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.
Foxconn to Replace a Portion of its Workers with 1 Million Robots
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Well, look where Japan ended up in the financial chain a public debt of 230% there GDP
- there's no country more broke then Japan, just because there economy is already stagnating since the eighties, because there workers are to expensive, they have no natural resources at all, they have to invest heavily in damage control and last but not least, the Japanese have the highest life expectancy of any demographic group in the world.The western countries may design everything, but it's also the west that buys them. So in the end the money goes to the country that buys the least and produces the most (simple mercantilism - minimal import, maximal export - destroys the market in the long end, if everyone decides to use the same strategy - but it worked great for 15th century France). It doesn't matter how heavily you invest in education. As long as we design here and build in the developing countries we'll see a money drain. As soon as the developing countries have a decent educated base themselves, we'll end up just buying stuff.
(Ignore my ignorance ...)
And I think you have the wrong vision on what a two-class system is. Okay, in Europe, money is divided somewhat more equal, but that's all thanks to larger gouvernemental budgets (and thus higher taxes). But it hasn't been that way forever. The reason why US didn't approve national health insurance and other social securities is because you never got the extreme polarization at the end of 19th century Europe knew. 5% of the population owned 95% of the value. Although slave labor was abolished, people didn't get more then a shag per 10 headed family, some coals to heat that dump and some dry bread and potatoes which they all rented/bought from there employer. In the end they received money, but ended up paying it all back to the textile giants. That's a two class system (like most developing countries still know nowadays). In the US there's a 'gap' but it's not in anyway as big as the gap between the European worker and the textile barons, the serfs and the Russian tsar or nowadays the Chinese farmers and the Hong-Kong traders. It's kinda hypocritical to say that someone who ain't able to buy a flatscreen and the latest ipod is poor, if still a third of the world's population suffers severe famine.
Last edited:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5274d Safari/7534.48.3)
Read your own chart!! Those GDP numbers are in 1990 dollars, ex. Already adjusted!
Sjhonny said:
Well, look where Japan ended up in the financial chain a public debt of 230% there GDP
The western countries may design everything, but it's also the west that buys them. So in the end the money goes to the country that buys the least and produces the most (simple mercantilism - minimal import, maximal export - destroys the market in the long end, if everyone decides to use the same strategy - but it worked great for 15th century France). It doesn't matter how heavily you invest in education. As long as we design here and build in the developing countries we'll see a money drain. As soon as the developing countries have a decent educated base themselves, we'll end up just buying stuff.
The economical growth in western countries is mainly based on population growth, efficiency increment, inflation and debt creation.This growth is very very relative. It's not because we earn more, we become richer. The economy might have grown significantly in absolute numbers, but if you take inflation and population in account, we apparently create less value then we used to. EG. US - GDP/capita was about 5,200 in 1914 (source). Current GDP/capita is 47,677. What is the buying power of 5,200 dollars from 1914 in comparison to today? $113,973.08 (source) . How absurd is this? So in the end every thing ended up becoming cheaper in a way, but the actual value creation decreased! We found way after way to make the production process cheaper, and in the end we became cheaper. The relative economical growth has been negative all those years ...
So to keep our economy growing we have to keep making stuff cheaper and cheaper. We have to make it so cheap that even persons without a job (like jobless and most importantly grannies) can keep buying stuff (or better: the workers can sustain there costs). But how will we accomplice this? After the Chinese get richer, who will we turn to (what's happening right now)? What if the easy accesible sources of petrol, rare earth elements, Uranium, copper etc. run dry? Or the climat changes so much that arts of our rural areal get useless? Who honestly still expects that 'science' will be able to keep up?
And I think you have the wrong vision on what a two-class system is. Okay, in Europe, money is divided somewhat more equal, but that's all thanks to larger gouvernemental budgets (and thus higher taxes). But it hasn't been that way forever. The reason why US didn't approve national health insurance and other social securities is because you never got the extreme polarization at the end of 19th century Europe knew. 5% of the population owned 95% of the value. Although slave labor was abolished, people didn't get more then a shag per 10 headed family, some coals to heat that dump and some dry bread and potatoes which they all rented/bought from there employer. In the end they received money, but ended up paying it all back to the textile giants. That's a two class system (like most developing countries still know nowadays). In the US there's a 'gap' but it's not in anyway as big as the gap between the European worker and the textile barons, the serfs and the Russian tsar or nowadays the Chinese farmers and the Hong-Kong traders. It's kinda hypocritical to say that someone who ain't able to buy a flatscreen and the latest ipod is poor, if still a third of the world's population suffers severe famine.
Read your own chart!! Those GDP numbers are in 1990 dollars, ex. Already adjusted!
Yep, I thought I found the hole in the market but that was just me jumping to conclusions a little bit to fast
sorry/thanks 
After all it would be better to have things built by robots, but in our countries, but that won't provide many jobs.
It's rare to see electronics without the made in china or prc slapped onto their shiny packages. Only real high quality stuff comes from Japan, Germany or even the US. I'm not saying that stuff built in china is crappy, but they tend to have lousy quality control.
Good old days when my fathers tv has made in Japan and lasted 22 years before going kaput, nowadays they don't last that much.
It's rare to see electronics without the made in china or prc slapped onto their shiny packages. Only real high quality stuff comes from Japan, Germany or even the US. I'm not saying that stuff built in china is crappy, but they tend to have lousy quality control.
Good old days when my fathers tv has made in Japan and lasted 22 years before going kaput, nowadays they don't last that much.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)
You must not be old enough to remember when Japan had the same rep for quality that china does now.
blackburn said:
You must not be old enough to remember when Japan had the same rep for quality that china does now.
so will it be apple's official position that robots are cheaper to employ overseas than domestically?
Life after uploading...
It'll all play out, just as Steve Jobs from an alternate universe might have predicted:
It'll all play out, just as Steve Jobs from an alternate universe might have predicted:
I'm pretty sure that I'm going to move to a third world country and heal machete wounds and female genital mutilation and other unspeakable monstrosities.
Lets see a big corporation fund such endeavors for free.
You would have to perform those miracles pro bono because they won't be able to pay you
I feel sorry for many of these Foxconn employees because unlike in most Western nations, the Chinese government hardly gives them tireless support when they are unemployed and need additional training. Adaptation is much easier for those of us who have the means to do so.
It's sad, but the reality is that the world is far too big for everyone to benefit from technology and progress all the time.
It's sad, but the reality is that the world is far too big for everyone to benefit from technology and progress all the time.
Yes, If the change happens gradually, then it the transition can be made. but if people are suddenly and in large numbers thrown into poverty, and this problem persists for years, then the adjustment cannot happen like you envision. Then people panic, lose hope and turn to evil things.
Your point about losing your job making Walkmen and then transitioning to iPods is not good, however. With robots, most do not get another job. Our society currently needs jobs for masses of people however unpleasant those jobs may be. If in time groovy jobs open up and the field workers and assemblers desert their posts to work in the new positions, then that would be the time to safely robotize their work.
I think we agree. I'm a manager of two small departments, about 20 people. Let me say I'm Canadian too. About half of the positions I manage are entry level college requirement jobs, unionized and very well paying. I dread when I have to hire a replacement, the expectations of young folks today are off the charts.
I'm not an old codger, but no one entering the job market today wants to actually...work. My main function has turned into babysitting, new recruits don't seem to understand why I don't want them visiting Facebook for extended periods of time throughout the day. I read these whiny posts about how there are no jobs; yes there are, I've probably interviewed you and you thought you were all that. If you think you can give me a full days work and not call in sick dozens of times a year I will pay a good wage.