Slashdot Mirror
Trump Suggests US Could Slap 10 Percent Tax On iPhones, Laptops From China (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: President Donald Trump suggested he could place a 10 percent tariff on iPhones and laptops imported from China, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Monday. He also said it's "highly unlikely" that he would delay an increase in tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on Jan. 1, just four days before a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. "Maybe. Maybe. Depends on what the rate is," the president said to The Wall Street Journal about the possible iPhone and laptop tariffs. "I mean, I can make it 10 percent, and people could stand that very easily."
Yeah, those Tariffs sure showed China that we are willing to screw ourselves to screw the world.
For whoever is keeping track:
Bush / Obama - Saved the car industry
Trump - Destroying the car industry
I want America to be great again. I want the homeless people and drug dealers in my community cleaned up off the streets and housed in dormitories to assemble iStuff during 16 hour/day shifts. They'll get free health care and a 10% discount on prescription drugs.
China is our enemy. Fuck 'em.
MAGA ON!
Sure, everyone could handle a 10% tax very easily. Oh unless you're super rich, then you need a tax cut.
Either that, or just secure a small million dollar loan from your daddy.
Our President is a stuck up, toffee nosed, elitist twat.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
There isn't any tax that a Republican doesn't like.
Perhaps you missed the obvious, but he's already bailing out US farmers to the tune of $12 billion to compensate for lost sales to China.
Worse, he's paying it to Chinese owned companies like WH Group:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/chinese-owned-pork-producer-qualifies-for-money-under-trumps-farm-bailout/2018/10/23/154764da-d3ce-11e8-83d6-291fcead2ab1_story.html
And if he slaps a big tarif on Apple, they'll demand compensation too. Either directly or through the courts, since he's not within the Executive branches *limited* powers to kill ratified trade treaties wholesale. Apple can sue if they don't get compensated.
Also imagine how it would be if Apple does not get compensated, yet Chinese companies do get compensation from Trump?
IMHO, the US $ nearly collapsed after Bush did his 2004 monetary inflation. Here they're doing a 10% increase in money supply, gifted as tax cuts to rich people (around $1.5 to $1.9 trillion). That needs to be anchored in trade since you need China to need to buy US bonds to soak up the debt and force the retained $ value.
IMHO2: Ukraine is about to be invaded by Russia, and we'll get a lot of distraction like this.
How well do you actually know any "American blue-collar workers?"
Have you considered the fact that as a group, they've hated Apple for much longer than they've been jealous about expensive phones?
If you're wealthy enough to purchase an iPhone, you're wealthy enough to pay this tax. If not, I guess Apple is going to lose a number of customers.
Plus, this effectively also serves as a corporate tax given that iPhones are fairly common for commercial use.
This may end up being a fairly progressive tax.
So, what does GM do - start the process of eliminating ~15,000 jobs and closing factories. I know, it's more complicated than that in that competition for foreign car makers, most of whom make cars in the US with likely higher quality products, changes in customer preferences to SUVs and trucks, and the availability of hybrid and electric vehicles from other companies. Another example is Ford's decision not to make a car for import to the US from China and rejecting the suggestion that it be made in the North America because it would cost too much.
No one wins from a trade war.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Good. Fuck Apple and their "designed in California (made with child labor in China)" bullshit.
Apple could easily manufacture their phones and laptops in the US. Their products are easily marked up at least 100%. They have a trillion dollars they're just sitting on.
They don't because they hate American blue collar workers, it's that simple.
Not that easily -- most of the components they use to make the phone are also made in China. Coordinating parts from hundreds of suppliers to all converge in the USA exactly when needed is time consuming and expensive. Even moreso since Apple would be paying for those components to sit a container for weeks on its way to the factory, and since the factory is so far away, they need to order weeks early just in case there's a transportation issue, so they end up owning components for months before they even start building the phone.
Those suppliers don't want to move here because then they become a high-cost supplier than can only sell in the USA, the rest of the world will buy from cheap chinese factories, so instead of a Chinese factory that makes 100 million resistors a year, in the USA there'd be a factory making 10M resistors a year, so they'd be much more expensive.
