One right before their huge earnings announcement:

http://www.nytimes.com/...class.html?pagewanted=all

And one right after:

http://www.nytimes.com/...china.html?pagewanted=all

If you make it through both of these, then tell me... do you want these jobs in America (or your country)?

Do you think Apple is doing enough?

Do you think consumers should care?

Do you think our trade agreements should address these concerns?

Would you want to pay more for XYZ electronic product just to know working conditions were better?

You could comment without reading the articles, but then you'd probably miss out on the most salient points.

I would never buy apple, as their proprietary EVERYTHING and patent lawsuits show a derision for consumers and industry that is unacceptable.

They should be broken up, anti-trust! Split iPhone & iPad from OSX from Macintosh from iTunes....


Robots should make their products, in... canada? :)

Survival of teh fittest. Capitalism at its finest (somewhat funny since the best capitalist nation, US is apparently far less competitive compared to Commy China.)

I love how the iFanboys celebrate Apple profits.

It's like "well who are they coming at the expense of?"

I don't own a single apple product (too damn poor! =P ) but I do have an Amazon Kindle Touch...which is apparently made by the same supplier, Foxconn. Oh fluff. There's Chinese blood on my hands =(

I would never buy apple because of their proprietary and obstructionist standards and the fact that they make an inferior product. Any software/hardware advantage (quality wise) that they had in the 1990s is long gone.

The ipod is a piece of junk and apple computers/os are more overpriced and less flexible than their windows counterparts

I hate the way ipod's have to "sync" and the way to manage files is a real pain in the ass. Why are you reinventing a file management system when you computer already has one?

I love how you need way more computer resources to run the latests mac OS and web browser than you do with windows 7 (and I"m not a huge fan of microsoft either).

In any case, why is Apple being singled out here?
Do you know where the clothes you wear come from?
When you gas up, do you care how the oil that makes the fuel that runs your car comes from?
When you buy food do you care how it was grown?
When you buy that diamond.. do you know where it came from?

Somewhat of a double standard here.

"In any case, why is Apple being singled out here?"
They are enemy number 1. Around here other than the few living jokes that hang out at places and try to show off their overpriced under performing trash, most people have moved on from the Apple fad. See more androids, more windows laptops, and less Apple in general. Especially since the ultrabooks have got popular and plentiful.

"Do you know where the clothes you wear come from?"
Child sweat shop in south-west China.

"When you gas up, do you care how the oil that makes the fuel that runs your car comes from?"
Iran. Saudi. Iraq. Pakistan. Any other country that is terrible at human rights and likely an outright enemy of the United States.

"When you buy food do you care how it was grown?"
Nope. What I do care about is that the grocery store is putting a giant markup of nearly 100% on everything they are selling.
I know for milk as an example, they get it for around $1.50-$2.00 a gallon here locally while they get a national brand bulk bought and packaged in their name for something like $3.00. They mark the local brand up to or over $4.00 and their "economy brand" up to $3.50 or so.

"When you buy that diamond.. do you know where it came from?"
Sierra Leone, Africa.

martian - the articles actually talked about how this same problem has been handled by some other companies in other industries, such as Nike, etc. Did you read it?

qzjul - your comments didn't address the substance of either article. LoL...

-1 to martian.

I've read about Foxconn's working standards previously and felt fairly bad about the state of capitalism that lends itself to this. I'm more fueled by the fact that that same capitalism and culture within America does indeed encourage and promote this behavior. Hopefully there will be some sort of legislation passed eventually that will indeed bring jobs back to America (my biggest concern as a manufacturing employee), or at least something which holds American multinationals accountable for the working environments in their foreign supplier facilities.

Sorry, missed the prompt:

f you make it through both of these, then tell me... do you want these jobs in America (or your country)? Yes, I'd want to see them back in America, however I don't think this is a near future outlook as there would have to be several tax rules thrown into place on a variety of things such as trade, tax cuts for domestics, tax increases for multinationals and govt/firm/college partnerships which would establish the forces necessary for these jobs to come back to America (such as the engineering ones cited), though this in the short term could be also addressed through reform in workers who'd want to utilize a VISA to work here.

