“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.
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