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Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#141

Post by echelon »

dylan604 wrote: post #137
Sakos wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China was literally able to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty with all the manufacturing that was moved there. I think most people don't understand anything about economics. Vietnam absolutely wants and will benefit from an increasingly industrialized economy. edit: I'm seeing a number of comments pointing out how these are companies owned by Koreans. Which maybe isn't optimal, but the potential for…

How long before Vietnam pulls a move from China's playbook where they start to manufacture things based on the plans foreign companies brought them and sell the product under Vietnamese company brands?

That's just the algorithm. Every nation leveraging manufacturing for growth will do this.

When it eventually gets too expensive for native workers, manufacturing moves again [1]. Except the locals now have a sizable middle class and knowledge economy, and there are high value industrial processes left behind: automotive, aerospace, scientific, etc.

The whole world is growing up, and wealthy nations are paying for it (because they love low cost goods). It's a win-win situation.

([1] doesn't mean every nation shouldn't think defensively about its own supply chain for essential inputs and outputs.)

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#142

Post by remarkEon »

scarface74 wrote: post #130
yrgulation wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well thats the issue. The whole suite of dependencies needs to be moved back, except where impossible - i.e. minerals etc. Having moved all of this outside the free world we slowed down progress in our own countries. Imagine being forced to come up with cheaper alternatives at home where we’d be with robotics, automation and space mining today. Instead we finance countries that seek to challenge us.

What good does it do to move all of the dependencies except for the most important foundational dependencies ?

Is your assumption here that all minerals are distributed equally, or equally accessible?

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#143

Post by noselasd »

LtWorf wrote: post #88
gleenn wrote: post #27

How is no one mentioning that China is threatening Taiwan. If the US ends up in a war with China, suddenly most Apple products would have serious operations problems if not being shut off completely. Cheap labor isn't a bad reason, but this is also a hedge against the heating politics between the West and both Russia and China.

Quoted post unavailable.

All the recent chinese military exercises and direct threats from chinese news outlets and military leaders are not .. threatening ?

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#144

Post by xwdv »

LtWorf wrote: post #81
koheripbal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of dishonesty around Westerners complaining about foreign cheap labor. They claim to be championing labor rights, but they are often just angered at companies for stopping all manufacturing in the West. They see it as an obvious weakness in their ideology that companies can just walk away from their labor movement and go elsewhere. The obvious truth, and what literally all of these Vietnamese workers w…

But now we can't build anything and if china embargoes us, we're doomed.

We produce things that matter, such as food. We’ll be fine.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#145

Post by astrange »

mattigames wrote: post #79
mgraczyk wrote: post #19

A lot of comments here are criticizing Apple for chasing cheap labor. Ignoring for a second the fact that this has a lot more to do with geopolitics and hedging geopolitical risk, I think it's important to think more carefully about the impact of companies investing in developing economies. By and large, the factory work done by people in developing economies is dramatically better in terms of quality of life and saf…

Can't shake the feeling that a similar rationality was used to partially justify trading slaves "The new master feeds them bread and milk instead of just rice and water! Its a clear win for them!". Yeah I get it, its an improvement for sure but maybe the problem has roots a bit deeper that must be adressed and therefore righfully critized despite being an improvement.

Economics is called the "dismal science" because slavers called the economists that when the economists pointed out slavery was both bad and inefficient.

The slavers' argument was that treating them bad taught them proper Christian character.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#146

Post by astrange »

pishpash wrote: post #53
supernova87a wrote: post #24

I'm interested to know to what extent this is just assembly of parts imported from China, or whether the real control over things like the M1 chip assembly, secure element, logic board, etc. are also moved to Vietnam? Seems like that's the secret sauce / real proprietary stuff that tells you whether the high value is moving too. (or maybe that is not even in China either) And do they have the surrounding parts + engi…

It's almost certainly final assembly, and plugged into the supply chain next door.

The other parts aren't all made in China. The displays are made in Japan and Korea.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#147

Post by upupandup »

surfpel wrote: post #56
koheripbal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of dishonesty around Westerners complaining about foreign cheap labor. They claim to be championing labor rights, but they are often just angered at companies for stopping all manufacturing in the West. They see it as an obvious weakness in their ideology that companies can just walk away from their labor movement and go elsewhere. The obvious truth, and what literally all of these Vietnamese workers w…

> There is a lot of dishonesty around Westerners complaining about foreign cheap labor. This is a strawman. You're conflating different groups of people with different interests. Some people complain about labor conditions, some people complain that jobs are leaving the country. Almost nobody is "dishonest" about this.

The people complaining on Twitter that foreign cheap labour is being used are writing on devices that were produced by that same labour. Those very same people are the ones that are demanding that we bring those labour back but unwilling to brunt the cost that companies will then pass on to those same customer. It's not a strawman its the reality of Western society, whatever feels wrong is totally and completely detached from any logic or intellectual discussion about why the reality they feel like they are entitled to is at conflict with their own contradictory desires.

It is virtue signaling, largely to placate and pat themselves on the back to deflect blame from them, that their consumption, their vote with their money, and unwillingness to pay the true cost, is what creates this situation.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#148

Post by LtWorf »

xwdv wrote: post #144
LtWorf wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now we can't build anything and if china embargoes us, we're doomed.

We produce things that matter, such as food. We’ll be fine.

With no chips to repair the john deere tractors? Yeah food won't happen.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#149

Post by marricks »

mgraczyk wrote: post #19

A lot of comments here are criticizing Apple for chasing cheap labor. Ignoring for a second the fact that this has a lot more to do with geopolitics and hedging geopolitical risk, I think it's important to think more carefully about the impact of companies investing in developing economies. By and large, the factory work done by people in developing economies is dramatically better in terms of quality of life and saf…

> By and large, the factory work done by people in developing economies is dramatically better in terms of quality of life and safety than the agricultural work that they would be doing without economic development.

Do you have numbers on how it improved life of Chinese farmers compared to 100 years ago, 200?

When the US went through its industrial revolution we went from people owning farms to basically being owned by the factories boss. Child labor was rampant so we’re ridiculous working hours and blacksmiths and others who were put out of a job basically drank themselves to death.

Someone none of that seems to ever happen in other countries and all we hear about is “how great of an opportunity it is for them to get to build iPhones” odd stuff

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#150

Post by upupandup »

Sakos wrote: post #84
mgraczyk wrote: post #19

A lot of comments here are criticizing Apple for chasing cheap labor. Ignoring for a second the fact that this has a lot more to do with geopolitics and hedging geopolitical risk, I think it's important to think more carefully about the impact of companies investing in developing economies. By and large, the factory work done by people in developing economies is dramatically better in terms of quality of life and saf…

China was literally able to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty with all the manufacturing that was moved there. I think most people don't understand anything about economics. Vietnam absolutely wants and will benefit from an increasingly industrialized economy. edit: I'm seeing a number of comments pointing out how these are companies owned by Koreans. Which maybe isn't optimal, but the potential for…

> hundreds of millions of people out of poverty

This is false because majority of Chinese citizens do not make more than $1000 per year or something very low. The average GDP is something like $6000, which is far below its neighbours. Even the ones that do make more, while not in complete poverty, they are barely live due to expensive housing and cost of living.

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