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(New York Daily News) Obvious Apple to introduce the world's first $1200 iPhone   (nydailynews.com) divider line 170
More: Obvious, iPhones, labor practices, sustainable business, labourers  
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12630 clicks; posted to Geek » on 02 Feb 2012 at 12:28 AM   |  Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»   |    Get this fabulous T-Shirt and impress the methane out of your friends! shirt it!



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NFA [TotalFark]
2012-02-01 09:33:31 PM
If Americans would stop buying products made by slaves, jobs (not Steve Jobs) would return to America.

As Obama said, we need to tax the bejesus out of companies that have sent American jobs overseas and give tax breaks to the ones that didn't.
 
2012-02-01 09:42:23 PM
You're only ghey if you push back while Apple farks the faithful dry.
 
2012-02-01 09:46:18 PM
NFA: If Americans would stop buying products made by slaves, jobs (not Steve Jobs) would return to America.

As Obama said, we need to tax the bejesus out of companies that have sent American jobs overseas and give tax breaks to the ones that didn't.


It's a bit more complicated than that, but I agree with the sentiment. My fear is that it would be like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube. I think the '50s, '60s and early '70s were the apogee of the U.S. middle class.

Too many people were lured by the low prices at Walmart, putting stores selling American goods out of business. The Walton family did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.
 
2012-02-01 09:52:54 PM
Fanboys would pay it.

I don't own an iPhone.
 
2012-02-01 09:53:25 PM
What about all the other companies that use this type of labor.

/I guess you gotta start somewhere.
 
2012-02-01 10:02:27 PM
NFA: If Americans would stop buying products made by slaves, jobs (not Steve Jobs) would return to America.

As Obama said, we need to tax the bejesus out of companies that have sent American jobs overseas and give tax breaks to the ones that didn't.


But my 401(k) might decline by as much as 3% if we did that! Have you taken leave of your senses?
 
2012-02-01 10:06:36 PM
Were people somehow deluding themselves that these super nifty electronics we've been using over the past decade were fair trade?
 
2012-02-01 11:02:39 PM
Aren't pretty much every piece of electronics on the market today made in sweatshops in Asia?
 
MBK [TotalFark]
2012-02-01 11:04:27 PM
I kinda wonder where all this backlash was when Jobs was alive.

I mean, it isn't like they just started making iPhones and iPods and other Apple products.
 
2012-02-01 11:10:32 PM
Aren't they already selling one that costs a couple of thousand dollars anyway?

I think they call it "every iPhone ever made"

/applies to most other smartphones, too
 
2012-02-01 11:18:25 PM
oh this thread again
 
2012-02-01 11:21:16 PM
Speaker2Animals: My fear is that it would be like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube.

Give me a shop vac, some PVC, duct tape and a funnel and I'll get that paste back in that tube for ya.
 
2012-02-01 11:23:08 PM
"A lot of their customers are people who want to feel like they are part of a sustainable economy, people who shop at farmers markets, who want to know they are supporting companies that are being responsible and are not hurting people," she said.

We call those people idiots. Newsflash: if it's made in China, it's made with what amounts to slave labor, in terrible conditions. It's not right or fair, and sure, it's great that a very visible company is being pressured to change their practices, but how on Earth did anyone think anything else was actually happening? Who sees "Made in China" and thinks, "It must come from the good part of China, where the workers are unionized and get coffee breaks and aren't forced into the choice of working themselves to death for no pay on a rural farm or violating strict labor laws and working themselves to death for relatively OK pay."
 
2012-02-01 11:54:23 PM
Speaker2Animals: The Walton family did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.

Honestly, these are the wisest words written on FARK in a long, long time.
 
2012-02-02 12:35:46 AM
bigpeeler: Speaker2Animals: The Walton family did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.

Honestly, these are the wisest words written on FARK in a long, long time.


Third that.
 
2012-02-02 12:39:19 AM
bigpeeler: Speaker2Animals: The Walton family did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.

Honestly, these are the wisest words written on FARK in a long, long time.


I dunno man, Al Queda got Bush re-elected, thats some serrious farking damage. Though walmart, yea probably more damage, far more deaths too.
 
2012-02-02 12:42:18 AM
Sell them side by side: The $500 sweatshop model, and the $510 fair labor model. My bet is Apple customers will buy the fair labor model.
 
2012-02-02 12:51:48 AM
Speaker2Animals: The Walton family did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.

This family laughs at your idea and then farts in your general direction:

www.hermes-press.com


/And then they fart in your general direction again, just because.

//Burn in Hell, Bush family members; burn in Hell!!!

