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Well you do know about bibles. Schuyler Bibles posted on their FB account that these tariffs will cause their prices to increase. While we preachers are certainly not experts on everything, it doesn’t take an expert to understand increased cost is always going to be passed down to the buyer. That’s how businesses keep their profit margins and stay in business.

Aye.

Yet there are those of us that hold onto the things that are precious to us for a long, long time.

For ex.: my Bible was printed in 1952 . . . I have no urgent need to replace/update it.
 
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Less innovation isn’t clear. Clinton also opened up the Internet, which spurred a bunch of technical and commercial innovation. Globalization was inevitable for over 125 years only because we had globalization in the late 1800s. It led to WWI because Germany became too economically successful for the Britain and France to stomach. It seems the economic competition between China and the US could play out similarly.

I’m not sure why you bring up unions. Every other country has unions and seems to be able to compete. Only in the US have people been brainwashed into thinking that the natural order is for companies to hold coercive economic power over workers. I suspect it is because other countries actually study economics. They understand the problems of capitalism and how to remediate some of them. In the US, someone mentions supply and demand in a high-school social-studies class while indoctrinating them with Orwellian capitalist doublespeak and the students come out thinking they understand economics.
“Orwellian capitalist doublespeak”

Now there’s a contradictory statement if I’ve ever seen one.

I brought up unions because others did. Unions are anathema to free market beliefs and as a free market libertarian, I know they generally do harm to workers while benefiting the union leaders. In a true market economy you dictate the value of your labor, not through collective bargaining, so Floyd, the shiftless, lazy bum of a coworker of yours doesn’t get the same wage as you do, when you bust your hump daily. Unions have killed companies and almost single-handedly brought down the US auto industry. California has insane amounts of debt it owes because of public sector unions.

 
This statement demonstrates the limitations of Trump's knowledge of economics. Of course the USA absolutely CAN make iPhones in the United States. But the proper question isn't whether we can do it, but what are the trade offs of doing it. China is an expert at manufacturing and does it very inefficiently. For the USA to make iPhones it would have to take capital and labor resources that are currently devoted to things the USA is good at - financial and legal services, high technology software design, etc. - and redirect them to this thing that the USA is bad at while consuming far more resources to build them than it would in China. As a result, while the USA can build it's own iPhones, we will wind up with less and be poorer with fewer total goods and services. I would much rather let China build my iPhone and all the other stuff that they are great at, and let us all be wealthier.
 
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You get what you deserve, America. Please enjoy. 😆

You'd be speaking German if it wasn't for America and all the allies though, right?

How come there are no Chryslers driving on the Autobahn? ( I mean, don't say it's because too much chrome falls off of the cars at high speed, even though it's true) - It is too hard to import American cars into Europe is one of the reasons. Europe is taking Billions of dollars from Google and Apple - why? Well it is because they can! I think the world will be looking at free trade and Nato free rides a little differently because of Trump.
 
yeah! They will feel the pain, repent and start selling at much lower prices --- somehow. By the way, aren't there alternatives to Apple devices? How can it be extortion if you have reasonable alternatives?

Just enjoying the karma they are currently receiving.
 
(*Because there's also such a thing as "Democratic Socialism", and, if anything, that's what Bernie and AOC call for, you know the likes of universal health care and affordable education and appropriately taxing billionaires, because those are obviously horrible things)
Universal Health Care is overhyped. It's built on the exploitation of the middle class, where some pay much more, but get the same ****** service and waiting times. The USA's problem is that both sides of the service - insurance, hospitals - is private. It needs reform, not making it worse so everyone can get it. The sector's profits should be regulated, and life-saving care provided for everyone, while the ones who finance the system don't get worse care than now.

Affordability of education depends on mostly on earning potential. The student loan debt originates from the same thing as the trade deficit and the current Trump presidency: when free trade agreements were made, the working theory was that while well paying manufacturing jobs will go overseas, even better paying white collar jobs will be created, so everyone should get a degree. Very few of those jobs materialised, what happened is the oversupply of graduates (in mostly useless fields) increased entry requirements for existing jobs, when people with high school diplomas retired, college graduates took their place, but for the same salary level, well, because the job stayed mostly the same. Democrats let the factories go overseas, urged everyone to go to college, get a useless degree while listening to Marxist professors, then promising them to save them from student debt, just vote for us.

Ask Norway how wealth taxing rich people works for them. There is a rather simple solution to get more tax from the rich without forcing startup owners to sell their company before it becomes viable based on paper valuation. Tax share buy-backs, and tax non-financial companies hoarding cash. They will be forced to either invest and grow the economy, which will create tax revenues indirectly, or forced to raise/start paying dividends to support their share price. That stops billionaires living on loans backed by equity.

