A Mac Pro Made In The USA Is A Token Gesture

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Token gesture or not, it's a start. Sure we'd like to see iPhones and iPads made here but let's not fool ourselves, Apple isn't giving up profit margins on its biggest seller just to appease its critics.

"Given the limited production volumes of the Mac Pro, and the overall cost, the 'Made in the USA' label gives them a good marketing piece, while making good business sense," said Andrew Rassweiler for research firm IHS who covers supply chains.
 
This is why we need to impose import tariffs. Give them a good reason to move manufacturing back to the States. And keep unions out of it unless you want to be paying $3,000 per iPad/iPhone.

Then again, I am pretty sure that the people in the US would not put up with being required to live where they work.

And the good'ol US government probably doesn't care since they are getting their cut through sales and income taxes from the Apple stores here in the US.
 
Didn't Google point out recently that moving manufacturing of the Moto X to the US added only a few dollars to the cost of the device? I don't buy the $3000 per iPhone claim.
 
High import tarrifs do nothing to help the economy or protect jobs, especially for a country like the US.
 
^ screaming at clouds post :p

A $3000 Mac Pro leaves room for Apple to make it in the US, but high volume products at much lower price points don't have the same luxury.
 
How much of a difference would it actually make if all Apple products were made in the States?
 
High import tarrifs do nothing to help the economy or protect jobs, especially for a country like the US.
Why not? The US's economic ascent was while we had a highlly managed trade policy. I say managed because High tarriffs aren't the only tool, they are like the Warship that make the other guys consider dimplomacy. Its only in the 60's & 70's when foreign companies started dumping mountains of money in Washington did that change. In the 80's Wallstreet saw the writing on the wall in Washington, if you can' beat 'em join 'em.

So when our trading 'partners' do things like fix their currency to indirectly subsidize their exports and tarriff ours, they say 'nothing to see here move along'. Wallstreet love a fixed game.
 
Then again, I am pretty sure that the people in the US would not put up with being required to live where they work.

Yea, I don't know about the Chinese but I work to live, not live to work. Actual, considering the suicides that occur, they probably don't like it either.

But yea, the reason America did so well after WW2 was because of manufacturing. The reason China moved from a country that didn't have cars, to a country that can actually buy and drive cars, is due to manufacturing.
 
This is why we need to impose import tariffs. Give them a good reason to move manufacturing back to the States. And keep unions out of it unless you want to be paying $3,000 per iPad/iPhone.

Then again, I am pretty sure that the people in the US would not put up with being required to live where they work.

And the good'ol US government probably doesn't care since they are getting their cut through sales and income taxes from the Apple stores here in the US.

Considering the US is in the process of signing some free trade agreements I don't think import tariffs are on the book.
 
Why not? The US's economic ascent was while we had a highlly managed trade policy. I say managed because High tarriffs aren't the only tool, they are like the Warship that make the other guys consider dimplomacy. Its only in the 60's & 70's when foreign companies started dumping mountains of money in Washington did that change. In the 80's Wallstreet saw the writing on the wall in Washington, if you can' beat 'em join 'em.

So when our trading 'partners' do things like fix their currency to indirectly subsidize their exports and tarriff ours, they say 'nothing to see here move along'. Wallstreet love a fixed game.

Impose high import tarrifs and the money is just taken back somewhere else. Usually by losing exclusive import and export contracts, or prices jumping.
 
How much of a difference would it actually make if all Apple products were made in the States?
in practical terms it means roughly 11 million people wouldn't have iPhone 5c's right now because we simply don't have the manufacturing capabilities anymore
 
I think that Apple won't move all their manufacturing here because then China would just make better versions of their phones, laptops, etc. They know how to design and manufacture their entire lineup. You wouldn't be able to tell the Chinese copy from the Made in the USA version. That's what they are scared of.

:)
 
How much of a difference would it actually make if all Apple products were made in the States?

None to me. still wouldn't buy them. But per your point, it probably wouldn't make much difference. There isn't likely anyone that is holding back purchasing an Apple device because they are not made in the US.
 
How much of a difference would it actually make if all Apple products were made in the States?

According to an article on it, $4 per phone in additional costs with a claim that a significant problem is being able to get the workforce to work abusive hours on no notice. I think the staff at any amazon shipping hub might disagree with that last bit. If they were being more honest, churn vs. training for proper assembly might increase per unit costs when ramping up for launch or unanticipated demand. For apple, abusing the employees to prevent leaks may also be a factor.
 
