Here is the scariest statistic I found in researching the revision to my book, The Post-American World:
Apple is considered the most innovative company in America by far. It has the second largest market capitalization in America after Exxon. It has transformed industries and our lives.
Apple has about $70 billion in revenues. The company that makes Apple's products called Foxconn is in China. They have about the same revenue - $70 billion dollars.
Apple employees 50,000 people. Foxconn employs 1,000,000 people. So you can have all the innovation you want and tens of thousands of engineers in California benefit, but hundreds of thousands of people benefit in China because the manufacturing has gone there.
What does that mean? America needs to innovate even more to keep pace. Check out my article in TIME on this subject.
Tune in Sunday at 8pm ET/PT for a GPS special, "Restoring the American Dream: How to Innovate."
Finally, come back here to the Global Public Square online on Sunday for the launch of our new "Global Innovation Showcase" highlighting the new ideas and innovations that will change our world.
What's your the scariest statistic?
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How does one innovate around people willing or having to work for a bowl of rice a day. No workman's comp, no benefits probably of any kind and no armies of lawyers ready to sue at the drop of a hat. How do you innovate around that? What we are, what we've become is of OUR OWN MAKING>
There is an oxymoron here.
Some infuential people mostly in the US came up with the idea of globalization, ie. the way to export the american model of economy, of living, of thinking all over the world.
So I can't understand the persistance of thinkers like Fareed and others, that know what globalization is, on how we will make america more innovative, productive etc. when america itself is globalizing its economy in its own will.
In a few decades the perceived difference between China and the US will be the same as the difference perceived today between California and New York.
Globalization was not intended to export US model economy, way of life etc..., instead a system of exploiting cheaper labor in developing countries for higher profits for American companies resulted in a "backfire" on the US economy. Don't make it look like Globalization was a benevolent US foreign policy. What goes around comes around !!
Ok, I am a 25 year veteran product development engineer who five years ago left Engineering to become High School certified; now teaching Math, Physics and Chemistry at Senn High School (Chicago Public Schools.)
I bailed out.
I have 13 patents. Big waste of time and money.
The problem today, and all innovative product development engineers, and small time inventors know about it, is that it takes $300k to litigate a patent and you have no assurance that you will win.
Furthermore,if your patent is violated from offshore, it is hopeless. You couldn't begin to afford an attorney flying to Shanghai and it would be useless once he/she arrived there.
There are no patent police in the system. Period.
Here in the midwest Chicago Metro area we used to make every product in your home and garage . Now it is all offshore.
IFareed if you are foolish enough to tool up your newest invention, there is awaiting a parasite who will immediately fly your prototypes or early production units to China and begin flooding the market with duplicates.
Most inventors or would be inventive engineers that I know feel it is totally hopeless. A waste of time.
That is why in my view, for the last ten+ years, you do not see small inventors coming to the market with their widgets like so many had done in my youth.
Hopeless.
Ah, but the US didn't cause them to have cheap labor. Market forces did. As well, low wage laborers benefit from having jobs, and eventually demand higher wages and improve their lifestyle. Except in China's case, the government has ensured that it's labor force will always be the cheapest. China has short changed it's own citizens and continues to do so, how dare you blame this on the US.
We have great technological innovation, but ZERO political innovation. We've traded freedom and democracy for empire, and now we're too big to change. Like the dinosaur, we are sinking under our own weight. We have become everything that our founders fought against.
We need to abandon the empire and return to the more modest vision of our founders. We need to revive democracy: Bring the bottom 98% back into the loop. Only then will jobs become a priority. Foxconn employs a million because the Chinese government WANTS people employed.
There are a lot of Chinese "poopagandists" on here trying to twist our heads with their brainwashed ideology. They suck, and they know it. We should move all manufacturing to friendly countries that aren't trying to take over the world by slowly boiling it.
Skeptic is full of poop. Globalization has been around since man was sea going. It is rapidly accelerating in recent times. Why don't we have the problems we have with China, with other nations? India doesn't steal our tech? Not Japan, not Korea, and not Europe. And if they do it's incredibly isolated incidence s which are actually legally punished. Instead of China where the government encourages wholesale looting of our knowledge but says "yeah we'll get right on that" when we complain about it.
If you used punctuation, it would be much easier to understand. Thanks.
Perhaps many are unaware than Foxconn manufactures a multitude of pc parts including: motherboards, video cards, cases, power supplies, and so on. They have been a mainstay for the cheap pc parts for many years. As for them crafting Apple parts, no big deal.
For once I disagree with Fareed. Innovation will not trickle down enough to help most of us. What we should be asking is "How do we recover the jobs we have lost."
Innovation is what we have always done best but if we can't compete globally to produce what we have innovated then innovation, on its own, will not be enough. Competing globally will be a tough pill to swallow! We must learn to pay on a par with with our competition. If government and the unions and the ACLU can't allow this then our innovation will be of no use.
