4 ms·

Funny no one suggests bringing it back to the USA. The margins are good enough on those products, and there is enough room for automation they could do it.

by influx 4y ago

falcolas 4y ago
IMO, since Apple's public, it would dig too deeply into Apple's short-term profitability and growth, making it a no-go for its voting shareholders.
- javajosh 4y ago
  Put it to a vote.
  - adra 4y ago
    Rich people hold most of the shares and they don't want people to know that they're just as self-centered as the rest of us (likely more which is partially what inflated their coffers to begin with, but that's just subjective assumptions).
- ryeights 4y ago
  Time to put the ESG/political posturing of major financial firms to the test, I suppose?
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    > Time to put the ESG/political posturing of major financial firms to the test, I suppose? Fastest way to end ESG posturing I suppose. Although ESG concerns don’t typically include “made in America”. It’s not clear to me how that’s be an ESG thing.
geodel 4y ago
Well margins are good because they build cheap and sell expensive. Isn't it?
filmgirlcw 4y ago
We don’t have the amount of labor, let alone the the rightly skilled labor (I recognize these aren’t “skilled labor” jobs, which we don’t have enough skilled labor for but we also don’t have enough people to do the unskilled labor inline with other parts of the world because we stopped training people for this type of work decades ago) to do this kind of work. We just don’t. Especially not at the volume you would need for stuff like AirPods or Beats. The Foxconn fiasco in Wisconsin was a grift on many, many levels - but the labor part of it was never taken care of even before that whole thing blew up. The reality is, if you were to manufacture something like AirPods (let alone an iPhone) in the US, you would be not only doubling or tripling your labor costs, you’d be getting shittier labor for your money. Not to mention the additional expenses and tariffs of having to recenter all of the material imports and parts into the US from other parts of the world. I’m all for paying better wages throughout the world, even at the expense of profit margin or raised device prices. It’s a lot harder to justify paying more for lesser-quality labor and to upend logistics because of some false idea that “made in America” means anything.
- ericmay 4y ago
  I think you're right but I disagree with your assertion that we couldn't manufacture these products in the US. Certainly we can't overnight, but it doesn't mean we can't at all or that we couldn't or shouldn't try to, generally speaking. Add to the fact that in China in particular as it grows into a more middle income country it no longer becomes the "cheapest place to build stuff" and instead comes more inline with other first-world economies which will cause companies to relocate factories provided cost is a concern, which if it is, it means leaving China and if it's not then there isn't an argument for not relocating outside of China in the first place. > It’s a lot harder to justify paying more for lesser-quality labor and to upend logistics because of some false idea that “made in America” means anything. Well it kind of does right? It's a geostrategic concern where certain components or products need to be made in safe harbors. Instability is bad for business, and the fact that we are discussing this proves the point. Made in America doesn't necessarily have to mean the rah-rah Eagles soaring kind of thing, it can also mean actual national security concerns relative to geopolitical and strategic realities that necesitate hire costs that outweigh other benefits.
Veliladon 4y ago
Because India is also putting a lot of effort into submodule production. It's one thing to do final assembly in a location. What India is doing is putting a lot of effort into building the ancillary industries that accompany final assembly. All those discrete resistors and capacitors that go onto the PCB have to be sourced from somewhere. If you run out the line can't do anything. This doesn't happen in cities like Taipei, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen because there's literally infinite amounts of these commodities in the area thanks to all the manufacturers of these commodities. Nobody in the US makes SMD parts anymore. It's all higher up in the value chain. But those parts, even if they're commodities, still need to be made. India is going for it which is why Apple is diversifying there instead of the US.
- baybal2 4y ago
dghlsakjg 4y ago
Bringing it back? The US was never a bluetooth headphone manufacturing powerhouse. We make other stuff, and we should continue to make the high value goods we are specialized in, not consumer trinkets for low wages. Value added in manufacturing is far more important, and building headphones doesn't do that. Leave that to some other place. I suspect that you have been listening to too much news entertainment. The US manufacturing industry is as big as it's ever been in terms of real output (not jobs). There has more than a trillion dollars in expansion since the pre-covid peak in manufacturing. The US is #2 in the world for gross manufacturing output, and in the top 10 for value add.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  Why shouldnt the us and the eu plus friends manufacture bluetooth headsets with the aid of high tech robotics? As soon as that type of high volume low price manufacturing moves back you will see a lot more innovation. This will only benefit everyone’s progress including in non aligned countries. The r&d and training to build and create robotics would be rather welcome.
  - icelancer 4y ago
    >> Why shouldnt the us and the eu plus friends manufacture bluetooth headsets with the aid of high tech robotics? Because: >> high volume low price manufacturing Is not possible in the US or EU.
- narrator 4y ago
  A lot of u.s manufacturing capability for electronics is paid for by military contracts. The U.S manufacturers don't even try to compete with China because military contractors are not allowed to make stuff there.
yrgulation 4y ago
I did and one option in order to keep costs low is to rely more on high end automation. And when there is no capacity then have it spread around allied countries first. It makes sense from a strategic point of view. Countries such as india have no issue, as we see in the comment section and its actions, to look after its own citizens first. Why shouldn't we follow a similar approach? Why send manufacturing to countries that blame their issues on us and first chance they have to take selfish action they do it. Shouldn't we also (by we and us i mean all aligned countries including those in asia and latin america) look after our own first? It feels like so often we help nations develop only to have it backfire later on.

