Apple Not Allowed To Open Stores In India (reuters.com)

ffkom writes: Reuters reports: "India has said Apple Inc must meet a rule obliging foreign retailers to sell at least 30 percent locally-sourced goods if it wishes to open stores in the country, a senior government official told Reuters. A change in legislation last year exempted foreign retailers selling high-tech goods from the rule, which states 30 percent of the value of goods sold in the store should be made in India. However, Apple's products were not considered to be in this category, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the matter." Now just imagine what Apple stores in the U.S. would look like if 30% of their offerings had to be made in the US... "They did ask for a waiver but didn't provide any material on record to justify it. The decision was taken only after a thorough examination of their application," the source said. Apple planned to open at least three stores in India by the end of 2017. Separate sources said Apple talked with the Indian government about a relaxation of the rule before it filed an application to open stores in the country in January. In a report from The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled), one of India's government officials said, "We are sticking to the old policy. We want local sourcing for job creation. You can't have a situation where people view India only as a market. Let them start doing some manufacturing here." Currently, Apple sells its products "through a network of Indian-owned distribution companies and retailers."

Comments

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't they just open a cafe on site selling food & drink to potential customers? Should be too hard to get the product count up to 30% of their admittedly limited range of computers and phones.
 

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

30% of the VALUE of goods sold. If it was just numbers they could stock a few hundred locally made iPhone covers to meet the rules

Re: Simple solution

[Opportunist]

And considering just how overpriced the shit is, even opening a Starbucks wouldn't do it.

No, not even considering Starbucks' own well known price policy of selling black colored and oddly flavored water for a fortune. Thinking about it, that couldn't fly in India. If they wanted black colored and oddly flavored water, they could simply fill their mug in the Ganges River.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look, another Apple hater.

Every time I price out, e.g., a Lenovo Carbon X1, to match the specs of a Macbook Air; the Lenovo costs more.

And guess what, there are already Starbucks in India. And they do reasonably well. One of them in Bangalore is a block or two from the newest Imagine store. (Imagine is one of those Indian owned retailers the parent article mentioned that sells Apple products. Their stores are basically a clone of Apple's stores elsewhere.)

You would have done better though to suggest Cafe Coffee Day instead, AFAIK it's Indian owned, and there's one on every freakin' corner, kinda like Starbucks is here. And their coffee costs about the same as Starbucks.

Re: Simple solution

[Opportunist]

Hate? Nah. They're actually decent in terms of quality and usability. What ticks me off is their use of patents and that increasingly form beats function.

Re: Simple solution

[fluffernutter]

The difference is, you could price out a lenovo with those specs that beat the pants off of Apple's price. Maybe you really need a Carbon but I doubt it. A lot of people have in mind work they want to get done and buy a machine that does that work, rather than looking for the premium model.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple products are basically ridiculous rip-offs"

In what way? Or do you consider anything that isn't junk a rip off? If you break it down to components, Apple products are equivalent in price to most other manufacturers. They just happen to use expensive components to make a quality product, rather than cheap components to make a crappy one.

Re: Simple solution

[arth1]

Every time I price out, e.g., a Lenovo Carbon X1, to match the specs of a Macbook Air; the Lenovo costs more.

False dichotomy. If you were to spec a Macbook to match the specs of a Lenovo, you would likewise end up with a more expensive product.

You're pre-supposing that the Macbook Air has the ultimate feature set which others should match.

Others may want features like built-in HDMI, clip-on batteries, separate mic and headphone ports, changeable batteries and or HDs, a three button touchpad, upgradeable RAM or docking stations. Only by disregarding such choices because the Macbook doesn't offer them can you do a comparison to anything else. That will then be a biased comparison, favoring the Macbook Air even before you start.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple products are basically ridiculous rip-offs"

In what way? Or do you consider anything that isn't junk a rip off? If you break it down to components, Apple products are equivalent in price to most other manufacturers. They just happen to use expensive components to make a quality product, rather than cheap components to make a crappy one.

You are so full of shit......they use the same stuff the others do, probably crappier stuff.

Check out Louis Rossman on Youtube (he repairs MacBook Pros) and he will give you his honest experienced opinion on how good Apple products are...

(Warning - It's not a good opinion).

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on the laptop. If I just wanted size and sleekness, yes, Apple wins. However, I can go to a PC vendor, buy a laptop that might be several millimeters thicker than a MBP... but it will have a replaceable battery, replaceable RAM, a M.2 SSD that is easily replaced, perhaps a bay for a SATA drive, and some useful ports. eSATA, multiple USB 3 ports, a docking station, built in NIC, and other items which are needed for day to day use outside a coffee shop.

Yes, there is also the OS question.

Lets be real here. Apple has resigned to being a toymaker. Their flagship workstation requires a TB-2 breakout box if one wants more drive capacity, while a Dell Precision will be able to serve up desktop RAID in a heartbeat. I can also add a HBA or 10gigE NIC to the Dell if I want to have the box attached to a SAN. The Mac Pro is at best a curiosity and status symbol with a four year old video card (the Precision's video? Easily upgraded.)

tl;dr, Apple needs to rethink their Mac line, or spin it off to a company that does that hardware, so Apple can focus on making toys. When a flagship machine is going on three years without a refresh, with four year old technology, it almost is shameful to charge as much as Apple does for it.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no. I didn't say the MBAir has the ultimate feature set. Nor do I pre-suppose it, thank you very much.

It does have a feature set that meets 100% of what I want. As does the Carbon X1.

The Carbon X1 costs more than the MBAir for similar configurations.

It's pretty funny that none of the whingers are complaining that, e.g. Lenovos are over-priced, because Jeebus, a fully decked out Carbon X1 is $1600. Compared to a $431 Thinkpad E, that fscking Carbon is fscking overpriced. WTF Lenovo?

But they want to compare that same Thinkpad E to an "overpriced" MBAir and Apple is the Great Satan.

Fscking hilarious.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hater" is the kind of slang cultists throw around.

Re: Simple solution

[fluffernutter]

So Apple is the only company allowed to take advantage of people who want the super best model now? Lenovo is only doing what Apple is doing. It's called competition. I'd say Apple pretty much pioneered the way in artificially high prices and now other companies are following suit.

Re: Simple solution

[fluffernutter]

Not sure why I got modded down. People don't understand the difference between beauty/convenience and basic requirement?

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look, another Apple hater.

Every time I price out, e.g., a Lenovo Carbon X1, to match the specs of a Macbook Air; the Lenovo costs more.

And guess what, there are already Starbucks in India. And they do reasonably well. One of them in Bangalore is a block or two from the newest Imagine store. (Imagine is one of those Indian owned retailers the parent article mentioned that sells Apple products. Their stores are basically a clone of Apple's stores elsewhere.)

You would have done better though to suggest Cafe Coffee Day instead, AFAIK it's Indian owned, and there's one on every freakin' corner, kinda like Starbucks is here. And their coffee costs about the same as Starbucks.

I happen to commute frequently between the US and India. In the US, I have an iPhone, which I essentially use only for personal reasons - to FaceTime with family members (those that have an iPhone or iPad). I also have a MotoX, which I use for all my official work. For the US, both these phones have just about every app there is, although I've seen a few that are iOS only.

It's a different story in India. My sister has a couple of iPads, which her kids have possessed, and her husband has an iPhone. Very few of Apple's apps are available in their Indian store - a lot of them require one to have a US credit card that would pay out in US$, so I let her buy things on my account. In her case, it works, since I'm there, but for the majority of Indians, that's out of the question. So the iPhone is even more of a status symbol in India than it is in the US, and there are about as many iPhone users as Lumia users.

By contrast, Windows Phone has most of the major apps that one could need - the banking apps of even minor banks (like Kotak), payment apps like FreeCharge and Oxigen Wallet, shopping apps like SnapDeal and FlipCart, taxi apps like Olacabs. Unlike in the US, most Indians do not use apps like Q-code readers or other such apps. Usually, the bulk of their time on phones are on things like WhatsApp, FaceBook, Twitter, et al. If that's all one is doing, an iPhone is overkill. And the mobile bandwidth ain't such that would allow one to FaceTime if one is on the road.

So while I have an iPhone and MotoX in the US, in India, I use a Lumia 550 that I recently bought just for the purpose. In the US, the apps for this phone are few, and on top of that, Verizon doesn't support any Windows 10 phones. One more thing about a Windows 10 Phone - like in Windows 10 on a laptop, one can download an on-screen keyboard for any of the Indian languages, such as Hindi, and text in that language without adding any separate software for the purpose.

While I don't support government regulation, India's government is probably doing Apple a favor and saving them a major loss by denying them this permission. Not to mention that if Apple started sourcing parts from India, the quality would nosedive

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, their flagship workstation - the Mac Pro - is a sleek design that packs in things like PCIe interfaced SSD, RAM, Xeon CPUs and so on, and has a central cylindrical cooling system that is very efficient.

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you really need a Carbon but I doubt it. A lot of people have in mind work they want to get done and buy a machine that does that work, rather than looking for the premium model.

And if price is your overriding concern, then perhaps you shouldn't buy the expensive model - whether it's an Apple or a Carbon.

But please, can we at least stop pretending that Apple is the only computer manufacturer who sells "expensive" models?

Re: Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just release a solid gold iphone case and your set. It will probably sell also!

Re: Simple solution

[arth1]

The Carbon X1 costs more than the MBAir for similar configurations.

You still don't get it, do you? There is no similar configuration, because to configure something "similar", you have to disregard any features that's on the X1 but not on the Macbook Air. Which may be fine for you, but you're still comparing apples to oranges, and presupposing that what the X1 has that the Macbook Air doesn't can be disregarded when comparing similarity.

Re: Simple solution

[doccus]

I remember when Apple stuff was expensive. Hmm.. I think it was that Quadra .. However, you could always get a cheap mac at woolworth's too.. After Steve came back on board in the late 90s, they were all mostly about the same. So that really is some old complaint. Still hear perople say it though.. Of course the high end mac pros, with specs matching SGI workstations, were pricier. Somebody want to remind me how much one of the Silicon Graphics workstations cost, BTW ? ;-)

Jewelry

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple should release a locally manufactured and sourced line of jewelry fitting with the other Apple products. The required amount of gold would probably cause structural issues for the stores, though. ;)

Re:Jewelry

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Apple could just sell its watches, rebranding them as jewelry. That would be more convincing to Indian officials

Indian bureaucrats looking for a payday

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple will open its wallet and everything will change. Indian bureaucrats and officials care about one thing: bribe money.

Re:Indian bureaucrats looking for a payday

[bev_tech_rob]

Apple will open its wallet and everything will change. Indian bureaucrats and officials care about one thing: bribe money.

Took the words right out of my mouth. I read the phrase in the description "The decision was taken only after a thorough examination of their application," the source said." to mean "Someone didn't get their kickback".

Re:Indian bureaucrats looking for a payday

[Lally Singh]

Yeah, but Apple's got the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act) to worry about. They /can't/ pay bribes.

