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Because it's rapidly becoming the case that EVERYTHING can be produced more cheaply in places like China and India -- even things that were previously thought to be "safe" industries (medical X-Rays are read in India / China, legal documents are authored overseas and sent back to the US to be signed) because they required and educated or advanced workforce.

So, I turn the question back to you -- how will you afford to buy an iPod when you are asked to take a substantial (50% or more) pay cut because an individual in India or China can do YOUR job more cheaply.

Globalization is a race to the bottom, and nobody seems to understand that while the 3rd world rises up, the 1st world inevitably must slide down.

And then the price of labor in those producing countries will rise. Then return to other countries. it cycled back and forth.
 
I avoid most american made products, half of them are crap. Prime examples are the cars made by Chrysler and GM between 2000-2008. This however are drastically improving though, not sure if we (Americans) could produce all of these things with taxes, restrictions, trade barriers etc. I am sure there are very good reasons why the parts are made there and not here. Plus there is a plethora of unknown pollution aspects of producing tech products. Tree hugger's would freak

What a stupid statement. Are you aware that Apple is an American company? So is Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, GE and other world-leading companies.

What's your alternative? Can you even name more than one world-class Chinese company?

*rolls eyes*
 
I'm sure this will make Apple think about having multiple production locations for all components.
 
I agree. Given the last Ford we purchased leaked and after 6 months of trying to fix it, the Ford dealer said "well, everything leaks" and said they'd give a good deal on it to trade it in if we wanted. And the last GM we had stalled every morning when you were pulling out on to the road and the dealer said that it was "just the way the car was made," and could never fix it I wouldn't buy an American made car unless they started getting good reports both for quality upfront (they just sound cheap compared to a Honda, Mercedes, Lexus, Porsche, or Toyota) and for quality over 5-6+ years of ownership. And the previous American made cars we had were of similar low quality.

So for the last 11 years, I've been buying non-American. It is too bad, but the quality is not there. I even looked at one with a friend in November and it was the same deal.

An iPhone made in the US would be double the price due to high taxes and regulation. Quality, who knows, but the cost would be prohibitive compared to everyone else. It would be the fastest way for Apple to kill itself. If Apple *could* do it, they would, but it is impossible.

It is competition - if you can't compete on quality or price, you are out of luck. Unless you can get a handout.

Yes, clearly because labor unions ruined Ford and GM, that means ALL American products are garbage. Including Apple, Google, Oracle, Cisco, Boeing. All of them. Brilliant logic there, genius.
 
What a stupid statement. Are you aware that Apple is an American company? So is Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, GE and other world-leading companies.

What's your alternative? Can you even name more than one world-class Chinese company?

*rolls eyes*

While I would tend to agree that there are good American companies and not all of them have shoddy products, you listed a lot of companies that either don't have a physical product, or their products are manufactured overseas.

Apple's computers are assembled overseas, Google's phones are made by foreign countries, I'm not aware of any physical product made by Yahoo, Microsoft is a software company......so on so forth.
 
you guys forgot the other groups

How about "Legal" immigrants?

I'm one of them. My family came here a decade ago with $100 bucks in our pockets. We worked like there's no tomorrow and now we have houses, our kids are graduating colleges.

The way I see it is that "american born and bred" group of people (there's only 1 race - human race) has been spoiled with entitlements and what not. Times are changing and this group is not prepared. This group has to compete with "legal" immigrants and "illegal" immigrants. It's really hard for them because they've never face such competitions before. They have to change their attitude in order to compete. Some realized this and some didn't. Those who realized this is already prepared and are pretty well ahead of the race. Those who didn't are those that're complaining.

Now, back to the topic. :D
 
While I would tend to agree that there are good American companies and not all of them have shoddy products, you listed a lot of companies that either don't have a physical product, or their products are manufactured overseas.

Apple's computers are assembled overseas, Google's phones are made by foreign countries, I'm not aware of any physical product made by Yahoo, Microsoft is a software company......so on so forth.

