I don’t think I’d ever buy one now. From Market-ticker:
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”
“What Apple (and other companies) want are employees that are housed in dormitories, can be roused at midnight to work a 12-hour shift on demand fueled with only a cup of tea and a ten cent biscuit, paying them $17/day.
THAT is what Apple and these other firms demand.
It is absolutely true that America cannot fill that demand, because at one dollar an hour you can’t manage to put the food on your table for a family of four, say much less pay rent, electricity or gasoline for your car to get there and back!”
“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”
“That’s absolutely true. But America remains a monstrously-large market and America has no obligation to let you bring products into this nation without tariff or impost while you exploit the existence of authoritarian governments and environmental arbitrage.
A 100% tariff on all of Apple’s foreign-produced or assembled products should make the decision easy — is this really about the availability of a workforce, in which case it would not matter to Apple, or is it really about state-sponsored enslavement and exploitation?”
You really should read the whole thing. It really drives home what our materialistic lifestyle costs; not only in terms of our own quality of life and our national and personal debt crises, but around the world.
I know, it’s capitalism. The free market. The American way, and all that good stuff. Except that it’s China where the workers have far fewer options, so spare me.
This post, almost in its entirety, was poached from Alte.
It is a ruse that this has something to do with free trade. Fairs markets for buying slaves doesn’t make slavery good.
I don’t think it’s about free trade as much as it is about fact that these goods are allowed into our markets virtually tariff free. The companies might continue to do this as standard practice, but we shouldn’t reward them for it.
It really drives home what our materialistic lifestyle costs; not only in terms of our own quality of life and our national and personal debt crises, but around the world.
..Except that it’s China where the workers have far fewer options, so spare me.
I’ve felt very uneasy for a while, now, with regard to the sheer number of products we import in general. And the above statement pretty much encapsulates the reasons why Chinese products specifically are something I have been trying to avoid. Still working at completely ditching the mindset that prompts me to even want to buy cheaply priced products when I know it probably cost someone else dearly to make it.
I suppose it’s good to frequently assess priorities and ask “do i really need this?”. For me, the answer usually is “no”.
I’d love to buy exclusively American, but it’s nearly impossible. Looking around either the product I want is only made in China, or it’s so exorbitantly expensive made American that I can’t afford it. I once read a book about some missionaries and they suggested to pray for the country and person/people that made your product. Look at the tag, pray for Guatemala. Look at the tag, pray from Vietnam.
Looking around either the product I want is only made in China, or it’s so exorbitantly expensive made American that I can’t afford it.
It really is becoming harder to find things that are US made. Clothing and household goods are bad enough, but why do we import Chinese food?
I once read a book about some missionaries and they suggested to pray for the country and person/people that made your product.
This is a great suggestion!
Where is Sam Walton when you need him? Oh yeah–he had the prudence to die.
This is Romney’s problem: Yes, capitalism is good, but you know Bain Capital (and the sort who run them) make the same argument as Apple.
What a rotten bunch of candidates.
If my experience where I work is any indication, managers here are doing their best to get us a cup of tea and a biscuit at midnight……
For me this wasn’t about the idea that I could ever get to the point where I only buy American made goods. The very thought, nice as it sounds, is beyond the realm of realistic possibility.
Rather, it underscores for me at least, the need to check my American tendency to buy that which I do not need. Worse, to engage in what Wendell Berry called “technological determinism”: that it I think, feeling compelled to own or use every new technology or gadget that comes down the pike that purports to make my life easier in some way whether I truly need the thing or not.
A commitment to stopping and thinking, refraining, denying myself every pleasure I can afford just because I can afford it, is what this inspired in me most.
Apple is still waiting to bring all that capital they have in other countries when the tax % is lowered. The argument to convince the government to lower the tax % is that they will reinvest it into the infrastructure (digital, physical and technical). I think its just a load of bull.
Should I expect otherwise from Crony capitalism?
What really bothers me is that when topics like this are brought up many blame over regulation and higher taxes for the decision of major corporations to take their companies overseas. I really see this as an excuse and in some cases and outright lie. What really drives their desire to go to say China or some other nation is the slave labor, as you said above Terry. Even if we did away with unions in all fifty states, lowered taxes to the level these folks want and do away with “excessive regulation” we still can not compete with a workforce that will work twelve hours for $17, and corporations bent on making as much money as possible will still move offshore to exploit these work forces leaving millions of American without jobs.
