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Trump Tells Apple To Make Products In the US To Avoid China Tariffs (thehill.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the my-way-or-the-highway dept.

hackingbear writes: President Trump acknowledged in a tweet that "Apple prices may increase because of the massive Tariffs we may be imposing on China," but suggested the issue was not with the tariffs themselves. "There is an easy solution where there would be ZERO tax, and indeed a tax incentive. Make your products in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now," Trump wrote. The U.S. is threatening to impose 25% tariffs on all $500 billion worth of Chinese imports over issues such as intellectual property theft.

While Apple et al are still making their products in China, Trump didn't offer Apple a place to find the millions of laborers needed to make their products, given that the official unemployment rate is at a historic low of 3.9%. Manufacturers also need to compete in the labor market with garbage companies who need to find American laborers willing to recycle their own trash -- a job once imposed upon China as a condition to enter the World Trade Organization and enjoy advantageous tariff rates. China is gracefully giving back those jobs as the U.S. is complaining of unfair trades.

74 of 568 comments (clear)

  1. Or, they could buy them in Canada... by dlingman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't there an 800$ tax/duty etc free limit on importing items from abroad? If they buy their iPhones from Canada, and the cost is under $800 US...

    1. Re: Or, they could buy them in Canada... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      More anti-Trump propaganda by the Arab-owned machine, Slashdot.
       
      Unemployment isn't at 3.9% and never has been. It may still be 10% or 20% depending on the rampant redefinitions that have neen going on since the Obama era. Oh, if you haven't been able to find a job after a few months, obviously you have given up, so we aren't going to count you. It's just like faking the CPI to get the inflation rate number to be what they want it to be: it's a big con game.
       
      And while we're on the topic of con games, Apple needs "laborers" as the "editor" puts it. The Slashdot editor's implication is that Chinese de facto slave labor shouldn't be replaced by American labor. Where will it come from? The free market, you insolent fool. If someone is working three part-time jobs and averages $9/hr in Tennessee between Amazon and working as a waiter at two restaurants or has the option to do something more productive like assembling iPhones for $13/hr, full-time with overtime, where do you think those jobs will come from?

    2. Re: Or, they could buy them in Canada... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wow, could you have packed more trolling in a single post?

      The best line was logistics. So we can manage to import phones and bring them to the heartland, where most of our food comes from, btw, but we are incapable of shipping phones out of those same places. But we can ship a gazillion tons of food out. Lololololol

      Try again, son. A good effort, though.

    3. Re: Or, they could buy them in Canada... by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Has your country improved measurably since the reduction of union power from the 80s onwards?

    4. Re: Or, they could buy them in Canada... by link-error · · Score: 2, Interesting

          You left out the biggest question in my mind...

        "Trump didn't offer Apple a place to find the millions of laborers needed to make their products"

        Millions of laborers? Huh?

      --
      -Unresolved symbol? Byte me!
    5. Re: Or, they could buy them in Canada... by movdqa · · Score: 2

      There's the VAT in Canada. We have a lot of Canadian shoppers coming down to our malls in my state. Had a ton of them vacationing here too.

    6. Re: Or, they could buy them in Canada... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Trump didn't offer Apple a place to find the millions of laborers needed to make their products"

        What Apple really means is they can't find enough laborers willing to work for slave labor rates in the US. And why would Trump be responsible for finding laborers for Apple? Isn't that Apple's responsibility? If Apple is upset over the tariffs eating into their profit margins they should come up with a better reason than not being able to find enough workers. The truth is Apple could absorb the tariffs and still make tons of money. The manufacturing and shipping costs for a $900 iPhone is less than $20 dollars per unit. And since Apple has just been updating the iPhone and not producing anything new they have not had to re-tool their manufacturing assembly lines or re-train the existing laborers. That is a hefty profit margin. That's how you become one of the richest corporations on the planet.

      And this isn't the first time Apple has stuck their proverbial foot in their mouth. They made a big production over refusing to obey a Federal Court warrant requiring them to assist in gaining access to a dead terrorist iPhone. A phone the dead terrorist didn't even own. His employer owned the phone and gave the government permission to access the phone by any means necessary. Apple said obeying the court order would require too many resources and the cost would be prohibitive. Then they pushed the idea that accessing the phone might not even be possible because of Apple's top notch security. This was Apple's attempt at creating a marketing campaign touting their security and protecting the user's privacy. So after all this BS a 3rd party accessed the phone without help from Apple in less than 3 days. So much for touting their top shelf security measures.

    7. Re: Or, they could buy them in Canada... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The 2013 MotoX was made in Fort Worth, Texas.

      I own two. Most people own zero.

      That's what "Made in America" is worth to real Americans. The phone was one of the best of the year, and nobody cared about it. They just wanted the latest made in China crap.

