3 ms·

You are missing that it makes goods cost more and people poorer. We don’t want to produce many of these goods domestically because it’s too expensive. Assembli

You are missing that it makes goods cost more and people poorer. We don’t want to produce many of these goods domestically because it’s too expensive. Assembling iPhones in the US would mean more crappy domestic jobs paying near minimum wage. It would also make iPhones more expensive, not just for US consumers, but worldwide. So fewer iPhones are sold. Meaning fewer high paying design and engineering jobs at Apple, at app developers, etc. And more of those jobs in South Korea, at Samsung. Free trade is a wonderful thing that makes everyone better off in the long run. A lawyer who fires his secretary to do his own typing because he can type faster than her is a fool.

bluGill 9y ago
You are assuming an iphone assembled in the US would be assembled manually. However cost of labor means Apple is likely to design robots to assemble the iPhone instead. The initial investment is higher, but it is probable that once Apple does this assembling the phone in the US and exporting to China is cheaper than assembling in China for sale in China (assuming no tarries importing China). Note that Apple is not required to create robots to build in the US. It is an option they have, but there are other options as well. I would expect Apple to be smart enough to consider all options. The obvious alternatives to consider are move the factory to some other country; or have consumers vote against the tariff by showing how much cheaper the iPhone is elsewhere; there are probably more options I haven't thought of.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Right. Apple who has one of the most sophisticated supply chain and production management operations in the world, yet has no clue about the most efficient ways to build it, and only tariffs will suddenly make them realize it.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    Tariffs change the inputs to the decisions. Before the costs of robots was greater than cheap labor in China so Apple made the correct decision to not invest in them. After the tariffs Apple needs to revisit the decisions of the past to account for a new world where labor in China isn't as cheap. I cannot tell you what decisions Apple will make, only that they will reconsider the decisions of the past in light of new information. (don't forget new information also accounts for whatever advancements in robotics have been made since they last looked at this decision)
mistermann 9y ago
> Free trade is a wonderful thing that makes everyone better off in the long run. If one of the participants has an absolutely massive population, a unified mono-culture known for being incredibly hard workers, doesn't lack any particular disadvantages, and is run my (what seems to be) and incredibly smart communist dictatorship, how do you guarantee that in one thread of possible outcomes that this dictatorship isn't able and willing to spread its wings to largely bring the entire planet under it's dictatorship. I'd hope you don't deny that the US as de facto world leader exercises a little global influence, if all the pieces fall into place and China with it's massive advantages over the US, how do you guarantee this outcome will not (and can not) come to pass? A typical response to this question is that a free democracy always beats a dictatorship (this belief is so pervasive and unbending in the West, it's almost like a religion), but this is in no way whatsoever(!!!!!!!!!) guaranteed to always be true, in fact even with our incredibly small historic sample sizes, things were looking pretty iffy with Germany back in WW2, and they are tiny compared to China. And I suppose I should make it explicit: no, I am not guaranteeing this outcome, I am warning of it as a possibility - but those who say it can not and will not happen are making a guarantee.
- valuearb 9y ago
  They have one aircraft carrier, we have twenty. Their carrier is 60,000 tons, we have eleven 100,000 ton carriers. We have enough nukes to kill every chinese "communist party" member a dozen times over. It's GDP is about half the US. And their "communist" system is being run entirely off the back of a mostly free market economy. Free markets always beat communism and socialism. And if you believe that none of this matters, that China is a real threat, the last thing you want is to impose tariffs on them that hurt us more than they hurt China.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    Your ability to post an answer that skipped every single point I made is admirable. You may find this article interesting: https://reason.com/archives/2017/10/26/the-fragile-generation https://reason.com/archives/2017/10/26/the-fragile-generatio...

bluGill 9y ago

You are assuming an iphone assembled in the US would be assembled manually. However cost of labor means Apple is likely to design robots to assemble the iPhone instead. The initial investment is higher, but it is probable that once Apple does this assembling the phone in the US and exporting to China is cheaper than assembling in China for sale in China (assuming no tarries importing China). Note that Apple is not required to create robots to build in the US. It is an option they have, but there are other options as well. I would expect Apple to be smart enough to consider all options. The obvious alternatives to consider are move the factory to some other country; or have consumers vote against the tariff by showing how much cheaper the iPhone is elsewhere; there are probably more options I haven't thought of.

valuearb 9y ago
Right. Apple who has one of the most sophisticated supply chain and production management operations in the world, yet has no clue about the most efficient ways to build it, and only tariffs will suddenly make them realize it.
- bluGill 9y ago
  Tariffs change the inputs to the decisions. Before the costs of robots was greater than cheap labor in China so Apple made the correct decision to not invest in them. After the tariffs Apple needs to revisit the decisions of the past to account for a new world where labor in China isn't as cheap. I cannot tell you what decisions Apple will make, only that they will reconsider the decisions of the past in light of new information. (don't forget new information also accounts for whatever advancements in robotics have been made since they last looked at this decision)

mistermann 9y ago

> Free trade is a wonderful thing that makes everyone better off in the long run. If one of the participants has an absolutely massive population, a unified mono-culture known for being incredibly hard workers, doesn't lack any particular disadvantages, and is run my (what seems to be) and incredibly smart communist dictatorship, how do you guarantee that in one thread of possible outcomes that this dictatorship isn't able and willing to spread its wings to largely bring the entire planet under it's dictatorship. I'd hope you don't deny that the US as de facto world leader exercises a little global influence, if all the pieces fall into place and China with it's massive advantages over the US, how do you guarantee this outcome will not (and can not) come to pass? A typical response to this question is that a free democracy always beats a dictatorship (this belief is so pervasive and unbending in the West, it's almost like a religion), but this is in no way whatsoever(!!!!!!!!!) guaranteed to always be true, in fact even with our incredibly small historic sample sizes, things were looking pretty iffy with Germany back in WW2, and they are tiny compared to China. And I suppose I should make it explicit: no, I am not guaranteeing this outcome, I am warning of it as a possibility - but those who say it can not and will not happen are making a guarantee.

valuearb 9y ago
They have one aircraft carrier, we have twenty. Their carrier is 60,000 tons, we have eleven 100,000 ton carriers. We have enough nukes to kill every chinese "communist party" member a dozen times over. It's GDP is about half the US. And their "communist" system is being run entirely off the back of a mostly free market economy. Free markets always beat communism and socialism. And if you believe that none of this matters, that China is a real threat, the last thing you want is to impose tariffs on them that hurt us more than they hurt China.
- mistermann 9y ago
  Your ability to post an answer that skipped every single point I made is admirable. You may find this article interesting: https://reason.com/archives/2017/10/26/the-fragile-generation https://reason.com/archives/2017/10/26/the-fragile-generatio...