You are right building overseas. They don't have to be responsible for paying people a livable wage. Or pay the taxes that provide revenues that keeps our society running.
It always amazes me how rich Americans can dictate what a 'livable' wage is in some other country. People are lined up for miles to get jobs in Chinese factories - so they're obviously very happy with the wage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ouragan
Apple should plan right now for the right size of corporate headquarters. The new, spaceship corporate campus should have two more floors, for a total of six floors, and be of a wider diameter to increase the size of the circle, bringing it slightly closer to Cupertino City streets.
There are a number of advantages to right-sizing the building when the plans are drawn by the architects and approved by the City of Cupertino. The right-sizing of the building, instead of planning for a future on-site expansion by adding new floors or new buildings, or a future expansion on a third, unknown location, allows architects to plan for a bigger indoor parking lot, including space for 10 speed bikes with showers and a locker room, two or more cafeterias, complete indoor sport facilities including an olympic size swimming pool, a Nautilus weight room, gymnasiums with showers and locker rooms, an adequate number of elevators, escalators and stairs, service entrances, and a new, cross-shaped, system of indoor hallways linking the different floors of the underground parking lot to the ground floor of the building, providing also a convenient way to walk from one side of the building to the opposite side.
Planning an inadequate, second corporate campus, with a view of expanding on a third, unknown location, seems to me to be very bad planning. I could possibly understand better if Apple was a new, small and just established company, or a cash strapped company, barely making it to the next pay day. But, as we all know, such is not the case.
First, there are zoning rules. It may not be possible to build a larger building. Second, you get into infrastructure problems. The streets may not handle more people.
Most importantly, Apple undoubtedly has an entire team of people dedicated to this project. They know Apple's needs far better than you do. Just what qualifies you to hide behind your keyboard and call Apple's campus 'inadequate"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ahmlco
Nope. Read the original post:
"If Hyundai and Honda and Toyota can build cars here in the US -- and make a profit doing so -- then Apple could build computers here and do the same."
Now, did we give Hyundai and Honda and Toyota a massive government bailout?
Let's see... that would be... No.
Actually, the answer would be 'yes'. Virtually every foreign car factory in the U.S. received massive state tax concessions and other bonuses.
More importantly, there's a huge difference between building a car and building a cell phone. The entire supply chain is vastly different. For starters, the cost of shipping a car from Asia to the US is many hundreds of dollars (or more). It costs probably $10 to ship a phone.
Furthermore, a lot of it comes down to consumer demand. Consumers fought like crazy for U.S. manufacturing of cars. For phones and computers, they don't seem to care where they come from.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chachi Bingenheimer
How is this different for manufacturing than for the 12,000 current Apple employees? To the best of my knowledge Apple employees do not work pro bono, and they pay taxes as does Apple. Also, software engineers make more than manufacturing workers, even unionized ones.
Your logic on this is fundamentally flawed.
There's a difference between hiring production workers and hiring knowledge workers. There is a very good reason to have your knowledge workers in the U.S., but little value (actually, negative value) to having your production workers here.
5. Hi corporate, state and local income taxes in excess of 40%.
Apple used to have an automated plant in CA, but they shut it down... made the original Mac. May be if they move to a low cost state like Texas or NC, SC, etc?
1. Not high wages, but certainly higher wages than the average $130 a month paid to Chinese manufacturing employees. So what do you propose: that we eliminate the minimum wage laws and pay people even less than the current minimum wage? Tell me where one can live in the U.S. even on minimum wage? Certainly in no decent place would minimum wage even cover rent. As for unions, I think unions now cover only 11% of jobs in the U.S. and most of those are public workers, so you can stop blaming the unions now. Even in the auto industry, new union workers don't get paid that much - about $14 an hour. What was a problem were union retirement and pension benefits, which were ridiculously excessive in many cases, but it also wasn't realized at the time these were negotiated that people would live as long as they are.
The reason Apple doesn't manufacture in the U.S. is because we, as consumers, are unwilling to pay what the computer would cost if it were manufactured here. Chinese manufacturing has spoiled us. The fact that a (for example) Chinese-manufactured DVD drive can sell for $23.00 and everyone in the entire design, manufacturing, distribution and marketing chain makes some money is actually beyond belief! (Personally, I find it incredulous that my local "dollar store' can sell an umbrella for $1.30.)
