Apple Could Make Kit In America And Still Be Wildly Rich
 

See this from "The Guardian" this week. Globalisation equals cheap labour and big bonuses in my humble opinion.


Apple: why doesn't it employ more US workers? | Technology | The Guardian


Ron

Re: Apple Could Make Kit In America And Still Be Wildly Rich
 

Those are whopping margins! The issue is that all of the infrastructure for small electronics is in place around the Apple factory. This is a 30+ year story that leaves the rest of the 1st world out of the mix.

Companies eager for cheap labor and the Chinese government created an almost instant support system for the electronics industry. This just plain does not exist anywhere else. Apple would not have the supply chain to produce like they do now if they "moved back home" so to speak.

I agree with the social commentary that these large companies are taking the world for a ride, on the world's dime. But that is a different forum!

Re: Apple Could Make Kit In America And Still Be Wildly Rich
 

The US (and probably most of the rest of the world) simply cannot pull the number of workers together as quickly and efficiently as China can. Steve Jobs told Obama a couple years ago that he needed 12,000 electrical engineers. There aren't that many available in the US. China has them, they may or may not be as good as what US schools turn out, but China has them. FoxConn needed an additional 30,000 workers to add to its iPhone and iPad manufacturing lines in a short time to ramp up production. You simply cannot do that in the USA. The logistics of the Chinese system do not exist in first world countries. They could, but that comes at a cost more than consumers are willing to pay.

Re: Apple Could Make Kit In America And Still Be Wildly Rich
 

wouldn't the Chinese currency one day be high enough that it isn't profitable to outsource work?

Re: Apple Could Make Kit In America And Still Be Wildly Rich
 

That day is comming sooner than you think. I am sure I read recently that pay has increased three fold in the last few years. Cheap labour from these countries will soon be over and the people will want the same benifits as us.

Re: Apple Could Make Kit In America And Still Be Wildly Rich
 

Yep, the clock is ticking... PART of the reason you "can't" pull together the labor in the US is largely because US workers are "used to" a higher wage and "standard of living" (IF they haven't priced themselves out of a job) - I had a college prof that called this a long long time ago.

This is part of the reason we are where we are, and "standards of living" have taken a serious hit in the ol' USA. Sure, if you're coming off a farm in a primarily agrarian society, even low wages look inviting, but over time, the desire for a "better" lifestyle catches up.

Then there's the OTHER side of the equation... I suspect IF there were appropriate regulatory changes (I won't go into the probable multitude of "EPA violations" involved with manufacturing which simply don't exist in these other countries), a readjustment of the "employee" mindset in the US, and a realistic effort to move manufacturing closer to the consumer (already happened in the auto industry, many Hondas, Toyotas and Kia/Hyundias are made in the US!), it could happen. Not overnight, but it can be done with the proper approach.

The USA and its populace pumped out the needed huge volume of tanks, planes and all the rest required to win WWII, because the alternative wasn't acceptable. it's DOABLE, if the desire and motivation was there, but that's another story...