Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), who admits to owning an iPad, blames the Apple Inc. product for ‘eliminating thousands of American jobs,'” Real Clear Politics reports.
A few short weeks ago I came to the House floor after having purchased an iPad and said that I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time this new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs. Now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad and download your newspaper, download your book, download your magazine. – Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL, Chicago) from the House floor, Friday, April 15, 2011
RCP reports, “Ironically, it was only last month that Rep. Jackson was promoting the Apple iPad and Amazon on the House floor.”
Full article, with the video, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
. . . and the buggy and whip makers were pushed out of jobs because of the automobile; wire makers have been pushed out of jobs because of cell phones and wireless; radio makers saw a decrease of users because of TV; CRT makers lost jobs to flat screen makers; and on and on and on . . .
… and, I presume based on everyone’s sage comments here, the [insert-job-title-here] gets a job at the Apple Store? That’s what I call progress!
Actually, like all politicians, he was paid to say what he said. Guessing there was a big, fat “contribution” from both media retailers and print media providers coincident with the paid for performance. Nothing new to see here, nothing else going on. Print media didn’t die, it evolved; for the jobs caught in the middle, adapt or die.
This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard… There are more popular e-book readers for reading than the iPad… something called the Kindle…There’s also a lot more jobs lost from other technology apart from this… This Jesse Jackson Jr. is a nobody with a famous father, just trying to bring up an issue because his father’s spoon feeding him every political endeavor without having any REAL purpose for politics
Here we have the single most innovative and ‘progressive’ company in the USA and we care what this TechTard politician is moaning about? Where is this guy’s perspective?!
HEY JESSE! Go moan at The Corporate Oligarchy who are busily driving the USA into the next MEDIEVAL AGE! Leave the most conscientious and best job generating company in the USA the frack ALONE. Take a long stare into the psychopathic eyes of the REAL biznizz bozoids of the USA! Either that or STFU until you know what you’re talking about.
Great. A new term just for Jesse Jackson Jr:
PoliTechTard
You are the “tard”. Use your great internet skills and actually listen to his speech. Unlike you obviously, he is concerned that tech jobs are being sent overseas. He was not only speaking only about Apple but used it as an example of the entire industry. Try not to be so simplistic and insulting. The internet does have the ability to distort news by relying on out of context quotes and soundbites. It is up to readers to go to the source to get the whole story.
Dear anonymous coward @gkent:
Apple is NOT an example of the entire industry! Apple is an EXCEPTION to the entire industry, as is obvious to anyone with actual industry knowledge! That make YOU at TechTard! YES Jacson WAS simplistic! YES he WAS insulting because I know first-hand how screwed up biznizz is in the USA, and how comparatively screwed up Apple is NOT!
(I will caveat how incredibly detrimental it is for Apple to throw money at Red China, who in 2007 declared a “Cyber-War” against the USA and who consistently spend the money we send them to BUILD UP THEIR MILITARY!!!)
Meanwhile, YES I agree with you that it is extremely rare for people to read and watch source material. It’s called homework. The dummies of the world avoid it at all costs.
Did you see his speech or are you just regurgitating an out of context quote from another “teaparty” website? His speech was focused on the loss of jobs due to the outsourcing of tech jobs to other countries. He wants American companies to create jobs in the U.S. He is not against the iPad, he is against the high unemployment rate in the US and the loss of production to other countries. You may not support his ideas but at least report them accurately and intelligently.
Here’s an intelligent point and question:
Point: Capitalism demands the highest profit for the best product at the cheapest price. This means there is extremely high pressure on the US to LOWER WAGES. Otherwise manufacturing jobs go overseas.
Question: How do we bring manufacturing jobs (as part of overall production costs) back to the US without lowering wages?
Whatever the answer: NO WAY should the US be supporting Red China with ANY of our money. This is a sick disease of our era that is ALREADY biting US in the ass. Red China uses our own money to destroy US. Watch and learn kids.
Have fun at WalMart et al. Buying cheap these days = paying cheap overseas labor.
