Apple should come back to the US

anon(4698833)

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Blame their government...outsourcing is a part of business, and as long as there is a place where labor is that cheap, that is where ALL business, not just Apple, is going to outsource. And lets not forget...we have a minimum wage law for jobs that are on the books, but look at your common lawn worker, probably making less than $25/day and working from sunrise to sunset...believe me, if this country didn't have laws against child labor, we'd have kids doing sh*t work for next to nothing simply because we could. Our government, while far from perfect, protects people from those kind of work environments.

Our country will never get to that point because the people of our country wont do the work for that...we've proven this within our own borders, hypocritically crying about illegal immigrants being here but not blinking an eye when they are manually laboring for us. It's just how the system works...the country may be in rough economical shape, but we're not heading towards that kind of situation on a wide scale because A.) We're lazy, and B.) We're used to the way it is now to a point where we'd fight to keep it that way before submitting to it.

But I also want to touch on your comment about how we've lost all manufacturing jobs...this is FAR from true. We've outsourced consumer products for the better part of the last century, but we've also maintained an extremely strong insource of production as well, but because it's here and it's normal, we don't think about it when we think about jobs. "Made In The USA" is still a very strong business model, and we still have a staggering amount of companies that stand by it. Add to that the fact that selling and servicing outsourced products is something that is still strong (even with e-commerce)...you have to move the products regardless of where they come from, and the more products being produced in China, the more people we need to sell those products.

These people have jobs because of outsourcing...if you remove that, you turn many of those places into poverty stricken areas like you see so much of in the middle east and Africa. Places where there is no work for people to do so they simply pro-create, spread disease, live terrible lives and then die (most likely due to violence because their areas suck up any kind of normality we live by daily and feed it to militias and tyrant leaders). They may be working for only a few bucks, but they could also be withering away in a rice field with no work and no means of progression. It's only horrific (in terms of income) because we as Americans are spoiled by a system that our country was built on...one cannot look at a country with very different settings and rules and compare/contrast like you are, because it's simply a moot point.
 

Fausty82

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Except for that without Unions still being around, MOST of us wouldn't have weekends off, get paid even close to what we get paid now, or have any benefits at all. We do still need them and we need them just as much now as we did when they started. They're not all perfect, but without them, you can kiss affording a cellphone, having a home or time off goodbye because you'll be lucky if you make $12 an hour or have time off at all. They fight for EVERY worker, whether you know it or not. Everyone needs to read that Howard Zinn book "People's History of the United States". It would open your eyes.

Sorry, I guess we have to agree to disagree here. The unions most definitely served a purpose, but IMO, their time has passed, as evidenced by more and more states becoming "right to work" states.

And unions are a big part of why most manufacturing has moved off shore. Companies cannot compete with foreign products, given the US labor costs (and waste re: job bank).
 

Peligro911

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Yes they should but I can't afford what they would charge for devices then lol
Maybe I could get a job assembling them lol


Sent from my iPhone 5 from a galaxy far far away (in the USA ) using Tapatalk !
 

Timhewitt

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You guys do realize that one iPhone factory employs nearly 100,000,000 laborers today.

Just where would you put that factory city in the US?

If a US based assembly company wanted to bid on the Apple contract and build them here, I'm sure Apple would seriously consider them.

Remember they do not run their own assembly facilities. They contract the service.
 

Retconaddict

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You have some good points. I guess it's not just what they pay the employees.

I just see those " concentration " type factories with horrible working conditions.

Those people work like dogs over there for pennies on a dollar.

I can't understand how the cost would go up as much as you guys stated it really sucks that its like that.

This is the reason we are struggling as a country, we lost all manufacturing and can't get it back because of tax laws and the fact that other people will work for $12 bucks a week.

So you think that by taking away their jobs those people are somehow going to earn more money?
 

Just_Me_D

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Now wait. I "skimmed" through the article and Jobs reply to the President and what the author is insulating are not the same. The article turned me off when it compared today's number of U.S. Apple employees with GM U.S employees from 30 & 50 years ago. Yes, the author was referring to the "Made in America" heyday, however, failing to quote the current number of American GM workers in comparison to Apple's is suspect, in my opinion. If the article did mention it, I missed it. Anyway, it was my understanding that "Jobs" did not go into great detail with the President about why those jobs would not return to the U.S.
 

anon(153966)

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Some brilliant points have been raised in this thread. And it is rather refreshing to read. I will say this, in a way we have to be thankful to companies like Apple for making the products that they do. They simply help the economy, period.

And in answer to the thread title: no, Apple shouldn't bring the jobs\business back to the U.S. be thankful they sell the products here, again it is helping the economy!?! Boom...
 

ghostface147

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Never will happen. Where are we going to find half a million employees to stay in one location, work long hours, and not get paid high amount of wages? People in America can be lazy. They want pensions (or 401k), benefits, good pay, vacation and sick time, not working long hours, overtime and the like.
 

