Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Bank of America: US-Made iPhones Would Face 90% Cost Surge
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I wasn’t thinking that, though you are right of course.
The biggest thing is that Congress and the SCOTUS are ceding many of their powers to one man! Your founding fathers created a system to prevent a dictatorship, Congress are undoing that!!!!
Your Trust is all about people’s money
My concerns are about people’s control, far worse.
You are the richest country in the world with the highest earnings per person.
Your problem isn’t wealth, it’s wealth distribution.
Have a look at that Elon bloke, uselessly rich and slashing budgets used to support the Medicare.
It really is nothing to do with trade agreements.
It's about slave labor, it's not about quality or quantity. It's about how much $$$$ the CEO and shareholders can earn selling cheap Chinese goods that you find on Temu and Alibaba in the USA at ridiculous inflated prices.
There is a reason Apple cannot compete in China, it gets beaten by Chinese phones.
Without the USA market, Apple is in deep ****.
They mean to say, "we cannot find engineers that are willing to work for our slave salaries that we offer".
It's why CEO's love H1B-Visas as they try to introduce slave labor in the USA too. They don't want to pay American salaries.
Last edited:
Quality is what is essential If you can get quality workers, which isn't guaranteed with a special visa all the time.
In the end, it's all about $$$$$. Now you see a trend of outsourcing to Poland and South America instead of India. But as soon as they find Poland too expensive, they will "outsource Poland" to a cheaper country too.
Quality is not the main driver, how much money the CEO and shareholders are making is the priority.
Librem 5 isn’t listed as made in the US the liberty phone is listed as made with US electronics and is $2k
no! Trump is going to build the best free university online! https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/01/trump-free-online-university-00124905So it's either a new iPhone or your kid's college education.
you could afford a base 2500USD iPhone 17 128GB and study a career for free on it.
just remember, China is not only exporting iPhones....
Do you believe these CEO’s and shareholders will become less focused on their own profit by shifting production to the US?
Conceptually, for the sake of our environment, I would love to see a world where people are forced to abandon throwaway culture, and companies are forced to make longer lasting products. For instance, I would like to see the EU follow Norway’s example of requiring five year warranty on electronics. Which China would likely be better equipped to deliver than US, funnily enough. Remember, the stricter EU requirements for warranty and safety is one of those “obstacles” that Trump is fighting. And as an example, there is 3 year warranty on a Ford, but 5 years on a BYD. China is totally capable of manufacturing high quality, long lasting products. All you have to do is specify that that’s what you want, and pay the premium price for it.
The company I work for has a Chinese made electronic product (I will not be more specific because I speak for myself and not the company) that we have sold for about 5 years, at a volume of a few thousand units per year, with a failure rate so far of exactly zero. I’m sure it could be done elsewhere as well, but that’s not the point. The point is, China can make exactly the quality we are demanding of them.
Last edited:
Plus, according to the reviews the Liberty phone is not a 1000$ phone with a 100% premium for being built in US. It’s a 100$ (at best) phone with a 1900% premium.
Which is why wealth distribution cannot be voluntary. It has to be done through regulation.
It’s funny to see Trump’s supporters yell at the idea of communism and government control any chance they get, yet applaud this obvious case of government controlling the behaviour of private corporations. Trump’s policy IS government regulated wealth distribution. Just not in the direction his voters think.
Note: I am not American.
I am not against Trump's supporters. But I do have a question for them.
Trump believes that he could move the manufacture industry back to the States. iPhone will be always cheaper if it is made in a country that the salary is lower. No doubt about it right? Average workers from China is 350 USD per month, while average US workers is like 3000 USD? That is 8 times more expensive to do the same thing in the States. Simple math tells me the labor cost alone would be 8 times more.
On top of that, everyone know that China stuff is cheap because they can do the blood and sweat factory, workers work 12 hours a day. They don't need to worry about any environmental law as well so they can pollute all they want without any leftist yelling at them.