That has nothing to due with quality. It's due to low manufacturing costs.

And in many cases making software or services requires more brainpower and sophistication than making a physical product. Japan has yet to produce a world-class software company outside of video games.

So this "American products are low quality" argument just doesn't hold water any way you look at it.
 
What a stupid statement. Are you aware that Apple is an American company? So is Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, GE and other world-leading companies.

What's your alternative? Can you even name more than one world-class Chinese company?

*rolls eyes*

Yeah buddy I am. Are you aware that on every Apple Device it says "DESIGNED IN CALIFORNIA, ASSEMBLED IN CHINA."

There is a reason we do not build these products and it has been well covered through this thread. Can you name any good products made by those companies that you mentioned, that are actually built in the US. You know America SUCKS at making products when we need the media to convince us of this fact. Just watch TV, you do not see Apple advertising that they make there products in China, but you do see a bunch of other companies that slap a "Made in the USA" label gain Patriot approval. I avoid those products and save my money for products that have better quality; I dont innately hate american products, but experience has proved that they are inferior to build qualities of other nations. :apple::D
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

ArchaicRevival said:
Hey Apple,
I don't want my iPhone 5 to be leaking radiation...


Too soon? :cool::rolleyes:

Always looking at the negative side of things. Maybe a little radiation will lead to higher power densities.
 
That has nothing to due with quality. It's due to low manufacturing costs.

And in many cases making software or services requires more brainpower and sophistication than making a physical product. Japan has yet to produce a world-class software company outside of video games.

So this "American products are low quality" argument just doesn't hold water any way you look at it.

What I'd like to see are some concrete examples of poor quality products that were made in America. I hear a lot of people stating that we make subpar products, but I haven't heard any examples.

I'm not defending either position, just want someone to present some evidence.

I don't think the Chrysler argument will hold up anymore seeing as how most automobiles have a foreign influence on them, so let's stray from automobiles on this one.
 
Yeah buddy I am. Are you aware that on every Apple Device it says "DESIGNED IN CALIFORNIA, ASSEMBLED IN CHINA."

There is a reason we do not build these products and it has been well covered through this thread. Can you name any good products made by those companies that you mentioned, that are actually built in the US. You know America SUCKS at making products when we need the media to convince us of this fact. Just watch TV, you do not see Apple advertising that they make there products in China, but you do see a bunch of other companies that slap a "Made in the USA" label gain Patriot approval. I avoid those products and save my money for products that have better quality; I dont innately hate american products, but experience has proved that they are inferior to build qualities of other nations. :apple::D

The reason that simple, brainless product assembly is not done in the US has nothing to due with low quality. It is due to lower manufacturing costs in China, which has no regulations.

There is no evidence at all that American-made products are of lower quality than any other country's products. (Is there any fighter jet better than the American-made F-16 or F-22?)
 
That has nothing to due with quality. It's due to low manufacturing costs.

And in many cases making software or services requires more brainpower and sophistication than making a physical product. Japan has yet to produce a world-class software company outside of video games.

So this "American products are low quality" argument just doesn't hold water any way you look at it.

Manufacturing costs in Japan are quite high. Things that are made there are made there *because* of the very high brain power and sophistication of Japanese workers.

And anyway, Apple sells lots and lots of computers/iPhones/iPads etc. in Asia, so why on earth shouldn't those countries expect that if they can do a better job building them, then Apple should build them there?

How silly would it be for Apple to decide to just build things in the US and try to make the rest of the world pay higher prices to support American workers?
 
Manufacturing costs in Japan are quite high. Things that are made there are made there *because* of the very high brain power and sophistication of Japanese workers.

And anyway, Apple sells lots and lots of computers/iPhones/iPads etc. in Asia, so why on earth shouldn't those countries expect that if they can do a better job building them, then Apple should build them there?

