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An Apple Fantasy

by: susaninrindge

Fri Jan 27, 2012 at 08:03:17 AM EST
This isn't a political issue but I had this daydream following the STOTU speech on Tuesday. I thought that one of the strongest parts of Obama's speech was when he spoke of bringing now-outsourced manufacturing jobs home. He offered what sounded to me like big tax incentives to do so and big tax dis-incentives not to.

Meanwhile, on another front...the press on Wednesday and Thursday was filled with stories of worker abuse at Apple Computer assembly plants in China. They are horrific. It is hard to reconcile the Apple emobodied by hero/industrialist Steve Jobs with the working conditions in China that have workers fearing for and risking their lives.  

Apple U.S.A. is known as one of the best companies to be an employee. I have a brother-in-law who works @Apple Corporation and his perks are astonishing. I want Apple to bring all its assembly jobs home. I know this would be very costly and that Apple is known (as is Walmart) for squeezing suppliers for every mill they can get in lower costs.

I'm thinking that perhaps the deal could be sweetened with tax incentives Obama offered, plus the tax DIS-incentives he mentioned for keeping jobs abroad AND then adding a "bring our jobs home" surcharge to the price of each gadget (would everyone in the country be willing to spend $5.00 - 10.00 more per Apple gadget if it brought a job back here?)

Mrs. Jobs (sorry, I don't know her first name) was seated next to FLOTUS during the speech so she heard the call for American corporations to bring their jobs back home. I'm sure she knows the horrible press Apple is getting from gruesome stories about working conditions in their Chinese assembly plants. I don't know if she is on the Board of Apple but she must have a big stake in the company. Perhaps she's wondering the same thing.  Wouldn't that be amazing? If Apple Computer brought all those jobs back to the U.S.A.!  
susaninrindge :: An Apple Fantasy
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An Apple Fantasy | 6 comments
Apple's sales are mostly international (0.00 / 0)
For example less than 30% of iPhone sales are in the U.S.  So, it would mostly need to be people overseas who would be willing to pay the "bring our jobs home" surcharge.

Also, I'm no expert on this but it might cost more than $5 or $10 per gadget.  Shenzhen where the Foxconn plant is, is unusual even in China for the density of electronics manufacturing industry there.  I would expect that there is a great deal of coordination between the factories assembling stuff and the fabrication facilities that make the components.

It's sort of like, if we'd let the auto manufacturers fail we wouldn't have just lost the jobs at GM and Chrysler, we would've lost the entire "ecosystem" of companies surrounding auto manufacturing like parts suppliers and everything else.

So it's a good idea but I think it would take a great deal more effort than moving one or even a handful of plants from China, there's probably a great deal of the industrial chain we would need to resurrect/replicate and even some coordination with educational institutions.  Still possible I should think but it would be quite an uphill battle as I doubt that China would just let us take it all away from them.

Apple has $100B in cash (0.00 / 0)
They can afford to kick in a few bucks per device and still maintain a healthy profit for their shareholders.

Actually, they will continue to come under a lot of fire at home where talks of boycotts have begun because of their labor practices. The PR boost they would get from moving EVEN SOME of their facilities would be priceless!  

 "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved,"  unattributed aphorism



[ Parent ]
The problem (0.00 / 0)
The problem, as the NY Times article makes clear, is infrastructure and supply chains. The Chinese government has invested billions upon billions through the years to make it as painless as possible for many of the phone's components to be made in one central location. It has invested billions to create a zone where only companies call the shots -- 17 hour shifts are common -- and where workers assemble every single thing on a phone because they are cheaper than a machine.

Americans want lots of jobs. But we also want them to be good paying and humane. We also want our iPhones in our hands as soon as possible. These urges are contradictory, and unless we ratchet down our expectations for one or more of them, then we find ourselves in the current state of affairs.

[ Parent ]
I'm obviously over-simplifying the situation (0.00 / 0)
I'm thinking only of the big picture and not the buts and bolts.

 "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved,"  unattributed aphorism



[ Parent ]
If it's as easy as you say (0.00 / 0)
If it's just a matter of handing out a few more bucks per device in exchange for a priceless PR coup then some competitor of Apple's won't hesitate to pluck that low-hanging fruit (heh heh) and will come out with the All-American Android phone or something like that.

HP has taken the first step in making Palm's webOS for handheld devices free so maybe soon phone manufacturers have even more open options than just Android.

[ Parent ]
Apple has a cult following (0.00 / 0)
that has only been amplified by Jobs' mythological character and untimely death.  The symbolism of Apple moving back to the States would be profound. As I said to Hampshire Ite, I'm dreaming here...  

 "The future is not something to be predicted, it's something to be achieved,"  unattributed aphorism



[ Parent ]
An Apple Fantasy | 6 comments

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