  2. Rock and hard place by stikves · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some electronics require rare earth materials to manufacture, which currently are sources from China or other countries. Those have export restrictions from China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , and they ask the products to be manufactured there.

    US now asks products to be manufactured here, and will add additional taxes (tariffs) if this request is not complied with.

    So Apple and other manufacturers are split between two bad choices. They will have to weigh which one is less worse, and go in that direction. In all cases it will most likely be the consumers that suffer.

    1. Re: Rock and hard place by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Heaven forbid you have to pay for American workers and their disgusting demands of a living wage, safety regulations, and health care.

      I'd happily save a few bucks if it only means a few dirty chink children die.

    2. Re:Rock and hard place by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Right. Just imagine what an iPhone would cost now if it was built with US labor wages and protections in factories with US (especially pre-Trump) environmental controls and protections.

      One of the last, if not last, assemblers of TVs is closing because the tariffs on components has made it impossible to compete. Trump, as usual, has come up with a tweet worthy solution that is unworkable. A more likely solution wold be to ramp up production outside of China in non-tariff locations. Much of the actual value in the iPhone is made elsewhere and shipped to China, only final assembly is primarily done there. Until Apple manages to fully automate that it is still labor intensive which makes US manufacture expensive unless you do a WalMart; something I doubt Apple would do. One thing for certain, no matter what pple does Trump will declare victory and claim he has won biggly.

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    3. Re: Rock and hard place by BeanThere · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You have a point, but we could partly solve this by dropping the patent system (the average smartphone has over 250,000 patents covering it), then instead of obscene profits all going to a tiny handful of mega-wealthy shareholders, we could have products made in America that are also still affordable, as getting rid of the patents would cause a huge drop in the price of the products, which would (A) offset the increase that goes to paying a living wage to American workers and (B) help keep the products comparably affordable to said middle-class workers.

    4. Re:Rock and hard place by Gavagai80 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Those rare earth materials are present in the USA. Trump is hard at work ripping up environmental regulations so that we can enjoy strip mining throughout America.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    5. Re:Rock and hard place by Njovich · · Score: 5, Informative

      Wow, are you a time traveler from 2010? Because that's when it became clear that China couldn't leverage the rare earth monopoly. Rare earths are everywhere, and the China/Japan rare earth embargo in 2010 was immediately overcome by Japan, it did zero damage.
      The two dollars worth of metals in a phone could double price and it wouldn't matter, not that they'd actually double as there are plenty of other suppliers. Now the actual chip & electronics manufacturing capabilities of China, combined with reasonable quality affordable staff, that's a lot harder to replace.

    6. Re:Rock and hard place by pots · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple just got a ton of money from that giant tax cut. We're going to be paying for Apple's tax cut for decades, they can afford to lose out a little on their already very comfortable profit margins.

    7. Re:Rock and hard place by Goldsmith · · Score: 5, Informative

      Mines in California used to provide most of the world's rare earth metals. The ore is still there, the mine still works, and we have tons of the stuff. The mines have struggled with bankruptcy after being undercut by mines from China in the early 2000s.

      Fundamentally, the problem is the subsidy of rare earth mining and use of environmentally irresponsible processing in China artificially lowering the price of the metals in China. The export ban was an effort to focus the advantage of those policies on down-stream manufacturing in China after crippling their biggest competition (mines in the US). In the article you linked, there's reference to recent US industry proposals that we do the exact same thing here, nationalizing and re-opening the California rare earth mines.

    8. Re:Rock and hard place by fermion · · Score: 5, Insightful
      With consumer electronics, and increasing cars, there is no made in one country. Parts are sourced from all over the world. Tariffs are going to add to costs no matter where it is made because a lot of stuff is going to have to be imported no matter what.

      One relevant criticism of the tariffs is the actual cost of work done of assembling the Apple product is a tiny faction of it's value. For a $2000 computer it might be less than $100.So taxing the full value can be considered unfair, as the conservatives always like to say.

      What I find interesting is that lots of industries do not face such complications. For instance apparel can be sourced more easily that cars or electronics, and assembled in the USA. However, as simple as it is to make clothes in the USA, Trump and his family still chooses to make the clothes in Mexico and China.

      So, as Trump chooses not manufacture in the US, and in fact regularly imports workers from other countries instead of hiring local workers, we can only assume that he knows, as president, something we do not. Like maybe US workers are inferior.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    9. Re:Rock and hard place by Koby77 · · Score: 5, Informative
      The TV assembler that you are referring to was called Element Electronics, in South Carolina. They were kind of a fraud.

      https://www.postandcourier.com...

      But the trade group heard about Element, and it bought a couple of sets. When they opened their boxes — draped with pictures of the American flag — they were startled to see “made in China” stamped on the back.

