I don't like their assumption of 50% profit margin (including nothing but hardware). They have the manufacturing cost and the retail cost, why not use the american manufacturing cost to think up a real retail price?
What's the moral advantage of using American over Chinese workers? By a similar token, why not just raise the wages of those Chinese workers by 100%. They'd be madly richer, very happy, and still far cheaper than American workers. Then again, the existing wage level is such that it commands some 8 000 applications a month (at Foxconn).
Part of the gist of the article was that US regulations make building out flexible manufacturing capacity rapidly incredibly difficult. Quicker to do it in China. Ironic considered the PRC's legendary red tape (no pun).
Apple owes its existence to American education, infrastructure, and a host of other services provided by American taxpayers. Why shouldn't they support the same families that supported them all these years?
Apple is a boon to the US economy. It adds a market capitalization exceeding the GDP of other sovereigns, high-paying jobs, and international prestige in design and technology.
Apple also pays taxes to the US Treasury. These taxes, in addition to those on the incomes of its stakeholders, are meant to repay the presumed social debt Apple gains from being here. Whether those rates are set badly or the taxes squandered isn't Apple's question.
A person across the Pacific could similarly ask, if Apple hired only Americans, why Apple insists on supporting the richest country while denying people in East Asia a meager income for a crime no greater than not being American.
>Apple owes its existence to American education, infrastructure, and a host of other services provided by American taxpayers. Why shouldn't they support the same families that supported them all these years?
You mean, why shouldn't Apple pay even more to support families it's already been supporting all these years? Do you honestly think Apple, as a corporation, has been a net-negative to the taxman?
Apple is no longer utilizing those services. It is instead using Chinese education and infrastructure. Why should Apple continue paying for services it no longer needs?
Absolute and total nonsense. Do you really think Apple and other multinationals could operate as profitably, or at all, without many of "those services."
Enforcement of Apple's intellectual property? Protection of their brand and trademarks? The contracts they rely on? The banks they rely on? Safe passage of ships and aircraft carrying raw materials and finished goods? The security and safety of their executives and engineers?
No. We are talking about Apple. You may be talking only about Apple's Chineese subsidiaries. Even so, they do not exist in a vacuum, and it is foolish to think that Apple's IP, brand and trademarks would be as secure in China without the global system of IP protection that the US government has been instrumental in building.
Companies have closed major facilities in the United States to reopen in China. By way of explanation, executives say they are competing with Apple for shareholders. If they cannot rival Apple’s growth and profit margins, they won’t survive.
They don't care about workers, they care about shareholders. If Apple says to its shareholder "We'll earn 30% less next quarter, but we'll create 30000 new jobs in the US!" how do you think the market would react ? They'd sell like crazy! The share price would plummet. No one wants to loose money.
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