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How the US Lost Out On iPhone Work
Hugh Pickens writes "Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year are manufactured overseas. 'It isn't just that workers are cheaper abroad,' write Charles Duhig and Keith Bradsher. 'Rather, Apple's executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have outpaced their American counterparts so much that "Made in the U.S.A." is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.' Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option and recount the time Apple redesigned the iPhone's screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. 'The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,' says one Apple executive. 'There's no American plant that can match that.' Apple's success has benefited the U.S. economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. But ultimately, Apple executives say curing unemployment is not Apple's job. 'We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.'"
"l. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames"
Of course having next to no labour laws or enforced practices, combined with a workforce housed on site results in amazing results when last minute changes (or ramp ups in production) need to happen.
I'm sure there are many areas of expertise and scale where overseas factories outperform their American counterparts, but is this really the best example to use?
But ultimately, Apple executives say curing unemployment is not Apple's job. 'We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.'"
If Apple had no other option, they would still be able to make high-quality products with large-scale US labor. A tariff based on worker freedom that punishes the practices of China et al while it rewards the practices of the US and EU with tax deals would go a long way.
The only good thing to do is to make it not only Apple's obligation, but everyone's obligation that sells in the US.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Wait, but I thought corporate 'persons' are job creators, whose taxes must be cut for the benefit of jobless Americans! If these "people" aren't willing to lose a little money to create jobs in America, then I may start to consider the possibility the trickle-down conservatives *may* have been wrong, all along!
Workers in dormitories
24/7 uncompensated on-call
12-hour shifts
Not mentioned:
worker safety
Triangle Shirtwaist Company
Shorter summary:
All the USA needs to be a better place for companies like Apple is to repeal the last 120 years.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Yeah... because when you are unemployed and have no money (and the housing market sucks) it's so SUPER easy to move to a place with jobs! Gosh, why didn't people think of that. We could have solved this problem years ago and have a 0% unemployment rate!
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option
It is a self-fulfilling prophesy. The jobs were initially shipped overseas due to the cheap workforce. Then the overseas workforce built up their skills because those skills were in demand and being used, meanwhile the skills of American workers atrophied because no company wanted to use them. The overseas manufacturing facilities were heavily invested in because that is where the cheap sweat-shop labor was, and still is. Do you know the working conditions at these factories are so bad that the companies install suicide nets around the building to catch the workers trying to commit suicide by jumping off the roof? Do you know that the workers in those factories are required to sleep 8 to 10 people in a dorm room, and they are not allowed to talk or socialize with their roommates?
Now it is at the point that manufacturing in the US has been neglected for so long, that to catchup and compete is a daunting task. And no company wants to make the investment in American people and manufacturing infrastructure anymore.
The Apple execs are being very self-serving in their rationalizations for abandoning the American worker. They are just trying to paint a smiley face on a sad situation.
In reality it is the American companies that neglected the American workforce and manufacturing infrastructure for cheap overseas labor. Then the American companies invested in the overseas workforce.
Employees at Foxconn who put together iPhones earn 31 cents an hour. Clearly anyone who isn't willing to fly to China to get a 31 cent/hour job is too lazy to be employed.
The executive class of these companies have been farming out more and more work to China. They do so under the arrogant premise that the manufacturing can be done without learning the original design work. Already fair parts of the design work have been taken over by Chinese companies.
The arrogant part is in thinking that we are the only ones that can come up with a good design, that we can create 'intellectual property' and make profits solely off of that. Nature grants no exclusive rights to creativity or intelligence. There is no inherent reason that the creative minds in China can't take over the one piece we think we can exclusively own. This is why American companies are so big on intellectual property. They think they are the only ones that can do high profit design work and that this is the only thing worth doing.
One day these companies will wake up and realize that Apple etc need the ODM's far more than they need the brand names. They will simply refuse more contracts and start manufacturing their own original work. Apple etc will have no place to build or design their hardware and Foxconn etc will become the next Apple.
I give at most five years before we see Chinese brand names taking the place of our familiar brand names on our store shelves. By the time this happens there won't be a damn thing we can do about it in less than two decades.
Yeah... because when you are unemployed and have no money (and the housing market sucks) it's so SUPER easy to move to a place with jobs! Gosh, why didn't people think of that. We could have solved this problem years ago and have a 0% unemployment rate!
