“During his speech last night President Obama made an unplanned reference to Steve Jobs, which is weird because the two didn’t have the best relationship, nor was Jobs that categorically great for America,” Rebecca Greenfield writes for The Atlantic Wire. “Originally, Obama was supposed to mention Google, but instead inserted the Apple icon’s name into the following line: ‘We believe that a little girl who’s offered an escape from poverty by a great teacher or a grant for college could become the next Steve Jobs,’ he said. Not only did Obama snub Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, but he chose to insert a man who once said to the president’s face that he was ‘headed for a one-term presidency,’ according to Walter Issacson’s Steve Jobs biography. Even so, his choice makes total sense.”
“Obama has used Jobs to exemplify the American dream before. During last year’s State of the Union Address, Obama dropped Jobs into his speech as such: ‘You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country. That … means we should support everyone who’s willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs,’ he said, with Jobs’ wife Laurene Powell Jobs sitting as a guest of honor right next to Michelle Obama,” Greenfield writes. “As we noted back then, however, Jobs as a symbol of the American dream presents a lot of contradictions. Yes, he came up from nothing to build the now most valuable company of all time. But the company itself isn’t very patriotic. Contrary to what it claims, it hasn’t done very well at creating U.S. jobs, and much of its product manufacturing happens in less than stellar factories in China… Despite that, Obama chose Jobs over ‘the founders of Google’ because his name resonates with us more.”
Greenfield writes, “Jobs means more to more people, which makes him the perfect name to get people’s attention. That’s also why Republican nominee Mitt Romney stuck him into his acceptance speech last week with the following lines: ‘Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It is about dreams. Usually, it doesn’t work out exactly as you might have imagined. Steve Jobs was fired at Apple. He came back and changed the world,’ he said. The specifics of Jobs’ politics don’t matter. He signals success, the all-American way.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, God, not this again. Of course, Jobs was great for America. As for the U.S jobs that Apple has created:
It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.
To thrive, companies argue they need to move work where it can generate enough profits to keep paying for innovation. Doing otherwise risks losing even more American jobs over time, as evidenced by the legions of once-proud domestic manufacturers — including G.M. and others — that have shrunk as nimble competitors have emerged. – Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, The New York Times, January 21, 2012
A study by Analysis Group found that Apple has directly or indirectly created 304,000 U.S. jobs. These jobs — spread across all 50 states — include thousands of jobs in numerous industries, from the people who create components for our products to the people who build the planes and trucks that carry them to our customers. For example, this figure also includes workers in Texas who manufacture processors for iOS products, Corning employees in Kentucky and New York who create the majority of the glass for iPhone, and FedEx and UPS employees. Together with the 210,000 iOS jobs generated by the app economy, these 304,000 jobs make a total of 514,000 U.S. jobs created or supported by Apple.
Related articles:
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
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
Meanwhile in Romney’s speech, Steve Jobs got the same number of mentions as our troops serving overseas: zero.
Incorrect. Romney mentioned Steve Jobs and the military in his RNC speech.
Transcript: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/30/transcript-mitt-romney-speech-at-rnc/
Commies, the entire lot of the Maobama regime. Can’t wait for them to get voted out and stop the assault on the US, Freedom, Private Property, Happiness, the right to bear arms, Capitalism, the Constitution, Freedom of Thought, and more.
These people ooze failure.
I am not an Obama fan. I did not vote for him in 2008, and won’t in 2012 either. But you’re completely off base with the 2nd amendment stuff. In fact, one of the first bills Obama signed after taking office was expanding concealed carry rights to national parks.
Yes, you probably have a point when referring to Democrats as a whole, but Obama hasn’t been the anti-gun person everyone thought he would be. Give credit where credit is due.
Just because the obamination has not done anything directly against the 2nd A yet, does not mean he is not anti-gun.
He appointed an anti-gun AG, and anti-gun dir of the ATF and two-anti gun Judges on the Supreme Court that will will have to suffer with for the next 3-4 decades. Wake up get your head out of your ass
Interestingly, the Constiuttion does not actually say that every halfwit with a pulse has a right to be armed.
