Apple's US iPhones Can All Be Made Outside of China If Needed (bloomberg.com) 186
Apple has a backup plan if the U.S.-China trade war gets out of hand. From a report: The Cupertino, Calif.-based company's primary manufacturing partner has enough capacity to make all iPhones bound for the U.S. outside of China if necessary, according to a senior executive at Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. The Taiwanese contract manufacturer now makes most of the smartphones in the Chinese mainland. China is a crucial cog in Apple's business, the origin of most of its iPhones and iPads as well as its largest international market. But President Donald Trump has threatened Beijing with new tariffs on about $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, an act that would escalate tensions dramatically while levying a punitive tax on Apple's most profitable product.
Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn, is the American giant's most important manufacturing partner. It will fully support Apple if it needs to adjust its production as the U.S.-Chinese trade spat gets grimmer and more unpredictable, board nominee and semiconductor division chief Young Liu told an investor briefing in Taipei on Tuesday. "Twenty-five percent of our production capacity is outside of China and we can help Apple respond to its needs in the U.S. market," said Liu, adding that investments are now being made in India for Apple. "We have enough capacity to meet Apple's demand."
Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn, is the American giant's most important manufacturing partner. It will fully support Apple if it needs to adjust its production as the U.S.-Chinese trade spat gets grimmer and more unpredictable, board nominee and semiconductor division chief Young Liu told an investor briefing in Taipei on Tuesday. "Twenty-five percent of our production capacity is outside of China and we can help Apple respond to its needs in the U.S. market," said Liu, adding that investments are now being made in India for Apple. "We have enough capacity to meet Apple's demand."
US (Score:3, Insightful)
Bring the manufacturing to America or fuck off.
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The biggest problem with robots is that they can be designed to do one task extremely well, but once that task has to be modified, the robot either needs to be retooled or reprogrammed. For example, it's placing chips on a PCB for surface soldering, but a supplier was unable to deliver and the replacement parts are not the same size or thickness. Whereas if it's people doing this work, the adjustment is just familiarizing with the new parts and everything is back up and running.
Once we can develop robots th
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And down here in actual reality, somebody as powerful as Apple has long-term contracts with suppliers that, among other things, specify packaging. If Apple makes iPhones in the US at mass-scale, it will be some engineers (probably imported) and a whole bung of robots. There may be some minimal-wage people as well, but not a lot.
US manufacturing would add $10 to iPhone (Score:4, Informative)
Furthermore it would be excessively more expensive (for and buying from) if Apple did not source from other countries (not necessarily China). There would have to be a heck of a pay decrease for Americans building the products for Apple to have any chance of keeping their profit margin, and hilariously, if Apple does do that the shareholders would dump Apple faster than Enron.
Actually economics professors at USC have researched the cost increase and it would add about $10 to the price of an iPhone. Labor costs are a relatively small part of the overall cost.
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And they will want to push that down even more by automation. Remember that Foxconn in China is pushing for much more robots and that is at Chinese wages and sometimes even free labor by students sent from the Government for unpaid "internships".
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Why do we have to pay more? Why can't Apple just make smaller margins on the phones it sells?
Because hookers and blow won't pay for themselves,yo!
Strat :P
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Why do we have to pay more? Why can't Apple just make smaller margins on the phones it sells?
Because hookers and blow won't pay for themselves,yo!
Strat :P
And blackjack
STOCKHOLDERS (Score:1)
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Why do we have to pay more? Why can't Apple just make smaller margins on the phones it sells?
Every company has 3 groups of stakeholders: owners/stockholders, customers and employees. And every one has to perform a balancing act b/w the 3. Make something too expensive, and customers will stay away in droves (unless one can create branding magnets that draw people to them, such as Apple, Prada, Gucci). Make something too cheap, and the company will lose either or both employees and stockholders - the number of people willing to sink money into the enterprise will dip as well. Focus only on stock
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That's true. It's all market supply and demand, and what people are willing to pay. Why do women pay hundreds for Michael Kors shoes, when there are a lot more shoes available from other suppliers, but w/o the name brands? There are quite a few Android phone makers, and had Windows Phone - a perfectly decent phone - been accepted by the public, there would have been more choices
In fact, if one recalls, Apple's original plans for the iPhone, when they came out, was something like the Mac: have a brand n
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USC is not a real school.
Its as really as any other university, as a student you get out what you put in.
Economics is not a real science.
That's the fun thing about economics. Whether you believe or not in ecoomics it is still controlling you.
