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> Many have gone on record and said even if they wanted to make them here the engineer volume and expertise are nowhere to be found except in China now. The spe
by nwiswell 5y ago
> Many have gone on record and said even if they wanted to make them here the engineer volume and expertise are nowhere to be found except in China now. The speed with which they can deploy factories for new processes in China is unprecedented. You can’t match that here in the US.
This is circular reasoning. We can't make them here because we don't.
Yes, obviously it would take time to build capacity, but it's silly to argue China is fundamentally capable of something that the US is not. This is purely a question of cost (and, therefore, motivation).
What should probably be countenanced, in my opinion, is "supply chain readiness": make _some_ of the iPhones domestically, so that if it becomes necessary, it is much faster to ramp domestic production. That hurts profits in the short term, but it probably does enhance long term expectation profits (conflict with China is less disastrous).
Unfortunately Wall Street is notorious for its emphasis on the short term -- and that has next to nothing to do with politics.
- chii 5y agoThe US can't make iphones the same way that China can't make their own Silicon Valley (god knows they've tried - they ended up with Shenzen, which to be fair, is called the Silicon Valley of electronics).
- LordDragonfang 5y ago>Unfortunately Wall Street is notorious for its emphasis on the short term -- and that has next to nothing to do with politics. While it may not originate from politicians, politics and corporate short-sightedness have been so tightly coupled since at least the Reagan admin that distinguishing the two is arguably missing the forest for the trees. But yes, the root problem is the people controlling the levers of Capital for short-sighted greed, as is often the case.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoCrony capitalism and current US politics are deeply rooted into each other and feed and nourish one another.
- LordDragonfang 5y agoBlaming "crony" capitalism implies the issue is too much regulation, not too little. Since I'm asserting that most of the issues stem from the period of deregulation following Reagan, that's clearly at very different conclusion. Short-sighted pursuit of profit is a failure mode inherent in capitalism in general, no cronyism required.
- nebula8804 5y agoWe don't make iPhones but there is this smart phone being made here. https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ It is like 1000$ more expensive than the China version of the same phone. Could Apple and their volume get their price down? Probably but it is still going to be significantly more expensive. If the US was desperate, we could maybe switch to this phone in an emergency?
- KptMarchewa 5y agoThere is comparatively 0 demand for purism. Phones are a product of an economy of scale.
- coryrc 5y agoThe ICs aren't made in USA, I doubt the passives are either (conveniently not mentioned -- glossed over by saying "USA distributors"). Sure, it's assembled in the US, but it isn't built of parts made in the USA. Though, most of these parts were first made in the USA so there's no doubt we couldn't do it if we wanted.
- erosenbe0 5y agoI don't think modern passives, pcbs, screens, flexes, and small hardware was first made in the USA, especially not at scale. So that's most of the components that have never been made in the USA.