Not long ago, Apple [AAPL 420.30 -7.45 (-1.74%) ] boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46090589

Only way to get American made iphones is if people were either willing to work for $2/hr or pay $1,000 for their cell phone. Good luck with either of those scenarios.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mo...2/fear-factory

Daily show on this exact subject

35 hour shift at .31/hr

and if you try to form a union you get 12 years in jail.

Ummm ya they can keep those jobs thanks

not sure why someone would have a hard time acknowledging that is a major part of the problem

 

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Only way to get American made iphones is if people were either willing to work for $2/hr or pay $1,000 for their cell phone. Good luck with either of those scenarios.

lol $2 an hour, try $2 a day

 

Originally Posted by G6Dragon

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mo...2/fear-factory

Daily show on this exact subject

35 hour shift at .31/hr

and if you try to form a union you get 12 years in jail.

Ummm ya they can keep those jobs thanks

Right, because if those jobs were done in the U.S., workers would face 12 years for trying to form a union

 

Originally Posted by RichardHurtz

What I find funny and disingenuous by Apple and other company's are their statements about the skill level of workers in China being superior to American workers. Seriously, if they are able to mobilize a work force of 8000 in a week for a specific task, how skilled could they be? I'm starting to think that the term "skilled" is code for works 12 hours/day 6 days a week for cheap and lives at the factory.

This . . .

Bought the 4s today. It's fucking sweet. Good job workers!

There have been a number of articles written about manufacturing returning from China to the USA.

China, like any undeveloped country, had a number of cost advantages such as lack of regulations, cheap labor, government incentives, and so forth. As competition rises for the labor pool, they begin to pressure the gov't to regulate better working conditions, wages rise with demand, and incentives begin to slow down.

There are other cost considerations such as the rapidly increasing costs of transportation to get the finished goods sent to their intended markets, and the costs of quality control, rising materials costs and other manufacturing considerations in developing countries. There are also exchange rate considerations as the value of currencies fluctuate around the world (some naturally and some manipulated by governments).

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over the next few years.

 

Originally Posted by saxman

There have been a number of articles written about manufacturing returning from China to the USA.

China, like any undeveloped country, had a number of cost advantages such as lack of regulations, cheap labor, government incentives, and so forth. As competition rises for the labor pool, they begin to pressure the gov't to regulate better working conditions, wages rise with demand, and incentives begin to slow down.

There are other cost considerations such as the rapidly increasing costs of transportation to get the finished goods sent to their intended markets, and the costs of quality control, rising materials costs and other manufacturing considerations in developing countries. There are also exchange rate considerations as the value of currencies fluctuate around the world (some naturally and some manipulated by governments).

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out over the next few years.

very much dead on sax but until transportation costs rise exorbitantly small things like smaller electronics(i.e. iphones) or wiring components(automotive wiring harnesses.) much will continue to be made in other countries like the iphone or made in other countries like wiring components and assembled in the u.s. many auto parts.

we could help this a lot by allowing right to work(against what many think it doesn't disallow unions merely makes it where individuals have the right to choose to be in one or not), getting rid of retarded regulation. obama said he was gonna do this but clearly he has not. bush did quite a lot in adding regulations. romney or gingrich ain't gonna change that.

but the day we actually start examing these regulations and getting rid of the retarded ones we will see a much quicker movement towards manufacturing of big ticket items in the u.s.

the regulation that pops into my head is that one that was posted on here where companies were required to use a biofuel that was not produced in a high enough quantity to even be feasible this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/bu...e-biofuel.html

i mean really?

and the airbag thing above, hey fed's how about this cars that have safety issues like that must have a lisiting of their violations as a safety concern for the driver on the car before being sold. problem solved.

oh and from the trucking industry i could give you a laundry list. one is if my washer fluid level is too low i get wrote a ticket.

 

Originally Posted by TMLMS13

when china's population time bomb hits and their population starts going back down there is going to be a huge labour shortage, wages will rise coupled with more international labour rights pressure will push manfactoring back to the US and have a renaissance.

im talking like 2040 tho

wont another asian country or some other place just take over?

sorry im posting from my phone so its kind of tough to spell and proof read

you could pick any country and say what about them, eventually i think it will end up back in the US

unions, labour rights and inflation had a lot to do with manufacturing leaving to places that dont have those "problems". if they all start showing up in other countries, who knows what might happen.

Mexico is probably far too unstable. Major MNCs don't want to invest in countries that are not stable. Mexica has far too many issues imo, doing business there is potentially risky

From what I hear the cost of living is rising rapidly in China (I didn't find China to be all that cheap either in comparison to other Asian countries I've been to). Their wages are going to have to rise. Obviously when they are doing things like having labor sleep at the factory it gives them an advantage to pay even less but inflation is hitting China.

I would look more towards a country like India over Mexico. Their infrasctructure is very far behind and they are still very backward though. Obviously places like Banglore have struck gold in IT outsourcing but that is only a small percentage of the market I assume. One that primarily benefits skilled labor. Anyway, there is an abundance of dirt cheap unskilled labor. Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia are all countries that I'd rather invest in over Mexico and some of the Chinese market may move to those countries.

In all of these countries you are risking losing quality also.

I'm no economist, these are just my opinions.

Was interesting, I just stayed for 2 weeks with Australian traders in Shenzhen, a brand new Chinese city that has BOOMED. It is a special economic zone and the 3rd largest port in China. The owner of the company was in the PERFECT place at the PERFECT time and is now a millionaire. he seems to think Vietnam is the place to move shop to right now. He trades any and everything. Goes to factories and arranges buyers in foreign countries, arranges shipping etc.