Posted on 05/04/2012 4:57:06 PM PDT by Swordmaker
After taking heat for shipping jobs to China and contracting to employers with questionable labor conditions, Apple (rather publicly) took credit for creating more than half a million jobs in the U.S.
514,000 to be exact.
That figure included nearly 50,000 employees in its retail network and its corporate headquarters, where products are designed.
But it also included FedEx and UPS employees who deliver its products and employees at Corning who make glass for iPads and iPhones.
So Apple basically counts anyone vaguely associated with the company or its products as a job that Apple created.
But what about the competitors Apple has bumped off in its relentless move to the top?
What about the once-profitable markets, products, and companies it has destroyed? What happened to those jobs?
Business Insider analyzed data on Bloomberg, went through dozens of 10-Ks, and read through layoff announcements to see how Apple's peers have done.
What we found:
Apple has destroyed nearly as many jobs as it helped create, eliminating some 490,570 positions.
Click here to see the jobs that Apple has destroyed
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
And just think how many telephone operators would be employed, with all the phone traffic now - if only the computer and the touch-tone phone hadn’t eliminated the switchboard!
That double post was “key bounce” of my finger on the trackpad. Mea culpa.
I wish I had a dime for ever lame buggy whip quip I have seen. This time around it is different. We have lots of surplus labor in America and lots of people who are employed only due to the Gov’t and do nothing useful or necessary. Or they work at a place that is mostly Gov’t funded. Or they do research at a university that is Federally funded. A million scientists (many of them foreign born) would be unemployed if that Federal spigot gets cut off. Plus it appears to me that thee fruits of their research are given away to the world, not kept at home for any technological advantage
Due to automation and computerization we can turn out goods with a lot fewer workers. We used to have light industry in many of our cities. Lots of that work is now done in China and Asia. Plus the entire job market is getting slanted away from men’s jobs to jobs that women can do and might do better such as working in an office for 8-10 hours each day. Or the law schools...are churning out a high percentage of female lawyers. My friends daughter is an environmental lawyer. What useful work do you think she does? The American economy is so (structurally) out of whack it’s a joke
Good grief, new and better products have always shifted the market. This is a lame argument.
“Corporations have no obligation to “the many” other than to offer them goods and services that they want at a price they’re willing to pay.”
I don’t necessarily disagree with you and to reassure you I’m no marxist. But what we forget is that 30 years ago US corporations just as US citizens had loyalty to the US, its flag and created national value for USA citizens. When corporations were doing well the USA was doing well. I supported corporatism in that environment. Today the multi-national corporate world has no national allegiance except to their CEO, BOD and questionably to shareholders. They get overpaid to destroy and mismanage good companies, with Lucent and HP as being two examples of many.
Multi-national corporations look at USA and national sovereignty as a PITA to them. They have no special allegiance to either the USA or USA citizens, but they want our politicians sending USA troops to die for them if it is their interest. They will support and use any country that rewards them. They want citizens supporting R&D that they can use to expand the economies of other countries. We would refer to a citizen who has the same turncoat qualities as a traitor...wouldn’t we?
What we need are import tariffs. It would bring back home the loyalty from corporations and self sufficiency to the USA. Eliminate the corp income tax, that they dodge, and establish tariffs on every component or product that comes back into the USA. They need to be encouraged to produce in the USA what they sell here as was done in the ear;y 20th century before the European bankers created the Federal Reserve and the income tax ( 16th Amendment) fraudulently passed.
“There is no “Corporate America”, only “Corporate Global””
Amen to that and conservatism in that environment is not corporatism by any stretch.
Wall St promotes that propaganda. The multi-national corporatism that many politicians push is the opposite of conservatism. Corporatism is about a world without borders, and countries without sovereignty, and serfdom. The multi-nationals, Wall St. and the USA Chamber of Commerce, and the Democrat elites too who want more votes while screwing their constituents too, are behind the 30 year failure to defend our border with Mexico. How conservative is that?
Corporations HATE republics. This is why the cry “we need a national law” we can’t operate with 50 different laws. Cry me a f-ing river. BS.
I give the Apple and their computer operating system credit. It was, as intended a plug-in appliance, to do a function.
With Windows/DOS it was different. Users were required to have a sub career, a level of Geekdom and a degree in computer science to diagnose and keep it running. Remember the old computer shows where the computer geeks went to soup up their DOS systems? My first real computer was an Apple 2 for which I would write Apple Basic programs. It was Microsoft henceforth, because that’s what the business world used.
Apple and Windows created a different customer base.
“Do you have an American made Phone? Thought not.”
