Just stand in line at the Genius Bar for yet another repair, as I have many times (2 Airport Extremes, two MacBooks, two Airport Expresses, one wireless keyboard, a constantly disappearing Apple TV and wireless router in the Airport Utility) in the past 12 months, and listen to the litany of like issues from your fellow customers in the queue. Then read the discussion boards. These are not isolated incidents.
If someone is having so much problems continue to buy Apple products, I would say that's an indicator Apple will only gain market share.
Why? because by simply improve the quality (with .0.1 or 0.2 releases), it will gain customers who would be otherwise turned off (unlike Thomaspin).
On ther other hand, if a product doesn't have much problems, and people are frustrated at it (like Vista), that would indicate design problems. That cannot be fixed by bug fix releases (or service packs, as MS likes to call it).
Finally, I have been using Vista for the last two weeks. I cannot tell you how irritated I was by the design, from the annoying warning dialog everytime I want to do something, to the way MS makes everything look nicer but takes more mouse clicks in Explorer....I won't call any of them bugs, but they make me rather use XP (or even use System 7).
I hope that is report regarding the ramp-up to rate of 40M/year iPhones is not true. For a hi end company like Apple is important to maintain quality.
As it stands, there are some doubts about the integrity of the case that may cause the case to crack. All these issues need to be addressed. Also, too fast production cause ruin the quality of the supply chain. These are not Croc shoes.
Damaged reputation is difficult to fix... look how long it is taking to fix MobileMe.
During a Presidential election quarter, where the press is going to be hammering the economy to make the situation more favorable to the democrat, this is advisable.
So true - NOT. What kind of a moron actually believes this? The kind that believes that tax cuts for the very richest people somehow help the middle class, and that giving large subsidies to the oil companies is the free market at work.
I guess by your reasoning the economy is in great shape, and if the media would just stop talking about it, everything would be fine.
And oh yeah, two-thirds of U.S. newspapers endorsed Bush in the last two elections.
Apple's disastrous planning will simply ramp their increasingly poor quality control issues, abundantly visible on their own discussion forum, to the iPhone.
Just stand in line at the Genius Bar for yet another repair, as I have many times (2 Airport Extremes, two MacBooks, two Airport Expresses, one wireless keyboard, a constantly disappearing Apple TV and wireless router in the Airport Utility) in the past 12 months, and listen to the litany of like issues from your fellow customers in the queue. Then read the discussion boards. These are not isolated incidents.
QC issues? Can you say Leopard? Apple TV? Apple Airport Extreme? iPhone 2.0 software? Just about any wireless product they make? Not one of these was ready for prime time when released, as Apple migrated to the MSFT model of "let the customer do the debugging for us".
Trust and brand equity take years to build and months to destroy, and Apple seems unaware of the fact that trust, once lost, is seldom regained.
No company's stock trading at over 30 times future earnings, making consumer discretionary products which no one needs when the alternative is putting bread on the table while the world heads for a depression, is remotely a buying opportunity.
While the Reality Distortion Field can support the stock with hype when times are good, it has yet to be proved as a workable model in a depression - something neither Apple or any of its customers have experienced.
Add a star CEO, with no visible succession planning, who's health issues have been amateurishly obfuscated by the marketing department, and you have a stock trading at under $100 twelve months hence.
Apple's disastrous planning will simply ramp their increasingly poor quality control issues, abundantly visible on their own discussion forum, to the iPhone.
Just stand in line at the Genius Bar for yet another repair, as I have many times (2 Airport Extremes, two MacBooks, two Airport Expresses, one wireless keyboard, a constantly disappearing Apple TV and wireless router in the Airport Utility) in the past 12 months, and listen to the litany of like issues from your fellow customers in the queue. Then read the discussion boards. These are not isolated incidents.
QC issues? Can you say Leopard? Apple TV? Apple Airport Extreme? iPhone 2.0 software? Just about any wireless product they make? Not one of these was ready for prime time when released, as Apple migrated to the MSFT model of "let the customer do the debugging for us".