I am Filipino Systems Engineer, over the last decade I have moved within 4 european countries, and 6 different cities because that is where the job is, so when I hear statement like this, i laugh at your first world problems and excuses.
I did IT work in the Philippines over a decade ago, exported from the UK when you kids needed external talent for almost anything computer-related.
Just because one in a thousand people in that country has the talent and the contacts to be able to move around the world finding jobs, it doesn't mean the lorry-loads of kids coming in from the villages just for the opportunity to work 12-14 hours a day in a nicely ventilated office/factory will be able to do the same. I imagine the same is true in China scaled up by over an order of magnitude.
Apple have just publicly stated, "The problem with the US workforce is that we don't have an underclass of residential workers in a jurisdiction which denies basic human and labour rights who dedicate their whole lives to building toys for an ever-shrinking middle class." Anyone who defends Apple after this is inhuman evil.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames.
I consider it a perk, not a problem, to reserve the right to work only 8 hours a day not having to answer my phone if work calls after-hours.
As for you, the European companies hire you because you're cheap, not because you're smart.
Calling the US worker "lazy" because they don't want to live in a dormitory where they are forced to work 12 hour shifts, sleep 8-10 per room, and are literally prevented from suicide by nets surrounding buildings... is like saying that a slave from 1812 was "ungrateful" for the minimal food, clothing and shelter he received.
Those who call the US worker lazy are looking at this problem wrong, mostly because they have never BEEN a worker like that. The fact is, the "problem" is NOT with the US worker, the problem is with the Chinese worker and Chinese civilization. Those poor people are so destitute that they're willing to become virtual slaves for some meager earnings. They give up living an independent life and exist in a factory like some sort of a flesh-robot, and they all want one thing which is to LEAVE that factory.
It's not right. People should not forced to spend years/decades of their short lives toiling in what amounts to a form of constant punishment.
RTFA: "various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward."
In terms of economic output per worker, American workers really are the most productive in the world (even the TFA cites $400,000/y/worker at Apple). See http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/fortune/1109/gallery.america_economic_strengths.fortune/2.html, which also notes that part of this is due to US worker's long hours - Norway has the most productive workers per hours worked.
Just because Apple and other top tier companies (Corning is mentioned in the article) had a good experience with overseas manufacturing doesn't mean everyone will. If you're pretty much any business smaller than Apple, you might not get the results you want since they simply may not care about you as much.
Total cost in dollars might be zero, but there you are paying a price. You now separated from your friends and family, presumably you had at least one of those groups before. You now how no possessions, most of have a few things we like and derive please from which we would not want to part with. I would call those things costs. Finally I find it unlikely you can replace the furniture and other items you will eventually need for less than you sold it for, so the dollar cost is actually non zero as well long term.
Don't misunderstand. You did the right thing, you needed a job and you took personal responsibility and did what you had to do to get one. We all play the hand we are dealt. You are a better person and a better citizen than most, who would have sat on their ass and collected unemployment when as you have proven they really could go get a job. Still you should recognize the price was actually high and pat yourself on the back.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Living costs are also much lower in China.
This is true. Now, the following...
And are you saying that there isn't a single job available in the US, not even in industries that aren't directly what you want to do or that require lots of manual hard work? People just don't want to do them if it doesn't interest them, isn't available where they happen to live or there's prejudices and "I'm too good for that job" against the work (ie., working as a burger flipper or a stripper).
... that's one hell of a strawman. How the hell did you get there from the post you were replying to.
For starters, are you suggesting that being a stripper is a viable job alternative? What kind of mind could possibly suggest that as an example?
Also, from your posts it is obvious that you have never worked a burger flipping job and have to depend on it completely. I worked minimum wage jobs when I came to America, and I've climbed, by studying and hard work, to where I am now (pretty at the upper middle class bracket.) I can tell you that you simply cannot live at a hamburger flipping salary. How? You cannot even pay rent with that. People who have those jobs (and I know because I've been there) have to lump themselves together with relatives or friends and edge a meager existence.
The greatest insult of all is that in this great country so many people cannot afford the most basic of medical care. Jesus Christ, my country of origin is the second poorest in the western hemisphere, and the average city dweller has basic medical access more readily available and affordable than his/her American counterpart. How can we explain that????
