Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme

pickens writes "A midlevel Apple manager was arrested Friday and accused of accepting more than $1 million in kickbacks from half a dozen Asian suppliers of iPhone and iPod accessories in a federal indictment unsealed and a separate civil suit. Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager, and Andrew Ang, of Singapore, were named in a 23-count federal grand jury indictment for wire fraud, money laundering and kickbacks. 'Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business,' Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in a statement. 'We have zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company.' The alleged scheme used an elaborate chain of US and foreign bank accounts and one front company to receive payments, the indictment said, and code words like 'sample' were used to refer to the payments so that Apple co-workers wouldn't become suspicious."

Comments

Memo...

[grub]

You're "dogs don't shit where they eat"-ing it wrong.

Steve

Re:Memo...

[Anonymous Coward]

iEmbezzle

Re:Memo...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're "dogs don't shit where they eat"-ing it wrong. Steve

Sent from my iPhone

Re:heh

[buanzo]

nope.

highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

'Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business,' . That's why we manufacture in China.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

What does outsourced manufacturing have to do with ethics?

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

slave labor, destroying the environment, etc...

Re:highest ethical standards

[Compaqt]

Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) (TV)

Triumph of the Nerds

Nerds 2.0.1

Re:highest ethical standards

[rtaylor]

There are more ethical business people in China than the United States. There's lots more unethical ones too.

Re:highest ethical standards

[rotide]

Maybe the _whole reason_ it's cheaper to do so? Because it's basically akin to slave labor? Shit doesn't get made for pennies when you have a well paid and cared for workforce but it's easy to ignore the realities of really, REALLY, sub par working conditions when you get a toy to play with after you dropped some of your disposable income, isn't it?

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

it's easy to ignore the realities of really, REALLY, sub par working conditions

What's par?

Is it the American standard where working 40 hours in an air-conditioned building, getting paid extra for overtime, and making a minimum of $15,000 a year is barely acceptable?

Or is it the African standard where walking 2 miles to work 100 hours a week sewing clothes in a shack, and making $480 a year is a good job?

In a world with cheap & easy transportation, jobs get outsourced to places where people are willing to work cheaper. If that means they don't get central air conditioning or hourly safety inspections, too bad. Yeah, it's sad that someone might lose a hand or get sick, but until then, they have a job. After that, they have to try and get a different job, doing something that doesn't require a hand. It's callous, but it's true.

If Americans were willing to work cheaper (and were actually allowed to), we might get some jobs coming back. Instead, we get labor unions that argue for high wages and benefits at the cost of actual jobs. Employment should be an agreement exchanging work for pay. In my opinion, all details of that agreement should be negotiable on an individual basis.

</rant>

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like it, stand up and stop it.

Re:highest ethical standards

[WindBourne]

And yet, places like Germany in which they make MORE per hour, work less, have similar productivity are getting jobs there. Hmmm. I wonder why? Because the companies are about where they work at?

Re:highest ethical standards

[CRCulver]

If Americans were willing to work cheaper (and were actually allowed to), we might get some jobs coming back. Instead, we get labor unions that argue for high wages and benefits at the cost of actual jobs.

The Nordic countries are passionate about unions, with something like 80% of workers belonging to one (versus 7-12% for American private sector workers), and yet their unemployment figures haven't suffered. Blaming unions is the easy thing to do, but examine the chronology and you'll find that offshoring really took off long after the American labor movement ran out of steam.

Re:highest ethical standards

[jcr]

That's why we manufacture in China.

You say that like it's a bad thing. People take factory jobs in China for the same reason that they take any job anywhere else in the world: it beats the alternatives. If Apple pulled out of China, that's a couple hundred thousand people out of work. If the rest of the global electronics industry did likewise, we're talking tens of millions.

Perhaps you should take a moment to google "comparative advantage". Then, maybe you should look into how manufacturing is raising the standard of living in China, just like it did here when we went through the industrial revolution.

-jcr

Re:highest ethical standards

[sznupi]

There might be another side of that overseas labour. Yes, since they are willing to work much cheaper, they have that work. But going further, cheaper - possibly a work of a type which doesn't have to be optimal in benefitting their place much by itself; but can easily draw people away from those which could, almost via modern day frippery.
Who knows if/in how many places the latter is the case...

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

The labor unions aren't inherently the problem. It's what they argue for (in America, at least).

For example, I'd have no problems with a union arguing that the CEO can't make more than 10 times the average starting salary, or that workers must be allowed to take a significant (but reasonable) amount of unpaid leave without risking their job.

I have a problem with unions requiring a certain minimum salary, paid vacations, and other amenities that only serve to cost the employers money without increasing productivity.

In my opinion, all details of that agreement should be negotiable on an individual basis.

If employees want to group their negotiations, that's fine. Don't apply the terms of one employee's contract to someone else. Don't require workers to participate in a strike if they don't want to. Don't require union membership. Don't drive the employer to bankruptcy pushing for ever-higher wages.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

There are some companies that treat their employees well. I happen to work for one now. If they can afford to stay in business, that's great, and I hope to see more companies follow their practices.

If the companies can't stay in business, then that's too bad. Their employees will have to look elsewhere for employment, and I hope that other companies won't be too broke to hire them.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

.

Look to taxes ... 21% average government controlled
Housing ... 35% average government controlled interest rates and thus supply/demand effects on price

Transport ... 20% average government controlled interest rates and fuel taxes and thus price

those are percentages of average worker's paychecks ... 76% of income. per US census data.

A country that can keep all those costs low can allow hourly wages to be 'shocking low' compared to another country that encourages those costs to go up.

Re:highest ethical standards

[epine]

If Americans were willing to work cheaper (and were actually allowed to), we might get some jobs coming back. Instead, we get labor unions that argue for high wages and benefits at the cost of actual jobs. Employment should be an agreement exchanging work for pay. In my opinion, all details of that agreement should be negotiable on an individual basis.

I'm no fan of unions in their modern guise as bargaining collectives, but in the early days unions made tremendous contributions to workplace safety (even matters as small as functional fire escapes). Still, it surprises me that your rant makes no acknowledgement whatsoever of having encountered a positive argument on the validity of unionization. It's clear that some powerful unions overstayed their welcome, and damaged their membership through excessive demands. No organizational structure is perfect. Union leaders make good coin, and sometimes succumb to the temptation to justify their fat pay packet by engaging in brinkmanship negotiation tactics. It takes an extremely secure leader to pocket a fat pay cheque and do nothing, even where that's the best course of action.

On the wage front, it's fairly orthodox among modern economists to believe that a minimum wage does more harm that good to low income earnings (by making it impossible for many to get a job at all).

On the other side of the zinc coin, it's already the case that many companies view minimum wage earners as a pool of disenfranchised schleps who wouldn't know their legal rights if bitten on the backside. Many rights in America exist only if you're wealthy enough to (credibly) threaten to enforce them. Even small-claims court is daunting for someone at a sixth grade literacy level who grew up in an Elbownian-speaking household. It's true the disenfranchised could pool their resources together to protect their rights, in a process resembling unionization, with no fear of reprisals as they work the bugs out of their collaborative process. I've always thought that shit flows down hill well enough on its own accord without so many eager and active helping hands. The reason many economic theories don't work out in practice as advertised is that in much of America, shit flows down hill in pressurized pipelines. Discussions on how to reduce the pipeline pressure lead to questions of civil society, a total non-starter in present day America. First reduce the pipeline pressure, then eliminate minimum wage. In that order, I think it would work.

Is there a way to eliminate the minimum wage to reap the theoretical economic benefits without hanging a "kick me" sign on the bottom rung of the employment ladder? Still haven't figured this out. I'm not against two year apprenticeships at a wage lower than the current minimum, as more of a temporary kick-me sign, though it would surely be abused in some quarters.

Your African aphorism is a bit of red herring. By the time a country has the social infrastructure to engage in productive international trade, the standard of living is already rising abruptly. Ten to twenty years later, not so cheap any longer, and maybe not a bargain at all in relative productivity. I believe the standard of living in Mexico is now comparable to the standard of living I experienced growing up in Canada, long ago.

Usually after an abrupt rise in standard of living a nation faces a painful round of internal change before resuming rapid growth. Even Japan had a major hiccup after achieving American affluence until an old custom regarding financial reporting shell games was finally dismantled.

What I'd like to hear from Apple is that they have canned all the corrupt vendors who went along with the other side of the illicit transactions. That would send a strong message that they mean business on ethical procurement. Merely sacking the individuals with their hands caught in the cookie jar is 99% business as usual.

Re:highest ethical standards

[CRCulver]

I have a problem with unions requiring a certain minimum salary, paid vacations, and other amenities that only serve to cost the employers money without increasing productivity.

Again, that's what you get in the Nordic countries, and it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on employment figures.

In fact, the first item, minimum wages, falls entirely to collective bargaining between unions and industries, at least here in Finland. There is no government-mandated minimum wage. Result? Even the most lowly of cleaners make around $10/hour, with slightly higher wages for night shifts and double pay for Sundays.

No one forces you to join unions here, or participate in strikes. The union's got your back even if you don't want to pay dues (which are minimal), but of course you do miss out in voicing your concerns in collective bargaining if you don't join.

The second item, paid vacations, have little to do with unions in most of the developed world because it is mandated by law. Unions might be responsible for the extra 10 days at some places around here, but almost a month of paid leave is universal across the European Union.

Strange that you think leisure time doesn't increase employee productivity. Exhausted employees don't work as effectively as content ones.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

My guess would be "not many".

If a rural village has a factory producing widgets for the Global Widget company, that rural village is exchanging one resource (labor) for another (money). As in all economics, they can then exchange that resource for another (food/amenities/whatever) produced elsewhere.

Depending on the location, it may even be preferable to work on widgets than on farming. In Niger, for example, farmland is scarce, and a decent crop is ever more rare. Nigeriens working in a foreign-run factory could make enough to import food from less arid regions. A failed crop doesn't have to mean a village's starvation.

That more humid region, in turn, can use their new income to purchase other goods from elsewhere. Given a wide enough scope, everyone profits by providing what is needed. The advantage might be heavily skewed, but there aren't (or at least, should not be) any purely one-way deals.

Re:highest ethical standards

[sznupi]

That omits again how said labor generally has similar end value but is not priced similarly; which after all could also be the case for the place which would "feed" the factory one.