The only solution is legislation and regulation that puts hefty fines and tariffs on corporations with offshore work forces that want to sell their product to American consumers. Yes I said more regulation and legislation, not less! The American consumer has more power than we think we do. No corporation in their right mind wants to forgo selling to us, we have the leverage and we need to force our politicians to use it. Until that happens I will boycott companies like Apple to the best of my ability. It’s a shame I just helped my teen buy a macbook and last year we got her an ipod touch for Christmas. Can’t wait to have her read this blog post! I will say however that my husband has always had problems with apple for various reasons, business practices, etc., and therefore will only use an Android phone and no Apple products. He has never read a post on this blog Terry but I think he will read this one. Great post!
I used to very much agree, and think that we should demand that workers in other places be treated the same as our workers, but I’m not sure anymore.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Kenya, and talked to people who worked at a factory making clothes for the Western market where they were paid $2 a day. I thought that was absolutely horrible, but it was twice the normal wage, and thousands had lined up for days without food to be the first to get those jobs.
And those jobs were the difference between their family starving or not. The fact is that if the company had to pay them the same as they were paid in the West–or if tariffs were imposed, meaning that the labour costs were equal, whether the labourers got the money or not–then the jobs would come back here and Kenya would have nothing.
I really don’t know what the answer is, because $2 a day is awful (or having to live in a dormitory like in China is awful). But the alternative, for many of these people, is worse, which is why they take the jobs in the first place. And as more of those jobs go to China, or Africa, or South America, the economy does improve, and then wages do start to rise, which is the big problem in China right now (there’s a major upward pressure on wages, which is sparking inflation, and the bubble is about to pop).
I really don’t know what the solution is. But just remember that if Apple didn’t have their factories there, those people wouldn’t have jobs at all. I think, in an ideal world, the answer would be to get rid of the corrupt governments in many parts of the world, because that is what is keeping people in such dire and desperate straits. But that’s not easily accomplished either, and America has already decided that it doesn’t want to interfere anywhere else.
I don’t have any answers. I just think it’s one big mess, and my heart really hurts for those in the Third World who actually find these jobs an incredible blessing.
Sheila from To Love, Honor and Vacuum!
My husband used to sell shoes, running shoes. He was telling me that Nike paid their workers a pittance (to us) but when interviewed, the workers said things like, “I have a house because of this job. I make enough money to feed my family, send some money to my relatives, and have a house. I appreciate what I get paid.” Sometimes, you can’t look at it from our incredibly wealthy point of view. I still think it stinks that the jobs are going overseas and not staying here in America. But maybe providing jobs to people in poor countries is just as important as providing jobs to people here in America, where poor is a relative term.
I don’t have a problem with American standards of living being subsidized on the backs of Chinese peasants. If they are that stupid to do it, we should squeeze that for all we can get. Don’t kid yourself. If we were not importing these devices from China, we still wouldn’t be making any here. At the price it would take to make them here, no one would buy them. it is only because they are made in China that they are cheap and only because they are cheap (cheap enough) that American consumers buy so many of them.
At $200-400 each, millions of people will buy them. At $1000 each, few people will buy them. Ditto for book readers, ipads, notebook computers, MP3 devices, game consoles, microwave ovens, LCD TVs and hundreds of other products that millions of American enjoy.
Jobs aren’t going overseas. Jobs at uncompetitive businesses in the USA are going under. More competitive businesses overseas are growing and adding jobs to satisfy the demand for their products.
Professor Hale, I understand your sentiment, but I think your comment “if they are that stupid to do it” is over the top and beyond the pale. You’re right that the stuff can’t be made here or it would be too expensive; but the people there are not STUPID; they’re desperate and without opportunity. I just think a little humility, and a recognition of how blessed we are to live here, is in order, that’s all.
I’m not sure the situation can be changed, but that doesn’t mean that it is not without its poignancy, and I think we should at least recognize that.
I do appreciate the points expressed about the products made overseas. I have long understood that what we consider a pittance is a very good salary in some parts of the world.