That is the greatest flaw and immorality of all the ones we have to deal with nowadays. I couldn't afford medical care when I worked at McDonald's and Home Depot (not if I wanted to pay the rent or have more than a pair of underwear, or, you know, eat... even when I was at McDonald's ), and that was a while ago when cost of life was less.
TODAY, there are simply no jobs out there, even if you are looking for a flipping burger job. I mean, c'mon, even places like McDonald's and Starbucks you see franchises cutting people off and/or telling them "sorry guys, we can't keep you full time anymore, all we can do is give you 30-35 hours." That's how bad it is right now.
To suggest to tell people "go get a burger flipping" job indicates you are completely detached to the current realities, or you simply do not give a fuck and prefer to make shit up just to create an argument to fight for on the interweebz.
Did you ever read the reason Chinese goods are cheap because China manipulates their currency? I'm sure you all have. But have you ever though about what that really means? For instance why don't we just manipulate our currency more and make our good cheaper? And what does manipulate even mean?
The manipulation they are talking about is inflation. The Chinese government creates money faster than we do. But what is the effect of this? When governments create money they rarely hand it out equally to all of their citizens. They create money in order to pay for things or reward their political friends with free loans, grants, or bailouts. But where does the wealth go? Since no wealth is generated by inflation it transfers wealth from those that create real wealth to those that get the inflated money. So what the Chinese government does is impoverish it's people by stealing their wealth in the form of inflation at a much higher rate than the US government does.
What is the solution? A tariff doesn't work. All it does it tax the US consumers and gives that money to the government. With more tax revenue the US government has to borrow and print less which creates a stronger dollar. This makes Chinese goods even cheaper. No the only solution is to embrace it. Let the US consumers keep buying Chinese until the people there get a clue and overthrow their government. Think about it why should the Chinese people work so hard for so many hours for so little reward? They will wake up eventually and you will see China fall apart like the Soviets.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
When companies can move production anywhere, they'll always use workers in one location as bargaining chips to get an even better deal for their next plant, so it becomes a race to the bottom for wages.
The old deal was "you want to sell to our people, either open a plant here or be prepared to pay duties."
Real wages haven't risen in 30 years. NAFTA was a mistake, not because the US and Canada and Mexico are "enemies", but because a healthy trade relationship involves give and take between all participants - and companies are no longer required to "give" in order to take.
Look at Caterpillar's latest move - record profits, they buy a locomotive engine manufacturer, get government grants, then tell the employees - take a 50% wage cut and also roll back all those benefits, or we're closing shop - we've got another place that is giving us money right now to train workers to do your jobs for $12 an hour in Muncie.
The NAFTA legislation only requires a 6-month notice to pull out. If multi-nationals won't play fair under the new rules, let them live with the old rules.
People who have those jobs (and I know because I've been there) have to lump themselves together with relatives or friends and edge a meager existence.
This is one of the big differences between East and West.
We in the West see this a s a negative - can't live on my own.
Those in the East see this as living - part of being a family, helping younger & older generations. With the bonus of a cheaper cost of living per person.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Thirty years ago it was somewhere around 25%, now it's pretty close to twice that. What that means is that for about half of the working population of the United States, it takes about half a month's work to pay the rent. Back when I was starting my career, you could count on having somewhere around three-quarters of your pay left over after paying the rent; now, half or less.
I'm sure that the failure of the median household to save for things like medical emergencies is just due to lack of character and work ethic, though.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
You don't need dormitories. Over the last 6 years, I've lived in 4 different countries. I owned a home, but I sold it. I didn't live above my means, and I save my money. My wife and I have seen cities all around the world, and don't get tied to a single place.
I've worked 12 hours a day when required, and combined with a good education, and I get paid very well for it.
The fundamental thing that these guys say, is that IT is not a 9 to 5 job. Why? They deal in projects, not operations. Projects need to be agile, and hit the problems hard and fast and get the goods to market.
At the end of the day, you go contract, you hit it hard when you're off, and then you spend some time off between contracts. And before people say "oh, but everyone pays minimum wage, and outsourcing is a race to the bottom," sure, some companies do operate like that. But they can rarely boast a true modicum of success. The smart companies out there pay top dollar for their secret weapons. If they can find one.
