“Americans have become used to the fact that most of the jobs created by Apple are in China,” Clyde Prestowitz writes for CNN. “We know that Steve Jobs told President Barack Obama that ‘those jobs aren’t coming back.’ Recently, an executive at Apple said that the company has no obligation to solve America’s problems by moving some of those jobs back to the United States.”
“As a business, Apple has a right to fear that moving the assembly work from China to the United States will entail raising labor costs so high as to make the company less competitive and profitable,” Prestowitz writes. “But for it to say that it has no obligation to help solve America’s problems is completely unacceptable.”
Prestowitz writes, “Virtually every piece of technology in any Apple product had its origin or was partially developed on the basis of a U.S. government-funded program. In a global world where piracy of products is commonplace, Apple, like other multinationals, has continuously pressed the U.S. government to enforce copyright and patent laws to protect its intellectual property from international theft. Does Apple owe anything to Uncle Sugar? You betchum. Big time.”
“Skeptics are right to point out that moving the factory assembly operations to the United States is a nonstarter as long as we continue to have free trade with China. These kinds of jobs are labor-intensive, and the differential in the cost of labor between America and China is just too large. But this is not where the real value or the good jobs we want for Americans lies,” Prestowitz writes. “The assembly value in an iPhone is only about $7. The real treasure-trove is in the parts. For example, the displays, the processors, memory chips and other key electronic components comprise nearly half of the value of the iPhone. These components require intensive capital and technology investments, but they do not require a great amount of labor. In other words, they can all be produced in America.”
Read more in the full article here.
Clyde Prestowitz is the founder and president of Economic Strategy Institute. A former counselor to the commerce secretary in the Reagan administration, Prestowitz is the author of “The Betrayal of American Prosperity” and blogs about the global economy at Foreign Policy.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Related articles:
CNBC’s Santelli: Why doesn’t Obama go after Apple’s profits? – March 31, 2012
Economists weigh in on Apple’s U.S. job creation claims – March 5, 2012
514,000 U.S. jobs created thanks to Apple Inc. – March 2, 2012
Launched by Apple, ‘App Economy’ has created 466,000 jobs in the U.S. alone since 2008 – February 7, 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
iOS developer salaries skyrocket – November 9, 2011
How many U.S. jobs has Apple’s iPod created? – July 8, 2011
No, what’s unacceptable is someone guilty of foisting trickle-down economics on America dares says anything about duty to America, or to say anything in economic terms.
What a smug bozo.
Can anyone recommend a good Apple tech blOg?
Get lost!
Profound and quick-witted comeback!
Yours sure wasn’t. Eff-ing-IDIOT!
Could anyone recommend a good Apple tech blog?
Apple has NOT to undo the stupid war debts republicans have piled upon the peoples backs!!!!
Obama runs annual deficits bigger than the total war debt.
That is, Obama spends more money (that we don’t have) per year than we spent on the whole entire Iraq war.
Oh, and how is Obama’s “good war” in Afghanistan doing? He is losing it. And more Americans have died in Afghanistan under Obama than any other president.
Here’s another fact for you Democrats: Democratic Congresses funded the war longer than Republican Congresses.
You are so clueless, Foul-Muck it’s sad.
This just irritates me to hell. Clyde, you reaped what you have sown. He was one of the architects of the dumbing down of America, the huge arms build-up where kids in the eighties learned that muscle, not brains, was the future AND when the Global Village was born, meaning it made no difference where things were made, the only thing that counts is profit. Tim Cook is an expert student in the whole anti-union, trade deficits are great, tax credits for putting jobs out of the country. Make it more expensive to produce outside Anerica than inside America and Apple will create jobs here. Take MTV and FoxNews off cable and kids will become engineers not idiots watching the boob tube all day. Clyde, go to hell for complaining about what you helped build.
Michael Commie,
You’ve bee Brainwashed very well. Keep spewing commie talking points and get back to Rachel Madcow at PMSNBC. Your other hero Keith Overbite just got fired by the way!
Where was this guy when Apple was in the shitter circling the bowl? Dud they not owe Apple something then?
So a dumb fucking Republican spouts off and says some dumb Republican things about Apple and this prompts attacks on Democrats and Liberals by the Condumbs? The Condumbs ability to screw up the country has no limits.
The funny thing is this person is a liberal. So that’s what you commies think of yourselves…..
Telling.
What’s the difference between a Republican and a puss blister?
Nothing!
What’s the difference between a Democrat and a bag of shit.
The BAG!
Surely most of those items are made by other companies who decide where they design and produce those items. One moment Apple is criticised for trying to produce/control more of its product contents then it is criticised for not building those contents in the US when it doesn’t actually control most of it. Meanwhile t is sued for using those items for patents that the originator of those items has already paid a fee for that patent, not to mention the patent trolls. The problems of western economies may well lie right there rather than forcing a beacon to other western companies to make themselves less competitive in a world economy where sharks circle endlessly whereupon all the jobs will go. You can hardly blame a company that once nearly succumbed to these factors being just a little conscious of avoiding the very actions that could do it again. The US needs more companies like Apple not set upon milking them.
