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There are a lot of people who don't seem to understand the difference between paying for a job (that's counted as much) and paying for a license.

None of the associations claim they've created jobs. They claim they have certified x amount of doctors. That's different. That's my point.

When you pay for education - the school doesn't take credit for how many jobs it's created counting all the students that have graduated. So again - it's different.

Poor analogies/examples.

Do you have any reasons that any of the 514,000 jobs that Apple claims to have created should not be counted?

A realtor pays for her jobs. A small business owner pays for their job. This argument is just not thought through.
 
How about to get foxconn to reduce working hours (from about 12-14 a day) to something more akin to humans instead of human slaves ...

They are not slaves. They are perfectly free to leave FoxConn and go back to their home village, or to some other factory in China... where they will probably have to work even longer hours for an even lower income.

They are also earning more money than around half of the world's population, thus in the top 50%. If you are worried about poverty, worry about tens of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa who are living on less than $2/day and have no other place to go. Not about merely tens of thousands of FoxConn employees who are incredibly rich and well off by comparison.
 
Rather a bit of hubris.

By their logic our small farm feeds millions of people and is related to the creation of tens of thousands of jobs in our state and region.

They're slicing the hairs too thin.
 
Do you have any reasons that any of the 514,000 jobs that Apple claims to have created should not be counted?

A realtor pays for her jobs. A small business owner pays for their job. This argument is just not thought through.

Well, Apple didn't really "create" those jobs. They need them in order to meet demand. So really, consumers created those jobs.

Not that it really matters. I'm just saying you can look at it that way.
 
I believe it wouldn't be feasible due to higher labor and production costs. It'd have been worse.

Just because the US doesn't manufacture anything anymore, doesn't mean you couldn't do it very successfully even with 'high' labor costs. Ever been to Germany?
 
They are not slaves. They are perfectly free to leave FoxConn and go back to their home village, or to some other factory in China... where they will probably have to work even longer hours for an even lower income.

They are also earning more money than around half of the world's population, thus in the top 50%. If you are worried about poverty, worry about tens of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa who are living on less than $2/day and have no other place to go. Not about merely tens of thousands of FoxConn employees who are incredibly rich and well off by comparison.

This is a very important point. I worked in a slaughter house and other factory work. The pay was better than I could get anywhere else. It was worth putting up with the incredibly long hours, off hours and poor living conditions because I saved virtually every cent I made. Why do some people keep wanting to deprive workers of the right to make money for their labor? This seems to be a liberal disease. Yet, these same people want to pay minimal prices and get these goods. Cognitive dissonance ringing the bell.
 
Rather a bit of hubris.

By their logic our small farm feeds millions of people and is related to the creation of tens of thousands of jobs in our state and region.

They're slicing the hairs too thin.

What logic is that? Seems like you are making assumptions about how thin they are slicing the hairs.
 
Cost of manufacturing in the U.S. is a big enough deal, I would think, to make a substantial dent in margins -- and consequently something Apple would not seriously consider.
Total cost I agree with, but worker pay is only a part of that total cost and tends to get flogged as *the* reason things are moving out of the US.

Corning, which is having a boom thanks to mobile devices using its Gorilla Glass, decided to open up a new plant in China, instead of another US plant, because it makes more sense logistically to have their glass plant within a stones throw of the plant that takes the raw glass and makes iPad screens (or whatever). Paying US wages wasn't the kicker, shipping down the street vs shipping overseas was the kicker.


We talk a good talk about education and training, then continue to cause it to become steadily more difficult to actually attain.
I won't argue with that.


Lethal
 
Well, Apple didn't really "create" those jobs. They need them in order to meet demand. So really, consumers created those jobs.

Amazingly, the claims that Apple created the jobs or consumers created the jobs can both be true.
 
To me this is the most important fact. Call-center support can easily be off-shored to save a few million, but Apple keeps it here in the USA. When I call them for tech support, I can talk to someone in English without have to ask them to repeat themselves or having to repeat what I'm saying. The end-to-end customer experience matters to Apple.

Off-shore call centers have improved in the standard of their English pronunciation since their inception, and Apple does use them just like any other big company. It's still relatively obvious, but it's rare these days that I have any difficulty understanding them.

I don't believe they move their U.S. profits offshore, which is what it sounds like you're saying.

What they are doing is keeping the money they make in other countries in those countries. Since they're not using it for anything there's no sense in moving it and paying taxes until they actually want to do something with it.

So your answer is 'sort of, but not exactly.'

I can make speculations too :p. Somehow I doubt either of us knows the exact details on what they are doing or what they've done in the past.
 
This is beyond ridiculous.
First, Apple didn't create many of these 'jobs' because they aren't jobs. Most iOS developers couldn't remotely support themselves just with the money they make from apps. Apple calls it a 'job', reality calls it a part-time activity or a hobby. They quote this $4B number without even saying how much of it went to US developers. How about some transparency?

Second, by far most of the actual jobs they claimed for themselves are low income jobs. Not exactly the ones for the middle class that is struggling right now. These fellas working in the Apple store don't make a fortune really. And 'transportation'? Seriously? There are of course the Apple engineers themselves, but that would be more like a few thousand and not a few hundred thousand.

Third, keep in mind, they're trying to get a massive multi-billion dollar tax break not just a few bit and bobs here and there. Divide that sum by the actual, well-paid jobs that wouldn't be here without Apple and see if it pays off for the public. It doesn't. A quick calculation results in a ridiculous subsidy somewhere between $300.000 and $1M PER MIDDLE CLASS JOB. Does Apple really need that kind of subsidy?