The bottom line is that the USA used to do this. Old school Americans who still posess the American spirit do things bigger, better, faster, stronger. There is no room here for "work life balance", there is no room for a giant party at every turn. Do that on your own time, when you're not on contract, and your life is yours.
American's did not land a man on the moon from a group of employees who worked 9AM to 5PM, with a 2 hour lunch break involving beer. They did it through blood, sweat, tears and the efforts of titans.
The times where you can make a million by selling sub prime mortgages to yourself are over. The times where you can believe that you can make a million by being good at poker are over. Bring back the engineers and scientists, bring back a solid work ethic, and the USA can rise again to its former glory.
Funnily enough, modern people don't generally wnat to do that, but it is what is necessary. The world has opened up, and there is no longer a cartel of employees with a long list of stipulations are no longer the only option. We need to pay back the effort that was "borrowed" through quantative easing, establishing a new slave class overseas through outsourcing and a government that has spent $5 for each $3 that was gathered and a president who had started numerous wars for the benefit of his family's empire.
It's a highly unpalletable bitter and jagged pill to swallow, but it's time to pay for the reality check that has bounced. When it's paid back, hopefully we'll have remembered the lessons learned from these trying times, but I doubt we will.
Long live the American spirit of MAKING money, and here's to the death of the culture of theft and deception that has replaced it with insidious graduality over the last 50 years.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
You could always refuse to work for a dirty capitalist.
There are a number of options available to you, including the one where you wake up every day, look for your food that day, acquire it, cook it, and sleep in the shelter you built yourself. That way you aren't a "wage slave" or whatever people call it these days.
Of course, you are neglecting the division of labor that has allowed the modern world to be so prosperous if you do that.
One thing "the workers" don't realize is that life as a business owner really, really sucks unless/until you have "made it".
I'm a small fry engineer at a software company. I _never_ worry about if I am going to make sales numbers this quarter. I _never_ worry about cold-calling customers to drum up business. I _never_ worry about all kinds of things that ultimately determine if the company stays afloat or not, can make payroll or not, etc etc.
I show up, I do what I am good at, and the owner(s) of the company are assuming 100% of the risks. Sure, I am subject to the risk of maybe losing my job, but my nest egg isn't on the line. I am not going gray haired from worrying about how to make the entire company's numbers fit.
People who work for capitalists are also participating in the distribution of labor -- they are often putting most or all of the stress and hardship of really having to fend for ones-self on to somebody else.
My father in law has been in the situation of being a business owner. And my wife recalls periods where her parents had to explain to her that they didn't have enough for anything besides box mac-n-cheese, because dad's company wasn't getting paid. (specifically, customers weren't paying for products/services received)
I never worry about whether or not my customers pay my employer. I am sure there is a team somewhere that deals with that so I don't have to.
For most people, having a place where they go every day, show up, and do what they're told, and in exchange they get paid, is a much better deal than what they could otherwise get. They risk losing their job; but fundamentally their employment is not directly tied to the performance of the company. If/when it inevitably tanks, the employee can shift to some other employer. Meanwhile the owner of a failed business has probably lost his health, family, etc.
All that said, it seems that the publicly traded company in the US has allowed the basic capitalist ideal to be grossly perverted. The captains of the company no longer place their personal fortunes on the line; everyone now speculates with others' money. Larger Corporations now have departments that specialize in government influence and rent seeking.
But that aside, your basic problem with capitalism is unsound. There appear to be people with lots of ideas and the acumen for taking risk, and who have bigger goals than what they may personally acomplish. And there are other people who, for whatever reason, don't have the inclination, motivation, or perhaps talent for these things. Yet the two are able to work together for mutual benefit. The capitalist needs talented help. The talented help needs financial/social stability, and tasks suited to their interests and expertise.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
You sound like you're endorsing living a life with no roots, no community involvement, and no long-term commitments. Seeing the world and its cities and cultures is a really cool experience, but eventually most people like to settle down and do things like have families, hobbies, and own possessions that don't have to fit in a suitcase.
The career-long road warrior mentality directly contradicts with the need most folks have for being close with extended family, laying down roots in a community, or having long-term friendships with close physical proximity.
