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

#161

Post by somecallitblues » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

jackfraser wrote: post #122

nickik wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is not very hard. People like to attribute everything to regulation but the reality is that most parts of living standards improve when incomes grows. As China becomes richer they will go threw the same stuff that Britain and later the US did. Maybe I don't fit the bill as 'envoirmentalist' but I like to live in a place and country with a clean envoirment. China will have to fix its own problems, and Im su…

I hope that you're right, but it's definitely a big assumption on your part that China (and, of course, Chinese culture in general) will naturally head down the path of caring about the environment in the same sense that Western countries and cultures have started to. There are different levels of scale at play that make very different tactics work in Shanghai vs Vancouver; in the former there's enough difficulty ens…

What? As if west is taking environmental protectionism seriously. Look what Trump is doing and other climate change deniers. An idiot in Australian parliament walks around with a lump of coal. Canada is raping the country digging up those tar sands which is more polluting than previously thought according to last studies. China needs to catch up at any cost, but once they do their government system will allow them to take drastic measures to clean up faster than the west. Our political systems are in bed with polluters and we're still emmitting the highest levels of CO2 per capita.

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

#162

Post by somecallitblues » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

jackfraser wrote: post #122

nickik wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is not very hard. People like to attribute everything to regulation but the reality is that most parts of living standards improve when incomes grows. As China becomes richer they will go threw the same stuff that Britain and later the US did. Maybe I don't fit the bill as 'envoirmentalist' but I like to live in a place and country with a clean envoirment. China will have to fix its own problems, and Im su…

I hope that you're right, but it's definitely a big assumption on your part that China (and, of course, Chinese culture in general) will naturally head down the path of caring about the environment in the same sense that Western countries and cultures have started to. There are different levels of scale at play that make very different tactics work in Shanghai vs Vancouver; in the former there's enough difficulty ens…

What? As if west is taking environmental protectionism seriously. Look what Trump is doing and other climate change deniers. An idiot in Australian parliament walks around with a lump of coal. Canada is raping the country digging up those tar sands which is more polluting than previously thought according to last studies. China needs to catch up at any cost, but once they do their government system will allow them to take drastic measures to clean up faster than the west. Our political systems are in bed with polluters and we're still emmitting the highest levels of CO2 per capita.

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

#163

Post by ericfrederich » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

So what'll that be?... 5 new jobs created? Look at the Tesla Gigafactory, they brag on how dense it is and how automated it is... that means less jobs.

I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm just saying bringing manufacturing back to the US doesn't mean jobs, it couldn't and still be profitable. Any new factory in the US will have to be so heavily automated it couldn't possibly provide any jobs

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

#164

Post by nerfhammer » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:13 PM UTC

tn135 wrote: post #147

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…

> Financial interests convinced liberals and conservatives alike that globalism was a good thing (for altruistic or selfish reasons respectively). Instead it just gave Capital access to cheap labor and totally fucked the American worker. Lump of Labour fallacy. The way both Liberals and Conservatives speak as if USA is marred with some wide scale unemployment. It is as if Americans would love to have sweatshops where…

People seem to want people to have jobs that are easy to visualize... people seem worried about the number of factory workers in a way in which they do not worry about number of architects.

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

#165

Post by pg314 » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #51

david-cako wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the answer? Protectionism? That's the thing I don't get, so many people will advocate "fewer regulations", yet are perfectly content with prohibitive tariffs from the place that allows people living in section 8 to afford iPhones. You're 100% right, but i just don't see a good answer other than coming to terms with the fact that cheap labour overseas and automation WILL back us into UBI in the very near future…

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…

In Apple's case it is mostly a labor play.

They have a number of initiatives related to the environment [1]. They are trying to reduce their carbon footprint, and are close to get 100% of their power from renewable sources. They also announced their intention of a closed-loop supply chain (no new mining).

Of course, they are not perfect. The Washington Post documented the horrifying exploitation of cobalt miners in Congo [2]. Some of that cobalt ended up in Apple batteries. Apple said it was addressing the issue [3].

The biggest contribution you yourself can make at this moment is to simply consume less.

[1] https://images.apple.com/lae/environment/pdf/Apple_Environme...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/c...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/03...

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

#166

Post by blackguardx » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #81

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not many. China in the 60s and 70s had a very poor manufacturing base compared to today.

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

#167

Post by pg314 » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

thevtm wrote: post #133

nickik wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is not very hard. People like to attribute everything to regulation but the reality is that most parts of living standards improve when incomes grows. As China becomes richer they will go threw the same stuff that Britain and later the US did. Maybe I don't fit the bill as 'envoirmentalist' but I like to live in a place and country with a clean envoirment. China will have to fix its own problems, and Im su…

Polution and slave labour in China. Unemployment in the US. Globalism sounds great.

You're grossly simplifying. According to the World Bank [1], since 1990, nearly 1.1 billion people have escaped extreme poverty.

[1] http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-and-shared-p...

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

#168

Post by bduerst » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:20 PM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #164

tn135 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Financial interests convinced liberals and conservatives alike that globalism was a good thing (for altruistic or selfish reasons respectively). Instead it just gave Capital access to cheap labor and totally fucked the American worker. Lump of Labour fallacy. The way both Liberals and Conservatives speak as if USA is marred with some wide scale unemployment. It is as if Americans would love to have sweatshops where…

People seem to want people to have jobs that are easy to visualize... people seem worried about the number of factory workers in a way in which they do not worry about number of architects.

It's because American's romanticize manufacturing for some reason. They love the idea of someone doing back-breaking labor on a factory floor line, but hate the idea of someone working retail in air conditioning.

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

#169

Post by justavoice » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:20 PM UTC

tn135 wrote: post #147

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…

> Financial interests convinced liberals and conservatives alike that globalism was a good thing (for altruistic or selfish reasons respectively). Instead it just gave Capital access to cheap labor and totally fucked the American worker. Lump of Labour fallacy. The way both Liberals and Conservatives speak as if USA is marred with some wide scale unemployment. It is as if Americans would love to have sweatshops where…

The hollowing out of the middle class, the number 'no longer looking for work', the number of underemployed would say that you are wrong.

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

#170

Post by okreallywtf » Thu, May 04, 2017, 7:21 PM UTC

tn135 wrote: post #147

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…

> Financial interests convinced liberals and conservatives alike that globalism was a good thing (for altruistic or selfish reasons respectively). Instead it just gave Capital access to cheap labor and totally fucked the American worker. Lump of Labour fallacy. The way both Liberals and Conservatives speak as if USA is marred with some wide scale unemployment. It is as if Americans would love to have sweatshops where…

I think a lot of us thought that economic indicators would make it hard for the republicans to make the case that things were bad and they could make things good but we forgot unfortunately that perception is all and the actual numbers don't mean anything. Under 5% unemployment doesn't mean anything if you can find enough salt-of-the-earth middle class white people who are struggling, because that is enough to convince people to toss the whole system and start over even if unemployment is low and wages are increasing.

It is truly staggering to have the right now taking on the mantle of income inequality after decades of obstructing any efforts to tackle it, so they can bring back the kinds of jobs that unions helped to define the middle class with after being instrumental in destroying unions all while blaming the left. I know its not quite that cut and dried but I think the left feels like that globalism is OK as long as you are distributing the wealth made from it. It seems like the republicans right now are willing to make us less wealthy and less well off in many ways, as long as the white middle class can benefit (even if the country suffers in general).