I quit reading comments after this second one. Classic case of It Says It All ~


I think it's precisely the open, fragmented model of windows that cracked the door wide open for Apple.

Users had had enough. They didn't want to be tinker'ers on generic boxes full of pre-installed third party software and malware.

They wanted to be parents, teachers, family-oriented, athletes, leaders, executives who used PC as tools to live a better life.

Apple noticed this and jumped right.

That's the future.


Sure feels good, huh?

I'm hip on this posters comments...



Yes, and I'm very happy both of these Companies, Apple and Google with Android are based in the USA.

We need to become a nation of producers if we are to have future beyond this economic downturn.

I hope Google has continued success with Android and Apple as well.

Proud to support both of these American companies.

I like seeing my family, friends, coworkers and neighbors employed.

The actual manufacturing . . . China, no?

That was my thinking. I didn't know that his family was Chinese.

Heh!

"iPad Killers" Don't Stand a Chance for the Time Being; Analyst

Like we've seen any successful "iPod killers" or "iPhone killers" being produced. Competitive smart phones, yes, but not killers.

Speaking of which, well still iPad.

Next to my project there is one of those game rooms, all electronic where you can win prizes. One game is filled with Nanos, where you try and knock them off a shelve, via aiming a plastic rod through a hole <-- yeah right LOL. The other game you can win a iPad, not sure how that game works or how much they cost to play?

That was my thinking. I didn't know that his family was Chinese.

Pretty funny stuff these posters put up, huh??

The manufacturing is a very tiny slice of the profit pie for all the Apple products made in China. A 30 percent profit margin the China manufacture I think gets 1.5 % or less. It is the innovation, the design, that happens in the United States and that is where most of the money goes.

Manufacturing by itself is cheap and the cut the manufacturer gets is very small. There is a reason why the manufacturing is in China. You can't make a profit in the US doing stuff like that.

Manufacturing = many hands
Innovation = couple of guys in Cupertino.

OK,so I exaggerate.

There are no hands in the manufacturing. It is all robots. There are some dudes who sit around and make sure no one trips over a plug.

Do you know how many thousands of people it takes to keep Steve happy?

zageratbackatya

So why not put the robots in TX or TN (preempting any desire to secede cause then they'd have to export what they produce). A robot in TX probably charges as much per hour as one in Shanghai, I'd bet.

The robots pull the same amount of juice but the robot tenders are making ten cents on our dollar. It's a lot less people to boot. We can pass on that kind of manufacturing. Well, it's not a case of passing or a choice. They can do it much cheaper. End of story in a world driven by Capitalism.

But making the thing in country does not mean wonderful things. Japanese car makers make their cars in Tennessee. Should we say that is a win? No, the profits go to Japan.

You need another scorecard.

But . . . but . . . but . . . if it gets made here, the distribution is cheaper, and if the number of robot controllers is that small, then . . . .

The Chinese have tiny hands and can fix robots while we take paid coffee breaks and have belt buckles as big as 3X5 cards. 'Nuf sed.

Believe it or not but shipping it in is still cheaper than if made in the US = Sadly

No really.
My understanding that the autos made in the US is for the US market - However like Hawaii, they are still shipped in from Japan and and some states on the west coast.

Not to mention that Honda owns a large ship that was built to ship autos only, something like 5,000 cars at one time (had a photo of it at one time) anyway Honda also has contracts will all the other Japanese auto manufacturers to ship their cars too. <-- I bet its dirt cheap shipping compared to having Horizon or Maersk for example, ship it for you.

It's not a bunch of robots... at least not just robots. Read an article on the whole process and the company that does Apples manufacturing. Thousands of employees living in crappy 'on site' quarters and people throwing themselves off buildings it's so bad.

Foxconn.

I remember the article because it mentioned employees working looong shifts and getting thankless pay. Not sitting around monitoring robots.


http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_24/b4182035750226.htm

The government also pays for the juice over there.

The first comment to that article has a point. "So far this year, 10 Foxconn workers have committed suicide". Can I presume that was six months There are 250,000 workers.

A quick calculation. That is 8 suicides per 100,000 per year. The US overall suicide rate is 10.8 per 100,000.
Caveats:
1) this data are suspect. It is selected to enhance suicides. Every statistical number has an ebb and flow variance over time. The six months was selected to enhance the number. 2 less or two more suicides would change the numbers greatly.
2) The US suicide rate peaks at age 24-35 (2nd to highest cause of death of this age group) which is likely the age of these workers. Don't have the rate but it is much higher than the average of the entire population of 10.8

So the numbers that the story is based on are a total farce. Unless young adults in the United States are just naturally supposed to kill themselves at a much higher rate than the Chinese.

I think people are always surprised at how many people kill themselves each year. 34,000 killed themselves last year. 18,000 of them by shooting themselves. And this is likely an under reported statistic. Suicide by cop is under reported. Also how many of the 42,000 traffic fatalities last year were really someone just driving into a tree on purpose? The family certainly does not want questions asked. The 18,000 murders last year probably also included quite a few people who were asking for it.