While you are right about the Walmart problem and Bubba’s choice of cheap over quality and local production, you are wrong that “Capitalism demands the highest profit for the best product at the cheapest price.” Capitalism is merely the the economic/political system based on private ownership. It’s capitalisme sauvagethat puts profit above every other consideration, and abhors any regulation or oversight. A true, rational capitalist recognizes lower profits can be a better long term strategy, and that there may be other goals that are just as — if not more — important in the long term.
“NO WAY should the US be supporting Red China with ANY of our money”
Uhh…..this is an Apple site. They make their money off cheap Chinese manufacturing.
“Question: How do we bring manufacturing jobs (as part of overall production costs) back to the US without lowering wages?”
Simple. Repeal the Corporate and Individual Income Tax Acts.
Borders closed all its UK stores before the iPad was introduced. Sounds like poor management.
Fewer physical books, magazines & newspapers = less paper = more trees. People ought to receive carbon credits for buying iPads. Lots of them.
Notice no-one here of any political stripe defends Jackson. With good reason. The man has a history of extorting “donations” from companies in exchange for not calling them racist or some other bad thing. This is not the first time he’s tried it with Apple and the company has shrugged as he carries out his threats.
It sounds like an opinion that could easily be changed with some lobby money.
headline and article are misleading and disingenuous. junior was promoting a radical technological shift in education and some idealistic equal rights of education, technology, in this case the ipad, is just the medium to delliver the idealistic goal. the impact on jobs is taken out of context. he is complaining that the congress has not focused on job creation (except jobs funded by the govt and tax dollars). he nailed that as well as any republican or tea bagger.
i’m closer to a tea bagger than a socialist, so i found his comments refreshing to some extent for a chicago democrat. then i realized that he is better than his dad in getting you to believe something that is going to hurt you will actually feel good. cum laude from NC A&T majoring is reality distortion.
the real agenda here, if you watch his video, is more govt investment in education. creation of more public sector jobs. this helps solve the high unemployment rate. the problem is this tactic is not sustainable unless you believe the private sector kicks in and relieves the govt. this is where you have to decide which side of the aisle you want to believe.
Jesse Jackson, Jr. and GW Bush are both living proof that stupidity can be inherited.
You’re just too clueless to understand he’s talking about the “technology” not “his” iPad.
I just wonder if you are too clueless to understand that, in that respect, he is correct.
It’s not like he was up there saying we need to protest against Apple for destroying American jobs. He used the iPad to make a point about an industry shift toward electronic reading that will result in a loss of American jobs while China benefits by producing the devices we’ll come to rely on for everyday needs.
Hell, a month ago he was lambasted after suggesting all students might someday benefit from having an iPad for schoolwork. MDN and RealClearPolitics.com would have us believe he’s now done a 180 with their misleading headlines that took his point completely out of context.
I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time the American labor movement, which is now probably responsible for eliminating millions of American jobs, will eventually disband, take those $10/hr jobs that are available and start America back on the road to prosperity.
Prosperity for whom? That $10/hr jobs brings in $18.4K per year. After taking out 10% (for taxes, retirement, health & life insurance, etc), and ($400 groceries, $800 rent, $100 car+insurance) per month, that leaves $80 “disposable income” for things like utilities, gas, clothes, laundry, TV. When the middle and lower middle class have no disposable income, they don’t purchase goods. Since our ‘prosperity’ is predicated on consumer purchasing, no one wins when the only jobs have salaries that low.
Meanwhile the typical CEO has had an average 27% raise over the past 2 years.
Both companies were hurting long before iPad. Amazon’s prices and convience had taken a serious bite out of their sales. The arrival of the Nook, Nook app for iPhone and iPad have actually given them back a fighting chance.
So glad to see MDN / Steve Jack got a story that would generate a gusher of hits / comments.
I don’t often agree with Communist like Jackson, but many companies like Apple out sourcing jobs to Communist countries does hurt people here in the USA.
Communist Jackson? No. Technology illiterate Jackson? Yes. Apple outsourcing manufacturing to the WRONG country? Yes. Red China are a dedicated enemy of the USA. We know it. We still buy their cheap labor made stuff. That’s OUR fault.
Communists, Progressive, Liberal, same thing, different label used by different people.