Trust and brand equity take years to build and months to destroy, and Apple seems unaware of the fact that trust, once lost, is seldom regained.
No company's stock trading at over 30 times future earnings, making consumer discretionary products which no one needs when the alternative is putting bread on the table while the world heads for a depression, is remotely a buying opportunity.
While the Reality Distortion Field can support the stock with hype when times are good, it has yet to be proved as a workable model in a depression - something neither Apple or any of its customers have experienced.
Add a star CEO, with no visible succession planning, who's health issues have been amateurishly obfuscated by the marketing department, and you have a stock trading at under $100 twelve months hence.
Whoa Mr Thomas, you're having a hard day. I guess you missed the <several> national quality and support polls which show Apple leading the way at 80% + satisfaction levels.
BTW, maybe you can do some excellent research and tell us who was Number 2 and what their % was. We'd appreciate your astute observations on this matter.
These forums could really benefit from some moderators who keep the discussion from getting so wildly off track as it does with so many stories posted.
References to the 70's energy crisis?
Steve Job's health?
The value of the stock?
The story is about 800,000 iPhones being stamped out a week. Sometimes its like a game of telephone in here where you start off saying 'The Dog is in the Yard' and when it comes back to you the phrase has become 'The Frog is eating Lard'.
Is anyone here aware of any concrete quantitative information on so-called 'quality disaster'? By that I mean real percentages? Take the following as an apocryphal example with plausible but made-up numbers.
Assume
phones sold = 2,000,000
white phone (16GB) = 20% => 400,000 white phone sold
Posters posting about cracks => 1,000 (a huge number IMO, remember I'm saying actual posters)
-> 0.25% failure rate quite good overall
Given that a problem phone prompts someone to post whereas a working phone does not and given the apparently huge number of phones that are apparently selling it is not surprising to see 'a lot' of problems posted. This is the bias of the internet in this regard.
So, again I ask, any hard number? Other wise at this point we don't know if Apple has any significant quality issues with the new phones.
Ramping up production for 800,000 iPhone units a week is the "Kiss of Death" for Apple's stock price. For every 800,000 units produced, look for a drop of at least $1 in Apple's share price. Damn. Why did this bad news have to be mentioned at such a critical time? WS will have Apple by its fiscal genitals. With this lousy news, the current WS whisper numbers will be multiplied by 10X and Apple can't possibly meet those figures.
As I type, Apple's share price is already heading for the bottom of the toilet bowl, ready to be flushed by investors and WS alike.
Was it not a couple of years back when there were "sweatshop" allegations of Foxconn and the manufacturing of iPods? The heck with 'QC' if the manufacturer is said to be "above current fill capacity", what about the employees?! Will this be "Sweatshop, the Sequel". If Apple meant what it said, when it said, "Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible,? then maybe Apple should pay a surprise inspection every now and then for the welfare of the supply chain's employees... \
The reports of Apple 'sweatshop' conditions some time ago was (as usual) a groundless whack at Apple and Chinese manufacturing.
Much less than 'sweatshop' the investigation states: "The campus includes factories, employee housing, banks, a post office, a hospital, supermarkets, and a variety of recreational facilities including soccer fields, a swimming pool, TV lounges and Internet cafes. Ten cafeterias are also located throughout the campus offering a variety of menu choices"
"Sweatshop" with a swimming pool!
The investigation found out that "The single largest complaint (approximately 20% of interviewed workers) was the lack of overtime during non-peak periods" i.e. not OVERWORK but 'LACK OF MORE OVERTIME' i.e. they wanted to work MORE!
====
I'm not sure if the iPhones are manufactured at the same plant but basically all these 'slave labor' stories especially for high tech manufacturing are overblown. The top end manufacturing plants in china are very sophisticated.
These forums could really benefit from some moderators who keep the discussion from getting so wildly off track as it does with so many stories posted.
References to the 70's energy crisis?
Steve Job's health?
The value of the stock?
