“After a New York Times article described abject working conditions at China-based Foxconn, Apple has faced a growing firestorm of criticism,” Brooke Crothers reports for CNET. “Foxconn is Apple’s go-to contract manufacturer for iPads and iPhones.”
“Speaking on Fox News, Trump said Cook should decree that its stuff be made in the U.S.,” Crothers reports. “‘Wouldn’t it be a great thing if the new leader of Apple said we’re going to start building plants in the United States,’ he said.”
Crothers reports, “Trump continued. ‘Maybe the incentive’s not there…but when 100 percent of Apple’s products–or virtually 100 percent–are made outside of this country, it’s pretty sad,’ he said… Trump thinks Apple should try anyway. ‘We can do great things in this country…wouldn’t it be great if Apple actually made these products in the United States.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: By SteveJack
Wouldn’t it be great if unicorns pranced the earth and shat out silver dollars? Not so sure how great it would be if iPhones cost $1000 and new models came out once every five years, because that’s about what you’d get if Apple tried to make iPhones in the U.S.A. There aren’t enough qualified people in the U.S. to oversee and ramp up production. Plus, the red tape and wage requirements would destroy Apple’s ability not only to compete on price, but to innovate apace.
Apple is responsible for multiple times more jobs than just those on their payroll: developers, accessory makers, resellers, tech media, etc. Real jobs. Not jobs that will be replaced by robots within a few years anyway.
This isn’t difficult, folks. As the late Steve Jobs said rather succinctly, those jobs are never coming back to the U.S. [UPDATE: 4:28pm EDT: Oh, by the way, most of your Apple iPhone and iPad was Made in the U.S.A..]
So, instead of wasting time on hopes and dreams and dead paradigms, why not get busy preparing for the future?
You want more jobs in the U.S.? Get the hell out of the way, make it as easy as possible for the risk-takers to do what they do best, do not punish or even remotely threaten to punish success, encourage real competition in education by breaking the teachers unions’ stifling grip on public education by providing vouchers, devote serious effort to grooming engineers and scientists, and stop wasting time on untenable fantasies emanating from parrots with bad haircuts.
Trump is now so publicity-addicted that he’s become a pawn led by the nose by yellow journalists.
SteveJack is a pen name used by a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and, when he feels like it, a contributor to both MacDailyNews Takes and the Opinion section.
Related articles:
BSR: New York Times’ Apple-Foxconn article contains untruths, inaccuracies, and misleading info – January 29, 2012
Most of your Apple iPhone and iPad was Made in the U.S.A. – February 1, 2012
Apple and the American economy – January 24, 2012
Apple, Steve Jobs, Obama, America and a squeezed middle class – January 21, 2012
How Rick Santorum would lure Apple to move assembly from China to Charleston – January 21, 2012
Apple’s real market value: How many U.S. jobs it creates – November 21, 2011
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Steve Jobs: America’s schools are dying – October 24, 2011
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Donald Trump says whatever will get him attention – no thinking required. Like those that tangentially mention Apple as link bait, Trump is simply putting his name in Apple’s halo for self-aggrandizement purposes.
So played.
Brooke, wouldn’t be great if you came out with a plan on how actually do that and not just a stupid dream?
If Americans cared about jobs and having everything made in the usa, they would not have embraced Walmart.
Yeah, that darned Walmart. Hiring unskilled people, providing cheaper products than their competitors so poor people can afford better things. They’re so evil.
That darned Wal-mart that comes in towns and takes out other businesses because it has a huge advantage at slashing prices. How they dictate how much an item should cost and not the person making the product? And as far as better things is concerned, they sell crappy products that break within a year and you have to buy a new one. And they dont slash prices on the things that are considered better anyway. How much is a Wii? how much is an ipad? how much is a Refrigerator? how much is a TV? Same price everywhere else. the only savings you get are in pencils, clothes, and Tupperware.
Just ask anybody in the (former) textile and clothing industry. Walmart destroyed both by sending jobs to china for printing(textiles) and assembly (clothing).
It’s not up to apple to fix the problems in the US, infrastructure, manufacturing base, regulations etc…
There is currently a campaign to bash apple over this issue – Apple’s immense financial power is causing significant fear on wall street and with the current power brokers because Apple does not play the wall street/political game. Apple is “doing their own thing” and this frightens the crap out of the existing power structure.
i believe Henry Ford created cars that his employees could buy and when Apple and other companies manufacture in China, they will create a class of people there that will also be able to afford iPhones. One only has to look back 60 years to the wages of Japanese who produced transistor radios to see how that played out.
It is great that the ‘west’ shows China how to produce modern equipment and that the west also brings with it its democratic philosophy. Communism will fall as a result of this outsourcing and the world will be better for it.
You are right!
We finally agree on something.
I won’t even bring up that saying about the broken clock.
American workers can’t keep there trap shut and are easily bribiable and local governments are out to rob the middle class. Look at long island in ny. Their is too much discrimnation and too few tech workers who will work for nothing because local governments and schools would robbing them after there paychecks issued followed by housing. The main issue to me is supplies or parts needed to make existing products don’t exist here, look what happen in Detriot with the non existence car industry. Got to get real about manafacturing here and where will these people live and survive. Good.luxk with that dream.
Another issue is a demonstrated absence of effective English teachers.