When foreigners come here for an education why must we send them back to China or India when they want to stay and work after they are educated? If we have immigration goals to enforce why not allow people we have educated to stay and work at a living standard above what they have at home! Close the southern border to the uneducated. If an employer wants cheap labor allow it BUT the employer MUST pay for the basic education of his worker! We must get real about our position in the world. If we can't then we are our own worst enemy.
Christian
"Apple employees 50,000 people. Foxconn employs 1,000,000 people...
What does that mean? America needs to innovate even more to keep pace"
Will it ever be possible to have a 20 fold increase in innovation?
"Apple has about $70 billion in revenues. The company that makes Apple's products called Foxconn is in China. They have about the same revenue – $70 billion dollars".
Let's say, if Apple hadn't allocated the work to China and let it be done in California, there would only be another 50.000 jobs created, while one million people in China are employed for the same work. It just shows that the work done in China is labour intensive and doesn't require much innovative ideas.
50,000 employed to think up and design apple products in the US
1,000,000 to manufacture them anywhere in the world Apple decides – currently China
They are not inefficient. Apple makes a ton of stuff.
W/o manufacturing we will be a country of gadget designers, nurses, fry cooks, and doctors.
What it means is that China is still using ancient technology that is very labor intensive to produce its goods. The same Apple products could be made in a modern American robotic factory using a fraction of the employees in China. However, even though the machines will do most of the work, the Americans will want high pay, benefits, vacation, lunch breaks, foosball tables in the break room, air conditioning, weekends off, retirement plans, 7.5 hour work days, etc. Ok, so let's just manufacture in China and make it easy on ourselves. That's why Apple is making Billions.
What a wimpy answer. Lets just throw the towel in. I don't sell out that easily and I don't think many others do either
So do you work 7 days straight or have a couple days off per week? Do you work 14 hour days? Do you get a lunch break? Do you have a pension? Do you make minimum wage? Do you think people should forgo a living wage and some personal life just to make IT components or any product just to generate $70 billion in revenue for a company?
You clueless, indeed !
What it means is that it takes a lot fewer people to design, market and distribute Apples products than it takes to manufacture them.
The problem is that greed has trumped patriotism. Companies based in America and run by Americans should be willing to make less profit in order to afford hiring Americans and pay them a decent wage. This would help all Americans, even if that means the CEO has 5 homes around the world instead of 20.
companies will not take less profit. They are chartered as 'for profit' companies. nothing else matters. To think they will do good things for other than profit is moonshine.
They did back in the day when patriotism was important. Back when this country was becoming both an economic and military power. Back when CEO's and top executives were happy owning 1 or 2 houses and the top earners and corporations paid their fair share in taxes.
You all forget that the wealth going to China doesnt just sit in China. The Chinese consume American goods and services too. Those consumers will create a lot of jobs in America. Secondly, many of those workers can now afford to give their children a better education than they received. This creates a huge amount of engineers and scientists in the future which benefits the whole world. People must stop thinking that trade is about countries competing. That's an old outdated mercantilist idea used in the cold war. China benefits from America and America benefits from China. That's the beauty of international trade and its the reason China and America will never go to war with each other. They both need each other too much.
Interesting. I can bet you are nowhere close to being a business owner, at least not a successful one.
Interesting. I can bet you are nowhere close to having a shred of human decency, let alone intelligence.
Chuck, you are 100% correct. Patroitism should come before profit. And there was a time not so long ago when it did, here in America. When you put the greater good of the nation above your individual wants, everyone benefits, even you.
But Americans have been brainwwashed by the self-serving – "it's all about me, these things are mine, and I earned them through hard work". What a load of cra.p.
What the ignorant fail to understand is that the stuff they "earned" through their "hard word" was only made possible by the sacrifices of those who came before them. And if they want the future of America to be as bright as it was 50 years ago, they need to sacrifice a little for the next generation.
Oh, patriotism, that last refuge of scoundrels. Companies should put patriotism before profit? What about we so-called patriots? We all want American jobs, with all their included benefits, yet we ALWAYS want to pay the rock-bottom price for everything we buy. We used to have a choice about "buying American", but we selfishly all made our choice: low price regardless of origin.
As for creating a "policy environment" that fosters innovation that will create employment" I say GET REAL. Government CANNOT serve this role. It cannot pick winners and losers; all it can do is redistribute wealth from the place that creates it to another place that does not. "Serious energy and environmental policies" are nothing more than the weight of government's dead hand. Most of what I read here is empty bloviating and a mash-up of platitudes and wishful thinking.
Drum Guy – don't be so sure that we "all" made that choice. Some have chosen to pay a little extra for American made goods. And not everyone really had a "choice" – if the stores where you shop don't carry American made goods, then you really can't buy them, can you.
And creating a "policy environment" that fosters innovation has nothing at all to do with picking winners and losers. Please stick to linear arguments that follow some pattern of logic. Just saying "Government CANNOT serve this role" does not make it true. That line of thinking only demonstrates narrow-minded defeatist attitude.
And then, to claim, in all seriousness, that all our government can do is "redistibute wealth", while simultaeously accusing others of "empty bloviating" demonstates a level of non-sequitur that defies comprehension.
