Tariffs?

[gil]

Investopedia says the manufacturing cost is $558 for an iPhone 15 Pro and $429 for an iPhone SE.
https://www.investopedia.com/financial- ... phone.aspx

Obviously Apple's profit margin is huge, but not as large as it would be if the cost were only $10. (And tariffs wouldn't hurt much if they were applied on $10 per phone for an item that sells for $800 or more.)

[Seattle or Bust]

You know what would be pretty impressive?

If the Trump Organization committed to building projects 100% American. Nothing from China. Labor made up of nothing but American-born citizens. Guaranteed living wages.

Snowball's chance in hell that will ever happen.

Yes it would be incredible. And it's a private corporation, so it doesn't have to worry about the stock market freaking out.

Do it, Trump Organization! Put your money where your mouth is!

Does the building you live in conform to the same standards you are demanding from Trump's? Of course not. I believe that's called 'hypocrisy" aka the single most common bond amongst the lefties, followed by the usual manufactured "outrage" from the perpetually "outraged." Utterly predictable.
Stimulus, response.

It's not me who is shouting from the roof tops to buy American numb nuts. If you had any abilities in reading comprehension and not seeing red when you read a post from a liberal, you'd have seen that I don't think buying American works in this day and age.

It's the Trump organization depicting him as Rambo soaring on the wings of enormous bald eagles while his company does nothing but buy Chinese aluminum to build his casinos.

But hey, I'll applaud you. At least you didn't use 700 words to say absolutely nothing this time.

[Donn Beach]

What's with this buy American in the first place. You want to buy an American made automobile it's impossible, automobiles are sourced around the world, same with most products, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's called efficiency, and it's made America rich as it's always has through history with trading countries. Its funny with trump's trade criticism, he's neglected a huge segment of the economy, financial services. America has a $300 billion trade surplus in services. You want an economy where products are American made, okay then you are going to reduce the economy to something like the 19th century, its going to make us poorer. Okay then, Its about jobs, America has been at essentially at full employment for years. Its ridiculous to believe the answer is to try and restore 19th century jobs, it's about moving into 21st century jobs. And this is why trump reversed himself, his advisers convinced him tanking the economy isn't a wise course. Its just funny to me, you guys busy defending it. All this stuff about fake economics and all that. How much has this cost you? Sure he will come up with all sorts of crap about deal making, he is a salesman, he's just not much of a businessman. And if you don't believe me go ask your boy Elon musk. He decided to buy into the Trump train, but when it came to trade and the economy he he had to bail

[Donn Beach]

Chinese manufacturing isn't about cheap labor it's about being better at it, it's about scale, having entire supply chains in place and being efficient with them.

Trump wants Apple to build gadgets in America, it's not gonna happen. Its what China is good at let them build iphones, it's been good for both economies

. What does China have that America lacks?

Quite a lot. China has more mid-level engineers, a more flexible workforce, and gigantic factories that can ramp up production at the drop of a hat. China also offers tech firms a one-stop solution. "The entire supply chain is in China now," a former high-ranking Apple executive tells The Times. "You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That's the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours."
.

[gil]

What's with this buy American in the first place. You want to buy an American made automobile it's impossible, automobiles are sourced around the world, same with most products, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's called efficiency, and it's made America rich as it's always has through history with trading countries. Its funny with trump's trade criticism, he's neglected a huge segment of the economy, financial services. America has a $300 billion trade surplus in services. You want an economy where products are American made, okay then you are going to reduce the economy to something like the 19th century, its going to make us poorer. Okay then, Its about jobs, America has been at essentially at full employment for years. Its ridiculous to believe the answer is to try and restore 19th century jobs, it's about moving into 21st century jobs. And this is why trump reversed himself, his advisers convinced him tanking the economy isn't a wise course. Its just funny to me, you guys busy defending it. All this stuff about fake economics and all that. How much has this cost you? Sure he will come up with all sorts of crap about deal making, he is a salesman, he's just not much of a businessman. And if you don't believe me go ask your boy Elon musk. He decided to buy into the Trump train, but when it came to trade and the economy he he had to bail

Excellent points about trade. I believe that the US actually has a trade surplus with many countries (such as EU countries) when services are included. In other words, the trade deficits exclude services.