Now, tell me if you are willing to work like this, in the States? Would that really bring new jobs to the States? Or will that really attract Americans to work in a factory under those condition? Trump's ultimate goal is to bring the manufacture industry back to the States so that will create more jobs, not outsourcing to *another* country.
No, I am no China supporter. I just can't convince myself if this is something that will work in the State...at all.
I am not against Trump's supporters. But I do have a question for them.
Trump believes that he could move the manufacture industry back to the States. iPhone will be always cheaper if it is made in a country that the salary is lower. No doubt about it right? Average workers from China is 350 USD per month, while average US workers is like 3000 USD? That is 8 times more expensive to do the same thing in the States. Simple math tells me the labor cost alone would be 8 times more.
On top of that, everyone know that China stuff is cheap because they can do the blood and sweat factory, workers work 12 hours a day. They don't need to worry about any environmental law as well so they can pollute all they want without any leftist yelling at them.
Now, tell me if you are willing to work like this, in the States? Would that really bring new jobs to the States? Or will that really attract Americans to work in a factory under those condition? Trump's ultimate goal is to bring the manufacture industry back to the States so that will create more jobs, not outsourcing to *another* country.
No, I am no China supporter. I just can't convince myself if this is something that will work in the State...at all.
Last edited:
Supposedly the US share of Apple's revenue is in the neighborhood of 42%.
For Dell that is 54%.
For HP that is around 35%.
For Lenovo it is less than a third.
So yes, the tariff foolishness will hit Apple hard, but Apple is poised to weather the hardware problem better than the competitors because Apple services revenue is quite large and that is not subject to tariff.
And if the tariffs lead to a recession then businesses will delay capital equipment purchases which will hit the three companies above quite hard.
The value of a nation is not determined by the magnitude of salaries in US dollars, but rather by the purchasing power of its citizens in the currency of that country.
Maybe we should all dump our stock holdings and just buy a shirtload of in-stock iPhones and MacBooks. Then resell them for 2x after the no-tariff stock is exhausted. Pretty good ROI, no? But then Trump could reverse himself any nanosecond and leave me stuck with that stuff.
Nope, too busy applauding China for having a spine and standing up to orange bully boy at the moment.
It‘s beautiful. Really beautiful. The most beautifullest trade war I‘ve ever seen.
Trade barriers? Lack of intellectual property rights? Totalitarian regime? All valid points regarding China. But you know what? I‘m way beyond the point where I care or consider the U.S. and its administration the good (better) guys anymore.
China may not play fair. But they don‘t nearly display the hostility, ignorance, deception, disregard for facts and truths as your administration. And neither the insanity nor brazen arrogance of their great leader. Fantasising about annexing tiny nations or lumping in a small and poor country like Lesotho with (or rather consider them worse offenders than) China on tariffs? China seem downright sane, reliable trading partners compared to the U.S.
Trump has more than enough broken trust, alienated „the western world“ and countries that formerly shared similar values to the U.S. It‘s about time someone, some country stand up to him that has the power to do so. And I‘m way beyond the point where I care which one it is.
PS: When China is „not playing fair“ on trade, they at least do it overtly but quietly. And not making a big fuss with bull**** allegations. Also, they‘re pouring a lot into infrastructure in Africa that - whereas the U.S. president has the nerve to slap the highest tariffs and the alleged „worst trade offenders“ in Lesotho of all places. Talk about creating goodwill towards a country vs. antipathy.
Last edited:
Correct. This is defined as “purchasing power parity” (PPP). US leads China by about 4:1. And that is an average value, not specifically for factory workers. Not quite as bad as just looking at salary, but still quite significant.
So is the US. But for some reason, if they do it in front of rolling cameras, it isn’t called “corruption”.
It’s outright hilarious (but also sad) to see Trump voters hailing Trump for “standing up to totalitarian regimes”, while simultaneously turning the US into one, literally while golfing with his billionaire buddies every weekend.