It's a safe bet that most of us own something that was made in China in whole or in part. Apple isn't the only one. I wonder if Mr. Mielach wrote that article because Apple is what's in the news right now

What other choices do I have?

I sincerely doubt the other smartphone manufacturers are any better (more are probably worse) in the manufacturing ethics department, since nearly 100% of them rely on overseas manufacturing.

It seems that just because Apple is the leader and the most visible brand (and also the most profitable), they're getting targeted as "Apple is bad because" instead of "Overseas manufacturing is bad because."


When are Americans going to realize that they should impose a tariff on goods manufactured in other countries that don't comply the the same (or better) working standards that are in America?

"I want to be just like all the different people."

Cloudchaser Sakonige the Red Wolf: It's a safe bet that most of us own something that was made in China in whole or in part. Apple isn't the only one. I wonder if Mr. Mielach wrote that article because Apple is what's in the news right now

It's a funny headline, but yes, terribly inaccurate, except for one detail, which is that Apple has the leverage with Foxconn to change the entire industry if it wanted to.

20 years ago you could fs$Apple$Nike$$ and Nike said they were only a marketing company, not the manufacturers of their shoes, but everyone still was boycotting Nike until Nike agreed to ensure its manufacturers followed ethical, fair, labor practices.

It's actually disgusting to me, as a software engineer that loves high tech shiat, that Jobs, Steve farking think different gandhi Jobs of all people, never did this.

So in that sense, though I have a Samsung Galaxy S II murderphone, Apple deserves all the shiat they are getting over it.

First thing I thought of.

Show me anyone....anyone who thinks owning an iPhone is 'non-conformist'.

Cloudchaser Sakonige the Red Wolf: I wonder if Mr. Mielach wrote that article because Apple is what's in the news right now

Welcome to Journamalism 2.0.

Probably the best show TV ever did on the subject of non-conformity.

Honest Bender: [www.danglitch.com image 600x418]

First thing I thought of.

Brutal.

Not sure why it is taking so long for this to sink in.

Steve Jobs = Dick Cheney = Rockefeller = Vanderbilt.

It takes a certain level of ruthlessness to accomplish what he did. Just because you like playing angry birds on your phone better than filling up your gas tank to get to work in the morning does make his ruthlessness any less ruthless than the previous guy or next guy to follow.

RoyBatty: It's a funny headline, but yes, terribly inaccurate, except for one detail, which is that Apple has the leverage with Foxconn to change the entire industry if it wanted to.

And what leverage is that? Here's reality :

Apple : Stop doing that!
Foxconn : Fark you sideways! GTFO, and good luck getting your next iCrap built in less than two years.

Exactly what threat is Apple supposed to bring to the table? They will go somewhere else? There is nowhere else. Is Apple going to shave billions off their market cap by even trying to go somewhere else? That's going to work. Disrupt the supply chain and have billions in market cap go poof! There is a class action lawsuit from the shareholders that will take billions and 10 years to resolve.

I love how simplistic and perfect everything is in your fantasy world. Here in a little place I like to call reality, life is played for keeps. Solutions require a lot more thought than some idiot issuing a proclamation from his Mother's basement.

I signed both petitions.

Still waiting on corresponding exposé on Samsung and Nokia manufacturing.

Every time I see an iPhone or iPad, I think about a guy jumping off the roof of the factory that made it.

Apple products have blood on them, but the same thing is true for other electronics, diamonds, clothing, and just about everything else fark globalism.

Kuroshin: [encrypted-tbn0.google.com image 259x194]
ETHICAL!

I lol'd.

/Professor Genki should show up more often.

imashark: What other choices do I have?

Well you could not buy any smart phone or consumer electronics. That would be a choice.

There's 2 ways to look at the issue really. You could look at it as if the world is better if companies did not use Chinese labor because of its opressive nature, but it would make their devices/products inaccessable to more people.

Would most homes have a computer/internet if a PC cost $3,000?

So is it better to slow the spread of goods to the masses or to stand up for the chinese workers.

And then you also need to ask, what happens to these chinese workers if every manufacutring firm pulls out today? Is their current shiatty situation better than their shiatty situation was before Apple arrived?