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I guess USC Economics can explain how rowing team demand is met by a supply of entitled airheads who canâ(TM)t even spell "boat".
Nothing USC specific about it, as I said USC is as real as other universities. Here's a list of other universities caught in the same scandal (so far). Note a few techie Silicon Valley favorites:
Georgetown University
Harvard University
Northwestern University
Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA
University of San Diego (USD)
University of Southern California (USC)
University of Texas at Austin (UT)
Wake Forest University
Yale University
You can't just change size of components (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, it's placing chips on a PCB for surface soldering, but a supplier was unable to deliver and the replacement parts are not the same size or thickness. Whereas if it's people doing this work, the adjustment is just familiarizing with the new parts and everything is back up and running.
No, because the parts won't fit on the board or the board will no longer fit inside the case or the airflow will be changed and cooling will be degraded, etc
No you can't just change the size of something in a design like the iPhone. This is not like a PC motherboard sitting inside a full sized desktop case.
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Well with US sourced manufacturing, one expense that isn't well explored is what to make the suicide prevention nets out of.
Dealing with either robots or an American employee, these nets would need to be fashioned out of a material with greater tensile strength than the ones employed at a Chinese Foxconn facility.
How much additional cost would that add to an iPhone?
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Not funding Chinese military expansion (Score:5, Insightful)
They will, with robots, so you'd still be out of work.
But the US consumers won't be funding China's military expansion and modernization anymore. So its still a win.
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Robots are used in China as well - it's not like assembly there is done by hand. Just that the workers working the robots will be from the countries where the factories are based, so if, as the GP suggests, they are in America, then it will be American workers working those lines.
Besides, if robots are the ones doing everything, what difference would it make to Apple or Hon Hai or anyone else where the manufacturing is being done?
Robots are mainly used in China (Score:2)
When you outsource manufacturing you outsource manufacturing technology.
A Chinese robot maker has its customers at is doorstep. Soon we will need to import our robots from China
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The United States Manufacturing never was really good with making small things.
Unless the process can work well with robots, the American System is difficult for us to profitably make small things that require a high degree of precision.
Labor is the biggest problem with the United States. While Labor costs are higher, but that isn't the only factor. The United States has a low population density. So getting enough people with skills to do the work into one area is difficult. While countries in Asia, have
Re:US (Score:4, Informative)
Old US Electronics was big. You can take apart an old TV, Radio, or even computer, replace a broken part and get it running again. Because all the major components, were large enough for anyone to fix it.
Re:US (Score:4, Informative)
Old US Electronics was big. You can take apart an old TV, Radio, or even computer, replace a broken part and get it running again. Because all the major components, were large enough for anyone to fix it.
The same was true for comparable foreign electronics. It was an artifact of the technology. ICs changed everything, both US and abroad.
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When did the USA make most of the World's consumer electronics? Not in my lifetime and that is getting pretty long.
Re:US (Score:5, Informative)
When did the USA make most of the World's consumer electronics? Not in my lifetime and that is getting pretty long.
The boom times for this was late 40's to late 60's. By late 70's the market had shifted to Japan. Then late 80's - 90s to China. And in that timeframe the Koreans made their first inroads. I had a goldstar microwave - today you know it as LG.
Some American names that I remember seeing often in Venezuela, where I lived at mid-70s and Puerto Rico 70's - 89:
Fisher - stereos (basically gone by mid 70's, turned into lo-cost shit)
Zenith - Everything from TV to record players / low-end hi-fi.
RCA - Radio, TVs.
Philco - Radio, TV.
Whirpool / Amana / Westinghouse - Appliances of all sorts
Regency - early Transistor radios.
Juliette - Small appliances, fans, etc
By the mid to late 70s this was all gone. some were sold to the Japanese, some to the French who then had it all made in China, and by the 80's you got a Technics, not a Fisher, you got a Trinitron, not an RCA, and now you get an LG instead of a Frigidaire.
I still have USA-made major appliances. I refuse to buy Chinese or Korean or Mexican. I'd rather fix the old and make them useful again than to give some other country my money.
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When you say "China" I presume you mean Taiwan. The four tigers were growing rapidly in the 1980s. It was really not until the late 1990s that mainland China recovered enough from Mao to be an electronics power house. And mainly due to Taiwanese companies.
Re:US (Score:5, Interesting)
A number of years ago, I was working with a startup to get something built, which required some metal fabrication, as well as injection molding. I went to companies in China, Russia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Italy, Sweden, Finland, and the US.