Working hard may give you a sense of purpose, but trivializing work-life balance will only isolate you.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
The Apple execs are akin to the 1800s plantation owners in that they claim without slavery they can't produce the products the market demands. How many of these dormitory workers are able to afford any of Apple's products? Whenever workers are unable to afford the products they produce themselves it leads to an unsustainable economy. Our country learned that during the Great Depression but our generation has forgotten all the lessons from that experience. Of course the global economy has been floated some time by currency manipulation by both China and the US but once those parlor games no longer work the reality of the true economy will reveal itself.
China is still a communist nation; what would happen to Apple if some sort of conflict erupts between the US and China and China either implements a US embargo or nationalizes Apples manufactures for the good of the Chinese party? Certainly the Apple execs have thought about this and have made certain that they get compensated regardless.
The ironic thing is that Apple claims they have no responsibility to help solve the US economic and unemployment problems while at the same time they donate millions to candidates and lobbyists to protect and promote their own special interests, drowning out the voice of everyday Americans. This is like when the Madoffs of the corporate world who spend their whole lives combating regulations and "government interference" are interviewed after a huge fraud is exposed and the first words out of their mouths are "It may be unethical but it is not illegal".
As Socrates wrote long ago:
"I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good, public and private."
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
Caterpillar has been doing exactly that for 21 years. Their latest move - buying a locomotive assembly plant and then locking out the workers and telling them to either take a 50% paycut or they'll move to Muncie, where they can pay people $480 a week for the same job.
Want to raise a family on $24,000 a year?
You're a shill or part of the problem. Please DIAF - we need the extra heat to stay warm.
Apple makes gobs of money by owning the high-value part of the product - the design, engineering, and final sales. There's virtually no profit in actually manufacturing the product. So as a result, companies have emerged like Foxconn (the biggest) that specialize in the manufacturing process. And they make money by doing a _lot_ of manufacturing, for a lot of different vendors. They set up shop in mainland China for easy access to workers - and for most of those workers the crappy pay they get is better than they could earn elsewhere.
And because of that, a whole supply chain rose around those companies to keep them freshly supplied with components. There's an entire infrastructure in and around China specialized in low-cost electronics manufacturing. That's not the only place Foxconn makes stuff (they have factories in Eastern Europe, Brazil, and India - all places where they can get relatively cheap access to an educated workforce). And also, Foxconn doesn't just make products for Apple - nor are they Apple's only manufacturing vendor.
Also worth noting again is that the manufacturing is a low-margin business. Based on their 2010 numbers, they had about $59 billion in sales. Sounds like a lot, but less than 2/3 of Apple's numbers alone. Again, in profit they did $2.2 billion - but that's a low percentage of sales, and that's after supporting nearly a million employees.
The only other thing I'd mention here is that there are companies manufacturing products in higher-wage places, and there are products better-suited to manufacturing here in the US. Precision electronics, low-volume, high-price items, and goods where the manufacturing cost is lower than the shipping costs from overseas would be - these are all good candidates for onshore manufacturing. iPhones, PCs, gaming consoles - those are gone, and they're not coming back. But the jobs they create are crappy ones anyways. And they'll always be chasing the lowest cost somewhere in the world.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Not only are American workers the most productive in the world, but the US is still the world's largest manufacturing nation based on economic output. And to top it off we do it with only 8% of the workforce. Crank that up to 25% or so and the US would out produce the rest of the world combined. Like it did during WWII.
Norway? You have got to be kidding me. The entire country of Norway has the population of Minnesota, one of the smaller US states.
To get that level of productivity a US manufacturing job has a skill level requirement far greater than in China. And heavy automation. In China automation has far less impact mostly because of the low wages it doesn't pay. So they have to have 8000 to glue on faceplates. In the US that would be about a 100 person operation.
Sub-Zero/Wolf Appliance here in Wisconsin did similar. A few years ago, the owner called a company-wide meeting and told everyone they could either take a 20% pay cut or they would get laid off. When the employees balked, the owner told them he would just fire them all and move the plant to Kentucky. Understandably, this scared people to death, what with mortgages and all. When employees started looking for ways to cut costs without having to cut their salaries that much (and found some) and presented them to the owner, he basically said "This isn't about money; the economy is soft right now, and I'm going to use this opportunity to increase my profit margin by cutting your wages. Don't like it, there's the door."