Apple is not responsible for moving virtually the entire manufacturing industry overseas. They are merely a convenient target. I’ll wager that Apple is hugely more conscientious than most other companies about working conditions in the overseas factories that make their products, but that’s not good enough for the critics. Screw ’em.
The manufacturing jobs in china are going to stay on china. Apart from getting to say “made in the USA” there is just not a good reason to move all of that work back here.
That said, I believe that additional capacity could be added here. Just as Foxconn recently opened a new plant in Brazil, I believe a few more manufacturing sites can be added in the US to complement Apple’s current facility in Elk Grove.
Trump’s contention that near 100% of manufacturing be brought here is ignorant. Adding capacity in the US, though, while difficult, is at least feasible.
Rex, you bring in Chinese Immigrants to work in America just to add additional capacity and all hell will break loose.
You know damn well Americans won’t work for free room and board and $400 pay per month.
Of course they won’t. My guess is the largely unskilled labor force would earn maybe $30,000 a year. That discrepancy in pay is one of the many reasons adding capacity here would be difficult, but not impossible. Bringing the established Chinese factories here, on the other hand, now that IS impossible.
First of all, if Apple were to bring back its assembly plants to the US, they would be filled with robots and only require a tiny fraction of people to run than the plants in China do, so I don’t see ANY benefit other than saying, “Assembled in USA”.
Most people blasting Apple over this issue are just looking for attention. This issue has existed a long time in China and other nations around the world. Funny how all this crap surfaced AFTER Apple published its 2011 Supplier Report.
Always loud
Seldom right
That pretty much sums up politics at both ends of the political spectrum.
So Donald, how much of the material that goes into the construction of your properties are of US origin?
Why don’t you start there and set an example for the rest of corporate America to follow?
Silly idea! Believing USA could product as fast and as much just by wishful thinking, is absolute non sense!
GO PLAY IN TRAFFIC.
How about Trump puts his money where his mouth is. Why doesn’t he personally finance the construction of the factories AND building all of the extensive supplier infrastructure that makes ANY electronic manufacturing possible! Then he could actually be famous for doing something rather then just flap his gums…
Of course Obama said basically the same thing?
It’s a popular talking point. It’s the apparent easy fix to solve the US economic problems. Apple magically bringing jobs back to the US. Obama and Trump love to mention it because it’s election year.
It’s obviously not going to happen. The amount of skilled workers, the regulations, unions, pensions……ugh, Apple prices would double or more. And no factories could be built for years……
I don’t see the point.
Cook to Trump:
“Wake the fsck up you half witted clown.”
I posted something like this before…
As a market experiment Apple could build special factories in each country and sell Special Edition devices from those domestic factories to local citizens. Then we will have to see how many people purchase locally made devices versus asian made products. Kind of like the RED product concept.
Never doubtful, often wrong.
America taught Capitalism to the world. Asia learnt and is now beating America. Now America regrets it? Don’t be a fair weather supporter!
There are as bad worker-conditions in parts of the USA as China. Bringing assembly jobs to the USA will mean more American suicides. Do you really want that?
Even to a non-business type like me, being aware of the various labor markets, Trump’s statement seems a bit naive.
So Apple has to design a product made entirely by robots the hire a US worker to switch them on and off each day – and Trump’s dream is realised
If you think that robots don’t require 24/7 personnel you have never been in the manufacturing sector. That’s like saying all there is to parenting is dropping kids off at daycare.
Remind me – How many times has The Donald sought bankruptsy protection for himself or one of his firms? I ran out of fingers. (That of course does not mean that he suffered, just his sucker creditors.) I am very happy the guy would not shake my hand – yuck. $600/ounce Brillcream.
name me an american contract manufacturer who could produce 45 million iPhones a quarter.
If anyone really has that big of a problem with products being manufactured outside of the states, stop b!tching about it and do something. No one forces you to buy Apple products, shop at Wal-Mart, or in any other way support these companies. They have the choice to manufacture wherever they want; you have the choice to not support them with your money. Stop assigning blame and take responsibilty. Our country isn’t in the sh!tter because of overseas manufacturing or greedy bankers on Wall Street but because of us, the citizens of this country. We funded the growth of companies that manufacture overseas, eliminating American jobs in the process, so that we could buy a cheaper set of lawn furniture. We elected the officials that created all of the corporate loopholes. We took the bankers money to refinance our 3rd investment home so that we could buy a flat screen T.V. and a new car or to buy any home we couldn’t afford. Yes, the greed of Wall Street is equally responsible, but it only struck the match. We supplied the fuel.
Is the system broken? Yes. Will it be easily fixed? No. Is attacking anyone with money the answer? No. A lot of people with money worked for it. If you are one of the jealous, lazy people that think it isn’t fair other people have more (probably through hard work) than you, then here’s a list of the communist countries you can move to: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Only 5? Yes. The other 196 have realized that only lazy people like communism. Is getting rid of million dollar bonuses the answer? Also no. America became great from rewarding good performance and new ideas with money. That’s called an incentive, and it works. The business definition of good performance does need to be modified from “taking on excessive risk for short run profits” to “ensuring long run profitability in a socially and morally acceptable way.” So what is the answer? The answer is to back up your words with actions. Support companies with values aligned with your own. Stop electing corrupt, incompetent puppets. You have no room to complain if you aren’t doing something to fix it.