The story is about 800,000 iPhones being stamped out a week. Sometimes its like a game of telephone in here where you start off saying 'The Dog is in the Yard' and when it comes back to you the phrase has become 'The Frog is eating Lard'.
The frog is eating Lard?? What does that imply for AAPL and Jobs' health? Should I sell?
The investigation found out that "The single largest complaint (approximately 20% of interviewed workers) was the lack of overtime during non-peak periods" i.e. not OVERWORK but 'LACK OF MORE OVERTIME' i.e. they wanted to work MORE!
This only makes sense. Workers in China have but one goal on their minds... to become rich.
Yeah, I'm going to trust Apple on this. They only have a hundred billion dollars riding on the outcome of the investigation.
Quote:
Much less than 'sweatshop' the investigation states: "The campus includes factories, employee housing, banks, a post office, a hospital, supermarkets, and a variety of recreational facilities including soccer fields, a swimming pool, TV lounges and Internet cafes. Ten cafeterias are also located throughout the campus offering a variety of menu choices"
Ten cafeterias to serve the thousands upon thousands of live-in employees. These are labor camps and hardly a "campus" of the Apple Campus style. More like Google, maybe?
Quote:
The investigation found out that "The single largest complaint (approximately 20% of interviewed workers) was the lack of overtime during non-peak periods" i.e. not OVERWORK but 'LACK OF MORE OVERTIME' i.e. they wanted to work MORE!
I think the only thing we can really conclude is the employees would like to EARN MORE, not necessarily work more. 20% isn't a lot, and that complaint is about the safest one an employee could express.
Quote:
I'm not sure if the iPhones are manufactured at the same plant but basically all these 'slave labor' stories especially for high tech manufacturing are overblown. The top end manufacturing plants in china are very sophisticated.
Are they overblown? Are they all overblown? How do you know? How would you like to live and work in a labor camp? If it was the only means of sustenance for you and your family (who live elsewhere), I'm sure you'd appreciate it. And if your answers to interrogation would be scrutinized by your supervisors, I'm sure you'd be ecstatic about the work conditions.
Comments
30%-40% off when Jobs retires (or worse, God forbid) to his new yacht. Google for the story.
Then again, why should any investor believe a company which tries to spin the state of its CEO's health? A minor bug became intestinal surgery. Healthy skepticism is the order of the day. And while no one cares who the CEO of GM is, Jobs is key to Apple and, accordingly, his continued involvement is a significant component of the stock's price.
Flat on the rest of the business as the AAPL mouse works the treadmill of growth, running faster and faster to meet unrealistic earnings expectations.
The cash has a negligible and dilutive yield representing a drag on earnings and should be dividended back to shareholders in much the same way MSFT was forced to do a few years ago. Keeping that level of unneeded reserves is hard to understand. Operating cash flow is more than adequate to dictate this action. $5bn is all they need to service all those costly prime high street retail store leases and to fund corporate layoffs over the coming global economic depression.
Any acquisition big enough to need that sort of cash will be both dilutive and subject to extreme anti-trust scrutiny from socialist governments, whether in the US, EU or points east.
Further, AAPL has failed repeatedly to materially expand its customer base to corporate consumers who have a far longer buying and investing horizon. It's a retail company operating in the worst retail environment since 1929. Corporations can afford to invest for the next boom. Bankrupt retail consumers cannot.
Disclosure: No AAPL position.
You're blowing too hard. Take a minute off to catch your breath.
We've heard all this before.
Nothing you've said so far is anything more than overblown projections on your part.
What makes you think 30% profit growth justifies that kind of stock price increase? 30% is pretty slow given Apple's high valuation, even after this decline. They need to grow faster than that if you want $200 per share.
A 30% profit increase, alloyed with a growth curve like Apple's could very well result in a 30% increase in stock price.
The main reason why Apple is down where it is, is because of the economy as a whole. If it weren't for that, the stock would likely be above $200 now, possibly more than a bit higher.
Remember that a P/E of 30 is low for Apple, which usually is closer to 40, or sometimes even higher.
