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With a price tag of $5999, you'd think that there would be enough "overhead" to pay an American worker a living wage to, at the very least, assemble these. The iMac we just bought for a client was assembled in Pennsylvania.

Did people think economists were joking when they said consumers were paying for tariffs directly?

Apple’s price tag is prepared for any tariffs. The entire supply chain isn’t moving when Apple can pass on the costs.
 
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With a price tag of $5999, you'd think that there would be enough "overhead" to pay an American worker a living wage to, at the very least, assemble these. The iMac we just bought for a client was assembled in Pennsylvania.
Aren’t these things all assembled by robots anyway?
 
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Aside from labor costs, in quite a few cases, the idling of US manufacturing for so long in certain industries means we no longer have machinery to produce certain items -as in technology has progressed, and expensive to re-tool American factories at this point. And accordingly, US workers not trained for use of said machinery, so start up costs go up further.

A good program / podcast that covered some of this is Marketplace. Some pretty depressing interviews about bringing manufacturing back in wake of tariffs - even when you weed out the likely greed that enhances some of the hand-wringing.

Hard to get back what you let escape, and cost will drive where companies do business. And US committed to service economy (which does include tech somewhat) long ago.

I'm no economist, so feel free to tear up my points. I think the reality is not black and white as far as manufacturing in the US, but anyone who thinks tariffs will reignite a manufacturing renewal in US is going to be disappointed imho.
 



While the current Mac Pro has been manufactured in Texas since it was released in 2013, The Wall Street Journal reports that the new Mac Pro unveiled earlier this month will be assembled by Quanta Computer in China.

2019-mac-pro-side-and-front-800x581.jpg

Quanta is said to be ramping up production of the new Mac Pro at a factory near Shanghai, and given lower wages and closer proximity to other Apple suppliers in Asia, the Chinese manufacturing is expected to cost Apple less than it would to make the computer in the United States.

The move would allow Apple to avoid many of the issues its U.S. suppliers have faced in assembling the Mac Pro stateside. The current Mac Pro is Apple's only major hardware product manufactured in the United States, with all others assembled by Chinese contractors, such as Quanta for the Apple Watch.

Here's a video of how the current Mac Pro is made in the United States:


In a statement, an Apple spokesperson said "final assembly is only one part of the manufacturing process," adding that the new Mac Pro is designed and engineered in the United States and includes some U.S.-made components.

As a high-end, expensive workstation for professionals, the Mac Pro is not a high volume product for Apple, but where it is manufactured is notable given the ongoing trade war between the United States and China. President Donald Trump has urged U.S. companies to manufacture products domestically.

Trump's administration has increased tariffs to 25 percent on $200 billion of Chinese imports and has threatened to impose tariffs on $300 billion more goods, including many Apple products. Apple has warned that these tariffs would reduce its economic contributions and threaten its global competitiveness.

The all-new Mac Pro is an absolute powerhouse with up to 28-core Intel Xeon processors, up to 1.5TB of ECC RAM, up to 4TB of SSD storage, up to AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo graphics with 64GB of HBM2 memory, and eight PCIe expansion slots for maximum performance, expansion, and configurability.

2019-mac-pro-internal-view-800x424.jpg

The new design includes a stainless steel frame with smooth handles and an aluminum housing that lifts off for 360-degree access to the entire system. The housing features a unique lattice pattern to maximize airflow.

Apple says the new Mac Pro will be released in the fall, starting at $5,999.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple's New Mac Pro Won't Be 'Made in USA' as Production Reportedly Moving to China
Tim Cuckoo would never play politics. Bring back the iPod Nano!
 
I see somebody posting some nasty tweets soon somewhere in Washington / G20 Summit.
 
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And I'm sure Apple will pass along the cost savings to its customers.

LOL

So true! If it’s the same price, I wonder how much they are truly saving and if it’s really all that much to not have production in the USA
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And you up to your usual one tone rant. Get over it. Cook has taken Apple from strength to strength. If you don't like what Apple has to offer, that's your own problem.

Have you seen the reliability with the MacBooks since he’s taken over? The quality of the product isn’t there anymore. Cheap tacky keyboards which have a lot of problems, and not to forget the display cable issues.
 
Manufacturing these things in America is doable but would take investment in rebuilding the computing manufacturing industry lost to China in the 90s. It isn't just about the labor to assemble, but also about the ability to manufacture all of the various parts. Just like how car manufacturers need close proximity to a multitude of part suppliers the same is true for computer manufacturers.

It isn't impossible though and can be done. You'd think there is some urgency from US industry to shift this due to how pervasive IP theft has become with regards to China and the Chinese Government seeing domestic production of replacement for American parts as a national security interest. But American industry is still addicted to the low costs China affords them. Even if it means they may not be around in 10 years.

Aren’t these things all assembled by robots anyway?

No, in China human labor is still cheaper than robots since they are paid so little and labor laws are next to non-existent. For instance, if Foxconn needs to ramp up production quickly for an iPhone surge they can literally wake workers up from sleep and demand they return to work immediately. You can't pull that off in the US (and I'm not saying you should be able to in China either)...
 
