Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#81

Post by komali2 » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #35

ardit33 wrote: post #2

There is also geopolitical reasons for this. There is a high chance that east asia will be embroiled with some war coming soon, which will disrupt both manufacturing (either in china or Taiwan), or transports of goods. Even if the North Korea problem gets solved, the China problem is still there and it wont be solved anytime soon. If you have some streamlined manufacturing here, it is easier to fork it in case the ma…

I don't understand why this is being so heavily down voted. It's a major risk theme amongst asset managers: what happens if a major war in the South China Sea disrupts ASEAN and Chinese supply chains and/or trade relations.

Seems like a wild bet to make when the region has been embroiled in conflict far worse. People were still manufacturing in China during the American (Vietnam) war.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#82

Post by specialp » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

ice109 wrote: post #41

no1youknowz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's something else that should shake US and UK highly skilled workers. Our time will soon come as well. In China, they are racing to match and surpass western standards. I would say, they have already matched in some cases. But unlike the west where companies export out to save costs. Companies in China do everything in-house. There will be a time where these 6 figure jobs that some HN users have, will go down by…

what exactly is the problem with this? a 50% pay cut is still a fantastic wage (globally relative). what exactly is wrong with the standard of living going up in other places while ours gets a little worse? also if the tech sector really loses half of it earning power the markets that cater to those people will simply deflate. globalization /is/ good in the long run because it brings supply/demand markets to an equil…

It's not good that comments like this against the group think are voted down. I certainly do not want my wages to go down, and I am not sure yet that globalization is good in the long run. When equilibrium is reached, in a world with infinite resources and space we would all benefit this is true. But in our current situation there will be more demand for limited natural resources if everyone is living at the same standard which will in turn lower my standard as a US citizen.

The greater effect on non ultra wealthy people now is the distribution of the wealth at the top for what is currently the outsourcing class, but is quickly becoming the machine/AI owner class.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#83

Post by news_to_me » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

nebabyte wrote: post #57

sbov wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not completely a labor play. Some of it is to skirt environmental protections. I'm not going to assume, but if you consider yourself both a globalist and an environmentalist, how do you personally resolve those two beliefs? Anyone reading this who does, how do you resolve those beliefs? I can vote for all the environmental protections that I want, but what good does that do if it just forces companies to man…

Stop trying to handle env at the domestic level; measures only work at an international level (UN regulations or tariffs/sanctions or whatever). But that's for later society (ones with people with stable livelihoods) to figure out, not currently on the table. If you allow yourself to be paralyzed by one issue tapping into the next, you'll deadlock yourself. One issue at a time. The environment is the least of the ame…

> "sooner the better" etc - but that's idealism, not pragmatism

I don't get this mentality at all. The more we put off curbing environmental change, the more expensive it becomes to fix.

I feel like it's analogous to credit card debt – what you're saying is, don't worry about that mountain of credit debt, with it's 14% interest rate; pay the minimum and contribute to a mutual fund instead. But the credit interest overruns the fund interest, so you lose money. Similarly, I think the costs of climate change are going to overrun any other economic issue we decide to focus on.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#84

Post by yummybear » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

So, engineers for the robots?

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#85

Post by malandrew » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

qyv wrote: post #27

malandrew wrote: post #13

It's so incredibly obvious that the best course of action is to let all these companies bring home all those foreign revenues so long as a significant portion of it is reinvested in the US is a reasonable period of time, excluding investments in financial instruments (stocks and bonds) and non-productive assets like land. Any money that is stuck abroad will be reinvested abroad, making foreign economies more competit…

The money isn't "stuck" abroad, it is hidden there. Don't pretend that it is the big bad tax man that is stopping these companies from being altruistic, this is 100% about maximizing profit. The idea of reinvesting money domestically is good in theory, but how do you actually ensure that the money stays here? Is Apple Et Al. going to build, staff and operate these factories with local labour? Or, are they going to su…

Take the spirit of my comment and exercise the principle of charity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

I already suggested that we attach restrictions on what constitutes a valid reinvestment in the US. If you considered the spirit of my comment, it should be obvious that I would support restrictions that would prohibit the loophole you suggested.

