Apple supplier Pegatron facing pollution concerns in China

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  • Reply 21 of 47
    geekdadgeekdad Posts: 1,131member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    I really wish that these articles would stop picking one or two companies and making an example out of them. Apple is identical to the 999 other Fortune 1000 companies who manufacture products in China. It is CHINA's responsibility to enforce their own environmental rules. When a plant (Like Pegatron) produces components for 1000 customers, why does it make sense to pick just one of those customers and blame them for the pollution? China - make some reasonable environmental laws and enforce them rather than blaming the customers.



    Oh, and btw, Apple apparently has a better record on health and safety and the environment than most of their other customers, anyway. It wasn't that long ago that we went through this before and a couple of the suppliers said that Apple was the only company that even bothered to audit them.







    It's not a few dollars more - it's two to three times the cost for most things. The problem is that Apple has no control over most of the costs which make high volume production of products like this expensive in the U.S.

    Labor - 10 times the cost of Asia

    Insurance

    Government subsidies and taxes - China still goes out of its way to bring production into the country

    Overheads

    Environmental

    Health and Safety



    Unless the U.S. gets serious about wanting to be a manufacturing country and changes its policies accordingly, we will never see a resurgence of manufacturing in this country. Since it's nearly impossible for us to lower our standards to third world levels (nor should we), it would have to be death with via a tariff to cover environmental damage being done by third world countries as well as health and safety costs. That would go a long way toward leveling the playing field.









    Short sighted and incorrect.



    First, it takes the extreme position that you should never buy anything unless it's made in America. Very few people actually suggest that. More common (and more reasonable) is to buy American when it is practical.



    The 'experts' are undoubtedly speaking on behalf of multinational corporations: "But financial experts say that it's best for America if you buy the cheapest product you can find without sacrificing quality." That is also a very short-sighted view. It fails to take into account the global implications of our relentless trade deficit. For you as an individual, it might be correct that buying the cheapest product makes sense. As a country, it doesn't - you have to add in loss of tax revenue, loss of jobs - which means further loss of tax revenue and unemployment costs, excess global pollution (pollution in China affects us here), and the damage that an endless deficit does to our economy.



    How very arrogant and elitist of you....If american companies break the laws and pollute the environment then it is not their fault....someone is supposed to punish them and enforce laws.Is that really what you are saying?

    Making companies accountable starts with each company not the whole at large. Its not ok just because everyone else does it! I agree with you that Apple is "greener" than most but they still have work to do.....
  • Reply 22 of 47
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Pegatron, one of Apple's manufacturers for the iPhone, has been called out for excessive pollution



    The report also mentioned that Pegatron's two other subsidiaries had been fined because of polluted water.



    the impact that the rumored 10 million iPhone 4S orders Apple has placed with the company will have on its revenues. But, the supplier will likely announce losses for 2011, the report said.





    At the beginning of this year, environmental groups in China called out Apple as the least responsive to environmental and workers' rights issues among a group of 25 technology companies. In August, several groups made public a follow-up report that accused Apple of taking "advantage of loopholes in developing countries' environmental management systems."







    an incident at a Wintek facility where workers were exposed to toxic n-hexane gas.



    an April report from Greenpeace accused the company of using "dirty" energy at its $1 billion data center in Maiden, N.C.





    It s called "supply chain management".



    This is what Cook is best at. This is why Apple can make huge profits despite their low low prices.



    This is business. Business is business.



    The environmental wackos would want us to pay more for our iProducts, but Apple knows how to keep their costs WAY down. Tim Cook is a genius at this stuff.
  • Reply 23 of 47
    First, article says Pegatron was polluting "ever since". Obviously when it became Apple's supplier then immediately pollution became a problem.

    Second, they are not an american companies breaking law. They are chinese companies that broke a low for maximum profit.
  • Reply 24 of 47
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    Ok so would you like to pay 20 dollars more per device. I am saying 20 dollars more to get the newest iPhone? Or maybe 50 dollars more. My point... What if we made the damn things in this country!?!? Is that such a crime? Dammit. We are hard workers too. We need the Jobs HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





    Prices are independent of costs. Prices are set to maximize profits, and higher prices generally mean lower volumes.