But Bernie and AOC do not want solutions, they want simple catchphrases they can use in their campaigns again and again, doing as little about it as they can get away with it.

Take that from someone who actually COMES from a former actual Socialist country.

But since you're someone who, according to your avatar, considers taxes as theft, you don't understand much of what it means to be part of a society, and any further discussions are moot.
I'm old enough that I actually lived under communist rule. AOC and Bernie might not seem socialist based on their current agenda, but how they operate, the propaganda tools they use is very much of a socialist. Even my country's communists didn't start out with saying "we'll send the former nazi brigands now working for us to sweep the attic in villages", they started with talking about the aristocracy. I'll never trust anyone who's on the left, regardless of what they say at the moment. You can look back the democrats went farther and farther to the extremes as their agenda was met in social issues.

And yes, wealth taxation is theft.
 
I don't understand what makes an assembly line job appealing at all.
Workers on assembly lines don't take those jobs since they're appealing. They take those jobs since the alternative is worse, if an alternative even exists for them. Assembly line workers outside the US do so largely because their alternative until those factories were built, was to work on a farm as their families had done for generations before them, often at subsistence wages, or at least far less than they make at an assembly line job.
 
Tariffs? The conflict in TW seams imminent. The Trump Admin has definitely being pushing for it.

Will see.

PS: Just a couple months ago the biggest threat to Apple other American Tech Companies profits was the DMA (according to some zealots around here). Just today saw the Vice President that America was the biggest looser of the so called Globalization so much so that it needs to borrow money from the Chinese peasants to survive. Can you believe it?

Meanwhile biggest sub prime scam in decade did not create any dept and real state moguls made loads of money. Oh yes, banks went bust but real state moguls got payed.

I would say good luck America, but because is such an influencial super power in the west … god saves all.

PS: Interesting theory around here, robots will MAGA.

Have we all gone mad? When did we loose sight of the future for the sake of fast $$$? I have grown with inspiring SciFI such as Star Trek, Carl Sagan Cosmos and Steve Jobs. Now all looks so petty and the air is with so much smoke that we can hardly see the other side of the street.
 
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This statement demonstrates the limitations of Trump's knowledge of economics. Of course the USA absolutely CAN make iPhones in the United States. But the proper question isn't whether we can do it, but what are the trade offs of doing it. China is an expert at manufacturing and does it very inefficiently. For the USA to make iPhones it would have to take capital and labor resources that are currently devoted to things the USA is good at - financial and legal services, high technology software design, etc. - and redirect them to this thing that the USA is bad at while consuming far more resources to build them than it would in China. As a result, while the USA can build it's own iPhones, we will wind up with less and be poorer with fewer total goods and services. I would much rather let China build my iPhone and all the other stuff that they are great at, and let us all be wealthier.
And they would sell these phones at a higher price which means a much smaller market since the rest of the world can buy from those selling for much less. We lose the advantage of economy of scale. So yes we can do this, but it's like sending a man to the moon -- we can do it and did it but no profit. So it wouldn't represent anything like capitalism that so many advocate -- closer to socialism where we lose money but at least employ more people.
 
Expensive means it is not feasible, since sales will drop like a rock. Not feasible = next to impossible. At least, impossible to upkeep Apple as the succes story it is.

And time-consuming = next to impossible to do it within the next five years - but the tariffs start tomorrow. So, “resolving” the tariff situation by shifting production to US is, most certainly, next to impossible.

Shifting production to US in several years, while making both Apple, average Americans, AND the US state way poorer in the process - that is definitely possible. But left is the question: Why? Which problem are we trying to solve, that justifies a decade of economic disruption and uncertainty? Carrying not only a risk, but according to every sensible economist on the planet a high likelihood, to just make even worse? (Such as the US debt situation).

Obviously it doesn’t make sense for Apple to produce 100% of their products in the US, but why not some % of them? (5%? 10%?) Several years ago, many analysts, journalists, economists, and probably MR commentators like yourself were certain that Apple chips would never be produced in the US (it was called “impossible”). Yet somehow there’s now a real, live TSMC factory in Arizona producing chips for Apple devices.

I am not defending these tariffs. I am only stating the obvious - that it isn’t anywhere near “impossible” for Apple to manufacture & assemble some small percentage of their American-destined products in the same country where they will ultimately be sold.
 
Obviously it doesn’t make sense for Apple to produce 100% of their products in the US, but why not some % of them? (5%? 10%?) Several years ago, many analysts, journalists, economists, and probably MR commentators like yourself were certain that Apple chips would never be produced in the US (it was called “impossible”). Yet somehow there’s now a real, live TSMC factory in Arizona producing chips for Apple devices.

