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

washingtonpost.com

211–220 of 288 posts

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

#211
post #44

> Apple says that it intends to bolster the U.S. manufacturing sector by creating a $1 billion “advanced manufacturing fund” — with some of that initial money going toward a company the tech giant is prepared to partner with, chief executive Tim Cook said. Amazing what passes for news these days. This sounds no different from what they normally do with their supply chain. Anyone remember GT Advanced Technologies? App…

> The deal went south It wasn't that the deal went south, it was that the company was unable to produce & deliver the product that they said they could, at the price they agreed to. GT bet the company on being able to fulfill their contract with Apple, and failed.

> it was that the company was unable to produce & deliver the product that they said they could, at the price they agreed to

How is that not the deal going south?

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

#212

> 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…

Here's something else that should shake US and UK highly skilled workers. Our time will soon come as well. In China, they are racing to match and surpass western standards. I would say, they have already matched in some cases. But unlike the west where companies export out to save costs. Companies in China do everything in-house. There will be a time where these 6 figure jobs that some HN users have, will go down by…

>Cue the cries for UBI.

$12k is the cited number that you see a lot in basic income discussions. That's just over the poverty level. That's not enough to live on and it's practically a bonus for some members of this site. It's not enough to do anything with. Even with that, people would still work massive hours to obtain the best house on the block.

But just to do that in the US you are talking about 3 trillion dollars (300 million x $10k for easy math) that you have to find in the budget. Now basic income advocates will say you can make up some if not most of that by cutting welfare programs, but given the nature of welfare programs - good luck. That stipend is also not enough to pay for healthcare, so you can't cut that.

How exactly do you convince a nation which already isn't willing to pay for healthcare to pay for basic income, too?

I'd love to be wrong, but I've never seen any numbers that are workable, especially in a political climate anything like today. There could be a complete paradigm shift in the future, where machines literally take care of all needs in an automated way, but that's such a strange reality that welfare is honestly about the last problem we'd need to discuss.

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

#213
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the right frame. Globalism "totally fucked" the american worker in the sense that the western working class broadly hasn't seen any net improvement in quality of life over the last two decades or so. Certainly nothing to compare with the gains seen in the western professional classes. Globalism also quite literally lifted hundreds of millions of non-western (mostly, not exclusively chinese) workers out…

Every country has it's own citizens as a first priority. If a working-class American is harmed to make an already wealthy american wealthier and to make the 5 Indonesians/Chinese/Africans/etc. that wealthy american hires better off then our country should rise up to reject that.

Rational self interest? Heresy!

We must ride the train of pathological altruism to the very end!

Ironically, this religion of globalism is a crude form of Christianity, with none of the pretty prose. The original sin of success must be paid for by eternal self-flagellation.

Even more interestingly, this new religion has only taken root in the west, which has mostly abandoned traditional religious dogma. Perhaps pathological altruism is inherent in those of western genetic origin? The non-western world appears to have none of these hangups regarding their past successes. I don't see Japanese and Chinese leaders flooding their nation with immigrant labor to atone for their recent economic gains while demonizing their own people for past sins.

Fascinating indeed.

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

#214
post #44

> Apple says that it intends to bolster the U.S. manufacturing sector by creating a $1 billion “advanced manufacturing fund” — with some of that initial money going toward a company the tech giant is prepared to partner with, chief executive Tim Cook said. Amazing what passes for news these days. This sounds no different from what they normally do with their supply chain. Anyone remember GT Advanced Technologies? App…

So something counts as business-as-usual now because it was attempted precisely once before, unsuccessfully, in the company's 40 year history?

I'd counter that it would be huge news if this was the first deal of its kind. GT's deal only became public because of a nasty bankruptcy case and Apple fought to keep it under wraps [1]. If GT had been able to produce the screens there wouldn't have been any public knowledge that Apple fronted them the money for the furnaces.

Apple is a very secretive company and even with this announcement they conveniently left out where the money is going.

