It appears the Chinese government has decided that their country will be the manufacturing mecca of the modern world. It subsidizes the industry and ensures regulations and labor laws are kept in check. There is very little one can do to compete. But how long can it last? At what point does labor organize against such poor conditions? At what point do people decide they don't want to live in a polluted dump? But given a choice between an iPhone for $50 made in China or $150 made in the America...Would you buy the one made in America? What if the one from America had a defect? Maybe America needs to specialize in something other than high tech hardware manufacturing? Spend the time, money and effort beating China at something else. Or maybe international trade laws should level the playing field when it comes to suppressing workers and polluting the environment?
Yes, I would pay for it! I already buy food at local farmers markets even though it's more expensive than supermarkets because I hate supporting big agribusiness. American-made electronics? Sure I would buy them! I would have to buy less electronics overall (because of the higher price), but I already have to save up for pretty much tech i purchase so waiting a couple extra weeks for an American-made product would be no big deal.
China will provide a great deal of manufacturing for the developed world until their labor costs get too high; then the manufacturing will go elsewhere (Brazil, for example). At the moment, most american tech companies work the same way; they do the design and high level engineering in the US and outsource all the "low value added" work to cheaper labor markets.
Personally, I would not pay a premium for american made products unless there was a significant quality difference. Based on my experience, iPhones, iPods, Macs, iPads, etc. do not have quality issues. On the other hand, I buy my shoes from an american manufacturer that has a very high quality product (at a premium price). The US needs to do what it can do better than anyone else in the world, not compete with cheap labor markets when they cannot win.
They don't spout anything about failure. The reason most Apple devices are expansion unfriendly is because Jobs wants it that way. There is a story that the original Macintosh design team purposely used the term 'debug slot' to sneak some level of expandability into the first Macs.
Have you ever owned an iPhone or anything else made by Apple? I have one of the first iPhones that still works just as well as the day I bought it. You have no idea what you are talking about.
i think phones in general enjoy a significant margin that makes having defects senseless. i find that equipment with lower margins are more likely to have defects when bought on the cheap
The problem is that these legislative "fixes" play well with the base, who believe that the US will be better if we're pulling more money from individual businesses, making everything slow and steady in terms of licensing new ones, etc. 1% vs 99% is a good example.
When in reality it is just cutting our own throats, as our competitors take advantage of our self-imposed weakness. Much of the handicap is with good intentions... but there's no real discussion on the actual costs in terms of competitiveness and accelerating the loss of jobs. No, that's all seen as pandering to fear, and the actual losses chalked up to "corporate greed"
To do manufacturing you need a lot of energy. We burned ours. Tell me if you think any giant oil fields have yet to get discovered are under US soil or there known ones that are not well past their prime.
You need to do some pollution and it needs to go somewhere.
Companies present these as accidents, or they show up in the news that way but the fact is when you make semiconductors, fuels, paper, paint, etc. you are doing one giant chemistry task and that produces byproducts that are unwanted, useless, and poison.
In China, they were putting some of those in food to make it pass protein level tests which were not up to such "creative" deception.
Off the African coast or at its ports, toxic chemicals just get dumped that are created on other continents and "wind up" there.
If your country is too crowded for the environment to process, or you create too many industrial by products with the same problem, then people start sickening and dying. Man made epidemics and plagues either way.
China and India already flinched at soaring human population figures; one and two billion apiece -- half the world and not half the land mass or fresh water.
Their humans are competing with their industry. They will have to give up some population size and/or industry ecological footprint or people will start dying from it in record numbers. It is just a matter of time.
In the end, the effects of over industrialization are just about the same as over militarization or sheer outright overpopulation. Pretty much the same 4 horsemen come riding into town.
The US has excelled at inventing a lot of technology; computers, electronics, etc.
Even Alan Greenspan and the World f**king Bank has admitted that the data is accurate: globalization has INCREASED poverty and that their recommended (in the same way that Tony Soprano "recommends" that you pay him back) economic fixes [austerity measures] has made the abiding countries worse off economically in every. single. instance.