Re:Indian bureaucrats looking for a payday

[Anonymous Coward]

I pity this usual racist ignorant caricature of India as some kind of corrupt banana republic run by a dictator. Subconsciously such a negative view of a so-called 'third world' country is just wishful thinking because it makes you feel superior in comparison.

The reality is that many bureaucrats may be corrupt but the high level decisive policies like this are made by committees and ministers and not bureaucrats. And ministers are not all corrupt and that too not all the time. When it comes to policy level decisions that are important to the country's economy, they are not taken by some corrupt low level bureaucrat. They are usually enacted by a committee comprised of eminent economists and learned honest policy experts. The committee's recommendation is then reviewed by ministers and also if needed, in parliamentary committees and debates.

So get your head out of your ass and look up Wikipedia or something to get the facts right.

Re:Indian bureaucrats looking for a payday

[Anonymous Coward]

Banana republic? No. Run by a dictator? Definitely not. The way they manage a democracy is quite admirable. Corrupt? Damn straight. The full-time civil service bureaucrats are, by and large, rotten to the core, and prety much nothing will get done without some sort of payoff. Granted, India is hardly alone. All four of the BRIC "emerging market" countries that everyone is so gaga about are about the worst places to do business (as a foreigner) in the world. Russia is so bad that most of the foreign investment is leaving or gone. China gets by via their mass of cheap expendable workers and lack of environmental protections and labor regulations. But that's not going to last. And India and Brazil are about the most bribe-happy countries you'll ever have the displeasure to work with... to say nothing of the xenophobia and protectionism and extortionate tariffs.

Actually, India is probably the least-awful of the BRICs. But still a terrible place for a foreigner, or foreign company, to do business; especially if you're inclined to try to comply with the FCPA. I'd still rathar send my business to pretty much anywhere in Southeast Asia. If you need a call center, english education in the Philippines is quite good. Hi-tech manufacturing? Singapore has as modern and well-educated a workforce as you can ask for; but still at a cost savings over the US or Europe. Plus it's the world's premier shipping hub. Lower-tech manufacturing? On hai Thailand, how are you? (Your hard drive is probably made there already. And it's conveniently close to Singapore for the dirt-cheap shipping.) Semiconductors? I guess Taiwan isn't technically SOUTHeast Asia. But it's close enough, does a better job than China, and they won't steal your designs like the mainland will.

Re:Indian bureaucrats looking for a payday

[deadmantalking]

I can't believe this kind of idiotic remark gets a 5 rating.
For this permission, Apple had to deal with the highest echelons of the Indian government, which in the last two years has been fully cleaned up by the new PM and his team.
Broad brush remarks like this need to be voted down, not up!

How is India a WTO member?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is flagrant protectionism, and obviously done in bad faith. They should be kicked out the WTO.

Re:How is India a WTO member?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is also a member of the WTO, so there is plenty of history of strongly protectionist nations being allowed to remain a member of the WTO.

Re: How is India a WTO member?

[Anonymous Coward]

So? They clearly aren't doing the same thing as India so I don't see how that could ever be an excuse.

Re:How is India a WTO member?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's irony.

India, after all, has no problem with replacing American workers with Indians in America. It's only when the products of other countries invade their country that local-sourcing becomes sacred.

Re:How is India a WTO member?

[Anonymous Coward]

The H1B-circus is not Indias doing, it's the intentional doing of your own American companies. Do you think India can just decide they want 10k Indian workers to replace Americans in the U.S, and it will happen? And don't talk about protectionism and India in the same sentence, because because there is no other country that strong-arms its own export and protects its own markets as much as the U.S does.

Re: How is India a WTO member?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it has the Small Business Act among other device to ensure a "protected" market for some of its business...

Re: How is India a WTO member?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 1960s and 70s IBM chose to simply not operate in India because of their extreme protectionist policies.

Re: How is India a WTO member?

[Tanktalus]

... my how things have changed. Now IBM has more employees in India than any other country.

Re:How is India a WTO member?

[ultranova]

This is flagrant protectionism, and obviously done in bad faith. They should be kicked out the WTO.

This is protectionism, and obviously done because Indian officials care more about their home country than neoliberal ideology. The rest of us should imitate them, quit the WTO, and start a new trade organization which doesn't require members to sacrifice their independence, future, and the wellbeing of their populations.

Jingoism and Nativism

[DNS-and-BIND]

These policies are clearly jingoistic and nativistic. Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other? Just because they were born there? That's not thinking globally. That's the kind of thinking that leads people to believe that building walls is the solution to problems.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it is a solution. Without good lying jobs they can't even afford this iCrap (at least most of them).

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other?

Confused here. You mean -- Indians are being privileged because they don't have to put up with crappy Apple stores in their streets?

You might have a point there...

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[getuid()]

How is "thinking globally" going to help me, Joe Random Small Person? That's a trick phrase of big corporations designed to enable them to use global markets; but when rules are deliberately adopted to deliberately keep customers from using the same "global" principles (region protection, visa restrictions, work permit restrictions for foreigners, e.g. in the US) "thinking globally" is just a scam to me, the small man.

It's destroying local economy and drains capital which could have otherwise been invested in local economy.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not thinking globally

The phrase goes "Think globally - Act locally". The act locally part is routinely ignored so that you'll end up having rebels all the way from communists to Islamists.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other?

Because the alternative is globalism--one world economic system. Having only one system is bad because if it fails, there's no place to turn. Advocates of globalism cite the economic principle of comparative advantage. They reject the notion that comparative advantage doesn't scale from the classic ECON 101 example of occupations in a town or village, up to nation-states. I have been saying this for years: "Comparative advantage doesn't scale". In fact, attempting to apply it to nation states actually works *against* the ability of individuals to maximize their potential under the down-scaled comparative advantage. Why? Because if there are multiple copies of industries in each nation (something globalists hate), then individuals within those nations can chose the occupation that maximizes their potential without leaping the barriers of culture, language, and migration.

I know what you're driving at with this being Trumpist thinking; and yes, Trump is an unsophisticated blow-hard; but there are good reasons to object to globalism as I have explained.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'm not sure what a "good lying job" is, but ... solution my ass. India is a huge exporter and makes lots of money out of selling things overseas, but they don't want imported goods sold in their own country? If other countries adopted this kind of measure, India would suffer more than most countries.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[dbIII]

These policies are clearly jingoistic and nativistic

Indeed, just like the protectionism of the Florida sugar growers led to corn syrup in everything and protectionism of steel led to both heavy industry moving offshore and a steel industry that failed to innovate.
It happens a lot, even where you are sitting, is often stupid and can have unintended consequences.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

I call BS here.

1. The global economy is a real thing, not a "trick phrase".
2. It wasn't invented by corporations, but documented and quantified by economists.
3. Visa restrictions and work permit restrictions are about something entirely different. (I accept your point on region protection, since we as consumers should clearly be able to perform our own optimization).

Thinking and acting global isn't a scam at all. In fact, telling people to "buy local" is a bit more of a scam, when it costs a ton to produce something locally just for the sake of saying you did it locally. Different things can be done more efficiently in different places. In some cases the local economy will have less invested - it's true. In other cases it will have a lot more invested. The most important point is that *over all*, the economy will be more efficient and productive - and that benefits everyone.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

protectionism and restrictions artificially inflate prices you pay, inflate your taxes and result in you have less access to the best products. Sadly this all goes hand in hand with Patriotism (basically government sanctioned racism) that brainwashes people to believe somehow the people in the country you belong to are more important than anyone else, it is sad and probably won't end anytime soon, we see so much objection to government controlling how people think yet they welcome this form of control.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[jma05]

You are ignoring the fact that India was colonized and used as nothing but as a market for centuries and sucked dry. Those scars will take a long while to heal and those are lessons not easily forgotten. The word "Free Trade" has a different meaning to an Indian (as well as to those who also endured the Opium Wars and the Black Ships incident in their history). They had completely different experiences with it in their history. This is a rational strategy from those experiences.

Likewise the idea of protectionism has cold war era connotations in US; not so in India. It was a necessarily strategy for India to protect itself from neo-colonialism when its capacity to compete was never allowed to mature. India started rolling back these defenses (which naturally hold back growth - security vs. speed) gradually once it felt its industries and services are maturing and have a chance to actually compete in a free market. But that is a gradual process rather than a binary choice.

> Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other? Just because they were born there?

That said, I generally agree with the sentiment. But even the majority in US don't agree with that.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

> 1. The global economy is a real thing, not a "trick phrase".

It'll stop being one as soon as people are allowed to move as freely as corporations (people are corporations too, right?) wares and money (real and fake).

> 2. It wasn't invented by corporations, but documented and quantified by economists.

The same spin doctors who are in service of corporations. The "state of art" of this "science" is the one which totally overlooked the subprime fuckup a couple of years ago. And you expect anyone to trust those "economists"? C'mon.

> 3. Visa restrictions and work permit restrictions are about something entirely different. (I accept your point on region protection, since we as consumers should clearly be able to perform our own optimization).

I see. "Free is whatever I say to be free, not the other way around, dammit". Convincing, yeah.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[yes-but-no]

And why stop there; why should one person privileged over another? just because he has a better brain/work-ethics/looks/family/contacts? If you truly believe this, then probably I can send you some charities contact so you can transfer some funds.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it is time to do just that

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Daemonik]

Yes, artificially inflating the price of the product that's being dumped into your country at a price that would eliminate competition and thus local jobs is the point.

Prove that all foreign goods are "best" products. Go on. What good is the "best" product anyway if no one in your country can afford it because they don't have jobs?

When the day comes that an Indian, American, European or Chinese laborer can work for the same wage and pay the same cost of living anywhere on the planet, then we can all be happy global citizens. Until then, when you live in a country with an economic disadvantage your government should do what it can to balance that disadvantage.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[JonnyCalcutta]

Because its their country? Who else is going to defend the rights of people who share a geographical area and what the fuck is the point of being part of a society (e.g. nation) if it won't specifically look after its members?

More specifically - why should Indians or anyone else think globally without thinking locally first? To me it just sounds like a mantra spewed out by those with other agendas. Honestly, fuck global until all people have complete and unlimited access to all markets - job markets, housing markets, free and unlimited travel and living opportunities without borders and hindrance. Only then can you talk such nonsense about jingoism.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that countries are nativistic and jingoistic in the first place.. Let's just get rid of borders, passports, etc. etc.. I think the Imagine song sounds quite good, but its only a song and will stay that way.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[stealth_finger]

Well I'm not sure what a "good lying job" is, but ... solution my ass. India is a huge exporter and makes lots of money out of selling things overseas, but they don't want imported goods sold in their own country? If other countries adopted this kind of measure, India would suffer more than most countries.

Where did it say they don't want imported goods. What I read was if a foreign company wants to set up shop 30% of value of the goods needs to be made in india. Seems fair enough to me, as it stands every apple store has almost 100% of the value of products made in china.

