I'm surprised by how many unpatriotic comments are on this site. Brazil forced Apple to do it and they did. Apple makes mac pros here. Motorola made a phone here a few years ago (before the whole google fiasco). It can be done, especially in this age of robotics. Instead of wasting money on buybacks - spend $100 billion making a few automated robotic factories. Look at Tesla - it's domestic as much as possible and will bring the batteries with the gigafactory. It would add good jobs (not menial ones), improve the domestic supply base etc. Its a great idea, we just lack leadership. Companies will do whatever the government forces them to do if they want to stay in business.
Manufacturing is more than buying and programming some robots, then flipping a switch. And the guy who has more experience with this at Apple than anyone is Tim Cook, who came aboard when the company was in the midst of operational and manufacturing chaos. He reorganized the whole shebang into a global product and logistical marvel that propelled Apple into its preeminent stature today. Here's what he said about it to Charlie Rose last month on 60 Minutes.
"Yeah, let me-- let me-- let me clear, China put an enormous focus on manufacturing. In what we would call, you and I would call vocational kind of skills. The U.S., over time, began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills. I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we're currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields."
Cook has said it before, in other forums and in other ways. By and large, this country no longer has the people with skill sets to support advanced manufacturing in a global setting, and this nation seems unwilling to make the educational and vocational investment to support that objective. The Mac Pro being assembled in Austin is a microcosmic exception. Trump can wave his magic wand all he wants. He doesn't have the sense to turn it out of the wind and quit peeing on his shoes.
Trump can tell Apple where to make its computers after he stops having his buildings constructed using imported overseas laborers and his Trump line of business clothing sewn in overseas sweat shops.
Are you unable to understand competitive economic incentives to be had by a proactive approach to leveling the playing field. The deportation of millions of ignorant, illegals, their anchor babies, and attendant social costs... enforcement of our immigration laws and subsequent vetting of the labor talent will allow into our country to once again be a nation of laws and not corrupt, bought and paid political hacks. You should read something other than the Marxist "Thinkprogress" and Amazon.com's WAPO website. Try some Milton Friedman for once.
You are correct that there is no shortage of stupid people - Obama got elected twice.
You can't go by that. Bush was also elected twice. I know, it was actually Cheney, but still . . .
No doubt - just more proof...
On a serious note - I am thinking that the people smart enough to do that job don't want it and those seeking the job are too dumb to do it if elected.
I've seen many progressives and liberals who are loudly opposed to globalization.
Many on both sides are opposed to globalisation for their own reasons. One is for nationalist reason, the other because they're trying to save people from themselves, or from being exploited (supposedly). A bit a "white man's burden" paternalistic scenario.
So, the far right are aggressively against globalization because they fear losing control... While the far left are for it, as long as it goes the way they want it too...
I have contempt for both sides equally.
Globalization is neither all good, or all evil, it just is. Like all complex system in which humans are involved it is very very messy and complex. Eventually, it will all sort itself out and probably we'll all be better off because of it. That doesn't mean there won't be suffering in between though. That's the problem with big macro-economic changes; they're rarely painless. At the same time, they're essentially impossible to stop.
Trump wants to go back to a time of closed borders and local production; well good luck with that.... He's 60 years too late.
We're all interdependent, that's the ultimate consequence of globalization, and in the end, that means we all have stakes it what happens next. In negotiations, that's a good point to start, makes a win at all cost solution less likely to be the goal of participants.
Relinquishing control is hard for both the left and right; it makes some uncomfortable. But, control was always an illusion anyway; we all live on the same planet and it isn't getting more spacious.
When Apple tells Foxconn to turn on the production lines for a new product, Foxconn can hire 27,000 industrial Engineers in less then a month, and have them on site and working in days after they are hired. That would be an impossibility in the U.S. It would take months even a year or more to pull that off here. And it's that surplus of trained engineers and their desire to do whatever is needed (live in a dormitory, eat fish heads, have no social life, etc.) that separates Chinese workers from USA workers...
USA engineer wants to relocate their family, study the local schools, find a house to buy, negotiate a moving fee, and a process that goes on and on... The Chinese engineer is interviewed on Monday and is hard at work on Tuesday. End of bullshit. The USA hasn't seen that kind of ability to build up production instantly since WWII.
27,000 engineers? You mean 27,000 factors line workers.
Oh boy, are many people going to be in for a shock when and if the Donald wins.
I don't have to agree with him on every single issue or every word that comes out of his mouth, but I do agree with him on most issues. I am definitely voting for the man.
And the sad thing is he uses a Samsung phone. At least Apple is an American company manufacturing overseas, Samsung is an overseas company manufacturing overseas.
Samsung has invested far more in manufacturing in the US than Apple have.
But wouldn"t you guys rather prefer your iPhone is made in the USA instead of China ?