This has nothing to do with "sweatshop conditions". These are highly automated production lines.
Automated to what degree? There's a tremendous amount of detailed, manual labor that goes into the manufacture of an iPhone.
When they say that production is over "full" capacity what that means is that the production lines are not being given their normal downcycle for maintenance and QC checks. It has nothing to do with the workers themselves.
How do you know that?
30%-40% off when Jobs retires (or worse, God forbid) to his new yacht. Google for the story.
......
Flat on the rest of the business as the AAPL mouse works the treadmill of growth, running faster and faster to meet unrealistic earnings expectations.
The cash has a negligible and dilutive yield representing a drag on earnings a....
......dividended back to shareholders in much the same way MSFT was forced to do a few years ago.
Any acquisition big enough to need that sort of cash will be both dilutive and subject to extreme anti-trust scrutiny from socialist governments, whether in the US, EU or points east.
......It's a retail company operating in the worst retail environment since 1929. ......
Your points are almost entirely b-s. Let me call you on a few:
1) Googling ≠ price forecast.
2) Flat on the rest of the business? Go look up/listen to their recent quarterly report/conf call.
3) You don't know the first thing about business valuation. Cash is simply worth cash. It is the growth opportunites in the non-cash part of the business that are being valued in the market. Any half-baked analyst knows to keep cash aside when valuing AAPL (or anybody else).
4) Yeah, and perceptions about MSFT being a growth stock turned on a dime, with the stock essentially going sideways since their dividend initiation.
5) You know little about acquisitions either. Apart from the fact that dilutive/accretive is an arcane and fairly useless concept, there are many (much larger) acquisitions that have been accretive. A case in point will be Inbev's $55B (all cash) acquisition of Anheuser Busch. Also, there are no antitrust issues there other than for proforma HSR-type reviews required by the law.
6) Worst retail environment since 1929?! Wow, surely, you understate.
Apple's disastrous planning will simply ramp their increasingly poor quality control issues, abundantly visible on their own discussion forum, to the iPhone.
Just stand in line at the Genius Bar for yet another repair, as I have many times (2 Airport Extremes, two MacBooks, two Airport Expresses, one wireless keyboard, a constantly disappearing Apple TV and wireless router in the Airport Utility) in the past 12 months, and listen to the litany of like issues from your fellow customers in the queue. Then read the discussion boards. These are not isolated incidents.
If someone is having so much problems continue to buy Apple products, I would say that's an indicator Apple will only gain market share.
Why? because by simply improve the quality (with .0.1 or 0.2 releases), it will gain customers who would be otherwise turned off (unlike Thomaspin).
On ther other hand, if a product doesn't have much problems, and people are frustrated at it (like Vista), that would indicate design problems. That cannot be fixed by bug fix releases (or service packs, as MS likes to call it).
Finally, I have been using Vista for the last two weeks. I cannot tell you how irritated I was by the design, from the annoying warning dialog everytime I want to do something, to the way MS makes everything look nicer but takes more mouse clicks in Explorer....I won't call any of them bugs, but they make me rather use XP (or even use System 7).
Apple is growing fast, they already sitting on $20.8 billion in cash, not to mention microsoft is only holding $23.8 billion
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...mpaign_id=yhoo
So in theory, in a few years Apple could buy Microsoft, return the cash to their shareholders and run the world
As it stands, there are some doubts about the integrity of the case that may cause the case to crack. All these issues need to be addressed. Also, too fast production cause ruin the quality of the supply chain. These are not Croc shoes.
Damaged reputation is difficult to fix... look how long it is taking to fix MobileMe.
During a Presidential election quarter, where the press is going to be hammering the economy to make the situation more favorable to the democrat, this is advisable.
So true - NOT. What kind of a moron actually believes this? The kind that believes that tax cuts for the very richest people somehow help the middle class, and that giving large subsidies to the oil companies is the free market at work.
I guess by your reasoning the economy is in great shape, and if the media would just stop talking about it, everything would be fine.