2. The only part of payroll taxes paid by the employer is their share of social security and Medicare. Let's see if you still think those should be eliminated when you turn 65. One can argue that people should plan for their own retirement needs without the aid of the Government, but the reality is that most working people have saved less than $50K for retirement. Without SS and Medicare, we'd have a large elderly population homeless and dying in the streets. Do you really want us to be India? (No offense to India.)
3. Yeah...why should corporations have to pay property taxes? We don't need local police, fire fighters, ambulance workers, schools, teachers, public hospitals, parks, playgrounds, roads, traffic lights, etc. Let's party like it's 1812.
4. True, but Apple gets sued every day anyway.
5. Most large corporations pay very little Federal taxes. Many pay none. So you can cry all you want about the rates, but the reality is that in the end large corporations generally pay nothing or too little, not too much. It's SMALL companies who get screwed by income taxes. Besides, where do you think MOST Federal tax money goes: in spite of all the hype, most of it goes to the military. So if anyone really wants to reduce Government spending (outside of SS and Medicare), we have to stop fighting these wars, substantially reduce the size of the military and stop spending $billions on weapons systems and planes.
The fact is that U.S. tax rates are lower than any other western country. The highest marginal rate was 70% during Richard Nixon's presidency, 50% during Reagan's and only 38% today. And long-term capital gains rates (used mostly by the rich) are absurdly low. That's why the Government has no money.
I find it bizarre that more and more people are required to work for a company that manufactures computing products that should logically enable fewer people to do more with less... I guess I expect too much of computers.
Our needs are growing faster than computers' abilities to handle them, so we need more humans to pick up the slack
Actually, the answer would be 'yes'. Virtually every foreign car factory in the U.S. received massive state tax concessions and other bonuses.
Sloppy was obviously referring to the recent "too big to fail" government bailouts given to Detroit. To quote, "You mean the automotive plants that required a massive government bailout just to keep from going under?"
So the correct answer to the question of them getting a massive government BAILOUT would be... No. Again.
That settled, and as I said above, they DID get concessions in Alabama and Texas and Kentucky. They also created thousands of jobs, which in turn have been a major boon to the local economies. (Not to mention the mini-boomlet involved in building the plants in the first place.)
Ask the governors involved why they fought so hard to get them to build in their states, and if they'd do it again.
And the "bonus" would entail granting Apple the tax holiday they've been lobbying for. It doesn't do the US much good for all of that cash to be sitting offshore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
More importantly, there's a huge difference between building a car and building a cell phone. The entire supply chain is vastly different.
Undoubtedly. But Foxconn, who does build them, has a plant in Mexico and is planning a new plant in Brazil. If the off-mainland-China supply chain works for them there, then it could work here. And Apple does make a few things other than cell phones.
Finally, read my latest post to sloppy. There are quite a few reasons why having production here might be beneficial, and in doing so offset the negatives mentioned.
1. Not high wages, but certainly higher wages than the average $130 a month paid to Chinese manufacturing employees. So what do you propose: that we eliminate the minimum wage laws and pay people even less than the current minimum wage? Tell me where one can live in the U.S. even on minimum wage? Certainly in no decent place would minimum wage even cover rent.
I like your arguments.
The one thing that makes this possible here in the US is automation. In fact, the benefits are so great that Foxconn is going to replace many of its workers with robots.
So we won't get a lot of manufacturing-style assembly-line jobs. But we will get engineering and technical and management and support jobs. Not to mention the mini-boomlet from building said plant in the first place.
I was only talking about America, not other countries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
It always amazes me how rich Americans can dictate what a 'livable' wage is in some other country. People are lined up for miles to get jobs in Chinese factories - so they're obviously very happy with the wage.
Foxconn has large factories in China and Mexico, and very likely will open a plant in Brazil.
Last time I checked, neither Mexico nor Brazil were reachable by rail from Asian suppliers.
If it can be done there, it can be done here.
OK, but given that absolutely no one (not just Apple) builds consumer electronics in America (outside of I imagine a few boutique super high end type outfits who have customers willing to pay premiums for perceived value), how do you account for CE world's apparent perversity?
I mean, by your lights there are no or very modest economic downsides to moving largely automated assembly plants onshore, and what costs there are are offset by improved flexibility and responsiveness in the manufacturing process.
But no one is biting. Is it your contention that American companies such as Dell, Apple, HP, and Microsoft are just inexplicably America hating? I mean, the ability to tout a "Made in America" ethic would be a huge PR coup and likely to lead to increased sales and good will, so I would imagine that a given manufacturer would be willing to accept modestly increased costs just to reap the benefit. But they don't.
