Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune, “It came up during Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate when CNN host John King — a self-confessed Apple aficionado — put this question to the former Senator from Pennsylvania: ‘Let’s talk about something: Apple Computer [sic] is a breathtakingly important American company. It’s one of the most respected companies in the country. I carry Apple products to do my work every day. It employs about 500,000 people … in China. It is based in the United States. Has some employees here — about 46,000 — most of them in retail stores and at the headquarters. 500,000 of them are in China. As a President of the United States, what do you do about that?'”
MacDailyNews Take: How much of an Apple aficionado can you be if you can’t even get the company’s name right on a national TV broadcast? Apple Computer, Inc. became Apple Inc. over five years ago, on January 9th 2007.
“Santorum didn’t quibble — and we won’t either — about whether Apple’s U.S. headcount is 46,000 or 60,400, or whether the kids on Foxconn’s payroll are really Apple employees,” P.E.D. reports. “Instead. the candidate launched into an answer that tied together two of 2012’s hottest issues: unemployment and taxes. This, he told King, is the signal he’d send to Apple: ‘Apple, you have all those employees over there, you make all those profits over there. If you want to bring that money back, right now you pay a 35% tax. Under our plan, if you bring it back and invest it in plant and equipment here in Charleston – you pay nothing. You put that money to work, if you invest it, you pay nothing – it’s a powerful incentive.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tax repatriation, maybe, but even more than you don’t want an $1200 iPhone (after carrier subsidy), the U.S. doesn’t want those kinds of subsistence-level (or worse) assembly jobs. Today, in a global economy, where great wage disparities exist, those type of jobs generally cost more than they are worth as they simply don’t pay enough to allow people to live independently. You want the kind of jobs Apple has already proven to have created. Read more: Apple’s real market value: How many U.S. jobs it creates.
The biggest benefit to apple is that China is not a free society. All workers at Foxconn plants live on site. Under guard and lock 24/7. That’s why they are able to keep more information about what they are working on from slipping out. Imagine the flow of intel that would come out of a US plant. Unless Apple could duplicate what the conditions are in China it won’t work. The only way they could meet the needs would be to provide a college and living expenses and teach their own army of engineers and factory line workers and provide on site dormitories or such housing. With our economy the way it is, I bet it could be a great model. Kinda like doing military service. People would get a free education, a free place to live and modest pay of for use in the gated communities. This would lead to massive gains in employment. All benefits and employment cease upon any breach of NDA’s or other forms of ethical lapse. I. Believe many people would sign up day one. The working conditions would have to be pretty good though. I know that will never happen and for that reason they will NEVER bring those assembly jobs and engineers back to US. They could make a dent in employment and opportunities here by Franchising a suburban Apple store model. They could create small Apple boutiques that could do quite well in a much larger number of cities than the full blown Apple stores.
As Apple has dropped Computer from their name I think they need to extend a few new legs out. They should partner with car companies to replace the dashboard systems used in today’s cars..how about TVs…yeah I heard, but haven’t seen. Furniture, Clothes? Shoes? Macintosh work shoes and a pair of slip on iPads for the weekend.
It’s not Apple’s responsibility to provide any jobs here, but the fact is that the number of employees in the United States is the largest of any country that Apple employs people. Most of their Chinese work is done by Contract workers who work for Foxconn. If a US company felt they could compete with Foxconn here, I am sure they would have. Apple has no desire to own Foxconn. And that’s the way it is.
If I, as an American citizen, work overseas and hold out on my taxes the Feds will charge me with Income Tax evasion. If you are a corporate “person”, they will ask you and politically fellate you to repatriate the income an pay the taxes due as an ‘American’ company.
If that does not piss you off, nothing can.
Rick Santorum is fecal matter who should get out of politics and go to work for RIM, the homophobic, racist POS. Talk about “Road Kill..”
Everyone seems to be missing the point. Read this article first… (And the NY Times one that’s linked to in the article.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/you-simply-must-read-this-article-that-explains-why-apple-makes-iphones-in-china-and-why-the-us-is-screwed-2012-1