      So in 2014, they filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing Element of misleading marketing. They described the company’s practices as “red, white and blue-washing,” since a product can’t be called “made in America” if its parts are all foreign.

      Basically, they had the entire TV manufactured and assembled, then shipped to their South Carolina plant already in the box in which it would be sold. American workers opened the box, tested the TV to ensure that it worked, and packaged it back up. For this, they tried to imply on the packaging that it was made in the USA. And they also took government subsidies.

    10. Re:Rock and hard place by kenh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Now the actual chip & electronics manufacturing capabilities of China, combined with reasonable quality affordable staff, that's a lot harder to replace.

      Any manufacturing capability China has can be easily replicated in America, esp. by a company like Apple with their seemingly infinite financial resources, what can't be replicated here are low wages, lax environmental and worker protections.

      --
      Ken
    11. Re:Rock and hard place by Koby77 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm skeptical that there is a labor shortage. Simple supply and demand rules of economics tells us that if there is a labor shortage, then the price of labor should increase. Small increases are normal due to inflation, and I'm glad if there are a few companies forced to shell out a few more bucks to its workers, but so far I haven't seen any huge amounts that would indicate a "labor shortage".

    12. Re:Rock and hard place by IcyWolfy · · Score: 2

      There is likely a labour shortage for the physical labour required.
      Standing on feet all day, working with or around toxic materials. (Solder, lead, plastic-dust, etc)
      Limited to no moderation in work-load, just work full speed until a mandated 15min break.

      There is already a labour shortage in the farm-picking industries.
      Many of the workers being illegal, or seasonal workers.
      In California, there was a news report in the LA times last year about one farmer trying to hire Americans by paying $20/hr. Most quit within a week because the work was too difficult.

      So, while there is not a labour shortage across the board, in specific industries there very well could be.

    13. Re:Rock and hard place by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So it is OK for the Chinese to strip mine for rare earth metals, and then build the Iphones with slave labor and then ship those Iphones overseas on Nigerian flagged vessels staffed with cheap labor from the Philippines to be consumed by snooty white liberals who hate racism, but If Americans mine for rare earth metals on American soil, and then build those Iphones in America using American labor, and then ship those phones on trucks driven by Americans to be sold to Americans who can afford to buy them because they make stuff, then that is racist and damaging the environment.

      Got it.

    14. Re: Rock and hard place by sound+vision · · Score: 2

      Because Apple is playing the long game. Their bet here is that the cheeeto's tantrum ends before long, so why make the "investment"?The reason for it might well evaporate before they could even spool up production.

    15. Re:Rock and hard place by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      The export ban was an effort to focus the advantage of those policies on down-stream manufacturing in China after crippling their biggest competition (mines in the US). In the article you linked, there's reference to recent US industry proposals that we do the exact same thing here, nationalizing and re-opening the California rare earth mines.

      Molycorp was a private corporation. The nationalization you speak of was nothing more than smoke blowing out Trump's ass. Note that the Mountain Pass mine may indeed be reopened, and operated by its new Chinese owner after being bought out of the Molycorp bankruptcy. Yah, Trump really sticking it to China, impressive.

      The Chinese embargo was quickly abandoned when it became clear that the effect would be to bring many marginal REE operations back online. Worse, and not fully anticipated by the Chinese strategists, it spurred undersea exploration. The Japan Sea discoveries may or may not be developed in the near future, there are significant engineering and environmental issues to overcome, but they already serve to forestall further attempts by China to corner the market.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    16. Re:Rock and hard place by molarmass192 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Except Trump knows cell phones, nobody knows cell phones like him, let me tell you, you know, he has a cell phone. Has had one right from the start of phones. He knows what it takes to build one, and he's not buying it. We can create good, no great, jobs, let me tell you, for American people. It's people who make a difference, little people, like the people who build things. These are going to be the best, and Trump knows best better than anyone, cell phones the world has ever seen, and American's are going to build them, and export them to China, and those tiny Canadians. We're going to be the hugest cell phoning creating country the world has ever seen, and we're going to have it now. It's simple, mark his words, we ... will ... build ... them, and it's going to be great, and the phones are going to be great. The best the world has ever seen. He knows cell phones, not like that crooked Hillary, has anybody see those mail servers, but we're going to build those cell phones. The fake news will tell you cell phones can't be done, but Trump knows for a fact, he's seen it, that they are built here, and they're great, let me tell you.

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    17. Re: Rock and hard place by terrycarlino · · Score: 2

      Perhaps because American workers aren't available in company dormitories to work on last minute changes to the iphone?

      That is at least what Apple claimed when Obama asked Apple why they couldn't bring jobs back to the U.S. At least according to that bastion of conservative values the New York Times.

      So the truth is that Apple likes being able to use slave labor to construct it's phones, because it's easy.