This is business as usual, but there is now an incentive to brag about domestic investment because a simpleton is in the Whitehouse.

[1] https://www.recode.net/2014/10/14/11631890/apple-asks-courts...

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

#215
post #114
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> market trends and phenomenons can be controlled somehow, that they are simply choices that people make, and those choices can be controlled This double standard galls me. If a trend is detrimental to American workers, it's market trends, like the hand of God, irresistible. If it's beneficial, it's a historical fluke (post-WWII boom). I might buy this if the U.S. government had been a neutral bystander in this proce…

So basically you think the US government has been highly influential in developing 'globalism' and it's not entirely a natural phenomenon as a result of air travel, telecommunications, mature financial markets, lack of global war/conflict, the opening of the east to global markets, etc? Most of the things you mention, poor enforcement of tax havens, immigration policy, low taxes on capital, massive military spending,…

>So basically you think the US government has been highly influential in developing 'globalism' and it's not entirely a natural phenomenon as a result of air travel, telecommunications, mature financial markets, lack of global war/conflict, the opening of the east to global markets, etc?

Tell me, friend, where would you put Japan in the ranking of globalized countries? You hypothesize that like gravity, globalization was a force of nature destined to befall the US. But there are many counter-examples of countries which resisted globalization quite successfully. You only have to look around to see them.

But of course, like diversity quotas in SV companies, "Asian's don't count." In which case, carry on! May your meticulously crafted version of reality carry you onward to great success and happiness.

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

#216
post #147

> 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…

"All those jobs are not coming back and it is a good thing."

Not if you used one of those jobs to feed your family.

Seriously, I am absolutely sick and tired of people saying that not having these jobs is a good thing, and completely ignoring the large amounts of people who did depend on those jobs to provide for their families. In order for it to really be a good thing for those jobs to not be here, there have to be feasible alternatives for those people. Right now, there aren't. That's why Trump's cry of bringing the jobs back was so successful.

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

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> people seem worried about the number of factory workers in a way in which they do not worry about number of architects. That's because millions of people were factory workers living a cozy life back until a few decades ago and now they (and their kids and communities) are struggling to make ends meet. Millions of people weren't architects. Not much "glamorizing of factory jobs" is needed to explain their complains.…

Is that really true though? Is the unemployment rate higher now than it was in some golden age in cultural memory?

http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/charts/united-states-unemplo...

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

#218
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically you think the US government has been highly influential in developing 'globalism' and it's not entirely a natural phenomenon as a result of air travel, telecommunications, mature financial markets, lack of global war/conflict, the opening of the east to global markets, etc? Most of the things you mention, poor enforcement of tax havens, immigration policy, low taxes on capital, massive military spending,…

>So basically you think the US government has been highly influential in developing 'globalism' and it's not entirely a natural phenomenon as a result of air travel, telecommunications, mature financial markets, lack of global war/conflict, the opening of the east to global markets, etc? Tell me, friend, where would you put Japan in the ranking of globalized countries? You hypothesize that like gravity, globalization…

If you really believe in what you are saying, at least have the courage to debate it under your original username and not a fake one.

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

#219
post #147

> 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 way both Liberals and Conservatives speak as if USA is marred with some wide scale unemployment.

Are you unaware of the steadily declining Labor-force Participation Rate? [1] [2]

1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=dBkS

2. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/03/the-disappea...

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

#220
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would make the exact opposite argument in fact. I would argue it is entirely irrational to perpetuate this bizarre notion that living in a prosperous nation is some sort of original sin that must be atoned for by self-flagellation. Prosperity is not a finite resource. I believe equilibrium doesn't necessarily have to come at cost to anyone.

>sort of original sin that must be atoned for by self-flagellation. whether it's original sin aside (though i do believe it is) where do you see self-flagellation? i'm simply saying i'm okay with china becoming more competitive and market forces taking their natural course.

You're okay with a communist state one-party dictatorship that creates massive pollution and has poor human rights standards becoming the world superpower?
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