There might be somewhat more frippery in making and selling fruits, etc. (and not very optimal ones when it comes to farming methods and consequences) via the "global company."

Re:highest ethical standards

[Macrat]

I have a problem with unions requiring a certain minimum salary, paid vacations, and other amenities that only serve to cost the employers money without increasing productivity.

I guess you didn't hear about the teachers' union demanding medical coverage for viagra.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Runaway1956]

Taking advantage of the highest technological systems in the world, and at the same time exploiting poor peasants who will work for pennies per day just seems terribly unethical. Face it - without the infrastructure provided by past generations of American workers, NONE of today's name-brand manufacturers would be where they are today.

Think I'm wrong? Fine - take yourself to Africa, with nothing more than you can carry on an airplane and inside your head, and set up shop to compete with Apple.

What's that you say? You can't find people who are educated highly enough in the fields that you need? You can't find an honest government that will support your endeavor? You can't find logistics? You can't even find a reliable power supply for your plant? Well - imagine that.

The fact is, various populations around the world have worked for generations to provide the necessary infrastructure for Apple and other corporations to do what they do. Apple (and others) takes full advantage of that infrastructure, and returns little to nothing to maintaining that infrastructure.

Unethical? Of course it is.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

'Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business,' . That's why we manufacture in China.

Name an electronic device not made in China?

Re:highest ethical standards

[DaHat]

No one forces you to join unions here

You've never heard of a closed shop, have you? They are plentiful in non 'right to work states'... and that ignores the whole 'card check' issue in Washington right now.

The union's got your back even if you don't want to pay dues (which are minimal),

Depends on the union and shop... in quite a few places because the union does the negotiations for wages (whether you like or not, wheather you are a member or not) may negotiate things in such a way that you are required to pay a 'fair share' fee to the union... often ~70% (which is the % for non-union teachers in MN when last I checked, as one example) of the total cost of dues to the union for members of it.

70% of full union dues is NOT minimal when you want nothing to do with said union.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

It's important to sever the connection between unions and company environments. A good company can provide a good environment without a union. A bad company will find holes in the union deals, and exploit them until the next contract, driving costs up.

Be glad you don't have forced unions. There are some that aren't so lucky. Here (in the USA, in a non-right-to-work state), it's possible to enter an industry where the only choices are living in poverty or living in deeper poverty. If you join the union, you have to follow their rules for bargaining, which means you can't sell your labor for less than anyone else. If you don't join the union, you'll be making less (though have a job), but you still have to pay some of the union dues anyway.

There is effectively very little difference between what's mandated by labor laws and what's mandated by contract laws when there are unions involved. Unions have the power and money to pay lobbyists to influence laws.

Leisure time itself does not increase productivity. Leisure time often improves morale, and improved morale increases productivity. Personally, I'd rather see an employer voluntarily do other things to improve morale. If it makes sense for the company to offer much higher pay, that works. Paid vacation? Sure, but I won't take much. On-site child care? Of course. A weekly company-wide happy hour at the local bar, with pay? Why not? If that's the kind of thing that they need to do to attract the employees they want, why shouldn't a company offer anything they can afford to?

Again, I don't have any problem with labor unions inherently. I just don't like the excessive pressure they use to enforce their own particular idea of "good".

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll say it specifically, then: things that can be produced at lower cost can be sold at lower prices. While on the topic of obvious things, people generally don't like paying extra for things with no added value, so they're often willing to sacrifice local loyalty for profit.

Why does it matter if some particular product isn't a bare essential for life? The entire concept of trade is based around exchanging something you don't want for something you do want. If a Nigerien sells an apple to a tourist, then Niger has gotten rid of an apple, and gained a bit of money. That money can go toward building a new granary. Now they've built a granary out of an apple. Nothing is useless. Some uses are just not obvious.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Voulnet]

Would you be so kind as to tell us the name of your employer?

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

Sorry, but I'd rather not have my Slashdot discussions associated with my employer. Not that I've talked of anything illegal or even distasteful, but I'd rather keep just it separate as a matter of principle. As far as treating employers well, it helps that there are less than 100 employees in total. However, there have already been several discussions on how to keep the environment the same as it grows. As an example, we recently moved into a larger office, which is a part of a big stereotypical corporate office building. Our first company activity was to take the crappy artwork off the walls and replace it with (almost) whatever we wanted.

Re:highest ethical standards

[sznupi]

This isn't about what is wanted or not wanted; more about what works better or worse. Look at stupid SUV uptake and collapse of automotive industry for more at home example.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

Taking advantage of the highest technological systems in the world, and at the same time providing employment for poor peasants who will work for pennies per day...

Seems a little different now, doesn't it? All economic exchanges are based on exploiting others. You go to the store, and con the innocent shopkeeper to give you a gallon of milk for only $2. Meanwhile, the shopkeeper sells off one of his many gallons of milk to some schmuck for $2. At the end of the exchange, you both say "thank you", because you both feel like you've gotten the good end of the deal.

Rural villages in third-world countries making parts for American companies get the money they need to build their own infrastructure. Sure, they're getting paid less than a dollar a day, but the lineman installing electrical service is also getting paid that same rate. Everything just costs less there, for now, so everyone's happy. Except in extreme circumstances, nobody feels that they're getting exploited.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Runaway1956]

Of course it looks different when you change a couple key words. It's called "spin", and it's practiced daily by the newspapers and other media.

"Providing employment" suggests that people who had nothing can now make purchases, such as housing, automobiles, clothes, etc. In fact, "providing employment" often translates to a marginally better diet, and increased chances of survival. I point to Africa as a prime example. I'm quite sure that you can use Google to locate any number of stories about Gap jeans and other factories located in Africa. If anything, the overall quality of life has been degraded in some of those towns. Entire villages have been overwhelmed with unregulated refuse dumps, and their populations have been reduced to scavenging the dumps for survival.

China has it's own towns that have been inundated with waste dumps. I saw one set of photos from China of a home that nestled between piles of scrap and refuse, pretty much lost to view from any other home.

You call it "providing employment", I call it exploitation.

Re:highest ethical standards

[malkman]

You seem to be just jumping at the bit to lose your hand in the workplace

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

No one forces you to join unions here, or participate in strikes..

Wrong. Unless you live in some alternative Finland you should know that if the union is large enough it's deals will also apply to non-union workers. By law.

Also another thing, it's not the minimum wages that are the biggest problem, it's the frigging MAXIMUM wages! Yes thats right, some unions mandate a maximum salary here. And these maximum wages aren't exactly huge (how does telecom engineer's maximum wage of ~2200 eur/month sound like?).

Re:highest ethical standards

[bussdriver]

> Don't drive the employer to bankruptcy pushing for ever-higher wages.

Why not?? Employers have less "right" to employ people than workers have "rights" to jobs. If the business is not a benefit to society then it is missing its main purpose for existing: to provide JOBS. No, its not to make or service people - the purpose is to gainfully employ people - we have far far too few necessary jobs to employ the ever increasing population so we need FLUFF filler jobs to employ the majority of people and a system which promotes endless consumerism in which to fuel those worthless jobs - whose only worth is that they employ people. Perhaps someday like the Jetson's we'll have to create meaningless jobs that revolve completely around business politics to busy and employ most people while machines do the actual work.

ponder over what I just wrote for a bit before jumping into literal absolutisms and taking the easy way out by defending all you've ever known (unless you are pre-WW2 where the post war transition in the usa was most predominant example of this change/manipulation of culture.)

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

My employer (not Sarten-X's, afaik), F5 Networks, has been top ranked as a Seattle area employer for several years running: http://www.f5.com/about/careers/accolades.html

Re:highest ethical standards

[Gordonjcp]

Is it the American standard where working 40 hours in an air-conditioned building, getting paid extra for overtime, and making a minimum of $15,000 a year is barely acceptable?

You do realise that in the UK and EU, we would consider 40 hours a week, only one week per year holiday (maybe two, if you're very senior) and $15,000pa minimum to be pretty much slave labour?

That reminds me, I've still got three weeks of holiday to use up before December.

Re:highest ethical standards

[roman_mir]

Unions could never stop a company moving offshore. The reason companies were able to move to China and other cheap labor locations away from US first became Nixon and opening trade with China and then the collapse of the USSR.

How can a labor union prevent a company from opening a branch offshore and then from moving operations there? It would be probably a little more difficult but it couldn't stop it, after all even companies that had unions went offshore.

Personally I never wanted to be part of a union in any place I worked at, I don't want to be helping others to do less while getting more at work, I prefer to compete with them, gives me better ability to make more money. I am not interested in anybody getting better salary or being promoted due to seniority rather than due to them working better/smarter/faster/being more cost effective. Nobody has a right to things or to work, because such a right means somebody has to provide it to them, and once a right starts depending on other people's sacrifice, it is no longer a right I am interested in at all ever.

Re:highest ethical standards

[BasilBrush]

On the wage front, it's fairly orthodox among modern economists to believe that a minimum wage does more harm that good to low income earnings (by making it impossible for many to get a job at all).

That's not the experience in the UK. They introduced a minimum wage in 1999, and increased it every year. For years after, employment went up, not down. None of the claims that businesses would go bankrupt, or stop employing certain categories of workers turned out to be true.

For sure there are problems with unemployment now because of the recession caused by the banking crisis. But that isn't caused by the minimum wage.

If you examine executive pay for public companies, you'll see that companies usually can afford to increase the payroll. It's just that the executives get to decide which part of the payroll to increase, and big surprise, they choose to pay themselves more, rather than increase the wages of the lowest level employees. It takes minimum wage legislation or unions to deal with this problem.

Re:highest ethical standards

[TheRaven64]

The problem is not unions, but the US implementation of unions. I can't speak for the nordic countries, but in the UK it's very common for employees to have the choice of several different unions to belong to. In the USA, unions tend to be a monopoly. Since they don't have to compete for members, they no longer have to serve the members' interests. They often force companies to only employ union members, meaning that they have a guaranteed membership. Their only interest is in keeping as many people employed as possible, even if it costs the company (and individual employees) a lot of money and eventually causes the company to fold.

In contrast, when you have multiple unions they have to compete. If one union is preventing the company from firing incompetent employees, then the competent employees won't want to be a member of that union - it devalues their skills. They will join another one, which protects the interests of the best employees. The company then has an incentive to favour demands from that union over the other, because it represents the people who could harm the company by leaving.