Doesn't it seem more likely that the actual costs of relocating manufacturing to the US vastly outweigh any benefits, real or emotional, which is why no one does it? And that the relevant companies are well aware of that because they've run the numbers?
I mean, Steve Jobs is famously a control freak. Don't you think he would have loved to have his machines being made within driving distance, if there was any way at all to pull it off economically?
3) You're argument fails by thinking there is some altruistic reason for assembling something in the US. It's done when it's deemed more profitable. It's all about the bottom line!
My understanding is that automakers set up in North America because of the high duties imposed on cars imported from outside the Auto Pact (Canada/USA) area.
It's more profitable to make cars in the USA or Canada, because governments impose taxes that make it unprofitable to import the vehicles from outside. Would Americans want the same bar for their electronics?
There is nothing at this point stopping the Chinese from creating their own Apple, Microsoft, or Facebook. Why haven't they done it?
Facebook??? A social media company that produces... nothing?
Fine. Facebook's revenues were a whopping $2 billion. Foxconn, the Chinese company most in the news as the world's largest electronics manufacturer (you know, people who actually make things) did about 30x that, at $59 billion.
Doesn't it seem more likely that the actual costs of relocating manufacturing to the US vastly outweigh any benefits, real or emotional, which is why no one does it? And that the relevant companies are well aware of that because they've run the numbers
Ah, a reasonable reply. First, we're at the tail end of the offshoring era, in which everyone left because costs were cheaper elsewhere.
Now costs, even in China, are rising. In fact, they're rising to the point where Foxconn itself, king of slave labor, is looking at installing a million robots by 2013.
Second, those are the numbers that fail to take into account the "tax holiday" for which Apple and other American companies are lobbying. Apple currently has cash holdings of about $70 billion, but it earns more than 60 percent of its revenues outside the US.
And it would like to bring those billions home.
So, by my numbers, the quid pro quo of a Apple tax holiday would be a major investment in stateside manufacturing, which could be easily financed by about half the tax savings.
If Hyundai and Honda and Toyota can build cars here in the US -- and make a profit doing so -- then Apple could build computers here and do the same.
Sure they could make profits, but that is not the point.
The point is that they can make MORE profits by building in countries with lax labor and environmental regulations. Apple doesn't give a hoot about Americans; they care only about profits.
It always amazes me how rich Americans can dictate what a 'livable' wage is in some other country. People are lined up for miles to get jobs in Chinese factories - so they're obviously very happy with the wage.
That doesn't follow. Maybe they are desperate, and will take a job with semi-starvation wages rather than have no job at all.
They need not be very happy with the wage - all that is necessary is that the job be the lesser of two evils.
Yes Woz is an engineer, Woz is not a visionary entrepreneur. We need both, there a lots of engineers and not that many Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
Never mind the fact that no, Bill Gates is not the big software programmer he let the world believe. The only thing Jobs and Gates have in common is that they both dropped out of college, but for different reasons.
Jobs didn't want to break his family financially and Gates saw the opportunity to make a lot of money in a new industry with practically zero regulations, with a father holding the largest Legal Firm in the Pacific Northwest to fund and legally advise him how close to the line he can get when starting up.
The brains of Microsoft resided in Paul Allen, not Bill Gates. The unbridled greed and arrogance resided in Bill Gates, who freely admits much of what they did back then would have landed him in Federal Prison, today.
The immediate way to bring manufacturing back to the US will be the closing of all Corporate Tax Loopholes.
We can get a lot more rough, but manufacturing is soon to go into new directions where it will require a distributed network of plants, around the globe, even for Apple, that includes the United States to get their products to market.
The upcoming most advanced Fab in the world, claimed by Global Foundries, is in New York.
It is just the beginning of new Fabs and other plants outside the Auto World that will be developed in the US.
One of the biggest ways to get manufacturing back is the investment in a new nation-wide/region-to-region grid for Power and Rails.
Comments
It will never happen and a lot of that has to do with the quality of engineering isn't there in Asia. It's just not there.
Yet. They're just starting, after all.
You are right building overseas. They don't have to be responsible for paying people a livable wage. Or pay the taxes that provide revenues that keeps our society running.
It always amazes me how rich Americans can dictate what a 'livable' wage is in some other country. People are lined up for miles to get jobs in Chinese factories - so they're obviously very happy with the wage.
Apple should plan right now for the right size of corporate headquarters. The new, spaceship corporate campus should have two more floors, for a total of six floors, and be of a wider diameter to increase the size of the circle, bringing it slightly closer to Cupertino City streets.