      “Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared. Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”(NYTimes 2016)

      Except it's not generosity is it? It's not generosity for a company to obey health and safety laws and pay people a decent wage. It's not ungenerous for people to stop buying crap made by corporations in slave labor factories in places without effective health and safety and environmental laws.

      Let Apple eat the cost of the tariffs or raise their prices to compensate. maybe that will actually get customers to look at the conditions under which their phones are made or at least make them stop pretending that Apple is a virtuous company.

  3. This is kind of hilarious by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On paper we're at full unemployment. But funny enough there's a ton of resentment around not having jobs in America. Of course, everyone knows the unemployment stats are nonsense. But we act like they're not.

    This leads to some crazy political theater. For one thing we've got economists trying to come up with excuses about why wages aren't climbing despite "full" employment. And now we've got Trump needing to explain to businesses where they'll get workers needed to run factories when on paper those workers already have jobs. I mean, I suppose Trump could argue that he'll do mass immigration. I'm sure that'll go over swell at his monthly rallies.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:This is kind of hilarious by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unemployment numbers are meaningless if they fail to consider the labor participation rate (which itself isn't the full picture). There are still a lot of people without jobs that have essentially given up on finding one. What we should be looking at is the number of hours of labor that are being worked. It doesn't matter if you've got two jobs on paper if they're both being filled by the same person because they can't get a 40 hour position any longer.

      Tariffs are beyond idiotic as a solution to our economic issues and even if Trump does somehow manage to enact them, they're not going to survive beyond his presidency. We should be going in the opposite direction and removing all tariffs. If China or some other government wants to subsidize a local industry, let's import the hell out of those products. I'd be over the moon to get some other country's tax payers to foot the bill for the goods I purchase.

    2. Re: This is kind of hilarious by Gavagai80 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the labor force participation rate crashed in the recession and hasn't even recovered to it's carter-era level since then

      Indeed, the baby boomers who took early retirement in 2008 have not flocked back to the workplace. Many of them are in their 70s. To get them participating in the workplace again you're going to need to completely gut social security and medicare. I know, they're working on that.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    3. Re:This is kind of hilarious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's a free market and therefore this is an easy answer: you pay them more than your competition to get superior workers.

      This whole article is a dumb concept: there are not millions of workers at Apple's [third party] factories. There are thousands of workers though.

      And do not confuse angst with illegal immigration with anti-immigration. Any person worth talking to is for immigration, but of people that will improve our country by bringing skills or ideas that improve it. Chances are, if you have no ethical dilemma with breaking a law as literally your first act of "joining" a country, then you are willing to break other laws that may prove to be inconvenient. Beyond that, the path to becoming an illegal immigrant is horrific. Encouraging it is literally encouraging more rapes and money going to criminals.

      Bringing in cheap, easily replaced, effectively slave labor is not the superior position: it's only a slightly less racist position than people hating immigrants because they're "other" races (or wholly based religions). The pretentious attitude that pro-illegal immigration proponents have is miserable. The idea that we "need" these people to come into our houses to be our maids and field workers is despicably racist. All immigrants regularly start at the bottom of the food chain, but it is disgusting to effectively see that is their end goal.

      We should want immigrants to come in and assimilate. At that point everyone wins. With illegal immigration, the only side that wins is the people employing slave labor that they will discard if the wind changes direction.

    4. Re:This is kind of hilarious by gtall · · Score: 2

      "Of course, everyone knows the unemployment stats are nonsense." Really? could you please point us at the references for this statement so that we all know as well?

    5. Re: This is kind of hilarious by John_Sauter · · Score: 2

      the labor force participation rate crashed in the recession and hasn't even recovered to it's carter-era level since then

      Indeed, the baby boomers who took early retirement in 2008 have not flocked back to the workplace. Many of them are in their 70s. To get them participating in the workplace again you're going to need to completely gut social security and medicare. I know, they're working on that.

      I am a leading-edge baby boomer, just turned 73 years of age. When I was laid off in 2008 I collected unemployment until it ran out, then took early Social Security. I worked in the gig economy until I was able to return to the labor force in 2015. Even with Social Security, Medicare to cover medical costs, and two pensions, I don't make enough to make ends meet, even though I live in suburban New Hampshire.

    6. Re: This is kind of hilarious by John_Sauter · · Score: 2

      Something/someone must be supporting these people.

      Yeah. Crime.

      Many people are gainfully employed at jobs not recognized by the government. This is called the underground economy. Crime is certainly included, but when I hire kids off the street and their friends to help me clean out my store, I do not report their earnings to the IRS.

      A friend of mine once told me that he worked security at a flea market. At the end of the day he got a check for his wages, with deductions taken according to law. If he walks away with the check, every thing is above-board. However, if he wished he could cash the check on the spot, in which case he would receive more than the face value.