Actually, it does.
Really? Then why don’t criminals and people deemed “insane” have the right to carry a firearm?
Second Amendment:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
This doesn’t say what arms shall be allowed, only that people have the right to have them.
And that they will be well regulated.
The 2nd Amendment doesn’t say which weapons or which people. We’ve decided through years of litigation and legislation that certain people don’t qualify, but that’s not in the 2nd Amendment.
And “regulated” in the vernacular of the time that the 2nd Amendment was written meant “trained”. But the explanatory clauses are beside the point. It could read “The moon being made of green cheese…” and it would not affect the meaning of the main clause.
But DemoTards only want criminals to be armed and law abiding citizens to be unable to defend themselves….
Talk about Crazy.
LOL! you’re silly.
I always forget…is it a right to bear arms or a right to arm bears?
; )
IT’S FRIDAY!!!
I agree with David, and I also hear that Maobama is against puppies and doesn’t like ice cream, and it’s just a matter of time before Maobama forces all puppies to be euthanized and passes a law against ice cream being sold in America. WAKE UP YOU COMMIE, SOCIALIST, FASCIST, RACIST, IGNORANT, NAZI, ANTI-FREEDOM, SATANIC, LIBTARDS. WERE HEADED TOWARD A MILLION YEARS OF DARKNESS IF NOBAMA IS RE-ELECTED!!! IF YOU VOTE FOR NOBAMA, YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE VOTING FOR SATAN HIMSELF!!!! WAKE UP!!!
At Crazy,
You got the second part of your lame rant right. The US is done if the Maobama continues on it’s all out assault.
Vote Conservative in November to end this Communist nightmare.
Whao! You are really delusional!
Yes by all means, let the next gilded age begin. FOOL…
The only reason America MIGHT be headed into “darkness” is because of all you sad, scared (read: terrified) little bigots…
Once he is in for the second term, all bets are off. Smith and Wesson’s earnings today are a good sign that the gun lovers are worried. If Dems gets control of both houses, disarmament will begin. Obama has probably never owned or shot a gun.
he’s working to get rid of our nukes also. The only thermonuclear potential left is Apple’s war against Android.
Liberals are RACISTS!
Takes one to know one n’yah n’yah
Grow up.
Why are the libTards banning overseas US military from voting?
Why??????
Because they are not in the USA…
No.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/romney-says-obama-lawsuit-blocks-ohio-military-voters/
Is there anything you aren’t scared of? Get a grip.
We need nukes about as much as we need to still be in Afghanistan and Iraq.
BTW your fear masters have been telling you for two decades about how democrats are coming for your guns, funny thing is it has never happened.
Sure raised a lot of money for the NRA, gun manufacturers, and got you tea baggers panties all in a bunch.
Go rant to some empty chairs nutcase..
Oh, great idea. Let’s get rid of all of our nukes and I’m sure all of our enemies around the world will like us and leave us alone then…..
You are out of what little freaking mind you have.
You honestly believe we need 2,600 nuclear weapons to be safe? Did it stop Al Qaeda from attacking us and did we use them in any war since WWII? You need to think a little more about your argument. We don’t need nuclear weapons, we have so many other great technologies that won’t create long term damage.
The Assault Weapon ban passed under Clinton.
In addition, other DEM proposals included limiting handgun purchases to one a month and increasing taxes on ammunition 300% and higher.
Arabian proverb: “If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.”
@Willard….Regime, that’s funny. You got that one from Sean.
So if the Dems are “Commie” What would you call the corporations that have fired all their American workers, and set up shop in Communist China?
They had to go to China because trying to get anything done in the US is a nightmare with all of the commie rules and regulations and union nightmares!!!!!!
Get the government the hell out of the way and jobs will come back. The unions are out of control and are parasites. You won’t see many jobs happening here because of these reasons.
delusional…
Yes libTards are beyond delusional!!!!!
Occupy a Shower you losers…….
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/316111/thought-police-patrol-conventions-radio-row-john-fund
Thought Police Patrol Convention’s Radio Row
American businesses flee to communist China to escape communist rules?
