I love Apple products. Only buy Apple computers. But as a company, they don't really do much for our country, besides give us the best computers. If I had it my way, any company which sells 50% of goods in the USA would have to have 50% of their workforce employed here. Less than 50%, it would be based on the percentage sold.
Like any company, they want to make a profit first. If in the process, they make us happy, well that is a plus. How much profit is enough? Say they make these in the USA, and keep the same price point. Is $7B profit for a quarter good enough vs $13B? Why not just profit a billion per quarter, then lower the prices? Not going to happen. Business is all about making money first, at all costs. Nothing against Apple. That is how you run a business. You don't get an award for running a company into the ground, you get it for $13B quarterly profits.
Slap on a 20% tariff on all Chinese exports. That will bring some jobs back home. And Apple will have to learn to profit more realistically. People will say an iPad would be $999.99, well then people wouldn't buy them. If Apple made iPads here, they would have to cost $499, or I'd be an Android fan-boy in a day.
I own a single share of Apple stock. I paid $15.00 for it back in like 2002. It split way back, and I sold that split share for like $390.00. I'm keeping my single share forever. But that just shows you how much this company has grown. Couldn't' they be just as successful as a $250.00/share company? It seems they don't really need that much profit anyway, as they have like $100B in the bank. So why do their products cost so much, and why do them make them so cheaply in China?
IDK, but I would like if Apple could be more patriotic and maybe hire some manufacturing jobs in this country. That would be greater than any iPad they could ever make.
You know Apple pays taxes in the US, right? And employs a bunch of people who pay taxes in the US? All those out-of-work factory workers should get Apple Retail jobs or better yet, get an education and start programming or designing the next Apple product, because that's what Apple is doing for America.
And hey, look at you, an American stockowner of AAPL making some money for no effort on your part every time they split the stock.
You know what happens when we start slapping tariffs on other countries? They shrug and let you take all their jobs? Hahaha, no. They slap tariffs on your stuff too. You get a trade war, and since China has more to lose here than we do, they'll put much, much bigger tariffs on our stuff. China, as an emerging market, is not something we want to lose entirely, that will only benefit Europe and elsewhere. So, we'll be taking in less income, everything we have will go up in price 20% (because it's not just Apple products made in China, it's absolutely everything), and our lovely standard of living will go down in flames along with our economy. Can you afford to have your income go down while your cost of living goes up nearly 20%? How many people do you know can?
It's not always the most pleasant thing to stomach, but free trade results in specialization and everything that goes along with it. China right now specializes in unskilled manual labor. We specialize right now in designing and inventing things. Frankly, both sides benefit because China has a lot of unemployed, uneducated, poor people who need unskilled jobs, and we like designing and owning iPads. Building them, we can let somebody else do that, because our jobs over here require an education and creativity, and their jobs can be replaced by robots with Apple logos on them perhaps someday. Both sides make money, but that's not a bad thing. If anything, considering Apple's profits and market cap, we're getting the better end of the deal.
Would you honestly rather switch places with China? That's all you need to know.