    So US manufacturing might not raise prices one bit.



    However, it would almost certainly reduce Apple's profits. Therefore, it ain't ever gonna happen. Profits are the goal here.



    Nothing else matters more than profits to a company like Apple. How the heck did they become the biggest company in the world? By voluntarily reducing profits? I don't think so.





    Apple makes more money per device than anybody.
  • Reply 25 of 47
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    How about the Government make it easier for companies like Apple to get other companies like the ones in this post to make cost effective and competitive products in this country. Government incentives. Tax breaks and so on. Lets ask a question. Do we want to put people back to work or do we want to be a country who is a slave to china? I believe this country has what it takes to work it out and get it done. Its up to the politicians and the CEO's to get it done!



    A better idea is to put things in place to encourage companies that need no tax breaks to be profitable. Unskilled/semiskilled manual labor is cheap on the world market. We need to do things that add more value than that.



    Hey - we could hire armies of unskilled people to pan for gold in the tailings piles of defunct mines. We could pay them a living wage, subsidized by everybody else. We could put huge percentages of our GDP towards such projects.



    Or we could buy gold on the world market form fertile, productive sources in other countries.



    Same thing.



    Why not outlaw mechanical digging equipment? Hire armies of men with picks and shovels? Because that would be inefficient. We would get less value/$ doing it that way. We would all, as a nation, be worse off. All except, of course, the unskilled shovel jockeys.



    Subsidizing unprofitable ventures is rarely a good strategy for building wealth.
  • Reply 26 of 47
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    American workers are too spoiled



    Do you live in America?

    Do you work?

    Are you too spoiled?





    <sarcasm>



    Would we be better off with an army of starving, desperate people begging for scraps? I bet that they would work for cheap! They could make items for us to buy cheap. We could make special camps for them, where stuff like minimum wage laws don't apply. They would be fed and housed by the Company, and would buy everything they need from the Company. Of course, if they fell behind in their debts to the Company, they would not be allowed to leave until they work it off, even if it takes forever. Mining towns used to be like that, and there used to be profitable mining companies. Very profitable.



    But now they are spoiled. Many of them have multiple jobs, all paying minimum wage. And that is not good enough for them. Americans are spoiled. They expect that if they work hard all day, they will be able to afford an iPad. Get with it, American workers! You make too much money! You don't work hard enough! You are spoiled!



    </sarcasm>
  • Reply 27 of 47
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    Who are we to say these jobs aren't what US workers want. There are us workers hanging on by a thread. There are families who are homeless. There are people in this country who are desperate. I bet they would love to have a job right now. Its easy to say that when we have a nice roof over our heads and warm bed to sleep in. This is what makes us so insensitive to things. We in this country don't want these Jobs. Who are we to say such things. Does one person speak for the whole populous? Lets ask the homeless or the family who has no Jobs.



    Been there. Done that.



    Few Americans want immigrants' jobs in Ala.



    http://www.semissourian.com/story/1776201.html









    According to some, Americans are lazy and spoiled. They do not wont to work at stoop labor for sub-minimum wage. Not in the hot sun. The American worker, according to these guys, is spoiled.



    So if we make horrible conditions and low wages available to them, they would be too spoiled to thank us.
  • Reply 28 of 47
    onhkaonhka Posts: 1,025member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    Short sighted and incorrect.



    First, it takes the extreme position that you should never buy anything unless it's made in America. Very few people actually suggest that. More common (and more reasonable) is to buy American when it is practical.



    The 'experts' are undoubtedly speaking on behalf of multinational corporations: "But financial experts say that it's best for America if you buy the cheapest product you can find without sacrificing quality." That is also a very short-sighted view. It fails to take into account the global implications of our relentless trade deficit. For you as an individual, it might be correct that buying the cheapest product makes sense. As a country, it doesn't - you have to add in loss of tax revenue, loss of jobs - which means further loss of tax revenue and unemployment costs, excess global pollution (pollution in China affects us here), and the damage that an endless deficit does to our economy.



