How so??? (extra q marks to meet minimum character requirement)
So Apple will be backing Dems for real in 2020.
Got it.
What do you mean how so? They make computer hardware and the OS software. They’re an American company, or at least they were founded in America by an American.
Apparently they shop out at least some of the hardware. Kinda the implication of the BB post, no?
By that standard, if a Chinese company that makes noodles and imports American soybeans for that purpose, should we call those noodles “American Food”? Or maybe that noodle company is an American company now? No.
Nationalism is a pride crutch for stupid people.
edit: an errant word
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Really, this is a gift to Apple, as now they can blame the price on Biff’s trade war. And the Mac Pro is a niche product, made for those who need that sort of monster power which, c’mon, most of us don’t need. We’re not the ones trying to do real-time 4k rendering for the director in the editing room, for example. And the ones that need the Mac Pro, well, they would pay for it, tariffs or no.
No, instead Apple and other manufacturers can just point to the tariffs and say that’s why things are more expensive. Blame the guy whose businesses keep going bankrupt and thought trade wars are easy to win.
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Whoa! You really launched off on this one. You’re the one that used the phrase “truly American” to describe a company that, well, apparently is or isn’t…who knows. I was simply trying to find out what “truly” means as you used it. Good talkin’ to ya!
Sheesh.
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Aren’t they already paying twice as much?
“Transitioning” is a mealy mouth euphemism for the wholesale destruction by design of American manufacturing, which not only has enriched a tiny number of wealthy fucks, but also has impoverished millions of Americans. That is probably the main reason for the Orange Menace. Apple has just about the largest pile of cash of any ostensibly American companies. Maybe they should rehire all those laid off engineers and reopen a factory or three.
I’m not good with this Trump 3D chess.
- I thought nothing’s being done vis a vis tariffs because an accommodation was reached with the PRC at the last G20.
- A tariff would do nothing. Apple isn’t building the Mac Pro, a contractor is. And the PRC-based contractors are expanding to other offshore sites, almost never to the US. (That’s one of the flaws in Donnie’s use of tariffs. Then again, it’s less a legitimate economic issue and more getting publicity for our publicity-addicted POTUS and love from his base.)
- The tariffs that really hurt are the ones that would result in de facto taxes on the masses — Walmart shoppers, to name one group. The Pro is not a machine made for the masses. (Actually nearly none of Apple’s hardware is, but that’s another issue.) So even if the Pro buyer’s hit with the additional expense of a tariff, it would be irrelevant. If one can afford a Pro, one nearly always will be able to afford Pro+tariff. And that assumes that Apple doesn’t eat the expense of the tariff.
To;dr: Fuck Donnie and his tariff bullshit as well all the reporters falling for it and echoing it without proper context.
Taiwan is effectively an independent country, and is a member of the World Trade Organization as the “Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu”. Tariffs on goods made in China would not apply to goods made in Taiwan.
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Ah, good to know. So two parts of the iPhone (that I know of) are “easy” to source outside the USA. This one in particular would be important because it would be brutally hard to source the CPU-almost-system-on-a-chip from anyplace else (& yes, I know prior generations were made in S. Korea, but I think only TSMC can currently make the top end, maybe top 2 generations of Apple’s CPU)
Whatever you prefer to call it my point isn’t “it’s a good thing”, but “it was a long road to get here, and now that we realize we don’t like it it is a long road back, worse yet because we seem to be lost”
Also to make things more complex while it made a small number of people here a lot of money it also made people in other places a lot of money they don’t want to let go of, and the cheaper goods reduced the pinch for people here that have suffered wage destruction.
If part one of recovery is “no more cheap foreign goods” that is going to be a pretty bitter pill for the people who can no longer afford expensive goods (foreign or domestic).
Because they “owe it to us” for some reason? They were as far as I know the last major US “PC” vender to make the bulk of their products in the USA (they didn’t stop until almost a decade after all the other major players did, it is a contributing factor to them nearly going out of business in the 1990s).
The Mac Pro immediately prior to the current one was built in the USA (Texas I think). It didn’t go super well.
Apple actually has a ton of engineers in the USA, but they are almost all design not production. They are actually a fairly large domestic spender. They spent about $14 billion dollars on R&D last year. A very great percentage of that is spent in the USA (the R&D budget is public info, the percentage spent in the USA isn’t…I think about 95% of the non-capital R&D budget is in the USA, and while most of the capital budget probably is, it isn’t as clear cut if it should count as money going into the US economy because many of the capital expenses are imported items)
Plus you can’t really “rehire” those folks. It has been 20 years, many have passed away. The ones that couldn’t find related work have largely let their skills languish. The ones that found related work have only “kept up” as far as their new work is related. It isn’t just about what they have forgotten, the field has also moved on. They have also moved on, many have found other “knolage work” that pays well and even if a new factory engineering position might pay well many will be understandably reluctant to trust “this time for sure”.
I was surprised that you appeared to be familiar with the Chinese electronics industry but were unaware of Taiwan’s status, given that Taiwan has a substantial electronics and IT sector.
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