Pretty much, if I wanted something done cheaply, China beat everyone out, even factoring shipping.
If I wanted something made -well-, it was a dead heat. I eventually chose a plant in the US that had easy access to an interstate to get stuff on the road to anywhere in the US, or out to port cities to be exported.
Once you get the manufacturing line going after the industrial and process engineers leave, workers are not a huge cost. What hit the most was the machinery, testing, ensuring the molds were good, how stuff was packaged and having the best automation in the production line, as well as random, destructive product checks for QC. The cost of workers was minuscule compared to all of those front-loaded costs. Once the line was cranking away, having it in the US was cheaper overall and it gave great PR.
The magic of currency manipulation (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much, if I wanted something done cheaply, China beat everyone out, even factoring shipping.
The magic of currency manipulation, by devaluing your currency everything is on sale, its not just labor costs. Plants, equipment, materials, shipping, etc ... everything.
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No, currency might be a player in this but it's not the main thing.
When everything is at a 20%+ discount that is a very big thing.
Chinese are masters at cutting corners. And it works, they do get things done cheaper, often a whole lot cheaper. It will come at a cost to quality, but often the price difference is great enough to justify it.
Not when after the first couple production runs they quietly make more changes or material substitutions and cheaper transitions to outright defective. Sometimes this occurs when the "partner" you have contracts and relationships with, who did an acceptable first couple of runs, quietly outsources to a local smaller manufacturer without your knowledge.
Re: The magic of currency manipulation (Score:1)
How could they do that without your knowledge? You would have to be an incompetent fool to allow them to do that in a way that gets past your onsite inspections, your n house QA testing and your part tracking.
Oh, you don't do any of those things? Do you not bother to look at your food before shoveling it into your mouth too?
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How could they do that without your knowledge? You would have to be an incompetent fool to allow them to do that in a way that gets past your onsite inspections, your n house QA testing and your part tracking. Oh, you don't do any of those things? Do you not bother to look at your food before shoveling it into your mouth too?
So you are questioning the wisdom of companies that: outsource to China, enter into forced partnerships, enter into technology transfers, train their future competition, etc ... all for the "promise" of being able to sell products in China? A "promise" that has failed foreign companies year after year after year for centuries. Yeah, these companies are suckers.
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Which might be relevant if the yuan was undervalued. According to the IMF, it's not.
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Which might be relevant if the yuan was undervalued. According to the IMF, it's not.
You have been ill-informed, the IMF actually says "the renminbi is undervalued somewhere between five and 27 percent." And that's only right now, not including the decades in which outsourcing became the norm.
"Renminbi currency value is a debate affecting the Chinese currency unit, the renminbi (Chinese: Code:CNY). The renminbi is classified as a fixed exchange rate currency "with reference to a basket of currencies",[1] which has drawn attention from nations which have freely floated currency and has b
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Labor costs are rolled into all those other things you mention. Labor was needed to create the machiner
Chinese are special (Score:2)
China was destroyed by Mao, physically, intellectually and culturally. But it then somehow rose out of the ashes in just a few decades. Today much richer per person than, say, India, which never had a Mao, has always had a civil society.
Whether it is culture or genetics, China and Chinese are different. There will be no manufacturing bloom in Africa despite really cheap labor.
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Re: US (Score:1)
Koreans, not Americans. Crazy People with Dudley Moore
Re:US (Score:4, Informative)
The United States Manufacturing never was really good with making small things.
Oh bullshit. We taught Switzerland how to make watches assembly-line vs. cottage-industry. Now they own our most storied names, such as Elgin, Hamilton. Those were American-made watches.
Our pens and pencils were 2nd to none. (Shaffer, Eversharp, Parker just to name a few.) Now Shaffer is China-made, Eversharp's dead, Parker's made in England or France.
Our hi-fi was world-class (Fisher, Marantz, McIntosh, to name a few). Fisher's dead, Marantz and McIntosh are part of Japan's D-M Holdings.
We absolutely mastered small things... then taught the world how to do it.. then gave it or sold it all.
I'll pay a bit more for an iphone genuinely made in USA, with USA-made components, USA-glass, etc.
Every country should have competence in making things. Import should be a choice, an open choice, not de-facto forced like Made in China is now.
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I'll pay a bit more for an iphone genuinely made in USA, with USA-made components, USA-glass, etc.