Why do you think it's ok to abuse the shit out the world like that? These guys over here will work for nothing so we can slave them, then take the product and sell it for way way more than it cost to make over to these guys who have lots of money (but not for long because all the jobs are being fucked off overseas because it cheaper.) Meanwhile we're taking in all the money from underpaying and overcharging. If you really want a global market then a person in chinatown, china needs to get paid the same as a person in bumsville, usa or ruskigrad, russia etc and the product should cost the same no matter where you go. But they don't do they? They abuse the system from all sides making their huge pile of money huger and by extension making everyone else poorer. Fuck this so called 'globalism'.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Godwin O'Hitler]

So allowing a shop to sell 70% of imported goods can be considered as not wanting imported goods. Right.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[angel'o'sphere]

You have it somehow reversed!

Why should people (companies) from the mighty imperialistic empire of the United States have the priviledge to stumb over all business all over the world?

And if they can not by normal means they lobby trade agreements like TIPP etc.

Regarding a company that sells electronics, I have no idea how much sense that rule makes. But for clothing, food and consumer goods, it certainly makes sense.

Developing and third world countries are already messed up enough by hostile economic activities of first world nations.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Until then, when you live in a country with an economic disadvantage your government should do what it can to balance that disadvantage.

+1
People tend to forget this :)
People also tend to forget the billions in subsidies that rich countries like the United States give to their industry, and then complain when the not-so-privileged countries do the same.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

These policies are clearly jingoistic and nativistic.

So?

Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other?

Why shouldn't they be, inside that country?

Just because they were born there?

Damn fine reason.

That's not thinking globally.

Good. Fuck your "global thinking". The rest of the world can go pound sand.

That's the kind of thinking that leads people to believe that building walls is the solution to problems.

When the problem is "I don't want you invading my country and swamping my culture", it's a damn fine solution. Especially compared to the solution that involves box cars and death camps.

I know this is extremely difficult for some people to understand, but there are more than economics involved in human activities, and sometimes people will give up the most economically efficient option in order to further other, non-economic, goals.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[stealth_finger]

...that brainwashes people to believe somehow the people in the country you belong to are more important than anyone else

And it is, to me, and where you live should be to you. The economy somewhere else is of little consequence to me when the economy around me is falling apart. So what if making stuff locally costs a bit more? When everyone has jobs and money is moving around it doesn't matter. It's not like apple sell their wares for cost + a reasonable profit, no they get their stuff made as cheaply as possible then jack the price up to literally the highest they can get away with and pocket the difference. Would you not prefer to support your neighbor having a job than support his welfare because his factory job has been moved to china where the people will work for a fraction of the money. I suppose you won't mind when you get sacked because they can get someone somewhere else to do whatever you do cheaper. I mean they're just as important, right?

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Imported goods are sold there. Imagine – one of the Indian owned chain of Apple store clones mentioned in the parent article – does a brisk business selling Apple's products.

India certainly does want imported goods, and has them. One need only walk down the right street in Bangalore (probably Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, etc., too) to see imported Lamborghinis, Audis, Mercedes Benz, and Porsches on dealer showroom floors.

And probably just like with Apple and Imagine, those dealers are Indian owned.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[DNS-and-BIND]

"We got screwed by globalists and now it's our turn" is basically Trump's message. Did you even listen to yourself talk? Sheesh, it's people like you who put him above the 2700 delegates he needed. Now all we can pray for is that the Republicans screw him out of the nomination somehow with trickery at the convention. Good going, jerkwads.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[DNS-and-BIND]

"Our country first, our people first" is Trumpism. Blaming foreigners for your own problems is Trumpism as well. How do you conservatives look at yourselves in the mirror in the morning? What's it feel like to be a nationalistic jingoist?

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[DNS-and-BIND]

Donald Trump, is that you? Or just one of your paid shills? "Think locally" sounds an awful lot like "America first".

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

You sure it isn't Bernism?

Bernie Sanders believes that the top priority of any trade deal should be to help American workers. Unfortunately, as Bernie has warned year after year, American trade policy over the last 30 years has done just the opposite. Multinational corporations – who have helped to write most of these trade deals – have benefited greatly while millions of American jobs have been shipped overseas.

Keeping Jobs in the U.S.: American trade policy should place the needs of American workers and small businesses first.
NAFTA: Bernie’s strong opposition to destructive “free trade” deals began with NAFTA in 1993.
Trade with China: As with NAFTA, Bernie warned in 2000 that Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China would help multinational corporations at the expense of workers and the environment.
Trans-Pacific Partnership: The TPP follows in the footsteps of the previous pro-corporate trade deals. It lacks safeguards to protect American jobs and the environment while giving massive benefits to large multinational corporations.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[jma05]

If you think not letting Apple open a few stores, unless they sell a few goods from India in return, is comparable to the utter and complete destruction of an entire civilization's economic status in the world during the colonial era, in the guise of free (which it was not) markets, you are completely unread of world history outside the western perspective, if not the remnants of the cold-war era propaganda perspective, that too in a rather shallow sense. This has nothing to do with Trump or whatever is his message. I am talking history, and its consequences on policy, not pandering politics and demagogues. Read at least one book on the devastation of colonialism and force-imposed free trade on India. Until you do, you won't get this. Yes, I can hear myself talk; not sure you can.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Wootery]

you'll end up having rebels all the way from communists to Islamists.

What?

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[hjf]

I live in Argentina. We tried this experiment over the past 12 years. You know what happened? We still got imported products, by a company that hired people to put these products in a box and slap a "INDUSTRIA ARGENTINA" sticker on them. And charging 300% more than what the same product costs outside the country.

Protectionism is also abused by those protected by it, to keep the status quo.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[khallow]

I think it's simpler. It's some Indian politicians shaking down Apple for bribes. Today's democracy is probably the least corrupt native government that India has ever had, but it's still a den of thieves.

But sure, I imagine there are some Indian politicians using your colonialist doublespeak to hide their shenanigans.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

you'll end up having rebels all the way from communists to Islamists.

What?

People with governmental systems vastly inferior to capitalism in providing quality of life for the average person will continue to kibitz over capitalism in bids for power.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[khallow]

> 1. The global economy is a real thing, not a "trick phrase".

It'll stop being one as soon as people are allowed to move as freely as corporations (people are corporations too, right?) wares and money (real and fake).

Sure, if the corporation doesn't have any assets, then movement is trivial. But once it does. then moving people becomes easier. There seems to be this magic thinking that it just takes $40 to electronically wire some factory to another country.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> sucked dry

The only thing sucking India dry is the corruption, where one looks to go into government so one can earn a nice life demanding kickbacks.

This puts the brakes on economic development as surely as mafia kickbacks, warlordism, and kings demanding cuts and permission to do anything does.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Maxwell]

India also has 'policies' in place that prevent their "industries from maturing". They will never be mature. They'll never have large scale factories, infrastructure, power etc. because of those very same policies. That's why everything is made ABI (Anywhere But India). They have to either a) drop the policies preventing manufacturing or b) drop the policies about local content. They can't have it both ways.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple had gotten a special exception for itself or gets one in the future, I would agree. Until then, I hold my judgement. It seems to be rules applied equally to everyone. No bribes required to reject.

Tim Cook met with the Prime Minister a few days ago, I am sure there wasnt and will never be a better chance to discuss bribes than that meet.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[stealth_finger]

Sounds about right. I think no matter what the system it's the people that are the problem. The few fuck it up for the many.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Protecting American jobs is not the same as blaming foreigners.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[NormalVisual]

Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other? Just because they were born there? That's not thinking globally.

The same thought logically extends to "why should any person be privileged over any other?", in which case you're a bad person if you're living above subsistence level, because there are always others with less and you should forgo your own well-being because helping those less fortunate is more important.

I expect my government to do that which is in my country's best interests, and I expect other countries' governments to similarly look after their own citizens. If they happen to coincide to benefit both of us, great. If not, I expect my country's benefit to be of prime importance. You can call me "jingoistic and nativistic" all you want.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should India allow an American company to sell Chinese made items and hide all the money in Ireland? What exactly are they getting out of it.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[FooAtWFU]

Yes. Yes it can. Because that means you can't have a shop that really specializes in imported goods: you're burdening the shop operator with a responsibility to find local goods, stock them, sell them, keep track of exactly the amount sold of both, and stop selling the imported goods if the local goods aren't doing well enough (so unless you want to turn people away from time to time you'll need to maintain a decent safety margin). It rules out entire classes of very effective, proven business models (like the Apple store, or really anything you'd find in a mall that is focused on a certain brand. Swatch. Tumi. Banana Republic. Hugo Boss.)

Retail operations cost money. Tacking on a 30%-local-goods operation isn't going to be straightforward for many businesses, and ensures that only the largest players operating at scale are going to be entering the market. A straight-up punitive tariff might be less harmful for many businesses.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Ol Olsoc]

So allowing a shop to sell 70% of imported goods can be considered as not wanting imported goods. Right.

Every one of yinzers got it wrong. This problem will disappear once Apple gives the Indian Guvmint 30 percent of their gross.

Wouldn't it be interesting Apple staffed the stores with a mix of people speaking the Indian language with a strong southern or Boston accent?

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm...The horrors of colonialism in India introduced such things as the industrial age. You know, sanitation, germ theory of disease, modern agriculture, Chemistry, Physics, combustion based energy, electricity and so on. Far from preventing the industrial economy to mature the horror of colonialism made it possible for there to be an industrial economy in India. Unless you wish to speculate that India of its own accord would have changed so as to suddenly adopt modern technology even though it had not previously. This is protectionism plain and simple. You can always get someone to cast stink eyes at someone else but saying the people that developed our modern world and introduced it to India prevented India from entering our modern world is just ludicrous. There is no great guilt that would support this blatant protectionism. If we Western countries are to allow open trading then we must insist that other countries do so also. This is the State Dept asleep at the wheel...again. Just a few words would stop this nonsense. Indian goods sitting in US post waiting for approval would change the interpretation of the Indian gov quickly.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for India - Every country should institute something like this policy. That way not everything will be made in China like it pretty much is now.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[bluefoxlucid]

The usual answer is a blunt "comparative advantage" or "economists have shown protectionism is bad", which, such as it is, basically implies you or the person arguing with you is too dumb to understand, thus fall back to buzzwords. Let's go with a more complete explanation.

Let's say a producer in Maine can produce 8 tonnes of potato per acre, and 2 tonnes of melon per acre. A producer in Mexico can produce 8 tonnes of melon per acre, and 2 tonnes of potato per acre. The farm management techniques are similar, and so the costs are basically the same per acreage; thus melon costs 4 times as much to produce in Maine, and potato costs 4 times as much to produce in Mexico.

So the guys in Maine normally produce potato for $100/tonne and melon for $400/tonne using 5 acres of land for 8 tonnes of each; while the guys in Mexico produce melon for $100/tonne and potato for $400/tonne using 5 acres of land for 8 tonnes of each. That's a lot of wasted money (read: human labor time) and land.

So the guys in Maine instead produce 16 tonnes of potato on 2 acres of land at a price of $100/tonne; the guys in Mexico produce 16 tonnes of melon on 2 acres of land at a price of $100/tonne. It costs about $1,000 to ship 30 tonnes of freight, so these people trade and Mexico ends up with potato at $133/tonne, while Maine ends up with Melon at $133/tonne.

