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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

#301

Post by chrischen »

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.

99% chance the people complaining about labor conditions are doing so on a made in China phone.

Let’s be honest, people complaining about labor conditions have a pretty weak understanding of economics and what is actually going on with regards to these factories. China isn’t stupid. They weaken their currency specifically to bring in the cheap labor jobs to lift the poorest to a slightly less poor tier. Unless you realize how poor they started out with it’s hard to appreciate the gains in wealth even if it still looks dirt poor to an armchair labor rights activist.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#303

Post by chrischen »

S201 wrote: post #296
dcolkitt wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if this is the case, do you honestly not think the tradeoff is worth it? Lifting a billion people out of crushing poverty seems worth it even if it came at the cost of giving a dictatorship stronger geopolitical influence.

An authoritarian, nuclear armed government that is bent on expansionism by flaunting the established global rule of law and that is likely to start a world war over Taiwan? No, I don't think that's a worthwhile tradeoff.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say they are bent on expansion, but whether it’s worth it is more up to those 1 billion people to decide their fate and tradeoffs rather than foreign intervention. Oh and, due to China’s history of negative foreign interventions I doubt the population will take kindly to it now.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#304

Post by Covzire »

skohan wrote: post #243
cronix wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Designing their own chips in-house wasn't "their expertise" either, a few years ago. You won't expand into other areas unless you at least make it a priority and try.

Getting into semiconductors is probably substantially more complicated. Only a handful of companies are able to do it well and they have bene at it for decades.

"at least it's not chip fabrication" is the new "hey at least it's not rocket science".

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#305

Post by rasz »

surement wrote: post #271
nyolfen wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They see it as an obvious weakness in their ideology that companies can just walk away from their labor movement and go elsewhere. it's true! we can't force anybody to use our labor. but we can control access to our markets. you don't have to be a union activist to recognize that exporting american manufacturing jobs has been disastrous for our domestic working class.

> you don't have to be a union activist to recognize that exporting american manufacturing jobs has been disastrous for our domestic working class You do though. The reality is that "exporting" these jobs means cheaper products for everyone, and no one in what you call the "working class" wants these jobs to be in the US if it means they need to pay more for everything. The US consistently manufactures more every yea…

>no one in what you call the "working class" wants these jobs to be in the US

you might be a little disconnected from reality

>if it means they need to pay more for everything.

yes, now they can pay a little less from their wage.. oh wait, they got fired

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#306

Post by zshbleaker »

dirtyid wrote: post #215
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…

https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Supp... Ctrl+F 157 from PRC, other countries rarely break 30. Vietnam has 21 suppliers, most of whom also has (likely primary) PRC operation. >engineering ecosystems One presumes still need PRC to to build things first and work out kinks - so far only matured manufacturing lines are shifting out of PRC.

I was born in China and my family runs factories here for many years.

What you mentioned is true, the absolute majority of the supply chain of the big name companies are still in China, and many of the alternatives in Vietnam are somehow managed by PRC background capital.

However, it’s absolutely a good start. The eco mic crisis raising in China will be like the 1930s in US, if not worse. My family are actively searching for ways to selling out everything and move out the country but it’s clearly prohibited by the Gov. We are worrying it will eventually becomes a new Third Reich in near future, when the supply chain will be completely destroyed.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#307

Post by dietmtnview »

tasubotadas wrote: post #25
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…

Capitalism is one of the biggest eradicators of poverty. 1B of people in China was lifted from poverty because of it. And once it's done with one poor country, it starts taking care of the others :)

> Capitalism is one of the biggest eradicators of poverty.

wat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co4FES0ehyI

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#308

Post by Aunche »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #293
Aunche wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we have to care about American workers over everyone else? On one side, you have a American factory worker loses the ability to buy steak. On the other, a Vietnamese worker gets access to running water, the consumer gets cheaper electronics and Apple shareholders get extra profits.

The Vietnamese workers already had access to running water. Source: I actually live in Vietnam.

In cities, sure, but much of Vietnam still lives in rural areas, which still are very underserved. The continued industrialization of Vietnam is indeed enabling more access running water.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_...

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#309

Post by rasz »

nine_k wrote: post #261
echelon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's interesting how e.g. Germany retains quite sizable manufacturing which is not going anywhere, and actually benefits from the local highly trained, highly paid workforce.

>Germany retains quite sizable manufacturing which is not going anywhere

It might after this winter. Its hard to manufacture without energy and resource input.

Re: Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook

#310

Post by xupybd »

gerdesj wrote: post #238
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…

I can hire a person here (UK) to do something for £x/hour or £y/unit. I can perhaps hire a person in say Vietnam to do something for £x/n/hour etc. I don't do this personally but we should explore the possibilities. The thing about capitalism is it is capitalism. You should drive costs down and profits up. Ideally you don't kill people on the "journey" but hey that's what laws n that jud, errr judiciary ... ... cops/…

NZ is where you want to hire remote staff. Our wages are low and so is our dollar. We speak the same language and have a very similar culture. The time zone is an issue but remote workers normally will do strange hours to make it work. The more people do that the better life gets here in NZ so I'm a big fan. Our exports are mainly agricultural and tourism. Neither are high earners.
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