Apple's Chinese manufacturing used as talking point in presidential debate

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  • Reply 21 of 50
    narcogen wrote: »
    The percentage of an iDevice's total cost that goes to labor is very small.
    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400611,00.asp
    The reason they are manufactured in China is less because of low labor costs, and more because giant complexes are set up in such a way that your entire supply chain is in one place, simplifying logistics.

    The reason the percentage of an iDevice's total cost that goes to labor is so small is that the assembly workers are paid so little. It takes about eight hours to assemble an iPad; in the USA that could easily cost $120 to $200 per device, as opposed to $10 in China.
  • Reply 22 of 50
    rot'napplerot'napple Posts: 1,839member
    Obama: "Some jobs have left American soil for good.". Then added, "Steve Jobs told me so!"
  • Reply 23 of 50
    Why is china devalue currency "cheating?" It is a price China pays with inflation and future problems. If the US don't like the cheap goods from China, don't buy them. If we think they are bing unfair, tax the imports. Every government choose to do what it does for itself. Blame other people is stupid.
  • Reply 24 of 50

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by winstein2010 View Post



    Why is china devalue currency "cheating?" 


    Because it is against international rules.

  • Reply 25 of 50
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Horse crap. We at NeXT had a fully automated manufacturing assembly for the NeXT Product line. That wasn't the reason for the extremely high pricing. Sorry, advances in Manufacturing will be a synergy of Humanity and Robotics.

    That is fascinating to know. I would imagine that robotics are also very expensive and time consuming to change quickly as products change rapidly as with Apple. In the'old' days when products remained unchanged for far longer I imagine situations where robotic production lines were cost effective for many things but today? The speed Apple can bring new products to market is truly staggering. What is needed to automate such fast changing production I wonder?

    Do you foresee a new type of robotic manufacturing that is capable of dealing with the likes of Apple? I have long wonded if Apple themselves are not looking at such possibilities behind the scenes. They seem to have an MO that solves problems others just live with.
  • Reply 26 of 50
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by drblank View Post



    ...we actually have too many people that can't afford to have children, having children. That's the problem with China and many countries. I know it doesn't sound Politically Correct, but we have too many people and not enough jobs to go around.

     


    This is mostly correct. China of course has a huge population although their rate of growth is under control with the one child per family rule. This law does cause some social issues as the children end up with an altered social development but that is a very minor problem. Your other point of too many poor people worldwide having too many children is a ticking time bomb. We as a planet are consuming far too many resources to be sustainable. The unemployment and economic situation is definitely a symptom of this overpopulation crisis.


     


    In the US we have a higher than normal unemployment rate, but bringing manufacturing back to the US would not employ very many of the people who are currently unemployed. Many of those people are virtually unemployable. They have minimal education, no skills, and usually some domestic problems or health issues making them unreliable employees. Yet they keep having more children and feed them nothing but junk food. The only solution is fewer births and more education.

  • Reply 27 of 50
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member


    Today the smart money for businesses is in IP, not manufacture.


     


    I'm not sure how that model can be made to serve society however...

  • Reply 28 of 50
    Generally speaking, companies move jobs overseas to increase profit margin, not because they can't afford to pay American workers. Retail prices for products rarely have any close connection to the cost of labor involved. Just think about the markup for products like clothing and shoes...the prices are nowhere near to the actual cost of materials and labor.
  • Reply 29 of 50

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    In the US we have a higher than normal unemployment rate, but bringing manufacturing back to the US would not employ very many of the people who are currently unemployed. Many of those people are virtually unemployable. They have minimal education, no skills, and usually some domestic problems or health issues making them unreliable employees. Yet they keep having more children and feed them nothing but junk food. The only solution is fewer births and more education.


     


    You seem to be forgetting that the current high unemployment rate is primarily due to the mass layoffs that occurred as the result of the housing market crash and financial meltdown in 2007-2009. You can't claim that someone who was laid off as the result of an economic recession is "unemployable".

  • Reply 30 of 50
    frankiefrankie Posts: 381member


    Completely agree with the education part.  We need to switch our military and education budgets and see where we are in 20 years.  Education solves multiple problems at once, less drugs, less abortions, staying in school, better jobs, future companies, smarter workforce, etc.  Too bad the GOP wants to cut education and invest more in military...

  • Reply 31 of 50
    frankiefrankie Posts: 381member


    Completely agree.  I love Apple products, but does Tim Cook really need to be making $400 million in 1 year alone?  All these CEO's and board members have so much money they are buying the gov't.  If you have that much money lying around something is wrong with the system.

  • Reply 32 of 50
    xsuxsu Posts: 401member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by monstrosity View Post


    Because it is against international rules.



     


    I guess they should just do it the American way, print large quantity of money, release it into circulation under the term Quantitative Easing.


     


    Oh, BTW, there are no international rule on devaluation of currency.  Sorry to burst your bubble.

  • Reply 33 of 50
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by foregoneconclusion View Post




    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    In the US we have a higher than normal unemployment rate, but bringing manufacturing back to the US would not employ very many of the people who are currently unemployed. Many of those people are virtually unemployable. They have minimal education, no skills, and usually some domestic problems or health issues making them unreliable employees. Yet they keep having more children and feed them nothing but junk food. The only solution is fewer births and more education.


     


    You seem to be forgetting that the current high unemployment rate is primarily due to the mass layoffs that occurred as the result of the housing market crash and financial meltdown in 2007-2009. You can't claim that someone who was laid off as the result of an economic recession is "unemployable".



     


    If you reread my post, I wrote many are unemployed due to problems with their education, skills, domestic or health issues. Perhaps poor reading comprehension skills could be considered part of lack of education. Besides if you were laid off from Wall Street or the housing real estate speculation markets, you weren't really employed, you were part of a criminal enterprise.