Impose high import tarrifs and the money is just taken back somewhere else. Usually by losing exclusive import and export contracts, or prices jumping.


The manufacturing is gone. Imposing protectionist tariffs will not bring it back. Will only jack up prices on desired goods here.
 
Why not? The US's economic ascent was while we had a highlly managed trade policy. I say managed because High tarriffs aren't the only tool, they are like the Warship that make the other guys consider dimplomacy. Its only in the 60's & 70's when foreign companies started dumping mountains of money in Washington did that change. In the 80's Wallstreet saw the writing on the wall in Washington, if you can' beat 'em join 'em.

So when our trading 'partners' do things like fix their currency to indirectly subsidize their exports and tarriff ours, they say 'nothing to see here move along'. Wallstreet love a fixed game.

You mean like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act
 
Didn't Google point out recently that moving manufacturing of the Moto X to the US added only a few dollars to the cost of the device? I don't buy the $3000 per iPhone claim.

Most sites I have seen put the labor cost at about $8 a phone for apple right now.
Which is much less then the sum of the parts going into it.

Without knowing the average cost of labor in their factories and the hours it takes to assemble a single phone I can only guess that it would be 2-3 times more in labor costs to make that product here.

But, that is also assuming that all the people are trained, the factory is here, management is trained, etc. The $8 figure we see is years of them fine tuning the process and not counting the money it costs to train and make those factories.

If they had to start over, new factory, new training, employees, etc. It would add a huge extra cost to the initial products that are rolled out of a US plant. But that cost overhead would decrease as time goes on as well.
 
Most sites I have seen put the labor cost at about $8 a phone for apple right now.
Which is much less then the sum of the parts going into it.

Without knowing the average cost of labor in their factories and the hours it takes to assemble a single phone I can only guess that it would be 2-3 times more in labor costs to make that product here.

But, that is also assuming that all the people are trained, the factory is here, management is trained, etc. The $8 figure we see is years of them fine tuning the process and not counting the money it costs to train and make those factories.

If they had to start over, new factory, new training, employees, etc. It would add a huge extra cost to the initial products that are rolled out of a US plant. But that cost overhead would decrease as time goes on as well.

OTOH...you're dealing with a company with more monetary assets in holding than many countries. If they wanted to, they could start making factories here tomorrow and making the shit here. Problem is, the only people who matter to multinational corps are shareholders. And shareholders don't give one shit where a product is made or by whom or how they're abused. All they see is $$$.
 
I wouldn't call it a token gesture, the mac pro is going to be a low volume product so building them in the US is relatively easy and won't add much cost.

The decisions about manf. in the US were gone over in 2011 after Jobs and Obama had their tete a tete it isn't about cost, it is about jobs and the US doesn't have 8k employees sleeping at a factory like Foxconn/China does ready to be woken up and put to work because of a design change. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html
 
I wouldn't call it a token gesture, the mac pro is going to be a low volume product so building them in the US is relatively easy and won't add much cost.

The decisions about manf. in the US were gone over in 2011 after Jobs and Obama had their tete a tete it isn't about cost, it is about jobs and the US doesn't have 8k employees sleeping at a factory like Foxconn/China does ready to be woken up and put to work because of a design change. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html

Uh, no.

The decision was made by agreements like NAFTA 20 years ago. The Obama/Jobs meeting was nothing more than a period at the end of the paragraph.
 
The manufacturing is gone. Imposing protectionist tariffs will not bring it back. Will only jack up prices on desired goods here.

We never really had much in the way of chip and pcb manufacture. Not on the scale of the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans. Additional tariffs would do absolutely nothing to help the US in any way.
 
OTOH...you're dealing with a company with more monetary assets in holding than many countries. If they wanted to, they could start making factories here tomorrow and making the shit here. Problem is, the only people who matter to multinational corps are shareholders. And shareholders don't give one shit where a product is made or by whom or how they're abused. All they see is $$$.

So it would take years to get the factory built, then up to a year to find the engineers to supervise the employees then 250k employees that are trained and ready to go. Sure apple, microsoft, nokia, motorola, google, etc. could do this but it would be years of work and money for some minor PR. And then you have to worry about the employees unionizing and wanting $30/hr to put in some screws.
 
Uh, no.