But even if Apple did bring the jobs on-shore, don't expect many blue-collar jobs to come, the whole factory will be automated, staffed mostly by relatively few highly skilled robotic technicians.
So, the end result is, Apple would earn less money on iPhones, consumers would pay more money for iPhones, and few jobs would result. So the increase in the cost of the phone is essentially a very expensive job-creation tax.
The only reason for Apple's success is the US government's interference in the mobile phone market. It's time that Trump stops working for his enemies...
Tax my mother fuckin iphone that shit is personal
Since when did blue collar workers hate Apple? Are you basing this on some kind of class warfare stereotype? 'Cos you sure as hell aren't basing it on people you know.
Hey Little Rich Boy
I remember when Republicans were against tax
and Russia
Poor people aren't buying them as it is. Rich people can handle another $100. Or they can just go with a Korean phone.
that people get all sideways about a 10% tax on imported phones, but when we lower corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%, which will lower the price of AMERICAN goods, then its supposedly a "tax cut for the rich." What's rich about millions of phone buyers that could get an American phone for less money because the company is not sending so much $$$ to Washington, and can therefore lower the price on their phones and cause more people to choose their phones instead of the Chinese phones? Taxes are taxes, whether they're tariffs or income taxes, and no corporation has ever, does now, or ever will pay corporate income taxes. They simply COLLECT them, from us, when they raise prices of their goods, lower their workers' pay, or cut stock dividends in order to have the $$$ to send to Washington. Duh... of the 2, I'll take tariffs, since it benefits American companies by keeping the gov't from coming after corporate income to get the tax money.
It was only Syria Trump handed to Putin.
It is only Iran being handed to Putin.
It's only Ukraine you're handing to Putin.
It's only Romania, Trump is handing to Putin.
It's only the Black Sea being handed to Putin.
It's only Turkey being handed to Putin.
It's only the Baltics being handed to Putin.
It's only Europe being handed to Putin.
It's only Alaska being handed to Putin.
It's only Canada being handed to Putin.
It's only California being handed to Putin.
It's only the Northern states being handed to Putin
How much will China have to funnel to the Trump Crime Family “organization” or Trump regime’s interests to make this go away, I can’t help but wonder.
Won’t hurt Apple, it’ll just mean that your next iPhone will be made in Indonesia, or Malaysia, or some other place with little or no environmental regulation or protections for workers, laws against modern slavery / human trafficking, etc. SURE as hell it’s not going to cost APPLE money... it’s Apple. They don’t pay taxes, or follow laws, or whatever. They just find ways around it, like parking money in a fake subsidiary in Ireland. Since we all found out about that one, they had to pay some small part of what they owed, or may one day have to, and meanwhile, things will get rearranged to some OTHER tax haven or dodge.
They’re all a bunch of goddamned fucking crooks, all the way around.
Sent from my iPad.
Oops... shit.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
they don't tomorrow...
but thats okay, the president lady said "im sending in more tarriffs"
I mean, it just needlessly increases the cost of a good without giving anyone an incentive to move manufacturing into the USA because it's less expensive to just pay the tax than build entirely new domestic infrastructure that would in the long run, cost more anyways because of the costs of recovering those infrastructure costs.
Of course, the problem with all of this is that long before you've applied any tax high enough to create such an incentive, you will have already created another incentive for a black market that will present its own problems.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"I mean, I can make it 10 percent, and people could stand that very easily." If people can easily stand that then what the fuck is the point of the tariff? I think his retarded brain doesn't seem to understand what he is trying to achieve. At the moment all it is doing is chasing jobs out of the country, the tit for tat tariffs will bury the US economy.
In summary: fuck American workers, I wanna save a couple bucks on my iCrap!
"How's that hopey-Trumpy Coal Comeback -TM workin out fer yuh?"
And meanwhile we all see you're just another dishonest faggot advertising that quality about yourself constantly online. Golf clap?
But for the almost 40 years I have been alive, A. people have been majority voting for them. (with a few swing years, but not enough, indicating they are ideologically supported.)
and B. Plenty of Democrats are pro-outsourcing as well.