But let's not let the facts cloud the issue, right? :)
Actually that was the first imac it had a slot called called the mezzanine slot.
The Mac 128,512, and plus expansions had to make use of the MC68000 processor socket.
The Plus also had 4 30 pin simm sockets.
Not liking expansion was one of Job's bad quirks he only wanted two slots on the Apple II while Woziniak wanted 8.
In my case, I've found every Samsung branded product except their TVs to be sub-standard, including their smartphones. Maybe I've had bad luck. On the expansion items, never needed em
I don't believe apple products are the best on the market, but I have found most of them to be on the superior end of the spectrum. But as Craig says, to each his own. No one has a gun to your head.
The Apple II computer had 7 or 8 slots in it for putting full fledged printed circuit boards, "daughterboards," into.
The Macintosh always had expansion capabilities.
- ADB (Apple desktop bus) for human input devices; mouse, kbd, etc. -- it was the forerunner of USB
- SCSI interface which all Macs for a decade featured
- external smartmodems and printers went on serial ports
- an AppleTalk network adapter could be plugged into one of the serial ports
All were eventually phased out and replaced with USB and Firewire. Internet connectors and Airport (wifi) came later too.
Unlike PCs, Macs have always had audio output hardware including speakers. They also always had audio input jacks starting in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
Memory upgrades on Macs are far easier than the Windows/Intel PCs I bought over the years. Apple has an access plate you pop off and the DIMM card slots are right there.
On non-Apple PCs, despite giant size of towers and such, you have to unscrew and remove a bunch of stuff to get at the RAM.
Jobs was concerned about the marketability of Apple products. His vision was to create computers that were information appliances which everybody could use.
Slots on a motherboard add cost since they're extra mechanical things. The side of the business he was in probably paid close attention to manufacturability and manufacturing economics.
Woz was frugal too. He found ways to do in software, which is a non-recurring expense, what other companies were doing with chips.
Most of the expansions that used the processor socket and stuff that I can recall were themselves processors.
What kind of moots all that is that today people are not adding expansion/upgrade CPUs, etc
Homes and offices just stick a keyboard, some storage, mouse, network, and a couple other things on the outside of their computer. Sometimes the hard drives are internal. Big whoop; all that save is a tiny bit of space and does it at the expense of convenience.
Your assumption fails because of its underlying pretext.
I bought this machine from a pawn shop, thus avoiding any of the negative moral implications of purchasing an item new in the exact same way one ensures avoiding subsidizing sweatshops and child labor by only purchasing clothes in second-hand stores.
In addition to saving water, energy and raw materials and avoiding the environmental crimes associated with manufacturing a shiny new item, purchasing this computer in a pawn shop supported a local business, my local tax base and a local person in need of cash because of a s**tty economy sabotaged by the greedy, short-sighted bastards who outsourced all the good-paying middle/working class jobs vital for a healthy economy, vibrant middle class and functioning democracy.
/You are welcome to respond but I suggest staying down until the ref finishes counting to ten. :)
That was one detailed article, I wonder why people judge Apple for being good or bad, favorable or unfavorable to America, when it has made it quite clear that it has nothing to do with unemployment, all it has to do with is emptying inventories stacked with iPhones. That's what corporate world is all about, you buy what they make and you are promoting them, and what you say is irrelevant, so if you wanna make a difference, may be choices ought to be smart.
spatula7Jan 22, 2012Buried
It appears the Chinese government has decided that their country will be the manufacturing mecca of the modern world. It subsidizes the industry and ensures regulations and labor laws are kept in check. There is very little one can do to compete. But how long can it last? At what point does labor organize against such poor conditions? At what point do people decide they don't want to live in a polluted dump? But given a choice between an iPhone for $50 made in China or $150 made in the America...Would you buy the one made in America? What if the one from America had a defect? Maybe America needs to specialize in something other than high tech hardware manufacturing? Spend the time, money and effort beating China at something else. Or maybe international trade laws should level the playing field when it comes to suppressing workers and polluting the environment?
nitoriJan 21, 2012Buried
it pretty much boils down to greed in it's worst form and the fact Chinese workers were cheaper then robots well if you literally work them to death.