I find the idea of employees residing in barracks and being roused in the middle of the night without warning beyond the pale by any standard. That rankles me. I can’t help it.
It does smack of slave labor.
Sheila,
Thanks for your comment on my comment. I believe it is as unsuportable to claim that all of the people in China are desperate as much as it is to claim they are stupid. China has a vibrant and growing economy. It cannot be refuted that the government of China ( a People’s Republic) is making deliberate choices to keep the prices of Chinese exports to the USA artificially low. It does that by enslaving its own population to support our standard of living. Perhaps the Chinese government has some inscrutable long term plan to corner the market on happy meal toys and Iphones, but if our government were treating American workers like this I could think of no more fitting word than stupid.
I find the idea of employees residing in barracks and being roused in the middle of the night without warning beyond the pale by any standard. That rankles me. I can’t help it.
agreed!!
Elspeth, I agree, too. That’s why I wish there were a better solution. But Professor Hale, I think to compare America to China isn’t fair. If Americans revolted about something, the government wouldn’t shoot. And the Chinese ARE fighting back. There were 84,000 protests last year, and more are growing every year. They’re trying. But just because the economy is growing does not mean there are not still hundreds of millions of very poor people. Yes, the economy is growing, but it’s still a very poor society. And the government can grab your land without any due process, can displace millions because they want to build a dam, and you have no recourse.
They are trying to fight back, but I do think to call them stupid is over the top. They have a government that we have never lived under, and many, many are in prison to protest that government (or have already been killed by that government). It is not a free country, and people do not have choice. The answer to “not being stupid” basically means that they should all protest and risk being shot. Again, that may be true, but I don’t think the fact that most of them choose to stay alive means they’re “stupid”. That’s all.
My short term solution is to buy more second-hand goods, from wherever they originated.
PH is right on about China.
SG has a point…up to a, ah, point. If they Chinese were making things we need to live, then perhaps we could forebear our part in their enslavement with easier consciences. Happy Meal toys and iPhones are not those things. They’re so ridiculously unnecessary that it should shame us. Honestly, Happy Meals toys are a bane to my existence as a parent. Those trinkets get left everywhere, and twice under my feet.
I simply didn’t think about it when I bought my Apple products, or when we go to McDonalds. That’s why I favor a tariff. It’s too bloody hard to remember where not to get fast food when we’re late for church choir practice and no one’s had dinner.
Agreed. (warning: somewhat pointless tirade follows) I never go to McD’s because they give stupid, ridiculous, inappropriate happy meal toys, like crystal balls. That happened when my oldest daughter was two and I think we’ve been there twice since (she’s now 10) once because it was all there was to eat anywhere, and once because someone sent me a gift card and…I was pregnant and you know how that goes. I hate kids’ meal toys so much that I don’t buy kids’ meals, I buy regular meals and make them share. Although, even Chick-fil-A is currently giving a cow watch that I hate with every fiber of my being…made.in.China.
Yes, cane. This was my point. It’s not as if I need an iPhone. Whether or not each of my teenagers needs her own laptop is debatable too, but what’s done is done. It doesn’t mean we can’t make better choices going forward. Starting with doing what you suggested, buying second hand, something we do quite frequently anyway for any number of goods.
I suspect after His Highness is re-elected and we become Greece, this will all be moot, but in the meantime my purpose in posting this was to rouse those of us who believe in something and Someone Higher out of our materially induced stupor and get us to question if our standard of living is worth propping up companies like these and by extension governments that are brutal in their leadership.
Further, I would say that propping up the Chinese economy is worse than propping up the economy of another country where the people are poor but don’t live under a dictatorship.
At the end of the day, I think we should at least take the time to be more deliberate in the way we spend our dollars.
Sheila,
You think the USA has never built a dam and told upstreem people to move or else? You think we don’t have political prisoners? You think none of us have ever lived in worker’s barracks? You think that the “Melting Pot” is improved by the addition of millions of people from third world countries (some of them from China)? If you don’t like the way things are done in China, then you need to fight like hell to keep Communism out of the USA.
Tip: You are way behind. 48% of the US population is already OK with Communism as long as you use terms like compassion and fairness to describe it.
Although, even Chick-fil-A is currently giving a cow watch that I hate with every fiber of my being…
Only heathens speak ill of the blessed Ch_ck-F_l-_.