Re:highest ethical standards

[TheRaven64]

That's not the experience in the UK. They introduced a minimum wage in 1999, and increased it every year. For years after, employment went up, not down. None of the claims that businesses would go bankrupt, or stop employing certain categories of workers turned out to be true.

We introduced the minimum wage near the start of a bubble, and unemployment fell during the bubble. It's not clear what effect the minimum wage had - would unemployment have fallen faster without it?

The correlation is actually not quite what the grandparent implies. A minimum wage increases the minimum cost of a lot of things. This causes a corresponding increase in the cost of living, which is most noticeable for poor people (who spend a higher proportion of their income on essentials), necessitating an increase in the minimum wage, causing and increase in the cost of living, and so on. This causes inflation, which increases mortgage rates (and rent), increasing the cost of living more for people who don't own their homes outright.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

'Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business,' . That's why we overcharge every customer! After all, Steve Jobs needs all that money! Hey Mr. jobs, how many kids are starving because of your greed?

Re:highest ethical standards

[PopeRatzo]

And yet, places like Germany in which they make MORE per hour, work less, have similar productivity are getting jobs there.

The difference is in one place capital is put ahead of labor, instead of where it belongs.

Germany respects workers. The US does not (any more).

Re:highest ethical standards

[Ash-Fox]

Name an electronic device not made in China?

Off the top of my head, Tamagotchi, Stoneridge Digital Tachographs, Yaesu's transceivers... etc.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Rich0]

Minimum wage will create incentive to avoid hiring low-pay labor. This will take one of a few forms.

One option is automation. A fancy $1M machine doesn't make much sense if you can pay somebody 10 cents an hour to do the same work (depends on a lot of factors though). On the other hand, with minimum wage that machine starts looking a lot more attractive.

The other common approach is evading the law's jurisdiction. Why pay US workers $7/hr when you can pay somebody in some 3rd-world nation $7/month.

There is really no way to avoid the first problem. The second problem can be avoided by the use of tariffs, but only if the government actually implements them.

My feeling is that there should be less focus on minimum wage, and more focus on other externalities (safety conditions, environmental protections, etc). If some people can't produce labor that is valuable enough to sustain themselves, then that is a place for socialism to step in. Without minimum wage you end up paying partial subsidies to a lot of people to make up for their low wages. With minimum wage you end up having some people who don't get subsidies (well, I'd debate that since our minimum wages are very low), and others who get 100% subsidies since they can't get jobs. I'm not sure that either saves you much money, so you might as well get some labor out of welfare recipients.

Re:highest ethical standards

[MrHanky]

Nah. The problem with American labor unions is that 60 years of rampant McCartyism has turned most Americans into brainwashed zealots.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Ye true, let's all be slaves for the benefits of few. You don't want a minimum salary? let's pay you 500 $ a month while you spend 1000$ for living.

Re:highest ethical standards

[E IS mC(Square)]

Umm.. N00 by Nokia. Made in South Korea.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Teun]

The problem with your line of thought is that the rest of society, the part that's supported by the spending of regular workers, will be going down to African standards too.

When a job doesn't return enough money to pay for your livelihood that job is a waste and society would be better off without it

Re:highest ethical standards

[Teun]

Closed shop is unheard of in Europe.

There is a constitutional guaranteed freedom to unionise and that freedom would be defective if anyone was forced to join.

At the moment The Netherlands and Denmark have the lowest unemployment rates in the EU at below 5% and at the same time their unionisation is only about 25% in The Netherlands but 75% in Denmark.

(Northern) Europeans treat unions with respect and expect the unions to be responsible.

(That's maybe why the UK is generally not considered part of this elusive Northern Europe :) )

Re:highest ethical standards

[Teun]

It's quite incredible the USofA still allows closed shops.

During the cold war it was the same USofA that was continuously beating the drum of the right to form independent unions and political parties.

For that right to be complete it needs to include the freedom not to join, a union that negotiates a closed shop should be dragged into court, even when it's based on international treaties that are being violated.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Teun]

On the wage front, it's fairly orthodox among modern economists to believe that a minimum wage does more harm that good to low income earnings (by making it impossible for many to get a job at all)

The minimum wage brings a more important benefit than the money in the pocked of the worker

When a man works for less than the properly established minimum wage he is actually costing society as a whole and only his employer has (short term) benefits.

The lack of minimum wages often leads to a downwards spiral, less pay, less turnover in the supermarket, less houses build etc.

Besides, a responsible employer wouldn't want to pay a man less than subsistence, and that's what most (legal) minimum wages are at.

Re:highest ethical standards

[buttersnout]

I work for a labor union in the US and what you describe is the same as what we have here. I think one big benefit of unions that is often overlooked is grievances. Before I was a unionized worker I often had to deal with my boss blaming his mistakes on me and taking credit for my ideas. This kept me from getting raises and promotions as it marred my permanent record. Had I been unionized I would have been able to file a grievance and an investigation would have taken place to determine whether my story or my boss's was true. I haven't had such problems with my current job but I feel much better knowing I'm protected should anything arise. Working for the union, we encounter a lot of problems like this though. For example, we have an employee here on a visa getting paid for one month but being told he better show up for 4 months. If he does not, his family who is also here on visa could be fired and be sent back to their home country. Without a union he'd be powerless to fight this. I think part of the problem creating with the antiunion sentiment in the US is that the relatively few instances when unions are awarded to much are highly publicized while the instances when unions were able to improve conditions bordering on slavery for workers are not. Another part of the problem is that non-unionized workers tend to respond to to hearing what unionized workers get with thoughts such as "That's not fair. Look at how much worse what I'm getting is and look at what they've demanded" instead of "That's not fair, we should unionize and get the same benefits."

Re:highest ethical standards

[hey!]

I'm not sure what your grievance is here. Why would a worker want to sell his labor for less? I did a check of states with right to work laws, and their unemployment rates tend to be high if you except agricultural states like Wyoming and Nebraska.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

That's true, for some lax definitions of "true".

In my case, when I was sitting without a job for a full year, I would have gladly taken a low wage job, just to get back to work and have some income.

Instead, as the economy got worse, American jobs kept disappearing. One company I called with a question before even applying said that they couldn't afford to hire anyone else. Their application (online) was gone the next day.

Personally, I think the situation's the same in other companies. In addition to the agreed wage, there's a significant overhead cost for each employee. Companies can't afford to hire people, so people don't buy things, so companies can't afford to hire people. It's a vicious cycle.

There are several ways out of it. One retail shop I have connections to had their most profitable day ever during the 2008 Christmas season. They had a huge sale, with discounts cutting their profit margin by about half. People could buy things, and the company could make money again.

I think the other half of the cycle can be fixed as well. If companies had simply started hiring again, at a far lower wage, then people could afford to start buying again, albeit slowly.

In fact, that seems to be part of the intent behind Title I of the HIRE Act, which gives up to $6000 (in the form of tax credits) to companies who hire previously-unemployed workers.

Lowering the cost of hiring makes hiring more likely. This is pretty much the point I was originally tried to make, which got ignored in favor of a little quip against labor unions, so here it is again, nice and clear:

In my opinion, American workers generally expect too much in return for their work.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Score: 4 (Insightful) for just saying "there's more people in China"?

Yeah, there are more wealthy peasants in China than the US. There are lots more poor ones too.

Mod over-fucking-rated.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

Now compare that to the number of villages that are already overrun with dumps.

When I volunteered in Africa, most of the towns I was in had a large amount of land dedicated to holding refuse. In one village, there was a small (2 or 3 cubic meter) dumpster. It was surrounded by a pile of refuse 10 meters in diameter. Elsewhere in that village, there was an area roughly 50 meters by 100 meters, piled about a meter high with refuse. This was a village without any large industry, mind you. Every day, dozens of children go over those piles, looking for things that might be useful at home or simply amusing to play with.

In order to determine whether corporate employment will degrade the quality of life in these villages, you have to know well what life was like beforehand. Seems to me they're not that different.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

Regular workers? By that, I assume you mean Americans who had to lower their demands to get a job. Yes, of course there will be less money per person. There will also be more jobs, and less outsourcing. That means more money stays in America, and we get to keep buying stuff. I think your assumption of my line of thought is horribly wrong.

Maybe it's simply un-American to reduce our demands in a financial crisis. That would certainly explain the UAW's actions. They're the poster child for American unions. Maybe everyone really should have high-paying jobs. Let's cut out all those wastes, then.

No job paying less than $100,000 a year. That should support most livelihoods. Now, though, every fast-food meal costs $50 to cover the fry cook's salary, which makes everyone else's livelihoods that much more expensive. Now a $100,000 job doesn't cut it anymore. $150,000 is decent. Then $250,000, then $500,000... Of course folks will object to paying such high prices, so more and more fry cooks will be out of jobs. African standards aren't that far off, really.

Let's look at the "waste" job a different way, where only the employee is better off without it. I refer to my own recent unemployment. While sitting at home job-hunting, burning through my savings at a rate of a few thousand dollars a month, I would have taken ANY software engineering job, just to have a longer time to get a "good" job without exhausting my savings.

Fair compensation works both ways. It must be fair to the employee, and it must be fair to the employer.

Given that my original comment has been modded "troll" now, it's apparently unpopular to think that an employer might need some rights, too. Go figure.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

dont forget 13 suicides + the attempted ones, and the over priced hardware sold in the US.

Apple is all about raping the people for as much profit as they can get away with.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Exactly.

The goal for all of these companies is a FREE work force. They want you to work for free, because that means massive profits for the shareholders.

The goal is free slave labor. So far they have to pay their slaves 65 cents an hour and force them to live in the factories.

Just think about it. If you could make something that sells millions of units world wide, and it costs absolutely nothing to make or advertise... wouldnt you find a way to make that happen?

Well thats exactly what they're doing. Finding the most pathetic of human rights situations and exploiting the living shit out of them because if they could get people to work for free, they would absolutely abuse it.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Froomb]

Have you looked at the Chinese labor market recently? There's a shortage of workers in many places--esp. in Gwangdong--and considerable mobility for workers who are unhappy with their current job. Gross abuses likely still exist in small factories, but the larger ones have to compete on the basis of wages and amenities. The new frontier appear to be Vietnam, and conditions there bear close monitoring, IMO.