Corporate America owes the public they sold out and ripped off so much that it's not even funny.
p3ngwinJan 22, 2012Buried
it is a statement in reply to a question that was not asked.
Steve Jobs was not asked "ARE those jobs coming back".
The President was asked "WHY can't those jobs come back".
Graf_OrlockJan 22, 2012Buried
Dude, your S key is broken. and your shift key.
mtownJan 22, 2012Buried
Yes, I would pay for it! I already buy food at local farmers markets even though it's more expensive than supermarkets because I hate supporting big agribusiness. American-made electronics? Sure I would buy them! I would have to buy less electronics overall (because of the higher price), but I already have to save up for pretty much tech i purchase so waiting a couple extra weeks for an American-made product would be no big deal.
craig1958Jan 22, 2012Buried
China will provide a great deal of manufacturing for the developed world until their labor costs get too high; then the manufacturing will go elsewhere (Brazil, for example). At the moment, most american tech companies work the same way; they do the design and high level engineering in the US and outsource all the "low value added" work to cheaper labor markets.
Personally, I would not pay a premium for american made products unless there was a significant quality difference. Based on my experience, iPhones, iPods, Macs, iPads, etc. do not have quality issues. On the other hand, I buy my shoes from an american manufacturer that has a very high quality product (at a premium price). The US needs to do what it can do better than anyone else in the world, not compete with cheap labor markets when they cannot win.
wonderchemistJan 22, 2012Buried
They don't spout anything about failure. The reason most Apple devices are expansion unfriendly is because Jobs wants it that way. There is a story that the original Macintosh design team purposely used the term 'debug slot' to sneak some level of expandability into the first Macs.
southsideirishJan 22, 2012Buried
Have you ever owned an iPhone or anything else made by Apple? I have one of the first iPhones that still works just as well as the day I bought it. You have no idea what you are talking about.
casf1bJan 21, 2012Buried
"Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.
Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest. "
autokadJan 22, 2012Buried
i think phones in general enjoy a significant margin that makes having defects senseless. i find that equipment with lower margins are more likely to have defects when bought on the cheap
craig1958Jan 22, 2012Buried
I assume you are using a computer, where was is made?
Graf_OrlockJan 22, 2012Buried
The problem is that these legislative "fixes" play well with the base, who believe that the US will be better if we're pulling more money from individual businesses, making everything slow and steady in terms of licensing new ones, etc. 1% vs 99% is a good example.
When in reality it is just cutting our own throats, as our competitors take advantage of our self-imposed weakness. Much of the handicap is with good intentions... but there's no real discussion on the actual costs in terms of competitiveness and accelerating the loss of jobs. No, that's all seen as pandering to fear, and the actual losses chalked up to "corporate greed"
johnnysoftwareJan 22, 2012Buried
Well, somewhat that and somewhat that is b.s.
To do manufacturing you need a lot of energy. We burned ours. Tell me if you think any giant oil fields have yet to get discovered are under US soil or there known ones that are not well past their prime.
You need to do some pollution and it needs to go somewhere.
Companies present these as accidents, or they show up in the news that way but the fact is when you make semiconductors, fuels, paper, paint, etc. you are doing one giant chemistry task and that produces byproducts that are unwanted, useless, and poison.
In China, they were putting some of those in food to make it pass protein level tests which were not up to such "creative" deception.
Off the African coast or at its ports, toxic chemicals just get dumped that are created on other continents and "wind up" there.
If your country is too crowded for the environment to process, or you create too many industrial by products with the same problem, then people start sickening and dying. Man made epidemics and plagues either way.
China and India already flinched at soaring human population figures; one and two billion apiece -- half the world and not half the land mass or fresh water.
Their humans are competing with their industry. They will have to give up some population size and/or industry ecological footprint or people will start dying from it in record numbers. It is just a matter of time.
In the end, the effects of over industrialization are just about the same as over militarization or sheer outright overpopulation. Pretty much the same 4 horsemen come riding into town.
