Future iPhones Could Be 'Made in America' as Apple Asks Foxconn to Consider U.S. Manufacturing

[Born Again]

tim for president

 

[yaxomoxay]

By looking at some posts in this thread it is clear that many people don't realize how strong US manufacturing is (even if the trend has been going down for a while).
Just to give some numbers of the first three countries (US is three times the third country):

USA Manufacturing GDP
$1,820 B

China Manufacturing GDP
$1,756.8 B

Germany
Manufacturing GDP
$663 B

as for projections:

https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en...obal-manufacturing-competitiveness-index.html

 

[Nuvi]

Say whatever you want about Trump, but if this goes through, that would be huge. Potentially tons of new jobs for one of the largest tech companies available to people in this country?

Sorry mate but it will be robots instead of humans putting them together if they actually consider US manufacturing. At that point it really doesn't matter where they make them.

 

[iansilv]

I have one word for you: robotics

There will still be jobs for the people who oversee and manage the robots.

 

[KdParker]

Don't give the democrats a pass either, they abandoned the working class and labor other than fundraising off them decades ago. Thomas Frank does a great job peeling it apart in "Listen Liberal" and this is exactly why the election just turned out the way it did. Trump at least lied that he had the notion to break up neoliberalism, which is what the white working class took a chance on because it was clear that neither established party had any interest in doing so.

True, The democrats should have done better.

 

[genovelle]

Say whatever you want about Trump, but if this goes through, that would be huge. Potentially tons of new jobs for one of the largest tech companies available to people in this country?

This process started long before he was even a candidate. The first test was the Mac Pro. The rumor about Foxconn studying this started ablut two years ago.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Whether we like it or not, this has been part of the republician agenda since the 80s.

Yes, to stop the outflow of jobs from the U.S. But they are not the cause. There position is just their prescription to stop it. Very different than what the OP was saying.

As I said in my first post -- unions keep acting like nothing in the world workforce has changed. But it did and companies took notice and left. But also look to the states where foreign companies come to set up car factories in the U.S.. It's predominanly right-to-work states. And almost always when the unions come in the employees quickly escort them to the door becaue, in spite of not being union shops the employees are well paid and treated well. Going union would mostly mean just another hand grabbing a chunk of their pay check.

 

[idunn]

"China put an enormous focus on manufacturing. In what we would call, you and I would call vocational kind of skills. The U.S., over time, began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills."
— Tim Cook, per MacRumors

Yes, because you and other manufacturers decimated US manufacturing towards lower overseas labor costs.

 

[Rogifan]

No, but some factory worker somewhere in the US could get a job because some factory worker in China lost their job.

This is Trump logic - everything is a zero sum game with a fixed pie and there can only be winners and losers. It's not Apple's fault that some high school educated white person in Ohio no longer has a factory job. It's not Apple's responsibility to make sure they do.

 

[zhaoxin]

I disagree. Business decisions carry social consequences, especially for a big company. GM's decisions affect Detroit.
Call it social responsibility or whatever you want.
[doublepost=1479402442][/doublepost]

Come to TX, we'll build an entire city for your company.

What you called "social consequences" is something called debts in wall street. If Cook can't keep the profit rate of iPhone, Apple's stock will drop and Cook will force to leave as well.

In President Hoover, Herbert Clark Hoover, there was a Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, which increased importing tax rates to historical high at that time. That led the Great Depression (started in 1929). The President himself, was also replaced by President Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

International trade has its own rules, if America has comparative advantage on producing iPhone, Apple won't leave. If someday Apple moves jobs back, it is definitely not because of social consequences. It is all business.

 

[eternlgladiator]

Why couldn't the parts be shipped to the USA for assembly here?

Because then it's "Made in USA with globally sourced materials". To actually put "Made in USA" on product requires a lot of hoops to jump through. Not saying Apple isn't capable and odds are it would still need to have the first label anyways.