Uh… Yeah. Could you do the gene-pool a little favour and never breed, Manny?
I’m calling you out on this simpleton pretzel logic your GOP masters have brainwashed you with.
Name 10 regulations that force companies to go overseas?
DO IT, not one of you tea-bagging mental midgets can do it, all you do is parrot GOP talking points like they are true and as if you had half a clue. Do you ever research these idiotic claims?
You have something against clean air and water? You have a problem with living wages? Worker safety is a bad thing? You really want to return to the victorian era? You are either filthy rich or ignorant.
I’m calling you out on this simpleton pretzel logic your DEM masters have brainwashed you with.
Independents think for themselves …
Manny, I can understand if your a business owner, that those rules and regulations must be frustrating. After all, (and unlike China) having to pay your employees a decent wage and being forced to treat them with respect, and having to make sure that your company and products aren’t poisoning your customers or the environment would definitely cut into profits.
If your just an employee at a company or a customer of other companies, then those rules and regulations are actually protecting you! Why in God’s name would you vote against them?!?!
So, yeah, if your a large business owner and/or rich, and don’t give a shit about anything or anyone around you, then, yeah, voting democratic is probably against your interests. If your an employee of a company and not rich, then your just shooting yourself in the foot by voting Republican since they make it clear that they’re against your interests.
Here’s the thing, rules and regulations wouldn’t be necessary if companies policed themselves, which they don’t… And Unions wouldn’t have needed to organize if employees were paid well and treated with respect in the first place. Kind of like, there wouldn’t need to be a law against stealing if nobody stole.
Oh! and what you said, “They had to go to China because trying to get anything done in the US is a nightmare with all of the commie rules and regulations and union nightmares!!!!!!” That’s a very ironic statement, and it says a lot about right-wing thinking, being the fact that the country you seem to be defending, China, IS ACTUALLY A COMMUNIST COUNTRY!!!! But, what do I know, I’m just a stupid Libtard, right?
@Really?:
Suggest you read MDN’s comprehensive take why Apple set up shop in China.
Politicize all you want. Looks like a pragmatic business decision (nimble labor) to me.
Decent wage is a relative term. For the Chinese middle class, working for Foxconn is akin to working for GM or Betlehem Steel, etc. in the gold standard heyday of American manufacturing.
@Coal Cracker
China has it’s sharer of Billionaires, so don’t give me this BS about working for foxconn @ $17 a day is like working for GM,.However, They’re being exploited because if they don’t take the job, someone else will.
@Artist:
Suggest you read MDN’s comprehensive take why Apple set up shop in China.
We see it differently, @Artist.
http://micgadget.com/28247/thousands-queue-for-foxconn-summer-jobs-ahead-of-possible-ipad-mini-production/
Thousands being exploited every day. Yeah, right.
MDN, please hire a comment moderator. The sort of stuff that gets posted here is ridiculous.
I’m sure all comments are carefully moderated.
If I interpreted correctly, sorry to hear your uncomfortable with free speech.
You know what they say, if you can’t handle the heat time to get out of the kitchen.
C’mon, you can handle it — your voice is important. It’s all good.
Oh good grief. There’s a word that starts with “G” that you should be aware of.
and just because Fox News reports it, it must be true. 😉
As F10T12 stated below:
Romney did mention Steve Jobs in his RNC acceptance speech:
Read the last paragraph MDN quoted from Greenfield above.
Here’s the video:
http://www.politico.com/multimedia/video/2012/08/romney-references-steve-jobs-in-rnc-speech.html
Wow! Talk about knowing how to make a point.Damn you’re spot on.
And since Obama paid homage to Steve Jobs and Romney didn’t, perhaps MDN can return the favor by abandoning conservativism in favor of something more liberal. 🙂
Perish the thought. Both parties suck. A few flowery speeches aimed to manipulate and distract and people swoon while the house is burning down. Amazing how foolish too many Americans are, and far too trusting. I’ve worked for Dem politicians and believe me be scared, be very scared. And for some reason only stupid Dem politicians get caught like a doe in the headlights with their stiffy private parts OUTSIDE their pants.