You are absolutely right.
IT'S NOT NECESSARILY GREED. IT IS PROBABLY WORKMANSHIP. UNIONS DO LOUSEY WORK. WHEN THEY SHOWUP
Thanks for representing the Tea Party view so eloquently. Your choice of screen-name speaks volumes about the validity of your thoughts.
then you won't want to ride any planes, trains or autos. all union made you know
Exactly! I work in the IT industry and I'm seeing a trend that is putting more and more American citizens out of work! Not only are consulting firms outsourcing to other countries, they are now bringing them here and paying them a lesser rate in order to maximize profits! Big and small IT companies are doing this all over. They are winning State government IT projects and staffing them with less qualified people from other countries. This is an outrageous! How can this be legal! Developers, testers, etc...are being put out of work here in CA, because they're shipping people INTO the US! These are non citizens who will never buy homes, spend money to help the economy, etc...they will save it and go back to their countries and live like kings! The US is going down fast!
Neither party has even suggested a solution. The only man who has was labeled a clown.
Foxconn is a ultra-low cost manufacturer that makes a profit of 1-2% of revenue (~$1B) annually, Apple makes a profit of ~30% ($21B) and is worth $316B. Each Foxconn employee generates $1000 of profit vs each Apple employee creates $420,000 of profit for their shareholders (pensions, individuals, etc).
This is an example of phenomenal American productivity – we now have an additional 950,000 people who can design, create, deliver other things. That is why we have the most dynamic economy on the planet and we are as strong as we are.
Those manufacturing jobs are extremely low-value-add jobs that earn pennies for the workers. Foxconn makes $70B, but they spend ~$63B on parts and makes pathetic profits. It ain't what you make, it's what you keep.
We Americans need to realize that these jobs are never coming back to the US. In fact, because wages in China are rising and shipping costs are increasing, Foxconn and its competitors (Flextronics, Jabil, Celestica) are assembling products closer to their end markets: in places where the total cost of assembly and delivery is lower like Mexico or Rumania and even India.
To suggest that US workers should or could get those 1,000,000 jobs is profoundly ignorant of how markets work and how we need to compete in the world. Our economy is undergoing phenomenal changes thanks to technology but that has left a lot of people unprepared to compete in the modern world. There is an acute shortage of skilled machine workers in the US but not enough qualified applicants who know how to use the computers that run the machines.
We have an industrial age education system in an information age economy. The world is changing and if we want to remain as wealthy and powerful as we have been we must accept reality and get on with implementing the deep changes required.
Spot on. Finally someone who understands basic economics. I like Fareed but I wish he would stop peddling outdated mercantilist notions that nations compete with each other. No American worker wants to work for $1 per hour and no American consumer wants to pay $7000 for an iPad so let the Chinese make that stuff. Mercantilism is naive and irresponsible and accepting arbitrary lines in the sand called national borders to distinguish groups economically is why the world is in such conflict.
A very good response. It's nice to seem someone reply with less sensationalism and more understanding of the true underlying economics. Let's get more of that.
John, that is the beauty of International Trade. Everybody enjoys the fruits of innovation. When America Innovates more Chinese workers get jobs, give better education to their kids etc and then in turn buy other American goods. So it is cyclical and both America and China wins.
I hope Americans or all countires who are innovators have these types of industries in all developing or underdeveloped countires of the world so that human standard is lifted in all parts of the world and there is world peace.
Amen John B! If we want things to remain the same in the USA, things will have to change! The whole discussion around patriotism vs. profits misses the point entirely! Blaming China is the lazy man's mantra in the US today. If we take a close look at American Policy over the past 30 years, we could realize that we had a sound strategy that we did not follow through on... Unfortunately, with the current situation in the US, our elected leaders are too cowardly to make the hard decisions we need to compete in the world, i.e., strong energy and environmental policy, revised immigration and education policy and a renewed commitment to infrastructure and R&D.
John B, I think you are missing his point. Did you see him anywhere calling to bring these workers home? Zakaria is smarter than to try and reverse free trade. His point is that America's economy is extremely reliant upon innovation; the type of innovation that Apple is good at . . . right now. As you point out, Foxconn manufactures goods for all different sorts of companies. Their work is reliable, while Apple's jobs are only secure as long as they continue to innovate ahead of others. At a time when the jobless rate is forefront on the minds of America's policy makers, they would be wise to realize just how important it is for our companies to continue innovating.
Zakaria doesn't want those jobs back; he wants Americans to wake up and realize just how hard we are going to have to work to stay ahead.
I'm not buying your argument fully, you fail to address the reality that manufacturing Apples products is far more labor intensive than designing, marketing and distributing them. If Apple brought the manufacturing "in-house" and on-shore, their margins would be a fraction of what they are now.
I think it's a VERY big assumption to think that 950,000 American workers are on the sidelines, ready to compete at the level of the 50,000 Apple workers. A huge number of them are not ready for that, and will not be ready for that, no matter how much education you offer, subsidize, or sell to them. What then? Just leave them behind? This is where capitalism and democracy part ways.