 

[stanman64]

Keep in mind, in order to make a decent living and be part of the lower middle class, these jobs would have to pay upwards of $30 per hour as a starting salery.

what planet do you live on? You must have never lived in the sticks. A person does not need to make over $60k a year in this country to "make a decent living." Where I'm from, that is goooood money.

One can make half that at $15/hr and still buy a house, a car, have good health insurance, and cover other expenses like food and transport. It won't be a mansion, or a ferrari, or in San Francisco, but you would definitely be considered "lower middle class."

 

[KdParker]

Yes, to stop the outflow of jobs from the U.S. But they are not the cause. There position is just their prescription to stop it. Very different than what the OP was saying.

As I said in my first post -- unions keep acting like nothing in the world workforce has changed. But it did and companies took notice and left. But also look to the states where foreign companies come to set up car factories in the U.S.. It's predominanly right-to-work states. And almost always when the unions come in the employees quickly escort them to the door becaue, in spite of not being union shops the employees are well paid and treated well. Going union would mostly mean just another hand grabbing a chunk of their pay check.

But that didn't work. The unions where still weakened and the jobs still left the US.

 

[avanpelt]

I would pay a 10% premium over and above the current prices for an iPhone that was assembled in America as long as Americans -- not robots -- actually assembled the phone. Unfortunately, I fear that the phones would require more than a 10% markup to be assembled in this country. If the markup was more than 10%, that gets to be a little bit more of a dicey proposition considering the phone I would buy is already $749 plus tax.

 

[NT1440]

True, The democrats should have done better.

They should have never abandoned the working class to become the second wing of the corporate party that rules the US.

 

[kevinkyoo]

I did.

Just becasue the mentioned Drumpt doesn't mean that this is related to him. You might want to read the article again.

I did.

Just becasue the mentioned Drumpt doesn't mean that this is related to him. You might want to read the article again.

The report claims Apple asked both Foxconn and rival supplier Pegatron, which denied the request, to look into making iPhones stateside, although Foxconn chairman Terry Gou is said to be less enthusiastic about the idea due to inevitably higher production costs in the United States compared to China.

But, for now, the idea likely remains a stretch even in light of new political pressures.


No, you didn't. So I spent my own time copying and pasting these lines from the article. Add onto that fact of using common sense: Hmm, Donald Trump is now President-elect. Is it just a coincidence that Apple is in talks just this year? Why not 2015? 2014? etc. Hm, maybe something major happened.... Hm.... Maybe Donald Trump being elected? He did comment on Apple's practices....


But keep your ears plugged in and drown out common sense.

 

[stanman64]

By looking at some posts in this thread it is clear that many people don't realize how strong US manufacturing is (even if the trend has been going down for a while).
Just to give some numbers of the first three countries (US is three times the third country):

USA Manufacturing GDP
$1,820 B

China Manufacturing GDP
$1,756.8 B

Germany
Manufacturing GDP
$663 B

as for projections:

https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en...obal-manufacturing-competitiveness-index.html

Glad to see someone posting actual facts with sources. Tend to not see much of that around here.

 

[marty11]

For an American company that has amassed so much wealth there is no reason why Apple's profit from each phone can be shaved by a nominal amount to incorporate America labor. In fact they are probably in the unique position to do so, as they are going to sell a boatload of iphones year over year and profit from growth will always outpace increases in labor.

But Tim Cook et al like to rake in personal wealth more than than anything, so I doubt it.

 

[ChrisA]

Whether you like it our not the only way factories are going to re-open in the US is to create a third world working class in the US and pay them near or under the minimum wage.

Yes, but this will be OK in our new political system. We build barb-wire fences around the factories and put all the "undesirables" inside and give then jobs and "free housing" There will be a big sign over the gate that reads "Arbeit macht frei"

OK, it will not be so obvious but the same result. Just like in China when you pay your works nothing you really have to provide on-site housing. All the big Chinese factories do this and for same reasons they will start to have to do this in the US too. How else can you attract 10,000 or more workers who can't afford to commute. I'm sure the barbed wire on top of the fence is to keep people OUT and the workers will in fact be free to leave. But economics will keep them inside as they will be unable to afford the real-world.

