Their purchasing power of foreign products would increase, but not of those made in their own country. And I would guess that these migrant workers generally buy try few foreign made products (i.e. made outside China.)
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Tim Cook Responds to Report on Working Conditions at Suppliers' Factories
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Their purchasing power of foreign products would increase, but not of those made in their own country. And I would guess that these migrant workers generally buy try few foreign made products (i.e. made outside China.)
That's cuz you're in the major cities.
Try going outside of typical tourist areas.
I fully understood your post, don't worry. There was nothing ambiguous about it. The only thing I hold sacred is logic and rationality. Not Apple, believe it or not. The fact that you can't help but insert the sacred/cult/worship memes in your posts speak volumes about your real intentions. The caps is not me yelling, it is summarizing your statements and those of others. I'm not sure how you can possibly misunderstand that, and fail to see the obvious essence of what I was portraying. Why don't you provide a real response, and explain how APple proving more transparency, data, and reports is inherently a BAD thing- compared to other companies that similarly deal with Foxconn yet provide nowhere near what APple has provided. How is an attempt and more transparency bad, and why are you adverse to giving APple a shred of credit for it, when in the previous breath you criticized them for not having it?
Don't people get it? The major focus of this campaign on Chinese workers' rights is about US jobs and manufacturing. Fact is, these OEM factories provided work, income and raised living conditions for the rural peasant workforce, the level of criticism is completely out of proportion to the benefits it gave to the workers at large. The the key benefactor of forced rises in "work condition" will not be the large number of rural workers searching for jobs (as cost base of manufacturing increases and loss of overseas orders), but US workers. This is all part of the big plot to hold back the tide of US manufacturing job losses.
The cost of labor as a percentage of total product cost is pretty low for Apple products. We're not talking cheap plastic toys here.
If this is all part of some big plot to 'stem the tide', well the tide for this kind of manufacturing passed by about 15 years ago. Steve Jobs himself said (to our President) these jobs aren't coming back, and labor cost is only part of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html
So how many read the comments to the translated NYT article collected from actual Chinese (and posted on NYT's much lower visibility blog - nice one NYT! /sarcasm)
"Chinese respond to report on Apple's suppliers in China"
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...d_to_report_on_apples_suppliers_in_china.html
"Chinese respond to report on Apple's suppliers in China"
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...d_to_report_on_apples_suppliers_in_china.html
Live Free or Die Tryin
Leave it to the liberal media to try to get China to increase regulation to levels such as what we have to suffer with in the United States thinking this will bring jobs back. I'm sorry nObama, but as long as you regulate our companies those jobs will go to countries that recognize that companies will do the right thing if left to their own.
Get rid of all this needless "y'all need ventilation and pay this minimum wage" and do away with all the government giveaways. Then we'll see these jobs coming back. When you can't just sit there getting a big check for doing nothing a job working 12 hours a day polishing aluminum for 22 bucks will start looking pretty good.
Leave it to the liberal media to try to get China to increase regulation to levels such as what we have to suffer with in the United States thinking this will bring jobs back. I'm sorry nObama, but as long as you regulate our companies those jobs will go to countries that recognize that companies will do the right thing if left to their own.
Get rid of all this needless "y'all need ventilation and pay this minimum wage" and do away with all the government giveaways. Then we'll see these jobs coming back. When you can't just sit there getting a big check for doing nothing a job working 12 hours a day polishing aluminum for 22 bucks will start looking pretty good.
Also looking forward to NYT's report on working conditions at factories used by far the largest importer of Chinese products: Walmart.
"Wal-Mart remained the No. 1 importer of containerized ocean cargo in the latest annual ranking of The Journal of Commerce Top 100 U.S. Importers and Exporters, increasing its shipping volume into the United States 1.8 percent in 2010."
What sense does it make to singly target a company that only produces 5% of PCs, 8% of phones and 58% of tablets worldwide?
"Wal-Mart remained the No. 1 importer of containerized ocean cargo in the latest annual ranking of The Journal of Commerce Top 100 U.S. Importers and Exporters, increasing its shipping volume into the United States 1.8 percent in 2010."
What sense does it make to singly target a company that only produces 5% of PCs, 8% of phones and 58% of tablets worldwide?