    And your financial business acumen is based on what educational degree?



    Perhaps you shouldn't have taken the quote out of context.

    Quote:

    But financial experts say that it's best for America if you buy the cheapest product you can find without sacrificing quality. Their explanation rests on the concept of efficient manufacturing. An efficient producer creates the most valuable goods with the least possible expense, selling those items at lower prices than competitors who are less efficient. A country benefits when its manufacturers become more efficient.



    When you spend more on an equivalent product simply because it's made in the U.S., you're wasting your money -- and supporting an inefficient manufacturer that, by rights, should become more efficient or go out of business. Moreover, the additional $9.01 or $200 that Kruskol had spent on an inefficient U.S. producer could have been spent on something else, helping the economy further. Or it could have stayed in his savings account and been funneled by his bank into the financial system, which in theory allocates capital to the most efficient producers.



    http://money.msn.com/how-to-budget/w...-american.aspx



  • Reply 29 of 47
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by geekdad View Post


    How very arrogant and elitist of you....If american companies break the laws and pollute the environment then it is not their fault....someone is supposed to punish them and enforce laws.Is that really what you are saying?

    Making companies accountable starts with each company not the whole at large. Its not ok just because everyone else does it! I agree with you that Apple is "greener" than most but they still have work to do.....



    You're ignoring the fact that it's not American companies breaking the law and polluting. Furthermore, even the Chinese companies are not breaking the law in most cases. China's environmental laws are extremely lax.



    China chooses to ignore environmental laws in order to create jobs and an export economy. Then, when it's convenient, they attack a few of their CUSTOMERS for pollution. That's insane.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Onhka View Post


    And your financial business acumen is based on what educational degree?



    Perhaps you shouldn't have taken the quote out of context.



    I didn't take the quote out of context. You see, unlike you, I understand economics.



    The problem with those 'experts' is that they are assuming a level playing field. The principle of 'efficient producer' only applies when you don't have countries stacking the deck. Furthermore, they're looking at it from a microeconomic perspective and I'm suggesting that macroeconomics be considered, as well.



    If you listen to these 'experts', we would have shifted ALL of our jobs overseas and everyone in this country would be selling insurance to each other.
  • Reply 30 of 47
    geekdadgeekdad Posts: 1,131member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    You're ignoring the fact that it's not American companies breaking the law and polluting. Furthermore, even the Chinese companies are not breaking the law in most cases. China's environmental laws are extremely lax.



    China chooses to ignore environmental laws in order to create jobs and an export economy. Then, when it's convenient, they attack a few of their CUSTOMERS for pollution. That's insane..



    So Apple (among other compnaies) does buiness in developing countries BECAUSE they have lax polution restrictions. But it is ok because China allows them to polute thier country?

    So is it ok to have child labor as long as the country allows it? Your justification just doesn't work! It still not ok.....
  • Reply 31 of 47
    onhkaonhka Posts: 1,025member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    You're ignoring the fact that it's not American companies breaking the law and polluting. Furthermore, even the Chinese companies are not breaking the law in most cases. China's environmental laws are extremely lax.



    China chooses to ignore environmental laws in order to create jobs and an export economy. Then, when it's convenient, they attack a few of their CUSTOMERS for pollution. That's insane.



    I didn't take the quote out of context. You see, unlike you, I understand economics.



    The problem with those 'experts' is that they are assuming a level playing field. The principle of 'efficient producer' only applies when you don't have countries stacking the deck. Furthermore, they're looking at it from a microeconomic perspective and I'm suggesting that macroeconomics be considered, as well.



    If you listen to these 'experts', we would have shifted ALL of our jobs overseas and everyone in this country would be selling insurance to each other.