Each side now has 60% of the land involved in producing 8 tonnes each potato and melon, and has reclaimed 60% of the labor (unemployment). As well, there is $66 per tonne or approximately 75% of the money unspent by the consumer base purchasing these products.

Most people miss this next part.

With that additional money, the consumers can now buy more products--including foreign imports, recycling the above process. Those products must be moved (shipping), accounted for (logistics), distributed (warehousing), and sold (retail), meaning the supply chain of melons, jeans, or cheap mechanical pencils creates a *lot* of local jobs (your local WalMart has a district manager under a regional manager; it has regional warehouses to stage goods for distribution across the district; and of course all those stores and the inventory, security, management, and service employees), paid for by the money saved via importing.

In short: the labor freed up from the farm is repurposed. Maybe we start a manufacturing base (this happened after America's labor force started using intensive farming techniques and machines, cutting from 90% of the work force to today's ~2%). Maybe that gets shipped to China and we make more doctors and stuff like Netflix and cell phone networks. Maybe we just make more food. In any case, for the same labor and the same number of jobs, we end up with MORE STUFF.

You might also notice: food is suddenly cheaper, since we're making 2.5 times as much for the same cost investment. Imagine it takes half the labor to produce all the goods you currently consumer--that means half the wages paid down the whole stack (right down to the coal miners), thus the same profit margins at half the PRICE. Your money can buy twice as much, so long as your wages aren't slashed, right? In this case, we haven't slashed hourly wages; we've slashed number of hours required to make a thing: one guy working for $10/hr still works 40 hours, and the other guy goes to do some other job; the things they both make cost half as much, and you can buy both of them, and support both their salaries.

So you ask:

How is "thinking globally" going to help me, Joe Random Small Person?

Globalization increases wealth and creates jobs. I've done some *weak* analysis on a scenario in which the United States blockades China and brings all manufacture back to the U.S., and the result is people become *much* poorer on an individual basis (the people making Comcast High Speed Internet, T-Mobile's 4G network, and Netflix need to stop doing that and go work in these factories--we don't have the labor for

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[bluefoxlucid]

Because if there are multiple copies of industries in each nation (something globalists hate), then individuals within those nations can chose the occupation that maximizes their potential

This is mysticism. It relies on a spiritual superstition in which people are gifted by their deity to have certain special abilities over others.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

But that means they miss out on the experience of having genius bars.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

So your point is that India was a totally primitive place full of ignorant filthy savages until those nice British colonialists came in and civilized them?

Wow.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[ghoul]

Under British Colonialism the local Excise tax on goods produced in country was higher than the customs tax on goods produced in Britain. This drove Indian industries out of business. India had already started on the Industrial revolution when the English came. In some technologies like rockets it was actually ahead of Europe. It was by selling luxury baubles(the 16th century equivalent of iPhones) to Kings that the English got the Kings to allow them preferential access so as to destroy the local industry. Industry only got restarted when the Indians became so poor that the savings in labor cost savings outweighed the customs savings. By that time the British had direct control and decided to start earning via income taxes rather than mercentalism. Incidentally before the English came the per capita income in India was at par with that in Europe and far higher than in the American colonies. Colonialism drove it down to way lower levels. I am glad that the current govt is not falling for shiny baubles and selling out on the real economy.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[bobo_1968]

These policies are clearly jingoistic and nativistic. Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other? Just because they were born there? That's not thinking globally. That's the kind of thinking that leads people to believe that building walls is the solution to problems.

+4 Insightful? Jingoistic? Where oh where are these free trade crusaders when the H1B-pocalypse rears its head? Oh right, it's patriotism when "we" want to do it, it's nativist protectionism when "they" actually do it. I'm sure the race and nationality of "us" and "them" is completely orthogonal to this completely coincidental hypocrisy.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[alcarinque]

This is highly inaccurate and media biased. Protectionism was helping to develop an industry, specially in places like Tierra del Fuego and outer zones of Buenos Aires. Liberal lobbyists deceived the people using corporate media and won the elections. Production is expected to be reduced 70% this year, at least in electronics industry. Source? I'm an electronic engineer, worked setting up several plants. Currently in plans of leaving the country.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[del_diablo]

Protectionism helps industry. But what if there is no internal industry, or if its a high tech field which nobody wants to touch because of the entry barrier?
Phones and computers, things that are insanely highsourced, isn't insourced.
Basically:
-Entry level SOC is insourced
-Mid to high level modern CPU isn't

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[angel'o'sphere]

You seem to be an idiot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.isro.gov.in/

https://www.powergridindia.com...

The nice thing about india is: the official language is english. So even you can Google and inform yourself.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other?"

As long as the people of one country claim to be exceptional.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

I call your BS and raise that you don't know jack.

In some cases the local economy will have less invested - it's true. In other cases it will have a lot more invested. The most important point is that *over all*, the economy will be more efficient and productive - and that benefits everyone.

A lot more than what? The amount the other local economy would have had? That makes no sense. Now if you mean a lot more profit for the corporation to do with as it pleases, fine. And if said profit gets distributed, it will be where that profit will be multiplied the most to make the rich moreso, fine. But don't try to pretend that the average person will suddenly benefit from the magical rainbow farts of the corporate unicorn.

Simply growing the economy doesn't mean CRAP for benefitting 'everyone,' when the growers end up getting a larger percentage of the larger economy.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

These policies are clearly jingoistic and nativistic. Why should the people of one country be privileged over the people of any other? Just because they were born there? That's not thinking globally. That's the kind of thinking that leads people to believe that building walls is the solution to problems.

Do you have the same opinion about H1B caps?

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they could just bundle a local good with each apple product sold. All iPhone's sold are bundled with a locally made t shirt that just happens to cost 30% of the bundle price.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Tablizer]

That's the theory. But practice has found problems with this.

First, the benefits of free trade seem to go to the wealthy, not workers, for as of yet unknown reasons.

Second, comparative advantage removes diversification: you become a few- or one-product country, creating risk. The potato famine and Valenzuela's problems come to mind. You put all your eggs in one basket.

Third, many countries wish to subsidize labor in order to keep their population from rioting, in part by making consumption difficult but exports easy. A side effect is a country having excess US currency, which often ends up being invested in bubble-inducing sectors, destabilizing the world economies.

The theory cannot handle inequality and bubbles properly. The cash bubbles, inequality, and de-diversification (C.A.) create more instability and domino effects of crashes, due to increased linkage of country economies.

It's kind of like making your boat more efficient by tossing out the spare motor and spare battery: it runs faster and more efficient, UNTIL something bad happens. Protectionism may create some duplication (inefficiency), but that duplication is also a buffer from risk.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Codeyman]

Kickbacks are illegal in India.. so when kickbacks are given, the government is labelled as corrupt.
Superpacs and lobbyists do the same thing here in US. Just because it is legal, it doesn't make it any less corrupt.

One can aspire to become a government official in India and demand bribes, or can aspire to be a CEO of a multinational bank, cause a global economy collapse, and still make a fat check.

People are corrupt, it has been like that for thousands of years, and it will be so in the future, in every part of the world. The policy of local investment have served India very well in the past (Just look at the automotive industry in India). There is no reason, whatsoever, to change it.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

How is "thinking globally" going to help me, Joe Random Small Person?

Globalization increases wealth and creates jobs. I've done some *weak* analysis on a scenario in which the United States blockades China and brings all manufacture back to the U.S., and the result is people become *much* poorer on an individual basis (the people making Comcast High Speed Internet, T-Mobile's 4G network, and Netflix need to stop doing that and go work in these factories--we don't have the labor force to supply both), and somewhere between 15 and 40 million people (mostly the poorest) become unsupportable and must simply die. Culling America's population by tens of millions is sub-optimal.

If you're having trouble seeing it: the products become more expensive when made by Americans, and so Americans can buy fewer of them. Shipping, logistics, warehousing, and retail per-unit stays the same; with substantially-fewer units shipped, more than half of those jobs go away. The cost of those jobs (wages) is already being paid for the more expensive products (hence why Americans are out of money and not buying as many jeans, resulting in all these people losing their jobs in the first place), so we can't replace those jobs with other jobs because the American consumer can't buy whatever product those people would be selling (we can no longer support their wages). Those lost jobs become permanent unemployment, and the people who still have jobs live at a much lower standard-of-living because the same amount of money buys less stuff.

That sounds all well and good and globally the overall wealth is improved around the world as you say.

Joe Random Small Person who lives in China is extremely satisfied (in terms of wealth) because he is clearly better off than he was 20-30 years ago. He has more disposable income and more jobs.

Joe Random Small Person who lives in America is dis-satisfied because his wealth has not improved for 20-30 years and there are fewer jobs available to him. The labor participation rate is at record low levels. He can still buy lots of things due to globalization driving prices down, but he blames globalization on taking away his advantages.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

How is "thinking globally" going to help me, Joe Random Small Person?

Globalization increases wealth and creates jobs. I've done some *weak* analysis on a scenario in which the United States blockades China and brings all manufacture back to the U.S., and the result is people become *much* poorer on an individual basis (the people making Comcast High Speed Internet, T-Mobile's 4G network, and Netflix need to stop doing that and go work in these factories--we don't have the labor force to supply both), and somewhere between 15 and 40 million people (mostly the poorest) become unsupportable and must simply die. Culling America's population by tens of millions is sub-optimal.

If you're having trouble seeing it: the products become more expensive when made by Americans, and so Americans can buy fewer of them. Shipping, logistics, warehousing, and retail per-unit stays the same; with substantially-fewer units shipped, more than half of those jobs go away. The cost of those jobs (wages) is already being paid for the more expensive products (hence why Americans are out of money and not buying as many jeans, resulting in all these people losing their jobs in the first place), so we can't replace those jobs with other jobs because the American consumer can't buy whatever product those people would be selling (we can no longer support their wages). Those lost jobs become permanent unemployment, and the people who still have jobs live at a much lower standard-of-living because the same amount of money buys less stuff.

That sounds all well and good and globally the overall wealth is improved around the world as you say.

Joe Random Small Person who lives in China is extremely satisfied (in terms of wealth) because he is clearly better off than he was 20-30 years ago. He has more disposable income and more jobs.

Joe Random Small Person who lives in America is dis-satisfied because his wealth has not improved for 20-30 years and there are fewer jobs available to him. The labor participation rate is at record low levels. He sees his food prices rocketing. He can still buy lots of things due to globalization driving prices down, but he blames globalization on taking away his advantages.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you don't understand that doing business is a privilege and not a right. Also the citizens of a country clearly have privileges that foreigners don't have; or do you think it would be a good idea to have illegal aliens and tourists participating in elections as well?

You should also look up the definition of jingoism as well.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[bluefoxlucid]

First, the benefits of free trade seem to go to the wealthy, not workers, for as of yet unknown reasons.