And oh yeah, two-thirds of U.S. newspapers endorsed Bush in the last two elections.
Apple's disastrous planning will simply ramp their increasingly poor quality control issues, abundantly visible on their own discussion forum, to the iPhone.
Just stand in line at the Genius Bar for yet another repair, as I have many times (2 Airport Extremes, two MacBooks, two Airport Expresses, one wireless keyboard, a constantly disappearing Apple TV and wireless router in the Airport Utility) in the past 12 months, and listen to the litany of like issues from your fellow customers in the queue. Then read the discussion boards. These are not isolated incidents.
QC issues? Can you say Leopard? Apple TV? Apple Airport Extreme? iPhone 2.0 software? Just about any wireless product they make? Not one of these was ready for prime time when released, as Apple migrated to the MSFT model of "let the customer do the debugging for us".
Trust and brand equity take years to build and months to destroy, and Apple seems unaware of the fact that trust, once lost, is seldom regained.
No company's stock trading at over 30 times future earnings, making consumer discretionary products which no one needs when the alternative is putting bread on the table while the world heads for a depression, is remotely a buying opportunity.
While the Reality Distortion Field can support the stock with hype when times are good, it has yet to be proved as a workable model in a depression - something neither Apple or any of its customers have experienced.
Add a star CEO, with no visible succession planning, who's health issues have been amateurishly obfuscated by the marketing department, and you have a stock trading at under $100 twelve months hence.
Wow , you sure have a lot of absolutes.
I know most products are made in China anymore, but I hope Apple ramps up QC procedures to go along with increased production.
Naw....China has everything made in India and has them stamped "Made In China"
Apple's disastrous planning will simply ramp their increasingly poor quality control issues, abundantly visible on their own discussion forum, to the iPhone.
Just stand in line at the Genius Bar for yet another repair, as I have many times (2 Airport Extremes, two MacBooks, two Airport Expresses, one wireless keyboard, a constantly disappearing Apple TV and wireless router in the Airport Utility) in the past 12 months, and listen to the litany of like issues from your fellow customers in the queue. Then read the discussion boards. These are not isolated incidents.
QC issues? Can you say Leopard? Apple TV? Apple Airport Extreme? iPhone 2.0 software? Just about any wireless product they make? Not one of these was ready for prime time when released, as Apple migrated to the MSFT model of "let the customer do the debugging for us".
Trust and brand equity take years to build and months to destroy, and Apple seems unaware of the fact that trust, once lost, is seldom regained.
No company's stock trading at over 30 times future earnings, making consumer discretionary products which no one needs when the alternative is putting bread on the table while the world heads for a depression, is remotely a buying opportunity.
While the Reality Distortion Field can support the stock with hype when times are good, it has yet to be proved as a workable model in a depression - something neither Apple or any of its customers have experienced.
Add a star CEO, with no visible succession planning, who's health issues have been amateurishly obfuscated by the marketing department, and you have a stock trading at under $100 twelve months hence.
Whoa Mr Thomas, you're having a hard day. I guess you missed the <several> national quality and support polls which show Apple leading the way at 80% + satisfaction levels.
BTW, maybe you can do some excellent research and tell us who was Number 2 and what their % was. We'd appreciate your astute observations on this matter.
References to the 70's energy crisis?
Steve Job's health?
The value of the stock?
The story is about 800,000 iPhones being stamped out a week. Sometimes its like a game of telephone in here where you start off saying 'The Dog is in the Yard' and when it comes back to you the phrase has become 'The Frog is eating Lard'.
Assume
phones sold = 2,000,000
white phone (16GB) = 20% => 400,000 white phone sold
Posters posting about cracks => 1,000 (a huge number IMO, remember I'm saying actual posters)
-> 0.25% failure rate quite good overall
Given that a problem phone prompts someone to post whereas a working phone does not and given the apparently huge number of phones that are apparently selling it is not surprising to see 'a lot' of problems posted. This is the bias of the internet in this regard.
