Government's job is to referee, not to coach and certainly not to play the game.
There's no reference to "referee" in the Constitution.
Government's job is to referee, not to coach and certainly not to play the game.
There's no reference to "referee" in the Constitution.
Absolutely right, but western industry learned back in the 80's that if you do that, the assembly job becomes so simple that humans can do it even faster than robots!
That must explain why the auto manufacturers have thrown out all the robots and put human beings back on the line. Anyone else notice that cars have become longer lasting, and less expensive to own since robots were introduced?
Probably comes under section 8:
"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
I said this a while ago. Sadly, a life in China isn't the same the world over. A 16 year old girl is always going to do this job cheaper in China.
If I were Emperor of the USA, I would say that if a company sells 50% of their goods in the USA, at least 50% of the goods must be manufactured in the USA. If not, 75% tariff on 100% of goods sold in the USA. Take America back!!!!!!!
If robots build the iPhones, will they be moved to the US?
$2.50 hour. Tops. That's based on the customary 40 hour work week and 36 hours of overtime. (Which they all want to work because life in the "dorms" is so miserable).What is hard to believe is that people still think Foxcon workers are getting slave wages.
More ignorance doesn't support your arguments. Show any sound statistics that indicate a suicide rate higher in Foxcons plants vs all of China.
American workers didn't get greedy, that's Fox News nonsense. It's just that the prevailing wages in China are SO low, that it makes more sense to manufacture there. American workers just plain could not afford to work for $1/hr or whatever it is they pay the Foxconn workers. We do live in a world economy now, much more so than even 50 years ago, and we'll have to cope with that. Eventually there will have to be a world government and world laws as well, but that's a whole other discussion.
You're a very short-sighted Emperor who is ignorant of the inevitable retaliation that occurs when you implement protectionism.
Doing what you suggest, economic protectionism, leads to trade wars and hurts more than it helps. Basically, you'd create a bunch of menial, low-wage jobs in America and take those away from China. Sounds, great, right? Well, sorta great because they are low-quality jobs. But hey, that's better than no jobs, right?
But then China gets pissed about this, because low-wage menial manufacturing jobs are the main thing they are competitive with on the world stage, so they inevitably retaliate. First off they'll switch from buying Boeing planes to buying Airbus planes. Asia and China in particular is one of the largest growth markets for the airline industry, so this is super bad. Boeing has to lay off thousands of people. Congratulations, you've traded high-wage, high-quality American Boeing jobs across several states for low-wage menial manufacturing jobs.
So then the US gets pissed and, I dunno, puts a huge tariff on imported memory chips (something we've actually done in the past), because that also hurts China and it protects US chip manufacturing. But since most memory chips aren't made in the USA, there isn't enough supply so most chips are still imported, just at higher cost, and now all computers, tablets, smart phones, etc. cost an extra $100.
So Japan gets pissed at the chip tariff and counteracts by slapping a tariff on American apples, cherries, and potatoes. Now Washington and Idaho farmers are really hurting too. But good thing you've got those ultra crappy menial jobs assembling iPhones like robots in the USA, jobs that Americans don't even like to take in the first place, which is why immigrants almost always fill the ranks of produce pickers, meat processing plants, and the like.
I could go on and on. This isn't theoretical. This is exactly what happens.
If *I* were Emperor I would encourage American competitiveness for high-wage, high-quality jobs by further supporting education, promising start-ups, high-tech business, and advanced sciences.
The loophole being, your $199 phone on a two year contract now costs $399 and over $1000 for the unlocked version. Greed is what sent the jobs to China.
You realize that MOST countries have protectionism in place?
China, Japan, Germany, etc. all have big tariffs on American products. You are either in a trade surplus or deficit. America is in a deficit and that's not good. It's only good for short term, cheap products but bad for a country and it's citizens in the long run. So enjoy your $20 DVD player. You'll pay for it ten-fold later in life.
Not everybody can be a CEO, director, doctor, lawyer, etc. There has to be a strong manufacturing base in a country and there needs to be jobs up and down the hierarchy. Manufacturing is part of that hierarchy.
And retaliation? Not likely. America is still the biggest market as far as consumers go. Not for long though if jobs keep getting offshored. The generation that is currently in college will find that out soon enough.
That is why you will never be the Emperor of the USA. BTW - how well did your philosophy work out for a USA supplier providing sapphire screens?????
Manufacturing jobs build wealth and what does china have that we cannot take from them?
I'm other news Samsung buys 1st generation robots from Foxconn to build new line of Galaxy phones.
Hire some Apple enthusiasts.
They make good robots & follow Apples lead blindly.![]()
I just read that oil companies make 5 cents a gallon of gas in profits. The US government takes about 70 cents a gallon (in California. Varies by location depending on local taxes). So two questions : between those two... Who is taking an excessive amount? And do you think 5 cents a gallon is excessive? Do you think that the percentage of profit is more or less than the majority of businesses? People that make such "excessive profit" claims have never even compared profit margins as compared to other industries.
Take into consideration all the "educated" people (robotics engineers, programmers, managers, etc.) that are involved in developing these robots, and they're paid far more than a 1000 assembly line workers combined. There is a surplus of humans in India and China.
Wages are far higher in the West, and along with the strict labor laws, robots work out to be more cost-effective here, but that's definitely not the case in the East.
So what you are saying, is that Exxon could give the oil away for free and still make bank? Or they could make a penny per gallon and still make billions?
Great Comment. I love these people who make these comments... right up until the "oh, crap, this will affect my life" realization hits them. Obviously no Idea how the world works and probably never even left the country to see how it does work.
I thought they where going with ABB's Frida Human robot - ordered a million of it. I guess the decided to go with their own in-house brand. Does not look very innovative at all.Foxconn started with Fanuc robots from Japan which were perfect! I guess they tried to do their own robots and failed miserably!
Foxconn, stick to Fanuc!
But can it take a picture of itself using the iPhone to make its way into retail box?
FYI for members who haven't been here long enough and didn't get this inside joke: Someone found a selfie of an assembly line girl in his brand new iPhone.