    China is not perfect, but it is changing. Environment in the People's Republic of China

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environ...ublic_of_China



    On a trip to Xi'an last year, I was amazed at the how many newly constructed and how clean their coal-fire power plants were. Certainly nothing like I expected. And where did it say the China was attacking any customers for pollution?



    Perhaps you understand economics, but your sense of the English language seems lacking. As stated in the article, "?the concept of efficient manufacturing?," and the counter argument was not the "principal" as you put it. Big difference.



    As well, "these 'experts' did not suggest that ALL of our jobs be shifted overseas?.



    Did you miss reading page 2?
  • Reply 32 of 47
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by geekdad View Post


    So Apple (among other compnaies) does buiness in developing countries BECAUSE they have lax polution restrictions. But it is ok because China allows them to polute thier country?

    So is it ok to have child labor as long as the country allows it? Your justification just doesn't work! It still not ok.....



    Apple does more to improve working conditions and the environment than almost any other company in their markets. But, LEGALLY, they are only required to comply with the laws that affect them. They are not liable for what their suppliers do.
  • Reply 33 of 47
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    How about the Government make it easier for companies like Apple to get other companies like the ones in this post to make cost effective and competitive products in this country. Government incentives. Tax breaks and so on. Lets ask a question. Do we want to put people back to work or do we want to be a country who is a slave to china? I believe this country has what it takes to work it out and get it done. Its up to the politicians and the CEO's to get it done!



    Government incentives are useless, why? Because they come out of your taxes. Although corn is sold below cost to the corporations due to gov incentives, the incentives come out of your tax money so you end up paying for it anyway. Actually you end up paying for the costs needed to run the program too.



    Tax breaks, now that's a great idea, however Mr. Bernanke will not settle for anything short of chaos for the financial market.
  • Reply 34 of 47
    xsuxsu Posts: 401member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    How about the Government make it easier for companies like Apple to get other companies like the ones in this post to make cost effective and competitive products in this country. Government incentives. Tax breaks and so on. Lets ask a question. Do we want to put people back to work or do we want to be a country who is a slave to china? I believe this country has what it takes to work it out and get it done. Its up to the politicians and the CEO's to get it done!



    You just go ahead and calculate the amount of investment needed to research the technologies, build all the factories and train the workers to just supply components to Apple's favorite contract manufacturer. You'll find that the ship had sailed a long time ago for consumer electronics to be produced in USA.
  • Reply 35 of 47
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    Apple does more to improve working conditions and the environment than almost any other company in their markets. But, LEGALLY, they are only required to comply with the laws that affect them. They are not liable for what their suppliers do.



    it's interesting how only Apple gets called out despite Chinese factories making goods for hundreds if not thousands of companies throughout the world. I guess that's the other side of the coin for having the most mindshare.
  • Reply 36 of 47
    realisticrealistic Posts: 1,154member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    Ok so would you like to pay 20 dollars more per device. I am saying 20 dollars more to get the newest iPhone? Or maybe 50 dollars more. My point... What if we made the damn things in this country!?!? Is that such a crime? Dammit. We are hard workers too. We need the Jobs HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



    You are clueless, $20 to $30 more? It would costs much more than that to make them in the USA.
  • Reply 37 of 47
    realisticrealistic Posts: 1,154member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    it's interesting how only Apple gets called out despite Chinese factories making goods for hundreds if not thousands of companies throughout the world. I guess that's the other side of the coin for having the most mindshare.



    I agree 100%
  • Reply 38 of 47
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    You guys who always post this "bring the manufacturing back home" stuff need to back up about 50 years. Where were you when television set manufacturing, camera, tape machine, radio, hi-fi, all electronic assembly and component sourcing started in Japan, and then in Taiwan, Korea and now China?



    Asia has a lead of experience in large-scale process engineering going back two generations now. For America to revive this industry (actually it never had a solid-state electronics assembly competence), Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China would have to supply the factories. And maybe the supervisory work force, like with autos and trucks, but thousands of times more complex.