///Cheers!
 
2012-02-02 12:52:14 AM
Somehow, Steve Jobs needs to address this issue, from the dead. I'm not saying dig him up and spin the body like a game of Twister, but I'm not saying not to do that.
 
2012-02-02 12:53:58 AM
Speaker2Animals: Too many people were lured by the low prices at Walmart, putting stores selling American goods out of business. The Walton family Sam Walton's kids did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.

FTFY. Don't lump Sam in with his worthless offspring.
 
2012-02-02 12:54:52 AM
Ah, the time-honored tradition of taking an article and making it all about unrelated things that you hate.

Good times.
 
2012-02-02 01:00:21 AM
Considering Apple made $13 billion in PROFIT last quarter, and has 63,300 employees, they could pay an extra 205,371.25 per employee per QUARTER and still not be in the red.

So somehow I think labor costs are not a contributing factor to the price of an iPad or iPhone.
 
2012-02-02 01:01:18 AM
Subtard might observe massive explosions and suicide epidemics have their own costs associated with them.
 
2012-02-02 01:06:26 AM
m3000: Considering Apple made $13 billion in PROFIT last quarter, and has 63,300 employees, they could pay an extra 205,371.25 per employee per QUARTER and still not be in the red.

So somehow I think labor costs are not a contributing factor to the price of an iPad or iPhone.


Well... a big fat "duh" goes in your corner.

Especially considering Apple is paying about 99% of their 63,300 "employees" less than $1.00/hour.

/A big "duh" for you, good sir!

//Cheers!
 
2012-02-02 01:11:15 AM
The Chinese are not apple employees and are not listed as such. They are employees of Foxconn who is seemingly one of three or four companies that mfg electronics in china. Almost every phone and pad and game console is apparently made in a Foxconn plant.
 
2012-02-02 01:19:33 AM
In stead of signing a petition that Apple will toss in the garbage once they get it, why don't they do something that will really hurt them. Stop buying their products. Maybe Americans should start doing this in general until companies start bringing manufacturing back to the U.S, even though these days that would be very hard to do if not unrealistic.
 
2012-02-02 01:21:48 AM
sidmind: bigpeeler: Speaker2Animals: The Walton family did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.

Honestly, these are the wisest words written on FARK in a long, long time.

Third that.


Thanks. In a town not too far from me, K-mart opened its first Super-K in the early 1990s. On a wall above the row of cash registers were the logos of all the Ohio-made products sold in the store -- representing perhaps 35-40 different companies IIRC. Fast forward about 3-4 years and Wally World opens up about a quarter-mile down the road. As the days and weeks and months pass, more and more of those logos disappear, as the companies themselves disappear or their goods can't compete with the cheap shiat being peddled at Wally World. Eventually, they were all gone. The Super K is now a practically a ghost town and is slated to be closed this year as Sears shrinks its retail footprint. Down the road, Walmart is thriving, and even added a couple hundred thousand square feet to the store to sell food and other grocery items.

But Walmart didn't just buy cheap goods from China and the Far East. No, their executives actually went to the Chinese and told them if they were to build factories to manufacture various consumer goods, Walmart would guarantee them a market for these goods -- a very large market. And the short-sighted American consumer, lured by "Always low prices--Always" didn't care that they were sacrificing this country's financial well-being.

Sic transit gloria Americus.....
 
2012-02-02 01:22:42 AM
MBK: I kinda wonder where all this backlash was when Jobs was alive.

I mean, it isn't like they just started making iPhones and iPods and other Apple products.


I suspect he kept it tamped down.

During his first run at Apple, all their stuff was made in the USA. NeXt had an assembly floor designed by IM Pei in their headquarters in California.

The Daily Show claimed that paying the workers a fair wage would only increase retail cost on the phones by 23%, but I don't know where they got those numbers from.
 
2012-02-02 01:24:39 AM
Bazinga In My Pants: m3000: Considering Apple made $13 billion in PROFIT last quarter, and has 63,300 employees, they could pay an extra 205,371.25 per employee per QUARTER and still not be in the red.

So somehow I think labor costs are not a contributing factor to the price of an iPad or iPhone.

Well... a big fat "duh" goes in your corner.

Especially considering Apple is paying about 99% of their 63,300 "employees" less than $1.00/hour.

/A big "duh" for you, good sir!

//Cheers!


That's the disgusting thing about these companies. They make billions in profit and throw their employees crumbs. It's exactly what needs to change. Minimum wage should start at atleast double what it is now.

/and you still wouldn't put so much as a dent in their "wealth". Sad.
 