  4. History by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This happened before in Europe.

    In the early 80s it was a three way fight for home video recording. You had VHS, Betamax and the Phillips Video 2000 system. The first two were all Japanese machines, the latter were made by Phillips in Europe.

    The Phillips format was technically great. But it came third in that race. Philips got the EEC (precursor to the EU) to put massive tariffs on Japanese machines to make them cost the same as Phipps' ones, but all that did was increase profit margins for Japanese companies and relieve price pressure on their manufacturing.

    In the end Phillips started selling VHS machines, but got screwed by their own tariffs because they had to buy the mechanism in from Matsushita who made it in Japan.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    1. Re:History by cheesybagel · · Score: 4, Informative

      Video 2000 was kinda wonky with it's reversible tapes which could store 8h in SP. The other fun thing about it was that the write protect tab could be switched on/off instead of just broken off like in VHS. Of course that probably made it hideously expensive to manufacture.

    2. Re:History by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The main innovation was a crystal discipled tracking system that made the picture more stable, especially when paused or in fast forward.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:History by kenh · · Score: 5, Informative

      You literally have no idea what a tariffs are, do you? If you understood tariffs you couldn't have written this sentence:

      Philips got the EEC (precursor to the EU) to put massive tariffs on Japanese machines to make them cost the same as Phipps' ones, but all that did was increase profit margins for Japanese companies and relieve price pressure on their manufacturing.

      An EEC/EU tariff is a tax the EEC/EU collects as certain goods cross the border, the funds collected do not go back to the manufacturer, For example, a US tariff on iPhones manufactured in China collects an amount of money equal to 25% of the cost of the item and puts it in the federal government's coffers. The 25% tariff does not go back to China, Foxconn, or Apple.

      The purpose of a tariff is to increase the price foreign goods allowing domestic producers to better compete on price, agree with it/disagree with the intention, your statement belied a complete lack of understanding of how tariffs work.

      --
      Ken
    4. Re:History by kenh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's another problem with moving manufacturing to the US.

      There's also the reality that other countries impose their own excessive, punitive tariffs on manufactured goods from the US.

      Tariffs aren't uniquely American.

      --
      Ken
    5. Re:History by citizenr · · Score: 2

      Yes, I also watched Techmoan ;-)
      This is not the full picture. It is a fact Japanese manufacturers flooded the world with cheap subsidized electronics in order to take over consumer market segments. EEC measures simply went into effect too late to matter. Limp dick US was too corrupt to do anything, even actual penalties were never enforced.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      Right from the horses mouth https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/...
      and 1 hour long "Frontline: Coming From Japan [The Fall Of The US Television Industry] (1992)" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
  5. Or assemble them anywhere else but China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why United States?

    1. Re:Or assemble them anywhere else but China by thewolfkin · · Score: 2

      Why United States?

      so the coal workers have something to do all day.

      --
      Just another second banana
  6. Now we know by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Republicans love taxes.

    Amazing how Trump has transformed the Republican party into being everything they used to be against.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    1. Re:Now we know by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

      He's a Trumpican, the Chaotic Neutral of political parties.

    2. Re:Now we know by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      So you're saying... Trump is a Democrat and we should support him, since he's against the GOP?

      Here is what I am saying. Republicans tell us they are against taxes. Trump puts tariffs on Chinese good, which ar exactly taxes.

      Republicans have always consiudered Russia a mortal enemy. There is only one world leader that Trump has not had a word of dissent for. Putin.

      There are others. And the Republican party has not lifted one finger to disagree witrh him.

      And as former George W Bush said If you are not with us, you are against us.

      Core values of the Republican party have been usurped, And the spiineless cowards of the Russian fifth column do not block it, so they support it.

      If you are a Republican you are pro Trump. If you do not opppose a person who eliminated your party's core values, You have adopted those values.

      Any questions now about what I am saying?

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  7. Find millions of laborers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I doubt that they need that many. In the U.S., a million Chinese laborers become 999,000 robots and 1,000 robot technicians.

  8. But their per version $100-200 price increases by oldgraybeard · · Score: 2, Insightful

    every 2 years or so does not count. Since it mostly goes to increase their crazy high profit margin. Don't get me wrong I am all for profit margins. But to point at the tariffs and say that is the problem that will cause higher prices is a bit bold. The prices will go up no matter what. TBH I don't think it will affect Apple much their market will sacrifice most anything to have the latest greatest Apple device/gadget and I say good for Apple.
    As I sit here with my old mobile phone that does everything I want. It is all about choice and needs.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

  9. No, no it isn't 3.9% by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    given that the official unemployment rate is at a historic low of 3.9%

    No, no it isn't. The current U6 unemployment rate as of August 2018 is 7.40, and even that fails to count many people. Anyone who reports the U2 unemployment rate is repeating a blatant and willful lie, which makes them at best an accessory to that lie. Do your research.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:No, no it isn't 3.9% by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are also some other "unofficial" rates, like this one that pegs the "true unemployment around 21.2%. They add in "long-term discouraged workers" that were removed by BLI in 1994. My guess is this 21.2% is in large part the Trump die-hard base members; people who have been unemployed for so long the Feds don't even count them as real people anymore. That's 53M over-18 people.