That isn't going to happen any time soon. They could assemble in the US, but for example there is only one mine producing the rare earths needed and no refineries, so they all get shipped to China for processing and then back to the US again.
Same with many of the other components. No US suppliers, or the US suppliers are very small and would need to massively increase output. It can be done, but it will take years to happen.
Re: US (Score:2)
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This is one of the core issues with the US. Stating things as facts when they are not, and usually attempting to rewrite history.
i have a 1919 Hamilton pocketwatch. Says right on it "Made in USA" so you are correct, those brands are American. Question for you, watches existed LONG before the US did... " The first pocket watch was invented by Peter Henlein in 1510 in Nuremberg, Germany. "
So while the US did have a need to keep accurate time during the railroad expansion.. they simpy copied something w
Re: US (Score:1)
Transistor, integrated circuit, television ? ...
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The US has certainly invented a lot of things, and made some very good products. The GP's point is that they didn't invent *everything* and there was no past golden age where everything the US did was perfect and everybody else was shit.
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Thanks, it is nice to see that some people here have basic reading skills.
Re:US (Score:5, Interesting)
Pfft. Seiko is the one that killed everyone even themselves in 1969 with quartz Astron.
Ulyesee-Nardin had to contract Hamilton to build their marine chronos because their antiquated cottage-style structure couldn't do it. Hamilton turned out so many you can still buy one for less than 2k.
Japan mastered the rollerball and mech pencil, but you can't seriously compare a Fisher Space Pen with a Pilot. I'll give you that the hi-end japanese fountain pen is a thing of beauty and function, but so's my 1942 Parker Vacumatic.
We can argue all day about hi-fi. 50's and 60's it was us, not you. Sorry. No one goes out of their way for a Telefunken power amp and preamp. But I'll admit that people still will do silly things for a real Neumann or Telefunken U47 mike.
What you have is a lot of cultural arrogance and a myth of superiority. Basically none of it is true. You had your own brand of crazy, and so did we.
And we both gave it to the fucking Chinese and Russians. (Remember the RR Nene? Idiot retards giving aid to the enemy.)
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The Swiss realized that assembly-line for watches is a death-sentence. They still hand-make watches today and sell them at outrageous prices and with year-long waiting lists. Some of these things take a master watchmaker a year to make.
Hence the claim that _you_ _taught_ the Swiss is a pure deranged fantasy. They already knew better and did not fall into the trap you fell into.
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The United States Manufacturing never was really good with making small things.
...the American System is difficult for us to profitably make small things that require a high degree of precision.
Sony seems to have known about this for quite some time: https://youtu.be/96iJsdGkl44 [youtu.be]
American hands are fingers are just too damn big (Score:3)
The United States Manufacturing never was really good with making small things.
Yes, American hands are fingers are just too damn big according to a Sony executive. ;-)
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People don't make things in the USA because it's too expensive. The reason it is too expensive is mostly the cost of labour. The choices are
a) make it outside the USA
b) make it in the USA but find some way of not employing expensive humans.
c) go out of business.
Consumers don't buy electronic goods based on where they come from but on price, quality and features.
It's not even like America needs the jobs. As I understand it, employment in the USA is pretty high at the moment. So who actually benefits by forci
US Employment Scam (Score:3)
The USA has fudged it's employment numbers for generations; it's not an accurate metric but makes for nice propaganda and while it is a lie it does reflect some economics so it's not completely useless.
People who do not collect unemployment are taken off the statistic. People who work a few hours and are under employed are not counted. The IRS could have produced these statistics since the beginning but that would produce accurate results.
Keep in mind the head of the labor dept is a slimy lawyer who has to
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People who do not collect unemployment are taken off the statistic. People who work a few hours and are under employed are not counted.
They do produce those numbers, it's U6. And right now even U6 is below 8% [macrotrends.net].
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1) It's rarely reported and discussed when it's quite important.
2) Also suffers from political distortion.
Re: US Employment Scam (Score:2)
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To be fair, as the former third world rapidly develops they're less and less happy having the US do all the white collar stuff and offshore the nasty jobs. Japan, Korea and Taiwan have moved up the production food chain, and China is also doing so rapidly. If SE Asia goes the European egalitarian route, the US might find itself with competitive labour again.
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D) Enact tariffs until the imports are the same price as the US goods, or at least until the trade deficit is eliminated.