  • Reply 34 of 50

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by xsu View Post


     


    I guess they should just do it the American way, print large quantity of money, release it into circulation under the term Quantitative Easing.


     


    Oh, BTW, there are no international rule on devaluation of currency.  Sorry to burst your bubble.



     


    Well that seems a grey area...


     


    "The IMF is responsible for exercising firm surveillance over exchange-rate policies. Article IV(1)(iii) IMF Articles contains a rule on competitive devaluations: “Each member state shall avoid manipulating exchange rates … in order [to] ... gain an unfair competitive advantage over other members.”"

  • Reply 35 of 50
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    I heard that Foxconn has 1.2 million Chinese workers. If they are paid like US workers how much will be the total salaries? Let me assume the average US worker is paid $30,000/yr. The total will be 1,200,000 x $30,000 = $36,000,000,000. Foxconn workers are paid like one tenth of US workers. $3,600,000,000 But keep in mind this is not what Foxconn charges Apple. Foxconn also has to pay for the factories, transportation, and profits. That is a factor of two to three. This will be the same if those high tech devices are manufactured in US. So the cost of manufacturing them in US will actually be $72 to $108 billion.
  • Reply 36 of 50
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    frankie wrote: »
    Completely agree.  I love Apple products, but does Tim Cook really need to be making $400 million in 1 year alone?  All these CEO's and board members have so much money they are buying the gov't.  If you have that much money lying around something is wrong with the system.
    In the 1950s, which so much of conservative America waxes nostalgic for, when the middle class was on the rise and the disparity between the have and have-nots was much smaller than it is today, the average CEOs earned about 30x the average worker's wage. Now it's over 600x.
    -putting together an iPhone is dull, repetitive work.
    Exactly. When Obama said, the low-skilled jobs were shipped outside the US, and never going to come back, this is what he was talking about. Assembling an iPhone is not rocket surgery. It's assembly line work, like building a car. Anybody can do it with the proper training. Yet the candidates talk about bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US. The sad reality is, that in manufacturing, very little of it requires a college degree, or other specialized education. So I'm a little confused about exactly what jobs these candidates think they are going to bring back. As others have pointed out, the supply chain is localized in Asia, which is a bigger factor than the workers. So are the candidates suggesting companies like Apple bring the supply chains back to the US as well?

    Interestingly, Wham-O was forced to bring their manufacturing jobs back to the US, because the Chinese didn't want it. They only want high-tech jobs, not crap jobs. And it has nothing to do with "skill". it doesnt take any more skill for a worker to assemble a toy than it does an iPhone. So the Frisbee is proudly made in the US, while the iPhone is made in China. Something's wrong with that picture.
  • Reply 37 of 50
    doh123doh123 Posts: 323member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by frankie View Post


    Completely agree with the education part.  We need to switch our military and education budgets and see where we are in 20 years.  Education solves multiple problems at once, less drugs, less abortions, staying in school, better jobs, future companies, smarter workforce, etc.  Too bad the GOP wants to cut education and invest more in military...



    At least start with the truth... the GOP does want to invest in the military, but they also want to invest more in education, as several people, including Romney has said.

  • Reply 38 of 50
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by doh123 View Post




    Quote:

    Originally Posted by frankie View Post


    Completely agree with the education part.  We need to switch our military and education budgets and see where we are in 20 years.  Education solves multiple problems at once, less drugs, less abortions, staying in school, better jobs, future companies, smarter workforce, etc.  Too bad the GOP wants to cut education and invest more in military...



    At least start with the truth... the GOP does want to invest in the military, but they also want to invest more in education, as several people, including Romney has said.



    Was that with the charter school voucher program?

  • Reply 39 of 50

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


    Steve Jobs products are touched by hundreds of thousands of pairs of hands. Hands who have been trained to handle, with care, IC Products and to test them so that when they are stamped out by the millions the failure rate are reduced to a maximum.


     


    If you think the Auto Industry, the Space Industry, the you name it industry of Defense is built buy cheap, Chinese Labor you're all sorely mistaken.


     


    Incentives to off-shore and to thus do so was put in place to make any sane business person to off-shore their manufacturing. Just as easy as it is to give incentives to off-shore the same goes for on-shore.


     


    One of the biggest incentives is national security.


     


    You want to see advanced manufacturing then you invest in it. The US has restored nearly 800k manufacturing jobs in Wind, Solar and Bio Energies. Cheap labor isn't bring those products to market.


     


    People need to study Mechanical Engineering and its Manufacturing Processes before spouting off about a conversation by men in Silicon Valley who currently are encouraged to off-shore.


     


    Those same men will be encouraged to on-shore by advances in Engineering, Physics the same way these companies were created via DARPA, NSF, and more.


     


    Sorry, but the days of Cheap Labor in China are coming to an end, from within the US and from within China and their own people.



     


    Oh yeah, let's throw money at Solyndra, First Solar, General Investment Management LLP, and other Obama's energy (eg, ethanol) cronies - that ought to solve all our problems!!  What we need is another bubble, a Green Energy bubble to cover up the housing burst! You know, you democrats / libtards can't do no wrong.  Yay, politics rule!

  • Reply 40 of 50

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by winstein2010 View Post



    Why is china devalue currency "cheating?" It is a price China pays with inflation and future problems. If the US don't like the cheap goods from China, don't buy them. If we think they are bing unfair, tax the imports. Every government choose to do what it does for itself. Blame other people is stupid.


     


    Well, that's not technically correct - considering that the US too has been artificially devaluing the currency for a while (US dollar index was 120 in 2000, now it's 78).  But it's politically much convenient to blame foreigners, immigrants or other marginalized groups for all their economic/social ills.

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