Attention to the deplorable situation at Foxconn is long overdue. Apple may not be directly responsible, yet they are profiting off the backs of humans. By the very nature of Apples involvement, they have blood on their hands.
Honda & Toyota seem to have no problem creating safe & highly profitable new factories in the USA. Their products are far more labor intense to assemble, yet it's win / win for all involved. With the safest record of all auto plants in North America, it appears that Apple may be taking the easiest & most profitable way out.
Yes, Apple's insatiable hunger for more money, more money, more money is very telling. Problems at Foxconn? Surely you jest
Honda & Toyota seem to have no problem creating safe & highly profitable new factories in the USA. Their products are far more labor intense to assemble, yet it's win / win for all involved. With the safest record of all auto plants in North America, it appears that Apple may be taking the easiest & most profitable way out.
Yes, Apple's insatiable hunger for more money, more money, more money is very telling. Problems at Foxconn? Surely you jest
These two statements contradict each other. For the suicide rate [inside] the factory to be better than the average rate of [inside+outside], there have to be more suicides occurring outside the factory to raise the average. How can that be when this "virtually never" happens outside the factories?
Either someone failed basic mathematics, or one of the statistics is a lie.
Attention to the deplorable situation at Foxconn is long overdue. Apple may not be directly responsible, yet they are profiting off the backs of humans. By the very nature of Apples involvement, they have blood on their hands.
Honda & Toyota seem to have no problem creating safe & highly profitable new factories in the USA. Their products are far more labor intense to assemble, yet it's win / win for all involved. With the safest record of all auto plants in North America, it appears that Apple may be taking the easiest & most profitable way out.
Yes, Apple's insatiable hunger for more money, more money, more money is very telling. Problems at Foxconn? Surely you jest
Agreed and the and the Honda factories have a large domestic content.
He's saying that people rarely ever commit suicide on the job outside of these factories but as someone else pointed out, they live in these factories campus' so they've no where else to do it.
Attention to the deplorable situation at Foxconn is long overdue. Apple may not be directly responsible, yet they are profiting off the backs of humans. By the very nature of Apples involvement, they have blood on their hands.
Honda & Toyota seem to have no problem creating safe & highly profitable new factories in the USA. Their products are far more labor intense to assemble, yet it's win / win for all involved. With the safest record of all auto plants in North America, it appears that Apple may be taking the easiest & most profitable way out.
Yes, Apple's insatiable hunger for more money, more money, more money is very telling. Problems at Foxconn? Surely you jest
+1 to this - Apple has record profits just about every quarter now. They can afford to move their manufacturing operations to somewhere that has more fair working conditions or somehow make sure those workers in China are paid more fairly.
Too many people who have never left this country or run a factory commenting on media sensational reporting.
If Apple decides NOT To operate a factory they have their reasons and that needs to be accepted.
The headaches tax and labor issues a factory of such dimension in USA creates are not worth it.
As I postred before what does such a factory do when they don't have the next hit item to produce?
No guarantee that Apple is always going to come up with the next hot seller.
To those who criticize Tim for his responses:
I am sure that if you were the CEO you would state:
Okay, you caught me. We don't really care about anything, but money!
Thank you for understanding.
Actually, Apple should be praised for taking steps to help change Chinese working conditions. If they wouldn't give their orders to Foxconn and have such a high profile nothing would change much due to the also rans FoxConn produces for.
Slightly off the topic, if Iran enriches uranium, US will not say hey it's Iran we can't do anything! There is a level of hypocrisy that would surmount in the name of safety and security. If Iraq doest not have WMD, hey we could not find it sorry, after killing few millions!
I'm very surprised how many people accept Tim Cook's lip service to human rights.
And how many down votes posts get who are concerned with Apple's treatment of workers at times of record profits.
Well, on these forums you'll get all people of all kinds and many probably don't have the educational and intellectual background to see that human rights abuses in other countries are not as disconnected as they may think they are (by the way: "what the hell do I care if a Foxconn worker kills himself over his work conditions as long as I get my iPhone 4S" is neither a mature nor human attitude).
These abuses always get imported back to the US. For example, Apple has made illegal deals with other tech companies to curb competition for qualified employees to keep their salaries and benefits down. Again, this happens at a time of record profit, an incredible showing of greed.
