California-based Apple to build $210-million new manufacturing plant. In China

Orange Punch the political commentary blog of the Orange County Register ^ | 5-21-2012 | Mark Landsbaum

[Mark Landsbaum]

Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic Party-controlled state Legislature and the army of bureaucrats and tax collectors doing their bidding have triumphed again. California-based Apple Computer will build a spanking new, $210-million manufacturing plant.

In China.

Is anyone surprised? The corporate tax rate in California is horrendous, the workforce is taxed worse than the corporations, the cost of living is off the charts thanks in large part to the costly burdens added by government regulations and housing, well, you know how that compares for California versus the rest of the world...

[hedgetrimmer]

I didn’t see any errors in those comments by dennisw.

What specifically do you find in error?

[dennisw]

Cuppertino is an Empire of Lies
Total???? That is most definitely a new billion dollar Foxcomm plant not that frivolous bullshyte PR of 210 million. That one is worth a hearty laugh.

BTW I had not priced Apple laptops for a while but did so for a relative. I’m amazed Apple Store can find enough mind numbed stooges to pay $1799 for a 15.4” laptop with measly 4gb ram not even 6 or 8 which these days costs only 20 and 40 dollars more. You Apple promo guys should be embarrassed being affiliated with such thieves

While an Acer with B940 dual core and 6gb ram goes for $379. And don’t waste time on BSing me, those specs are perfect for 90% of laptop buyers.

[ctdonath2]

...goes for $379

But then you'd have to use it.

[dennisw]

Apple does some of its own R&D in California and Asia meaning people getting paychecks signed by Apple’s gay maestro Tim Cook. The Taiwanese do most of it plus the engineering. My educated guess is Apple does 30% of its R&D and engineering in house while 70% is done by planetary microcircuit geniuses the Taiwanese. That 70% is farmed out to various Taiwan firms with Foxcomm being the largest particpant

Production is done in Mainland China in the Foxconn factory. Foxconn is a Taiwanese outfit with plants in Communist China. The brain work is done in Taiwan

[ctdonath2]

Well, that’s where the supply chain is.

There’s a lot more to having a factory than just the factory. You have to be able to get all the parts where needed in a very short time, and be able to make corrections at one factory without shutting down another.

Say one tiny screw is flawed. For whatever reason, it must be redesigned, remanufactured, and redelivered - by the millions. You don’t make the screws in-house, you buy ‘em from another factory. What happens? The new iPhone factory, for most practical purposes, _shuts_down_ because they can’t keep making iPhones with flawed screws. In China, the proximity and interaction of those factories is such that they can be churning out new screws and have ‘em delivered in a few hours. In California, that new factory may be halted for days or weeks because those screws are - tada - made in China. Keeping just-in-time inventory in mind, the consequences of such a delay for such a “minor” component are staggering.

Not sayin’ it’s a good thing. Just sayin’ that’s what is. You can build a new factory in California, but churning high-complexity stuff out fast enough - given that it’s all built from stuff made in other factories, much of which is in turn from other factories - just can’t compete when most of the parts come from across the ocean. CA drove out the manufacturing infrastructure; getting upset that a new high-tech factory isn’t built there misses huge points.

[dennisw]

Acer B940 laptop w 6gb ram @$379 gets 16 good reviews at NewEgg but if you are addicted to shoddy overwrought over-hyped hardware from Cupertino/China then be my guest

[ctdonath2]

McDonalds hamburgers are popular too. Doesn’t mean a nice bison steak at Ted’s is “overwrought over-hyped”.

[hedgetrimmer]

I take exception to your remark that California drove out manufacturing.

It really was the federal government that has done this, aided and abetted by globalist governors like Jerry Brown and Arnold Scharzenegger who make big money from their associations with Indonesian and Chinese dictators, for selling off California’s assets and contracts to the communists.

The federal government set into motion the corruption of the rule of law and the US Constitution with ‘free trade’ and executive orders forcing ‘harmonization’ throughout the government with international governmental agencies.