How silly would it be for Apple to decide to just build things in the US and try to make the rest of the world pay higher prices to support American workers?

Actually, Japanese companies manufacturing products in Japan is extremely inefficient due to the high cost, and due primarily to protectionism and racial pride. The Japanese domestic market is known for being highly inefficient.

Note, I am not arguing Apple should assemble it's products in the US. Asia can do the same job for lower cost. My argument is simply there's no evidence American products are inherently of lower quality than other country's products.
 
Always looking at the negative side of things. Maybe a little radiation will lead to higher power densities.

These jokes just aren't funny.

It's too early for this. Maybe it will never not be too early for this, but please have some sensitivity for people who have friends/family/are themselves in affected areas.


Actually, Japanese companies manufacturing products in Japan is extremely inefficient due to the high cost, and due primarily to protectionism and racial pride. The Japanese domestic market is known for being highly inefficient.

Do you have any evidence for this?
 
The reason that simple, brainless product assembly is not done in the US has nothing to due with low quality. It is due to lower manufacturing costs in China, which has no regulations.

There is no evidence at all that American-made products are of lower quality than any other country's products. (Is there any fighter jet better than the American-made F-16 or F-22?)

Right I get that, and thats the point. On the military note does any country spend/waste more money than us on our armed forces. Not even close.
 
Could we please get the OOT people here discussing where apple should manufacture their products (or where they can manufacture their products) in separate thread. You guys are imposing here you know? This is a discussion about shortages due to the earthquake not manufacturing locales for apple. An earthquake could have hit the states as well...
 
These jokes just aren't funny.

It's too early for this. Maybe it will never not be too early for this, but please have some sensitivity for people who have friends/family/are themselves in affected areas.




Do you have any evidence for this?

Here is a good overviewnfor the extremely inefficient Japanese agricultural industry:

http://www.japan-101.com/government/rice_trade_policy.htm

There are strong parallels between this and other Japanese markets.

Unlike Americans, the Japanese would rather build everything in Japan and pay a higher cost for it (= inefficiency). (I live in Japan and am fluent in Japanese)
 
Not smarter - too early

Note that MS is dropping the standalone Zune hardware, and moving the Zune interface into Windows Phone 7.

If your phone can do it all, why make standalone music players?

I think the iPod market (especially the Touch) will have a long tail, and there's no reason for Apple to not profit from it in the meantime. Specifically, it will continue to satisfy the young 'uns demographic, the parents of whom are not yet willing to commit to a phone contract.
 
Could we please get the OOT people here discussing where apple should manufacture their products (or where they can manufacture their products) in separate thread. You guys are imposing here you know? This is a discussion about shortages due to the earthquake not manufacturing locales for apple. An earthquake could have hit the states as well...

As threads progress, sometimes the conversation evolves. You added nothing of value in your post.
 
Here is a good overviewnfor the extremely inefficient Japanese agricultural industry:

http://www.japan-101.com/government/rice_trade_policy.htm

There are strong parallels between this and other Japanese markets.

Unlike Americans, the Japanese would rather build everything in Japan and pay a higher cost for it (= inefficiency). (I live in Japan and am fluent in Japanese)

Well, the US spends 20 billion a year on agriculture subsidies as well, so we're in about the same boat. At least Japan uses agriculture subsidies to support small farmers. We use them to support DelMonte.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy

And as for the reason why Japanese spend more on Japanese products--that they are higher quality--if Japanese companies can convince Japanese consumers to spend more on domestically made products, why can't American companies do the same?

In general, Japanese made products *are* better. That's not inefficiency, that's good marketing and an educated consumer.
 
Globalization is a race to the bottom, and nobody seems to understand that while the 3rd world rises up, the 1st world inevitably must slide down.

It's not a zero sum game. Western economies will increasingly shift toward higher skilled professions as the BRIC countries take over manufacturing and mid level white collar work. The U.S. must step up its educational training in order for its many low paid service workers to move up the ladder, though.
 
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