And yes, I get the dream of restoring American manufacturing. I get the dream of going back to a high school educated person supporting a family of 4 on factory job. I'd like to see that, but American capital has moved away from making things here, arguably for good economic reasons. What if American companies had been forced to continue to make things here? (And remember, most early electronic innovations happened in the labs of US companies and from research at US universities.) How would *that* have played out politically?

[gil]

Chinese manufacturing isn't about cheap labor it's about being better at it, it's about scale, having entire supply chains in place and being efficient with them.

Trump wants Apple to build gadgets in America, it's not gonna happen. Its what China is good at let them build iphones, it's been good for both economies

. What does China have that America lacks?

Quite a lot. China has more mid-level engineers, a more flexible workforce, and gigantic factories that can ramp up production at the drop of a hat. China also offers tech firms a one-stop solution. "The entire supply chain is in China now," a former high-ranking Apple executive tells The Times. "You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That's the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours."
.

Interesting. This is advanced manufacturing that US companies failed to invest in (presumably because they were more concerned with bottom-line profit in the short term). I recently read a 2017 interview with Tim Cook of Apple. Some highlights:

China has moved into very advanced manufacturing, so you find in China the intersection of craftsman kind of skill, and sophisticated robotics and the computer science world. That intersection, which is very rare to find anywhere, that kind of skill, is very important to our business because of the precision and quality level that we like. ...

When you think about AirPods as a user, you might think it couldn’t be that hard because it’s really small. The AirPods have several hundred components in them, and the level of precision embedded into the audio quality–without getting into really nerdy engineering–it’s really hard. And it requires a level of skill that’s extremely high. ...

The truth is, the process engineering and process development associated with our products require innovation in and of itself. Not only the product but the way that it’s made, because we want to make things in the scale of hundreds of millions, and we want the quality level of zero defects. ...

There’s a confusion about China. The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I’m not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is China stopped being the low-labor-cost country many years ago. And that is not the reason to come to China from a supply point of view. The reason is because of the skill, and the quantity of skill in one location and the type of skill it is. ...

The products we do require really advanced tooling, and the precision that you have to have, the tooling and working with the materials that we do are state of the art. And the tooling skill is very deep here. In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I’m not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields.

https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/app ... think.html

[bpj]

Good points about manufacturing, for the most part.

What we need is the ability to be independent when necessary.

Covid exposed a massive problem with our society. We can't be dependent on other countries, especially for critical goods. It's especially insane to be getting things like our medicines made there.

I don't know enough about economics to have any idea whether what Trumps doing will accomplish his goals, but I hope they at least fix these problems.

[gil]

Good points about manufacturing, for the most part.

What we need is the ability to be independent when necessary.

Covid exposed a massive problem with our society. We can't be dependent on other countries, especially for critical goods. It's especially insane to be getting things like our medicines made there.

I don't know enough about economics to have any idea whether what Trumps doing will accomplish his goals, but I hope they at least fix these problems.

Having the ability to produce what we need in a crisis, to pull up the drawbridges so to speak, is a really important argument. It really is separate from tariffs, though. It's industrial policy: making sure we can manufacture/produce medicine, foods, armaments, etc., and ramp up quickly if international supply chains fail.

[bpj]

Good points about manufacturing, for the most part.

What we need is the ability to be independent when necessary.

Covid exposed a massive problem with our society. We can't be dependent on other countries, especially for critical goods. It's especially insane to be getting things like our medicines made there.

I don't know enough about economics to have any idea whether what Trumps doing will accomplish his goals, but I hope they at least fix these problems.

Having the ability to produce what we need in a crisis, to pull up the drawbridges so to speak, is a really important argument. It really is separate from tariffs, though. It's industrial policy: making sure we can manufacture/produce medicine, foods, armaments, etc., and ramp up quickly if international supply chains fail.

Assuming the same people will take control back from Trump in 2028, what could Trump do in 4 years that would fix the problem?

After his first term made it obvious, he knows he's going to be fought every step of the way, so trying to get enough bureaucrats to support his plan would never happen.

Glad to see he's making it happen instead of playing patty cakes with the paid-off pedos in our government.

[seattlefan-daBronx]

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