For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, there was already a history of high crime rates and poverty amongst the native-born populations of Oakland. Then the IT boom hit and now foreign-born people (mostly from Asia) are coming in and getting jobs that require high skills, while the native-born people of Oakland are falling even further behind.
In a truly free market country, one devoid of democracy or religion, none of this would matter as people would only see other people as just another item on the market. I feel like if we take your logic to the furthest it can go, then we have no choice but to abolish democracy and all notions of patriotism. Perhaps that would not be a bad thing in the end, but I think we'll have to be upfront about that.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.And the US may face a crisis in the housing merket unless it does something about the debt ceiling.So one tenet of capitalism to be relaxed could be to raise the debt ceiling and leverage it to buy oil futures at the current or lower rates with help from
OPEC making it profitable to do business in the US as compared to China.Raise taxes for those who profit from high oil prices rather than for those who have to pay for them.This could be important
in the event of volatile oil price movements which could happen at any time for any reason.
TRUE, TRUE, TRUE. If there were good old fashioned real people running things instead of Barbie/Ken people, we might have a decent country. Helicopter parents are to blame for a great deal of the problems today, parents who want to be COOL, instead of parenting. IF YOU'RE A GOOD PARENT, YOUR KIDS WILL HATE YOU FOR AWHILE, THAT'S THEY WAY IT WORKS. FOLLOW DR. JOHN ROSEMOND AND YOU WILL RAISE A TOLERABLE ADULT, NOT A WHINEY BUTT KNOW IT ALL!
And we wonder how China is so easily able to hack into everything in the US.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts – for support, rather than illumination."
Fareed, normally I love your stuff but this article is wildy misleading.
Foxconn may have 1 million employees, but that is because they build electronic devices for LOTS of different companies, not just apple. So to imply that the ratio of US to China jobs is 50,000 to 1 milllion is very incorrect. To make this a proper comparison, you would need to include all the US jobs at other companies that utilize Foxconn's services to build their own products. Once you do that, the ratio would look different.
Funny, Fareed doesnt seem to worry about the jobs going to India!
Zakaria is one of the smartest guys around - he offers intelligent rational options - he also seems to have that all not too common "common sense."
Are Mr.Zakaria staistics correct? Or there is bias in the comment?
1)Foxconn probably provide parts to many other companies around the world
2) Apple does reseach.Foxconn does manufactturing, and this is mnaytimes more labour intensive.The ratio of 20 looks ok to me.!!!
Please Mr. Zakaria do not confue issues just to get audience.
The fundamental problem is deciding what America wants to be when she grows up. Is a mature America Switzerland or is it France? Most everyone agrees that the America of the 1050's is gone and will never return because the rest of the world has recovered from the wars of the 20th century.
If people started to think and listen, they would realize that a large middle class is simply unsustainable and a bad investment. Middle class families overconsume relative to what they contribute. When they have problems, they require far too much to subsidize the lifestyle they have become dependent on. The biggest frustration is that nobody really wants to be middle class, everyone wants to be wealthy and being middle class is just economic purgatory.
The French have learned how to live well without being rich. If you want a big population, that is what you need to do.
Greed is what motivates Apple and dozens of other fortune five hundred companies that have outsourced jobs to other countries. Those million people that work for Foxconn in China I'm sure cost Apple less than the 50,000 Americans they got over here. If it means the differance between 1 billion a year in profits compared to 1/2 billion year in profits they'll go with China. There are a few brave, selfless companies out there that hire nothing but American workers, but it's not enough to keep all American citizens employed. Don't hold your breath, as long as there is money involvled, this isn't going to change.
Sad, but true...
Zakaria is an idiot. It has nothing to do with our need to innovate. But nobody will point at the root cause of the problem, which is you and me. Most of us like to blame everyone but ourselves. The problem is you and me, everytime we decide to shop for the cheapest product we can find. Every time we go to WalMart to save a few bucks. And the "greedy corporations", whose sole purpose is to make money, are only doing what they need to in order to make money. They give us what we want. But nobody, especially no politician, has the guts to tell the public what they need to hear. Because you and I are such little children who only want what we want, when we want it. But hey, it's more fun to blame those greedy corporations, who, by the way, employ you and me and make the economy run. And the corporations will continue to go overseas, and we'll continue to become nothing more than a service economy, filled with folks who think what's really important in life is being able to watch any video anywhere at any time, and goof around with their friends on Facebook.
I see what you're trying to say here, but as pointed out above, there is a contradiction! Foxconn's 1,000,000 employees are far, far less productive and the company is far, far less profitable. Jobs for the sake of employment, i.e., the Chinese model, where companies pretend to pay employees and employees pretend to work, is not the kind of innovation we need! In China, the government pressures and incentivized companies to have bloated workforces that are underpaid, under educated and under productive.
The US needs to create a policy environment that fosters innovation that will create employment, not an environment that rewards employment for the sake of jobs.... This means a serious energy and environmental policy, an end to religious based bans on medical research, an education and immigration policy that rewards young entrepreneurs and new, strong commitment to rebuilding our infrastructure and R&D capabilities.
