Slashdot Mirror
Trump Says He'd Make Apple Build Computers In the US (businessinsider.com)
mrspoonsi writes with Business Insider's report that presidential candidate Donald Trump says he'd like to make Apple "start building their damn computers and things in this country instead of other countries."
From the article: Trump's ultimatum to the most valuable company in the world was made towards the end of a 45-minute speech he gave at Liberty University in Virginia on Monday. The most popular candidate in the Republican party said he would impose a 35% business tax on American businesses manufacturing outside of the United States. Apple has manufactured its Mac Pro at a factory in Texas since 2013, but the vast majority of its products (including the iPhone) are largely made and assembled in China. How Trump would force Apple's supply chain, which relies heavily on a vast network of suppliers and large factories throughout Asia, to be brought stateside remains unknown. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently called the U.S. tax code "awful for America." If Trump (or anyone) thinks this is a good idea, why start or stop with Apple?
He is not actually going to build that wall on the Mexican border, and whatnot.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
For someone who claims to not be a politician, Trump is very good as politician-speak - the art of telling people you'll do things with no intentions/plans/ability to follow through on it.
Also, I thought Republicans didn't like the government interfering in business? Wouldn't forcing a company to redo its entire operations just to keep everything in America fall under government interference? How long until people realize that President Trump won't be able to do half the things he claims he'll do?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
As in how many would we have to back out of to do this?
No sir I dont like it.
Apple will be assembling productsin the US within 10 yrs, using robotics, but it won't help employment rates because it will all be robotics based.
When Trump starts making his own crap in the US, maybe he can be taken seriously on the issue.
Its effectively a disguised import tariff and the US has gone to a lot of trouble to get "free trade" agreements with many countries, or alternatively deals with minimal customs duties. He'll end up with the regulatory bodies saying that this form of tax is illegal under the agreements and the USA would have to pay a lot of compensation
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
While I agree with your analysis about the fact that companies will find ways to legally avoid the tax ("loopholes"), it is unlikely that the cost of the iPhone will go up as a result. Non-commodity firms like Apple charge the highest price they can get away with in the marketplace, regardless of their costs. If they thought the same number of people would pay $50 extra for an iPhone, that is what the price tag would be already. When costs go up, in the short run, Apple just becomes less profitable because of the higher costs. In the medium run, the next generations of iPhones will tend to have a focus on cost cutting because competitors will have to lessen features to remain profitable under the new regulations, so Apple can afford to cut costs and still look better than the competition by comparison. In the long run, the decision to mass produce the next iWhatever will have to incorporate these extra costs in the evaluation of whether the total costs of R&D + production + regulatory costs are sufficiently less than the revenue they will get for it. If the costs are too great to produce the profit their investors demand, they will not produce the iWhatever.
True, apple will claim that this (or any) new government mandate will "require" them to increase prices by $x, but that is just lip service to try to avoid the policy from going into effect. And if it does go into effect anyways, then whatever extra they add onto the price is only done because they now believe that people will pay more (possibly because other manufacturers will reduce their product selection, and with decreased competition, Apple can increase prices).
Unfortunately, the only thing in the Senate Ted Cruz is the head of, is the Senate Subcommittee on Space and Science (NASA).
And when Cruz runs up against someone reasonably intelligent, it clearly shows. In this hearing before the Senate Subcommittee, watch as Cruz tries to subtly make his point that NASA was spending too much money on climate change. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden tactfully makes a fool of Cruz by pointing out some key points: 1) He doesn't know what numbers Cruz is talking about because they are not the official budget numbers (Cruz is a liar) and 2) the decrease in space exploration was directed by Congress to NASA to spend less (Cruz is a hypocrite).
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.