FileMakerFeller
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Trade war escalations between Trump and China to significantly impact Apple
bloggerblog said:I don't think Trump knows how to put 'America First', he's creating more enemies than friends. -
Trump vs. China: How the tariff war has hit Apple so far
red oak said:Excellent summary
Even if you agree with the end goals, the communications and execution of this tariff effort has been a complete sh*tshow. The Admin better start signing great trade deals fast (eg. IndIa, Taiwan, Japan, etc...) to re-gain momentum or this is going to a disaster.
And, Tim Cook bears major responsibility for backing Apple into a Chinese corner. Why has he not at least tried to bring more manufacturing to the US? Either final assembly using state of the art automation, or pushing harder for parts vendors to do more manufacturing here? The writing has been on the wall for 10+ years . Your sitting on $150 billion in cash for fuckin* sake
As for Tim's direction of Apple... none of this is happening in isolation. For efficiency of manufacture, you want all the components to be manufactured within a reasonable geographic distance of your assembly point (otherwise you're holding excess inventory to reduce the risks and costs of shipment) - this means that any labour cost differential is magnified across all of the components and subcomponents that go into the final product. Even if wages in the US were "only" double those in China, that's a big impact: market forces are such that actively seeking to pay more than double the cost for the same product will see any management team suffer dire consequences. That's why the manufacturing moved overseas in the first place; the cost savings were significant and management teams and investors got rewarded for cost reduction.
There are also arguments made about workforce availability, housing, transport and the sheer volume and variety of components. Apple is not the sole customer for most of the component manufacturers, and while it is an important enough customer to demand great pricing I doubt it has enough sway to demand the location of manufacture (unless it pays substantially more, which as stated above is a self-damaging move).
The way I see it, either the US workforce needs to accept a massive reduction in compensation, the US companies need to accept a massive increase in costs, or the manufacturing jobs remain where they are. Any change to the status quo will need to happen over a long-term timeframe so that the current shortcomings in US capabilities can be addressed. -
Cupertino returns $12.1 million to Apple after long-running sales tax dispute
mpantone said:Huh, I apparently did not understand this particular issue perhaps because I have usually done so from the same county. It's strange that Apple would just bill every online tangible item as a sale from Cupertino. -
Apple stock hammered for third consecutive market day, falls on news of more tariffs
9secondkox2 said:Strengthening the homeland is only a good thing in the face of increasingly adversarial moves by abusive regimes.
Collaboration beats competition every time. -
Scammers are getting smarter, here's how you can prevent getting phished
AppleInsider said:... pill peddlers offering near mythical enhancement in one very, very specific area.