Under certain assumptiond, that just means wages in US are 20 times that of China. With the same money (70B) you can employ 50K here and 1 M in China.
Reading the comments here, I'm beginning to think people just read the precis above and didn't click the link to Time and actually read Mr. Zakaria's article. His point is simple – innovation is not definable until it works. But that doesn't mean sticking to one theory, or one model, or even one philosophy to how things SHOULD be done.
In regards to the question of "patriotism vs. greed" which some have debated in the comments - Simply put, patriotism in America couldn't survive without the capital gained from greed, and greed without measured patriotism is going to fail. America can be the #1 source of innovation but that doesn't mean every American is going to be an engineer or inventor. But even those non-engineers are going to need jobs, or else they are not going to be able to afford the new stuff the engineer designed. And that means return to home-grown manufacturing.
If Germany can do it, why can't the U.S.?
Germans love their country. They have a sense of national pride, even when things aren't going so well.
Americans want to cry on national TV, and whine about "Taking back our country". We scorn our best and brightest, labeleing them as "elites", instead of encouaging them to be leaders, as other countries do. Ignorance rules here.
Germany has its problems, but Germans also have a strong work ethic and an enviable ability to do things efficiently. The US, I'm not so sure...
BTW, loved the "Ken and Barbie" politician comment above.
The fundemental difference between how Germans express their pride and Americans is in the direction they express it. Germans, due to WW2 have problems expressing pride in Germany itself, and need to be proud of something. They therefore work harder in order to be proud of their economy. Something can definitely be learned from this. Most patriotism in the US is misguided and only serves to narrow our minds. Whereas in other countries the patriotism helps fuel innovation and economy. (US during the Apollo Program)
Allow me to offer an "innovative" idea. Abolish the Republican party, and set up a band of monkeys to represent their party in their place.
James 2: List anything the democratic party has done that holds water. liberals are the downfall of this country.
Civil Rights Act – Lyndon B. Johnson
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act – Bill Clinton
New Deal – Franklin Roosevelt
Actually managing to get the Pakistani military (although for a limited time) to coordinate with our counterterrorism efforts – Barack Obama {search for this video on YouTube "Obama Kicks Terrorist Ass & Glenn Beck Hates It?"}
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which has tremendous room to do more) – Barack Obama
Killing Osama bin Laden – Barack Obama
Capturing Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar ($100 says you don't even know who this guy is) – Barack Obama
Saving the American auto industry – Barack Obama
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act – Bill Clinton
Oslo Accords – Bill Clinton
Are you another wed-inventing Al Gore fanatic? Once again a libidiot tries to take responsibility for things they didn't actually do. The Civil Rights Act was supported but more Republicans than Democrats (esp. Southern Dems) in the 60's, a fact that the Dems and media try to downplay whenever possible. And Obama didn't get bin Ladin! A whole cadre of hard working intelligence officers at the CIA and the DOD did! A CIA that Obama is trying to emasculate and weaken. And saving the American auto industry? Are you sucking on an exhaust pipe? Over regulation, Federal demands, corporate taxes, and Democrat backed Unions have broken the BACK of the American Auto Industry (and many other U.S. industries for that matter!) Get your facts right before you start spouting all the things your side accomplished. You are dead wrong (and just spouting the false party line) on most of them!
And by the way, all that money that Obama used to "save the auto industry" as you like to call it. THAT WAS OUR TAX DOLLARS. Our money, NOT HIS. So in fact, the American people paid to help the auto industry (but did not save it as of yet.) Again, libs like to "solve" problems with other people's money, never their own. Mr. Ted Kennedy being the biggest culprit.
You're not worth the time.
** "Libidiot"? That's got to be the worst comeback I've ever heard. Then again, conservatives these days seem to have the brains of a sea slug, so I'm not that surprised.
You'd like for the premise of your pathetic, cynical book to be true wouldn't you, Fareed? You'd love to see the U.S. taken down as a leading world power, opening the door for your bed bugs to infest civilization and send it back a few thousand years in intelligent evolution. I'm sure you and your ilk dream about it every night. Some of them pray about it. Too bad you don't understand the X-Factor of American ingenuity and the American people. You failed to include the power and incentive that brought the 20th Century to full bloom under American leadership – the Panama canal, Silicon valley, the internet, the Moon and Space. Americans are born to acheive. We are survivors. We are self reliant. We are bold thinkers. Americans are DOERS. Not dreamers and screamers, like so much of the rest of the pathetic world. You keep writing the dumbsday fantasies you hope to accomplish, we on the other side will make sure America stays on top.
Dan, you have already single-handedly managed to send us back a few thousand years in intelligent evolution.
Y'know what America can't face?
Cheap labor.
Let free market capitalism run its course, do away with minimum wage and everyone who is employable _will be employed_
Until then, keep waving your manufacturing goodbye, all the innovation in the world won't change an ailing economy. There's one ONE Apple in the US. There's about 10 Foxconn's in S/SE Asia. You do the math.