I am not defending these tariffs. I am only stating the obvious - that it isn’t anywhere near “impossible” for Apple to manufacture & assemble some small percentage of their American-destined products in the same country where they will ultimately be sold.
They should do exactly what makes the most business sense. If the US or a state can sweeten the pot with maybe tax breaks, etc. to improve the money aspects that might make sense. Punishing or otherwise forcing them to do something that causes them to make less profits isn't remotely capitalistic.
 
This statement demonstrates the limitations of Trump's knowledge of economics. Of course the USA absolutely CAN make iPhones in the United States. But the proper question isn't whether we can do it, but what are the trade offs of doing it. China is an expert at manufacturing and does it very inefficiently. For the USA to make iPhones it would have to take capital and labor resources that are currently devoted to things the USA is good at - financial and legal services, high technology software design, etc. - and redirect them to this thing that the USA is bad at while consuming far more resources to build them than it would in China. As a result, while the USA can build it's own iPhones, we will wind up with less and be poorer with fewer total goods and services. I would much rather let China build my iPhone and all the other stuff that they are great at, and let us all be wealthier.

Yes, and if Apple chooses to manufacture them in USA it will take some time to set up the "factory" to do it. It would be really unfair to hit Apple products with tariffs that American customers would be paying. Yes, maybe income tax would be cancelled, but it's still a tax grab. It would take Apple at least a year or likely more time to get set up. So $500 B domestic investment promised by Apple in the USA - I think that should mean zero tariffs on Apple imported products. So wait for that good news!
 
Trump ought to get familiar with using the Grok 3 AI service developed by his friend's company, xAI.
 
Obviously it doesn’t make sense for Apple to produce 100% of their products in the US, but why not some % of them? (5%? 10%?) Several years ago, many analysts, journalists, economists, and probably MR commentators like yourself were certain that Apple chips would never be produced in the US (it was called “impossible”). Yet somehow there’s now a real, live TSMC factory in Arizona producing chips for Apple devices.

I am not defending these tariffs. I am only stating the obvious - that it isn’t anywhere near “impossible” for Apple to manufacture & assemble some small percentage of their American-destined products in the same country where they will ultimately be sold.

Look. You can’t force companies to build industry in a country. Yes you can create conditions for it to be feasible, like for instance TW and China did, or strike specific deals. Yet taxing their products insanely in order to attract Industry never worked. It makes no sense. Yes, that is what Trump is doing in the US. He his taxing everything like no other … electronics is everywhere!

Will see. The way I see it, Winter is Coming if the winds don’t change.

Will see.
 
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Trump thinks too much, it only gets him in trouble. Apple would never bring assembling of iPhones to the US, they could not pay people enough and their profit margin would plummet. Apple tried assembling the MacPro aka trashcan in the US but how long did that happen? I don't know because no one seemed to talk about after it was announced, I suspect it didn't work out financially and the job went back overseas.
Yeah whatever happened with that MacPro I think I heard more talk about the design than how it ran
 
This statement demonstrates the limitations of Trump's knowledge of economics. Of course the USA absolutely CAN make iPhones in the United States. But the proper question isn't whether we can do it, but what are the trade offs of doing it. China is an expert at manufacturing and does it very inefficiently. For the USA to make iPhones it would have to take capital and labor resources that are currently devoted to things the USA is good at - financial and legal services, high technology software design, etc. - and redirect them to this thing that the USA is bad at while consuming far more resources to build them than it would in China. As a result, while the USA can build it's own iPhones, we will wind up with less and be poorer with fewer total goods and services. I would much rather let China build my iPhone and all the other stuff that they are great at, and let us all be wealthier.
Please stop making sane posts that explain the situation!
 
Macrunmors dont you already get enough engagement? Yet here I am....

Of course we could manufacture iPhones in the US but we passed lots of laws to make it very expensive. So can we make them for a "reasonable" price? No.

The tariff wars are ... as far as I can tell...the craziest thing I have ever seen without a coherent plan. Biden kept some of the Trump tariffs on China so some tariffs on China is bipartisan but this...seems completely crazy.
 
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Workers on assembly lines don't take those jobs since they're appealing. They take those jobs since the alternative is worse, if an alternative even exists for them. Assembly line workers outside the US do so largely because their alternative until those factories were built, was to work on a farm as their families had done for generations before them, often at subsistence wages, or at least far less than they make at an assembly line job.
Our unemployment rate is low. Tell me what job is worse than a job paying $2/hour?
 
Not for America anymore, the administration is isolating us.

I mean it still is you’re just going to pay more for it.
The insane way this has all been implemented hasn’t allowed time for you to be isolated from the globe.
 
The Tesla factory in Fremont had a reputation of being a horrible place to work. Musk treats his employs like 💩
In Musk's mind, no sacrifice (by someone else) is too great when the goal is to fund his attempts get him to Mars ASAP, where he plans to rule over anyone else who lands there.
 
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