Having said that: From personal experience I have seen a LOT of out and proud Republicans who will use either illegal foreign labor (Mexican, Ukrainian, or Russian. I am sure demographics vary by region) or under the table domestic labor to keep their businesses afloat while at the same time dodging taxes and a variety of other illegal behaviors while talking out the other side of their mouth about all the behaviors they shouldn't allow. And don't take this to mean I'm letting the Democrats off the hook. From clipper to the dmca to patriot to the snowden file activity, Democrats have been complicit in it all. Short of a mass purge of the system, whether via legal or extralegal means, the United States has nowhere it will go but down.
I could pretend I'm praying for everybody, but honestly I am waiting for the great culling and just hoping I have ducked out somewhere safe before it happens. Trying to fix this mess under the current, former, or future federal govenments and the voter base that allows them to happen again and again simply is not going to happen.
In summary: fuck American workers, I wanna save a couple bucks on my iCrap!
No, in summary: The globalization and automation genies are already out of the bottle, no matter how much you try to shove them back in, you can't.
So you can either realize and accept the current situation (by training well educated workers that are capable of doing more than what a simple pick and place robot can do), or you can pretend globalization doesn't exist and tell uneducated workers that you're bringing jobs "back" to them, when reality those jobs aren't coming back.
Since all of time up until about the iPhone 6.
Whatever message that video was meant to convey got lost because I didn't click on it.
Stop pandering to election doners. Make it 20% straight up. .th. and Cambodia to beat some existing tariffs.
China is already building screwdriver plants in Vn
Include $5 toasters and a raft of crapware as well. People will buy it just as much.
Chicago has higher state taxes - proving price insensitivity.
20% would be easilly absorbed.Everyone already has a phone / laptop and there is no productivity benefit - people just hang on to what they have for 6 months more. A 20% tax would cause Chinese panic.
Next the CPU's are the expensive bit, so USA could create jobs in the install cpu and memory and package dept. And cause more Chinese panic as the factory may have to move to say Vietnam or Malaysia.
The only loosers are firms cheating or fiddling tax, and some grey market importers who carry shit over and sell out of suitcases. Oh, and Walmart, but nobody cares about em.
Stop supporting Iriish tax sandwiches and other variants.
Apple may also be a winner - because economics will sort it out. And while 20% sounds a lot, Europe VAT is around 23% - so that would defang what Europe is planning - 30-50% taxes.
APK isn't human and no humane treatment is required.
I have a text analyzer run over every submission and each time it consistently matches with the Lizard people profile. At first, we were only finding evidence for the Grey's online and this made sense given their technological superiority. However, with time we have found several written texts and beefed up the analyzer. It only makes sense they would bring their fight online. It's much easier.
Bingo. If I had mod points I'd up you instead of commenting... I worked in industrial automation for 6 years and have a very good understanding of this. Tech has advanced sufficiently now that we can make long term, very robust solutions for significantly cheaper than the labor costs. No matter how you slice it, that will not change.
There would literally have to be an automation tax applied to companies doing it and that will never happen. If it did they would have to take the money from the tax and give it out as a UBI (which the Republicans would call an entitlement) to keep the economy from collapsing. It probably wouldn't even stop the automation because the technology will likely advance much too quickly for them to keep an effective tax on it. Then on the Democrat side, they won't tax it because they are fine with the globalization drive and the only way we can keep up in the US is to allow for new job TYPE creation (such as skilled technicians and such).
I've tried to explain this again and again to people, but they don't seem to WANT to grasp it.
The only country he's making 'great again' is Russia. I see you're repeating Russian trolls with your "American troops out of Europe" trolls.
Europe provided Ukraine with 1.2 billion euros, but US will only sell them $50 million in hand guns. Trump literally blocking sales of weapons to aid Russia and undermine its European military allies.
You'll probably end up sending troops to fight Ukraine alongside Russian troops, and trolls like you will pretend its in Americas interests.
Puppet states don't work without puppets and trolls like you.