And all Tim Cook can say "Oh, it's all not true, we do care so much".
Hopefully, president Obama will get through with his looking for fairness in outsourcing deals. This could lead to fees for human right abusing corporations who export jobs into countries where they can abuse workers as much as they like.
High tech manufacturing is returning to the US, and it would be a great boon for Apple to look at this trend, and maybe become a front runner. Labor prices will go up in China, Chinese workers get increasingly fed up, and they can get quite violent as Chinese history proves.
And how many down votes posts get who are concerned with Apple's treatment of workers at times of record profits.
Well, on these forums you'll get all people of all kinds and many probably don't have the educational and intellectual background to see that human rights abuses in other countries are not as disconnected as they may think they are (by the way: "what the hell do I care if a Foxconn worker kills himself over his work conditions as long as I get my iPhone 4S" is neither a mature nor human attitude).
These abuses always get imported back to the US. For example, Apple has made illegal deals with other tech companies to curb competition for qualified employees to keep their salaries and benefits down. Again, this happens at a time of record profit, an incredible showing of greed.
And all Tim Cook can say "Oh, it's all not true, we do care so much".
Hopefully, president Obama will get through with his looking for fairness in outsourcing deals. This could lead to fees for human right abusing corporations who export jobs into countries where they can abuse workers as much as they like.
High tech manufacturing is returning to the US, and it would be a great boon for Apple to look at this trend, and maybe become a front runner. Labor prices will go up in China, Chinese workers get increasingly fed up, and they can get quite violent as Chinese history proves.
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The need for the suppliers to put up nets to catch jumpers before anyone notices just how bad ***** is, is pretty damn sad. Considering how much Apple and Foxconn make they should be able to do better.
To me, there's a far more powerful moral reason to avoid partnering with China and India:
The amount of female abortion and infanticide that pervades both societies.
There's nothing more reprehensible than decades of killing millions of baby girls ... especially after they're born... in order to avoid a dowry in India or to make room for a son in China.
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OTOH, a national security reason to keep work going to China, is to avoid war with China. When you're as financially tied at the hip as the US and China have become now, it's a good thing for keeping the peace. (Not so good for keeping industrial secrets, though. China has advanced greatly by being privy to such info and methods.)
The amount of female abortion and infanticide that pervades both societies.
There's nothing more reprehensible than decades of killing millions of baby girls ... especially after they're born... in order to avoid a dowry in India or to make room for a son in China.
---
OTOH, a national security reason to keep work going to China, is to avoid war with China. When you're as financially tied at the hip as the US and China have become now, it's a good thing for keeping the peace. (Not so good for keeping industrial secrets, though. China has advanced greatly by being privy to such info and methods.)
Maybe you should question how China runs their business, because thats the source of the whole problem where it originates. But you want to dump the whole problem to Apple to deal with.
If that gives you the right to question Apple, why not China?
Apple has done more to address these problems then all the other tech companies combined.
You have no evidence of your statement about Apple doing more than all other tech companies combined.
And I never dumped the entire problem on Apple. Get your facts straight or stop talking in hyperbole.
I think you're ignoring the fact that in the US employers are forced to pay for their employees retirement and healthcare - in most other industrialised countries people pay taxes and receive such services via the government. Tea Party folk may boohoo the idea but that is one of the reasons why the US labour costs so much once you include all ones obligations as an employer.
Lets assume it is 30minutes to assemble a phone, that works out to be based on where I live $6 per device - ok, lets assume 15minutes for the sake of argument which translates to $3.25 per device.
Now lets assume you're adamant that you want it in the US then it would require at the most people to be paid the federal minimum wage, that healthcare and retirement handled by the government, and the federal/state government provides low cost public housing and transportation - then sure you could compete with China but "that would be socialism!" as some here would chant.
A chip manufacturing plant is not the same as an assembly plant. And the United States isn't Apple's country. Apple is a multinational corporation. They sell to customers all over the world. Why should they favor American customers over everybody else?
Also, what is your basis for saying that Samsung opened a fab in the US as a show of faith in the American people? I love how people always attach noble intentions to anything Apple's competitors do. As I see it, Samsung opened a fab in the US because it was cost-effective do so. I'm not sure what that reason was, but I will not think for a minute that Samsung is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.