Nope... not wrong at all.
I don't think this is "wrong" at all. If anything, this program just gave some people a reality check on what life is like in other parts of our world.
The fact is, China has a MASSIVE population, automatically making it a far bigger "supply and demand" problem if all of their residents were to suddenly decide to change their lifestyle, with a desire to live just like Americans do.
When you look at video of their villages, for example, and think "Wow... what a miserable life they're living!" -- you're watching it in the perspective of an American, contrasting that against the home or apartment you live in, and what you see around you. Everything is relative, and if it's the "norm" for all of their peers to live that simply and basically, they simply don't view it as the tragedy you see it as.
As others pointed out:
1. Most of the Foxconn workers are young. The place resembles a college campus in many respects, which makes more sense in the context of the average age of their employees. Most U.S. teenagers and early 20-somethings don't get especially great jobs either.
2. Their expenses are drastically lower than ours, so their money goes a lot farther. Since when can you buy lunch in the U.S. for the equivalent of only 70 cents? Even a government subsidized school lunch for a grade-school kid is over 2x that amount!
3. It would be insanity for Apple NOT to mark up their products to whatever the level is that the American market would bear. That's simply called business. Have you ever looked at the actual costs to bring a product like the iPad to market? The manufacturing expenses are only one portion. Things like advertising and marketing are a BIG reason you pay the asking price for one too, and those are all expenses paid in U.S.dollars to U.S. based firms -- when you want them to market it to U.S. customers.
If you turn this around and ask how those Chinese poor would be doing if Apple never existed (or refused to build anything there whatsoever) .. how would you conclude that betters their situation in any way, shape or form?
Am I the only one who thinks this is so wrong. They could easily pay way more to the workers. The reason why they don't build in the U.S. is so they exploit the poor economic situation of these people. So if you take the iphone 4, cost of parts was estimated at 188 dollars, they sold for 500-600 dollars when launched. How dare they pay these hard working people scraps then turn around mark up the product hundreds of percents for americans to buy. I've heard about how apple is the most profitable company around. They profit off the backs of the poor. They should be ashamed. I will definitely not buy anymore apple products now.