Also, from most of the comments here, it's painfully clear that too many people assume Chinese factories are labor-intensive and nothing more. How many, I wonder, have actually been to a Foxconn or ASUS plant? It's like something out of a Sci-Fi novel, not a sweatshop.
Foxconn makes everything! Not only apple. HP Dell ... You name it all sorts of things you buy from walmart
Your point is valid . The statistics is not.
Also Foxconn is taking a bigger share in engineering. Moving from oem to oDm in many cases
Can you innovate without manufacturing?
Foxconn, and Acer, lenovo etc are all moving up the chain. How far can they go?
This person cannot be trusted. He is anti-american and pro arab/muslim.He would love to see the U.S.A. destroyed and he's diong everything he can to bring it about.He's more than likely amember of the taliban or al qaeda.
While we could always innovate more prolifically what we REALLY need to do is manufacture more and stop shipping jobs overseas.
Is it right to put a gun to an American employer's head and say "Keep those jobs in America, or else," ??
I don't think so. There is no "we" when it comes to the economy! How can you, some random person in the country, dictate to Apple where and who they can hire? I don't think you should. It wouldn't be right.
The beauty of the capitalist system is that the change lies with the majority, not the company. It's been mentioned above, but these "evil corporations" only give us what we want, if we want cheap technology, they have no choice but to outsource, as we also want higher wages. The only, only way to "get back our jobs" is to only buy american made products, and I like the rest of the majority of the country, don't only buy American. The only other way that things will change is when china stops artificially holding down the exchange rate on the yen. This will only spur on the move of all the jobs there, to countries where the labor is cheaper. Not the US
Should we try to return up all the other jobs that we outgrew as well?
Should we restart our textile industry and stop trading for garments? Should we insist that all shoes that we wear are US made? Should we stop buying any foreign cars or car parts? Should we only eat food we grow here in the US? Should we stop buying oil from outside the US and only use US oil?
Or, should we accept that jobs will move as relative costs change? That we can be better off as a country if we let other workers make things that they can make for less and then trade with them on a global scale, allowing our workers to do what they do best and have a higher standard of living as a result? (yeah, those Nikes you just bought your kid would cost 5X as much if they were made here, would that make you better of or not?)
I think the American government should relax immigration controls so that these Foxconn workers could move to America. Abolish the minimum wage and they could continue to be paid at low wages (although not nearly as low). Right now we like to pretend we have a free market society, but the reality is that the ability for global labor to compete for American job opportunities is extremely regulated by immigration restrictions and other laws. If you've ever applied for any job in your life, you benefited from state regulation of the "free market." Government law enforcers used guns to stop people from applying to your job. So don't go around thinking you fairly and freely earned every job you ever got hired for.
I feel like the global economic system is really broken. I have a job that pays me $33k a year after taxes, and it is extremely easy, stress free, and frankly, 99% of those Foxconn workers could do it. So why am I making so much more money than these guys? I'm not rich by most American's standards, but I'd imagine these Foxconn workers would disagree. Even after you factor in different cost of living data, I'm sure my Purchasing Power Parity far surpasses theirs.
A lot of people are writing that these Chinese workers are dumb, uninnovative, and uncreative and DESERVE to be paid such low wages. My American job is not innovative or creative either, and yet I am being paid a vastly larger sum for completely unmeritocratic reasons. It's messed up.
I have to agree on this. Americans are paid too much for the work they do. It would be interesting if the minimum wage was abolished. Companies may actually keep jobs in America if they could pay Americans what they pay others.
Let them eat cake. Until they storm the Bastille.
We need to implement the Universal Annuity System.
America is deeply burden by excessive government depth, banking manipulation and old corporate strategies’ to allow authentic innovation, creative thinking to sprout in conflict with tier investments. Of course, the practice will be encourage with venture cash and grants, but not with out holding the reign for expansion.
And two, what can America create outside of some sort of convenient product that can go faster, smoother or taste better, look smarter or something the Jones don’t have. Which is what has been produced for the last 4 decades, nothing creatively just replicas with new costumes.
So what is innovative or creative thinking? Try this one; America, get rid of that contemporary slave term, “employee” and start charging corporations a service fee for your time-function integration to their trade practice. Incorporate yourself as a service entity that can provide multiple areas of time limit expertise under the guidance of a pre-assemble look program submitted with no oversight or management involvement. A program/work order sent straight to your IT equipment with allotted time requirement, schedule, location and with an actual visual application to the work specification, nothing that a average 12th grade student can’t understand and apply. After the completion of the required work order and schedule time allotment, a service fee will automatically be deposited into your business account.
Yes, a system as such can work and will work, but not here in the US, because of the massive dependency created by the employee practice for so many years. Though proving to be failing, most will wait for the return and it will in time (a long time) and with re-modified restriction, you will work the same with less money to abreast the growing global nations; Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC)(s).
Any other creative ideals?