Maybe if every company became 'ethical' it results in a total blood bath - civil war in china. Is that good?

Things are way more complicated than "buy american!" "slave labor!"

Bile bears (new window).

That's all that needs to be said about China.

/If I were the emperor of the world, I'd threaten to nuke them for the bile bear nonsense. Then I would nuke them is they didn't stop it.

1macgeek: RoyBatty: It's a funny headline, but yes, terribly inaccurate, except for one detail, which is that Apple has the leverage with Foxconn to change the entire industry if it wanted to.

And what leverage is that? Here's reality :

Apple : Stop doing that!
Foxconn : Fark you sideways! GTFO, and good luck getting your next iCrap built in less than two years.

Exactly what threat is Apple supposed to bring to the table? They will go somewhere else? There is nowhere else. Is Apple going to shave billions off their market cap by even trying to go somewhere else? That's going to work. Disrupt the supply chain and have billions in market cap go poof! There is a class action lawsuit from the shareholders that will take billions and 10 years to resolve.

I love how simplistic and perfect everything is in your fantasy world. Here in a little place I like to call reality, life is played for keeps. Solutions require a lot more thought than some idiot issuing a proclamation from his Mother's basement.

MacGeek (who else?) says: Poor poor pitiful Apple, woe wow is me!

Reality says:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57367320-37/apple-foxconn-tale-goes - well-beyond-apple-and-tech/

Apple is 40% of Foxconn's business.

Apple is a kingmaker in this industry.

Foxconn doesn't improve, provably by 2013, Apple starts diversifying its manufacturers.

If Apple cannot now get away from Foxconn, then they were terrible planners and business people and deserve all this shiat they get.

Of course, part of Apple's problem is they apparently treat US employees in similar ways as Foxconn does, so their entire culture is one that is about exploitation.

But seriously macgeek, enjoy your apple products, and keep on truckin'

1macgeek: There is a class action lawsuit from the shareholders that will take billions and 10 years to resolve.

Proposed lawsuit:

We the shareholders of Apple are pleased that Apple management and Apple shares are now subject to blackmail by creating a logistics pipeline of only one manufacturer and having them create our entire product line. Apple management's current efforts to diversify away from this situation by having multiple manufacturers is endangering our stock. Dear court, please make them stop. For the hipsters.

oh_this_thread_again.jpg

MugzyBrown: Maybe if every company became 'ethical' it results in a total blood bath - civil war in china. Is that good?

Things are way more complicated than "buy american!" "slave labor!"

Look, I'm not trying to be completely a moral relativist, but I still think that working conditions that occur in some of these situations are deplorable.

Graduated tariffs implemented over a period of time would both propel companies to adhere to certain working standards (if they don't want their profits affected) and provide companies enough time to find alternatives if they find that their current labor sources won't be able to adhere to the new standards.

/Regulation would be messy
//And China would probably biatch about sovereignty issues
///Fark 'em is what I say.

I am a non-conformist who does not conform to the non-conformist standard.

RoyBatty: Foxconn doesn't improve, provably by 2013, Apple starts diversifying its manufacturers.

By "improve" you mean "increase unit production costs and cut into profits" from Apple's point of view.

plcow: Not sure why it is taking so long for this to sink in.

Steve Jobs = Dick Cheney = Rockefeller = Vanderbilt.

You can't understand why a country that bought into some of the most childish propaganda about the virtue of a market based economy has trouble getting common sense to sink in ?

GoldSpider: RoyBatty: Foxconn doesn't improve, provably by 2013, Apple starts diversifying its manufacturers.

By "improve" you mean "increase unit production costs and cut into profits" from Apple's point of view.

That's probably true as it is now, but perhaps not tomorrow with the continued shiat that Apple is getting over this.

cf: Susan G. Komen and Nike.

Exactly what threat is Apple supposed to bring to the table? They will go somewhere else? There is nowhere else. Is Apple going to shave billions off their market cap by even trying to go somewhere else? That's going to work. Disrupt the supply chain and have billions in market cap go poof! There is a class action lawsuit from the shareholders that will take billions and 10 years to resolve.