… “it’s true”. Our only option is to try to figure out which sucks worse, then work against them. As a moderate, a centrist, I find myself to the left of Obama and not even on the same map as Rmoney or Rain. As a Christian I find I must choose between those who say they don’t care and those who claim they care very much while they act in ways very much contrary to my beliefs. The greatest enemy of the NoPublicans is a dark-skinned man who spoke Aramaic and wanted people to share all they had, help all that needed it, and be productive. To them, this is unacceptable, socialist, communist, even. He must have been a Librul Fscktard! Then they quote from the OT (years? decades? centuries? before Christ was born to prove a) Gay is Evil, b) Women must be Subordinate, c)the Rich deserve Even More.
Seriously?
+1000
No, actually, they have their own version of Jesus…
http://yt.cl.nr/AK7gI5lMB7M
… “point”, please. It seems that the Dems, who are generally not openly opposed to homosexuality, are caught in heterosexual dalliances. Their brothers from across the aisles, who preach against the sins of homosexuality, are more often caught in homosexual dalliances. Is it the dalliance that is more offensive? Or the lies and hypocrisy?
2011
In Wisconsin, Republican state Senator Randy Hopper, while claiming to still live with his wife, was actually living outside the district he represents with a much younger 25-year-old mistress. In early 2011, the mistress was hired by a conservative lobbyist firm and given a state employee’s job at rate of pay much higher than the previous person doing the job.
2010
Roy Ashburn, the conservative Republican California state senator, who was arrested in March of 2010 for drunk driving after reportedly leaving a gay bar, has acknowledged that he is gay. Ashburn, a divorced father of four, has repeatedly voted in opposition to gay rights, and in 2005 hosted a rally in favor of “traditional marriage.” He has voted against expanding anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation, recognizing out-of-state gay marriages and establishing a day honoring gay lawmaker Harvey Milk.
2009
Mike Duvall, a Republican politician and a former member of the California State Assembly, resigned after his sex comments were broadcast in Sept. 2009. In the video, the married family-values crusader from Yorba Linda talks in graphic detail about women he said he slept with — at least one of whom appeared to be a lobbyist with business before the utilities committee on which Duvall sat as vice chairman.
Paul Stanley, Republican former member of the Tennessee Sen., resigned from the state Senate effective Aug. 10, after his affair with a 22-year-old intern and a subsequent extortion attempt was revealed to the public.
Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, disappears during Father’s Day weekend, returning to confess an extramarital affair in Argentina.
John Ensign, Senator from Nevada, refuses to resign after confessing to an extramarital affair with a married staffer, claiming she was trying to extort him.[16] Later, it was learned he was attempting to pay her and her husband off through his parents and finding them jobs
Alan David Berlin, He is an aide for Senator Jane Orie of Pennsylvania. He is also a furry who contacted a fifteen year old boy over the internet, and offered to “yiff” the boy in a panda outfit, while his parents weren’t home. The parents discovered the graphic emails on the boy’s computer and called the attorney general’s child predator unit sometime in May. Police raided his home and discovered various furry outfits such as a wolf costume, as well as a cat outfit; all complete with two holes cut out at the undersides of the costumes. He is now arraigned in Dauphin County jail on a $250,000 bail.
Shall I continue? This could go on for days there are so many of your “faith and values” GOP pigs caught doing seedy things. Any more claimchowder you would like me to debunk for you?
@Truth:
Great roundup of GOP sexual strays!
Fingers crossed you follow up with the same detail regarding DEM sexual strays.
Tall order and where do you begin? You have decades to choose from and may take more than a few days.
Fair balance is my point.
Like a typical Lib, you lie. Even when the facts are right in front of your face (see the last paragraph MDN quoted from Greenfield above).
Here’s the video:
http://www.politico.com/multimedia/video/2012/08/romney-references-steve-jobs-in-rnc-speech.html
You must not have watched Romney’s speech. I recall Romney mentioning Steve Jobs and American troops serving over seas.