The decision was made by agreements like NAFTA 20 years ago. The Obama/Jobs meeting was nothing more than a period at the end of the paragraph.

I meant the discussion about this particular issue in regards to apple and US manf. were gone over after that meeting where Jobs stated the jobs weren't coming back. Not the overarching loss of manufacturing jobs in the US.
 
I know it's Fantasy Land, but I'd like the option of paying more for a USA made phone. Base phone cost, add in memory options, cases, and the ability to specify you'd like a domestically manufactured device at checkout.

I am happy to put my money where my mouth is about buying domestic, it's just that we rarely get the option.
 
So it would take years to get the factory built, then up to a year to find the engineers to supervise the employees then 250k employees that are trained and ready to go. Sure apple, microsoft, nokia, motorola, google, etc. could do this but it would be years of work and money for some minor PR. And then you have to worry about the employees unionizing and wanting $30/hr to put in some screws.

And guess what, all of that would be good for the economy here...including Apple themselves. It isn't like we don't have an unemplyment problem here of both skilled and unskilled labor. Hell the building trades need the boost. And the tradeoff for all that investment by Apple would be more people with more income/jobs here who are more consumers.

For whatever reason we in the USA constantly bitch about how everything is made in China, or our jobs are taken by damn foreign illegal immigrants....Yet when it comes to a choice to have some pride in having goods made by major companies you can purchase here, those same people say "hell with it". Even Apple themselves have been trying to address this problem of their image with "Designed in California" at the end of their commercials.

There's a reason employees unionize. It starts when employers cease giving two shits about the safety or well being of their employees and see them as numbers and cattle. If Apple did this here, and took care of their workers (as they can easily afford to do)-there wouldn't be a need for it.
 
So it would take years to get the factory built, then up to a year to find the engineers to supervise the employees then 250k employees that are trained and ready to go. Sure apple, microsoft, nokia, motorola, google, etc. could do this but it would be years of work and money for some minor PR. And then you have to worry about the employees unionizing and wanting $30/hr to put in some screws.

Assembly work in the US isn't typically unionized outside of the UAW and companies like Boeing. Entry level is paid ~$11-13 an hour.
 
The labor costs of most manufactured goods is low.

It's the cost-of-doing-business, not labor costs, or material costs, that makes companies go elsewhere.
 
Notice nobody calls Apple's profit margins "obscene", despite being 5-10x the profit margin percentages of most companies that are vilified for "excessive profits". Hipsters are so goddamned smart.
 
Notice nobody calls Apple's profit margins "obscene", despite being 5-10x the profit margin percentages of most companies that are vilified for "excessive profits". Hipsters are so goddamned smart.
Because Apple sells what are essentially luxury consumer appliances. I don't give a fuck how much profit Apple makes off selling someone a phone, but I do care how much people are profiting off say, the medical industry. Charging people obscene prices for drugs and treatments is not the same thing.
 
Because Apple sells what are essentially luxury consumer appliances. I don't give a fuck how much profit Apple makes off selling someone a phone, but I do care how much people are profiting off say, the medical industry. Charging people obscene prices for drugs and treatments is not the same thing.

They should be luxury items, but they're not. Many colleges require them for certain classes or courses. Some public schools are even thinking of giving them to students. They're not "Sharper Image". They've inundated themselves with our government in many ways, the fruits of which not least helping them with their battle with Samsung.
 
Why not? The US's economic ascent was while we had a highlly managed trade policy. I say managed because High tarriffs aren't the only tool, they are like the Warship that make the other guys consider dimplomacy. Its only in the 60's & 70's when foreign companies started dumping mountains of money in Washington did that change. In the 80's Wallstreet saw the writing on the wall in Washington, if you can' beat 'em join 'em.

So when our trading 'partners' do things like fix their currency to indirectly subsidize their exports and tarriff ours, they say 'nothing to see here move along'. Wallstreet love a fixed game.

If you think the US's years of dominance in the 60s / 70s were solely because of that you may wish to read: Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing.

The time leading up to and after World War II was a unique time with many factors that will likely never be repeated. A huge part of that was the rest of the world's manufacturing capacity had been destroyed.
 
Didn't Google point out recently that moving manufacturing of the Moto X to the US added only a few dollars to the cost of the device? I don't buy the $3000 per iPhone claim.