Remember Helsinki? Trump promising US troops would cooperate with Russian troops in Syria.. which would see US troops attacking US allies to prop up Assad.... and this just three months after Russian troops attacked US troops in Syria.
https://nypost.com/2018/02/13/russians-attacked-american-troops-on-putins-orders/
You wave your hands about a genie and a bottle, but the actual situation is merely that it would take time to ramp US production back up, and time for inventories to build to desired levels? There is no fucking genie in or out of your bottle, the situation has no genie.
Supply chains are not magic. They are not powered by genies.
..with it's throttle stuck wide open.
For fucks' sake, I fully understand that China is so corrupt and screwing us (and other countries) over, in more than just trade (militarily, human rights [comma, lack of], and so on, and so on) but there's got to be a better way to handle this than this.
Of course you also have to admit: we're like spoiled-assed kids in this country. Our overall high standard of living is because everything has been so damned cheap for so many decades. You all complain about the cost of an iPhone, but if it was produced 100% here in the U.S. (from the smallest component on up), it would cost several times as much I'm sure, assuming they'd produce them at all (might be too expensive to produce in any quantity). Before anyone jumps my shit for that: without U.S. companies using Chinese companies for production, Chinas' economy would probably be absolute shit. So it is a two-way street -- but still there's got to be a better way to deal with this than what Trump is doing. He keeps trying to run a country like it's a business -- and he's not a good businessman to start with (vis-a-vis, all his bankruptcies and failures), and it's just a bad idea to run a country like it's a business anyway. He's achieving the opposite of what was intended: he's costing Americans money, he's destroying American jobs, and he's running American companies out of business. Do I have a better idea? No. If I did, I'd run for office. But someone else must have a better way to do this, and they're not stepping up -- or maybe they've been told to shut up.
Idiot tax for libtard iShit users. :)
And they censored Alex Jones too. I don't listen to him much but that's not Apple's decision to make. Fuck 'em.
I live in Europe. If the US wants to charge more for iphones I'll happily buy direct from China. Bye bye Apple, Hello Xiaomi
You expect American companies to accept lower profits by hiring local workers? Not going to happen. Profits are all they care about.
Reducing tax moved US companies back from Tax Havens such as Ireland , back to the US.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have shifted from 'offshore low tax' jurisdictions back to the US, allowing us to get tax on something we could not tax before, and getting an economic multiplier effect locally.
It works. Increasing Tax on companies cause the companies to offshore and you get nothing.
'Tax it 'cos muh socialism' is, and always has been, a failed philosophy that fails to take into account people/wealth leaving.
(and when they do, you get to the point where you have to arrest people who try, you're a prison not a country, and it is 'not real communism' attempt #53.)
You guys, leave APK alone. He's harmless and there's absolutely no reason you should be mistreating him this way.
Have a little decency for the holidays at least. Let's see if we can all be a little more human to each other.
You seem to have a lot of time for his anti-semitism, but I can also believe that you were too stupid and lazy to notice it.
the actual situation is merely that it would take time to ramp US production back up, and time for inventories to build to desired levels?
The next administration can press the "undo" button on all of Trump's bullshit. No one with half a brain is going to invest a cent in increasing domestic production. All tariffs accomplish is hitting average hard-working Americans right in their wallets.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Maybe pissing off the iCrowd will be the last straw.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
He is a spamming piece of shit that deserves everything thrown at him. While I don't participate in it I applaud their efforts. harass the cunt till he crawls back into his hole
...it was about time. The reason RCA isn't making anything in the US anymore is because China slaps a tarrif on anything imported from the US but the US doesn't slap a tarrif on Chinese imports.
The USA's intelligence services spied in on the conversation Aribus had in contract negotiation, found out the price airbus were offering, and told Boeing what to pitch to in the contract.
Funny how people aren't remembering that when they complain about corporate espionage from China.
Like with cheating at cricket, which was started by us Brits and done better by foreigners, this too is something the USA did pridefully then complained when it was being done by other countries against them.
Tell me when you last heard of a Republican who actually did something as if they DID care about the interests of working people?
I guarantee you we'll be better off having those nice new automated factories here in the States rather than in China.
Up the tariff! Create domestic jobs!