It's more that the benefits are weighted upward. That is to say: when the nation becomes 10% richer, the working class gets 8% of that, and the upper class gets 2%; but the upper class is the top 10%, so they, as a collective, get twice the proportion. Every one of us gets the ability to buy a car, they each get the ability to buy two cars.

This behavior makes progressive taxes possible and useful.

Second, comparative advantage removes diversification: you become a few- or one-product country, creating risk.

And it gives you access to things you otherwise wouldn't have at all, as well as higher degrees of wealth. This makes new risk mitigation possible. The expansion of wealth via technical progress is what has made labor-protecting tax plans like welfare systems and, ultimately, Basic Incomes possible, and the labor required for that expansion is more rapidly obtained by diverting the production of goods to the population which expends the least labor on such production.

The theory cannot handle inequality and bubbles properly. The cash bubbles, inequality, and de-diversification (C.A.) create more instability and domino effects of crashes, due to increased linkage of country economies.

False. These are unrelated.

Inequality is a natural consequence of the growth of wealth: rich people can be only so much richer than the average man that the cash they don't siphon off the basic needs of the working population and cause a labor force collapse. In poor societies, the rich can have slightly more than the poor--the poorest hunter-gatherer societies have an equal share access to all goods, and the wealth of authority concentrated in whoever can scream the loudest. In more wealthy societies, the economy can necessarily handle the rich taking more; and the population can grow larger, meaning the rich siphoning the same proportion from each of the poor leads to the rich having *much* more than the average poor person, creating enormous inequality gaps.

None of this relates to comparative advantage.

Protectionism may create some duplication (inefficiency), but that duplication is also a buffer from risk.

It creates cost risks by which you have fewer and less-effective contingencies when something bad happens because the amount of wealth is low and the amount of damage is high.

In the modern globalized system, we've gained enough wealth to institute a system under which a disturbance such as the 2008-2010 Great Recession would have been minor and short-lived; and we *did* experience the dot-com bust, the automaker's collapse, and the housing market collapse without triggering similar recessions (the housing market collapse came before the general financial market collapse, and was buffered by months; the 2008 Great Recession was a much larger general recession).

Because of the amount of wealth, the cost of a basic income system such as a Citizen's Dividend has fallen below the cost of public aid. Such a system allows for tax plans which do not require the raising of business or personal income taxes, and which drive the employee's take-home pay closer to the employee's per-hour wage-labor cost. Simultaneously, expending labor in the most-efficient way distributes wage-labor hours over a larger amount of production: you get paid $10/hr, but in that hour you make 1.5 times as much stuff, thus all that stuff costs 2/3 as much and you are no poorer--really, richer, because things are cheaper yet you have as m

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Tablizer]

It's more that the benefits are weighted upward...

I'm not sure what you mean. The ratio of GDP going to the top relative to rest has changed since trade expanded; it's not across-the-board multiplication. It's been almost flat for the middle class.

And the super-wealthy are running amok buying politicians.

Modern computer hardware would cost thousands of dollars instead of hundreds;

Many would rather have respectable jobs over prettier GUI's. Especially young adult males: if you don't find them a job and respect, they'll riot, rape, rob, and war. It's how they are wired. It's why dictators find a way to employ their younger population at almost any cost, including sacrificing consumer choice.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't. Some people are in the 90th percentile or above at skills that correlate with being machinists (spatial and mechanical reasoning). They are literally born machinists. If there is no machine-tool industry in the country they are born, if the machine-tool industry is concentrated on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, then those people will never maximize their potential.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know much about India, do you? Nothing gets done there without someone's palm getting greased. You can't even get your pension check without paying off the clerk that hands out the checks. And it goes all the way up, so no one to "complain" to.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[nedlohs]

If Sanders isn't an option, I'll take Trump over Clinton.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Threni]

I can't anything there that would explain why a company known for quality products would want to go near Indian manufacturing with a barge pole. Perhaps they can make shiny gold-coloured phone cases, replacement cables etc. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, eh?

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anpatt7]

Honestly, fuck global until all people have complete and unlimited access to all markets - job markets, housing markets, free and unlimited travel and living opportunities without borders and hindrance.

How is that going to happen if countries don't all develop more or less equally? Unless protectionism is carried on forever, which, as shown by bluefoxlucid in this comment and a few following, is much worse for economies everywhere, this will lead to the same problems as we have now, as there either will be poorer countries we want to help that then take all our industrial jobs as has already happened in the US, or we will be a poorer country (more likely) and we will lose all our more trained workers, our laborers will be used as cheap labor, and all our jobs that are automatable will still be automated.

Also, "why think global before local" is just as applicable to "Why should we care about, say, the families of terrorists, even if they're innocent? They aren't (insert demonym for locals)" or "Why should we care about Ohioans if we're Virginians?" This is to some extent slippery slope, but it isn't completely false.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the British ever done for us?

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no reason, whatsoever, to change it.

There's no reason to change the culture of kickbacks there? Good luck to anyone that tries to change it, I say.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Tomatelas y no vuelvas, pelotudo.

Re: Jingoism and Nativism

[pkphilip]

There is nothing in the law against selling fully imported good or even selling only fully imported goods. However, fully imported goods will attract a duty which is much higher than what good which are assembled locally will receive even if all or most of the parts are imported from abroad.

For example, in the case of vehicles, if they are brought into the country as parts (completely knocked down (CKD)), they will attract much less duty than if they were imported in fully assembled (completely built units (CBU)). Cars brought in as CBUs can attract as much as 125% tax.

In the case of Apple, the choice for them is one of the following:
A) Assemble the phones locally
B) Assemble abroad with 30% of the parts coming from India
C) Bring it in fully assembled from abroad without parts from India but sell via Indian retailers so that there is job being generated at least in retailing the products

What Apple has been denied is option D) Bring products fully assembled and sell locally directly bypassing indian retailers without attracting additional duties.

This is my understanding of the subject and I could be wrong.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[deadmantalking]

Nice in theory, not in practice. If you want free movement of goods, you should also allow free movement of labor - after all, as per capitalist theory, labor is also a good. Wanna open up your borders completely then? Fight against millions of hungry, aggressive, undercutting Indians and Chinese for your job? If you ain't willing to have free movement of labor, don't talk about free movement of goods.

The US, till fairly recently used to have tariff walls that were a mile high. And even today, as someone else has pointed out, a lot of agricultural products in the US are still wall protected.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Presented theory presumes, that india is able to produce Apple phones, just not as cheap as USA, but that is not true. Nobody wants to give large amount of resources for overvalued Apple products (except dumb people). Smart country will not send valuable resources abroad for exchange of luxury phones.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[bluefoxlucid]

Many would rather have respectable jobs over prettier GUI's.

Dignity and an empty sack are worth the sack.

Especially young adult males: if you don't find them a job and respect, they'll riot, rape, rob, and war. It's how they are wired.

You mean if they don't have an income to support themselves and their families, and thus feel threatened because of scarcity--food is hard to come by, medical care is expensive, etc. You know, the things globalization and the growth of wealth among the middle- and lower-classes have provided.

You will have riots in the streets when your people are poor, starving, and desperate; they'll *always* wax romantic about how they're somehow better than their lot in life.

Re:Jingoism and Nativism

[david-bo]

Your example with melons and potato is not an example of comparative advantages. Comparative advantages means that if one country can produce two different goods more efficient than the next country (that is, USA produces 8 tonnes of melons and 4 tonnes of potato per acre while Mexico produces 2 tonnes of each per acre. In this case the US should produce melons and Mexico potato EVEN THOUGH the US produces potato more efficient than Mexico), it still shold only produce one of them and let the other, more inefficient country produce that other. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is apple allowed to open stores at all?

Their devices are magical and I do believe all civilised society ban magic, witchcraft etc.

Good thing to see progressive ruling. No doubt people in India will be unable to purchase apple products through alternative means.

Toad tongue, bat win, elephant tusk powder and now iPhones! *cue black market profit boom*

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why ban them??

iOS / Android / Windows Mobile etc can all compete on even terms and let the bad things fail .. (WM just went below 1% i heard ;)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Apple already have stores? Here in Calcutta, they have at least 2 - one in Quest Mall, and another in City Center 1 or 2. So what is it that they're trying to open?

didn't provide any material on record

[Anonymous Coward]

Read "bribes".

Looks like Apple forgot to expedite their application with enough "material" to the right officials.

Re:didn't provide any material on record

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're a riot. The US and EU do have laws prohibiting companies from paying bribes. If caught, the penalties can be substantial. (Every year I have to take a ethics training course reminding me not to pay bribes. No, I don't work for Apple, but I'd wager their employees have to take a similar course.)

Now some wag will respond saying that even the most severe penalties are a drop in the bucket for a company with as much cash as Apple has. Or that companies like Apple have ways around the anti-corruption rules.

On the other side of the coin, a lot of people in India are fed up with the corruption and bribery, and the Indian government is cracking down. Sure, go ahead and laugh. Everyone knows it's not going to be cured over night. Change comes slowly, but India is changing. And they have to, if they want to be part of the modern world economy.

But I tend to believe that most companies subject to US and EU law would not try to bribe their way through the bureaucracy like you're trying to suggest. The risk is too great.

Re: didn't provide any material on record

[Anonymous Coward]

Is building a new cricket stadium considered a bribe? India just needs to socialize the bribery system so it benefits all Indians, rather than just a handful of corrupt politicians.

Errm, solution already on the way?

[Plumpaquatsch]

http://9to5mac.com/2016/05/09/foxconn-india-iphone-manufacturing/

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[CastrTroy]

And it will probably be staffed by robots, which means that there won't be many extra jobs for the local people. There will be a few jobs during construction, and then the factory will be mostly automated.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[Plumpaquatsch]

And it will probably be staffed by robots, which means that there won't be many extra jobs for the local people. There will be a few jobs during construction, and then the factory will be mostly automated.

So?

Rule 1 of Law Making: If you make laws to achieve something, make fucking sure that the letter of the law says that what you want to achieve should be done. Don't write it so the invisible hand takes care of it, because that's not how it fucking works.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

And it will probably be staffed by robots, which means that there won't be many extra jobs for the local people. There will be a few jobs during construction, and then the factory will be mostly automated.

And is Apple supposed to open a robot factory in every country it sells in? The whole point of a common market is trade between nations is a benefit to all.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it shouldnt. Apples sells plenty of iPhones and other Apple products in India, legally. If it wants to set up a retail store though, it better be prepared to sell atleast 30% of products made in India. It can manufacture them with robots or it can make them out of thin air, but them be the rules.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[XxtraLarGe]

I have a better idea. Make 30% of the floor space dedicated to incense & incense holders. Indians love incense!

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[tom229]

Rule 1 of making laws like this should be: your law will always be circumvented or counteracted by unforeseen circumstances requiring new laws to be created ad infinitium. Every generation seems to produce a new wave a bureaucrats that thinks they must be smarter than the infinitely mutable attributes of markets and human populations. What desperately needs to be taught is that no one is, or ever will be.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[ghoul]

This may work as after all people who buy Apple products are those who value form over function and a cool incense burning Hippie culture fits in with the Mac culture.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[Anonymous Coward]

But they already have retail stores in malls and such places. Just like in the US

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[Anonymous Coward]

And is Apple supposed to open a robot factory in every country it sells in?