Corrupt state officials wholeheartedly jumped on the bandwagon following massive campaigns to corrupt local government by foreign governments (mexicos ‘embassies’ scattered every in the country) and international governmental bodies like ICLEI wining and dining local government officials at ‘confereneces’ where everything is ‘free’ and the agendas and programs are private so citizens don’t know what their elected officials are up to.

The federal government turns a blind eye to the unconstitutional actions of state governors, who essentially are treaty making with foreign governments, because they too are ‘investors’ in communism and slave labor abroad.

[ctdonath2]

Pardon me for not including similar problems in other jurisdictions not included in the discussion.

[hedgetrimmer]

It’s a mess that’s for sure!

[Swordmaker]

Foxconn is a Taiwanese outfit with plants in Communist China. The brain work is done in Taiwan

Foxconn designs nothing, Dennis. They are a contract manufacturing company with massive capacity. The rest of your comment is just more of your BS, Dennis. Why not provide some PROOF! You have none.

We are STILL WAITING FOR YOUR 2008 PREDICTIONS ABOUT APPLE STOCK TO DROP LIKE A STONE FROM $100 A SHARE!

Apple has the PATENTS (29 more granted today, utility patents for real inventions in tech fields), the designs (many more design patents), and Apple drives the industry, not the other way around. Apple does not copy the Taiwanese and Korean makers' lead. If they did, the Taiwanese and Korean and Chinese would be the making top selling devices, not Apple. Apple would be making the copies, not defining the market.

[dennisw]

Apple is tanking like that other alleged “tech stock” Facebook. Apple is down 100 points off its top. My advice to you is not to sell but to ride it down to the sub-basement. Gotta keep your faith in saints Steve and Tim

[BfloGuy]

Where did your insult, ‘big government types’ come from?

Anyone who wants the government to regulate trade is calling for "big government." It can be nothing else.

There is nothing ‘fair’ or Constitutional about the ‘free trade’ system, or the free traitors who run it.

That is a puzzling assertion. Free trade is not a "system" [neither is free enterprise for that matter.] Both are merely the situation which exists when government does not interfere in the commercial trade of its citizens. What can possibly be unconstitutional or unfair about that?

Now, if you are talking about the phony-baloney, so-called "free trade" deals that the federal government negotiates with carve-outs, quotas, labor requirements, environmental requirements, etc.; I could agree. But just because it's called "free trade" doesn't make it so.

I am constantly baffled by people who claim to be conservative but who rail against the basic individual freedom to buy and sell property without government interference.

[af_vet_rr]

Arguably, this makes sense to a country that has a historically justifiable reason to be sensistive to colonial mercantilism. But in this case I believe it has more to do with China trying to steal tech from the West.

Ironically, China is doing what we should be doing - they are protecting Chinese jobs.

There is some self preservation at play. More and more peasants are headed into the cities looking for work, and in communist or pseudo-dictatorships, an unemployed population is a threat to the powers that be. China is having a hard time keeping the outer provinces under their total control, and it's much easier if they can take the youth of those provinces, bring them into the cities, and stick them into jobs.

Take some peasant who might have been having a hard time finding food or providing shelter, throw them into a job where they are working 6 day workweeks and have a roof over their head and a couple of meals a day in their stomachs, and you've removed a lot of the reasons why they might rebel.

[af_vet_rr]

There are 23 RTW states that would have been happy to have that plant. I really don’t think the China va California was the only choice. Apple has been paid off by the ChiComs, Apples are red for a reason. And I am an avid Mac user.

Wait, are you saying that apples are red because the Chinese are painting them or something? I've got a cousin who has an apple orchard, and I've never once heard him mention having Chinese coming in and painting them.

As for RTW states, I live in a RTW state. As somebody who has owned a few businesses here, it's not easy to just come in and build a manufacturing facility. Hell, it wasn't easy for me to build a small complex that was going to house just 50 people. There's far too many regulations and palms to be greased for a lot of companies. RTW doesn't mean jacksquat if the regulatory hurdles are going to drive the prices up.

[Swordmaker]

I didn’t see any errors in those comments by dennisw.

What specifically do you find in error?

Good grief. What is truthful about it?

