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Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

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Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#291

Post by dmix »

bigyabai wrote: post #47
philipallstar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sound like good things. I'm not sure why your second paragraph sounds like the opposite.

They're cursory gestures at best, and stark condemnations of US manufacturing capacity at worst. The Mac Mini and Mac Pro are not complex or dense electronics in the slightest. They're carrier enclosures for TSMC technology, you could probably make them in Siberia if you wanted to. The hard part is manufacturing Apple's high-volume hardware, namely the iPhone. That is not anywhere close to being onshored, and Apple s…

So Tim said it's not yet practical so they aren't doing it? And instead of moving what they can?

The article mentions they are opening a manufacturing academy to train a future generation of Americans to build manufacturing capability.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#294

Post by mikestorrent »

Avicebron wrote: post #272
SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a great freakonomics podcast that talked about China being run by engineers and America being run by lawyers. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/china-is-run-by-engineers-a...

Authoritarian central planning isn't an inherent trait of engineers and nor should we aspire for it to be.

You don't need to brand efficiency and structure-at-scale as "authoritarian"; how painfully American of you. I know it's a completely foreign concept for anyone that has grown up in America, but it's actually within the realm of human possibility for the government and the individual to be aligned and want the same thing. Typically this is evidenced by tremendous social progress, which we see in evidence with the rapidly rising standard of living in China over the last few decades.

It's easier when your government is proposing "hey, let's build all the factories the best way we can" and not "hey, let's impose illogical and continually-changing tariffs on everything and let Howard Lutnick's kids steal all the proceeds". You're right as an American to be skeptical of the government - it's not operating in your best interests unless you're one of the elite insiders. That doesn't mean it has to be that way.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#295

Post by kccqzy »

827a wrote: post #285
kccqzy wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company like Apple has very little incentive to care about geopolitics, other than by current or future government laws and regulations (a government mandate, tariffs, etc). In the absence of government intervention, Apple has determined that investing a quarter trillion dollars is the cheap choice; getting the same result in the United States would probably need much much more than a quarter trillion dollars worth…

Your learned helplessness is defeatist and boring. We need not be Moloch's subjects; Apple's business priorities are not the result of some natural and unstoppable force, and their leadership is not exempt from responsibility because of your belief that it is. Someone, sometime, in a surprisingly boring room, wearing a surprisingly boring suit, made decisions like those which opened a factory in China instead of Texa…

I do not have learned helplessness. Nor have I claimed Apple’s business practices are the result of a natural force. Nothing is natural here. I said that Congress could have acted. Is Congress part of the nature now?

In contrast you have provided no arguments for why Apple’s leadership bears responsibility rather than Congress.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#296

Post by logotype »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #230
dangus wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conversion rate is actually 0%. Nobody will pay more for a USA version. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43787647

Well, um.. Forgive me for not being in the market for a showerhead in the last few years and / or not knowing about this one company that I didn't see at Home Depot/Lowes when I did buy a couple of them? I admit I'm probably an outlier, but in terms of durable goods, I'd pay 30-50% more for lots of things if they were "made in the USA" or "made in Canada" (any western country) and it meant something - like, better pa…

You’re not alone. I’m a self-funded startup founder and I still buy Made in USA goods (clothes, appliances, tools, supplies, equipment, etc). For me the price isn’t the main factor, it’s simply that I want to support the countries I like. Been doing this for 10 years now. Based in London so I also buy Made in England things too. Never ever support authoritarian regimes!

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#297

Post by insane_dreamer »

donw wrote: post #245
whynotmaybe wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, US didn't lose it, we collectively decided that whenever we buy something, the price was the most important aspect. It's like everybody forgot that their neighbour's job depend on them. We're repeating the same pattern with online shopping, malls and stores everywhere are closing because of our collective actions, we're not losing them like I lost my keys.

We collectively decided nothing. Our political/ruling class wanted more of the pie for themselves, dropped the trade barriers protecting American industry, and gorged themselves on the arbitrage as manufacturing flowed to our chief geopolitcal rival, who was quite happy to accept such a generous gift.

That's true, but we also collectively decided to buy cheap stuff from Walmart instead of buying from the local town store, creating a race to the bottom.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#298

Post by [deleted] »

bsder wrote: post #254
dangus wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get fatigue when everyone claims that all these Chinese businesses are state sponsored. Do we not recognize that western governments do this too? Do we not recognize that western banks and VC firms are quasi-state institutions? Do we not see western countries continually subsidize businesses by lowering corporate tax rates and giving out cheap loans? The US government was giving out $7500 per car to buy EVs and the…

> It’s like the western zeitgeist can’t accept that China is simply out-competing them on pure merit. With a 400m head start in a 1600m race. It's a whole lot easier to out-compete somebody when you know the government will backstop you even if you misstep. Solar and battery technology were two of those areas. China absolutely dumped cheap, mostly inferior solar cells on everybody else to wipe out competing manufactu…

[deleted]

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#299

Post by bb88 »

lkbm wrote: post #289
mlsu wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you met an engineer? I'd say "being an engineer" is probably the single most predictive trait for authoritarianism in my experience.

Possibly, but it's just as much a predictive trait of being libertarian, which for all its faults, is extremely anti-authoritarian.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. --Lord Acton.

It's not really so much one's belief system as it is what happens when one gets power -- and that's hard to predict regardless of the ideology.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#300

Post by vondur »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #84

Apple is very tied to Chinese manufacturing in a way that is hard to replicate in US. They will agree to make some high margin simple to assemble thing in the US to appease government, but if it goes as well as last time, they will stop as soon as they can. In china they were often able to iterate on designs and have custom screws and other parts made and ramped up in very short times. Something about having the whol…

I doubt the MacMini is a high margin product for Apple. I'd agree it's probably one of the more simpler items to build in their product line.
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