    Americans still have one skill, maintained by bringing in engineering and science brains from around the world, and that is in hardware and software design. Apple has illustrated this better than any other company recently, but Intel and other chip companies started it, which is what got Apple and Silicon Valley going in the 60s and 70s. It started around the research universities like MIT and Stanford that were funded by government to lay out strategic technologies.



    Meanwhile the US was becoming post-industrial, meaning that the manufacturing infrastructure was becoming too much to bear for a population that had lost interest in industrial wage-slavery. This is inevitable, and it will happen to China just as it happened to the US and Japan.



    Improving US competitiveness should be directed at education in responsible, sustainable technology, just like the smarter strategists are saying right now. Apple is showing the way, and you dreamers of a restored factory system in the US are ignoring it.



    It was only 25 years ago that Montrose Chemical Company stopped dumping DDT into the streams that emptied into the Pacific near Palos Verdes. The brown pelican and the bald eagle populations were decimated. You still don't want to eat the bigger bottom feeder fish around here. 110 metric tons of DDT and PCBs are still in the ocean sediments.



    Edit: By coincidence (again), Gruber provides an excellent example of post-Apple design sense today. Tony Fadell has made a thermostat!



    http://daringfireball.net/



    And it occurs to me that maybe the remaining US industries such as auto manufacturing could study how the Germans and Japanese and now Koreans manage to design and build things that people in other countries actually want or wouldn't be embarrassed by. But that's asking a lot. They've had 50 years to learn their lessons and still we see Escalades and Navigators.
  • Reply 39 of 47
    realisticrealistic Posts: 1,154member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    Who are we to say these jobs aren't what US workers want. There are us workers hanging on by a thread. There are families who are homeless. There are people in this country who are desperate. I bet they would love to have a job right now. Its easy to say that when we have a nice roof over our heads and warm bed to sleep in. This is what makes us so insensitive to things. We in this country don't want these Jobs. Who are we to say such things. Does one person speak for the whole populous? Lets ask the homeless or the family who has no Jobs.



    At the wages these jobs would pay, recent history has shown us that US workers don't want the jobs.



    Are you willing to pay (with higher taxes or higher product costs) the billions required to build the factories and train the workers here in the USA? The wages would have to be somewhat low to be competitive with other manufacturing economies. With low paying jobs the 'Build it (factories) and they (workers) will come' mentality doesn't hold true in the USA. Check to see who are the workers in the lower paying jobs in your area first, then we'll talk. I hear many people say they are willing to pay more for USA made products but the reality is that in practice very few do and you can use the actual products they own as proof.
  • Reply 40 of 47
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tylerk36 View Post


    How about the Government make it easier for companies like Apple to get other companies like the ones in this post to make cost effective and competitive products in this country. Government incentives. Tax breaks and so on. Lets ask a question. Do we want to put people back to work or do we want to be a country who is a slave to china? I believe this country has what it takes to work it out and get it done. Its up to the politicians and the CEO's to get it done!



    The minimum wage in the USA is $7.25/ hr which works out to annual salary around $15k. The minimum wage in China varies by region, but works out to $200/mo or less. So figure an annual salary of $1500 of less in China. 10 times lower than in the US.



    Where is the USA government going to get the money to fund the difference? Incentives and tax breaks are already a huge problem which contribute to our massive federal debt and distorted market forces. If Apple gets a tax break, than Exxon or Chase should get to have one, right? Incentives and tax breaks are handed out based on politics - not true market forces.



    To correct our economic problems we need to quit screwing with the market by creating artificial forces that distort the true costs of products. We end up with problems like Solyandra. It would be better to spend the money on educating our next generation of workers to have skills which are in high demand and pay well. Let low skills jobs move overseas. Unfortunately our educational systems seems to be failing as well.



    There was a news story the other day about how they cannot find enough workers to pick apples during harvesting season. Even though we have high unemployment, they can't get enough workers because the Feds have been deporting more illegal immigrants. I guess that means the unemployed don't want to work doing manual labor, they would rather collect unemployment and welfare.
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