@Eric obviously missed it.
You always comment based on your assumptions don’t you.
Pretty much undermines everything you post.
But Google on the other hand, the company which had a mole at Apple while Apple was inventing the iPhone and its software, now that’s a patriotic company. Google’s thievery has made possible the ascendancy of SamBung, you know, that Korean electronics manufacturer, the one that employs so many of us Americans.
It COULD be because of the current management for Apple (and their lifestyles) and their views on the political situations around the world – and that Mr. Global Warming himself is STILL on the Board of Directors – Al Gore.
Or that the POTUS just likes Apple products!
Who cares if a politically motivated individual mentions or does not mention certain companies?
As far as the POTUS is concerned, it didn’t help Solyndra now did it, when he mentioned THEM earlier in his campaign. Most companies and individuals he has mentioned have consistently ‘died on the vine’ shortly thereafter. Why hex Apple?
You lost me at the part where “each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea” and then started a 12 hour shift on a short night of sleep.
Just look at Apple retail, design, engineering, marketing, and app production. Isn’t that a lot of jobs where none has existed before? Aren’t we talking billions of dollars on an annual basis? Just on apps alone, hasn’t Apple has handed over a billion over to developers. What about accessory makers? I’m sure iPad and iPhone screen protrotector manufacturing and headphone manufacturing have increase the US economy. We may not get all of the mfr jobs, but the table scraps (if you want to call them that) are more than sufficient.
Exactly. Then there’s people like me. I’m self employed but my work is inextricably tied to Apple. On occasion I hire other people to assist. None of that gets counted and there’s lots of folks like me out there. How many large consulting firms, Mom and pop Apple stores out there are there?
Apple has MORE US based employees than Google has worldwide.
APple has about 50K US based employees.
Google has 30K total employees.
Did he mention he loathes capitalists and wants to tax successful companies and rich people to oblivion? Did he mention that Steve said he will be a one-term president? Our most precious visionary is rolling over in his grave! Shame has no limit in the Obama administration! None!
Steve Jobs basically told Obama he’s a loser. He told Obama and others that Obama would be a one term President if he didn’t learn to be more business friendly.
When he met with Obama he “didn’t hold back.”
“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” Jobs told Obama at the outset. To prevent that he said, the administration needed to be a lot more business friendly. He described how easy it was to build a factory in China, and said that it was almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs.”
Jobs also attacked America’s education system saying that it was hopelessly antiquated and CRIPPLED BY UNION WORK RULES. Until the teacher’s unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform. Teachers should be treated as professionals, he said, not as industrial assembly-line workers. (Meaning they should be judged upon merit obviously and hired and FIRED accordingly).
The section of the book goes on to talk about how Jobs was offended during the famous dinner at the White House because it was unnecessarily ornate.
Jobs, notwithstanding how he personally felt about Obama, wanted to support the President because ultimately, Jobs was still a staunch liberal.
It’s cognitive dissonance when you think about it. On the one hand when he’d tell Obama what was wrong with him, he sounded like a typical business oriented conservative, however the child of the 60s would not let him abandon the President. He offered to put together an ad campaign based on (of all things) a Ronald Reagan ad campaign that was positive about America.
The President would continue to disappoint Steve though.
During the famous dinner, Jobs said to the Obama’s right hand woman Valerie Jarrett, “We should be talking about what’s important to the country. Why is he just talking about what’s good for him?”
Doesn’t that just sum up Barry Obama in a nutshell?
Ultimately he told Isaacson he was unimpressed and disappointed with Obama.
So many Democrats that I meet think they are supposed to be Democrats. Then we go issue by issue and they find out what NM Governor Susanna Martinez discovered:
“I’ll be damned. We’re Republicans.”
I fear some of our leaders today have lost the courage to stand up. What we have now are politicians. They won’t offer real plans, and only stand up when they want to blame someone else.
And I don’t say that just because a Democrat is in the White House, I was a Democrat for many years, so were my parents.