I love how simplistic and perfect everything is in your fantasy world. Here in a little place I like to call reality, life is played for keeps. Solutions require a lot more thought than some idiot issuing a proclamation from his Mother's basement.

More Aspie corporate shilling from 1macgeek. Yawn. Does your mom know you're skipping school? I'll let her know when I see her tonight.

I'm willing to bet Apple can migrate much of their assembly to the US in about three to five years. Toyota, VW, BMW, Nissan, and Hyundai have all done it...and automobile production is a hell of a lot harder to relocate than consumer electronics due to the investments in automation required. From the pictures I've seen of Foxconn, it's a line of desks with some tool and parts bins, and maybe a 100K clean-room environment -- very, very easy to set up; training would take maybe a month or two per person for a rotation amongst three or four assembly positions. In that three-to-five year period, production could be ramped up to the point that all phones sold in North America and Europe are assembled here.

Where? LA, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Chicago, Green Bay, Portland, Oakland, Houston, Tacoma...all cities close to a major port and cities that have a ready source of young labor willing to work for something like this. Hell, Apple could take some of its TENS OF BILLIONS in cash reserves and subsidize training in electronics assembly through trade schools like ITT, DeVry, and local JuCos, just like the automakers do.

The 200,000+ people who have signed the two petitions out there, and probably many more who haven't yet, would happily pay the supposedly-only-$50 premium to buy an "ethically" assembled smartphone. Apple could further capitalize on the publicity by playing to the "creating jerbs in 'Merca" crowd, which would likely get them to sell that many more.

It's really not that hard.

Honest Bender: [www.danglitch.com image 600x418]

First thing I thought of.

Night time minutes start at 11? That's brutal.

MugzyBrown: imashark: What other choices do I have?

Well you could not buy any smart phone or consumer electronics. That would be a choice.

There's 2 ways to look at the issue really. You could look at it as if the world is better if companies did not use Chinese labor because of its opressive nature, but it would make their devices/products inaccessable to more people.

Would most homes have a computer/internet if a PC cost $3,000?

So is it better to slow the spread of goods to the masses or to stand up for the chinese workers.

And then you also need to ask, what happens to these chinese workers if every manufacutring firm pulls out today? Is their current shiatty situation better than their shiatty situation was before Apple arrived?

Maybe if every company became 'ethical' it results in a total blood bath - civil war in china. Is that good?

Things are way more complicated than "buy american!" "slave labor!"

The relevant part of your post:

"Would most homes have a computer/internet if a PC cost $3,000?"

Wrong question. Here's the real question:

"Apple made 13Billion dollars in PROFIT last quarter, (3 months), would Apple, (and other companies), be thought of as a failure of company if they only made say 3 billion in profit last quarter and paid its workers more?"

We'd have consumers, with tons more disposable income buying things from other companies, whose employees would presumably have more money too.

RoyBatty: Foxconn doesn't improve, provably by 2013, Apple starts diversifying its manufacturers.

Jesus, you are dumb as a stump. There are no other manufacturers. If there were Apple would be using them already. Nobody else on the planet Earth can do what Foxconn can do. If there were, one of two things would happen :

1. Foxconn would buy them.
2. Foxconn would gladly hand off the business so they could use the capacity to manufacture for someone else.

That's what you refuse to see. There is no scenario, right now, where Foxconn gets "hurt". That's what all this Apple bashing is, thinly veiled as it is. People want Apple to "do something", but there is nothing Apple can do in the short term. Anything Apple does outside of Foxconn will take two years minimum to have happen. Even then, I am sure Dell, Samsung, Sony and others will be more than happy to pick up the slack that results at Foxconn. After all, do you see anyone else besides Apple getting pressure to change? They are just giddy as all hell useful idiots like you are keeping the spotlight off them.

So the time has come for you to step up, Genius. Tell us exactly how you are going to "hurt" Foxconn and change China, the Chinese culture, and the entire industry at the same time, and do it right now.

Stabone33: It's really not that hard.

So why don't you offer to consult for Apple and show them how it's done?