Yes, but 30% of the robots in that factory need to be made locally, so they will also need a robot robot factory, which has the same requirement.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[dafradu]

That is exactly what they wanted. Similar practices are also common in Brazil, but here they usually go for heavy taxes for imported goods. If they make x% of the parts here, import the rest and put it together here the taxes are much lower.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[perryizgr8]

No they don't. There is not a single apple store in India. All are third party retailers selling iCrap. Often the same store will sell you non-apple crap too. Compare that to the thousands of Samsung Stores and Sony Worlds, selling crap only from their brand. That's because Sony's TVs and Samsungs latest flagships all have the mark "Manufactured in India" on them.

Re:Errm, solution already on the way?

[perryizgr8]

Unless the incense is priced similar to the iShit devices, this won't work.

My guess is...

[MxMatrix]

.... the bribe wasn't high enough and Apple called their bluff and lost. Why? src. http://www.reuters.com/article...

"However, Apple's products were not considered to be in this category, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the matter.

He declined to be named as the decision by the finance ministry is not public. A finance ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment."

So a secret decision uh?

Re:My guess is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple tried to bribe him with a "new" Mac Pro from 2013, hence not "high-tech goods".

Re:My guess is...

[JonnyCalcutta]

In the US it would be called a 'campaign contribution'

Problem is

[mikeburke]

They didn't do the needful.

Re:Problem is

[sociocapitalist]

They didn't do the needful.

No problem.

Re:Problem is

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. Fuck. I thought that phrase only occurred in my organisation! I better get something diarised.

Hypocrites

[Tablizer]

They want the upsides of open trade, such as H1B wages flowing back to India and offshore outsourcing setting up shop, but NOT the downsides, such as allowing foreign products in that may reduce local jobs. This frustrates Americans to no end.

Re:Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

Particularly when those H1Bs cause clearly identifiable redundancies in the USA.
Simple answer, small quotas for Indians applying for H1Bs until this policy is changed...

Re:Hypocrites

[yes-but-no]

Oh..it's as though India asked for H1B and the US capitalists immediately obliged... It's done because the wall-street can make more money by bringing in the talent from India. It's based on pure greed. No altruism. And why India and not say congo? because due to imperialism, Indians can speak English and they also valued education a lot more than rest of the world for the past 50 years. US just reaped the harvest and what India had was a brain-drain.

Re:Hypocrites

[Opportunist]

Yeah, fuck them, play by our rules damn you! You can't just invent shit that benefits your country and keeps others from ripping you off. We patented that!

Re:Hypocrites

[Opportunist]

Oh yeah, that is something that you'll get past corporations (like, say, Apple).

Re:Hypocrites

[Godwin O'Hitler]

I've never seen as many straw men in one place in all my life as there are in this article.
Nobody has said anything about not allowing foreign products in. They are already selling as many iphones as they want. Just not in Apple stores.

Re:Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not with the H1Bs. The problem is with a system of bribeable politicians and a mismanaged program.

H1Bs were capped at 100K visas (and they aren't limited to the computer industry). That number is too tiny to push you out of your job. The problem are the auxiliary visas like L1/L4 that allows some outsourcing companies to poach entire departments at the expense of workers.

I think its pretty obvious that America has no shortage of computer system administrators or low-level coders, and thus I don't see why they should be a qualifying job category for H1B eligibility. The H1B program was for employees with unique skills (like PhD level in mathematics/physics), that without them, it would be impossible to produce a product like Deep Blue, a cutting edge CPU, or a working Obamacare client handling system. (And that should make more available American talent to develop US weapon systems.)

Re:Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not really a brain drain. Many successful Indians are returning to their home countries to startup their own businesses. They also get the employment experience to charge more for their services overseas. Those brains in India don't do India any good when the country can't employ them at a suitable wage.

Re:Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance is bliss, eh?

Take a trip to Bangalore or Mumbai. Check out the full Apple product line in the (Indian owned) Apple store clones. Check out the the cars on the showroom floors at the Lamborghini, Mercedes, Audi, and Porsche dealers. The KTM and Harley Davidson motorcycles. Legos, Playmobile, and Mattel Barbie dolls. Levis jeans. Kitchenaide appliances. Etc., etc., etc.

Then come back and tell us about India not allowing foreign products.

Re:Hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, Apple Stores are the only places that you can get iPhones, iPads, iPods, and any other iToys. India does have those, so have no idea what Apple is lobbying for

Ever do business in India?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple just hasn't paid the right officials.

And India was doing so well

[Roodvlees]

Protectionism is only a benefit to bad companies, good companies will suffer.

Apple got conned

[Anonymous Coward]

Essentially, they got conned to pay bribes to the wrong people.

Matching bribes

[Anonymous Coward]

"They did ask for a waiver but didn't provide any material on record to justify it...[]"

Reads: "The money in the envelope they provided together with their application wasn't as fat as their competitors'"

There are already other ways of managing this...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called import-tax...

For items that could be produced in the country, with the currently available work-force, you have high-import taxes.
For items that cannot be produced in the country, with the currently available work-force, you have low-import taxes..

This allows a country to have technology or goods not currently possible to produce locally while still pushing companies to do manufacturing in the country for goods that can.

Re:Encryption issue

[Anonymous Coward]

I know many *really* good coders from india... and i know a shitload of really bad too..

The thing is if you want to hire a really good coder from india it will cost you about the same as hiring a really good one locally.

Good on Them

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me and its good that they stand by their values rather than let the US walk all over them like it does (or tries to) every other country in the world .

It is not like they are saying 100% of the store contents have to be sourced in India.

Apple could actually open a shop where 70% of the store are actual apples or made from apples that were sourced in India.

Re:Good on Them

[Opportunist]

30% by value.

You'd have to sell an awful lot of Indian junk just to justify the sale of a single pair of Apple headphones...

Re:Good on Them

[Godwin O'Hitler]

So how are all the other stores already selling Apple stuff getting by?

Re:Good on Them

[Opportunist]

They know who to bribe. Duh.

Re: Good on Them

[Dynedain]

Those other stores aren't foreign owned and so don't have the same restriction.

Re:Good on Them

[perryizgr8]

And Apple already has their products sold by third party retailers. This whole condition is only if it wants to open an exclusive apple store. Also, your apples analogy won't work because apples are much cheaper than the iShit Apple is peddling. No way they can account for 30% of the value of goods. Also, you must understand that Indian government is not that big of an idiot. Apple must comply with the spirit of the law, not just the letter.

Re:Good on Them

[perryizgr8]

Because they are Indian.

Obligatory India

[Anonymous Coward]

Does tech support count?

Re:Obligatory India

[Opportunist]

30% BY VALUE.

And, be honest, what's the value of an "Apple Genius"?

Imagine this in the US

[Opportunist]

Stores being required to sell 30% domestic crap.

99% of the stores would have to close shop. Including car dealerships.

Re:Imagine this in the US

[stealth_finger]

Stores being required to sell 30% domestic crap.

99% of the stores would have to close shop. Including car dealerships.

As opposed to 100% foreign crap? According to a quick google search India produced over 4 million cars last year (http://www.oica.net/category/production-statistics/). It doesn't say they have to be Indian things just made in India. All apple would need to do is open a factory to make 30% of iphones sold in India. Except apple don't make things they pay others bottom dollar to make it as cheap as possible and I guess India isn't cheap enough.

Re:Imagine this in the US

[drinkypoo]

99% of the stores would have to close shop. Including car dealerships.

Way less than 99% of the car dealerships would close, because even many "foreign" cars are actually built right here in the USA. It's important to know this, because what you really want is a car built in Japan or Germany so that it doesn't fucking suck.

Re:There are already other ways of managing this..

[Opportunist]

This is fine until you realize that "goods that cannot be produced in the country" includes crap that is patented the fuck out of and the patent owner just plainly refuses to produce it in your country.

Shortsighted?

[angel'o'sphere]

I already have seen the comments below, crying mordio about how that hurts the indian economics.
Sorry guys, no idea ... I see no difference in that law to the american 'cars can only be sold by dealers' and other 'stupid' laws.

Can't be so hard for Apple to sell Displays and Hard-Drives etc. from Indian origin or simply add an entertainment section and sell Bollywood DVDs. Also as Apple usually gives discounts to Students, it would surely be a lever to point that out to the local government.

However, it is shortsighted because in my (limited) experience Apple Stores are stores with an incredible huge staffing. You never wait in a line at a cashier, or wait for a personal answering questions. Usually the next closest staff person comes and helps you with questions and bills you right away. You just give him the credit card, he puts it into a small device or makes a photo with his iPhone. If you already are a customer, nothing more is to be done (iTunes or Apple), he asks if you want a bill, if yes, via post or eMail, and thats it.

You only need to go to a cashier if you want to pay cash or with special European cards (EC, Maestro etc.)

You basically go to a shelf, take your stuff and leave.

The Apple Shop in Paris at the Lovre easily has over 50 sales staff. And that means with 16 business hours something like 100 + a bit of management etc.

Re:Shortsighted?

[mridoni]

However, it is shortsighted because in my (limited) experience Apple Stores are stores with an incredible huge staffing. You never wait in a line at a cashier, or wait for a personal answering questions. [...] And that means with 16 business hours something like 100 + a bit of management etc.

While a grand total of three stores wouldn't matter even in much smaller countries, here we're talking about a country with almost 1.3 billion people. What do you think would be better for the Indian economy as a whole? having 2-300 cashier-like jobs or expanding the market share for local products?

Re:Shortsighted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, expanding the market for local shops by 30% of three shops isn't going to be that much of an improvement.

Re: Shortsighted?

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't been to india, have you?
The Apple store in the Forum Mall in Chennai has less sales people than the other stores.

Re:Shortsighted?

[Feral Nerd]

However, it is shortsighted because in my (limited) experience Apple Stores are stores with an incredible huge staffing. You never wait in a line at a cashier, or wait for a personal answering questions. [...] And that means with 16 business hours something like 100 + a bit of management etc.

While a grand total of three stores wouldn't matter even in much smaller countries, here we're talking about a country with almost 1.3 billion people. What do you think would be better for the Indian economy as a whole? having 2-300 cashier-like jobs or expanding the market share for local products?

If local products are competitive people will buy them, if local products are not competitive, forcing stores to sell 30% local products is not going to help one iota to boost and expand the market share of locally made goods. All it will do is motivate store owners to game the system somehow.

Re:Shortsighted?

[CastrTroy]

I think the problem is that it seems from reading the article that "30 percent of the value of goods sold in the store should be made in India". That means even if 30% of the items they stock are made in India, there's a chance that they might not meet the quota if nobody buys those products. If only 30% of the products in the store had to be made in India, it would be trivially easy to get around it by offering for sale a single high priced item that was equivalent to 30%, even if nobody bought it. You can't control what people buy. Even if you have 90% of your products from India, you can't be sure that people will actually buy them. Unless the iPhone, iPad, or Macbook was made in India, there's very little chance that offering other products made in India at the Apple Store would result in 30% sales being from the Indian produced products.