There are a number of advantages to right-sizing the building when the plans are drawn by the architects and approved by the City of Cupertino. The right-sizing of the building, instead of planning for a future on-site expansion by adding new floors or new buildings, or a future expansion on a third, unknown location, allows architects to plan for a bigger indoor parking lot, including space for 10 speed bikes with showers and a locker room, two or more cafeterias, complete indoor sport facilities including an olympic size swimming pool, a Nautilus weight room, gymnasiums with showers and locker rooms, an adequate number of elevators, escalators and stairs, service entrances, and a new, cross-shaped, system of indoor hallways linking the different floors of the underground parking lot to the ground floor of the building, providing also a convenient way to walk from one side of the building to the opposite side.
Planning an inadequate, second corporate campus, with a view of expanding on a third, unknown location, seems to me to be very bad planning. I could possibly understand better if Apple was a new, small and just established company, or a cash strapped company, barely making it to the next pay day. But, as we all know, such is not the case.
First, there are zoning rules. It may not be possible to build a larger building. Second, you get into infrastructure problems. The streets may not handle more people.
Most importantly, Apple undoubtedly has an entire team of people dedicated to this project. They know Apple's needs far better than you do. Just what qualifies you to hide behind your keyboard and call Apple's campus 'inadequate"?
Nope. Read the original post:
"If Hyundai and Honda and Toyota can build cars here in the US -- and make a profit doing so -- then Apple could build computers here and do the same."
Now, did we give Hyundai and Honda and Toyota a massive government bailout?
Let's see... that would be... No.
Actually, the answer would be 'yes'. Virtually every foreign car factory in the U.S. received massive state tax concessions and other bonuses.
More importantly, there's a huge difference between building a car and building a cell phone. The entire supply chain is vastly different. For starters, the cost of shipping a car from Asia to the US is many hundreds of dollars (or more). It costs probably $10 to ship a phone.
Furthermore, a lot of it comes down to consumer demand. Consumers fought like crazy for U.S. manufacturing of cars. For phones and computers, they don't seem to care where they come from.
How is this different for manufacturing than for the 12,000 current Apple employees? To the best of my knowledge Apple employees do not work pro bono, and they pay taxes as does Apple. Also, software engineers make more than manufacturing workers, even unionized ones.
Your logic on this is fundamentally flawed.
There's a difference between hiring production workers and hiring knowledge workers. There is a very good reason to have your knowledge workers in the U.S., but little value (actually, negative value) to having your production workers here.
Reasons not to manufacture in the US, especially CA:
1. Hi wages especially if unions are involved
2. Hi payroll and other taxes. The government taxes employers for providing jobs!
3. Property taxes, insurance costs, workman's comp
4. Law suits and vulture lawyers
5. Hi corporate, state and local income taxes in excess of 40%.
Apple used to have an automated plant in CA, but they shut it down... made the original Mac. May be if they move to a low cost state like Texas or NC, SC, etc?
1. Not high wages, but certainly higher wages than the average $130 a month paid to Chinese manufacturing employees. So what do you propose: that we eliminate the minimum wage laws and pay people even less than the current minimum wage? Tell me where one can live in the U.S. even on minimum wage? Certainly in no decent place would minimum wage even cover rent. As for unions, I think unions now cover only 11% of jobs in the U.S. and most of those are public workers, so you can stop blaming the unions now. Even in the auto industry, new union workers don't get paid that much - about $14 an hour. What was a problem were union retirement and pension benefits, which were ridiculously excessive in many cases, but it also wasn't realized at the time these were negotiated that people would live as long as they are.
The reason Apple doesn't manufacture in the U.S. is because we, as consumers, are unwilling to pay what the computer would cost if it were manufactured here. Chinese manufacturing has spoiled us. The fact that a (for example) Chinese-manufactured DVD drive can sell for $23.00 and everyone in the entire design, manufacturing, distribution and marketing chain makes some money is actually beyond belief! (Personally, I find it incredulous that my local "dollar store' can sell an umbrella for $1.30.)
2. The only part of payroll taxes paid by the employer is their share of social security and Medicare. Let's see if you still think those should be eliminated when you turn 65. One can argue that people should plan for their own retirement needs without the aid of the Government, but the reality is that most working people have saved less than $50K for retirement. Without SS and Medicare, we'd have a large elderly population homeless and dying in the streets. Do you really want us to be India? (No offense to India.)
3. Yeah...why should corporations have to pay property taxes? We don't need local police, fire fighters, ambulance workers, schools, teachers, public hospitals, parks, playgrounds, roads, traffic lights, etc. Let's party like it's 1812.
