JMaille

fred1 said:

The reasons given that prevent iPhones from being made in the US - “there is not the required skilled labor, there is not a supply of the rare minerals needed, and there are no facilities.” - can be dealt with, but would take years to implement. It’s not impossible, but the overnight change the Orange Man wants can’t happen.  Does he really not understand this? 

When are people going to realize this isn’t about reducing the cost to consumers, this is about getting as much money out of consumers as they possibly can.  Epic and the other companies that are protesting the “Apple Tax” aren’t trying to eliminate or even reduce the cost of being in the App Store for themselves.  What they are trying to do is force Apple, either through their own decision, through the courts, or through legislation, to change the way they charge developers for being in the App Store.  They want to do away with the competition from free apps.  They want Apple to change to an approach where any developer that wants to put an app in the App Store has to pay for it, which in turn will eliminate almost all free apps and almost all developers they may have to compete with.  Or better yet, they want to force Apple to allow, or be force to allow, alternate App Stores on every single IOS device so they can stop having to live with the privacy restrictions Apple forces on them.  Then they can get to what they really want, harvesting user data so they can make the user what they think all users should be – the product rather than the customer.

9secondkox2 said:

jesusfreak said:

These comments, "it is impossible", are frankly BS and why we are facing the problems we are facing now.  The truth will end up somewhere in the middle.  Many companies CAN do more here in the US.  As Americans we have become addicted to cheap labor at our own long term expense.  We can do MORE in the USA.  Maybe some things don't make sense, but we have to realize that many of the "cheap" products we are buying, are part of why our national debt is getting cranked up.  We are paying, whether we see it out the cashier or not.   We are also paying a lot for many middle men in Pharmaceuticals, Health Care, Education and more.  There are a lot of unproductive people out there leaching off the American taxpayer.   If I have to pay $500 more for an iPhone and it starts to bring down our debt, so be it.    Bash Trump all you want.  He's the only President in recent history to have the balls to face these facts and at least TRY to do something about the problems.  It takes a BIG PUSHER to move BIG BUREAUCRACIES and the status quo.  The middle men will not give up their loot easily.  

Finally a post with common sense. 

Really?

"It is impossible" -- a short form way of saying it is financially imprudent for a CEO to suggest such a thing because it will cause the company to loose a great deal of money, the CEO will loose their job, and the next CEO won't even suggest it -- so in short impossible is a good choice of words.

"Many companies can do more here in the US."  -- Yes they can.  They could also just liquidate their companies and give the money to their stockholders, but that isn't what most companies are in business for, though it has been done in the past.

"As Americans we have become addicted to cheap labor..." -- Since we're talking about Apple I'll point out that what their suppliers are paying in labor isn't all that cheap in relative terms.  The labor is very skilled, which means it's not cheap.  Skilled labor, by the way, that doesn't exist in the United States.  Maybe the federal government could increase funding for education to help provide that labor.  Oh, wait, the plan is to get rid of the Department of Education., so that's not going to happen.

"...are part of why our national debt is getting cranked up..." -- Just no, that is not how the national debt works at all.  The national debt is the amount of money the federal government has borrowed to cover the outstanding balance of expenses incurred over time.  How would that be reduced by companies moving things to the US where they will be more expensive to make.  Those expense will be going to equipment and labor costs, not to pay down the national debt.  If anything it might even cause the national debt to go up because revenue for those companies would likely go down due to expenses resulting them paying less in taxes, they would have additional business costs which they would write off their taxes.  Sure income tax for the new labors would increase paid taxes but certainly not by the amounts the companies would be taking off their taxes.  Additionally, the companies would have to borrow the money to startup the factories which would increase the overall money supply and over all debt, which is of questionable help to the overall economy...

"We are also paying a lot of middle men..." -- Standard conservative opinion that is of questionable truth, but the big thing is what has that got to do with anything with regards to Apple making products in the United States rather than other countries?  I guess Apple's non-owned and operated retailers are middlemen, but here in the United States, they are mostly US companies, employing US workers.  I suppose in a sense Apple is a middleman because they don't actually make most of their products but...  I just don't get your point.

"There are a lot of unproductive people out there leaching off the American taxpayer." -- Again nothing to do with the conversation but being a liberal that lives in a majority liberal state that in aggregate pays significantly more in taxes to the federal government than the money sends back to my state, so that my taxes can go to the many majority conservative states that in aggregate get more in money from the federal government than they pay in taxes, maybe I can/should agree with this one.

"If I have to pay $500 more for an iPhone and it starts to bring down our debt, so be it."  --- First I don't believe you.  You won't pay $500 more because if you would you'd already be sending that $500 to the federal government directly as an add on to your taxes, after all there is a place to make a contribution on your tax forms.  But you're not doing that either, are you, so this statement simply isn't true, is it?  And, again, it isn't going to impact the national debt because by definition it would be simply be going to the higher cost of manufacturing in the US.

"Bash Trump all you want." -- Okay, Donald Trump is an apparent pathological liar, a failed business man who has run numerous companies in to bankruptcy, a racist, a sexist, a mysoginist, a convicted felon, a serial sexual predator, a man that has committed acts of espionage against the US... I could go on, but you said bash him, and I don't think that repeating FACTS about him as determined by the courts and his own statements amounts to "bashing him."

"...only President in recent history to have the balls to face these facts..." -- What facts?  You haven't presented any facts, just your opinions and the repeated mindless conservative drivel that so many people seem to believe because they apparently don't want to think for themselves.

The reality is that Donald Trump seems to like chaos.  There is a school of thought that believes that a business gets the best outcomes from chaos. (You can google that if you want.)  The thing is, the economy as a whole hates chaos.  In simple terms it makes planning and investment extremely difficult and extremely risky.  (You can google that too.) 

Really, it appears that Donald Trump doesn't even understand what a tariff is.  He keeps saying foreign countries pay them, but that isn't true at all (okay, it's a lie).  Tariffs are a tax paid by the residents of the country that has applied the tariff.  Tariffs have their place as part of an organized approach to building or protecting acting a specific industry, but that isn't what he's doing.  He had his flunkies make up some otherwise meaningless numbers that they turned into a percentage, and he started a trade war with the rest of the world.  Of course slowly, he has returned a few areas back to almost where they were in the beginning, declared victory, and said "Oh, look how great I am!"

Of course, I recognize the real truth here... neither 9secondcox2 nor jesusfreak are going to read this and even if they do they won't believe it, they'll call it all lies and liberal BS and say I don't know anything about what I am talking about.  (That is unless it just outright gets deleted by an admin for some questionable reason.) 

The fact is, right now, the way things are going, we (the entire world, though the US in particular) are royally and definitely fucked.  If not because of the damage being done by this president and his minions, by the tens of millions of people in this country that don't believe in the value of expertise, science, facts, reality, the law, or the constitution anymore and think this guy is the greatest president the US has ever seen and he is going to Make America Great Again -- a slogan, which of course he stole from someone else (you can Google that too).

daven said:

I’m ok with a 25% tariff…. Just make it 100% deductible on Apple’s income tax on a a 1:1 basis.

22july2013 said:

...the government has many "100% legal options" at their disposal, such as not buying any products for their own employees from companies that censor free speech...