If America wants to know why its country is in such a mess, just read the above and glean the attitude of its people.
At least you said where your from you Marxist!
Last I looked china buys a ton of apple products also so they are helping their compatriots’ employment. With the bulk of profits sitting as foreign cash profits for apple waiting to repatriot back to the US. When it is brought back it will be a mini Stimulus package.
The million or so employees in china only generate about half or less the GDP as the 500k employees conservatively paid.
?? Governments all over the world have supported Microsoft with billions and billions of money and singled Apple out of everything and now Apple should help the government/s??
*sensored content*
All of these predictable and terrible jokes about liberals and, yet, the article is about a former Reagan staffer! Life must look very good when you cannot see beyond the tip of your own nose…
Like even MDN says, this guy was a Reagan staffer, whose counsel was trusted by Reagan.
But just see all the comments about how this guy’s turned traitor, gone liberal, blahblahblah. Reagan would be labeled a RINO (Republican in name only) by today’s Republicans and so-called conservatives.
Wrong dick weed!
You are a communist. And Brain dead. And a Lemming!
KingHellCommie,
Here’s a quarter, go call someone who gives a crap about your liberal talking points.
“Virtually every piece of technology in any Apple product had its origin or was partially developed on the basis of a U.S. government-funded program.”
I call B.S. on this claim. CNN is inventing more “facts.”
Start with DARPA, particularly that agency’s funding of Arpanet, and work forward. The entire Internet revolution came out of early work to allow remote mainframe computers to ‘talk’ to one another.
So instead of placing all of the onus (and blame) on Apple, why won’t the government make a sweeter pie for our corporations? Surely they’re not afraid to compete in the world theater….
Obummer has no clue …
HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:
1) You start a company in the USA that contracts out its work to other companies.
2) You break the minimum wage laws in the USA in order to fit the Slave Wage Labor paradigm that runs the ‘New World Order’ economy.
3) You bring in illegal aliens willing to work for that wage.
Sound familiar so far?
4) You give Apple a bid to manufacture their designed products and required components at a price and quality that rivals Foxconn, etc.
5) US customers accept the resulting price and quality of Apple products and buy them in droves, just as occurs now.
That could happen! (o_0)
So much for that stupid subject.
Meanwhile, I’m unaware of a more altruistic and ethically responsible corporation in the USA than Apple. If Apple want to further their altruistic contributions to society, then good on them!
Also meanwhile, I can come up with a list of 499 LESS responsible companies in the USA right out of the S&P 500 list. Maybe radical left loony dumdums like this guy should pick on THEM instead, OR figure out how to get US customers to pay an order of magnitude (or so) MORE for their products. That could happen! (o_0)
Hey wait a minute! This guy worked for REAGAN?!
Dummies on the LEFT! Dummies on the RIGHT! Dummies in the MIDDLE! Same old Shite. A brain is a terrible thing to waste.
And a huge Dummie right above. At least on common sense. Seem to be smart in other areas.
Conservatism Dereck, just repeat that over and over again in your confused brain.
Hey! It’s my own personal Stalker! Where have you been for the last few days? Spring cleaning your cave? Love the new fake nick! It lends a new air of stupidity to your anonymous coward comment of the day.
Now which kind of ‘Conservative’ are you Stalker? Are you:
1) A REAL Conservative (now called ‘RINOs’)
2) A Neo-Conservative (rightly named “The Crazies” by Ronald Reagan)
3) A Tea Party Conservative (sadly reduced to being the ‘Tard Party’)
4) A Libertarian (who tend to be various shades of anarchists).
Hmm?
Apple has as much “obligation” to “help fix america’s problems” as the people running the show (behind the curtain) have an obligation to keep F***ing things up! You want jobs in america? stop harbouring an attitude of “I’m above that!” when a job is presented. if a job needs to be done, do it and do it well!
“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
He was (is) a great man and he is one of yours!
Great point!!!!!!!!
is it not odd how every competitor & the gov. cries foul over Apple yet all the major manufacturers are guilty of the same?! hypocrisy!!
all outsource. all minimize not avoid taxes.
why does no one see the problem for what it is, instead of shouting patriotic crap when the true patriot is Apple, since they are the only company loved outside our nation as a america as a good symbol or innovation, entrepreneurial ship etc.
why do our best to break Apple when it gives more joy to more people in or out of america than any other firm?!
why shit on Apple if no one else does it better, they just cry & shout, but never respect consumers as much as apple?
why blame Apple when it is our gov. that screws Small or Big Business through so much fear & control freakishness, that they kill freedom, enterprise, innovation – no matter what their excuse is.
our gov. should have tax incentives if they wish to keep jobs in the nation.
stop blaming scapegoats – it seems only Apple has the burden to solve everyone’s problems. look inside yourselves. change something but stop blaming Apple. if you’re all so smart & know better than Apple, why are you still poor & insignificant, unlike Apple who knows what they’re doing?!
what will solve our economic strife & cultural decadence, is that we start to think, think different. move our asses vs remain lazy. outsourcing took over because of our arrogance, “chosen people” mentality, thinking we’re too cool, too hot, too good, too smart, too hard-working etc. b.s. the rest of the world overtook us!