Peligro911

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Never will happen. Where are we going to find half a million employees to stay in one location, work long hours, and not get paid high amount of wages? People in America can be lazy. They want pensions (or 401k), benefits, good pay, vacation and sick time, not working long hours, overtime and the like.

That's why if they did I couldn't afford to buy a apple device because the price would double or more lol

I say put the factory in Texas lol with support smaller factory's around the US


Sent from my iPhone 5 from a galaxy far far away (in the USA ) using Tapatalk !
 

anon(4698833)

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The United States government, while very protecting of the businesses that are concrete in the system, do not make it favorable for companies to keep or bring their manufacturing and support sides here...and soon it's going to become worse, as the government is implementing a very expensive health care mandate on companies, which will end up throwing even more overseas. The pursuit of happiness comes with a very ugly set of rules now...it's more of a settling on a level of success now more so than a full on pursuit of success. Imagine what Ford, GM and Chrysler would have looked like if the kind of regulations on home grown production were in place back in the 30's and 40's...yikes!
 

Just_Me_D

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The United States government, while very protecting of the businesses that are concrete in the system, do not make it favorable for companies to keep or bring their manufacturing and support sides here...and soon it's going to become worse, as the government is implementing a very expensive health care mandate on companies, which will end up throwing even more overseas. The pursuit of happiness comes with a very ugly set of rules now...it's more of a settling on a level of success now more so than a full on pursuit of success. Imagine what Ford, GM and Chrysler would have looked like if the kind of regulations on home grown production were in place back in the 30's and 40's...yikes!

'Nuf said...:)
 

kch50428

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Imagine what Ford, GM and Chrysler would have looked like if the kind of regulations on home grown production were in place back in the 30's and 40's...yikes!
They would not exist at all had they had the regulatory burden companies have today.
 

JHBThree

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You have some good points. I guess it's not just what they pay the employees.

I just see those " concentration " type factories with horrible working conditions.

Those people work like dogs over there for pennies on a dollar.

I can't understand how the cost would go up as much as you guys stated it really sucks that its like that.

This is the reason we are struggling as a country, we lost all manufacturing and can't get it back because of tax laws and the fact that other people will work for $12 bucks a week.

And yet the truth of the matter is that the jobs in these factories not only pay significantly more, but also provide significantly better working conditions than the vast majority of jobs in china. It is easy to dismiss the pay and jobs if you only view it from the American perspective. When you actually view it through the Chinese perspective, then you'll understand the reality.
 

ame

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Sorry, I guess we have to agree to disagree here. The unions most definitely served a purpose, but IMO, their time has passed, as evidenced by more and more states becoming "right to work" states.

And unions are a big part of why most manufacturing has moved off shore. Companies cannot compete with foreign products, given the US labor costs (and waste re: job bank).

Union or not, Americans expect to be paid more, and expect more benefits. We are an entitled bunch. We have demands that no one else in the world expects, not without paying a lot higher tax rate than we are willing to pay. We want everything and we want it all for free. These people are happy to work their fingers to the bone for pennies just to have a chance at a better life and food for their families, things we take for granted and dare not do ourselves.

As for your right to work state comment: right to work states have a lower median income rate for employees, meaning that while they might get more people employed, they employ them for a lower wages, shorter term employment and with little/lesser quality or no benefits at all, eg service industries, retail (WALMART), food service, not necessarily long term, family supporting jobs. So it might "create jobs" but it creates crappier, less stable jobs. Right to work is essentially passing a law at the state level to allow Unions to negotiate contracts for everyone whether or not they pay the Union for membership, in hopes that more people will not be members of a Union. It's a republican anti-Union tactic to break the Union, which is seen as anti-business, and Republicans are pro-business, and do anything they can to help the business, i.e. the millionaires, i.e. themselves. There are actually a lot of Republicans that are anti-RTW legislation, though the tea party movement is ousting them, or was, and now appears to be losing their ground.

We might disagree, but part of my current semester and next semester towards my employment law degree is actually focusing on this, and I have a whole year of labor law study (which is common in employment law) and while I can see how some people don't think Unions have a place in modern society, and some Unions have really overextended their reach and have really borked it for the others, there really are some really important qualities that they provide to all Americans and all workers, whether people want to accept those facts or not. We Americans are a greedy, ungrateful bunch, we expect a lot, and we expect it now, and without much sacrifice, and as time goes on, we have no idea what the generations before us worked for and gave up and lost lives for. So, no, Unions have not passed their time of "shelf life" and they are needed more now than maybe their inception, since we have to compete globally to earn a fair wage for the amount of time we have to give up of our lives to compete with 10 year old Chinese and Filipino kids working 20 hour days in a factory to make us crappy shoes and gadgets that we then pay nothing for at stores like Walmart and Target.