Here’s a bit of insight:
1) Publishing is NOT an industry hurt by electronic books. Publishing continues on as ever and benefits from LOWER PRICES for books thanks to cutting out the cost of printing.
2) PRINTING is an industry hurt by electronic books. Printing has been in decline for 3 decades because of computers in general.
3) Brick and mortar retail is an industry hurt by electronic books and electronic sales in general. That’s been going on since 1995 when the web went public.
4) The one retail, brick and mortar book store that continues on is the one that EMBRACED electronic publishing. They are Barnes and Noble. They created (with help) and sell an award winning electronic book reader: The Nook. Borders, much as I loved them, got into electronic books too late with cruddy reading devices.
5) Those publishing companies that do not embrace electronic publishing are the ones that suffer and disappear.
6) Printing = Paper = Trees = loss of carbon uptake on earth. Therefore, keeping the trees is a GOOD THING, not bad. The more carbon update on the planet, the less Greenhouse Effect (which is the source name of the phenomenon), AND the less reliance of foreign unrenewable energy sources. That’s one reason why we’ve been working to reduce paper use for the last 3 decades.
RIght — living trees are great!
Unfortunately, Barnes & Noble may not be doing as well as you think:
Mar 9, 2011: Shares in Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) have plummeted 37% since mid-February. Now it appears that no one is interested in acquiring BKS after the nation’s largest book seller put itself up for sale last year.
Last month, Barnes & Noble nuked its dividend in an effort to improve “financial flexibility” and make itself more attractive to a potential acquirer. Now Barnes & Noble investors are left with no dividend and no potential buyers. That leaves little to prop up its sagging stock price.
And also unfortunately, many of the college textbook publishers are pricing their texts too high. That electronic book with imbedded DRM can’t be resold. Students think they’re getting a bargain without realizing that the publishers are gleeful over killing the used book market.
FRACK DRM. I am wholeheartedly in favor of stripping DRM out of EVERYTHING. I consider DRM to be a criminal act on the part of companies. Therefore, if it doesn’t already exist, let’s create a simple utility for removing DRM from ALL ebook formats.
What is DRM good for? Destroying the reputation of the company that infects it into their products. DRM is a form of what I call Marketing Moron Disease. It treats customers as criminals. Full force retaliation by customers is required.
Marketing Mavens respect their customers and enhance the reputations and success of their companies. Marketing Mavens abhor DRM. Want a great example? TidBITS Publishing.
I wish all the political fanatics would leave and continue their debate elsewhere. Get a room!
And, of course, MDN continues to pour gasoline on the fire.
What- no Kardashian news today?….
Senator failed to mention one thing, iPad created tens of thousands of “jobs” for developers and writers alike who had no capital and publishers who would accept to publish their work by giving them essentially FREE publishing platform with almost 160 million potential customers across the globe, FREE Publishing by hosting their material for FREE. Someone might say, they get 30% cut, yes but AFTER you make money and AFTER they blessed your ass with free advertising and publishing and hosting that you could only dream of… In matter of fact Apple created FREEDOM from job and encouraged Entrepreneurship by giving someone the opportunity to start an app or ebook business and scale it up should he/she choose to and indirectly created millions of jobs. Look at the guys that created Angry Birds, they started out as 2 men company and they keep hiring employees, would any of this happen if it wasn’t for iPhone and iPad? I think NOT. Food for thought senator!
Four pages easy on this one. lol
We wouldn’t even have representatives in government to make statements like these if we didn’t allow taxation to take from those who succeed in order to give to the unsuccessful.
We end up with a system that rewards people to stick with status quo a d penalizes those who diligently innovate. We razed a generation who believe they are entitled to sit around, play video games, and party and the government ought to sustain it. How sad.
Will we as the United States ever stand up again and respect one another and honor true principles that allow people to dream and prosper instead of bringing enslavement and shackeling the spirit that founded the greatest nation ever?
Check your history books Rev Jackson. As a Chicago man you should know that in the 19th century Chicago changed America. The railroads heading West and South from Chicago filled orders for Sears & Roebuck who put hard working craftsmen out of work all across America. Instead of paying a local carpenter to make you some kitchen chairs, the Railroads brought Chicago made products for a fraction of the cost. Wal*Mart does it today. Its progress..