Before I ran for district attorney, two Republicans invited my husband and me to lunch, and I knew a party switch was exactly what they wanted. So, I told Chuck, “We’ll be polite, enjoy a free lunch, and then say good-bye.” But we talked about issues — they never used the words Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. We talked about many issues, like welfare, is it the way of life or hand up? Talked about size of government, how much should it tax families and small businesses? And when we left that lunch, we got in the car and I looked over at Chuck and said, “I’ll be damned. We’re Republicans.”
And why is this so? Because in the counter-culture 60’s, being a Liberal meant exactly opposite what it does today.
Liberals used to be for freedom, less government (in fact: anti-government), etc.
Somewhere along the way, the Democrats sold out to special interest groups and became all about government. How big can we make it, how much can we take to redistribute to our voting blocs, etc.
The left-leaning media doesn’t help matters – we’re constantly told, outright or implied, that Democrats are good and Republicans are bad.
That’s why there are so many confused Democrats. Most Democrats don’t boo God or hate Israel. In fact, when you discuss issue by issue with them, you find that most Democrats are really more Republican than they are current day Democrats.
IMHO this is one of smartest comments posted on this thread.
Working in D.C. for decades my company afforded us motivational guest speakers of all political stripes. Name withheld, the speaker that struck me the most talked about modern day politics. Something along the lines of Liberals are THE most intolerant people in this day and age.
@Superior Being mentioned left-leaning media and DEM sellouts to special interest groups.
True. Agree, good DEMS are confused.
To do the right thing by our country you shouldn’t belong to either party. It keeps the best and balanced solutions from being put into practice. Parties and their one sided agenda’s suck.
There are basic tenets that can be good cause for party affiliation:
Do you believe in smaller government or big government?
Do you believe in the nanny state or in personal freedom?
Do you think working from January 1, 2012 until April 17, 2012 before you began to clear YOUR OWN MONEY this year means that you’ve paid enough taxes to support a bloated, wasteful mess or do you still want to pay more for nothing?
Etc.
You named two…. where are the so many? Have a link to a two or three studies saying that this is a trend?
GD right Steve! Politicians are in it for themselves, not the country. Both parties are clueless. So glad he called BO on the carpet like no one else would, or was brave enough to. Jobs saw POTUS as just a guy doing that job instead of an infallible god that most do who go weak in the knees upon meeting him. Jobs saw through all the pretentious bullshit and told it like it is. What our leaders don’t want to hear are precisely the things they should. Only makes me respect Steve Jobs more and Obama less.
You can easily build a factory in the USA. You can easily overcome every supposed hurdle that stands in your way. You can easily circumvent labor unions if that’s your fancy.
What you can’t circumvent is that the Chinese, with their vast and plentiful human resources can pay their workers approximately $11.00/day because the abundant cheap labor supply is typical of a rapidly industrializing society. There is no Chinese mojo or secret sauce. America became an industrial powerhouse because of cheap labor.
The rest of this is all bull.
Steve Jobs had nothing to contribute to the state of the US economy. Neither does Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan or Mr. Obama.
Capitalism is the most dehumanizing economic system.
This is the only sane comment on this board… can’t believe I waded through the rest of this minefield.
I spend more than $11 on my two hour (round trip) commute to work every day. I’ve also participated in environmental cleanup of areas scarred and abused by industry.
I cannot for the life of me understand these ignorant arguments that it is all regulations and unions killing America.
NO, NO it isn’t! it is corporate GREED. IF companies can doll out hundreds of millions in bonuses to already very highly paid people. They can damn well afford to pay the people who make the crap they peddle a decent wage, and they can manufacture in an environmentally friendly way. We already have the lowest EFFECTIVE corporate tax rates in the country. It is all BS, and as usual the middle and lower class feels the burden and results of this madness.
@tbone:
“Steve Jobs had nothing to contribute to the state of the US economy.”
It is what it is.
“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” Jobs told Obama
–Its amazing how you communist republican extremists like to cling onto this one quote as though it were you favorite porn. NOT A SINGLE ONE OF US KNOW THE CONTEXT IN WHICH STEVE SAID THIS.