Really? You don't understand the difference between commodity manufacturing and high-tech innovation? Apple could VERY easily take it's products and have them manufactured by a Foxconn competitor in South Korea, Taiwan, Maylasia, India, Mexico,... at similar prices. Because of that, there is no margin in the commodity manufacturing business and everything is done at the lowest cost possible (would you want to work there?). Compare that to Apple, which is not a commodity, can't be easily replaced (though many have tried to make cheaper versions of their products), and pays quite well for the technical innovations it's employees contribute.
I suspect Apple's market capitalization is 50X Foxconn's and that doesn't even do it justice.
Manufacturing is SO 20 years ago.
The processes introduced and used in Manufacturing form the basis for all efficient production of all products. It is true that there haven't been any "Assembly Line" level improvements in the recent past, but its the simple fact that in the technology industry innovation is much easier. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, things will need to be made, manufacturing will never be obsolete, especially as companies like Apple continue to make products that need to be higher power and in a smaller package. Do you think the tech designers at apple design the machines that make their product. NO, its the industrial engineers and manufacturers that make any of that possible. Without them, the most we could ever hope to achieve is a prototype. Not the hundreds of thousands of iphones we come to expect
Liberals like to blame off shoring on Conservatives, but they love Apple; wonder how that sits with them?
Not well, I'd imagine. On the other side of that coin is that nearly all of Silicon Valley votes Democrat. Republicans hold these IT and entrepreneur people up as examples of American exceptionalism and superiority, but they're all Democrat!
Since you and I will always be choosing the cheapest products, there's only one answer to all of this. And it's not the childish Dems vs. Repubs nonsense that most of you morons always trot out because you don't have any real answers. The only way to deal with the uneven playing field between the US and China and India, etc., is to level it. And as much as I generally despise unions, in this case they could play a key role in fixing the problem. Since they are no longer a benefit in the US (and in fact a massive, catastrophic disability), send all of the union leaders/thugs to China and India, and get them to start unionizing those other countries in an attempt to create some sort of middle class. And maybe in 20 years they'll develop minimum wage, and start getting paid benefits and overtime and extra pay for work they aren't doing. And then send all of the environmental groups over there to start kicking some environmental butt, and force those foreign companies to expend huge amounts of cash to comply with ridiculous requirements. And then maybe in 40 years the US companies will have no reason to move overseas because they'll become as screwed up as we are.
You call union leaders thugs and then claim to be non-partisan? I guess you also want to end Medicare and Medicaid, in a non-partisan way, of course. Throw the unemployed, granny, and handicapped people under the bus, it's the Republican way.
What I'm reading is it takes a Chinese company 1,000,000 employees to earn as much as an American company with 50,000 employees. Why is that scary and why does that mean we have to be more innovative. Sounds like we're already 20 times as effective... ?
USA should become good partners of china and help create a new world order
Just ask the Tibetans, I'm sure they will agree. Not.
And USA should encourage china to have excellent relations with all the neighbouring countries such as taiwan, s.korea, japan, philippines, india etc. We should request china not to promote terrorism and nuke risks by supporting delinquent states like pakistan, north korea, iran etc– because imagine if the usa, japan, india, taiwan etc stop trading with china due to its terrorist support- then china"s economy will nose-dive, and millions of chinese will become unemployed – would they like to risk all this for terrorist states like pakistan???
GOP solution = Turn the Old, Sick, and Poor into slaves. Then whip them until they are Young, Healthy, and Rich. Or until they are dead. Then turn them into Soylent Green to feed the military. A self sustaining system.
My scary statistic:
Nearly two decades after the cold war ended, the victorious USA can compare the influence of the state upon the private sector in its own economy, and in the economy of Communist Vietnam. Communist Vietnam, you may recall, was the enemy that had to be defeated for the good of the free market and private property rights everywhere.
So, the best marco way to look at how much a state influences the private "free" market is to look at the ratio of government taxation and spending to GDP. That tells you what percentage of the economic activity is the region is controlled by political parties and funded by taxation. Here are the stats:
Free market USA: Tax to GDP = 26.9%, Govt Spending to GDP = 38.9%
Communist Vietnam: Tax to GDP = 23.6%, Govt Spending to GDP = 28.8%
1,2,3, what are we fighting for? Don;t ask me I don't give a damn...
The happiest countries are those which mix well regulated capitalism with a modest amount of socialism, such as Denmark. The least financial inequality = the most happiness.
Foxconn is not as happy-go-lucky as this article makes it seem. 30,000 people at Apple are making comfortable salaries and working comfortable schedules. 1,000,000 people at Foxconn are living in horrible conditions and making very little compared to Apple employees.
Some examples: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-26/foxconn-worker-in-china-committed-suicide-hkcna-reports-1-.html
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/foxconn-no-suicide-pledge/
Henry Ford wasn't perfect. However, he believed that his workers should be able to afford the things they made. Ford made it happen. That's Old American. Jobs might not like it (who knows), but nevertheless, he's New American – the result of the Democrat-Republican joint venture involving the exploitation of foreign labor costs and laws in order to subvert the American people. The number of Americans who can't afford Apple products is increasing monthly. That said, I hope Mr. Jobs' health issues get under control. The loss of Steve isn't going to help matters. Certainly, Steve is just doing what all shareholders expect: growth at any cost. Who do we blame first? As for Silicon Valley, the day when Chinese college grads can design gizmos is fast approaching. All those fancy car drivers who don't manage to part at least $1 million in a safe place will get their comeuppance.
