Workers protesting yet another futile round of the CCP’s quixotic “Zero COVID” lockdowns at Foxconn’s “iPhone City” assembly campus clashed violently with police on Wednesday. Now, Foxconn is paying disaffected workers to leave.
Hon Hai — the name under which Foxconn is listed in Taiwan — is offering Rmb10,000 ($1,400) to voluntary leavers. The so-called “care subsidies”, are worth more than a month’s typical full-time salary. The money is intended to winkle out staff unhappy with Foxconn’s requirement for them to live on site.
What next? Less trouble but fewer workers, surely. Staffing was already stretched. Not long after the protests broke out, Zhengzhou, home to the iPhone factory, locked down for five days, disrupting hiring.
Apple has already warned it will ship fewer devices in the current quarter. Analysts anticipate iPhone output will now drop almost a third in the short term as a result of the protests.
Beijing is stuck in an embarrassing bind. Its locally developed Sinovac vaccine appears to be of middling efficacy… China has also underinvested. It has less than one-tenth of the intensive care hospital beds available in the US as a percentage of population. That has left Beijing to pursue a zero-Covid policy via strict lockdowns.
MacDailyNews Take: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
The problem isn’t COVID. The problem is the illogical, unworkable, delusional, self-defeating authoritarian response to COVID.
The average age of a Foxconn worker is 23 (before the CCP drove them away with the threat of more quixotic lockdowns). A 23 year old who gets COVID might not even notice they have it. Protect those with co-morbidities who might be at risk of serious complications (don’t compel older retirees into a closed factory setting, CCP Cuomo impersonators).
Letting COVID simply wash through a population of healthy twenty-three-year-olds (many of whom have already acquired natural immunity) is the rational decision. — MacDailyNews, November 16, 2022
Clearly, Apple under Tim Cook had, has, and, for the foreseeable future, seems like it will continue to have far too much exposure to China and the CCP’s overbearing and often irrational whims.
Memo to China: There’s no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
As we’ve said for years now, for better and worse, Apple is wedded to China. It will take many years to even begin to extricate itself from this relationship, at least the the point where the company has some meaningful leverage that the CCP understands. – MacDailyNews, April 8, 2022
In general, human-transmissible coronaviruses do not disappear. There is no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
COVID-19 is here to stay. It will very likely become endemic, yet pose less danger over time. People will acquire immunity via vaccines (effectiveness TDB) and naturally as they contract and recover from variants like omicron since the partially-effective vaccines permit not only transmissibility, but also breakthrough infections. Influenza and the four human coronaviruses that cause common colds (OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1) are, of course, also endemic, but a combination of annual flu vaccines and acquired immunity means that sane societies tolerate the unavoidable seasonal deaths and illnesses they bring without requiring lockdowns, masks, social distancing, indefinite return-to-work delays, etc.
At which point, if ever, will some people decide that wasting away their short lives in abject fear of a bad flu, very likely engineered by China and partially funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is a hysterical self-defeating overreaction? – MacDailyNews, December 16, 2021
The COVID-19 data is clear: Stop the panic and end the total isolation… A severe economic disruption will very likely provoke the immeasurable costs of widespread unemployment, social isolation, and increased mental health issues, suicide rates, bankruptcies, civil unrest, crime, and war. – MacDailyNews, April 23, 2020
There are any number of countries where, prior to this ongoing COVID-19 collective behavior experiment, we could have imagined a compliant population capitulating to the random, illogical, and ever-changing whims of so-called “experts” and ignoramus politicians – actually allowing themselves to be quarantined, locked-down, restricted, put out of business, deprived of family and friends, tagged and tracked, digitally and otherwise, but not America. Obviously, we were wrong.
“The land of the free and the home of the brave?” Pfft. Seemingly just empty words today.
Yes, COVID-19 is real. Yes, COVID-19 is a contagious disease. Yes, COVID-19 can kill, especially those with underlying conditions who should be protected as best as possible. However, the reaction to COVID-19 has clearly been blown out of all proportion and the ramifications of such overreaction will be long-lasting and difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.
Those who have lived through this period (in other words, the vast majority of people) and who are still capable of rational thought, will understand implicitly how easily fear and bad data, especially as amplified, massaged, and repeated ad nauseam via mass and social media, can be used to control even so-called “free” people who, it seems, will cede their freedoms en masse with nary a bleat. – MacDailyNews, December 28, 2020
And you thought sheep were herdable animals. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
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Take well put…
Rational thinking and open discussion… something lost in our societies 🙁
Meanwhile Chinese government having a bit of difficultly explaining to their population why the rest of the world is freely gathering together at the World Cup. Without restrictions. Or masks. Or vaccine certificates. Perhaps WC is actually be played on another planet?
Nah, not interested in anything World Toilet Bowl at the moment. They are playing for a bunch of homophobic sexist neurotypes. No thanks! It’s hockey for me!
What the heck does that mean? Are you pro homo? No one gets it….
I’m a queer autistic asexual that occasionally dabbles in the furry arts. The Qataris would absolutely hate me, so I won’t support this year’s World Cup.
The Minnesota Wild on the other hand…they got my support!
Has Tim Cook commented on the slave uprising in China?
That actually is relevant in terms of how Apple should handle the manufacture of their products. If Apple makes the right decisions, we could have ‘Made In USA’ iPhones while also sticking it to China too.
How could Apple make the iPhone in the USA? US government regulations prohibit it. Where are the manufactures that make the thousands of parts? Where is the “iPhone City” of 200,000 – 300,000 workers needed for assembly? South East Asia/ India are probably the right direction for Apple, but it will take them another 10 years to even come close to China’s manufacturing, assembly and infrastructure prowess. Made in USA? Ain’t gonna happen.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t Apple’s current line of Macs made in the US? There should be no issue with Apple having iPhone production in the US if that’s the case.
There is a huge amount of difference in the way Macs are assembled vs iPhones. And, it’s only Mac Pro which is assembled in the US. The other difference is the sheer number of devices to assemble. The cost difference in hiring 200,000 workers to assemble iPhones in the US would add 30-40% to the cost of the phone.
It’s not about COVID at all. It’s about population control. When there are widespread protests against the government, COVID (with or without actual outbreak) provides the excuse for lockdowns “on demand” indefinitely.
Long time Apple user, and possibly into the future too, but increasingly getting tired of Tim Cook’s virtue signaling and posturing in the US while using what amounts to “slave labor“ in China.