I couldn’t agree more, PH.
Oh, and Sheila’s Canadian, LOL.
Crapola!
Oh, and Sheila’s Canadian, LOL.
Oh good. I am sure Communist tendencies will neveer darken their fair shores.
Canadians should still fight like hell to keep Communism out of the USA so they will still have someplace to go for health care.
Professor Hale, to compare U.S. “political prisoners” to China’s is completely unfair. In China, prisoners are shot after not even being accused of a crime, or else on trumped up charges. I am NOT saying the U.S. is perfect–not by any stretch of the imagination–I am just saying that the writer of the Hebrews’ admonition to “remember those in prison” is much more applicable to China and other dictatorships than it is to the United States. I know people are upset with the current United States’ government, and I don’t blame them (I am, too). But let’s not kid ourselves: it is not the same as what occurs under communism or under an Islamic theocracy. It just isn’t. And I believe that it is cruel to even compare the two. In 1989, the Chinese shot 7000 protesters in cold blood. When has the U.S. ever done anything remotely like that? And no, despite the Kelo decision, the U.S. does not uproot 3,000,000 out of their homes with no compensation whatsoever.
I do not believe that our government is a good one, and I share Elspeth’s pessimism about where things are going. But I also am very aware that the vast majority in the world has it far worse than us and really needs our care and compassion. To equate American suffering with theirs is ridiculous. While there may be individual cases where Americans are treated cruelly or imprisoned incorrectly by the government, or harassed by the IRS, or sued over free speech issues, that is not nearly the same as the fear and harrassment and terror that people face daily in China, or North Korea, or Burma, or Zimbabwe, or any of the other horrible places on this earth. And I, for one, thank God everyday that we live on this continent.
I cannot bring myself to feel sympathy for the people of China for being Chinese, for being the decendents of Chinese and for living in a system created by then and for them. You cannot take the China out of the Chinese.
Thus, it hardly matters if a million or 3 million die for the greater good. They exist for the greater good. Just ask them. it doesn’t matter if they are uprooted from their property because they have no property. It is all owned by the State so there is no comparison to an American who looses his family generational inheretance to the Tennesee Valley Authority and is compensated with pennies on the dollar. The Chinese person loses nothing because he owns nothing. he works and is happy to work because Chinese society is still feudal. It is his duty to work. it doesn’t matter if he gets paid pennies or nothing at all because his labor doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to the state. he should be happy to give up his labor for the greater good. And that greater good is defined as the boat loads of paper money that will be used to support the new Chinese aristocracy. It is ppointless to assign American standards of decency, law, and fair play to the Chinese.
I absolutely agree with you that the USA is not China. So, I don’t care how many Chinese the Chines kill, how cheap their slave labor is, or how their human right are deprived to make my happy meal toys. Those very concepts are foreign to them. But having a product at a competative price is not a concept that is foreign to me. As a capitalist, i will buy my products from anyone who offers a good product at a competative price. That is what freedom looks like. Another concept that is foreign to Chinese people.
It is ppointless to assign American standards of decency, law, and fair play to the Chinese. . So, I don’t care how many Chinese the Chines kill, how cheap their slave labor is, or how their human right are deprived to make my happy meal toys.
But it is not pointless to make an effort to apply God’s standard of loving one’s neighbor as one loves himself.
Freedom is not “free” and requires those who experience liberty to behave in a responsible manner.
Good point. Exectly how much of my freedom should I give up to prove I am behaving responsibly with my freedom? Should I boycott the companies and countries you tell me to or maybe a government imposed tarriff that just levies a fine on me whenever I stray from the officialy approved freedom I am allowed to have. I think I can adapt to the new “freedom”. It already matches the “fairness” I got last year.
Minor point of order: When I said PH was right on about China, I was referring to this segment:
It cannot be refuted that the government of China ( a People’s Republic) is making deliberate choices to keep the prices of Chinese exports to the USA artificially low. It does that by enslaving its own population to support our standard of living.
I’m afraid I missed his previous comment.