    2. Re:No, no it isn't 3.9% by kenh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My guess is this 21.2% is in large part the Trump die-hard base members; people who have been unemployed for so long the Feds don't even count them as real people anymore. That's 53M over-18 people.

      You really think the majority of Trump's base are long-term unemployed adults? Let's think about that - you think millions and millions of long-term unemployed adults with no means other than government handouts, are die-hard trump supporters cheering him on to wipe out the very programs they personally rely on to survive? Conventional wisdom is that those without other means of support tend to fall on the democratic end of the political spectrum.

      --
      Ken
    3. Re:No, no it isn't 3.9% by psycho12345 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unfortunately, yes, because those long term unemployed adults are called retirees, who dropped out of the workforce, either voluntarily or forcibly during the recession. They do depend on Social Security and Medicare, mainly the latter, because many do have either pensions, or good retirement funds, but drug costs and medical costs will obliterate anyone's retirement fund in a heartbeat. And yes, they are cheering him on to destroy those 2 programs. Hence the unironic quote "Keep the government out of my Medicare". And yes many many boomers who are retired are hard core Trump supporters.

    4. Re:No, no it isn't 3.9% by Paul+Carver · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unfortunately, yes, because those long term unemployed adults are called retirees

      Hold on a minute. So Trump is lying about unemployment because he quoted a rate that doesn't include RETIREES?

      Your comments about drug and medical costs are irrelevant. I'd love to see major changes in the US Healthcare system, but anyone who calls a number "unemployment" when it includes retirees is full of shit. If somebody retired and then ran out of money and started looking for work then they're unemployed, but you can't just say that everyone who is not working is unemployed. At least not if you want to keep the word "unemployed" as a bad thing.

      Unemployment means #1 you want to work and #2 you're able to work. If you don't meet both those criteria then you're not unemployed regardless of whether you don't have a job.

      And if the only "work" you're willing to do is work that no one is willing to pay you for then you don't qualify as wanting to work. I do things that require skill and effort but that no one would be willing to pay me to do but I also do things a company IS willing to pay me for. If I CHOOSE to only do the former and not the later then I should NOT BE counted as unemployed.

  10. not happening by supernova87a · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sorry Trump, "Those jobs aren't coming back": https://www.nytimes.com/2012/0...

    Even if the factories could be built here for a reasonable cost, even if the ecosystem of manufacturing suppliers could be recreated here, even if there were enough people looking for work, Americans would not want to take jobs working at such factories even at average factory wages.

    Try to bring those jobs back here and welcome to $2000 iphones.

  11. He said it, now it will Happen! by Herkum01 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Finally, Trump told Apple what they needed to do. That was the problem with Apple, their management was totally clueless and had no idea what to do. They probably did not even have a meeting on the subject.

    Now that Trump has finally spoken up and now they know what to do!

    </sarcasm>

  12. Sure, soon as Trump starts using American workers by JoeyRox · · Score: 5, Informative

    Seems he wants everyone else to pay more for domestic labor than he does. Most people feel the same way - in theory they want to support American workers, in pratice they don't want to pay for it either. Can't have it both ways.

    https://www.newsweek.com/trump-hire-40-foreign-workers-mar-lago-1011011

  13. Re:Why? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

    We always care about prices.
    That is why I have my 8 year old trusty iPhone 4S ... just replaced the battery for something like $10.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  14. If I were China by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd really stick it to the US. Just shut down all exports to the US, pending trade talks. We would really feel that.

    Trump is playing a very dangerous game with the dragon.

    1. Re: If I were China by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Someone pointed out that in an import/export imbalance relationship, the country that does the exporting feels the pain more quickly and deeply. Presumably, if China blocked all exports, manufactured goods would become more expensive in the US or hard to find. However, on the flip side many companies in China would have severe cash flow and revenue problems and go bankrupt, leading to massive unemployment, etc. Bad for one side, worse for the other.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re: If I were China by phantomfive · · Score: 2

      I don't know if they care more or less than the US government, but the Chinese government definitely cares what the people think.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  15. How did tariffs increase Japanese profit margins? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    Isn't a tariff just a tax you impose on goods as they enter your country? Wasn't the problem with the Japanese electronics that they were cheaper?