Do people realise Apple is a company and not a charity?

Apparently not.

It’s not about charity but social responsibility of the big players. Especially if Billions of overseas cash are not touched for the sake of avoiding taxes and though in comparison smaller companies paying larger amounts of taxes than Apple - just because they cannot afford tax avoidance models throughout the world. Is it illegal? No. Are this dollars missing for social welfare or new kindergartens? Yes.
 
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I get that manufacturing (even just assembly labor) in the US is high. But why not set up shop in Mexico? At least the economic benefit would go to our southerly neighbors. Plus you avoid shipping across the Pacific, and tariffs.

I think they would do so, if Mexico had the existing manufacturing support infrastructure. But one of the stated examples (see the links in the MacRumors article) of problems in manufacturing the current Mac Pro in Texas was a shortage of high volume custom screw manufacturing. I'm sure if they could have bought those custom screws in Mexico, they would have done so, rather than waiting weeks to have screws shipped to Texas from China.
 
No, just no. This decision makes the Mac Pro a potential pawn in the trade wars. What's wrong with assembly in Viet Nam, Taiwan, Japan, etc.?
 
Having worked at Apple for 5 years, I'm more than aware of everything you mentioned. I had customer machines sit for months waiting on parts, some of those were screws. So I don't need reminded or told to read something more carefully. I'm more aware of the ins and outs than most on this forum.

Well, I certainly wasn't criticizing your post. My "reminder" was to all the other 95% of the posters here who think this is only about not paying USA wage levels.
 
I for one would pay double the asking price of the new Mac Pro to have it assembled in the USA rather than pollution generating China.
 
With a price tag of $5999, you'd think that there would be enough "overhead" to pay an American worker a living wage to, at the very least, assemble these. The iMac we just bought for a client was assembled in Pennsylvania.

Overhead as in the Intel Xeon tax? have you priced these puppies? Also, your comment appears strange because you can't assemble one of these bad boys for the the same price, even with no name suppliers. Go figure, so much overhead.

If you are whining about no consumer grade "Pro", well lots of people do that.

Facts matter, cheers!
 
America can't compete in manufacturing. That's just reality.

That is not true, we have some fine manufacturing. If you are referring to certain industries which have been off-shored for decades, to which there is no infrastructure left in the US, then you are correct.

Imagine it was not so long ago when the Reagan and Bush administrations were pushing globalization. Now its a bad word. Of course, my thoughts always were that you had to balance the globalization for things like pollution and worker benefits (health care, Social security, pension, living conditions, work weeks) otherwise you just created and subsidized a race to the bottom.
 
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But, but, but they said they are bringing it to the US, and it was their selling point too...

I’m so heart broken lol
 
I think they would do so, if Mexico had the existing manufacturing support infrastructure. But one of the stated examples (see the links in the MacRumors article) of problems in manufacturing the current Mac Pro in Texas was a shortage of high volume custom screw manufacturing. I'm sure if they could have bought those custom screws in Mexico, they would have done so, rather than waiting weeks to have screws shipped to Texas from China.

The screw situation illuminated by the NY Times also highlights how Apple applies an agile development model to their manufacturing process. They not only needed these specialized screws, but they also needed the ability to adjust them quickly as they tweaked their designs rapidly.

For those interested the NY Times piece is @ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-china-made.html
 
Can’t compete with slave labor. China is nothing without it and that’s all they have to offer. It’s disgusting.

Slave labor? Please expand on that. With credible and verifiable data.
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I’m guessing you haven’t seen how much of a rip off the base model is then...

Being too expensive for you does not make it a rip-off.
 
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Apple shoots for around 40% margin on these products. They stay remarkably consistent with this when reporting their financial results. If the production costs are higher, Apple will still want to hit its margin targets. This means the price would be higher.

That's gross margin. You also have a lot of other costs that aren't considered in that, design, administration, marketing, sales, taxes........... Its all in Accounting text books, look it up.

Also, try to price a self-build including the Xeon's, ECC memory, 10gb ethernet, etc, etc, etc. You quickly see that the complaint on price is ludicrous. can't build one with same quality components for less!

If, on the other hand, you want to see a consumer grade version, (i9, i7, or AMD) then shout it out
 
Good! Whatever Apple needs to do to mass produce these things and keep them updated, I’m happy.
 
Slave labor? Please expand on that. With credible and verifiable data.

It isn't hard to find...

Another frustration with manufacturing in Texas: American workers won’t work around the clock. Chinese factories have shifts working at all hours, if necessary, and workers are sometimes even roused from their sleep to meet production goals. That was not an option in Texas.


“China is not just cheap. It’s a place where, because it’s an authoritarian government, you can marshal 100,000 people to work all night for you,” said Susan Helper, an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and the former chief economist at the Commerce Department. “That has become an essential part of the product-rollout strategy.”
Source: NY Times (same article I shared a few minutes earlier)
 
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