Huh? No, not in production. In repairing and second hand sales. Because when a new phone costs about 2000 bucks, repairing your old one for 100 suddenly becomes very compelling.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Born in US, many do not know how the tariff works. Without high tariff, China would have been flooded by foreign cars, TVs, and many other goods. There would not be much of Chinese industry. The cheap labor is only one part of the whole equation.
In a trade war both sides raise taxes/tariffs. These, at least in the US are collected by the Treasury and go into the general fund.
So:
* Citizens purchasing foreign goods pay more (tariff is a tax)
* Companies importing raw materials (for example, steel and aluminum) pay more (tariff is a tax), and will have to charge more for products (indirect tax)
The goal of course is to move manufacturing into the US.
But wage disparities cripple this in many cases. We could probably handle things like chip manufacturing competitively, but putting things together via humans is far more expensive in the US. Maybe robots are the answer (they are).
The problem to me is timing. It takes a long time to move the product and processes the tariffs are targeting. And raw materials? Wage disparity again.
Anyway, the tariffs are just a way to increase Federal income, from March through July it was about $1.4 billion from steel and aluminum:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/1...
And per the Congressional Budget Office's Monthly Budget Review, "Other Income" was up by $1 billion (includes tariffs), about 1%. Corporate taxes dropped by $92 billion, about 31%.
https://www.cbo.gov/system/fil...
Anyway, corporate tax rate drop was a gift to the already wealthy ($92 billion!) and the tariffs are a tax on the citizens and revenue for the Federal government.
BlameBillCosby.com
Why not tax ALL goods and services from and to China?
This is what happens when you put a billionaire in the White House. He has no idea that 10% is a huge amount for many people (let alone 25%!).
Next time, guys, put a poor person, or even a homeless person, in there. Someone who has some concept of the value of $1.
GM's upper end cars are Chinese imports, like the Buick Envision, are made in China anyway. All GM is doing is using the tariff thing is an excuse to ditch factories making cars that don't sell, and start cranking out more SUVs.
Of course, when Iran gets uppetidy and mines the strait of Hormuz, GM will be sitting there wondering why nobody is buying their vehicles when people turn to buying 75MPG plug-in hybrids.
It seems obvious to me that the term "iPhone" is being used here to include all mobile phones. In fact the phrase "iphones and laptops" basically means all tech. This isn't an "Apple tax", this is "China tax". This will affect the cost of a huge number of items, not just expensive ones, and not just specific brands. All tech, right down to that cheap calculator you saw in Walmart last week.
This will increase the cost of your weekly shopping cart too, as the tech costs for your local supermarket chain is now going to rise, so they'll raise prices to compensate.
gweihir KNEW u IMPERSONATE me https://it.slashdot.org/commen... c6gunner proves it https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & forgot to SUBMIT AC & used his registered 'lusrname' (he tried to mock me both BEFORE & after I FAIRLY challenged him to show he's done better work - he had ZERO).
I'd never "cry victim" to ne'er-do-wells (TROLLS, not all /.ers) either.
U EVEN HELPED ME https://science.slashdot.org/c... (& then realizing it you quit trying to make me look bad via what you thought were lies on hosts as "ME" IN YOUR IMPERSONATIONS of me e.g. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... on speculative execution attack: Hosts PREVENT 'EM, joke's on you)
APK
P.S.=> 2nd to last link's KILLING U THAT U HELPED ME & got me to see if hosts stop portsmash/meltdown/spectre & yes - hosts WORK on 'em - U LOSE + FAIL a PORTFILTER TEST https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...
yeah? why is that?
stfu already.
10% ????? The tariff should be 200% - on ALL imported goods. Why wait? DO IT NOW!
And while you are at it, tax all foreign labor at the rate of 200% of what a US worker would cost + whatever they are paying the foreigner. This way the ONLY jobs that would be shipped out are the ones that ABSOLUTELY need to be.
Funny how you ignore your own side doing it when you want to hate on a foreigner or prop up your shitgibbon pretend president.
Our trade deficits are hardly deficits at all. They primarily exist due to the way we tax corporate profits.