If it is sold here, it either needs made here or the producer needs to pay a significant tax. Tariffs is what made the USA the greatest most self sufficient country on Earth until the European bankers got their hooks in our politicians. We once had only tariffs and no income tax until those bankers foisted their central banking concept and income tax upon us at Jekyll Island in 1913 because they wanted debt and a way to fund it.
Up until then foreign manufacturers and producers moved heaven and Earth to make their product in the American market.
The same banksters gradually sold the beholden politician thieves on the concept that debt and “Free Trade” is good. It isn’t now and never was good, at least to those of us who prefer living in an affluent self sufficient USA Repubic that is run by Americans and not the NWO.
Yes, I do understand.
Thanks Swordmaker.
It is much easier to blame AGW anbd George Bush.
The author blames Apple for crediting itself with jobs created by all those who help manufacture, distribute and sell its products and then blames Apple for all jobs lost in the electronics field regardless of the real reason. Perhaps, like Rush, he is illustrating absurdity by being absurd but regardless the reason, he is absurd.
Things change. It is physically impossible for Apple or any other company to make an iPhone in the US. If you don't understand why that is true, then there is nothing to discuss.
The question is could that be changed and how.
How dare they sell better/more popular products that hurt their competitors. lol
I can't agree with you there. Tariffs raise prices on American consumers -- they are just another tax. And, contrary to popular opinion, they will do nothing to spur domestic production as long as the current tax, regulatory, and monetary (inflation) policies are in place.
And if we fix the taxes, regulations, and inflation, then we don't need to impose tariffs. The U.S. would be a profitable place to do business. Much better to create an environment where people want to invest than to use the corrupting influence of government to try and hammer them to invest.
Don't forget, too, that imposing import tariffs would have a seriously negative effect (perhaps, disastrous) on our exporting industries.
Tariffs are just another way to let the incompetents in government direct our economic livelihoods. There is no reason to believe they would be wiser at that than at any other of the interferences they impose on us.
No, of course not. We were in a declared war with Germany.
Nice summary.
I worked for Motorola when they were partnered with IBM for the PowerPC fiasco. T was assigned to work the back-end for Motorola’s production support. In short, “the first liar didn’t stand a chance”. Each company bid on quantity and delivery date for the PowerPC product, as a consortium, the price was pretty much fixed. IBM would promise August, Motorola would promise July - then neither company would have anything until the December. Saw this over, and over again. Apple would have a product ready for release for “Back to School”, or “Christmas”, or just a simple refresh - and they would miss the date because their “Partners” could not maintain professional integrity on any level, any level whatsoever.
So, Apple did what it had to do; they told the PowerPC consortium to take a hike, and joined the rest of the world in the x86 realm, where they had confidence that chipsets, die shrinks and product would be available in accordance with their agreements.
From the inside view, this was 100% predictable.
Nice summary.
I worked for Motorola when they were partnered with IBM for the PowerPC fiasco. T was assigned to work the back-end for Motorola’s production support. In short, “the first liar didn’t stand a chance”. Each company bid on quantity and delivery date for the PowerPC product, as a consortium, the price was pretty much fixed. IBM would promise August, Motorola would promise July - then neither company would have anything until the December. Saw this over, and over again. Apple would have a product ready for release for “Back to School”, or “Christmas”, or just a simple refresh - and they would miss the date because their “Partners” could not maintain professional integrity on any level, any level whatsoever.
So, Apple did what it had to do; they told the PowerPC consortium to take a hike, and joined the rest of the world in the x86 realm, where they had confidence that chipsets, die shrinks and product would be available in accordance with their agreements.
From the inside view, this was 100% predictable.
“Don’t forget, too, that imposing import tariffs would have a seriously negative effect (perhaps, disastrous) on our exporting industries.”
I didn’t know we still had exporting industries except for those that are the lowest on the economic ladder of value - raw materials. Third world emerging market countries export raw materials because that is the only export that they can offer, but not for first world countries that can add value.
We as a 1st world nation should demand that we be producing everything we use, and the resulting jobs and economic boost would well cover the the lower costs of Made in China. The latter is a rush to the bottom and profits only for the financiers and the few.
That's called autarchy and it's economic nonsense.
It's the equivalent of each family's producing everything for itself. It that sounds too ridiculous to you, then how about each state's producing everything for itself. If not, why not?
Why should the US produce everything it needs if people in another country can do it more efficiently? Spending our capital on unprofitable production just makes us poorer than we might have been.
You are engaging in economic nationalism. Oh, it's patriotic to be sure, but it doesn't increase our economic well-being.
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