Do you think Apple is doing enough?
No. This is a case where supplier power (Foxconn) actually outweighs Apple some. Apple could find other suppliers (of assembly), of this I'm sure, however it would likely cause a loss to flexibility and responsiveness (and hence profits), due to the fact that harsh/unfair working conditions are exactly what enable such unmatched flexibility and responsiveness. In order to "do enough," Apple would take a significant capital hit. It could lessen this hit with a significant campaign for PR's sake, but it would still bite the bullet some. It's especially worrisome for Apple to take any hits because they're really just recently come into their own. It's a hugely successful legacy behind them, more one of mediocre growth until the last decade, with only a short history prior to that. They will need to establish themselves much longer in the market as a top dog before they can accept trade-offs like they need to to address these problems.

Do you think consumers should care?
Duh (sorry this question seems a little obvious unless you're a major Apple stakeholder). It takes into accord human compassion and guilt, and a realization of the true dilemmas facing countries such as mine (I'm American) and Canada, Europe, etc, that have regulations to prevent such extortion of human will to live. It also presents the problematic themes we much face for re-growth into more than service (high and low end) and finance/investment within our countries which have shipped manufacturing abroad.

Do you think our trade agreements should address these concerns?
Again, another duh question for me that can be inferred by my above statements. However, I don't believe it should be in radical form. I believe the country needs to make steps towards bringing jobs back from overseas before anything harsh comes into effect, in order to lessen the blow of an angry China. fluffing with tariffs just pisses China off and doesn't address our real problems.

Would you want to pay more for XYZ electronic product just to know working conditions were better?
I would and do (though not 100% - I have a Motorola phone. I only know about Foxconn because of extensive market research I did on the phone manufacturer's (Motorola in particular) for a capstone course). I've always been a firm believer of "Made in America," which may come as a surprise to many non-American's is not a "red neck" belief. I grew up in a very liberal household in California where value was always placed on homegrown products. Our garage is filled with only Craftsman tools - which even came under fire for not necessarily being only made in the USA, however, the point isn't so much in whether they were or were not actually made here, but the fact that there is allegiance to domestically made products to at least some level still.

No, move it over space! Teh moon!

Its hard to beat near slave labor

TY - actually both articles repeatedly quote Jobs and other execs saying it isn't the wages as much as the entire ecosystem and supply chain that is lacking here. Whether you agree with that is another issue. Flexibility seems to be more key.

In other words, they do save money on the labor, but it is more important that they have tens of thousands of workers living in dormitories on site who can be woken up in the middle of the night to light up a new production line on a few hours notice with parts that were just made at a factory down the street, etc.

The sections on middle-layer engineer supply was also very interesting.

*if* they brought the production here, it would be more automated. Lower labor rates there mean you can afford to do more stuff with workers. At $22 / day (one of the rates mentioned) there vs. maybe $150 / day here, the case for higher automation makes more sense.

Intel's new production facility in NY that has been all over the news will be the most advanced in the world. But it doesn't actually employ that many people, due to the high automation.

i am squishing the links about Apple.

I'm glad to be in some way providing a job (albeit a tough one) for these kids yay! :)

I read the first article beforehand and didn't see the second one until you posted it. But you're right, pretty amusing how the NYT gyrates. Liberal and conservative media-relations folks I know don't hold them in a high regard, but that may be because of bad experiences like this one.

And you're wise to note the timing. There is almost always a reason beneath the surface for the timing of nearly every big NYT story.

Fun fact: using 2010's data, Canada accounts for roughly a fifth of U. S. oil imports

http://www.eia.gov/...2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm

I enjoy my macbook iPod and iPhone. My class loves the iPads that I'm borrowing for 2 months too. Long live Apple. Next up, the iDesk! If they were to focus purely on edtech I would be so happy.

iMac, iPod, iTouch, iPad, iTune, iBroke.

"Any other country that is terrible at human rights and likely an outright enemy of the United States."