2012-02-02 01:32:58 AM
Dwight_Yeast: The Daily Show claimed that paying the workers a fair wage would only increase retail cost on the phones by 23%, but I don't know where they got those numbers from.

I remember something along those lines... But I trained in automation. I think if you could do that "quick to first product" combined with "increasing automation as production continues" you could average both a fair wage and a low increase in cost.

Seriously. 18 months later and the 4s, which is a slightly tweaked 4, should be using a fraction of the labor. But the 4s won't have any increased automation because the workers are cheap.

Then again, Foxconn is TRYING to keep 1.4 million hands busy.
 
2012-02-02 01:33:11 AM
Speaker2Animals: The Walton family did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.

The ironic thing is that Sam Walton was pretty big on "Made in America".

Then he died.
 
2012-02-02 01:39:04 AM
m3000

Considering Apple made $13 billion in PROFIT last quarter, and has 63,300 employees, they could pay an extra 205,371.25 per employee per QUARTER and still not be in the red.

So somehow I think labor costs are not a contributing factor to the price of an iPad or iPhone.


Uh, no. The Chinese workers are not on Apple's payroll.

/another iHater pwned by reality
 
2012-02-02 01:41:42 AM
Apple could make all their products entirely in the USA, and still charge what they charge...

...they'd just end up being VERY profitable rather than INSANELY profitable. And that's no good for shareholders.

/won't somebody think of the sad shareholders???
 
2012-02-02 01:44:41 AM
bingethinker: m3000

Considering Apple made $13 billion in PROFIT last quarter, and has 63,300 employees, they could pay an extra 205,371.25 per employee per QUARTER and still not be in the red.

So somehow I think labor costs are not a contributing factor to the price of an iPad or iPhone.

Uh, no. The Chinese workers are not on Apple's payroll.

/another iHater pwned by reality


But the company they contract the manufacturing out to is so Apple is paying the Chinese workers.
 
2012-02-02 01:45:14 AM
bingethinker: Uh, no. The Chinese workers are not on Apple's payroll.

/another iHater pwned by reality


Not directly, no, but Foxconn gets their money from somewhere, hm?
If Apple were to one day say "do this or we out" and compensate them for the change in practices, you don't think Foxconn would comply?
 
2012-02-02 01:50:15 AM
ongbok: In stead of signing a petition that Apple will toss in the garbage once they get it, why don't they do something that will really hurt them. Stop buying their products. Maybe Americans should start doing this in general until companies start bringing manufacturing back to the U.S, even though these days that would be very hard to do if not unrealistic.

Boycotting Apple, alone, will put them out of business while the missing market share will go to other companies making their products in the same factories. The electronics manufactures have us all by the balls. The only way to boycott them is to avoid buying virtually every device that can access the internet (until some clever people start making them domestically). Surrendering access to information will leave us almost as bad off as the workers we'd be trying to help with such a boycott, and maybe hurt them even more by reducing the number of jobs needed at the factories.

So, as I said, they have us by the balls.
 
2012-02-02 01:53:42 AM
That's like going to a CEO and complaining about a spill instead of the janitor. Yes, Apple can and should fix this but Jesus Christ, they aren't causing it, calm down. This petition starts off saying we can pressure Cook into doing whatever we want and that Apple is the cause of everything happening to the workers in China, a country that genuinely does not give a shiat about human rights. Those are not Apple's workers, and that is not Apple's factory. The suppliers are the ones oppressing their own people. Again, I agree they'd bend over backwards if Apple said they have to, but this thing is screeching at them for how bad conditions are that they didn't cause, and using more than its fair share of rhetoric to make it sound like it IS Apple causing all this so they can force Tim Cook's hand, which they openly admit they're doing. Good end, but a means I'd expect from a shady multi-billion dollar corporation.
 
2012-02-02 01:54:52 AM
bigpeeler: Speaker2Animals: The Walton family did more damage to this country than al-Qaeda.

Honestly, these are the wisest words written on FARK in a long, long time.


Bah, give it rest you idiots. If American's had not have been so desperate to save a few $, then Walmart would not have been able to run everyone else out of business. That is basically all there is to it.

www.businessweek.com

Boo-Friggin Hoo...

Walmart originally had a big "Made in USA" ethos...America didn't.

Walmart:
Supplying your demand for cheap stuff since 1962
 
2012-02-02 01:57:02 AM
ongbok: In stead of signing a petition that Apple will toss in the garbage once they get it, why don't they do something that will really hurt them. Stop buying their products. Maybe Americans should start doing this in general until companies start bringing manufacturing back to the U.S, even though these days that would be very hard to do if not unrealistic.