PH is making the case that any transaction under the amoral system of capitalism is inherently an amoral action; that is to say: it’s not immoral. I trust in the amoral system because it’s the only one that actually exists. That doesn’t mean I have to accept every immoral transaction because it’s technically allowable under an amoral system. Again, there is no such things as moral slave-trading; even if you let others house and feed the slaves and you merely take the produce.
China is a special case (though not unique) because there is almost zero freedom. It’s one thing to have products made in, say, Indonesia. Not a great place, not a lot of American-style freedoms, but the economy isn’t nearly so “calibrated” as China.
“China is a special case (though not unique) because there is almost zero freedom.”
That’s interesting. I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day about how many couples in China are getting in vitro fertilization this year so they can guarantee themselves of having a “dragon baby.” Doesn’t sound like they have almost zero freedom, but I’m not sure how these things work.
Mark Steyn is always going on about the coming Chinese demographic collapse. My guess is that, for wealthier Chinese, it’s a noble responsibility to have some kids. Also, focusing on the Dragon Year as the reason only serves to increase nationalist pride–the Chinese are as big on being Chinese as we Texans are on being Notably Blessed and Favored Among All Peoples.
In 2008 I worked in Hong Kong, with a lot of young mainland Chinese nationals. They’re very jingoist. Several of them studied in the United States to bring the knowledge back. None of them had any interest in staying in America, and they all thought upholding the glory of China was the One True Way. To give the obvious superiority of being Chinese up for a few measly freedoms was silly, in their eyes.
“…we Texans are on being Notably Blessed and Favored Among All Peoples.”
Oh yeah. I actually take the fact that I was born in Texas and graduated from a Texas high school as protection over me and mine, since obviously I get first dibs on moving back when all hell breaks loose and Texas is the place to be. Amen.
I guess I didn’t realize the Chinese weren’t aware of their plight. Kind of like the North Koreans know they’re living a nightmare, they’re just not allowed to say that out loud and the NK government is trying to come up with ways to monitor thoughts, too.
MARK STEYN FOR PRESIDENT!
*too bad he’s Canadian*
I remember reading about this last year. They have had several suicides at the apple plant if I remember correctly. I remember the article stated that these poor people are housed two to a very small room and they never even see their room mate as they work opposite shifts. They work opposite shifts AND spend their entire shift with ear phones on and not allowed to talk…something like that. So they basically are worked to death and in complete isolation so some hipster can keep affording the NEXT new iphone.
The whole thing is sick. This has nothing to do with comparing the cost of living in the US with other areas. The very blood and soul of these people is used to make cheap products that are purposely considered obsolete in six months or less. And people fight to buy them.
Speaking of, I found this article today about Apple being “accused of ignoring labor abuses.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46143670/ns/business-us_business/#.TyFjMoEx0ng
It does make you cringe…more than cringe. But this line is very telling and speaks to what Cane and Professor Hale were saying.
““If Apple was warned, and didn’t act, that’s reprehensible,” said Nicholas Ashford, a former chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, a group that advises the United States Labor Department. </I“But what’s morally repugnant in one country is accepted business practices in another, and companies take advantage of that.””
*emphasis mine
I’m wondering, how long can companies export jobs so they can produce them dirt-cheap, so we can afford them in the West, if there’s less of us employed, making money, to be able to buy them. At some point, something’s got to give; it’s not a permanently sustainable situation.
Why can’t companies see, it isn’t in their long-term interest to eliminate jobs in the West, when that means eliminating the means for those out of work to be able to afford what they produce? Sure, it’d doable in the immediate and short-term, but long term, the whole system will collapse, eventually.
but long term, the whole system will collapse, eventually.
brings to mind the description of John in Revelation 18 of the collapse of “Babylon”
Totally.
I’m wondering, how long can companies export jobs so they can produce them dirt-cheap, so we can afford them in the West, if there’s less of us employed, making money, to be able to buy them. At some point, something’s got to give; it’s not a permanently sustainable situation.
It’s worse than that: most Americans can’t afford those things now. My family is the only family I know of (within 20 years of us, in 3D) that has no debt. When the time comes when people decide they can’t afford Chinese toys, there will be a lot of other things they can’t afford.
By the way, Heather, the Babylon Planning Commission is in session over in Switzerland.
This. Like I said at TC, I could buy the iPhone if I chose not to save or use my credit card. It’s not as if I can’t buy one. It’s that it isn’t in my budget as it stands now.