Let's all be non-conformists!

1macgeek: There are no other manufacturers. If there were Apple would be using them already. Nobody else on the planet Earth can do what Foxconn can do.


Please enumerate precisely, and I mean precisely, just what is it that you believe Foxconn can do that no one else can do?

And then please defend each of your items by explaining why no one else can replicate that.

I'm offended by that headline.

It's SUICIDEphone subby.

RoyBatty: Please enumerate precisely, and I mean precisely, just what is it that you believe Foxconn can do that no one else can do?

And then please defend each of your items by explaining why no one else can replicate that.

Bullshiat. You first : Tell us exactly how you are going to "hurt" Foxconn and change China, the Chinese culture, and the entire industry at the same time, and do it right now.

imashark: What other choices do I have?

I sincerely doubt the other smartphone manufacturers are any better (more are probably worse) in the manufacturing ethics department, since nearly 100% of them rely on overseas manufacturing.

It seems that just because Apple is the leader and the most visible brand (and also the most profitable), they're getting targeted as "Apple is bad because" instead of "Overseas manufacturing is bad because."


When are Americans going to realize that they should impose a tariff on goods manufactured in other countries that don't comply the the same (or better) working standards that are in America?

Because protectionist trade wars never have unintended consequences...

MugzyBrown: imashark: What other choices do I have?

Well you could not buy any smart phone or consumer electronics. That would be a choice.

There's 2 ways to look at the issue really. You could look at it as if the world is better if companies did not use Chinese labor because of its opressive nature, but it would make their devices/products inaccessable to more people.

Would most homes have a computer/internet if a PC cost $3,000?

So is it better to slow the spread of goods to the masses or to stand up for the chinese workers.

And then you also need to ask, what happens to these chinese workers if every manufacutring firm pulls out today? Is their current shiatty situation better than their shiatty situation was before Apple arrived?

Maybe if every company became 'ethical' it results in a total blood bath - civil war in china. Is that good?

Things are way more complicated than "buy american!" "slave labor!"

^This^

Kuroshin: You stepped over the line.

But that didn't? Oh, grow up.

1macgeek: RoyBatty: Please enumerate precisely, and I mean precisely, just what is it that you believe Foxconn can do that no one else can do?

And then please defend each of your items by explaining why no one else can replicate that.

Bullshiat. You first : Tell us exactly how you are going to "hurt" Foxconn and change China, the Chinese culture, and the entire industry at the same time, and do it right now.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you had a defensible argument about horizontal and vertical manufacturing, logistics, oligopolies, buyer/vender power, distribution, etc.

But basically what you are saying is that Foxconn brings Chinese exploitation of labor to the market, and that is there only defensible feature, and that you have no desire to see that stopped since you encourage Apple shareholders will revolt if Apple moves.

Cheap labor and the ability to roust 8,000 workers at midnight to satisfy Job's needs is indeed a powerful feature. But I actually don't believe it's defensible in the long term.

Apple and others can shift to manufacturers whose employees are willing to take similar but not identical responsibilities, to better planning on Apple's part so they don't need 8,000 workers at midnight six weeks before shipping, and to better and more automated factories.

You're left with your 1980 argument of Toyota will always be GM, because of American healthcare.

Again, apparently you're willing to concede the only thing Foxconn brings, and why you admire them so, is cheap exploitation of humans, and nothing else.

RoyBatty: Apple and others can shift to manufacturers whose employees are willing to take similar but not identical responsibilities, to better planning on Apple's part so they don't need 8,000 workers at midnight six weeks before shipping, and to better and more automated factories.

They can also do what Nike and others did which was to shift to more responsible manufacturers and use that with their customers as a selling point to explain the higher prices.

Murderphone? Sweet. I know a few people that need killing.

1macgeek: People want Apple to "do something", but there is nothing Apple can do in the short term.

There's plenty Apple could do right now to get off on the right foot and send a strong message to Asian labor leaders, and they can use a very, very tiny percentage of their total cash on hand to do it.