“Communist republican extremists”
Mike, republicans can be extremists but there is no way they can be communist.
By definition, Republicans can be fascists, but only Democrats can be communists.
I don’t think Americans want China as a model. Yes, you can be like China but that model this also comes with low wages, high cost of living, overbearing governmental control, and environmental harm. Some people with extreme ideology label Obama as a socialist but isn’t that what China is?
Steve Jobs was also not very consistent and often changed his mind. No one knows what Steve Jobs was thinking and in dealing with Obama, it wasn’t always Obama he was referring to and rather some of his advisors.
“The section of the book goes on to talk about how Jobs was offended during the famous dinner at the White House because it was unnecessarily ornate.” Really?
Thelonious Mac,
I have to admit that you are one of the few posters that I really enjoy reading. I look forward to your future posts.
I felt compelled to register in order to dispel a blatant lie posted by you. Page 546 Line 3 actually says ” Chamber, for example, pushed a proposal for a repatriation tax holiday…The President was ANNOYED, and so was Zuckerburg, WHO turned to Valerie Jarrett, sitting on his right, and whispered, “We should be talking about what’s important to the country. Why is he just talking about what’s good for him?” . I understand that you don’t like the man, but, WHY LIE ??
Maybe it is because Laureen Powell Jobs was present at the DNC, and may have given huge to Obama’s re-election fund.
LPJ is doing as her husband would probably want. Like I said, there’s some serious cognitive dissonance there. Steve talked like and ran his company like the consummate conservative business person, but he never let go of the liberal side of his upbringing. In the movie “Steve Jobs: The Last Interview” (which I highly recommend) he talks about being a hippy and what that means to him.
He is a fascinating study in the two different mindsets being trapped in one man. To make Apple thrive, to create jobs, to create wealth, he went conservative. To feel good though, to feel good about himself, he went liberal.
When he looked at what was wrong with the education system, he attacked liberal policies and unions.
And his wife, LPJ, she continues in his footsteps there as well, working with and contributing to causes designed to “break the backs of the teacher’s unions.”
Who knows, she’s her own person I assume. She may buy off on the bs rhetoric about the “war on women” etc.
And then there’s white guilt, and the guilt of the very wealthy. LPJ in particular has been left a great deal of money. That’s got to weigh heavily on you and all the rhetoric and bs will tell you that the Democratic Party (still the most racist institution on the planet) is the party of the downtrodden.
” … the next Steve Jobs …. ” won’t be happening unless Steve decides to reincarnate fast. There simply isn’t another Steve Jobs. The new next great person will be very different, and may take centuries to appear. These Titans are rare.
I always enjoy reading the vitriolic comments from opposing camps whenever politics in mentioned – not.
But to get back the originally quoted article – where do they get the idea that Apple is less patriotic than Google?
“Contrary to what it claims, it hasn’t done very well at creating U.S. jobs, and much of its product manufacturing happens in less than stellar factories in China… Despite that, Obama chose Jobs over ‘the founders of Google’ because his name resonates with us more.” it says.
Yet I have never seen a single manufacturing plant in the US making “Googles,” whatever they may be. Server farms, sure. Office workers too. But as people have suggested, I’d bet Apple employs as many if not more US citizens than Google does.
Anyhow I’ll back out now, as being British I don’t care. Let the bi-partisan Hating continue….
The latest Google tablet is made in the U.S. but it is very small. Still they’re very proud of their “experiment” with all U.S. based assembly.
ClUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK ClUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK ClUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK ClUCK CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK!
Hmm,
depressing that MDN does not criticise waking someone at midnight (how long had they been asleep?) and giving them a biscuit and a cup of tea and having them work for the next 12hours does not invoke critique. Do you really care about your fellow human being or are they just serfs to make cheap gadgets?