Funny no one suggests bringing it back to the USA. The margins are good enough on those products, and there is enough room for automation they could do it.

by influx 4y ago

Funny no one suggests bringing it back to the USA. The margins are good enough on those products, and there is enough room for automation they could do it.

falcolas 4y ago

IMO, since Apple's public, it would dig too deeply into Apple's short-term profitability and growth, making it a no-go for its voting shareholders.

javajosh 4y ago
Put it to a vote.
- adra 4y ago
  Rich people hold most of the shares and they don't want people to know that they're just as self-centered as the rest of us (likely more which is partially what inflated their coffers to begin with, but that's just subjective assumptions).
ryeights 4y ago
Time to put the ESG/political posturing of major financial firms to the test, I suppose?
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  > Time to put the ESG/political posturing of major financial firms to the test, I suppose? Fastest way to end ESG posturing I suppose. Although ESG concerns don’t typically include “made in America”. It’s not clear to me how that’s be an ESG thing.

geodel 4y ago

Well margins are good because they build cheap and sell expensive. Isn't it?

filmgirlcw 4y ago

We don’t have the amount of labor, let alone the the rightly skilled labor (I recognize these aren’t “skilled labor” jobs, which we don’t have enough skilled labor for but we also don’t have enough people to do the unskilled labor inline with other parts of the world because we stopped training people for this type of work decades ago) to do this kind of work. We just don’t. Especially not at the volume you would need for stuff like AirPods or Beats. The Foxconn fiasco in Wisconsin was a grift on many, many levels - but the labor part of it was never taken care of even before that whole thing blew up. The reality is, if you were to manufacture something like AirPods (let alone an iPhone) in the US, you would be not only doubling or tripling your labor costs, you’d be getting shittier labor for your money. Not to mention the additional expenses and tariffs of having to recenter all of the material imports and parts into the US from other parts of the world. I’m all for paying better wages throughout the world, even at the expense of profit margin or raised device prices. It’s a lot harder to justify paying more for lesser-quality labor and to upend logistics because of some false idea that “made in America” means anything.

ericmay 4y ago
I think you're right but I disagree with your assertion that we couldn't manufacture these products in the US. Certainly we can't overnight, but it doesn't mean we can't at all or that we couldn't or shouldn't try to, generally speaking. Add to the fact that in China in particular as it grows into a more middle income country it no longer becomes the "cheapest place to build stuff" and instead comes more inline with other first-world economies which will cause companies to relocate factories provided cost is a concern, which if it is, it means leaving China and if it's not then there isn't an argument for not relocating outside of China in the first place. > It’s a lot harder to justify paying more for lesser-quality labor and to upend logistics because of some false idea that “made in America” means anything. Well it kind of does right? It's a geostrategic concern where certain components or products need to be made in safe harbors. Instability is bad for business, and the fact that we are discussing this proves the point. Made in America doesn't necessarily have to mean the rah-rah Eagles soaring kind of thing, it can also mean actual national security concerns relative to geopolitical and strategic realities that necesitate hire costs that outweigh other benefits.

Veliladon 4y ago

Because India is also putting a lot of effort into submodule production. It's one thing to do final assembly in a location. What India is doing is putting a lot of effort into building the ancillary industries that accompany final assembly. All those discrete resistors and capacitors that go onto the PCB have to be sourced from somewhere. If you run out the line can't do anything. This doesn't happen in cities like Taipei, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen because there's literally infinite amounts of these commodities in the area thanks to all the manufacturers of these commodities. Nobody in the US makes SMD parts anymore. It's all higher up in the value chain. But those parts, even if they're commodities, still need to be made. India is going for it which is why Apple is diversifying there instead of the US.

baybal2 4y ago

dghlsakjg 4y ago

Bringing it back? The US was never a bluetooth headphone manufacturing powerhouse. We make other stuff, and we should continue to make the high value goods we are specialized in, not consumer trinkets for low wages. Value added in manufacturing is far more important, and building headphones doesn't do that. Leave that to some other place. I suspect that you have been listening to too much news entertainment. The US manufacturing industry is as big as it's ever been in terms of real output (not jobs). There has more than a trillion dollars in expansion since the pre-covid peak in manufacturing. The US is #2 in the world for gross manufacturing output, and in the top 10 for value add.

yrgulation 4y ago
Why shouldnt the us and the eu plus friends manufacture bluetooth headsets with the aid of high tech robotics? As soon as that type of high volume low price manufacturing moves back you will see a lot more innovation. This will only benefit everyone’s progress including in non aligned countries. The r&d and training to build and create robotics would be rather welcome.
- icelancer 4y ago
  >> Why shouldnt the us and the eu plus friends manufacture bluetooth headsets with the aid of high tech robotics? Because: >> high volume low price manufacturing Is not possible in the US or EU.
narrator 4y ago
A lot of u.s manufacturing capability for electronics is paid for by military contracts. The U.S manufacturers don't even try to compete with China because military contractors are not allowed to make stuff there.

yrgulation 4y ago

I did and one option in order to keep costs low is to rely more on high end automation. And when there is no capacity then have it spread around allied countries first. It makes sense from a strategic point of view. Countries such as india have no issue, as we see in the comment section and its actions, to look after its own citizens first. Why shouldn't we follow a similar approach? Why send manufacturing to countries that blame their issues on us and first chance they have to take selfish action they do it. Shouldn't we also (by we and us i mean all aligned countries including those in asia and latin america) look after our own first? It feels like so often we help nations develop only to have it backfire later on.