    Also, as I recall those tariffs were pretty reasonable. The Japanese gov't was heavily subsidizing it's electronic industry to target foreign industries. The tariffs were in response to that. The reason Japan still came out on top, at least for a lot of American electronics (sorry, I'm a Yank) is the American stuff was kind of crap. And American cars were laughably bad at the time.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  16. BS, piled higher and deeper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It took decades to destroy the US electronics manufacturing industry. The workers in it were high school grads. Today, they work at Burger King. It would take at least a decade to build a functioning consumer electronics industry.

    What is lacking is not labor, but knowhow. Knowhow is the stuff that is not in books or journals, but resides in the heads of people who know how to actually build stuff. It can take decades to build knowhow, and that's exactly what the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and Taiwanese have done, at the expense of the US. Lack of knowhow is why the US is currently incapable of building the Saturn V rocket, despite having all the documents ("blueprints") that specified it.

    Rare earths are only a temporary problem. Rare earths are not rare, but you can't build a mine overnight.

    The real problem with Trump tariffs is that they were done without thought about the strategy of rebuilding those industries. If the industries cannot be rebuilt, then all the tariffs do is increase costs.

  17. No one is moving jobs to US because of Trump by jader3rd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Pretty much everything that Trump has done, without approval from Congress, is going to get undone once he's out. So every company is just going to keep things in place, because it would be suicidal to invest in a move, only to have the reason for doing so undone before the move is finished.

    1. Re:No one is moving jobs to US because of Trump by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      Why would a future US government *not* want to keep jobs here in our own country? Isn't the entire point of having a government in the first place to give our own people an advantage? To take care of our own?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  18. Re: Build in USA with robots by fubarrr · · Score: 2

    >Load new component reels into the pick-and-place robot.

    Believe me or not, this what our company had huge problem.

    Not a single man was found for a trivial $60k job to tender a pick and place machine. Oregon, Washington, BC - not a single legit response in 6 month.

    I can't imagine to have this issue in China. In Shenzhen you can find a programmer for every chipshooter imaginable in 1 day for such salary.

  19. Re:Recycling solution: by Kohath · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We don't know how you ended up with Bozo the Clown for your president...

    The media went all in to elect Hillary. They promoted Trump and changed the subject to Trump every time anyone talked about anything else during the campaign. They did this to ensure Hillary's opponent would be Trump, because they were sure Hillary could beat Trump. But they didn't understand that Hillary is terrible — really, really terrible in many different ways. Americans are also tired of being lectured to by people who hold them in contempt. Long story short, Trump won, Hillary lost. Hope that helps.

    ...but he is an embarrassment to your country in pretty much the entire rest of the world.

    Cosmopolitan vanity has negative practical value. There's zero reason to believe that foreigners' opinion of the US matters at all, and Americans who court foreign favor are the ones would should really be embarrassed.

  20. Re:Recycling solution: by Kohath · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Agree that Hillary was a pretty awful candidate. Electing Trump instead was not a "look how smart we are" moment though.

    Vanity again. The other girls in my middle school class can't even!

    Meanwhile, economy is going great, Americans have jobs and a reason to feel good about their economic prospects for the first time in 10 years.

    As for foreigners, America used to have lots of friends in the world. Now you have people who tolerate you out of necessity.

    I'm sure that will recover in time once you have a normal person in charge again though.

    Yeah. I don't care. No one else in the US should care either. Foreign countries claim friendship or don't, and they pursue their own agendas. They'll never choose what's good for the US over what's good for their own people — and they shouldn't.

    Are diplomatic smiles genuine or forced? What difference does it make? None.

  21. Obama already tried by sdinfoserv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Obama sitting next to Steve Jobs at a meeting asked "when are the jobs coming back", referring to the million Foxconn workers. Jobs responded, "never, that ship sailed". China has no labor laws. Just prior to the release of the phone 4, a flaw was found the required every single phone unboxed, fixed and reboxed . To make the marketing date all "employees" (slaves?) were forced to work round the clock to fix every single device so Apple could make the marking date. Also, Foxconn has workers as young as 14 chained to desks, workers live in "barracks", and conditions are so grueling, Foxconn installed nets around it's buildings to catch suicide jumpers. Next time you love your little icrap gadget, think about kids chained to their desks so you can blissfully listing with a your ibuds connected. No way any US based company could get away this.

    1. Re:Obama already tried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      i used to believe all that until I read "Factory Girls" and a bunch of other material about China by people actually there. i know people who work in factories in the US, and honestly conditions in China are better in some places than they are in alot of the USA. id rather be a FoxConn worker in China than a meat packing worker in Iowa or even a Welder in the midwest. The Foxconners are not slaves either, they come from farming villages with no opportunities and the money they send to their families lets their siblings go to school and it also provides them with opportunities their parents couldnt have dreamed of. the 14 year old thing is possible, but its also been lied about by Mike Daisy. And if you think kids dont work in the US your'e just wrong.