Re:highest ethical standards

[konohitowa]

Nah. The problem with American labor unions is that 60 years of rampant McCartyism has turned most Americans into brainwashed zealots.

Now that you've recognized your problem, you're well on the way to solving it. I would suggest googling for deprogramming services in your area.

Re:highest ethical standards

[jcr]

The goal is free slave labor.

Nope. We gave up on slave labor because it didn't work out economically.

-jcr

Re:highest ethical standards

[Sarten-X]

I'd be happy with that if the alternative were spending $1000 and making $0. I've lived through that personally, and it's not a good situation. If I had to work a bit to make my savings last twice as long, I'd do it. Hopefully I'd be able to find a better job before my savings ran out entirely.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Grygus]

I would say American companies agree with you. However, given that the average CEO's pay far exceeds all the extra benefits for literally hundreds of employees, I consider it a pretty shaky stance. If you want to start talking about value, how about starting at the top and leading by example? Then perhaps I will listen to you, because until then it looks like naked greed to me... in which case your accusation that I am being greedy doesn't sting too much.

Re:highest ethical standards

[BasilBrush]

We introduced the minimum wage near the start of a bubble, and unemployment fell during the bubble. It's not clear what effect the minimum wage had - would unemployment have fallen faster without it?
The correlation is actually not quite what the grandparent implies. A minimum wage increases the minimum cost of a lot of things.

Again that's not true. I'm British, but spent much of the last decade abroad. I came back to be pleasantly surprised that prices for most things had reduced, not risen. More BOGOF offers at the supermarket. More special offers. Clothes are far cheaper. I'm not saying that is cause and effect from the minimum wage. Far from it. But the claim that the minimum wage has caused the price of products to rise in the UK is false.

Re:highest ethical standards

[mjwx]

And yet, places like Germany in which they make MORE per hour, work less, have similar productivity are getting jobs there. Hmmm. I wonder why? Because the companies are about where they work at?

The thing is, places like Germany can provide a highly educated, motivated work force with a strong work ethic, this means industries requiring a highly educated workforce will want to set up there. Despite labour being cheaper in China skilled labour is cheaper in Germany. So chip fabs, aircraft manufacturing, precision engineering (such as shipbuilding) tends to focus around the west and richer Asian nations like Korea. As much as the libertards and protectionists like to whine, we just cant pump out cheap crap as fast or as cheaply as china, but they cannot build supertankers or wide body jet aircraft so we should focus on the industries we can support.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Tokerat]

What does any manufacturing have to do with ethics?

slave labor, destroying the environment, etc...

FTFY

Re:highest ethical standards

[mahadiga]

I think patriotism and business cannot go together in globalization and internet.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Jedi Alec]

Then again, our unions tend to be reasonable. When a company is truly in dire straits we don't negotiate pay rises, we investigate whether taking a temporary pay hit would make it possible for the company to stay afloat so everyone can keep their jobs.

I suppose it's a cultural thing. From what I've seen the Danes are much like the Dutch in that they opt for reasonable discussion and compromise instead of going for the throat.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be an idea for a blog: Europe bashing by a europe based blogger. Things aren't looking good for the Germans... The Italians are totaly fucked - Arizona doesn't even come close - The Brits are virtually bankrupt... etc. The american news don't cover what's _realy_ going here.
Neoliberalism, corporate crime, corruption, murdock media etc. it's virtually the same...

Re:highest ethical standards

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to determine whether corporate employment will degrade the quality of life in these villages, you have to know well what life was like beforehand. Seems to me they're not that different.

So some big tech company makes millions off their new product thanks to cheap labour from this village - and the village gets... a slightly higher quality of garbage for their children to pick through... - thanks for making our point for us - what was your point again?

Re:highest ethical standards

[grouchomarxist]

as it has been shown by a few articles, the suicide rate at the factories is actually lower than the Chinese national average.

the price of hardware isn't an ethical issue. if you don't like the price, don't buy it.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I would expect the suicides at a single building to be lower than the entire continent of China. Wouldnt you?

How many people at your job killed themselves this year?

Re:highest ethical standards

[grouchomarxist]

It is a factory complex, not just a building, it includes dormitories and other facilities and seems to operate like a good sized city with approximately 200,000 to 400,000 employees depending on which article you read. My company doesn't have anything like that order of employees, does yours?

Re:highest ethical standards

[Hognoxious]

Leisure time itself does not increase productivity. Leisure time often improves morale, and improved morale increases productivity.

The fact is, tired workers don't work well.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

No, my company doesnt have 200,000 employees.... and China has far more than 200,000 citizens. So, its still unique that people at the foxconn factory feel the need to kill themselves. After all, they have jobs right? Having a job usually means you're doing ok in life. Something is wrong there.

And they have dormitories as you said... they eat, sleep, live, and work there...

Again... Do you?

If you were forced to live at work, sleep on assembly lines... I'm willing to bet that there would be a lot of unhappy people at your job, including you.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Rakshasa Taisab]

This was especially apparent during the financial crisis... Unions made agreements with companies and the state to a system where the workers cut their work hours and salaries so that the companies wouldn't go bankrupt in a climate of near-zero demand. The state agreed to pay partial unemployment benefits in order to fill the gap.

The American model has only one option; fire those you can't pay. This means all your in-house knowledge gets thrown out on to a market that likely doesn't have the capacity to exploit it to the fullest.

Once the orders start moving again the European countries (especially Germany) are ready to start producing immediately. It's not like the goods one used to make suddenly aren't needed again, and as long as the dregs of the workforce got fired (which they generally did even in Europse) then you achieve a balance between keeping in-house knowhow and increasing efficiency.

Re:highest ethical standards

[Khashishi]

Slavery is illegal in China.

Re:highest ethical standards

[fatphil]

If Apple pulled out of China, Chinese manufacturing companies would drop their prices to attract more business from other companies, including Apple's competitors. Pareto optimality would be restored swiftly.

Re:highest ethical standards

[fatphil]

"the most lowly of cleaners make around $10/hour"

The Estonian and Polish construction workers in Finland don't earn anything near that.

Wrong codeword used

[jewishbaconzombies]

Shouldn't have called it iGraft on the phone or the emails.

The Good News

[bacon volcano]

Looks like a Global Supply Manager position just became available!

http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=58206&CurrentPage=7

Re:The Good News

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting... I don't suppose they'd mind if I got the job and secretly arranged to get some kickbacks in exchange for leaking/selling some information to some suppliers? <G>

Re:The Good News

[Compaqt]

>Looks like a Global Supply Manager position just became available!

To whom should I make out the check?

Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme

[omar.sahal]

The indictment describes a scheme in which Devine used his position at Apple to obtain confidential information, which he transmitted to Apple suppliers, including Ang. In return, the suppliers and manufacturers paid Devine kickbacks, which he shared with Ang. The information enabled the suppliers to negotiate favorable contracts with Apple, according to the indictment.

In case you wanted to know what the scam was, and not read the article.

Re:Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme

[nacturation]

So shouldn't he be complimented for daring to Think Different?

Re:Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme

[Macrat]

So shouldn't he be complimented for daring to Think Different?

Actually, it's not that different in Silicon Valley. There's an exec from Fry's Electronics going to jail for doing something similar and blowing it all in Vegas.

Re:Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme

[Rich0]

Yup - the important lesson is to not rob from your employer. That is, unless you are at the top and your employer is the shareholders. Then it is just fine...

Re:Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme

[Anonymous Coward]

"Post Humously"? You mean, like soil?

Re:heh

[Peach Rings]

Apple has zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company. You'll be hearing from our lawyers shortly.

Not with Apple

[jesseck]

We're talking about the organization that got the SWAT team to take back a stolen iPhone... if they can do that, the fines will probably exceed damages. I can't get an school police officer to look at me with a straight face when I tell them my daughter's Hannah Montana Disney MP3 player was taken on the playground.

Re:Not with Apple

[GameboyRMH]

You should have said it was a prototype iPod.

Re:Not with Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

If you told him the device was worth millions of dollars and he believed you, his outlook would change considerably. An officer isn't going to waste time retrieving a $50 item when his costs to the public are $100/hr or more (salary, vehicle, management, etc). Besides, theft is something you have to open a case with the police department for, unless the crime is currently being committed.

Re:Not with Apple

[binarylarry]

You realize the police aren't a for profit organization right?

Re:Not with Apple

[mysidia]

The dollar amount of the damage is still a consideration.

They are going to use their budget to go after criminals who kill lots of people or do millions in damage first.

Because companies that millions of damages are done to are taxpayers. And in a better position than others to complain to legislators.

If police don't even bother to investigate a report by Apple of a million dollar theft, it can come back to haunt them. If they do a stellar job, it could also come back in the form of a surprise donation to the police deprt' from the company....

Re:Not with Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you even met a cop? They just don't respond to instances of petty theft. The police would be swamped, and they receive more publicity for going after the larger crimes (which helps in requesting funding). But if your car was stolen, in many districts a cop will escort you provided you know its location without so much as filing a single form. It's about importance, not profit, and importance is tied to value as well as life.

Re:Not with Apple

[Voulnet]

I'm not sure about that.

Re:Not with Apple

[Starfleet Command]

Have YOU ever met a cop? I am a retired Police Officer my friend and we investigated EVERY complaint, no matter how big of small.

Re:Not with Apple

[drsmithy]

They are going to use their budget to go after criminals who kill lots of people or do millions in damage first.

The average cop on the street is not involved in operations involving "criminals who kill lots of people or do millions in damage".

Re:Not with Apple

[mysidia]

That's right. The departments put their best and brightest on the task, which is not your average cop on the street.

Your average cop on the street is a traffic patrol, not a detective or crime investigator; they are different jobs.

Also, the FBI doesn't have your "average cop" on the street, period.

Unless they're investigating or dealing with a suspected or anticipated major crime, there aren't FBI agents "on the street", per se.

Re:Not with Apple

[dangitman]

We're talking about the organization that got the SWAT team to take back a stolen iPhone...

Except that never actually happened. It was just another invention of the intarweb disinformationists.

Re:Not with Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no. The police don't come anywhere close to "investigating EVERY complaint", unless maybe you're talking about some tiny berg like Sheriff Taylor's Mayberry. Having lived in several major U.S. cities, I have seen police not only ignore serious crime, I've seen them perpetrate serious crime.