The US has excelled at inventing a lot of technology; computers, electronics, etc.
nygenxerJan 23, 2012Buried
@yurmutha412:
Even Alan Greenspan and the World f**king Bank has admitted that the data is accurate: globalization has INCREASED poverty and that their recommended (in the same way that Tony Soprano "recommends" that you pay him back) economic fixes [austerity measures] has made the abiding countries worse off economically in every. single. instance.
But let's not let the facts cloud the issue, right? :)
nitoriJan 22, 2012Buried
Actually that was the first imac it had a slot called called the mezzanine slot.
The Mac 128,512, and plus expansions had to make use of the MC68000 processor socket.
The Plus also had 4 30 pin simm sockets.
Not liking expansion was one of Job's bad quirks he only wanted two slots on the Apple II while Woziniak wanted 8.
Graf_OrlockJan 22, 2012Buried
Personal opinion.
In my case, I've found every Samsung branded product except their TVs to be sub-standard, including their smartphones. Maybe I've had bad luck. On the expansion items, never needed em
I don't believe apple products are the best on the market, but I have found most of them to be on the superior end of the spectrum. But as Craig says, to each his own. No one has a gun to your head.
johnnysoftwareJan 22, 2012Buried
That conclusion is not completely true.
The Apple II computer had 7 or 8 slots in it for putting full fledged printed circuit boards, "daughterboards," into.
The Macintosh always had expansion capabilities.
- ADB (Apple desktop bus) for human input devices; mouse, kbd, etc. -- it was the forerunner of USB
- SCSI interface which all Macs for a decade featured
- external smartmodems and printers went on serial ports
- an AppleTalk network adapter could be plugged into one of the serial ports
All were eventually phased out and replaced with USB and Firewire. Internet connectors and Airport (wifi) came later too.
Unlike PCs, Macs have always had audio output hardware including speakers. They also always had audio input jacks starting in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
Memory upgrades on Macs are far easier than the Windows/Intel PCs I bought over the years. Apple has an access plate you pop off and the DIMM card slots are right there.
On non-Apple PCs, despite giant size of towers and such, you have to unscrew and remove a bunch of stuff to get at the RAM.
Jobs was concerned about the marketability of Apple products. His vision was to create computers that were information appliances which everybody could use.
Slots on a motherboard add cost since they're extra mechanical things. The side of the business he was in probably paid close attention to manufacturability and manufacturing economics.
Woz was frugal too. He found ways to do in software, which is a non-recurring expense, what other companies were doing with chips.
Most of the expansions that used the processor socket and stuff that I can recall were themselves processors.
What kind of moots all that is that today people are not adding expansion/upgrade CPUs, etc
Homes and offices just stick a keyboard, some storage, mouse, network, and a couple other things on the outside of their computer. Sometimes the hard drives are internal. Big whoop; all that save is a tiny bit of space and does it at the expense of convenience.
nygenxerJan 22, 2012Buried
Your assumption fails because of its underlying pretext.
I bought this machine from a pawn shop, thus avoiding any of the negative moral implications of purchasing an item new in the exact same way one ensures avoiding subsidizing sweatshops and child labor by only purchasing clothes in second-hand stores.
In addition to saving water, energy and raw materials and avoiding the environmental crimes associated with manufacturing a shiny new item, purchasing this computer in a pawn shop supported a local business, my local tax base and a local person in need of cash because of a s**tty economy sabotaged by the greedy, short-sighted bastards who outsourced all the good-paying middle/working class jobs vital for a healthy economy, vibrant middle class and functioning democracy.
/You are welcome to respond but I suggest staying down until the ref finishes counting to ten. :)
alivealwaysJan 22, 2012Buried
That was one detailed article, I wonder why people judge Apple for being good or bad, favorable or unfavorable to America, when it has made it quite clear that it has nothing to do with unemployment, all it has to do with is emptying inventories stacked with iPhones. That's what corporate world is all about, you buy what they make and you are promoting them, and what you say is irrelevant, so if you wanna make a difference, may be choices ought to be smart.
postsiteJan 22, 2012Buried
good article