1. Take 1% of their last-quarter profits and invest in technical, vocational, and junior colleges for scholarships, labs, equipment, and teachers' salaries to teach semi-tailored electronics assembly and first-level production line management. Schools could start teaching this fall. That's $13M, assuming $13B in profits. Release corresponding press packages.

2. Offer college internships for industrial engineers. Send them to China with their investgative teams working with Foxconn, and keep some here for Step 3. Start this summer. Pay them the going engineering intern rate. Let's say they lay aside $1M for that. That's a lot of interns, plus travel and per diem in China. Release corresponding press packages.

3. Take 9% of their last-quarter profits and begin outfitting assembly lines on the west coast: in Southern Cali (San Fernando Valley, Apple Valley, Ontario, and/or Oxnard...); Oakland and East Bay; Portland area; Tacoma area. Use some IE interns to learn how to and help set up the factory floors and workflow. In subsequent years, cross-flow between those interns that return for a second year to swap the China/US intern experiences. Start immediately by scouting locations. That's $1.17B. That would take about a year to a year and a half to get factories in existing structures reconstructed/refitted, OSHA certified, and staffed from corporate HQ, colleges, tech schools, and skilled unemployed labor. Release corresponding press packages and offer employment fairs in target cities.

4. Begin negotiations with suppliers to ship parts to the US, and/or source new suppliers within the US immediately, preceeded by press releases and bid solicitations. Assume the same 12-18mos to get part sourcing re-structured, timed with factory stand-up.

5. Begin hiring skilled labor in smaller numbers from tech schools and jucos, and set up a small testing assembly line (hard to believe they don't already have one in Cupertino -- if so, just expand it) to test industrial processes, hone training, and refine sourcing strategies. Can start that immediately. Let's be generous and say that will cost $250-500M to get that started.

I could go on, and probably others much more knowledgeable in industrial engineering than I could add/modify the above. Add that all together, and we're at not much more than 10% of one quarter's profit.

Again, it's really not that hard for a company with almost $100B in the bank, and who keeps that reserve even through a blistering product development cycle.

Stabone33: It's really not that hard.

So why don't you offer to consult for Apple and show them how it's done?

I'll go one better...I just did it for free. I'm sure other Farkers will do the same.

Cloudchaser Sakonige the Red Wolf: It's a safe bet that most of us own something that was made in China in whole or in part. Apple isn't the only one. I wonder if Mr. Mielach wrote that article because Apple is what's in the news right now

When Steve Jobs died, with him went the immunity that Apple somehow enjoyed over criticism about its foreign labor force. Now it's getting the Kathie Lee Gifford treatment. Unlike Gifford, I doubt that Apple is going to cringe and start caving in.

Interestingly, thousands of people in Zhengzhou are queuing up demanding Foxconn "sweatshop" jobs. However bad those jobs are supposed to be, the Chinese think they're manna from heaven.

Stabone33: There's plenty Apple could do right now to get off on the right foot and send a strong message to Asian labor leaders, and they can use a very, very tiny percentage of their total cash on hand to do it.

Here is exactly why it's not going to happen. Specifically :

"The speed and flexibility is breathtaking," the executive said. "There's no American plant that can match that."

You can't change that reality. You think you can, but you are just a fool. If there were a better way, Apple would already be doing it. It's not Apple's job to make America competitive, no matter how much you may think it is.

Kuroshin: What line did I step over? You crossed over from trolling to pants-on-head retarded derp.

In the opinion of one random asshole who didn't even post one citation or one shred of proof that it was wrong beyond "I said so".

1macgeek: "The speed and flexibility is breathtaking," the executive said. "There's no American plant that can match that."

If they invested 10% of one quarter's profit in American manufacturing infrastructure and labor force, there would be four or five smaller American plants that together could match that in three to five years, at least to supply the North American and European markets. That's all they really need to do in the mid-term, then they can address the Asian manufacturing issues at their leisure.

And the reason Foxconn had to crank up the production line was because Apple underestimated demand for the last two versions of the iPhone and the iPad 2. Any company worth its $100B cash savings and $460/share stock price should not make that mistake again. A little market research and industrial planning go a long way -- and it's the last part that China is still catching up to the West on.