Re:Not with Apple

[Khyber]

Sir, my apartment was robbed while I was out of town for a funeral. We came back, saw toothpicks in our lock, and immediately called the police. Fresh fingerprints all over the place and they didn't investigate SHIT, they took a statement from us and we never heard from them again.

I found one guitar behind my apartment in the bushes. You guys couldn't recover one damned thing for me.

All I've ever seen is uselessness from officers. From Texas, to Tennessee, to Oklahoma, to South Carolina, to California and Arizona and New Mexico. Every single one never gave two damns about anything but their foolish pride.

Re:Not with Apple

[Starfleet Command]

Ahhh, now your statement makes sense. "foolish pride" eh? Sounds like you may be a hater to begin with. ACTUAL police work is nothing like TV. There is more to solving crimes than throwing around some fingerprint dust. Certain surfaces do not lend themselves to dusting, perhaps your residence was one such as this, I don't know. And I can not speak to individual agencies. What I will say is the blanket statement in here are immature and and are, at best, inaccurate. Don't know where you are from, but in my home state, police followup of reported crimes is mandated in the State code. As for that pride, most every officer I know takes pride in being a professional and not letting the shit heads get the better of them. If they came to your house and did not dust, there was a reason. I had an approx 60% clearance rate on investigations and an approx 98% conviction rate on charges I placed, so yes, I took pride in that. took pride in the fact he citizens of my community were getting their money's worth. I know there are some POS cops out there, just like there are POS fireman, bankers, milk men, whatever. Before I became a police officer I got a ticket (well deserved) from a State Trooper in VA and he was a real jerk. Talked to me like a dog. Later I found out he was equally unpopular with the other Troopers and that he was just a dick all around. Didn't skew my veiw of the Troopers in VA though, just because I encountered an ass. Some people just don't take the job seriously, or see it as something it is not (TV). Most of the cops out there are decent hard working men and women who want to put in a good days work for their community. Try getting to know some, might change you perspective a bit

Re:Not with Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

We're talking about the organization that got the SWAT team to take back a stolen iPhone...

Except that never actually happened. It was just another invention of the intarweb disinformationists.

What specifically do you claim didn't happen? That the task force didn't break into his house? That Apple wasn't involved with the task force and case? ...[citations needed]

Re:Not with Apple

[gtall]

For what it's worth, another anecdotal event, I was burgled a few years ago in Maryland. The cops came, then the next day they sent a detective. They dusted for prints, took notes on what was stolen, etc. 4 months later, they had caught the culprits.

BTW, I very much doubt you have been "From Texas, to Tennessee, to Oklahoma, to South Carolina, to California and Arizona and New Mexico" and witnessed uselessness from officers.

Re:Not with Apple

[drinkypoo]

Ahhh, now your statement makes sense. "foolish pride" eh? Sounds like you may be a hater to begin with. ACTUAL police work is nothing like TV. There is more to solving crimes than throwing around some fingerprint dust. Certain surfaces do not lend themselves to dusting, perhaps your residence was one such as this, I don't know.

Hahahahahahaha, nice bullshit excuse. Cops don't bother to dust stolen cars, either. The cops don't work for the citizenry and any that claim to do so are liars. They don't report to us. Cops are fucking useless without citizen's police review boards; actually, they are worse than useless, they are an armed gang protected by law.

Most of the cops out there are decent hard working men and women who want to put in a good days work for their community.

As cops you have a responsibility for how you are regarded. If it's a few bad apples, then it behooves you to eliminate them because for us they do ruin the whole barrel, and rather than rooting them out to prevent spoilage, you protect them in the vast majority of cases because of your gang mentality.

Re:Not with Apple

[Starfleet Command]

Obvious troll is obvious

Re:Not with Apple

[drinkypoo]

Obvious troll is obvious

Yeah well, I'll try not to respond to him next time. Actually I do think there are good cops, but I think they are vanishingly small in number and thus statistically insignificant. A good cop is one who would turn in a bad cop and make sure they get what is coming to them regardless of personal consequences. They hang out with unicorns at the end of the rainbow.

Re:Not with Apple

[Khyber]

You doubt but you don't have my moving records, now do you? Nice way to assume without thinking critically.

I have lived in all of those places. Sorry I actually have things to do with my life that don't involve me sitting in one state.

Oh, and it's pretty easy to see most police are inherently lazy. "Hey, I can retire with a Pension at 45" is pretty much all I've heard from police that took the job - that is inherent laziness to an extreme.

I work my ass off and I should be fully retired before I'm 35, burglaries and incompetent police officers notwithstanding.

Re:Not with Apple

[konohitowa]

A decade or so ago, there were a string of thefts in the neighborhood I lived in. When the stereo was stolen out of my truck (doing a bunch of damage in the process), I called the police. They had no interest in coming out. Not to check for fingerprints, take photos, file a report... nothing. But I was certainly welcome to go in and file a report. Since my insurance company didn't require a police report in order to cover the theft, I didn't see the point in going in to file a report.The same happened to the next door neighbor when he had theft and property damage. However, when the cop across the street subsequently had his car broken into, a couple of squad cars showed up. They took fingerprints. They took photographs. They investigated.

I'm not saying that's how *your* department handled things, but it is how things were handled in the city I lived in (a suburb of ~400k people in a metro area of ~4 million). Honestly, after I got over being mad about the disparity in service, I actually thought it was fairly amusing/ironic. Had the police department not ignored the other crimes, they might have prevented one of their own from being subjected to the same.

Re:Not with Apple

[UnknowingFool]

From my recollection of the events from Gizmodo, the police, with a search warrant, came in and confiscated items on the search warrant. In the report from the Gizmodo editor, no mention of SWAT was mentioned. But please don't let facts get in your way. After a raid with SWAT sounds much more sensational.

Re:Not with Apple

[dangitman]

There was no SWAT team, and Apple did not tell anybody to raid the house.

Re:Not with Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I once had a couple thousand bucks worth of camera equipment stolen because my house mate left his window open. The officers that "investigated" wrote down how the perp got in, how he left, and what was taken. Then they suggested that I spend my weekends going to garage sales, rummage sales, and pawn shops, and that I should call them if I found anything of mine. Especially the rummage sales because, according to them, everything there is stolen. That was the end of the investigation (on their part).

Wow

[MichaelSmith]

I am amazed (and pleased) that apple care about this. In most places I have worked this is either accepted or actively encouraged. When I worked for Vic Roads the CEO signed a big vehicle fleet outsourcing deal, then retired and jumped straight into a job with the new operator. The general feeling was "meh".

Re:Wow

[CG_Man]

What I'd like to know is when Apple turned on their "zero tolerance" in this case. Was it before or after the feds lowered the boom on the manager in question?

Re:Wow

[Sloppy]

In most places I have worked this is either accepted or actively encouraged. When I worked for Vic Roads the CEO signed a big vehicle fleet outsourcing deal, then retired and jumped straight into a job with the new operator.

You just described how even government contracts work. I'll believe people really give a shit about this, when We The People stop doing/supporting it.

Somewhat inevitable?

[sznupi]

Where there is excessive control, there's plenty of place for corruption/etc.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see the Apple shills are out in force with mod points.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[twidarkling]

While I detest Apple's products and tactics as a company, I don't think they're any more (or less) prone to corruption than any other company. So, either it's specifically and unrealistically Apple-bashing (there's so many better reasons), or it's a condemnation of government intervention in business (the excessive control), or it's a condemnation of EVERY business. All three of those are flamebait/trolling.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[nacturation]

Where there is excessive control, there's plenty of place for corruption/etc.

So a complete lack of control would lead to few places for corruption? Your argument makes absolutely no sense.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[sznupi]

So, how hard was it to miss "excessive"? (and it does work like that; I had plenty examples, in a place formerly behind the Iron Curtain...)

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[sznupi]

Keyword being "excessive"; you use it yourself in one place ffs...

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[Kitkoan]

Where there is excessive control, there's plenty of place for corruption/etc.

So a complete lack of control would lead to few places for corruption? Your argument makes absolutely no sense.

I think he meant excessive control by one person (Jobs). When there is too much control by one person your more likely to see corruption because your stuck with the whims that one person where as if there are many people in control they are more likely to debate amongst themselves and see more of the positive/negatives of suggestions and ideas. So if the one person who controls too much says "no" to your idea that your entire department thinks is amazing then they are more likely to be more corrupt, and since they are doing something they shouldn't be doing why not make some extra cash on the side since they feel its not going to be noticed anyways.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[zippthorne]

Also, Apple is the victim here, having to suffer less competitive bids and/or lower quality suppliers.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[PPH]

Also, Apple is the victim here,

Hence the civil suit mentioned in the summary. It would be interesting to see what federal statutes were violated. Wire fraud and money laundering are mentioned, but generally, anti-kickback laws only apply to government contracts. While IANAL, I've worked for an outfit that let managers pretty much cut their own deals with suppliers (stock options, etc.) and they seemed to get away with it. As long as the transactions were legal (taxes paid, etc.) the law seemed to stay out of it.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[Anonymous Coward]

your more likely to see corruption because your stuck with

Grammar tip: "your" is the opposite of "my". "You're" is the contraction of "you are". Substitute each and see which makes more sense:

"my more likely to see corruption because my stuck with" ... nope!
"you are more likely to see corruption because you are stuck with" ... yep!

Since "you are" makes sense, the word you want is "you're".

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[selven]

Corruption is abuse of power. If nobody has any control, ie. power, then you are correct, there will be no corruption. Since the former is impossible without having people live in separate caves with zero social interaction, the latter is also impossible, but the argument is a valid one.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[nacturation]

Corruption is abuse of power. If nobody has any control, ie. power, then you are correct, there will be no corruption. Since the former is impossible without having people live in separate caves with zero social interaction, the latter is also impossible, but the argument is a valid one.

I read "excessive control" as: "There will be someone breathing down your neck watching your every move." A lack of control would be: "Do whatever you want... there will be absolutely no oversight or accountability." Perhaps that's not what was meant, but under those circumstances I fail to see how a lack of control wouldn't lead to more corruption. Otherwise we'd see high rates of corruption for tellers at major international banks and very little corruption for Mexican police.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[sznupi]

Some suppliers would be a greater one, if it was mostly a cost of doing business.

Re:Somewhat inevitable?