There have been some businesses that truly have been hit hard by this economy, but there are some real slimeball fuckheads that are basically just extorting the fact that people are desperate for work and will do almost anything to keep their jobs. If the minimum wage were gone tomorrow, we'd all be making illegal immigrant strawberry-picking slave wages, and we're supposed to cut taxes on "the job creators"? Please.
I'm afraid that your tale of road warrior machismo has nothing to do with the original story, nor the claim that "you don't need dormitories". To house 8000 manufacturing workers within a half hour commute of the manufacturing facility, if you don't use dormitories, your costs will be ludicrously high in salaries or other support of housing costs. And dormitories effectively divorce the employees from day-to-day family and household maintenance requirements, allowing the 8000 employees to work that shift and still get a meal during and after the shift so they're productive the _next_ day.
Short term contract workers wouldn't normally be capable of this kind of goal. To put in a sudden 12-hour shift on unfamiliar equipment with a changed procedure is to encourage very expensive mistakes, such as injuries and ruining the manufacturing equipment itself. Longer term contract workers or employees can do this and do it well: take a look in any US based auto manufacturing plant for constantly handling last minute revisions as the next model year is built.
The political diatribe is also fascinating. The idea that American spirit is allbout "MAKING money" is lethal to quality engineering and research, because both involve longer term projects that need experienced and educated staff who've really learned their way around a field and can integrate with that knowledge. Factors other than money are vital.
Again with that stupid "We'll never be able to afford it if Americans make it!!!!" argument.
Back when we made shit here, there was actual demand for labor, and people made a decent wage for the time doing even the most menial of jobs because employers actually had to compete for workers. Consequently, the buying power of the dollar was enormous compared to where it is today.
My grandfather came back from Korea and got a job as a truck driver, and that earned him enough money to buy (and pay off) a modest home in Philadelphia; support himself, his wife, and their four children; buy a new car every few years; pile the family in the car and drag them all over the country every summer on vacation; put something away for his children's college educations and his retirement. All on single salary earned with a fucking high school diploma. And to top it off, he was actually treated like a fucking human being by his boss! He regularly had the boss and his family over for dinner, and when there were problems in my grandfather's personal life, like when my grandmother got cancer the first time and had to be hospitalized, not only did his boss give him as much time as he needed to deal with it, no questions asked, he came and visited them in the fucking hospital. The guy ran a trucking company, and my grandfather being gone effected his bottom line, but that wasn't nearly as important to him as the fact that one of his valued employees was in trouble.
Contrast that to the average job a high school graduate can get these days. Hell, contrast that to most any job these days. I've had jobs where you can't even get sick without the threat of losing your job, or at the very least, getting put right to the top of a "layoff" list. Look at all the fucking huge retail chains that deliberately hire two part-time employees instead of one full-time one just to get around having to offer them insurance or any benefits of any kind. There are whole towns in this country now where the only major employer is Walmart, a huge proponent of doing that shit.
People talk about class warfare like it's something new, but the fact is, the war's been raging since fucking 1980, they just called it "trickle-down economics" and "globalization". Now that the other side is finally waking up to that fact and starting to resist in earnest, now come the threats about moving overseas or "competitiveness" or "incentive to hire Americans" and "American labor is too expensive!" and all the other bullshit.
This country was at it's strongest economically when the middle-class was at it's strongest economically. Cutting their tax rate a few percentage points isn't going to turn the U.S.A. into fucking Xanadu. We need to make it financially untenable for a manufacturer to base 95% of production in foreign slave markets and bring the shit here and sell it for premium prices, but those manufacturers spend their hard earned profits making sure that will never, ever happen by lobbying the fuck out of our government.
Ah, the free market at work. Remember, don't try to stop him, or he'll move the jobs to China. We have to keep our workforce equally defenseless and exploitable.... uh, I mean "attractive", in order to remain the greatest nation on earth!
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
By that argument, since when does the U.S. have any obligation towards Apple? I'm sure they get hefty tax cuts being here, asking for something in return is just too fucking much?
It's not like Apple went from a garage to the juggernaut it is today overnight. This country facilitated their growth, agreements were made, concessions granted, taxes cut...and now that they've reached the peak of their market share and power, what's the response? "Ha ha, fuck you America, we're building all our shit in China! We have no obligation to you!! But thanks for all the breaks you cut us as we were growing to the point we are today, I guess..."