Companies routinely develop software/hardware/drugs/machines...etc in the US. Many companies run those companies here in the US at break-even or a loss. The designs developed here are then "transferred" to an over-seas subsidiary (located in a low tax area of the world) to produce the actual product. The subsidiary then sells the product into other markets and never repatriates the profits.
Many of the things you buy are built this way.
The development costs stay here - at a loss which reduces or eliminates tax liability in the US. For many years GE received far more in tax credits than taxes it paid.
You can "fix" this one of two ways - you can change the tax structure to not penalize profits generated here to encourage the profits to stay here or you can tariff the goods on the way back to this market.
Reducing taxes on corporate profits raises the ire of many on the left and tariffs on foreign made products raises the ire of everyone who benefits from cheap overseas production.
Drop corporate taxes to something less than what most of the world charges and you'll see production come back to the US.
So you can either realize and accept the current situation (by training well educated workers that are capable of doing more than what a simple pick and place robot can do),
Great, so we can have a lot of highly trained people competing for the last handful of jobs. That will really help.
Spend the money you'd have spent on training on setting up UBI instead, because those jobs aren't changing, they're going away. See, every job producing something requires resources, and we're already using more resources than the planet can supply. As worker productivity increases, but the planet's ability to supply resources decreases, we literally need to do less work if we are to avoid spoiling our biosphere. The future of the species literally depends on less people working.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There was a phone built in America: The Motorola MotoX 2013.
I own two. How many do y'all own?
Nothing whatever to do with IT or nerd topics. Get rid of the political nonsense on SlashDot!!!
#nerdsagainstpolitics
Yes, it's a tax. Which raises money for the government.
It is possible for tax revenues to be spent on things that benefit the US, whether by this government or a future government. Maybe the US could stop getting another $1 Trillion in debt every year.
Trump needs to pick his words more carefully.
Just because HE thinks ALL Cellphones are "iPhones" (nice for brand-recognition), doesn't mean he should be SAYING that in a Public Statement!
Obviously, this has ALREADY caused great economic harm to Apple (stock down 2%), JUST because Trump can't be BOTHERED to choose his words correctly.
And if he DID mean just iPhones, then Apple has a good cause to sue to get the action reversed.
Trump, "The Art of the Deal", proved he can't even make money at a casino. A joint that literally takes money from clients, and hands them back smaller packets of money. How do you lose money in a business like that?
So now he wants tariffs on smartphones. Gee, our resident Very Stable Genius has yet another brilliant idea. What's next, taking candy from babies? "I know babies, and this baby is such a baby! It's a disgrace! We will only have the best babies from now on, Obama wanted bad babies but Make American Babies Great Again (MABGA)!"
People are willing to pay the premium price for an iPhone, then the government should get their tax. Tax it at 25 percentage.
How about you go fuck yourself instead, you righteous little shit.
Nothing screams republican stalwarts quite like bill gates and the san francisco city supervisor
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robot-tax-bill-gates_us_5b0f030ce4b0be10a4882b63
They are already calling for an automation tax, unless you think the "fight for 15" types out there are all republicans
China is renowned for manipulating currency and closing off their markets, and the US has HUGE trade deficits with them as a result. Does anyone disagree with this?
So, then the question becomes, "How do we correct this?" China isn't going to give up the treasure willingly. Whoever the President is won't get results by asking politely. You'll never win by trying to negotiate from a point of weekness. What other tool does the President hold to negotiate a trade agreement other than the threat of tariffs? How effective is a threat once you demonstrate that you are unwilling to use it?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
And he is too stupid to understand that the economy going into running slummy apartments are not working on a macro scale for running a country...
Well I suppose it was presumptive of me to assume no one would want to implement it, but its misguided at best and downright dangerous at worst. It'll drive the tech companies out of the country just like the general manufacturing. The difference is a tax would be government driven for no real reason other then poorly understood protectionism while the manufacturing was driven out because worker cost for such simple tasks became far too expensive. I'm all for making sure people are paid a good living wage, but forcing people to use antiquated practices is idiotic and runs counter to most economic philosophies except a command economy (which we all know can't compete on a global scale).