[sznupi]

"Excessive" is when given level of control would be somewhat unwarranted, not stemming from clear & decently negotiated rules. Why given authority eveb is one.

back dated options, anyone?

[haystor]

'We have zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company.'

*cough*
back dated options
*cough*

Re:back dated options, anyone?

[anethema]

What do you want them to say in a PR statement?

"Hey it happens guys. Comonnnnn <arms moving back and forth>"

Re:back dated options, anyone?

[cowboy76Spain]

"We have tolerance for non-CEO-approved dishonest behavior inside or outside the company"

Re:back dated options, anyone?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

"You fucked up, you trusted us"

but no zero tolerance for Foxconn?

[Joe The Dragon]

but no zero tolerance for Foxconn?

Re:but no zero tolerance for Foxconn?

[rotide]

I have a feeling Apple only cares because at some point in the past someone was going to find out about the deal and Apple simply didn't want the negative publicity. If it was going to stay a "don't ask, don't tell" "secret", we wouldn't be commenting on this story right now. Lets face it, more profit is a good thing for all Apple employees and shareholders. Lets also face the fact that most businesses would probably do the same damn thing.

Re:but no zero tolerance for Foxconn?

[omar.sahal]

most businesses would probably do the same damn thing.

What give out confidential information about there own company so their suppliers could get better deals. Or do you mean the suppliers paying the bribes for inside information, that would make more sense; you where't clear.

Re:but no zero tolerance for Foxconn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Noone at Foxconn has a compatible liver.

Re:but no zero tolerance for Foxconn?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mis-interpret things. It's zero-tolerance for those who get caught.

As long as your do business in Asia, there are kickbacks for someone. Even the receptionist gets a kickback from the guy she called to fix the door handle. That's just how things are done.

Re:but no zero tolerance for Foxconn?

[gnasher719]

I have a feeling Apple only cares because at some point in the past someone was going to find out about the deal and Apple simply didn't want the negative publicity. If it was going to stay a "don't ask, don't tell" "secret", we wouldn't be commenting on this story right now. Lets face it, more profit is a good thing for all Apple employees and shareholders. Lets also face the fact that most businesses would probably do the same damn thing.

Very strange interpretation of the matter. This manager received about a million dollars from manufacturers for information about Apple products, so they could negotiate better deals. Since the information was owned by Apple, selling it was at least theft - the million dollars should have been paid to Apple. Since those companies wouldn't have paid the money if they hadn't made more than a million using the information, Apple's loss was actually a lot higher.

On top of that comes in incalculable loss through the loss in reputation. If I deal with people who I believe are crooks, I will do things differently than when I deal with people who I believe are honest. These companies believed that Apple were crooks, based on their experience with a corrupt manager. So they would be more willing to cheat on Apple than other companies who believe that Apple is dealing in an honest way.

Outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't outsourcing employees really a kickback scheme?

White iPhone mystery solved?

[Ilgaz]

For me, this explains the white iPhone mystery. It wasn't about the "perfect white tone", it was connected to this guy (IMHO who is doomed) and material manufacturers. I always wondered how Apple, the Apple can't get a manufacturer to produce some tone of white for a device people line up for. It happens to small companies/single designers all the time but not to Apple sized companies.

There was something really mysterious about that white iphone and I think it is connected to this guy and the whole setup.

I think, as it hasn't been settled silently, this thing will be huge soon. BTW; at first read you think like some "cover designer" companies etc. involved, no they talk about the actual device suppliers.

Re:White iPhone mystery solved?

[MichaelSmith]

Sorry I don't get you on this. Can you clarify what the White iPhone mystery was?

Re:White iPhone mystery solved?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was white! No duh!!

Re:White iPhone mystery solved?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was something really mysterious about that white iphone and I think it is connected to this guy and the whole setup.

Nah, the guy was just providing outside suppliers with Apple confidential info in exchange for kickbacks. When you're bidding for a big contract, it can be worth a hell of a lot of money to know what your competitors' bids are, for example. With the sheer volume of business Apple's doing, I'd be very surprised if this is the only guy getting money from vendors under the table.

Re:White iPhone mystery solved?

[cgenman]

The iPhone 4 was also supposed to come in White. At first, it was to come at the same time. Then "soon" after the black version. Now it is even later, as it is supposedly getting the rumored new iPhone 4 (now without terrible antenna) treatment.

Re:White iPhone mystery solved?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you said made no sense whatsoever, so I will add a more plausible idea:

Apple delayed the white iPhone4 because it's a popular color, expecting double the sales to some customers who orgasm over the thought of OMG!White!.

Or the most likely:

Apple fucked up.

Re:White iPhone mystery solved?

[Ecuador]

That's the "mystery"? Why the white iPhone 4 was delayed?
OMG, this is serious! We should get the Interpol involved ASAP!
Wait, that's not enough, let's also get some mystery writers working on solving this too!
Better yet, we have to try and get Mr. Holmes, even if it has to be through some time/reality vortex.
Or even better, we could tune the time/reality vortex to 24th century ST universe and get Lt. Cmdr Data as Holmes!

Re:White iPhone mystery solved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be retarded. If the person taking kickbacks was responsible for delays of the launch, then he would have been found-out a long time ago.

There's plenty of place for corruption

[Aarom]

There's plenty of place for corruption.

Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Ilgaz]

Dear AC,

It is your type who goes to newegg.com, set the sorting to cheapest to most expensive and pick the cheapest one.

Apple could be hypocrite but people buying things who are just 10 dollars cheaper and bitching/whining as AC or some chit chat at Starbucks are more disgusting.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[WindBourne]

Hmmm. Apple charges top dollars and nobody gripes. Kind of kills your theory. The simple fact is, that every company who has moved their production from USA, EU, and Japan to China have taken a major hit in quality and ppl are tired of it.

And when I shop, I do look at where it is made at. I have no real issue paying 10-20, even 100% more for better quality products.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Wyatt Earp]

No, Monster Cable charges top dollar and everyone gripes.

Apple's products really don't cost that much more.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[cgenman]

At this point, who hasn't moved their production from USA, EU, and Japan? I know there are cars, some food products, and really, really big things built here. But what (brands or genres of stuff) are still built in the US or Europe or Japan?

I don't mean this facetiously, I simply don't know.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Kitkoan]

Cowon (english site makes music players and mini-tablets that are made in South Korea. They are also some of the best on the market, but tend to be harder to find/buy due to their lack of marketing and they are a Korean company, with very little to no North American market visibility.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[sznupi]

Shouldn't be too hard finding quite a few examples. Nokia is not abad one - actually owning around a dozen of their manufacturing facilities, by far most of them not in China, half of them in the EU; there's even one quite close to Cupertino...
And I'm not sure if you should even really ask about Japan.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Hognoxious]

Apple charges top dollars and nobody gripes. Kind of kills your theory.

We're talking about when Apple are buying, not selling.

Want to fail comprehension? There's an app for that!

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sandpaper, at least the industrial stuff. Grit comes from Europe, then the rolls are cut down and coated with adhesive/velcro in the US. It's actually cheaper than importing the finished product.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[TooMuchToDo]

My wife's Camry was built in Kentucky. My '08 Tundra? San Antonio, TX.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Made in China does not mean low quality for sure. After all, iphones and ipods that people like are made in China. (forget about the antenna-gate, it is a design problem). It is all about how much you pay to manufacture. shit-in and shit-out for sure. Workers are not free, even in China.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an epic fail. Since when has Apple been competing on price?
I guess you never saw a phone or MP3 player that was cheaper than comparable ones from Apple?

Right...

Attacking the GP on behaviour and defending Apple when doing the same, doesn't make much sense.
It's Apple that threw out a statement about ethics, etc.
The GP never claimed he imposed those rules on himself.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[mmkkbb]

Plenty of semiconductor fabs all over the US and Europe and Japan. Still a LOT in Japan.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Orange Crush]

While they're not manufactured in the USA, EU, or Japan; another "not Chinese" company is HTC--maker of many widely available Android and WinMo phones. Their headquarters and manufacturing facilities are in Taiwan.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[crgrace]

Bit out of date I think. Analog Devices closed their fab in San Jose, CA, several years ago.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Planesdragon]

No, Monster Cable charges top dollar and everyone gripes.

Monster Cable is intentional overcharging. Aren't they a subsidiary of Best Buy or something?

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Wyatt Earp]

Nope, they are their own crappy company.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're into knives, which may be unlikely since geeks and knives aren't really a normal combination, i.e. folding, fixed, hunting, etc. then there are still some of those made in the US, EU and Japan still around. Granted even then, some of them are starting to churn out "value for money" versions from China and Taiwan to cater for the low cost market sector now. Business is business, it just dumb to shun profit avenues.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not up to date at all.

And fab count means nothing if the volume is tiny. 80% of world-wide semiconductor volume is in half a dozen Asia countries. The top ones being Japan, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.

Silicon Valley does very little silicon (or any other semiconductor) any more. About the only technology to survive foundry outsourcing is analog circuit ICs - it's too heavily dependent on specific process design to outsource easily. Most digital has been moved out of the US and Europe to Asia.

My background is IC design and semiconductor process design. I work for a company that sells semiconductor test equipment. Our US and European sales are dwarfed by our Asian sales by a long shot. We don't even have offices in Europe any more and are considering shutting down the one US office we have. It's mostly a waste of resources and we can cover the minimal need by having people work from their homes instead.

Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dream on - most Nokia stuff is built in China or other low-cost far-eastern countries.
And the ICs in them - ditto.

Sure, development prototypes might be built in Finland still, but the stuff that is actually sold, or made in large quantities, comes straight from some cheap-ass country.

Buying a Nokia soon?

[Ilgaz]

Nokia is known to be obsessed with environment and living standards of their workers. They are also one of the most truly global thinking companies who cares about cultural diversity.

Not just that, they purchased Qt from Trolltech and spend millions of engineering hours with millions of dollars to open source their key operating system. That massive work also finds its way to Linux/BSD.

The point is, seen anyone giving a fsck lately?

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[sznupi]

How do you market that? How do you make "investors" care? (nvm how such widespread practices would probably greatly increase the opportunities for investment...though a bit too long term and not within so limited club, I guess)

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, how about, "Investors breathe, too"?

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[X.25]

Nokia is known to be obsessed with environment and living standards of their workers. They are also one of the most truly global thinking companies who cares about cultural diversity.