I am acquainted with very few people who appreciate our stance when it comes to this kind of thing. Everyone just goes out and buys the latest and greatest at whatever cost.
And Will is absolutely right. When America becomes Greece after 4 more years of Keynesian economic policies, Americans won’t have the disposable income or the credit lines to buy this stuff. And then what?
…ration lines for bread?
Why can’t companies see, it isn’t in their long-term interest to eliminate jobs in the West, when that means eliminating the means for those out of work to be able to afford what they produce? Sure, it’d doable in the immediate and short-term, but long term, the whole system will collapse, eventually.
Because they see that, medium-term, the “West” isn’t going to be particularly special. What is happening is that there is a global convergence taking place. This means that the lesser skilled labor of the entire world is now in competition with each other, just as the higher skilled labor is.
For the lesser skilled, this means wages in “the West” go down, while wages in the, much larger, “rest” go up, substantially. That is, everyone else’s poor is getting richer, while the lesser skilled Westerners are getting poorer, as the lesser skilled worker market converges globally.
For the higher skilled, of whom there are fewer, the global market means that their “ask price” gets higher. This is obvious if you travel to places like Manhattan, London or Hong Kong. What you see is a globalized high skillset class that has many more opportunities for higher incomes in a global environment than it does in a non-global one (think Indian or African cognitive elites living in London, where they can participate in the the global price demand for their skills rather than the mere local one).
Companies like Apple (and basically all larger companies) are looking to sell mostly to the second group. It’s a smaller group, numerically, but it punches well, well above its weight economically — meaning, it BUYS A LOT OF STUFF. That’s who they are interested in selling to — whether it lives in Shanghai, London, Palo Alto, or Brasilia. It’s that class that a company like Apple is after, really. So, no, they don’t care all that much about the dysfunctions in the US labor market, because it isn’t going to impact them. Apple could move someplace else outside the US tomorrow and still attract most of its engineers. That’s generally true for the entire Valley, really.
I don’t think you’ve ever commented here before Brendan, but you know I have always appreciated your insightful commentary, so welcome to my little spot.
And while I think you’re on to something about the emerging global markets that make our market a little less significant than we realize, don’t you think we’re looking at a few more years yet before this comes to fruition? Maybe 5 years if El Presidente is re-elected, but no more than 10 at best?
In the meantime, can larger companies afford to ignore the prospect of the American dollars which have largely driven their success to date?
I think that they don’t ignore the US market, clearly, as the US currently has a large percentage of the new “global economic elite” living in it — very unequally distributed, of course, geographically in the US, but the market is there.
It’s just that the rest of the country isn’t really the target market. One easyish way to do this with Apple is to look at where their retail stores are. Apple, as a company, about 12-15 years ago made the interesting (and as it turned out very lucrative) decision to direct sell its own products in its own retail outlets. However, if you look at where these outlets actually are, you can see who they are actually targeting as customers — it’s easier if you know some of the areas around the country, because you can’t just go by how many are in a state, it’s where, in the state, they are. These are the people Apple is trying to sell to, not the rest of the people. Because these are the people who are going to spend $$$ on an iPhone for themselves, their spouse and their kid(s) — not the rest of the country. And they want to sell these people Macs, too (which are essentially status objects for most people who aren’t image professionals, because of he price point relative to similarly-equipped PCs).
Apple deeply cares about this part of the American population (the part that is most like Silicon Valley), but not really about the rest of it. It cares much more about its market image in London, for example, than it does about its market image in Alabama.
One easyish way to do this with Apple is to look at where their retail stores are.
I see what you mean. I took a look, and of the states I am very familiar with, it was interesting to note where the stores were, but more importantly, where they were not. And that was just in the 6 states I feel familiar enough with to make an informed assessment.
Of course, there’s 3 stores within a half hour of my house (2 more within an hour) which intrigues me because this area has taken a pretty big economic hit.
Alas, makes sense, Brendan (as you always do)…
So, the unfettered free market will, ironically, effect the sort of global levelling that a Maoist could only dream of. That is, within classes, across the globe; while the class division remains intact (as still was the case in the Soviet Union, and doubtless in today’s PRC, as well)…