Apple Products

[qfnol31]

I can see the argument that they aren't the only one doing this exploitation, but everyone else can make the claim that they don't have the resources to make a change. Apple most certainly has the resources, but chooses instead to ignore the problem. How would you respond to that?

[StMichael]

I am not defending Apple. Apple, as well as others, have appealed to Red China.

I have had to do business with factories in Red China. Albeit on a very small scale. Not because I wanted to, but because they alone manufacture. It was not a pleasant experience whatsoever.

Companies have made demands on the Red Chinese government, etc. to no avail. They are assured that they will fall in line and then don't.

NIKE has had this issue for over 2 decades. The only way to change it is for there to be competition in manufacturing and there simply isn't any. Red China does all it can to deliver it faster, cheaper. There are no unions to deal with. No regulations. And they ensure they keep their currency worth low.

I for one would like for Apple to read more than "Designed In Cupertino" and actually made there. In fact, purchasing refurbished Apple products are the best as they as refurbished in the US.

Then we have the politics. Red China owns so much of our debt that we bow to them. It is a problem, but a problem that no single company can change unless Apple decides to make itself completely uncompetitive and dies out trying to manufacture here in the States.


[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1328633561' post='2383039']
I can see the argument that they aren't the only one doing this exploitation, but everyone else can make the claim that they don't have the resources to make a change. Apple most certainly has the resources, but chooses instead to ignore the problem. How would you respond to that?
[/quote]

[arfink]

[quote name='qfnol31' timestamp='1328633561' post='2383039']
I can see the argument that they aren't the only one doing this exploitation, but everyone else can make the claim that they don't have the resources to make a change. Apple most certainly has the resources, but chooses instead to ignore the problem. How would you respond to that?
[/quote]

I won't claim to defend Apple, I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter, which is that the cheapest, largest, and best trained group of technical assembly workers in the world happens to be the majority of the population of Shenzen China. So what's a businessman with no conscience going to do?

Manufacturing in the US is currently very difficult to do. Very few people will be enticed by low wages, long hours of physical exertion, and specialized training when you can just train for a better paying job outside of manufacturing.

I know alot of people here support the idea of a completely unfettered free market, but a labor union means nothing when global logistics makes it possible to simply pull the factory out from underneath troublesome and expensive US workers and replant it in China. Troublesome usually meaning that they desire to be paid a living wage with reasonable benefits. This is the kind of thing which will probably require the corrective action of tariffs and other regulation to fix.

Another interesting thing to take note of here is that in the United States we actually don't have the high-tech manufacturing infrastructure that China does. IE, the kinds of factories that would be needed to make the iPod simply don't exist here. Not for that kind of volume. Furthermore, even if such factories did exist and American companies used them to make American products, who would buy them? I cannot fathom paying the premium that "Made in the USA" demands in regards to computer products. A personal computer would once again costs tens of thousands of dollars. The free market built this problem, and it cannot and will not correct it, as far as I am concerned.

[elizabeth09]

I think that we have to choose for ourselves, what is right and what is wrong.