Posted on 07/08/2020 8:33:52 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sigh. For the umptyumpth time. . . The wages paid at FoxConn, Apple’s assembler in China, which is a publicly traded Taiwanese corporation, not owned by the Communist Chinese government, when compared to the overall economic cost of living in China, are comparable to factory wages in the US and other industrialized countries when compared to those countries’ costs of living.
The workers who are employed by FoxConn have freely applied to work there and in fact have freely queued up by the thousands to apply for each and every job opening that becomes available because they are sought after jobs, which pay well, and offer good benefits. They are not forced to work there.
In fact, Apple has specified in its contract with FoxConn that the workers on its line are paid at a higher rate than those on the lines of any other consumer electronics devices made by FoxConn. Now be aware that FoxConn is the assembly contractor for approximately 60% of all consumer electronics sold in the world, contracting with over 600 name brands.
When there are more openings for jobs on Apple’s assembly lines at FoxConn, workers again queue up by the thousands to apply for what you call “slave labor.” It is not. That is a misrepresentation based on ancient history for 30 years ago and propaganda from China Labor Watch, a non-profit based in New York City.
The fact is that Apple products are assembled and manufactured in many countries including China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Ireland, and the United States, contrary to your ignorant claim that Apple uses “slave labor.”
Apple places it’s own compliance monitoring staff on site on assembly and production lines to monitor working conditions, hours, employee ages, and worker complaints no matter in what country they are employed. Apple has pulled multi-billion dollar contracts from suppliers who employed underage workers and transferred to contract to the next lower bidder due to contract violation. So your “slave labor” propaganda is just that: propaganda. . . And proven so, multiple times over.
Don’t even try to bring up the suicide claims which were totally bogus propaganda also. Why? Because the suicide rate at it’s highest at FoxConn was TEN TIMES LOWER than the overall suicide rate of the general population rate for China in general, and 21 times lower than the suicide rate among people of the same age cohorts at American Ivy League Universities. It was a propaganda campaign by that same China Labor Watch! At the peak, the suicide rate at FoxConn was lower than 1 per 100,000 workers per year, and, pepsi_junkie, not a single one of the reported suicides occurred at an Apple Assembly line plant. The reported attempts and actual suicides occurred among workers working on Sony PlayStations, Microsoft Xboxes, Nokia phones, and HP Computers.
So, quit promulgating a lie.
Right, when compared to the costs of living in a communist dictatorship they are doing just great! It's exactly the same as we are! People just outsource their work there because they prefer to pay their wages to Chinese people instead of Americans.
One share of BRK.A would make up a pretty good chunk of anyone's portfolio; BRK.B is more reasonably priced. :^)
Folks in Omaha will be seriously pissed.
If the 3 gorges dam breaks will the apple factories be washed away?
That is one of the most ignorant statements I’ve ever seen posted on Freerepublic. Apple’s assembler and manufacturers which happened to be partially located in China are not even owned by the Chinese Communist Party. The primary assembler is FoxConn Technology Group, which is a subsidiary of Hon Hai, a Taiwan Electronics Contract Assembling Corporation. It is NOT a CCP subsidiary, but does operate factories in China, as well as in Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Brazil, the United States, Ireland, and about a dozen other countries. Apple products are assembled and manufactured in several of those, including the USA. Apple products are actually made of parts manufactured in over 120 countries, many are manufactured in the USA, including major parts.
The profits of ALL the Apple products redound to the benefit of the USA, not China. . . As do the Income Taxes.
So, no, E. Pluribus, it does not benefit the CCP. . . and especially an investment in AAPL does not invest in the CCP as buying AAPL shares does not invest in Apple as Apple is NOT SELLING STOCK! If you buy AAPL, you’re buying stock that Apple issued years ago and is now held by someone else and it is that someone else who will be receiving your investment dollars, not Apple.
In fact, Apple is buying back their stock, and has expended more than $800 billion so far in doing so. Apple has no need to seek new share sales to bring in investors’ money.
Buying Apple products is no different a support for China than buying any of many other consumer electronics devices manufactured of assembled in China, and a lot better than many that are actually OWNED by Chinese Companies which ARE wholly owned by the CCP, such as anything made by Huawei which is owned by the People’s Liberation Army. Huawei products have been found to contain built in spyware for China.
Apple is about the ONLY computer company that still manufactures computers in the USA.