The $1500 iPhone will go down well with a lot of people as it will make for an even more exclusive display of wealth. Others might not be quite so keen.
Go ahead and try. I wonder how the public will feel about a long drawn out constitutional challenge. The Gov does not have the authority to do this as you would have to apply the same principle to everything. You cannot single out one company over another, or one industry over another. Autos are different, they are a regulated industry. Computers and electronics are not.
Will you institutionalize yourself, along with all of these people, when he wins the presidency? Or will you just go on to shill some other copied and pasted line?
If you're implying a mental health institution, I guess if the Donald wins the US itself will be indiscernible from such an institution. Sorry, no copy & paste involved, simply my opinion and yes I'm not laughing. Yeah, the prospect of widespread Hillaryism is only somewhat less frightening, but blowing up what has taken more than 200 years to get to a reasonably stable state is not a risk I'm willing to take.
In any case, the root cause of Apple not making products in the US has more to do with the failure of the US educational and vocational training system and societal priorities than politics. Executive mandates wouldn't be able to change anything when the underlying system is flawed and misguided.
No. Fuck that bullshit. Globalization ends this decade.
Globalization isn't a reversible process, short of the collapse of civilization. The American people aren't going to let you take away their German cars, French wine, Italian suits, Swiss watches, Japanese TVs, etc., etc., etc.
Half of you need to stop posting your crap here. Really. Any action starts with a vision. I clearly understand that this cannot happen overnight. It starts with our education system. We have to eliminate free loading and get people working. There are plenty of jobs out there already. If we bring more manufacturing into the US we will not have the working population to support it. The average American needs to start earning what they get (keep in mind a lot of us already do this). Yes Trump's statement is unrealistic short term but he is not saying overnight. Like many things he says he needs to phrase it differently. He should have said "We need to build an environment where Apple will want to manufacture in the US and not China."
Do people realize half the things he says are just for show to the audience to get a big applause? He knows he can't do most things he says. It is extremely entertaining to watch people get worked up over him.
Let's treat this in the most skeptical manner possible. Let's say this is nothing more than jingoistic nonsense meant to whip the voter into such a frenzy that in a fit of nationalistic fervor they run into a polling station and vote for Donald Trump. Does it really matter if after he is elected he ends up breaking the promise?
The guy was elected twice on visions of utopia and sloganeering like "Hope and Change."
I don't like Trump but how is this promise really any different than the others made by him? His claims are big, bold and they capture headlines and attention which means they capture voters.
Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay. He promised to allow the importation of prescription drugs. He promised a new era of bipartisanship and to change Washington D.C. He promised to end Super-PAC's and a Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill would be passed in his FIRST YEAR in office.
Anybody else notice we are still talking about Comprehensive Immigration Reform, it is 2016 and the man has had two terms including a first two years with a Democratic Congress to deal with it?
Broken promises are politics as usual. You can't argue whether you will be politics as usual or a different politics if you aren't elected. Trump wants to get elected.
Comments
"Yeah, let me-- let me-- let me clear, China put an enormous focus on manufacturing. In what we would call, you and I would call vocational kind of skills. The U.S., over time, began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills. I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we're currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields."
Cook has said it before, in other forums and in other ways. By and large, this country no longer has the people with skill sets to support advanced manufacturing in a global setting, and this nation seems unwilling to make the educational and vocational investment to support that objective. The Mac Pro being assembled in Austin is a microcosmic exception. Trump can wave his magic wand all he wants. He doesn't have the sense to turn it out of the wind and quit peeing on his shoes.
On a serious note - I am thinking that the people smart enough to do that job don't want it and those seeking the job are too dumb to do it if elected.
27,000 engineers? You mean 27,000 factors line workers.
Seriously, I thought this was at least one place where I wouldn't see an article containing his bad hairdo and ridiculous nonsense.
I don't have to agree with him on every single issue or every word that comes out of his mouth, but I do agree with him on most issues. I am definitely voting for the man.
I'll get my coat...
I just say this because Politifact has a six page list of broken Obama promises. Most people who are objective would probably consider the "compromises" in the larger list to be broken promises as well.
The guy was elected twice on visions of utopia and sloganeering like "Hope and Change."
I don't like Trump but how is this promise really any different than the others made by him? His claims are big, bold and they capture headlines and attention which means they capture voters.
Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay. He promised to allow the importation of prescription drugs. He promised a new era of bipartisanship and to change Washington D.C. He promised to end Super-PAC's and a Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill would be passed in his FIRST YEAR in office.
Anybody else notice we are still talking about Comprehensive Immigration Reform, it is 2016 and the man has had two terms including a first two years with a Democratic Congress to deal with it?
Broken promises are politics as usual. You can't argue whether you will be politics as usual or a different politics if you aren't elected. Trump wants to get elected.