I don't have any problem with imported things, as long as it's for a reason other than "it's cheaper". Cuban cigars are prized regardless of their price. Import away. Japanese optics (binoculars, etc) are very well regarded. Scottish whiskey. Swiss watches. There is a market for importing things, but for commodity goods, if we are constantly just buying more from another country tha
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we'll raise tariffs until it's no longer profitable to buy stuff from China and the situation corrects itself.
Yeah, by the voters getting pissed at the rapid inflation, and voting out the fuckers who caused it. For example, if you manufacture completed products here in the US using Chinese components, you now have to eat the Trump tariffs or pass all (or some) of it on to your customers. Yay for “helping” American businesses.
Tariffs only work in the way you suggested when there already are existing domestic competitors producing the same products. Here in the real world, they just end up being a cons
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Labour is expensive in Germany too, but Germany has massive exports. Last time I looked (a few years ago) they exported more by value than China did.
They do it by making higher quality goods and by offering support services. Even at the lower end it works pretty well, for example discount German supermarkets like Aldi and Lidi sell power tools made in Germany. Not the cheapest, but good quality and they sell. The Japanese do it too, e.g. Makita.
The same thing could probably work in the US. I always hear peo
Germans will consider where things are made (Score:2)
Labour is expensive in Germany too, but Germany has massive exports.
Also German consumers will consider where things are made. Giving some preference to German made goods, its good for society and themselves to do so in the long run. Next they'll consider EU made goods, healthy neighbors help Germany in the long run. Then they will consider the Far East goods. Its not a German made only thing but it is a strong consideration and it helps.
Americans in contrast are too short term thinking. They will save a dollar today at the cost of their job in a few years.
US Consumers drop their jobs overseas (Score:2)
c) go out of business. Consumers don't buy electronic goods based on where they come from but on price, quality and features.
And that is the problem, no consideration for where things are made. Other western countries have a healthier economy and and a healthy export market because their citizens do make such a consideration. In short US consumers drove their jobs overseas because they rewarded the companies that manufactured overseas and punished the companies that manufactured domestically.
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Bring the manufacturing to America or fuck off.
Obviously posted by an A.C. because anyone with a functioning brain knows the next administration (either in 2020, or when Trump is finally term limited) will hit the “undo” button on this trade war shit.
China understands our politics and they’re more than happy to play the long game.
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Yes indeed; it's funny how for all real purposes Taiwan is its own country yet mainland Chinese people sputter in indignant outrage at the mere suggestion it isn't part of their country.
Re: TAIWAN (Score:1)
If you know the history.... it's more like both side claim that they are the legitimate government for the WHOLE of China
Then once Taiwan saw that there is no hope of winning they switched the story to say that they are an independent country.
That's why BOTH China and Taiwan AGREED on the ONE China principle in the first place. And now China is crying foul because Taiwan is trying to change its mind on what was agreed to suit its position.
Now I personally prefer the Taiwanese model but understanding the pos
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While it is popular to hate on Apple. Apple is a very smart company. They often see long term threats to its business and have a plan to work around it if it were to occur.
For example the switch to Intel x86 chips back over a decade ago. Apple was seeing that the Power PC chips were not keeping up, so when they made OS X they kept an Intel Port active and up to date with development. So when IBM just couldn't make the G5 that will work for laptops, Apple just dropped them and switched to Intel, with much
DUH! (Score:3)
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We could make them here..... if you wanted to pay $2000 for each phone....
Considering they want $999 for a monitor stand that's not too far fetched.
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Trust me the Apple peeps will be out soon explaining that to buy an equivalent stand for a PC it actually costs $4500. You see the screws on the Apple one have proprietary coating #158A, and it's not going to be a fair comparison unless you find a stand with that exact same coating.
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Apple users? Sure, just make it "free" with a $200/mo phone bill.
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Unlikely that high, but yes it would be higher. If enough manufacturing was brought back here though the increase in cost would be of little concern given how much more money would be in the economy.
You know how millennials love to pine for the days of yore when their parents could easily buy a house on a regular salary? Those were the days when we actually made shit here and a factory job was a viable career choice, rather than now where you basically have white collar jobs, a smattering of trade workers
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The money always flows to the shareholders who use it to make more money. Most doesn't flow to the mainstream consumer who is most likely to inject it directly into the economy.
It's almost as if (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh goody (Score:2)
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Re:Capacity is not an issue (Score:4, Informative)
so? (Score:2)
They can't make them without Chinese components, including SoCs, due to a lack of fab capacity.
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most are designed in the US an Europe, and fabbed in Taiwan or S. Korea.