Re:Shortsighted?

[SvnLyrBrto]

> I see no difference in that law to the american 'cars
> can only be sold by dealers' and other 'stupid' laws.

Neither do I. But, if you will recall, the car dealership protectionism laws are also nearly universally reviled; not just here on slashdot, but by pretty much anyone who's had the displeasure of doing business with their ilk.

Re:Encryption issue

[Anonymous Coward]

But there numerically are more good coders from India because there are more people available (and can get the education needed to be good coders). While businessmen will always have to compete with each other for talented workers, there are less capitalists available than qualified employees.

Actually, that is a pretty good rule

[WindBourne]

I think that requiring stores to sell a % of goods from the local market makes good sense.

Re:Actually, that is a pretty good rule

[Aighearach]

That part doesn't bother me. It is the "it isn't high tech, because we want their money" part that annoys me. I don't care if they have sucky rules as long as they're the rules they want; but they should at least be honest about what the rules are.

Re:Actually, that is a pretty good rule

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

The waiver is available only for investment in "state of the art" or "cutting-edge technology"

Apple Stores sell devices specifically designed not to have any cutting edges. I don't think India is missing out.

Huh?

[countach]

How can you sell 30% locally sourced goods until you open up shop and see what people buy? I mean let's say Apple has for sale some accessory Indian made, maybe it would make up 30% of sales, who knows until you open your doors?

Re:Huh?

[coofercat]

Amazingly, even very rich companies like Apple do some research before they spend money opening a new store. They'll have an idea what sort of revenue a given store is expected to produce. As such, they have all the information they need to figure out what local products they'd need to make 30% of the new revenue total be locally produced. Alternatively, Apple could make a few products in India, and thus 100% of their revenue would be 'local' and so would offset a lot of the revenue from imports, again though, projections would give you an idea if that's likely to work.

I'm guessing there's an annual 'tax return' sort of bureaucracy that Apple would have to fill out to say "we made X from imports and Y from local", to show they were keeping up with the 30% minimum. I'd need someone more familiar with the rules to know what happens if Apple actually made less from local than they projected.

Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending how that 30% is measured, they could simple sell a ton of iPhone cases made in India.

What about Samsung, Sony, ...

[Required Snark]

So who is allowed to sell electronics in India? Do Korean, Japanese and Chinese electronics companies have facilities in India? Are there many locally made cell phones or TVs? Are there wafer fab lines? How does this work exactly? Has this problem occurred for other international manufacturers?

Re:What about Samsung, Sony, ...

[Anonymous Coward]

None of them run retails stores. To answer your questions: anyone, yes, yes, yes, it just works, no.

Re:What about Samsung, Sony, ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The answers to your question are mixed. This might help.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/chip-blues-semicon-manufacture-eludes-india/article8253620.ece

There appear to be no "high-end electronics" manufacturing units in India. I am quoting form the article
"After four years of waiting, India’s plans to set up two chip manufacturing units with an investment of over 63,000 crore is yet to see the light of day."
"So far there is almost zero high-end electronics manufacturing that happens in India. Although many large mobile handset makers have, on paper, started their manufacturing units here, what really happens is little more than assembly, with value addition of just about 1-2 per cent. "

The government is trying to get high-end electronic devices manufactured locally, which is a good idea. India has a lot of land and mineral resources (and a close-to-crippling problem with pollution, so that may be a negative), and an abundance of educated youth. If Apple plays it's cards right, it will be a win-win deal for Apple and India. Still, corruption might play the spoiler.

Food

[symes]

Could they sell locally sourced produce, such as fruit and vegetables, alongside iPhones and iPads?

Re:Food

[someoneOtherThanMe]

such as fruit

Such as apples, maybe?

Re:Food

[Anonymous Coward]

sell locally grown apples

Should do that in more countries

[houghi]

Looking at large stores, I believe they should do that in more countries. Can you imagine what that would do for e.g. Walmart?

Re:Should do that in more countries

[Anonymous Coward]

walmart would have to close up shop if they were forced to stock and sell a significant percentage of domestically-sourced product. but lucky for them, most grocery items are, and most walmart locations are now 'super centers' with about 30% or more of the floor space devoted to grocery. so they've covered that angle, even if 70%+ of the items in the other 70% of the square footage is from china and elsewhere. if it were more like 50% or greater, then walmart would be in some serious trouble, though.

i do remember a time, back in earlier days of walmart's great american takeover (mid 80s to early 90s) when walmart promoted the hell out of "made in the usa" and boasted that they sold more 'made in america' products. now that they have their dominant market position, all they want is money, money, money, profits, profits, profits. and they don't give one shit where their products come from, so long as they can leverage lower costs for them and charge as much as they can get away with in their stores (less competition means higher prices in smaller markets where they are often now the "only" place in town).

Re:Should do that in more countries

[jo7hs2]

Walmart behaves the way it does not only because of the profits, but because they know the next retailer killer is waiting in the wings, whether it is an expansion of another growing chain (Dollar General has expanded massively during the recession) or a change in technology. Walmart didn't single-handedly kill the mom-and-pop store. Earlier big-boxes played a role (K-Mart, Sears*, etc...) and Walmart (along with the Internet) helped kill them. *Sears is a funny story because had they held out on their catalog sales another few years and put it on the Internet they'd probably have become Amazon.

Re: Should do that in more countries

[Anonymous Coward]

Walmart was still a family run business under the control of their founder, Sam Walton in their BuyUSA era. He is gone. There are still companies run like that, I.e. Meiers and Menards, but things usually change when the founder leaves.

Apple Phone in India

[JenniferFernandez]

They should be allowed because there are so many Apple lover here in IND. So i request them allow to get iPhone from store

Brain dead.

[jcr]

Sad to see that India hasn't fully thrown off the economic ignorance that stifled their growth from independence until the late 1980s. Protectionism is nearly as stupid as price controls.

-jcr

Re:Brain dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Protectionism is nearly as stupid as price controls.

As if we hadn't enough with the other religious nutjobs, here's a new dogma.

FYI: I'm an atheist.

Re:Brain dead.

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Sad to see that India hasn't fully thrown off the economic ignorance that stifled their growth from independence until the late 1980s. Protectionism is nearly as stupid as price controls.

-jcr

My personal favorite is the excuse above that currently pretty highly rated that claims that India was colonized and "sucked dry" - wah wah wah. Funny how Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have all prospered recently, to name but 3 countries all were industrialized in less time than India has been independent, but pity poor poor India and how it will suffer for apparently generations to come.

Re:Brain dead.

[jcr]

Think you can justify price controls, snowflake? Give it your best shot.

-jcr

Re:Brain dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me! India has homeless people too, why should they buy products made by Chinese homeless?

Re:Brain dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

All three are tiny countries, compared to India.

Re:Brain dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Price controls are a great way to reduce quantity sold of something while appearing to do the exact opposite. Very useful for sneaky politician types.
For example, suppose on one hand, people want cheap gas, but on the other, you want low CO2 emissions to comply with a treaty. So you introduce a bill requiring gasoline to be sold at no more than $2.00 per gallon. Gas stations go out of business or leave your state or something. Sales collapse, CO2 emissions fall, and you look like a hero to the voters, because you appeared to be doing something about gas prices.

Re: Encryption issue

[Anonymous Coward]

If Blackberry even had keys to give out then it wasn't encryption.

priority of trade deal should be to help Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Bet you thought it was something Trump said.
Bernie Sanders believes that the top priority of any trade deal should be to help American workers. Unfortunately, as Bernie has warned year after year, American trade policy over the last 30 years has done just the opposite. Multinational corporations – who have helped to write most of these trade deals – have benefited greatly while millions of American jobs have been shipped overseas.

Just to be fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps we should require all foreign workers to be 30% American ?

Sounds silly yes ?

Where from are you calling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your daughter kicked my dog and now my dog needs an operation.
Which daughter?
The one that answered the phone.
Where from are you calling?
I am calling from my house.
Where do you live?
I live on your street?
Where on my street?
You know!

Made in America?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now just imagine what Apple stores in the U.S. would look like if 30% of their offerings had to be made in the US..."

Are they trying to imply it'd look like this?

http://amsracing.com/__2013-06-25/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/mc-items-001.jpg

Re:Made in America?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now just imagine what Apple stores in the U.S. would look like if 30% of their offerings had to be made in the US..."

Are they trying to imply it'd look like this?

http://amsracing.com/__2013-06-25/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/mc-items-001.jpg

That or they are implying that without the benefit of cheap Asian labour the prices would be considerably higher.

Very sensible

[Anonymous Coward]

a country should always make sure to be in control over its own markets, as much as is possible. If you let another country own your markets, then they will own your economy, and then they can dictate your politics. Of course this is the wet dream for the U.S. with its slimy tentacles reaching into every market and country. It's good that India stands up to this.

USians are the real hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear USA

You fucktarded USians have been clinging onto capitalism since your illegal inception. Now that India is throwing the shit that you threw at every nation here on Earth for over 200 years you fucktarded USians are crying fowl. Enjoy the ride to beyond third world US while every other nation will start to flourish from your demise as we will embrace socialism then finally communism.

Sincerely,
Signed : The Rest of the World

Re:USians are the real hypocrites

[Tablizer]

Our government became a plutocracy and did things us voters didn't ask for, like lopsided trade policies and legalized bribery (Citizens United ruling), so that the plutocrats could grow even plutoier.

And the Indian government keeps selling the virtues of "free trade" also whenever there is trade and visa contention. It's becoming the same way.

Re:There are already other ways of managing this..

[Hodr]

Good thing India has never seen fit to invalidate patents to produce items locally that can't be imported (or imported at a reasonable price), otherwise your comment might not make sense.

India seems to value its local manufacturing

[Anonymous Coward]

I give credit to India for not selling out its locally owned manufacturing. Too bad years ago America didn't have this sort of dedication to Made in the US. Unfortunately most America's only believe this in spirit not practice. India probably has another reason for this as it not only helps current local makers of goods. But also means future expansion for its manufacturing too. I think the US could implement something like this on a lessor scale to boost local output. Apple has done some token stuff in local assembly but mostly with higher dollar with higher margin products.

Re: Encryption issue

[johanw]

Not end to end. But they did provide keys, see for example https://it.slashdot.org/story/...

Locality is good in optimization

[Anonymous Coward]

When doing optimization (in compilation, scheduling, etc.) it's always good for the objective function to have a small term favoring locality (of data, computations, etc.). I don't see why 30% is not OK...

Globalization is a lie

[thunderclees]

"India's government officials said, "We are sticking to the old policy. We want local sourcing for job creation. You can't have a situation where people view India only as a market. Let them start doing some manufacturing here." Seems hypocritical since India made it clear that it considers and restriction on outsourcing protectionism.

FCPA? Speaking Fees!