Dennis said:

That sounds about right but the plant will be much larger than $210-million. More like a billion (my intuitive guess). Apple want to keep the numbers on the down low for tax and PR reasons.  Foxconn does the real greasy work. Faggy Apple guys in Cupertino California are in charge of hype, advertising and distribution and getting the herd to vote for Obama

First sentence is self denying. He says "it sounds about right but will be much larger"? That's the first error on the face of it! Then he GUESSES with no evidence except a figure pulled out of the air or his posterior! That's the second guaranteed error. Dennis's financial accumen is storied on FreeRepublic. As are the untruths he told about packaging Apple debts and shorting them to make a mint... when there were and are none. Then he makes the assumption APPLE is making the amount to be spent on the plant "low for tax and PR reasons", both of which conclusions are false. First it is Foxconn making the investment, not Apple. Error three. Investments are DEDUCTIBLE for tax purposes and reduce taxable income. Error four. And companies TOUT their investment for PR purposes, not minimize, hide, or denigrate it, to impress their current investors and improve confidence and show their customers that they are ready to meet production goals and be able to fulfill contracts. Error five.

Next we have the ad homenym attacks on Apple. A classical error in logic. Error six. The Factual and dismissive errors of implying that Apple, the contracting party for the products that will eventually be made in the new plant (unmentioned by Dennis with his implied monolithic single operation company where Apple is, in Dennis's distorted world view, the subservient, and therefore, lesser, party), is merely "in charge of hype, advertising, and distribution" is completely false to fact, without evidence, or proof and begs the question, another logical fallacy. Error seven. Then Dennis, claim Apple's job is to get Obama reelected when that is totally false to facts and evidence, as many smaller companies, such as Microsoft, Google, HP, Facebook, Twitter, etc., have donated far more and done far more toward that effort than Apple Inc., and it's staff and employees ever have despite the myths that people like Dennisw keep pushing! The data are there for any one to find if they just bother to look. Apple has not even had a paid lobbyist in Washington. Error eight.

[af_vet_rr]

That’s the free traitor way to obfuscate the fact that Apple uses slave labor to build their products.

You are posting on a computer that has at least some components built in China, or should I say, "with slave labor". You cannot buy a computer today that was not touched by components made by "slave labor". You are using the internet, which means that at some point you are using networking equipment that was built in China.

If it upsets you that much, I suggest you dispose of your computer and avoid using the internet. Also send all your money to China if you feel guilty.

And you better start raising cotton and making your own clothes, and you need to avoid Wal-Mart at all costs, otherwise you'll be contributing to "slave labor".

[hedgetrimmer]

Anyone who wants the government to regulate trade is calling for "big government."

In other words, anyone who wants Constitutional government is the enemy of the "free traitors".

Free trade is not a "system"

It is a system in the most soviet of styles.

Both are merely the situation which exists when government does not interfere in the commercial trade of its citizens.

LOLOL! Free enterprise is individualist. "free trade" is a communist council system in the style of the soviets in the USSR. It denies US Citizens their right to a republican form of government because instead of trade negotiations constitutionally conducted through Congress, they are conducted out of country by foreign government and foreigners who find that things like borders, legal immigration and sanitary food laws are 'a barrier to trade' in their words.

Free traitors are globalists to the core, with no allegiance to this country except to loot it.

"free trade" deals are born in Doha or other globalist enclaves. Then the corporatist fascist relationship kicks in where the corporations attending Doha or other 'trade rounds' can order congress change laws or create new ones to so the 'round' can be implemented.

Citizens of this country have no say, unless they have abdicated their citizenship for globalism and represent the collectives known as transnational corporations.

I am baffled how people can see how ruined our constitutional government is, and are blind to the methods that the globalists have accomplished it.

[hedgetrimmer]

Oh I see. You are saying the communists won the cold war.

Never let America have the moral high ground, right? It’s bad for globalism and the expansion of communism.

Thanks for your input. I see right through you.

[Randy Larsen]

When I bought my new Ipad, I watched it as it shipped after manufacture from Chengdu China.

Works like a dream unlike most of the Obama supporters here in Kalifornia!