Maybe we can even make it so the money can only be brought home piecemeal, one investment at a time, with each investment going through a process that demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of each repatriated tax dollar is going to benefit the US economy.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#86

Post by malandrew » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

cowsandmilk wrote: post #36

malandrew wrote: post #13

It's so incredibly obvious that the best course of action is to let all these companies bring home all those foreign revenues so long as a significant portion of it is reinvested in the US is a reasonable period of time, excluding investments in financial instruments (stocks and bonds) and non-productive assets like land. Any money that is stuck abroad will be reinvested abroad, making foreign economies more competit…

> It's so incredibly obvious that the best course of action is to let all these companies bring home all those foreign revenues so long as a significant portion of it is reinvested It is very easy to bring back foreign revenue and spend it in the US. The issue companies have is that they already are making a profit in the US. They would spend down their US profit first. If your company is losing $1B/year in the US, y…

We should be encouraging the reinvestment of both profit abroad and domestic profit back in the United States. It doesn't need to be an either/or proposition.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#87

Post by malandrew » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

alexbeloi wrote: post #52

malandrew wrote: post #13

It's so incredibly obvious that the best course of action is to let all these companies bring home all those foreign revenues so long as a significant portion of it is reinvested in the US is a reasonable period of time, excluding investments in financial instruments (stocks and bonds) and non-productive assets like land. Any money that is stuck abroad will be reinvested abroad, making foreign economies more competit…

Reducing/removing taxes from abroad just incentivizes the firm to move as much of their profit abroad as possible, leaving nothing but domestic holding companies that report losses on behalf of their profitable overseas subsidiaries.

Huh? These customers will sell wherever there are customers. They can't just move their American customers abroad so they earn money from them outside the country.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#88

Post by jorblumesea » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

no1youknowz wrote: post #30

ryanmarsh wrote: post #9

> Cook told "60 Minutes” in 2015. “I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields.” In that interview he also said that the jobs weren't coming back. This is one of the most powerful statements uttered on American labor and employment trends in recent memory. I have shared thi…

Here's something else that should shake US and UK highly skilled workers. Our time will soon come as well. In China, they are racing to match and surpass western standards. I would say, they have already matched in some cases. But unlike the west where companies export out to save costs. Companies in China do everything in-house. There will be a time where these 6 figure jobs that some HN users have, will go down by…

I think it's actually going to be a trough. You have the creative frontend devs that are a mix of engineers and artists that make intuitive UIs. and the highly skilled ML/AI/PHD/Masters western educated engineers that will probably still be highly competitive. The ones hit the hardest will be your standard line engineer, the "Java Spring API" maintainers devs who just take tables from a DB and expose them as json blobs, write data feeds etc. This can easily be outsourced for much cheaper, and requires almost zero cultural knowledge, and is the bread and butter of any business.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#89

Post by SmellTheGlove » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

cmdrfred wrote: post #68

mikeyouse wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this, which is also why every single automaker now publicly announces their retooling costs and shift changes for new model years. "We're spending $4B to improve manufacturing and hiring 10,000 workers" is a politically friendly headline even if you've done the same thing every year for the past few decades.

If that is true why was that message not popular under Obama as well?

Well, Obama didn't do a lot of shitposting on Twitter. Trump shaming companies on a daily basis is probably part of the reason.

Re: Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S

#90

Post by atqtion » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #78

nickik wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who make argument like yours simple sound like "ignore problem, everything will be fine". A company that does not move to cheaper labour will go bankroupt and a new all China company will simply take over. So you have unemployed anyway. The typical solution to this is that you start walling of these industries with tarrifs or to subsides. What you eventually have is a huge sector of the US economy that liv…

Not really. Germany and Switzerland have managed to maintain high wages and high standards of living in a globally competitive manufacturing sector. The idea that all this change is inevitable or impossible to avoid and we can't pay workers properly is just bullshit, it's the messaging of a multi-decade well financed public relations effort by people in the U.S. with a vested interest in making the public believe it.

German megacorps do just as much manufacturing in developing economies as American megacorps.

The Mittelstand doesn't do the sort of manufacturing that the rust belt did 40 years ago. These smaller firms existing today only because of big disparities in quality between their products and cheaper competitors. They benefit enormously from the German government's investment in applied research.

https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/manufacturi...