I paid my way through my first degree even through my masters for a field that was not going to cut it to raise a family on. I worked my a$$ off in three jobs. One of which was Union. The field my degrees are in was not Union, but I wish like hell they were, because I worked 18 hours a day, 7 days a week to support some worthless dickbag who didn't deserve the amount of effort I put in to making the clients happy. I saved every cent I earned. I am glad my husband had a job that made ends meet. He isn't Union, but works with guys that are in a company that's half Union, depending on the type of work. If not for him being paid fairly, for the insane amount of hours he has to work to keep up with the guys who are based in India, Phillipines, Brazil, etc. and paid half his wage and would KILL to get promoted to work on the mainland, I wouldn't be able to pay for law school to get a second career.
 

jclisenby

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Since we are talking about Unions now, I'll use Hostess as my example. The workers were making great money but the union bosses thought they deserved more. The company couldn't afford to pay more, and the rest is history. Unions are no good in 2012.
 

ame

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Since we are talking about Unions now, I'll use Hostess as my example. The workers were making great money but the union bosses thought they deserved more. The company couldn't afford to pay more, and the rest is history. Unions are no good in 2012.

Actually, Hostess came out of their first bankruptcy still millions in debt, rare, and practically unheard of. Yet in light of that fact, they were paying their CEO's millions in salary, some even got insane raises and bonuses within the last few months. That single CEO's yearly salary alone could've paid years in salaries and pensions for the $15/hr workers and that's not even factoring in his massive bonus, the one which he still gets paid despite running them back into a 2nd bankruptcy again so soon after taking the reigns. You do not pay a CEO or any executive a salary of that amount when you are that far in the hole and expect to actually get out of debt. Period. You pay him 1? til they are in the black, as you do all the Sr. Management, THEN you figure out how to deal with his salary and if he gets a bonus when and IF they are ever in the black. Add to the fact that they as a company did NO new product innovation in decades. That is a dying company. Again, not a Union problem, that's management.

So explain to me how that is a Union's fault? The "Union Bosses" weren't making much money, nor were the Union workers. $15 an hour is hardly a lifelong sustainable wage, nor is it one that breaks a huge corporation, nor is it "great money". So how is that an example of why Unions are no good in 2012? Sounds like you have listened to the propaganda and not done a lot of actual research.
 

Fausty82

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Since we are talking about Unions now, I'll use Hostess as my example. The workers were making great money but the union bosses thought they deserved more. The company couldn't afford to pay more, and the rest is history. Unions are no good in 2012.

This is a great example of the (perhaps) unintended consequences of unions. Ame has made the point for me that unions are definitely an accessory to the problem of "greedy Americans". Sure we all want more. But realistically, it?s not possible. If we all made more money, the widgets that we all produce would cost more, effectively leaving our relative standard of living unchanged.

I used to work for a financial organization with offices in NYC. I am still amazed that the people who worked in their Manhattan office were not allowed to move their own computers from one location to another - it was a "service" provided by a union... so rather than just moving their computers, they would typically waste half a way waiting on the union computer mover to show up and do his 10 minutes of work.

The process of restoring electricity to locations hit by hurricane Sandy was slowed when the union electrical workers at the loca utility companies refused to allow crews from other areas of the country to help them. Instead of welcoming the help to get the city back on the road to recovery, they protested, calling the would be helpers scabs (and worse) and accusing them of trying to take food off of their tables.

Perhaps these are simply anecdotal anomalies... but it has been my experience, as well. BTW, my father was a union carpenter in the midwest for over 40 years. I?ve seen it from both sides.
 

jclisenby

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This is a great example of the (perhaps) unintended consequences of unions. Ame has made the point for me that unions are definitely an accessory to the problem of "greedy Americans". Sure we all want more. But realistically, it?s not possible. If we all made more money, the widgets that we all produce would cost more, effectively leaving our relative standard of living unchanged.

I used to work for a financial organization with offices in NYC. I am still amazed that the people who worked in their Manhattan office were not allowed to move their own computers from one location to another - it was a "service" provided by a union... so rather than just moving their computers, they would typically waste half a way waiting on the union computer mover to show up and do his 10 minutes of work.

The process of restoring electricity to locations hit by hurricane Sandy was slowed when the union electrical workers at the loca utility companies refused to allow crews from other areas of the country to help them. Instead of welcoming the help to get the city back on the road to recovery, they protested, calling the would be helpers scabs (and worse) and accusing them of trying to take food off of their tables.

Perhaps these are simply anecdotal anomalies... but it has been my experience, as well. BTW, my father was a union carpenter in the midwest for over 40 years. I?ve seen it from both sides.

We had that issue with our local utility company. They sent about 8 trucks up and were turned away when they arrived because they were not union employees. Thankfully, I live in a right to work state and plan to keep it that way.
 

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