The truth is, they call it a tax 'holiday', giving the impression this would a one-time thing. It's not. They already had their holiday in 2004, and if they get it now, they'll just pile up money again and wait till the next recession to enjoy the next holiday. The last holiday didn't create any jobs, it just made a few people richer. The very same will happen this time.
http://www.levin.senate.gov/newsroom/in_the_news/article/tax-holiday-for-big-companies-failed-before

It all comes down to a decision whether multi-national companies should pay the same taxes as any domestic small and medium business or if they should be exempt and be allowed to hand it over to their shareholders mostly tax-free. Because that's where the $100B will eventually go to.
 
They are not slaves. They are perfectly free to leave FoxConn and go back to their home village, or to some other factory in China... where they will probably have to work even longer hours for an even lower income.

Yes, it's their 'choice', but it's a choice made in the despair of utter poverty.

So exploiting their situation, the low standard of living and the company-friendly 'laws' of a dictatorship just to squeeze out a few more dollars of profit is totally cool with you?
 
This is a very important point. I worked in a slaughter house and other factory work. The pay was better than I could get anywhere else. It was worth putting up with the incredibly long hours, off hours and poor living conditions because I saved virtually every cent I made. Why do some people keep wanting to deprive workers of the right to make money for their labor? This seems to be a liberal disease. Yet, these same people want to pay minimal prices and get these goods. Cognitive dissonance ringing the bell.

Deprive people off the money for their labour? Rationalization ringing a bell? There are hypocrites on both sides of the political spectrum. You seem smart enough, hard working and decent enough though to not rationalise liberalism away for hypocrisy inherent on both sides. The free-er side is the better one and humans will either evolve to it, or destroy themselves.
 
They haven't been drop-kicked. They've been pricing themselves out of the market (or voting for environmental and employment rights that do the same thing). Cause and effect.

That's not just nonsense, it's bloody nonsense. Apparently $1.50 an hour is the kind of wages you have in mind for U.S. workers.
 
This is a very important point. I worked in a slaughter house and other factory work. The pay was better than I could get anywhere else. It was worth putting up with the incredibly long hours, off hours and poor living conditions because I saved virtually every cent I made.


Are you really comparing your factory job, that was well-paid, well-regulated and performed under safe and healthy working conditions under US law to anything the workers have to put up with in Chinese factories?

Next time you go home with 20 dollars a day after 12-14 hours of repetitive toiling, and after doing that for months and years, you can talk.
 
Are you really comparing your factory job, that was well-paid, well-regulated and performed under safe and healthy working conditions under US law to anything the workers have to put up with in Chinese factories?

Next time you go home with 20 dollars a day after 12-14 hours of repetitive toiling, and after doing that for months and years, you can talk.

For the Chinese it's either work in bad factories for meager pay, or go back to their villages and not get paid anything and just be subsistence farmers.

Raising wages to American levels just doesn't make sense. Prices of things in America would increase exponentially, and lots of Chinese people would lose their jobs.
 
Don't have a job?

Then maybe you should do something about that.

http://****yeahmadeinusa.tumblr.com/ (replace stars with a four letter word beginning with f)

Manufacturing technology is cheaper than ever. Places like irs.com are auctioning off the remnants of American manufacturing past, dissolved by scared leadership with no vision. Opportunities abound. All you need is an idea and a couple good friends who are willing to work as hard as you are. Like 12-14hrs a day. It's ****ing America people! Let's do this thing!
 
Do you have any reasons that any of the 514,000 jobs that Apple claims to have created should not be counted?

A realtor pays for her jobs. A small business owner pays for their job. This argument is just not thought through.

Do you have any reasons (other than Apple claiming them) that Apple SHOULD be claiming them? No. You can believe what they say at face value. It's cool.

And your analogies don't hold up. It's completely different. And the end of the day PR spin is PR spin. Can you say these things? Sure? Are they valid? Perhaps. All depends on interpretation. Which is exactly how the spin machine works.

But it's not fact.
 
Total cost I agree with, but worker pay is only a part of that total cost and tends to get flogged as *the* reason things are moving out of the US.

Corning, which is having a boom thanks to mobile devices using its Gorilla Glass, decided to open up a new plant in China, instead of another US plant, because it makes more sense logistically to have their glass plant within a stones throw of the plant that takes the raw glass and makes iPad screens (or whatever). Paying US wages wasn't the kicker, shipping down the street vs shipping overseas was the kicker.

Right, it's the colocation effect. The same reason the auto industry clustered together around Detroit in the early 20th century. The U.S. has lost (more like surrendered) that battle. Yet the manufacturing that has survived and thrived in the U.S. is largely specialized, and is relatively high wage. There's a way forward, and it isn't by competing on wages with China.
 
Apple claiming iOS developers as jobs is like eBay claiming their users. One user sells one item for $50 and that's considered a job, guess that's the same for an app developer who sells 50 $0.99 apps. I'd rather know the amount of developers out there that can support a living instead of just hobbiests.

I'm sure there are more "jobs" from eBay than Apple. Claiming other companies as your own jobs is also BS. If Apple signed their paycheck then fine but not when another company is paying them for doing work associated with Apple.
 
oh yeah, well my gardening company produced a whopping one job last year! gotta start somewhere, i guess. :eek:
 
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