4. True, but Apple gets sued every day anyway.
5. Most large corporations pay very little Federal taxes. Many pay none. So you can cry all you want about the rates, but the reality is that in the end large corporations generally pay nothing or too little, not too much. It's SMALL companies who get screwed by income taxes. Besides, where do you think MOST Federal tax money goes: in spite of all the hype, most of it goes to the military. So if anyone really wants to reduce Government spending (outside of SS and Medicare), we have to stop fighting these wars, substantially reduce the size of the military and stop spending $billions on weapons systems and planes.
The fact is that U.S. tax rates are lower than any other western country. The highest marginal rate was 70% during Richard Nixon's presidency, 50% during Reagan's and only 38% today. And long-term capital gains rates (used mostly by the rich) are absurdly low. That's why the Government has no money.
I find it bizarre that more and more people are required to work for a company that manufactures computing products that should logically enable fewer people to do more with less...
Our needs are growing faster than computers' abilities to handle them, so we need more humans to pick up the slack
Actually, the answer would be 'yes'. Virtually every foreign car factory in the U.S. received massive state tax concessions and other bonuses.
Sloppy was obviously referring to the recent "too big to fail" government bailouts given to Detroit. To quote, "You mean the automotive plants that required a massive government bailout just to keep from going under?"
So the correct answer to the question of them getting a massive government BAILOUT would be... No. Again.
That settled, and as I said above, they DID get concessions in Alabama and Texas and Kentucky. They also created thousands of jobs, which in turn have been a major boon to the local economies. (Not to mention the mini-boomlet involved in building the plants in the first place.)
Ask the governors involved why they fought so hard to get them to build in their states, and if they'd do it again.
And the "bonus" would entail granting Apple the tax holiday they've been lobbying for. It doesn't do the US much good for all of that cash to be sitting offshore.
More importantly, there's a huge difference between building a car and building a cell phone. The entire supply chain is vastly different.
Undoubtedly. But Foxconn, who does build them, has a plant in Mexico and is planning a new plant in Brazil. If the off-mainland-China supply chain works for them there, then it could work here. And Apple does make a few things other than cell phones.
Finally, read my latest post to sloppy. There are quite a few reasons why having production here might be beneficial, and in doing so offset the negatives mentioned.
1. Not high wages, but certainly higher wages than the average $130 a month paid to Chinese manufacturing employees. So what do you propose: that we eliminate the minimum wage laws and pay people even less than the current minimum wage? Tell me where one can live in the U.S. even on minimum wage? Certainly in no decent place would minimum wage even cover rent.
I like your arguments.
The one thing that makes this possible here in the US is automation. In fact, the benefits are so great that Foxconn is going to replace many of its workers with robots.
So we won't get a lot of manufacturing-style assembly-line jobs. But we will get engineering and technical and management and support jobs. Not to mention the mini-boomlet from building said plant in the first place.
Jobs built off of Woz, who WAS an engineer. Gates studied and wrote software.
It always amazes me how rich Americans can dictate what a 'livable' wage is in some other country. People are lined up for miles to get jobs in Chinese factories - so they're obviously very happy with the wage.
There is nothing at this point stopping the Chinese from creating their own Apple, Microsoft, or Facebook. Why haven't they done it?
It's not bigotry. It's a simple acknowledgment of what's likely to happen when you continue to export your expertise offshore.
Foxconn has large factories in China and Mexico, and very likely will open a plant in Brazil.
Last time I checked, neither Mexico nor Brazil were reachable by rail from Asian suppliers.
If it can be done there, it can be done here.
OK, but given that absolutely no one (not just Apple) builds consumer electronics in America (outside of I imagine a few boutique super high end type outfits who have customers willing to pay premiums for perceived value), how do you account for CE world's apparent perversity?
I mean, by your lights there are no or very modest economic downsides to moving largely automated assembly plants onshore, and what costs there are are offset by improved flexibility and responsiveness in the manufacturing process.
But no one is biting. Is it your contention that American companies such as Dell, Apple, HP, and Microsoft are just inexplicably America hating? I mean, the ability to tout a "Made in America" ethic would be a huge PR coup and likely to lead to increased sales and good will, so I would imagine that a given manufacturer would be willing to accept modestly increased costs just to reap the benefit. But they don't.
Doesn't it seem more likely that the actual costs of relocating manufacturing to the US vastly outweigh any benefits, real or emotional, which is why no one does it? And that the relevant companies are well aware of that because they've run the numbers?