So, again I ask, any hard number? Other wise at this point we don't know if Apple has any significant quality issues with the new phones.
As I type, Apple's share price is already heading for the bottom of the toilet bowl, ready to be flushed by investors and WS alike.
800,000 iPhones a week = FAIL
Was it not a couple of years back when there were "sweatshop" allegations of Foxconn and the manufacturing of iPods? The heck with 'QC' if the manufacturer is said to be "above current fill capacity", what about the employees?! Will this be "Sweatshop, the Sequel". If Apple meant what it said, when it said, "Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible,? then maybe Apple should pay a surprise inspection every now and then for the welfare of the supply chain's employees...
The reports of Apple 'sweatshop' conditions some time ago was (as usual) a groundless whack at Apple and Chinese manufacturing.
Allegations were refuted by an investigation. Read the investigation "http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ipodreport/";
Much less than 'sweatshop' the investigation states: "The campus includes factories, employee housing, banks, a post office, a hospital, supermarkets, and a variety of recreational facilities including soccer fields, a swimming pool, TV lounges and Internet cafes. Ten cafeterias are also located throughout the campus offering a variety of menu choices"
"Sweatshop" with a swimming pool!
The investigation found out that "The single largest complaint (approximately 20% of interviewed workers) was the lack of overtime during non-peak periods" i.e. not OVERWORK but 'LACK OF MORE OVERTIME' i.e. they wanted to work MORE!
====
I'm not sure if the iPhones are manufactured at the same plant but basically all these 'slave labor' stories especially for high tech manufacturing are overblown. The top end manufacturing plants in china are very sophisticated.
These forums could really benefit from some moderators who keep the discussion from getting so wildly off track as it does with so many stories posted.
References to the 70's energy crisis?
Steve Job's health?
The value of the stock?
The story is about 800,000 iPhones being stamped out a week. Sometimes its like a game of telephone in here where you start off saying 'The Dog is in the Yard' and when it comes back to you the phrase has become 'The Frog is eating Lard'.
The frog is eating Lard?? What does that imply for AAPL and Jobs' health? Should I sell?
The investigation found out that "The single largest complaint (approximately 20% of interviewed workers) was the lack of overtime during non-peak periods" i.e. not OVERWORK but 'LACK OF MORE OVERTIME' i.e. they wanted to work MORE!
This only makes sense. Workers in China have but one goal on their minds... to become rich.
The reports of Apple 'sweatshop' conditions some time ago was (as usual) a groundless whack at Apple and Chinese manufacturing.
Allegations were refuted by an investigation. Read the investigation "http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ipodreport/";
Yeah, I'm going to trust Apple on this. They only have a hundred billion dollars riding on the outcome of the investigation.
Much less than 'sweatshop' the investigation states: "The campus includes factories, employee housing, banks, a post office, a hospital, supermarkets, and a variety of recreational facilities including soccer fields, a swimming pool, TV lounges and Internet cafes. Ten cafeterias are also located throughout the campus offering a variety of menu choices"
Ten cafeterias to serve the thousands upon thousands of live-in employees. These are labor camps and hardly a "campus" of the Apple Campus style. More like Google, maybe?
The investigation found out that "The single largest complaint (approximately 20% of interviewed workers) was the lack of overtime during non-peak periods" i.e. not OVERWORK but 'LACK OF MORE OVERTIME' i.e. they wanted to work MORE!
I think the only thing we can really conclude is the employees would like to EARN MORE, not necessarily work more. 20% isn't a lot, and that complaint is about the safest one an employee could express.
I'm not sure if the iPhones are manufactured at the same plant but basically all these 'slave labor' stories especially for high tech manufacturing are overblown. The top end manufacturing plants in china are very sophisticated.
Are they overblown? Are they all overblown? How do you know? How would you like to live and work in a labor camp? If it was the only means of sustenance for you and your family (who live elsewhere), I'm sure you'd appreciate it. And if your answers to interrogation would be scrutinized by your supervisors, I'm sure you'd be ecstatic about the work conditions.