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Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

thisamericanlife.org

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Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#41

Post by atirip »

Fizzer wrote: post #39
pooriaazimi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% profit margin on it. I smell greed, regardless if people accept to be ripped of or not. So, you expect Apple to manufacture in the States, and then sell it to you without a margin (over production costs)... And how exactly are those poor Apple engineers and Apple Store Employees are supp…

> So, you expect Apple to manufacture in the States, and then sell it to you without a margin (over production costs)... And how exactly are those poor Apple engineers and Apple Store Employees are supposed to make money? Apple has over $80 billion in cash. That's all left over after their employees have been paid. They could afford to manufacture their goods in a first-world country, sell their products at the same…

Ok, change the world, buy some Apple shares, enter shareholders meeting, put up your proposal to vote. Wath your shares value drop to one third and be happy.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#42

Post by [deleted] »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #27
joering1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont buy it. in the good ole days even before Standard Oil, fierce competition and W-2 (and IRS/SS in that matter), the reason behind owning any business was not to get rich or satisfy the board with higher dividend, but to give people job and ability to keep their families respected. to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% pr…

Half the people who came to America did it for money. It was the place where you didn't owe anybody anything, and nobody owed you anything either. That was the beauty of it.

[deleted]

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#43

Post by radicalbyte »

A point which seems to be missed (and which is, thankfully, made in the podcast) is that these terrible conditions are better than the alternative.

The situation China, in many ways, better than it was in the Western world when we were going through our Industrial Revolution.

It made me think back to a TED talk from Hans Rosling on Population Growth, and the relation to economic status: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

Although it seems bad to us now, globilization is, over all, a net positive.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#44

Post by Tichy »

joering1 wrote: post #22
PakG1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs took it up publicly before he died about how the American government could make manufacturing in the US to be a more attractive option for companies like Apple.

I dont buy it. in the good ole days even before Standard Oil, fierce competition and W-2 (and IRS/SS in that matter), the reason behind owning any business was not to get rich or satisfy the board with higher dividend, but to give people job and ability to keep their families respected. to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% pr…

Bullshit is not even a big enough word for that drivel. Elephant shit, Mammuth shit...

Entrepreneurs were always in it for the money. Even if you want to help humanity, you still have to be in it for the money, because otherwise you go broke and can't help humanity anymore, either.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#45

Post by calibraxis »

gerggerg wrote: post #35

It's interesting to listen to stories like this because they make it truly difficult to access your own feelings. You want to dislike or even hate it but a moment later you realize, in order to do so, you'd have to pass those judgements onto yourself. And so you kind of brush it off or feel like you're somehow doing the right thing by just hearing about it. There is no option other than simply not using electronics,…

I don't know where you're from, but that's one of the odd things about the US culture I'm from. We often can't imagine how to participate meaningly in the decisionmaking which rules our lives. (Aside from pushing a button for someone every few years or not buying something, which isn't serious participation.) So we're left with the hyperindividualist idea that we can only affect our measly personal purchasing decisions, while wealthy elites are deciding for us.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#46

Post by toyg »

glenra wrote: post #28
jQueryIsAwesome wrote: post #20

If one of you guys, someday happen to be wealthy; i highly recommend hiring people that work at Foxconn and other corporate farms of misery; they would probably be really, and i mean really the most loyal and thankful workers in the world if you can give them a decent salary for decent amount of hours.

They do get a decent salary by local standards, and (so long as they're being paid for it) tend to want all the hours they can get. There was a riot a few years ago in a chinese plant because the plant owners stopped giving so much overtime and the workers were upset that they lost out on the extra work. If you read Apple's status reports, one of the problems they seem to be battling is that these jobs are so good th…

The workers were upset they were missing out on money, not "work". I bet there wouldn't have been riots if the company had simply quadrupled their salary before cutting overtime.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#47

Post by pooriaazimi »

theduexmachina wrote: post #38
pooriaazimi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% profit margin on it. I smell greed, regardless if people accept to be ripped of or not. So, you expect Apple to manufacture in the States, and then sell it to you without a margin (over production costs)... And how exactly are those poor Apple engineers and Apple Store Employees are supp…

One of the reasons manufacturing costs are so high in the united states is due to labor costs. Put simply, America cannot beat the cost efficiency of Chinese production. Samsung however decided to put a plant into Austin for production of the A5 chip. (A Korean company building in Texas for a product assembled in China) http://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/16/samsungs-new-texas-facto... On a more cynical note, Apple's sh…

Maybe something like 'iPad RED'?

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#48

Post by decode »

radicalbyte wrote: post #43

A point which seems to be missed (and which is, thankfully, made in the podcast) is that these terrible conditions are better than the alternative. The situation China, in many ways, better than it was in the Western world when we were going through our Industrial Revolution. It made me think back to a TED talk from Hans Rosling on Population Growth, and the relation to economic status: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_…

> A point which seems to be missed (and which is, thankfully, made in the podcast) is that these terrible conditions are better than the alternative.

This is often brought up, but strangely "the alternative" is defined as "the way things were before" instead of "better working conditions." The fact is that there is no one "alternative" to these kinds of business situations; there are many different alternatives, some of them better and some of them worse. Conditions can be improved, if people want it. Otherwise, there would still be 12-year-olds working 80 hour weeks in factories in the US and Europe.

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#49

Post by [deleted] »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #37
joering1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont buy it. in the good ole days even before Standard Oil, fierce competition and W-2 (and IRS/SS in that matter), the reason behind owning any business was not to get rich or satisfy the board with higher dividend, but to give people job and ability to keep their families respected. to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% pr…

> to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% profit margin on it. I smell greed, regardless if people accept to be ripped of or not. So, you expect Apple to manufacture in the States, and then sell it to you without a margin (over production costs)... And how exactly are those poor Apple engineers and Apple Store Employees are supp…

[deleted]

Re: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

#50

Post by technoslut »

joering1 wrote: post #22
PakG1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs took it up publicly before he died about how the American government could make manufacturing in the US to be a more attractive option for companies like Apple.

I dont buy it. in the good ole days even before Standard Oil, fierce competition and W-2 (and IRS/SS in that matter), the reason behind owning any business was not to get rich or satisfy the board with higher dividend, but to give people job and ability to keep their families respected. to me its a simple math: Apple produce stuff in China saving 40% of production costs, then sells its goods in America putting 40% pr…

From what I understand of what I read of Jobs, what you posted isn't the issue. He wanted to bring the manufacturing of Apple products back to the US but there were other issues at play such as labor laws and extraneous fees that came with building and supporting manufacturing plants in the US.

I don't know the details but this is supposedly one of the issues he spoke about to Obama.

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