What Economic Recovery? Let's Get Doped Into Foreign Affairs to Forget the Failing Economy.
In May, the American economy added the insignificant number of 38,000 jobs. America is overpopulated with over 311 million people (nobody knows how many illegal aliens) and cannot support its own population, but millions of new illegal and legal immigrants arrive each year. There is no industrial plan to bring back the millions of jobs and industries that global corporations exported and continue to export.
My blog has solutions.
According to the US government's own statistics, 36% of men 16 to 64 years old are out of the work force. Most don't count because they are not looking for work. It takes money to look for work, after a while people vanish from the unemployment statistics.
In my blog, I loaded George Washington's "Farewell Address" advising America. I highlighted the parts that we are violating. Communist China is following this advice and we are committing the folly of ignoring it. My blog contains solutions to our problems that the politicians have failed to implement.
While we drop bombs in Muslim countries financed with debt money, the Communist Chinese announced that they are buying large amounts of European government debt and that they opened a direct railroad linking China with Antwerp, Belgium in Western Europe. Europe is now China’s largest market. Europe is now globalized like America with their global corporations exporting their industrial base to China. Last year China announced that they have a controlling interest in Iraqi oil and are receiving oil from their Iraqi oil fields. The Communists understand capitalism better than we do and that economic power controls governments.
In the USA, only 9% of the economy is industrial. 76% of the jobs created during the "recovery" pay $9 or less per hour with little or no benefits. 47% of American households are too poor to pay income taxes. The Federal Government must beg and borrow $1.65 trillion dollars this year. Many States and local governments are bankrupt. Local Property taxes are crushing the middle class in many States invaded by illegal aliens. Their children consume Medicaid and school services. Bankrupt States like New York have dumped welfare Medicare costs on the counties.
In Europe from Spain to Greece, people are protesting that they have no future because there are no jobs. Europe like America exported its industrial base to China and Third World cheap labor countries. European governments are as deep in debt as America and their economies are failing under globalization.
Obama got us involved into a third Muslim war to get us deeper into the Israeli-Muslim conflict that caused us to inherit Israel's enemies. The "war of Terror" has cost us in ten years $5 trillion dollars and now a powerful special interest group of war contractors will keep a permanent debt financed war going until we are in debt slavery.
Roman Gil
http://roman-gil1.blogspot.com
The American War Contractor Business
In 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense admitted that the U.S. military forces cannot undertake any major military operation without 50% of the total American forces being contractors. The major outsourcing of American defense started in 1992 after the end of the cold war with the Soviet Union. The American military turned over to contractors logistics and many military functions that are traditionally performed by military personnel subject to military discipline. In all cases, the contractors cost far more than military personnel that should be doing these jobs.
The privatization of American wars has created an extremely dangerous situation because the military forces have to depend on contractors for logistics. This means that the American military forces in a war zone cannot control the supplies of food, fuel, armaments and the essential supplies that military forces need to fight. It is an established military science principle that to cut off an army’s supplies will force the armed forces to surrender. How will contractors that now make up over 50% of American forces in war zones perform under hostile fire from a powerful enemy? They are not soldiers fighting for their country, the contractor employees are doing a job for wages and their contractor employers are doing the job for the fabulous profits from the war contracts. If confronted by a powerful enemy, why should they risk life and limbs for a wage?
In March 2011, the U.S. Department of Defense had 64,253 contractors in Iraq and 99,339 contractors in Afghanistan. Contractors made up 58% of American forces in Iraq and 48% of the American forces in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) that is responsible for the military theater including Iraq and Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, reported that outside of the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan that it has a total of 173,644 contractors. USA citizen contractors 45,650. Third country citizen contractors 71,895. Local/host country contractors 56,099. Obviously, the contractor employers that are making the big profits are very willing to use foreigners as employees to maximize their profits because they work for far less that American contractor employees. The American military has globalized its war business for the benefit of the contractors and for the ruin of America’s military power.
The American economy is not large enough to support the present military forces or Federal government. This year Obama must beg and borrow $1.65 Trillion to add to the national debt of over $14 Trillion. The total annual value of American exports is only $1.5 Trillion and it has an economy that is only 9% industrial and technology. 36% of American men between the age of 16 and 64 years old are out of the labor force. People drop out when they run out of money. It costs money to look for work, so they don't count as unemployed.
Roman Gil
http://roman-gil1.blogspot.com
My scariest statistic is that people with graduate degrees make less than 1/10 in India than they make in the US.
Watch for innovation info...
http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/Lectures/Users2011/110602Chu/index.htm
Personally, I can't wait for the day when there is no other country in which to outsource our jobs.Then what will they do? Maybe then they'll be forced to pay a true days wages, etc., etc.....
btw....Fareed sucks! He's just another towel head like Obama.
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