I wouldn't say stop buying, but buy with the intention that the lifespan of the product be longer than the life cycle they're trying to sell out.

A new phone every year? Every two years? That's ridiculous. Why shouldn't we be demanding a device that can last longer?
 
2012-02-02 01:58:03 AM
Dwight_Yeast: MBK: I kinda wonder where all this backlash was when Jobs was alive.

I mean, it isn't like they just started making iPhones and iPods and other Apple products.

I suspect he kept it tamped down.

During his first run at Apple, all their stuff was made in the USA. NeXt had an assembly floor designed by IM Pei in their headquarters in California.

The Daily Show claimed that paying the workers a fair wage would only increase retail cost on the phones by 23%, but I don't know where they got those numbers from.


Absolutely the first place I go for actual information on this subject...*sigh*
 
2012-02-02 02:18:34 AM
Amagi:
Bah, give it rest you idiots. If American's had not have been so desperate


Comedy gold! Calling other people idiots and then making an idiotic mistake with an apostrophe.
 
2012-02-02 02:21:21 AM
Apple has this brand that appeals to ethical consumers

Didn't realize you linked to a satire website. You almost had me there.
 
2012-02-02 02:29:24 AM
qrrbrbirlbel: That's like going to a CEO and complaining about a spill instead of the janitor. Yes, Apple can and should fix this but Jesus Christ, they aren't causing it, calm down. This petition starts off saying we can pressure Cook into doing whatever we want and that Apple is the cause of everything happening to the workers in China, a country that genuinely does not give a shiat about human rights. Those are not Apple's workers, and that is not Apple's factory. The suppliers are the ones oppressing their own people. Again, I agree they'd bend over backwards if Apple said they have to, but this thing is screeching at them for how bad conditions are that they didn't cause, and using more than its fair share of rhetoric to make it sound like it IS Apple causing all this so they can force Tim Cook's hand, which they openly admit they're doing. Good end, but a means I'd expect from a shady multi-billion dollar corporation.

SENT FROM MY IPHONE
 
2012-02-02 02:43:27 AM
Companies don't really have high labor costs. The high costs are health care, marketing, and executive compensation.
 
2012-02-02 03:09:34 AM
Like the iFanbase wouldnt happily shell out $1200 for the iPhone 5.
 
2012-02-02 04:09:48 AM
"Apple has this brand that appeals to ethical consumers. They need to live up to that brand," SumOfUs executive director Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman told the Daily News.

No, Apple has a brand that appeals to people who know how to be ethical, and want to be ethical, but just can't be bothered to do something ethical.

/Like maybe NOT BUYING FROM APPLE!!
//And the great thing about not buying from Apple is that it's super easy! Just do everything like you normally would, except when you go to buy something from Apple, don't!
 
2012-02-02 04:12:36 AM
NFA: If Americans would stop buying products made by slaves, jobs (not Steve Jobs) would return to America.

As Obama said, we need to tax the bejesus out of companies that have sent American jobs overseas and give tax breaks to the ones that didn't.


The problem with embargoes on countries with poor labor standards (what you're essentially suggesting) is that, while I'm sure it satisfies your visceral need for action in the short term, in the longer run all you're doing is turning the poor people in bad working conditions into peniless unemployed people dying in the streets since the countries involved don't generally have welfare programs, and even if they do they won't once you remove the major source o money coming into the country.

There's a reason why you have to essentially be actively murdering people in the streets to get even the relatively mild UN-sanctions these days, the cure is like 100 times worse than the disease in most cases.
 
2012-02-02 04:20:23 AM
Bazinga In My Pants: m3000: Considering Apple made $13 billion in PROFIT last quarter, and has 63,300 employees, they could pay an extra 205,371.25 per employee per QUARTER and still not be in the red.

So somehow I think labor costs are not a contributing factor to the price of an iPad or iPhone.

Well... a big fat "duh" goes in your corner.

Especially considering Apple is paying about 99% of their 63,300 "employees" less than $1.00/hour.

/A big "duh" for you, good sir!

//Cheers!


Those aren't THEIR employees, they're the employees of the companies they contract to in China.

But they also have enough cash on hand to buy Ecuador with some left over for Bolivia, so they can probably stand to spend a little more on labor.
 
2012-02-02 04:38:12 AM
$1,200 dollars?

farm5.static.flickr.com
Guess you gotta pay for those anti-suicide nets at Foxconn somehow baby!
 
2012-02-02 04:43:01 AM
Making iPhones, iPads and iPods in the US wouldn't change the costs enough to raise their prices by more than a few bucks each, tops.
 
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