The $3000 thing was IF the shops are union run. I have worked in a union shop before. Until you do, and see how stupidly expensive stuff becomes solely because of unions, you won't understand.
 
Because Apple sells what are essentially luxury consumer appliances. I don't give a fuck how much profit Apple makes off selling someone a phone, but I do care how much people are profiting off say, the medical industry. Charging people obscene prices for drugs and treatments is not the same thing.

1. Doctors have to pay for malpractice insurance as well as be able to pay their staff, for supplies, equipment, etc.

2. Do you have any idea how much R&D it takes to get a drug to market? R&D, testing, FDA approval. They have to make their money back and then make a profit as well. Eventually, most drugs go generic and then the price comes way down. What do you think would happen to new treatment and drugs if some arbitrary limit was put on how much they could charge? It would completely stop, that's what.

3. If you do not have insurance, you can almost always negotiate a lower price if you pay out of pocket.

4.With insurance, have you ever looked at a EOB (Explanation of Benefits) to see how much they ask for and how much they actually get paid? It is usually way less than 50%.
 
Assembly work in the US isn't typically unionized outside of the UAW and companies like Boeing. Entry level is paid ~$11-13 an hour.

It isn't just assembly unions that are retarded. It is pretty much all unions here in the US.

The teachers unions being probably one of the worst. They continually want more and more money even though they pretty much suck at what they claim to be doing.

And the UAW needs to die by fire.

There was a time when unions were a good thing. Most of them now days are complete trash and the union bosses could care less if they drive a company into the ground as long as they are lining their pockets with dues from the misguided union members. (I have personally seen this happen).
 
Manufacturing in the USA isn't strictly a question of labor ... in China they literally build industrial cities where all the material suppliers and manufacturers are in close proximity (allowing highly efficient JIT processes) ... to manufacture in the USA would take a number of structural changes that the States and workers are not likely ready for:

- We would need to build large scale industrial parks where all the suppliers and manufacturers can congregate (these parks will consume massive amounts of power, water, and other resources)

- We need a pool of skilled and unskilled labor that is willing to live onsite or use commuting to get into the park (as large scale parking and car movement will offset the efficiency and cost of the park)

- We need more flexible environmental and regulatory rules to allow the formation of these large scale industrial parks

With the strong NIMBY forces at play in the USA I don't see too many communities signing up to support this. The logistics of manufacturing has changed from the 60's/70's and unless the USA can adapt to the new logistics there will be no return of manufacturing (even with Tariffs or other flawed regulatory mechanisms) ;)
 
Should read assembled in the USA. All the parts are made in China :(

All the free trade agreements did was lower the standard of living of the 99% in the US closer to the 3rd world. Import tariffs attempt to raise the standard of living in the 3rd world to the US.
 
Why can't we just move all of the workers from China here in the US and have them still build it? Just herd them onto huge shipping vessels and dump them off the coast of Oregon. It's not like we have immigration laws atm and if they work fast enough they would all be citizens for free.

No new training required.
 
Manufacturing in the USA isn't strictly a question of labor ... in China they literally build industrial cities where all the material suppliers and manufacturers are in close proximity (allowing highly efficient JIT processes) ... to manufacture in the USA would take a number of structural changes that the States and workers are not likely ready for:

- We would need to build large scale industrial parks where all the suppliers and manufacturers can congregate (these parks will consume massive amounts of power, water, and other resources)

- We need a pool of skilled and unskilled labor that is willing to live onsite or use commuting to get into the park (as large scale parking and car movement will offset the efficiency and cost of the park)

- We need more flexible environmental and regulatory rules to allow the formation of these large scale industrial parks

With the strong NIMBY forces at play in the USA I don't see too many communities signing up to support this. The logistics of manufacturing has changed from the 60's/70's and unless the USA can adapt to the new logistics there will be no return of manufacturing (even with Tariffs or other flawed regulatory mechanisms) ;)

We actually have all of that, pretty much. The US was the biggest manufacturer on the planet all the way up until 2010. China has only just barely passed us in total output. There are some people who say the US doesn't manufacture stuff anymore, but those people don't honestly know anything at all, and should be ground into sausage patties.
 
Didn't Google point out recently that moving manufacturing of the Moto X to the US added only a few dollars to the cost of the device? I don't buy the $3000 per iPhone claim.

I'm inclined to believe Apple on this. Once the unions get their corruption involved in iPhone manufacturing, so much for the cost of the iPhone.
 
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