It was the U.S. that afforded these companies to make their billions, and now that times are tough and we're asking for a little in return, they're all giving us the finger and running like locusts to the next economy to suck off of, and once that economy is all tapped out, they'll just up and move again. If we let them, that is.
A good place to start would be to impose steep tariffs on all imported manufactured goods and use that money to subsidize jobs here in the States. Once they can't bring their crap in from China for nothing, you'll see how fast these factories all start re-opening here, and as far as prices skyrocketing, you know what? It's time to call their bluff because I don't believe for one fucking second that any manufacturer would sabotage their own business by pricing themselves out of the market.
So essentially Apple is saying, "We can't have these jobs in the US because the Standard Of Living in the US is too high, and we want to profit from a lower SOL."
Seriously, the workers are woken up in the middle of the night from their dormitories, given "a biscuit and a cup of tea" (as though this is some magnificent reward), then faced a 12 hour shift, before being overworked for a week straight. All because Apple made a bad design decision, and obviously their product's street date is more important than the health and well-being of 8,000 workers.
This is sweat-shop mentality. Apple shouldn't be boasting about this, they should be apologizing.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
First, Apple is only a case study in this story. The facts apply to just about all electronics products. Further, Apple doesn't boast about this. They audit the suppliers and factories that do work for them and publish their results, with goals for how to improve. They are now a member of the Fair Labor Association. Finally, the article doesn't say that US jobs are lost due to standard of living. Paying Chinese workers American wages would raise the cost of goods only about 25%, according to the article. The situation is far more grim than this. Rather, the U.S. no longer has the dense congregation of many places of manufacture that all tie together into a big supply chain web. The construction of manufacturing capacity sometimes begins even before a contract is actually awarded, just in case, and is subsidized by the government. Further, the U.S. lacks the numbers of workers with the engineering skill that these factories tend to employ: somewhat higher than high school but not a full four-year B.S. degree. We therefore can't easily mobilize and structure a sufficient (in both numbers and skillsets) labor force on short notice. The article states that China could amass the required talent for a job in 15 days that would take 9 *months* in the U.S.
I work to live, I don't live to work.
I've seen friends and family members die too soon. My father passed away while I was in college. He did not get to see his kids marry and start their own families, he did not get to meet his grandchildren.
He worked though. He worked 9-5 and overtime whenever he could get it. He put away a nice nest-egg and paid off the house that my mother lives in. He put off vacations and told my mother "we'll travel when I retire".
Well that day never came. 10 years of battling cancer finally killed him. What do you think his family remembers? His career or his ability to balance work and his life as a father?
It is your right to work to live. It is not your right to expect that all of society should place work above all else.
I've only got one life to live on this planet - I'm not going to spend it making someone else rich. I've seen too many people do that, and I can say it is not worth the opportunity cost of your LIFE.
-ted
The study, Apple’s High Effective Tax Rate Obscures Foreign Tax Benefits, shows how tech giant Apple pays low taxes and keeps this fact from public view. Like Google and General Electric—two companies that have been in the news this year because of their aggressive tax planning—Apple takes advantage of lax U.S. tax rules to shift profits out of the United States and greatly reduce its tax bill. But unlike these companies, Apple also takes advantage of flexible accounting rules that allow it to report large U.S. tax expense to shareholders and the public even though those taxes actually have not (and may never be) paid to the IRS.
Source.
If I, as a private citizen, were to hide taxable income off-shore in order to avoid paying taxes on it, I would be jailed for Income Tax evasion. I guess multi-billion dollar corporations don't have to abide by the same rules us "little people" do.
Here's another article detailing tax breaks given to Apple to establish a server farm in North Carolina. Up to $46 million will be saved in taxes. How many employees do you think they will create with that $46 million dollar break? And if the taxes are paying the employees salaries, why the hell doesn't the state just employ them directly and put them to work doing something that benefits the public directly, and not a billion dollar corporation? You hear "Government doesn't create jobs!" rhetorical bullshit constantly, if the government is subsidizing the fucking jobs, and without said subsidies those jobs wouldn't exist, how does that even make logical sense? It seems to me that the government is the only one creating jobs via tax cuts. Problem is the bulk of private sector isn't holding up their end of the bargain and actually hiring people with those breaks, they're pocketing them and blaming them on unfair regulations and other nonsense...