As for investing in China, every time you buy a product manufactured or assembled in China, you are supporting an employee there. That’s true. Apple is moving its assembly out of China as quickly as it can. IPhones are now being assembled in Brazil, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. FoxConn is building a multi billion dollar plant in Wisconsin. Another expansion is being built in Austin, Texas. Some iMacs are already being assembled in Elk Grove, California, and in Ireland. Mac Pros are being manufactured in Austin, Texas. On the other hand, here is a list of approximately 52 FoxConn contract customers who have contracted to have their products assembled in China:
Here is a partial list of the top ~10% of the ~700 FoxConn's customers I've been able to compile from news articles where their contractural relationships were mentioned over the past five years:
So, Unum, how would be buying any product or investing in any of those stocks be any different, except for the propaganda that’s been published about Apple.
Pepsi, were you aware that Apple was the very last computer company to outsource to China? They finally had to for competition purposes. Every other company did it first. . . And Apple was the last hold-out. One of the other reasons was it was not just the computer manufacturers that decamped to China but the parts suppliers who ALSO moved there as well, forced to go for reasons I will go into below.
Nevertheless, Apple immediately went on a campaign to improve the lot of the workers in China using the contracts they imposed. . . And pulled contracts if the contractors did not comply. Included was a prohibition against Child labor. Forced overtime. Etc. Apple required the workers on their assembly lines to be paid 30-50% more than the workers lines working on similar products, which had a resulting impetus to raise every workers wages.
And NO it’s not compared to the “costs of living in a communist dictatorship” but to economic costs of living. Just because the government is one thing, an economy still has COSTS OF LIVING. Those are inescapable. Companies outsource to the lowest cost of labor, regardless of form of government. I am educated as an economist. . . And I can tell you that businesses are switching labor to elsewhere than China because labor costs are now higher in China than elsewhere.
The reasons that companies left the US had little to do with costs of labor. The US Worker was still miles above foreign labor in productivity. It was REGULATION and PAYROLL TAXATION that killed the jobs here, forcing employers to seek the work elsewhere. Government nitpicking plant design and repurposing blocked swift movement to respond to fast moving markets and that was another big problem. I spoke to a CE maker in California who INVENTED and created a new market niche product. . . But he could NOT GET GOVERNMENT APPROVALS FOR HIS SECOND GEN PRODUCT IN UNDER A YEAR OF TRYING, which had only minimal changes from the first gen product, but which the regulators would NOT allowing him to make until he had their official approvals!
His Asian Competitors for HIS INVENTION were already selling the imported rip-offs of his 2nd gen product (design stolen from the patent office) while he was waiting for the third review of some paper work reviews just to make the minor changes in his design for his assembly line!
His ultimate choice to survive? Shut down his plant and contract his manufacturing to China, shutting down the jobs of his 200 workers. The china assembler was up and running in a month and a half! NO PAPER WORK REQUIRED! No government blocking his every move! Meanwhile, he had LOST half of his customers to his competitors while the regulators dithered.
That’s what forced the move to other labor and manufacturing markets. Labor costs were the least of it, contrary to the myths you’ve heard.
Whatever you say, Chang.
Everything I posted is a fact, asshat. Look for yourself, do the research I did. Stop posting lies.
I apologize. I should have said Xiansheng Chang.
Shopify Inc. (SHOP)
A e-commerce company. They do the shopping cart and checkout when someone buys something.
The last 4 months it more then tripled in price......
$322 to today at $1,017
I had it in my list of stocks to watch but thought is was too expensive compared to my AMD stock. If I bought I could have quit my job!
I hope AMD will become like Nvidia which doubled in these last 4 months.
$196 to $408
Wonder how Buffet likes Cooke putting $100 million of Apple profits into BLMantifacrats™?
I lightened up on AAPL by a third today. I was overcommitted at 20% -
and personal circumstances now dictate more caution.Didn’t like to do it, but . . .
Maybe it’ll soon bubble up to 20% again!
So in the face of facts refuting your LIE, you double down. Good show. . . Asshat.
Check out how much Microsoft has done to kowtow. . . Just without the headlines. . . And the rest of Silicon Valley.
Apple will have to start reducing its Chinese manufacturing, though - just to stave off the potential political risk. This risk is growing by the day, and despite its size Apple will not be immune.
Not a prudent strategy.
Go back to Beijing. Your masters want you.
Your position is obviously completely devoid of factual basis so you devolved immediately to ad hominem attacks and insults. I, on the other hand, presented a completely factual refutation of everything you said. That makes you the asshat that you are. . . And a thread troll. Did you find your favorite Consumer Electronics maker on that list? If not they are STILL making their products in China. It’s unavoidable in the economics of today. Apple, on the other hand is MOVING its production out of China. . . Yet you keep doubling down on your lies.
He does react as if his religious ox is being gored, doesn’t he? Facts don’t make a dent in his dogma. . . So he immediate go-to approach is insult and slurs about the person who refutes his claims. They must be evil, incarnate.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.