Did you manage to catch HK in the news? How much longer do you think Taiwan will have anything like autonomy?
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Did you manage to catch HK in the news? How much longer do you think Taiwan will have anything like autonomy?
Taiwan will continue its autonomy until they lose a war. And currently the US is their ally, and for all our destroyers keep ramming cargo ships, our carriers do quite well. China won't start that war unless we elect a president even weaker than Obama, and I'm not sure that's mathematically possible.
Not without (Score:2)
rare earth metals they can't
Sure... (Score:1)
... but can they be done without the rare earths China has? Yeah, you can puff your chest as much as you want, but if China decides to retaliate, Apple is f*cked, Apple knows pretty well that if China wants to make them an example, they'll make Apple an example and there's no escaping... this was just to try to placate the investors.
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And if the other link didn't do you good, then this one might shut you your ignorant self for good: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-rareearth-explainer/explainer-us-dependence-on-chinas-rare-earth-trade-war-vulnerability-idUSKCN1T42RP
China supplied 80% of the rare earths imported by the United States from 2014 to 2017.
China is home to at least 85% of the world’s capacity to process rare earth ores into material manufacturers can use, according to research firm Adamas Intelligence.
It would take years to build enough processing plants to match China’s processing capacity of 220,000 tonnes- which is five times the combined capacity of the rest of the world.
Tired of this f*cktards blowing air out of their opinionated arses as if ignorant opinions were facts...
Haven't we heard that before? (Score:2)
Apple could use that Wisconsin factory (Score:2)
Re:Apple could use that Wisconsin factory (Score:4, Interesting)
Manufacturing cost of an iPhone is 200 dollars out of which 160 is parts and 40 is labour. Minimimum wage in China is 4 dollars an hour so 10 hours of work. Minimum Wage in US is 7 dollars so if you put the plant in Missisippi the labor cost is 70 dollars instead of 40 dollars. In return you save about 10 dollars on logistics of shipping parts out to China and shipping phones back and another 10 dollars in tax incentives so yes the difference is 10 dollars.
India? (Score:1)
Apple had said it was going to move iPhone production to India awhile ago. If there is real concern about Huawei eavedropping wouldn't any smartphone form the PC also be suspect?
About iPhone manufacturing in India: Apple to start mass production of iPhones in India with the help of Foxconn [indiatoday.in]
Lunacy (Score:4, Insightful)
It's absolute lunacy to put yourself into a position where a potential adversary controls the vast majority of the manufacturing process you rely upon for goods you sell. Even more so to rely on a SOLE manufacturer who has more control over your product than you do. ( Up until recently, relying on Russian rockets to get into space qualified for this topic. )
Everyone KNOWS this, but Big Business LOVES cheap labor. Thus, have they whispered into the ears of Politicians for decades which has resulted in the US playing nice with China ( even when we shouldn't have ). Now, they're all pitching a fit because their nice and easy source of cheap labor is being threatened. I suppose the question they have to ask themselves is this:
Would I rather sell a slightly more expensive product by moving manufacturing home, or not have a product to sell at all when China turns off the cheap labor spigot ?
Folks, a conflict with China is inevitable. The South China Sea is likely where it's going to start and, depending on the severity of the incident that starts it, things will get ugly very quickly.
I'll make a prediction right now: IF one of those man-made islands that China swore they would never militarize is the source for any attack on a US vessel, every one of those islands will become priority targets soon after. The US will bomb those islands back into the Stone Age by any and all means necessary.
It would be advisable for US companies to start shifting manufacturing to someone who isn't going to weaponize it ( and likely just turn it off ) when the US ceases playing the game by Chinese rules.
Tariffs for Human Rights (Score:1)
I am a life long Democrat but I praise Trump for his action on China with respect to tariffs. I think this is an absolutely great time to increase tariffs on China and any other country with high levels of human oppression in the supply chain. Until Chinese workers have similar working conditions, hours, salary, and benefits (adjusted for local currency of course), as American workers, the tariffs should keep going up. Same goes for environmental policy. To call China a "developing nation" and exempting the
Why? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Trump is a moron, he doesn't know what's he's doing, and more moronic is people who try to "explain" his actions. Plan? He doesn't know wtf he's doing... if China wants to cripple US tech companies (or manufacturing in general) they'll withhold the rare earths everyone needs to fabricate electronics. Japan has been suffering for years because of it, they have a very demanding recycling policy because of it and even so they are hurting with lack of necessary material. So I'll say this again: Trump is a igno