Not just that, they purchased Qt from Trolltech and spend millions of engineering hours with millions of dollars to open source their key operating system. That massive work also finds its way to Linux/BSD.

The point is, seen anyone giving a fsck lately?

I know that there are plenty of people living in their small imaginary world, where is everything to them, but there is a real world out there, and it's not playing by geek standards.

In other words, I bought a Nokia phone yesterday. And I'd never change it for any iPhone/Android/WM phone.

Also, I don't wear Nike.

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did - I bought an n900 for a number of the reasons you listed above.

Then they dropped Maemo (in any meaningful, ongoing way), and announced that Meego would not be officially supported... ::sigh::

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia is known to be obsessed with environment and living standards of their workers.

That's why they have their phones build at the very same Foxconn factory that guys like you pretend only builds for Apple.

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[sznupi]

Nokia actually owns the facilities manufacturing their phones. By far most of dozen of them not in China, half of them in the EU, one even quite close to Cupertino.

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[cthulhu11]

I do, but will a Nokia phone sync my contacts, calendar, and photos without massive hassle? The old Nokia I had wouldn't, neither would the Moto Razor I had. Just Working is a substantial part of why I bought an iPhone.

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

So why should we care?

Caring about their workers is cool and all, but it's not like that makes them special. There are other companies who care about their workers including Google and Apple. Heck, slashdot's favorite scapegoat Microsoft seems to care quite a bit about their workers. (yes, I have close friends at all 4 companies)

And Qt/Trolltech? Once again, why should we care? It's not like it's useful to me or results in a product that I'd buy. It's not going to help my nokia 3555 flip phone either. Besides, there's plenty of other companies who contribute stuff useful to open source that I do care about.

Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[grouchomarxist]

Nokia also outsources some of its manufacturing to Foxconn in China.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Apple-Nokia-Dell-HP-Investigating-Conditions-at-Foxconn-Site-635424/

So are like singapores asians or what?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are sinapores? Are they asian or maybe mexican or what? How can you tell one from the another?

Re:So are like singapores asians or what?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're kinda like Indians. Engish language in the majority, with some Spanish thrown in the mix. The Engish ones are the snooty ones with the bad teeth, and the Spanish ones are the drug dealers and pimps. They all secretly want to be Canadians.

Re:heh

[gabrielex]

Hmm what about advertising some pre-existing features as new and innovative (front camera, touch screen, applications), when they're clearly something old and already present since ages on older non Apple phones? What about selling a product with a clear reception defect for 800 bucks? What about selling computers (and well as phones and mp3 players) at twice their market value just because of their brand and not because of their internal hardware (identical to other brands because nowaday based on Intel CPU). Sure they are honest!!! ;-)

How is this wire fraud?

[mysidia]

Did he lie to the suppliers, leak fake information to get the kickbacks?

Or is this really about him using a code word and referring to payments as 'samples' ?

Misread at first

[eonwing]

At first, it looked like it said "a medieval Apple manager" and I was thinking, wow, how mean was this guy?

No ethics violations - really?

[bm_luethke]

Before Apple makes such a statement about not accepting un-ethical business practices they may want to revisit the whole Jobs/Wozniak deal and why the latter "left" the company.

But of course Apple is the Eco Friendly Company that Does the Right Thing whenever they can! There is nary an anti-competitive bone in their body and they are fully Open and on for the ride in Open Source technologies!

I don't know how much it's worth to them, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know that. But now that I do, it will factor into my future purchasing decisions.

Check corporate officer pay instead

[Anonymous Coward]

"Blaming unions is the easy thing to do" - by CRCulver (715279) on Sunday August 15, @12:02AM (#33254852) Homepage

Agreed, because corporate officer pay is outrageous in larger corporate bodies (millions per week, and yes, I have seen payrolls in my time the last nearly 17 yrs. as an information systems worker who has done payrolls programming and reporting in numerous organizations). Fact is, quite a few corporate officers' personal pay on an annual INDIVIDUAL BASIS (e.g. CEO) often exceeds the entire payroll outlay of entire smaller companies. This is the insane fact no one ever seems to mention or note, and I often wonder why? Yea, right. We all know why and especially in publicly traded companies. It's because no one really gives a shit in publicly traded companies. It's not like how the Ford family looks over FORD MOTOR COMPANY or how Bill Gates looked after MICROSOFT when he was at the wheel there. They actually gave a damn about how the place is/was run (respectively) because their names and legacy were in their corporations. You don't see that in publicly held/traded companies. All those are is money making machines for stockholders (and mostly for those with preferred stock, such as upper mgt. and board of directors members as a couple examples thereof), and nothing more. So they cut corners like mad in product quality, sell consumers crap with a warranty on it (a warranty on a piece of shit doesn't make it any less of a piece of shit either), and underpay production workers (slaves is more like it) like crazy, those they have not managed to offshore/outsource that is to avoid insurances & higher pay levels that is, which only helps contribute to the erosion of a middle class in the USA so you only have the "haves/big money" and "have nots/no money-poor", which destroys any possibility of an "economy" (Peter buys from Paul, who pays Henry etc. & back around again type symbiosis), and which also makes it impossible to use your so-called "legal rights", because in case you have not noticed? Attorneys co$t, and cost a lot. This is an impossibility for the less fortunate, even though you're told you have legal rights (especially if indigent, unless in a court of law for a crime you're accused of then you get an attorney serving out his "sentence" of having to do a bit of time for society, not that they give a hoot then, though). So if someone slanders you for example? Good luck taking care of it "gratis" even though you have been blatantly wronged and when you have a definite winner of a case and your so-called 'legal rights'. No, the illusion of "equality" and "freedom" in the USA?? It's a pack of thinly veiled lies at best, and the "controllers" (the wealthy in large corporations and banks mostly) know it, and they use it like mad to conceal what is really fascism in the USA, today.

Re:Check corporate officer pay instead

[bar-agent]

Fact is, quite a few corporate officers' personal pay on an annual INDIVIDUAL BASIS (e.g. CEO) often exceeds the entire payroll outlay of entire smaller companies. This is the insane fact no one ever seems to mention or note, and I often wonder why?

Everyone mentions it. But none of us have any authority over company pay scales. The only people who could do something are those with voting shares. And from what they say in the press, they would like to reduce CEO pay, but then they would have trouble filling the position.

The founder of one of the companies that I have worked for was an entrepreneurial sort and he once told me, "they've got to pay the CEO more than what he thinks he would make if he started his own company." And I bet most CEOs think they could make a hell of a lot of money on their own.

Breaking: Middle managers are stupid, film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Some sociopathic corporate middle manager apparently takes it too far.

OK.

Apple presumably does the right (also the "you can't blame us, few bad apples [no pun intended], etc.") thing by firing him when he gets caught. Obviously it's not in their interest to have their employees leaking product info and taking bribes.

But this doesn't strike me as huge news. The guy should have known better, and now he doesn't have a job. Great.

mnb Re:Buying a Nokia soon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they dropped Maemo (in any meaningful, ongoing way), and announced that Meego would not be officially supported... ::sigh::

As a disgruntled N810 owner, I gotta say:
HOW DID YOU NOT SEE THIS COMING?

The 770 stopped receiving OS love, then the 8*0, now the 900.
Nokia has consistently played a game of "on to the next thing, fuck the userbase."

Ths is what happens....

[adewolf]

When you allow money to run you. This is an epidemic with companies whose sole purpose in life is money. A sad waste of life!

Re:Ths is what happens....

[UnknowingFool]

When you allow money to run you. This is an epidemic with companies whose sole purpose in life is money. A sad waste

Yes it is quite sad when a for-profit company thinks about doing things to earn profits.

Re:heh

[E IS mC(Square)]

Of course, the spokesperson forgot to mention that in such cases, "honesty" is defined by Apple.

(And it seems the fanboi army is already out with mod points, so I will lay down my weapons now)

standards for everyone...?

[wannabgeek]

I wonder what happened to all those standards when the options backdating scandal happened?

Did he think Jobs wouldn't find out?

[CodeBuster]

Apple is well known for its aggressive pursuit of leaks and leakers, both internally and externally, so it is surprising that this mid level manager thought that he would get away with this. In fact, it was probably inevitable that he would eventually be caught. Steve probably organized some plan whereby a specific piece of information, known only to the middle manager and Job's henchmen, was provided so that when it leaked they would immediately have confirmation of the source. Recall that Apple regularly subjects employees to searches of their persons and belongings while at work in attempts to ascertain the source of leaks.

Re:Did he think Jobs wouldn't find out?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Apple is more well known for being a group of assholes being lead by a super dick.

HTC in China

[andersh]

HTC has manufacturing facilities in China as well:

HTC Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. engages in research, development, design, manufacture and sale of computer, personal digital assistant (PDA) handsets. The company also engages in design and development of computer software and also provides related technical consultancies and services. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is based in Shanghai, China. HTC Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of HTC Corporation.
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=53425025

You really don't know Taiwanese companies, do you? They usually have facilities in both countries due to the labor costs. They're no different than American/European companies.
http://www.chinasourcingnews.com/2010/06/11/012276-htc-plans-new-china-electronics-investment/

Re:heh

[gabrielex]

I always get bad mod points because of fan boys and unrational people while I just try to make the people think with their own brains. This is another example of it. blah!

You've been "baffled by B.S.", buddy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone mentions it." - by bar-agent (698856)on Sunday August 15, @04:13PM (#33258346)

First of all: Show us an example/proof of this. I, for one, would like to see this, as I am sure would others reading here.

Secondly: How the HELL do shareholders (& I don't mean board of directors types of shareholders) allow a single person to make multiple millions per week in pay?

(The latter point in payrate's just plain insane, because no single person is worth that much, period, & it's a tremendous drain on the earnings per share that stockholders SHOULD be seeing back in dividends, instead of paying some MBA know-nothing schmuck that much).

----

"But none of us have any authority over company pay scales." - by bar-agent (698856)on Sunday August 15, @04:13PM (#33258346)

FIRST OF ALL: WHO IS THIS 'US' YOU REFER TO?

SECONDLY: IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANY POWER TO CONTROL A COST CENTER, IN PAYROLL (as mgt. does and often uses to control costs for dividends payouts, by firing actual productive staff that actually DO do useful productive things, not just make bullshit policy and babysit (either of the latter are 2 things any child could do), because payroll is the easiest single cost center to control))? Then, what the "f" are you doing there in the 1st place?? If you have your money invested in something, and you have no control over it??? I have to question your sanity.