      Let me also point out that in the dormitories at these factories, they dont have to deal with gun violence, which is something I have to deal with in my middle class apartment complex in America. They also dont have to own cars, which sucks down a significant percentage of workers income in the US and results in 30,000 deaths a year.

      By the standards of human rights, we in the US have slavery inside our prisons which are contracted out to private companies.

        etc etc etc

      China has some things that are horrible, like their legal system, lack of free speech, etc, but China is more than the worst cases of human rights abuse - its like pretending that America is an episode of Sopranos or every court case is like the Reality Winner case, and there is nothing else going on in the entire population.

  22. Re: Build in USA with robots by Herkum01 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I used to do Perl programming, I had to move from Pittsburgh to Tucson, AZ because there were no Perl positions in Pittsburgh and had to move half-way across the country because they could find no one locally for the position. If you are Shenzhen, there are thousand chip programmers because there are literally a thousand companies with those sorts of jobs, of course there is no problem with finding someone there!

    I can imagine most people would not know what a "pick and place machine" is. Why would people apply for a job just because a company is offering a salary? Most companies don't respond to most job applications and why waste time for applying for positions they barely know anything about? Where is the responsibility of the company to train and educate people they wish to employ?

  23. Re:Recycling solution: by Kernel+Kurtz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Meanwhile, economy is going great, Americans have jobs and a reason to feel good about their economic prospects for the first time in 10 years.

    That is true in most places. The long recovery from 2008 is not a Trump exclusive

    They'll never choose what's good for the US over what's good for their own people

    Those are not necessarily mutually exclusive things. Or didn't use to be anyway.

  24. Re:Prices increase either way. by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I always love these "Most people don't understand that Trump just sounds like a moron who went bankrupt several times and couldn't even make money with a casino, but really he is a negotiation wizard and very stable genius who went bankrupt several times and couldn't even make money with a casino" comments. Pure gold.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  25. Re: There is no 3.9% unemployment rate by NormalVisual · · Score: 2

    You have clearly never visited China and seen the quality of typical Chinese manufacturing.

    The Chinese are neither worse nor better than anyone else at manufacturing. Cheap, crappy products that come from manufacturers there are such because of the price and quality constraints they were contracted to build at. Specify a higher quality standard and pay for it, and they're just as capable as anyone else of turning out a quality product. The Fender (Fender, not Squier) bass that I own was made under contract by Farida Guitars in Guangdong, China, and is every bit as good as the (more-expensive) basses that Fender makes in Mexico at their own plant. Fender's U.S. instruments *are* generally better than either the Chinese or Mexican instruments, but they also cost 2-3 times as much for the comparable product and even then QC can be kind of spotty at times.

    --
    Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
  26. Re:Prices increase either way. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

    Trump didn't engineer the improved relations between the Koreas. Kim did that. He pushed to it the brink, proved that the US couldn't do anything now he has nukes on missiles, and then sued for peace when his own power and future were secured.

    At best Trump's role was "useful idiot".

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  27. Building the phone in U.S. would not lower tariffs by RhettLivingston · · Score: 2

    The assembly of the iPhone is a small portion of its costs. All of the significant parts such as processors, displays, chipsets, etc. are made by TSMC, Samsung, etc. overseas and would still be subject to tariffs. So moving assembly here would do little to decrease the costs of the tariffs. And because we would be forced to use more robotics to keep costs reasonable, it would also do little to create jobs.

    And, does he really think anyone wants to be building factories while his tariffs are in effect? Most of what goes in a modern factory is made overseas and subject to, guess what, Trump's tariffs.

    Moreover, why encourage Apple to move the least sophisticated, lowest skilled portion of the work here? Is that what Trump feels would restore our allegedly lost greatness? How about encouraging home-based chip and display manufacturing? The only US foundry working on 7nm just gave up. Intel is behind on 10nm. The only possible source for Apple's new processors is, guess who, Taiwan.

  28. China is not lowest cost anymore by Nocturrne · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It wasn't that long ago that Nokia and Motorola had mobile phone factories in the US - I was there in the 90's. Many computers were also made in the US before. The manufacturing of mobile phones is becoming more and more automated. Even in the Foxconn factory (I've been there too), they are using fewer and fewer workers. The main things making the cost of manufacturing in the US higher than China are regulations related to pollution and taxes. The labor cost in China is getting very close to the US - close enough that it is already making no sense to make some things there and then ship them all the way to the other side of the planet.

    China stopped being the lowest labor cost place to manufacture for many industries, years ago. An analysis in 2016 found the cost to assemble iphones in the US would only add roughly 5% to the cost - this was 2 years ago. My only point is entire industries that were in the US and EU 25yrs ago could be moved back home.

    https://www.technologyreview.c...