Retraining people to work in new sectors that have high labor demands is the only real solution to make sure the general population can maintain economic stability in the long term. Short term, higher minimum wage standards are needed definitely, but if that is all we rely on it will only drive inflation through the roof and erode the established groups of lower upper class and middle class workers. True upper class won't be hurt because they have the capital and diversification to keep their wealth invested outside currency stores.
I've tried to explain this again and again to people, but they don't seem to WANT to grasp it.
The reason why the average person does not want to understand that reality is because, by definition, it turns the average person into a liability in a society where there are no jobs/uses for people who are unable to think at a higher level.
Seriously, when things settle down and most everything concerning production is automated, what is there left for the average and below average person to do? They can't participate in society because they have nothing of value to offer. They can't go off in the woods and subsist. Too many of them, not enough woods, and, someone else already owns those woods.
I am, demonstrably, above average... and yet this situation threatens my own existence too! How? Competition for jobs. The less skilled person will fluff their resume, lie, abuse nepotism, etc in order to get a job that I can legitimately and competently perform while they can not perform it... but it takes time to realize they can't perform the job and by the time it is realized, I have starved to death.
Ultimately, around 20% of all humans will have to be executed, year after year, in order to maintain the new automated society. They are dead weight (from the point of view of the owners of the land and productive machines).
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
This is horribly bleak and way hyperbolic. Right now we can EASILY retrain the vast majority of the displaced workforce to perform in another industry. Hell, the automation creates more jobs doing different work, often times more than it displaced. Mechanics to maintain the equipment, frabricators and installers just to put it together, data analysts to look at the high level information the system generates, engineers to design it and build the logic, and the list keeps going.
This isn't even a new concept in human history. Technological advances have displaced workers for centuries and guess what, society didn't crumble. When they started making field plows to make planting easier I'm sure the farmhands wondered what they would do to survive and they found work in stores selling the extra produce and making the equipment. When Henry Ford came up with the assembly line, individuals that did the entire process of building something again started making the equipment for the lines, people moved on to selling the new surplus equipment, and they again kept designing. Each instance of a major technological advancement also had people shrieking about the end of days and the collapse of society. It still hasn't come and isn't likely to any time soon. We still have a lot of technology advancements to come.
There are only two reasons I see for people to fight it. One, fear of not being able to adapt, and two, no DESIRE to change. I understand a fear of not being able to adapt. There was a good article about imposter syndrome on Slashdot not long ago that gave a good perspective on some of that. With good retraining programs (which are to the country's benefit) this could be curved though. On the second point, I get people don't want to change, but unfortunately that is reality. Progress requires change and if we think about it on a societal and species level, it is necessary to survive. Humans are made to need change even though we fear it and sometimes hate it. I understand trepidation, but it has to be put to the side.
Whatever. This isn't a private conversation. Other people clicked on the link. You missed out.
Right. Establishment Democrats and Republicans are solidly opposed to the United States having any sort of industrial base at all. They hate deplorable rednecks THAT much. So much that they'll willingly commit national suicide just to fuck over the deplorables. Maybe out of a secret nagging fear that they, too, might be deplorable rednecks? It's about spite, not greed: we would have way more and way richer rich people if we still had an industrial base.
Or maybe the Chinese have just bought both parties outright.
If this is a terrorif on iPhones alone there is a much greater need to place friendly justices in the courts.
In targeting Apple the doors to courts will push wide open to protect the $10billion that is at stake.
Other brands of phones and computers are obviously under control of AT&T, samstung, Microsoft, Verizon, U.S. Cellular,
Google as much as Apple does just differently. Samsung makes darn nice hardware but systematically obsoletes that hardware
vastly quicker than the hardware wears out. It is possible to buy a factory new devices and in the first 24 hours after
getting it home recieve the LAST update/upgrade planned for the device. Production can continue for two or three
years but the software clock can begin at introduction not even first customer ship.
Ten percent is a rather big tax... enough to be a disincentive to Apple re their pulling cash back into the US
when it can borrow from itself at 4% or less and not pay %15-38.91+% income repatriation tax.
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.