----

"The only people who could do something are those with voting shares" - by bar-agent (698856)on Sunday August 15, @04:13PM (#33258346)

Right, so you answered the above, which only leads to my next point: That the stock market is a bullshit con game. Anything but preferred stock's bullshit anyhow (especially at bankruptcy payouts time to secured creditors & the like), and you're pointing out the other downside in an utter lack of say in anything because there is no organized structure to represent the mass of stock holders that don't hold a controlling interest in companies, & yet they use YOUR HARD EARNED MONIES to pull all sorts of shenanigans (inclusive of firing or offshoring U.S. workers, while giving the "board of directors" and upper mgt. HUGE multimillion dollar raises for being the secret handshake club scumbag MBA conmen they really are).

----

"And from what they say in the press, they would like to reduce CEO pay, but then they would have trouble filling the position." - by bar-agent (698856)on Sunday August 15, @04:13PM (#33258346)

LOL, oh man... you actually BELIEVE the "press"? The wholly owned subsidiary of the "haves" in the USA?? Listen: "Abres Los Ojos", & WAKE UP, man... because that's the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard.

I.E.-> I've worked alongside CEO's & more than just a few times, & personally? I've found them to be usually QUITE inept in both business and other skills necessary for a workplace, and usually, they're just the "appointed flunky' for the REAL controllers (majority stockholders & boards of directors)... they're no "savants of business" by any stretch of the imagination.

----

"The founder of one of the companies that I have worked for was an entrepreneurial sort and he once told me, "they've got to pay the CEO more than what he thinks he would make if he started his own company." And I bet most CEOs think they could make a hell of a lot of money on their own" - by bar-agent (698856)on Sunday August 15, @04:13PM (#33258346)

Another lesson I think you need is to stop falling for being "baffled by bullshit", because that's the biggest crock of crap I've ever heard. Most of them couldn't tie their fucking shoe themselves, and they merely use others and profit by those others' skills. I know, I have worked in the Fortune 100-500 alongside many of these schmucks and said to myself "how the HELL did this b.s. artist get this position? He's as dumb as a box of rocks!" until I find out that many are either part of some 'secret handshake club', or are related to a majority stockholder, or are boards of directors' appointed flunky (someone who was in their frat in college etc.).

Re:You've been "baffled by B.S.", buddy

[bar-agent]

Everyone mentions it.

First of all: Show us an example/proof of this. I, for one, would like to see this, as I am sure would others reading here.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ceo+overpaid

which only leads to my next point: That the stock market is a bullshit con game. Anything but preferred stock's bullshit anyhow (especially at bankruptcy payouts time to secured creditors & the like), and you're pointing out the other downside in an utter lack of say in anything

Dividends seem all right. Any investment I make that is profitable for me is fine. If I actually care about the company's future or its employees, though, I would want to have voting stock.

That said, I have no investments right now except for my IRA fund.

Most of them couldn't tie their fucking shoe themselves, and they merely use others and profit by those others' skills. I know, I have worked in the Fortune 100-500 alongside many of these schmucks and said to myself "how the HELL did this b.s. artist get this position? He's as dumb as a box of rocks!" until I find out that many are either part of some 'secret handshake club', or are related to a majority stockholder, or are boards of directors' appointed flunky (someone who was in their frat in college etc.).

That does not matter. According to that guy's point, if the CEO thinks he can do better on his own, regardless of his actual competence, he'll walk if he does not get enough pay.

Very Common in Asia - Welcome to Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

This is enormously common in SE Asia. I know of a certain major US technology firm (you would definitely recognize the name) that has this kind of stuff happening rampantly for the last 15+ years. Far nastier stuff than this though - like handing over product supplier NDA and license covered IP to that supplier's competitor who gave kick-backs to the region and country managers for the privilege.

The excuse given by their US HQ corporate legal was "We can't control what happens in our foreign subsidiaries". Yeah, well, the US CFPA and Sarbox beg to differ on that. But that's how most US corporate lawyers work even when they are legally agents of the court - immoral and unethical to the core. The US Fortune 1000 is just as rotten through and through.

LOL, I guess it explains Bush then!

[Anonymous Coward]

"That does not matter. According to that guy's point, if the CEO thinks he can do better on his own, regardless of his actual competence, he'll walk if he does not get enough pay." - by bar-agent (698856) on Monday August 16, @04:13AM (#33261578)

Well, I don't know about YOU, but it does matter to me. I don't like a maniac at the wheel of vehicles I am travelling in, nor a blind man either (or otherwise impaired or mentally challenged) & per my subject-line above?

All in all: I suppose the attitude you're extolling (I don't take it as YOURS alone, but rather that you are stating it's the prevalent/majority one today) as apparently the "prevalent one" out there today??? Speaks WORLDS to me - especially per my subject-line above, because that finally explains to me how the HELL a guy like "Dubya" (dyslexic puppet is more like it) got to be the so-called "leader of the United States".

(Yes... the world has gone nuts as far as I am concerned! No small wonder folks' attitudes have gone to shit, as the old adage states "attitude reflects leadership" & most of it out there? Stinks. I see guys heading dept.'s even at the departmental level that have never even done the job themselves, & to me?? That SCREAMS of "WRONG", hugely. One has NO BUSINESS running others if one has never done the job himself for many years no less hands on/walked a mile in the shoes of those he is supposedly "leading"...)

----

"Dividends seem all right." - by bar-agent (698856) on Monday August 16, @04:13AM (#33261578)

Problem is, I am PRETTY SURE that you DO realize they could be better, if not FAR better, minus the exhorbitant and unrealistic self-determined + self-assigned payrates given to CEO's & their "support-net" of cronies in VP of the VP's & assistant to the assistants (nepotism & fratboys abound in other words, & I think you DO realize it is exactly that going on for "political power" gains in corporations) on downwards with 6 figures & UP payrates for a pack of time and money wasting moron MBA types.

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"Any investment I make that is profitable for me is fine." - by bar-agent (698856) on Monday August 16, @04:13AM (#33261578)

Uhm, yea, but I differ in that SLIGHTLY based on how bad I realize I am being ripped off by the "political power structure" I mention (& that I have actually seen & been disgusted by many times in the Fortune 100-500 during my employ) above.

What ticks me off the most? What I wrote in my 1st post: I'd rather see those monies spent on actual workers & production jobs that boost an economy, by spreading out the useless MBA types monies over the 1,000's they have made unemployed, to spur an economy again (because if you do NOT think they helped contribute to ruining the US economy? You have another think coming!).

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"If I actually care about the company's future or its employees, though, I would want to have voting stock." - by bar-agent (698856) on Monday August 16, @04:13AM (#33261578)

Agreed, 110%... I hope you also understand WHY these "MBA crook types" (ala prime examples from AIG, Goldman Sachs, & Enron and all thru corporate "amerika"'s strata today) upset me. They have F'd things up, badly, and I know it. Crooks largely the lot of them.

In the end? I also must commend you for providing SOME 'backing proof' of your words upon request - many here will not take the time to do so.

I don't say "switch" but here is the situation

[Ilgaz]

Their "Ovi Suite" (which is Qt4 based) does a lot on Windows, there is also an official application which runs on OS X which does great amount of OS X friendly media/photos/music syncing even beating iTunes as it can convert the selected media files to device even if they are in .avi etc formats (via ffmpeg embedded).

I think, they should port it to Linux, the light Application as Ovi Suite is more like a savior for Windows users. There is a pressure on them to port it to OS X (which I believe, it can be ported as it is qt4) but it will be a serious overkill. It is more like "lets see if you actually support OS X" pressure, not realistic and useful. I bet same people will flame them for shipping a heavy weight suite for OS X which already has all the software provided by Apple.

They have a serious PR problem especially with Mac/OS X users. I know many people who were absolutely amazed when they have seen that little "nokia multimedia transfer" as they didn't know about it. Worse is, they think "Oh Nokia wouldn't support Mac anyway" and they don't even check http://www.nokia.com/mac which includes OS X style support, e.g. without re-inventing wheel, plug into iSync/iPhoto/iTunes.

Finally, if you are happy with iPhone, there is nothing to change. It does do good job syncing with OS X but, in my setup, Nokia even syncs better. E.g. multiple Nokias (one S40, one S60) merging their phonebooks via iSync etc. I was really amazed that I didn't see iPhone when I launched iSync on my brother's iPhone for example.

I guess the N8 (which has good specs) which carries the "Nokia" brand and proudly powered by Qt 4, if it sells well it could be a game changer for already prestigious Qt.

They have to get rid of this negativity but they should do it in old fashioned way, not like their recent "Boss will be on Twitter, ask whatever you like" lame web 2.0 thing. For example, put (non animated, not talking!) ads to Mac focused sites, like "Did you know your Nokia can sync to OS X via iSync?". I bet they don't know that many OS X users doesn't really do a "step 2" when they see iSync doesn't figure their phones.

It is Linux, they can't officially "unsupport" it

[Ilgaz]

I believe Meego will find its way to N900, even via fake-anonymous contributors from Intel/Nokia. As you guys are "top paying" owners of devices, even commercial developers who are dealing with real complex code (think about quickoffice) will say to them "We can't and won't reinvent the wheel, upgrade our consumers".

Even Intel has to do a favor. Why? Because Intel has to prove that they are really after a mobile device linux, not only something that will save "once netbook fashion dies, it is dead" atom processor. Their coders should really prove it and it will tell the industry that Intel can/will support ARM architecture. Intel is really like AMD on mobile land, does things but industry doesn't really take them serious. Of course they are taken serious but, not like desktop.

Nokia? Well, my 2 years old E71 just got a new update and remember, we are running ordinary, closed source Symbian. Not ^something. It now has many features, including free maps built into "ROM". I can't understand why that very same company would abandon N900 owners especially they aren't dealing with 20 millions of complex mess called S60V3. Seriously, their design lead asked them to make a minor (cosmetic) change on E71 home screen, they couldn't find the code which needs to be modified to make that change. That was the Nokia just 2 years ago and now they became open source heroic company.

Well, as I said and people replied, nobody cares really... They will line up for iPhones and whine on Slashdot instead. I even regret posting that message now.