Very very sad
Apple or Jobs being unpatriotic is silly.
we Americans have an infantile view of politics & freedom, responsibility & socialism etc.
an example.
what’s more patriotic:
one who blindly adheres to the flag.
or one who continuously uses his right of speech & self-expression to constantly question the status quo, thereby keeping it in sync with its original theories/concept/values?!
or here’s a twist on our childish sense of morality.
imagine both on a balance scale.
which is more moral:
a white house clintonian blow job or a bushy fake invasion of 3 countries? love vs war?!
it’s not our god damn business how clinton conducted his biz, as it’s his personal problem and he did the best job of any president we had. but bush is moral, when he invents wars and kills innocent children, including sending our own for a wars with no purpose?!
by now, no one in the world likes Americans, they all mock us on several levels, from superpower to education to culture to wars to economy to intelligence to freedom etc.
Made in the USA is nothing to be proud of.
but there is one company we do have that the entire universe loves: Apple. no other.
Apple exemplifies American Ingenuity, vision, future, success, creativity etc.
it does more good to our Americaness than any other entity.
Apple doe create 514,000 jobs in our country, directly or indirectly!! 210k directly! Apple creates factories here too.
Apple gives away many educational grants, much more practical than the Gates Foundation, which the Economist stated wastes billions in bribes/corruption.
Apple is the most patriotic symbol we have. it’s so sickening that so many of us are neurotic in wishing it bad against competition when it’s the only firm in the black we have, that is recession-proof or defies gravity!
Apple enables us to have a future, we should emulate it, but not simply copy it, just create innovations in non-Apple categories.
anyway, let’s grow up. with our silly notions and arrogance.
otherwise we’ll be the 1st modern western nation to reach greek/roman-like Decadence, and within only 300 years, not thousands.
Apple IS patriotic.
Apple is our smartest export.
no one else/nothing else influences the world as much in the American Way as Apple.
nothing else transcends so man industries.
Msft / Moto / Goo are big but increasingly a laughing stock and so chaotic, plus vision-arily flat or mediocre – not examples of Greatness.
if the entire industry and government were run as efficiently as our Apple,
we’d have no recession or housing or banking or manufacturing or purchasing or infrastructure or educational problems…
Over your side of teh pond some are still so in denial about what is happening in the World. we here laernt it the hard way over the last 50 years now it is slowly happening there. The one difference is that you have more potential for the likes of Jobs to save your economy if people wake up and see the reality, which is that IBM sold out of the business it invented, Dell and even HP are going down the pan and the only bright spot is Apple and companies like it. Falsely keeping production jobs at home will mean longer term the company will decline and then those people will finally see all the jobs that it created as they too go down the pan.
If Japan is failing under that pressure then clearly a Western economy cant compete on their terms it has to create its own terns as Jobs knew fall well.
Put Google over Jobs?
Google who with Schmidt on Apple’s Board stole Apple’s IP (the original Goog Phone prototype shown at Mobile World 2008 looked like a blackberry. Google engineers like Andrew Munn admit they rushed changes from a button interface to touch after getting details of the about to launch iPhone. The recent court victory by Apple also shows android had copied items),
Intellectual IP is america’s last Bastion of Industry and Google stole and GAVE IT AWAY
to AMERICAS COMPETITORS
like Samsung, HTC, LG etc to whack U.S companies like Apple, HP, Dell, Microsoft etc. Even Motorola which has lost money in 14 out of 16 quarters would be broke if Google didn’t buy it.
Writers LOVE to attack Apple for manufacturing in China and Asia (which also makes all of Dells, HPs, Microsoft and Google’s Nexus Phones) but strangely still put Google the much vaster destroyer of american manufacturing on a pedestal.
even if your argue Google did not steal Apples iP it IS fueling America’s foreign competitors and charging then NOTHING. Worse Google makes TINY profits from Android advertising and services (550 m from android since 2008) so pays little taxes back to America for the damage it does.
I would have to disagree about apple not creating US jobs. Pretty much every major computer mfr has it’s products made abroad. However, Apple is the only one whose support staff (customer service and tech support) for the US is based in the US. With employees numbering in the thousands. Other’s may have a few US call centers but, as most of you are I’m sure are aware, if you call for support what are the chances you get someone in the US or even speaks good english?