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How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work
New York Times ^ | January 21, 2012 | By CHARLES DUHIGG and KEITH BRADSHER

Posted on 01/22/2012 4:48:02 PM PST by Vince Ferrer

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: apple; employment; iphone; jobs; manufacturing; obama; stevejobs; telecom; unemployment; unions; unionthugs
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1 posted on 01/22/2012 4:48:08 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Vince Ferrer
Slave labor is so much more convenient than that of a free people.
2 posted on 01/22/2012 4:49:22 PM PST by Joe the Pimpernel (Too many lawmakers, too many laws, too many lawyers.)
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To: Vince Ferrer
But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

There are times when I think Obama is some sort of evil genius who knows exactly what he is doing to try and destroy this nation.

And then I read a statement like this that makes Joe Biden look like Aristotle by comparison. Good grief. Has there ever been a dumber question coming from a president?

3 posted on 01/22/2012 4:51:44 PM PST by newheart (When does policy become treason?)
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To: Vince Ferrer
President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

OMG. Steve Job's "reality distortion field" meets Obamas.

Did Steve Jobs faint?

Did he say, "Sorry, union labor can't compete?"

Doubt that very much.

4 posted on 01/22/2012 4:51:56 PM PST by the invisib1e hand (religion + guns = liberty.)
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To: Vince Ferrer

I’m not logging in to NYT...


5 posted on 01/22/2012 4:52:27 PM PST by null and void (Day 1097 of America's ObamaVacation from reality [Heroes aren't made, Frank, they're cornered...])
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To: newheart
And then I read a statement like this that makes Joe Biden look like Aristotle by comparison. Good grief. Has there ever been a dumber question coming from a president?

Every entertainer knows that the mental age of a crowd is somewhere in the range of the pubescent. It was a moment scripted for the masses.

6 posted on 01/22/2012 4:53:29 PM PST by the invisib1e hand (religion + guns = liberty.)
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To: Vince Ferrer

Why post an article I can’t access .....?

I must sign in to the NYT to read the article


7 posted on 01/22/2012 4:53:52 PM PST by Popman (Obama is God's curse upon the land....)
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To: null and void

me either


8 posted on 01/22/2012 4:54:19 PM PST by jmax
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To: null and void

You don’t have to. Just copy the title of the article and paste it into Google. The link will come up, click it and the article will be there for the reading.


9 posted on 01/22/2012 4:54:46 PM PST by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: Vince Ferrer

Sure, electronics would be real competative with union labor rates, massive oppressive regulations, the highest and the corporate tax rate in the free world. Everyone would want a $5,000 IPhone.


10 posted on 01/22/2012 4:55:40 PM PST by Proud2BeRight
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To: Vince Ferrer
Related...
11 posted on 01/22/2012 4:56:07 PM PST by Keith in Iowa (Willard Romney, purveyor of the world's finest bullmit. | FR Class of 1998 |)
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To: Joe the Pimpernel

It is not slave labor. It becomes that only because people see the wages of workers over seas and compare it to cost of living in the US, cost of living are not comparable.
Sorry, I do not want to $5,000 for my iPhone.


12 posted on 01/22/2012 4:57:34 PM PST by svcw (For the new year: you better toughen up, if you are going to continue to be stupid.)
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To: null and void
I’m not logging in to NYT...

I didn't have to log into the NYT in order to read the article. I have to excerpt here on FR from the Times, but it is a good long article.

13 posted on 01/22/2012 4:57:51 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: null and void

Cut and paste the title into google and it comes up without having to login. Its what I always do.


14 posted on 01/22/2012 4:58:21 PM PST by packrat35 (When will we admit we are now almost a police state?)
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To: Vince Ferrer
So long as iPhones are not made within the United States, Apple has complete control over the price for the phones. If they were made here, then others could import greymarket phones from overseas and undercut the Apple approved price.

The Costco/Omega decision is why iPhones or any Apple product will never be made in the US again. This is also how Apple killed the clone makers who'd purchase legal Apple roms and Apple software and use their own hardware - once Apple moved production fully overseas, they no longer were subject to the first purchase doctrine.

And get ready for it to start happening with DVDs, CDs and other media products (including books...) Right now, you are permitted to buy a DVD and then resell it as you please. Any limitations end with the first purchase. That will end soon enough. Especially with the lovely SCOTUS decision which enforces foreign copyright on works that are legally public domain in the US.

Then again, the idiot SCOTUS decision that defines ‘for a limited time’ as meaning whatever Congress desires, including 170 years or more, and retroactive copyright extensions, the whole mess is an utter disaster and completely unconstitutional.

15 posted on 01/22/2012 4:58:41 PM PST by kingu (Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)
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To: svcw

Yes it is when workers are essentially made to live at the plant to be available to work 24 hours a day. Read the story again and see.


16 posted on 01/22/2012 4:59:52 PM PST by packrat35 (When will we admit we are now almost a police state?)
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Comment #17 Removed by Moderator

To: kingu

>> once Apple moved production fully overseas, they no longer were subject to the first purchase doctrine. &etc

Interesting insight. Thanks.


18 posted on 01/22/2012 5:05:38 PM PST by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: svcw
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

That's not slave labor. they got a biscuit and a cup of tea for gosh sakes.

19 posted on 01/22/2012 5:06:52 PM PST by Leroy S. Mort
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To: Vince Ferrer

That was the wrong question to ask, “How can we get Apple to produce their products in the States.”

The right question is, “How do we create the right conditions, so that companies want to create jobs in the States.”

You might lose Apple, even with the best circumstances, but you might gain 5,000 other companies and start-ups as a consequence of having the best environment to helping companies succeed.


20 posted on 01/22/2012 5:11:51 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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