Our country is in deep, deep trouble and one of the biggest reasons is our government created policies then allowed the corporations to ship all our jobs…and technology…offshore.
Many of the most important technologies in use around the world were developed right here in the states….and a good deal of that technology was developed with the support of federal policies and research dollars…that means we all have a vested stake in these products…we are all stakeholders….but the corporations have been allowed to ignore our interests in these products so that they can fatten their own bottom lines…..take computers for instance….
Today, manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is about 166,000, lower than it was before the first PC, the MITS Altair 2800, was assembled in 1975 (figure-B). Meanwhile, a very effective computer manufacturing industry has emerged in Asia, employing about 1.5 million workers””factory employees, engineers, and managers. The largest of these companies is Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn. The company has grown at an astounding rate, first in Taiwan and later in China. Its revenues last year were $62 billion, larger than Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Dell (DELL), or Intel. Foxconn employs over 800,000 people, more than the combined worldwide head count of Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Intel, and Sony (SNE)
Thanks for the link to Andy Grove’s piece on Bloomberg. Ross Perot has been ringing this warning bell since 1992, about the giant sucking sound of jobs leaving America as a result of NAFTA. The sucking sound is gone, replaced now by the cries of the long-term unemployed.
The bad policies that created this mess could be changed. Veto bad trade agreements, impose import fees, and encourage domestic production, for starters. Americans can build computers, teevees and batteries, industries lost over the decades according to Grove’s article.
The tale of Apple Computer should outrage every American. Andy Grove notes how Apple builds its high-price, big-margin products in China. Some 250,000 Foxconn employees in southern China produce Apple’s products. Apple, meanwhile, has about 25,000 employees in the U.S. That means for every Apple worker in the U.S. there are 10 people in China working on iMacs, iPods, and iPhones. The same roughly 10-to-1 relationship holds for Dell, disk-drive maker Seagate Technology, and other U.S. tech companies, Grove wrote.
Foxconn’s giant factory complex in Shenzhen, China has been in the news recently for employee suicides over working conditions. I guess Apple prefers this to American workers who might strike or bring a lawsuit over working conditions. Imagine a workforce so compliant that employees kill themselves rather than complain!
Zero Hedge recently reported that Apple overtook Exxon as the biggest company in America, now its market cap just hit 75% of the market cap of the entire European bank stock index (that’s right: one maker of phones and fads is worth almost as much as all of Europe’s banks).
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/apple-now-75-market-cap-europes-entire-banking-index
Apple’s enormous profitability on high-price goods negates the argument that trade deals like NAFTA would preserve higher paid American jobs at the expense of low skilled jobs on cheap products. Truth is, any American job is at risk. How long until all auto manufacturing is done elsewhere?
Apple’s revenue was $65 billion in 2010, with $14 billion in profit. After resuming control of Apple in 1997, Steve Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_jobs#Philanthropy I can’t understand why Steve Jobs is worshipped by so many people. This guy should be condemned as the poster-child for greed and bad behavior.
The Internet and technologies have added to the problem since people can conduct business anywhere in the world now.