I mean, Steve Jobs is famously a control freak. Don't you think he would have loved to have his machines being made within driving distance, if there was any way at all to pull it off economically?
Foxconn has large factories in China and Mexico, and very likely will open a plant in Brazil.
Last time I checked, neither Mexico nor Brazil were reachable by rail from Asian suppliers.
If it can be done there, it can be done here.
I'd be satisfied with a public pronouncement from Apple or a public discussion by management as to why they are not manufacturing in the US.
This country needs to confront the issue with some honest conversation at the highest levels.
3) You're argument fails by thinking there is some altruistic reason for assembling something in the US. It's done when it's deemed more profitable. It's all about the bottom line!
My understanding is that automakers set up in North America because of the high duties imposed on cars imported from outside the Auto Pact (Canada/USA) area.
It's more profitable to make cars in the USA or Canada, because governments impose taxes that make it unprofitable to import the vehicles from outside. Would Americans want the same bar for their electronics?
There is nothing at this point stopping the Chinese from creating their own Apple, Microsoft, or Facebook. Why haven't they done it?
Facebook??? A social media company that produces... nothing?
Fine. Facebook's revenues were a whopping $2 billion. Foxconn, the Chinese company most in the news as the world's largest electronics manufacturer (you know, people who actually make things) did about 30x that, at $59 billion.
Yeah, what's stopping them...
I'd be satisfied with a public pronouncement from Apple or a public discussion by management as to why they are not manufacturing in the US.
Money. WOW THAT WAS HARD.
This country needs to confront the issue with some honest conversation at the highest levels.
Money. Government can understand that.
Doesn't it seem more likely that the actual costs of relocating manufacturing to the US vastly outweigh any benefits, real or emotional, which is why no one does it? And that the relevant companies are well aware of that because they've run the numbers
Ah, a reasonable reply. First, we're at the tail end of the offshoring era, in which everyone left because costs were cheaper elsewhere.
Now costs, even in China, are rising. In fact, they're rising to the point where Foxconn itself, king of slave labor, is looking at installing a million robots by 2013.
Second, those are the numbers that fail to take into account the "tax holiday" for which Apple and other American companies are lobbying. Apple currently has cash holdings of about $70 billion, but it earns more than 60 percent of its revenues outside the US.
And it would like to bring those billions home.
So, by my numbers, the quid pro quo of a Apple tax holiday would be a major investment in stateside manufacturing, which could be easily financed by about half the tax savings.
Money. WOW THAT WAS HARD.
Indeed. Next time, try not to strain your brain so much. Maybe you could limit the scope of your argument to just...
Why? Because! That's why!
If Hyundai and Honda and Toyota can build cars here in the US -- and make a profit doing so -- then Apple could build computers here and do the same.
Sure they could make profits, but that is not the point.
The point is that they can make MORE profits by building in countries with lax labor and environmental regulations. Apple doesn't give a hoot about Americans; they care only about profits.
It always amazes me how rich Americans can dictate what a 'livable' wage is in some other country. People are lined up for miles to get jobs in Chinese factories - so they're obviously very happy with the wage.
That doesn't follow. Maybe they are desperate, and will take a job with semi-starvation wages rather than have no job at all.
They need not be very happy with the wage - all that is necessary is that the job be the lesser of two evils.
Yes Woz is an engineer, Woz is not a visionary entrepreneur. We need both, there a lots of engineers and not that many Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
Never mind the fact that no, Bill Gates is not the big software programmer he let the world believe. The only thing Jobs and Gates have in common is that they both dropped out of college, but for different reasons.
Jobs didn't want to break his family financially and Gates saw the opportunity to make a lot of money in a new industry with practically zero regulations, with a father holding the largest Legal Firm in the Pacific Northwest to fund and legally advise him how close to the line he can get when starting up.
The brains of Microsoft resided in Paul Allen, not Bill Gates. The unbridled greed and arrogance resided in Bill Gates, who freely admits much of what they did back then would have landed him in Federal Prison, today.
We can get a lot more rough, but manufacturing is soon to go into new directions where it will require a distributed network of plants, around the globe, even for Apple, that includes the United States to get their products to market.
The upcoming most advanced Fab in the world, claimed by Global Foundries, is in New York.
It is just the beginning of new Fabs and other plants outside the Auto World that will be developed in the US.
One of the biggest ways to get manufacturing back is the investment in a new nation-wide/region-to-region grid for Power and Rails.