[kbonin]

So Apple can just hire some properly placed officials to speak about something, and pay a nice speaking fee, like $225k US. Since the US doesn't consider speaking fees to be bribes for its officials, it should be OK for US companies too, right?

Boeing

[ghoul]

The US govt does this all the time. When Airbus wanted to sell tankers they had to build a factory in the US and give 70% of the value to US subcontractors including their direct competitor Boeing

Re:Boeing

[khallow]

The US govt does this all the time.

So that makes it ok? Let me introduce you to the tu quoque fallacy.

Re:Boeing

[deadmantalking]

Cmon! Start voting to allow free movement of ALL goods, including Labor! Open the gates, let me in!

They should sell other products along with Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

They should change their stores in India to include a broader range of products. Along with iPhones, etc. they should offer merchandise from local Indian vendors, such as clothing or incense, like Urban Outfitters but with Apple products.

Emperor's new clothes

[ghoul]

Finally a govt has called out what everyone has known. Apple's products are not technologically cutting edge hence not eligible for the waiver.

Much more advanced Android phones are manufactured in India so their is nothing preventing Apple from manufacturing in India.

Apple is anyway known for taking technology invented by others and repackaging it in beauitful formats.

Its the same technologically as a marketing firm (you can know a company' core capabilities by seeing who has status - at Google its the Engineers. At Apple it is the Marketers).

And Donald Trump / Bernie Sanders said

[Mr. Droopy Drawers]

"You can't have a situation where people view The United States only as a market. Let them start doing some manufacturing here."

The cost of structural unemployment

[tepples]

Each side [...] has reclaimed 60% of the labor (unemployment). [...] With that additional money, the consumers can now buy more products

If you're unemployed, you can buy zero products. You try to cover that:

In short: the labor freed up from the farm is repurposed. [...] we make more doctors and stuff like Netflix and cell phone networks.

These are also more highly skilled professions, for which most of "the labor freed up from the farm" is likely unqualified. Who covers the cost of retraining?

Re:The cost of structural unemployment

[bluefoxlucid]

If you're unemployed, you can buy zero products.

Correct. This is why the steady growth of technology across the past 200 years in America has supplied vast wealth with 4%-10% unemployment rates, while sharp steps forward in technology without uncorking any form of scarcity (e.g. the Industrial Revolution; automating every task at all McDonalds; self-driving cars) have caused history's greatest economic collapses.

To be short and imprecise: technical progress causes transitional unemployment, and an economy is kept healthy by maximizing the rate of re-employment and stretching out the rate of transition to labor-reducing methods; this is optimally performed by keeping workers competitive with the technology which replaces them and highly-employable. The most effective way to keep workers highly-employable is to minimize their proportional wage-labor cost; technical progress tends to do that, as one employee's time handles the task of several employees thanks to new technology, thus that employee's wages are divided more finely across more units of product. Basic income schemes such as a Citizen's Dividend, tax plans which reduce payroll and sales taxes, and progressive taxes which reduce working-class taxes as the income gap widens address both ends of the equation.

These are also more highly skilled professions, for which most of "the labor freed up from the farm" is likely unqualified. Who covers the cost of retraining?

This is not entirely true for two reasons.

First, we're exchanging numbers. A healthy economy has 4%-8% unemployment in the labor force; low unemployment leads to labor shortages (which staggers the economy), and high unemployment reduces the consumer base. If you unemploy 0.2% of your labor force during one year, then the new jobs may very well go to some of the other 4% or so who are already unemployed. In the United States, unemployment insurance only pays for 6 months, which means our social safety net relies on continuously exchanging out workers onto the unemployment line and bringing in other workers who were previously receiving unemployment aid (my Citizen's Dividend addresses this directly, because it's a reasonable policy, but a sub-optimal one; unemployment limits are negative punishment for not getting a job, while a Citizen's Dividend converts this to positive reinforcement by eliminating the negative punishment associated with *losing* your unemployment payment when you do get hired, thus any employment *only* makes you more wealthy).

This, plus the nature of changing markets and a constantly-developing workforce, means the workforce training occurring among new labor market entrants (college students) changes to follow the changing technology trends, and so the retraining you cite is somewhat integrated. Again: you probably don't want to eliminate 5% of jobs in 2-3 years; that's a pretty high turn-over rate, and the economy won't often create new jobs that quickly (the Information Age was a highly-complex example).

Second, much of the labor isn't highly-skilled labor. We've created a lot of blunt customer service jobs, truck loading/unloading jobs, cashier operators, and the like. Part of our growth is more grocery baggers and burger flippers; and we will necessarily want to replace our highly-skilled industrial machine operators with whatever moron can babysit a nearly-self-operating machine designed to be operated by whatever moron you can pull off the street. Look at most network software and hardware now: I could teach a completely computer-illiterate idiot to install Ubuntu and load arbitrary Web applications (OwnCloud, Gitlab, Wordpress, etc.) in maybe an hour; and the curious and persistent could figure it out on their own in half a day. My job as a skilled computer systems technician and engineer has become roughly equivalent to burger flipping.

So we get a major growth in retail, shipping, and other low-skilled labor, while our skilled professional

Re:The cost of structural unemployment

[tepples]

the workforce training occurring among new labor market entrants (college students) changes to follow the changing technology trends

So who pays for a worker who becomes unemployed to go back to college to retrain for a new job? And what ensures that employers won't age discriminate against older college graduates who have finished their retraining in favor of 23-year-olds who had proceeded directly from high school to college?

Part of our growth is more grocery baggers and burger flippers

The former is being automated. Amazon has displaced Best Buy and many other sellers of durable goods, and some grocery stores, such as the Kroger store on West State Blvd in Fort Wayne, Indiana, close all non-self-checkout lanes after some hour. The latter is also being automated; see previous stories about Wendy's and Carl's Jr.

Re:The cost of structural unemployment

[bluefoxlucid]

So who pays for a worker who becomes unemployed to go back to college to retrain for a new job?

We don't.

There's 5.6% UE4 unemployment--UE3 (competitive job market) plus people who are discouraged (have given up competing). Creating a 5% increase in unemployment *seriously* injures your economy (see: the Great Recession of 2008). If you knock 0.1% of people out of their jobs, there's 50 other long-standing unemployed people for every 1 who has been made unemployed.

In other words: we're training new steel workers as our demand for ships slows and our demand for rail transit grows. 10,000,000 people are unemployed; 100,000 are becoming unemployed dock workers; 100,000 are becoming seniors; and 100,000 are becoming adults and training to join the workforce. The unemployed dock workers don't get first dibs--if they did, then the other ten million unemployed people would have been ahead of them in line to get jobs, and they would have never been employed in the first place.

Note that, in practice, 26% of the United States population is under 18, and 5.6% UE4 represents 9 million people in a 161 million person labor force. If we make the assumption of a steady population growth rate (this is generally valid without sharp, disruptive technical progress, such as across the past 50 years or so), then 1/18 of the minors (1/18 of 88 million, or 1 million) become adults, and 1/44 of the labor force become retirees, each year. Today, in the US, that's 4.9 million new adults of which 62% or 3 million become workforce, and 3.7 million leaving the workforce as retirees, as a general estimate.

In other words: a large (~1/3) chunk of the unemployed work force is represented by workforce turn-over. If 9 million people are unemployed, 3 million retire, and 3 million come into the work force, then you have 12 million people competing for 3 million jobs.

All of this is fascinating, I'm sure; the point is that we're paying for the initial training of 3 million people here. What do you think we're going to train them for?

The former is being automated. Amazon has displaced Best Buy and many other sellers of durable goods, and some grocery stores, such as the Kroger store on West State Blvd in Fort Wayne, Indiana, close all non-self-checkout lanes after some hour.

Back in the 1700s, you could take your uneducated self to a farm and do some work. Carry hay bales. Then we got diesel combines; much of that farm work has been automated.

Back in the 1800s, you could take your uneducated self to the textile mills and operate machines. We had 8-year-old kids doing it. Then the power loom came.

In the 1900s, you could take your uneducated self to the factories in America and operate the machines. You could go to the rail yards and dock yards and load freight. We now have cranes and more industrial machinery.

My point is "Burger Flippers" was a metaphor. We'll have some other job that a burger-flipper can do soon. You don't even need a high-school degree to twiddle the levers and refill the machine with hamburger meat. Try to not think on such a narrow track; we're entering the age of self-driving flying cars, and we no longer need roads.

Re:FCPA? Speaking Fees!

[ColdWetDog]

Works for Hillary and Bill - should be fine.

Clothing...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is easy, make 30% of the inventory Apple clothing made in India. Problem solved.

Re:FCPA? Speaking Fees!

[kbonin]

(Hence my example of $225k, which is apparently Hillary's most common ask / "what they offered" fee...)

So what's so hard

[russotto]

Apple opens a store that sells both China-made computers AND locally-made jewelry. I bet you could get people to buy Apple-themed jewelry. Make it an India exclusive and you'll have tons of people buying it just to export.

Should change the title...

[BigChigger]

to "India enforces law designed to ensure it remains backwater shithole"

Post Timmy Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

So we now see the $500K for parties and $1Billion for Didi. But all Timmy got was didly squat!

So is Timmy, with his hatred for the US and US citizens, going to move Apple Inc. to Mumbai and ditch Infinite Loop and Dounut 1 and Cuper-town.

Ha ha
   

Scared of exporting Rupees?

[dumky2]

It's well known that greedy capitalists like to sleep on beds of Rupees, so India definitely should be scared of those Rupees not getting spent.
After all, even if the only place Rupees can be spent is India, they might get trapped in one of those beds, which would mean that those Indian consumers would essentially be getting iphones without having to pay them back with any real resources (only some bits of paper or electronic bits)... That's tough...
[/end sarcasm]

And if we were smart we'd do that here.

[ToddInSF]

But we seem to like being viewed as just a market for cheap goods.

Just add ashtray to iPhone!

[Mondor]

This reminds me a story of Rolls-Royce engines in India. They couldn't sell them unless "part of it is created in India". So, what they did - they created a useless metal thing and a factory in India was working hard making it. They thought it's important part of the engine. In fact, it was transported to UK, only to be melted back to metal. However, Indians believed it was a joint venture and created work places.

Open a factory in India? LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously the infrastructure in India sucks so bad that it makes China seem like a good place to manufacture. When you have to build your own power station, energy supply chains, water treatment for both fresh water and waste water, etc. JUST to have what's available in East Asia or the US or Europe, sudden the value of "saving by outsourcing" isn't there

And in terms of technical talent, perhaps Indian engineers could work on the manufacturing lines. There are some good Indian engineers but it's not even remotely the majority who claim engineering degrees. Those few (1%) could probably run the factory but that's it.

USA can take a hard lesson here

[martinfb]

USA can take a hard lesson here: Do the same for foreign retailers here. That will bring some jobs back here. FURTHER, at least half of all Indian peoples need to have been made here in the USA to be allowed in! AND, they must be taxed higher to be able to take our jobs, too. Call it TICS: Trans Indian Commerce Solution. Now USA gets a fair shot.