(ps. All those numbers are USA only. Not singling out Americans, they just have the best data set at the CDC on death and disease.)

I think you got side-tracked by data points. The point I was making is that the Apple factories are not run by automated robots. Have you seen pics of Foxconn inside the facility? People standing in assembly lines for 12+ hours doing the most repetitive work you can't imagine.

I always get side-tracked by data-points. I love data. I eat drink and sleep it. I love to tear other people's data apart. Can't help it. Death statistics are my favorite.

I'm torn. Math is not my particular forte but statistics I love like my first puppy.

Not sure what that point on that one is either.

Ever seen that TV show called (How its made?) Tons of manufacturing in the US are still made with life giving people jobs versus robots. Standing there for long hours at a time, doing repetitive work <-- do they wanna be replaced with Robots = Nada.

Th e problem I see with China is:

1 - Repetitive work with extremely low level of rewards, this includes being paid well.

2 - Job site culture is always negative = rats eat rats. Employees are spies that turn over others to management for gains or even for just for gossip.

It's not done by robots. The work is boring and the pay sucks. But they are not throwing themselves off buildings. At least they are doing it at a far less suicide rate than the rest of China.

China has a sucide rate of 12/100,000. Foxconn has 540,000 employees (Wow!) They would normally have 54 suicides.

The stories should be explaining why foxconn has such a low suicide rate. Instead they are hung up on the 10 suicides proving that foxconn is somehow evil.

Here is a youtube where she explains the numbers and then just goes right on and contradicts herself and the data.

It boils down to death = someone is to blame. But that is a farce.

Playing you, I'd have to counter that there is not enough data to support your argument.

How many of those suicides in the average rate for China occur at a work compared to private live? How many companies in China have zero suicides, how many have more than 10?

There are no hands in the manufacturing. It is all robots. There are some dudes who sit around and make sure no one trips over a plug.

I was countering this point.
Not making any comment about suicide rates and their accuracy.
Are you like this in the lab? Must drive your coworkers to the point they wanna jump off a building....

Absolutely, not enough data. The company and one year are way too small a data set. They are committing suicide where they live, jumping off dorms. But also the age group is neglected. That age group has a much higher incidence in the US and likely also China. So the expected is likely quite a bit higher. So all in all I agree with the foxxcon CEO, the story is bogus, it is not a high suicide rate. For at least a dozen reasons.

What you were countering was my sarcastic reply about the robots. What I jumped on was the bogus nature of the entire story about suicides. It's called a thread hijack. Not much of one since I was still talking about Foxxconn.

Ahhh.. so the reply about robots being used was sarcastic.
I didn't pick up on that... nothing to see that you weren't being your usual off-the-cuff self.

It's a hijack if the original point was addressed.. otherwise it's evasion tactics.

Sorry, I thought the little Chines hands was a tip off to <sarcasm>. That the belt buckles made absolutely no sense at all might have thrown you. ;-O

W/e Poly... that's a completely different post.
Lots of your posts are rife with sarcasm and derision...
It's hard for me to sort out when you're serious and when not... so I don't try.
I was just trying to have a conversation.


Of course, that's great.. you can disclaim either way later on.

I think we got some wires crossed. I didn't really care one way or the other about the robots with or without a ton of chinese. I admitted I was wrong early on. My initial point which I think I was correct is that the manufacturing in China gets very little of the Apple profit pie. We should not cry that it is not in Houston because the percentage of the entire deal is so small.

Then when you posted the article which I thought was cool I latched onto the interesting part of which was the suicide rates. The actual numbers show that the suicide rate is low among the workers at foxconn (although the numbers are too low to be completely conclusive) but that the story is touting the ten suicides as an epidemic. That is why I went hunting for a youtube which said the same thing. Ten suicides a big deal but 540,000 workers should have at least 54 suicides so the story should read "FoxxConn Workers 5 Times Happy Because 5 Times less Suicides!!" But everyone uses data incorrectly, especially news media.

The reason I say the numbers are inconclusive even though the 10 is more than 5 times less than the expected 54 is the hotspot problem with the data. The news selected the suicides to try to prove a point. Say there are 4 suicides in May, 3 in June and 3 in August. So May to August or just 4 months there were 10 suicides. You might think you could multiply the 10 by 3 to get a one year rate, or 30 but that would be wrong. The data, and the time spread would be gathered incorrectly. Both need to be randomized. By adding or subtracting some months you can get the answer you want. People do this all the time. They don't know how to correctly manipulate data unless they just want to get the answer they want.

But in this case there seems to be enough information to at least say that an elevated suicide rate for the foxxconn workers is a bunch of bull The FoxxCon CEO is correct.

They make those, too.

That's obviously referring to redneck blue collar factory workers. You know, that lower class.

Don't forget, we are talking about a Communist Country, China. Before these deaths would not even be reported let alone leaked out into the whole world.

So the lack of data is intentional or since China is growing so fast they really don't have a (watch dog) agency to really keep track?

With the Bush tax cuts keeping them there.