 

[kevinkyoo]

Would YOU quite your current job to work in an IPhone factory? You know the drill, 8 to 10 hours a day working on just one thing, like wiping a screen clean every day for years on end, wiping screen free of dust all for minimum and of course the factory is located in an ultra-red state where they don't have unions

Even if you don't work there do you want to LIVE in a town were 100,000 people are all working for minimum wage in non-skilled jobs. The town's tax base will be near zero and hence the city services will be near zero, home prizes will fall to near zero.

No, Apple will NOT pay a non-skilled factory worker a middle class income. They will match salary with other like-jobs in the area like at the chicken processing plant and the re-cycling sorting centers where people sort truckloads of aluminum, plastic and paper or Walmart and McDonalds. Those are the jobs Apple will compete with for employees. I image 9 to 12 dollars per hour for assembly line workers at an iPhone factory.

A FAR better solution is to move all those no-skill no-pay jobs to some place far away like China and put all the marketing, engineering and administrative jobs in the US. Well at least if you live in the US that is a better solution.

Even the Chinese government is trying hard to get those no-pay no-skill jobs gone. Seriously. No one wants to live in a place where all the jobs are low-skill. China's goal is to move to a services based economy like we have here in the US. It will take time and more importantly will require large amounts of EDUCATION.

Decades from now the roles of the US and Chine may swap. Low skill jobs like factory assembly and farm exports will be what the US does and all the design and engineering and all the rich consumers will live in China. That is the current trend at least. and seems to be what many people in the US actually WANT to happen

The amount of assumptions you make is just hilarious. Yes, please tell me more about your imaginary economy while you sit on the armchair, please.

 

[StevieD100]

Sorry mate but it will be robots instead of humans putting them together if they actually consider US manufacturing. At that point it really doesn't matter where they make them.

Exactly.
Just go look at how Tesla's are going to be put together in the future especially, the Model 3.
Musk is even planning on desiging robots to maintain the other robots.
So once the plant is up and running very few people will be needed. After all, he is making a vehicle that can drive itself.

 

[kevinkyoo]

Sorry mate but it will be robots instead of humans putting them together if they actually consider US manufacturing. At that point it really doesn't matter where they make them.

People needing to check up on the robots, administration, etc. This move to America doesn't translate to "0 jobs." There will be more jobs than before by this move.

 

[stanman64]

There will still be jobs for the people who oversee and manage the robots.

Exactly.

500,000 jobs may be ideal, but 5,000 jobs is still better than 0 jobs.

 

[KdParker]

what planet do you live on? You must have never lived in the sticks. A person does not need to make over $60k a year in this country to "make a decent living." Where I'm from, that is goooood money.

One can make half that at $15/hr and still buy a house, a car, have good health insurance, and cover other expenses like food and transport. It won't be a mansion, or a ferrari, or in San Francisco, but you would definitely be considered "lower middle class."

In a normal place that would have manufactering jobs. The sticks aren't where plants are going to be set up, you still need population to support workers.

30K a year (before taxes) is not middle class in the today's America. That is living pay check to pay check for a family and hoping to survive.

 

[5105973]

I'm skeptical.

Industrial jobs are on the decline. What makes people think that if some uneducated disadvantaged dude couldn't start from the bottom, say, at Walmart and become successful, that the same dude will become successful manning the iPhone assembly line?

Especially if he's likely to get replaced by robots. What then? Now they say companies have to give them jobs by bringing production to America. What happens when production in America is done by robots? These guys will take the country hostage and elect Trumper and Trumpest to ban robots?

Also, saying that companies "have to" do something to share profits sounds like communism to me. Never worked, never will.

I think in the long term if we don't want humanity to starve, we will have to pass legislation that strictly regulates the use of automation. Because with the developments in AI, automation is already replacing even skilled workers. Automation could conceivably replace most of our jobs eventually if left unchecked. A hard thought out and fought for balance is going to have to be struck, and sooner rather than later.