101–110 of 336 posts
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Have that attitude about your purchases for 10 years, wasting at least $4000 a year, and you've wasted $40000. That's significant even if you do make $100k.
Who buys a new computer every year? That’s just silly and a waste of money.
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The article reveals that the people working the Mac Pro assembly line in Texas where paid the minimum wage which in Texas is currently $7.25 an hour. When the plant closes, those guys can apply to any fast food place in Austin, and make the same money.
Austin is so expensive even fast food places advertise $14 an hr.
I wonder how significant the cost differences are for Apple with this move, especially since they mention previously manufacturing in the US and that many components are sourced in the US. How high will the margins be on these devices??
Apple previously (years ago) spoke about the importance of the supply chain, not price as the reason to mfg in China. Steve Jobs gave an example that if you needed to change the design to use a different type of screw then you'd have several manufacturers nearby that you could source from. That's just not possible in the US.
"He made do with his new machines, although he could not make the exact screws Apple wanted. His company delivered 28,000 screws over 22 trips. Mr. Melo often made the one-hour drive himself in his Lexus sedan."
> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-...
"More than 80% of the workers working across three assembly lines were contract employees paid minimum wage for eight-hour workday...when their shift ended, many walked off the job, he said—even if the lines were still running." Of course they did, that's what anyone in that situation would do surely? Are they supposed to work for below minimum wage because the company can't organise shift changeover properly?
Well I was not going to buy one, the price jump from the previous Pro was not something I or many expected or appreciated. I will get on my soap box again. Apple needs to be out of China, not moving more manufacturing to that country. What will it take to get Apple to stand up for the rights of the oppressed in China or are they that wrapped up in dollars they no longer see the people component? For a country which s…
How keeping production away from China will help the oppressed?
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You'll have a hard time finding that. But, you'll have an easier time finding out what companies who sell services related to supply chain integrity protection and counterfeit detection. Googling about those topics and companies like Harris Corp are good places to start. If you look at what these companies do, you should be able to infer what they are protecting against. From what I gather, the usual threat for this…
Depending on how you define it, I don't think Huawei is technically "state-owned", but because "communism" technically all business are owned by the PRC? But it's not formally apart of the PRC. Do I understand this correctly?
But the union has no control, other than after-work social activity.
It's about as complex and weird as a situation can get. Spies hide in complexity.
Well I was not going to buy one, the price jump from the previous Pro was not something I or many expected or appreciated. I will get on my soap box again. Apple needs to be out of China, not moving more manufacturing to that country. What will it take to get Apple to stand up for the rights of the oppressed in China or are they that wrapped up in dollars they no longer see the people component? For a country which s…
When I was young, I lived in nightly fear of China. I lived on a military base in the 1980s, and read conspiratorialist material my parents had in the house. One of my greatest fears was China's army of hundreds of millions of men. Today I don't fear China. I have a ten-year tourist visa for China and will be heading to Hong Kong next week.
I believe the difference is economic engagement. The economic interests of both America and China are too entangled now to imagine a military war between the two countries.
So on the one extreme is sanctions a la Iran or North Korea, and on the other extreme is the full unlimited economic engagement we have now. If the choices are that stark, I choose engagement every time.
The choice isn't that stark, though. One can still engage but with limits and conditions, right? It seems likely that even if Apple completely withdrew all manufacturing from China, or with even more difficulty and expense, completely withdrew all supply of raw materials, there would still be enough economic engagement between China and other companies to make open hostility unpalatable. But Apple is definitely one of the bigger companies doing business there, and they would have lost any influence there at all.
Right now Apple can say they've brought the standard of living for employees of factories which build Apple gear up quite a bit. Not to western standards, obviously, but far, far higher than they were. If Apple leaves, do those changes remain? Or do the standards drop back down to pre-Apple levels, sending people back into poverty and hardship? I don't know, do you?
Where would Apple send manufacturing next? They were producing the Mac Pro in the US, which I think is one of the largest reasons that platform has stagnated for years now. Do you have a suggestion of another country that provides the resources Apple needs while also providing a standard of living for every citizen that satisfies you? I mean, does the standard of living for every citizen of the US satisfy you?
Anyway, it's a complicated issue, and I'm not arguing that Apple shouldn't continue to do more, but I think disengagement is not the right move here, for Apple, for Chinese citizens, for anyone.
"More than 80% of the workers working across three assembly lines were contract employees paid minimum wage for eight-hour workday...when their shift ended, many walked off the job, he said—even if the lines were still running." Of course they did, that's what anyone in that situation would do surely? Are they supposed to work for below minimum wage because the company can't organise shift changeover properly?
I work until the job is done (or I'm cut) and the workplace is safe. It's the employer's responsibility to pay me at least the legal minimum wage for hours worked. If that means I'm going into OT because they can't organize shift changes properly, that's their problem.
There are usually also legal or contractual requirements for breaks, so I'd be prepared to say "I'm walking away this minute -- unless you want to pay meal penalty?" (I've said that once or twice, and the response has always been "Go, take an hour!") Texas doesn't seem to have any laws requiring worker breaks (wow), and the article doesn't mention if they have a union, but Texas law does apparently require at least a 1.5x pay rate for any hours beyond 40/wk.
Depending on their contract, either they should walk away as they do, or they should keep working until relieved and get paid for OT. Nobody is suggesting they should do extra unpaid work.
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In professional environments the price of a computer is so minimal it doesn’t really matter. If someone is being paid even $100K a year then the extra $4,000 for a computer they’ll have for probably 4 years is a rounding error.
Have that attitude about your purchases for 10 years, wasting at least $4000 a year, and you've wasted $40000. That's significant even if you do make $100k.
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> They stand for rights and privacy only when it does not interfere with their revenue stream . I understand the sentiment, but it's a nonstarter. A company that prioritizes human rights at the expense of profit, is a company that has no chance of survival in our political or economic environment, regardless of whether it's in China or the US. The corporate incentives are not fully aligned with the long term interest…
This is a painfully oblivious statement. Have you been under a rock for the past 100 years? Corporations put profits in front of human rights CONSTANTLY, often with the grudging acceptance of the majority of the populace and a blind eye from governments. In fact, I think it would be very difficult to name even 30 companies in Forbes Top 100 list that someone would be hard pressed to find no examples of running afoul…
As for the rest, obviously, free market has a self-correcting mechanism. Corporations need consumers so they cannot simply "run afoul of basic human rights" as you said or they get a pushback from the populace. But at the same time, western companies send their manufacturing to Asia due to lower costs despite the lax labor and environmental regulations in those countries. I'm not sure what is controversial about what I said.