Uhm, they aren't the only ones to move out. Car companies, etc. thanks to union workers for that.

Yep. Thank the unions for eliminating sweat shops and child labor. Without the unions, we can go to work for just pennies an hour.

I'd like to start out by saying I am not an Apple guy. I understand the attraction of the product line and wish those well that enjoy it but it just does not speak to me. That being said I have to stick up for them here. They are being singled out when pretty much every company making any tech products is getting them made overseas.

This is why the US worker can't compete. The lazy Americans (reference to Perry's comment about Obama) are not only lazy, the are also spoiled. If we could simply outlaw the labor unions, lower the minimum wage to about a dollar an hour and bring back the sweatshops, complete with netting so that workers could not kill themselves by jumping from upper floors, we'd have a domestic competitive manufacturing environment right here in the United States. We wouldn't need to worry about health benefits or pensions. If the worker got sick we could beat them or fire them. Of course, the average worker, under the conditions mentioned in this article,would never live long enough to collect a pension so pensions would not be needed. And if the workers ever got up the nerve to organize into unions we could simply call in the Army and shoot them dead. Then we would be able to import hard working replacements from China. China sure sounds like a Proletarian Paradise, doesn't it? This approach would also solve our immigration problems. The US would be just like China and no one would want to come to the US for a better future. I've just put China on my ever growing "do not fly, do not visit" list!

Get the timeline right... Before Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 (ish), the company really was weeks away from going bankrupt. They moved production as cost-cutting measures when the competition was eating Apple alive. The "iPod factory sweatshops" also make computers for Dell, HP, and everyone else.
I would love to see Apple change back to US manufacturing, but who knows if that will ever happen.
I guess one positive is that Apple is the only computer company to successfully run retail stores (245 in the US) that all employ a bunch of people. At a time when more and more businesses rely on online sales (like Amazon's sweatshop warehouses), Apple is opening stores left and right with employees that seem happy to be there.

Maybe you Apple Zombies didn't read the part about Apple having more cash than the Treasury. WAKE UP AMERICA. Apple is sucking the money out of this country, putting it in their banks and into China. Keep playing with your APPS till you are broke. Apple could employ American Works and still make a lot of Profit. This is what Occupy Wall Street is all about. Companies moving jobs overseas. How about At&t and Verizon. They all employ a lot of foreign workers instead of Americans. In the mean time Apple put all our record stores and book stores out of business too and again the money goes in their pockets. They don't give to charity or pay a dividend either. Keep supporting them if you want.

To Stamp it's amazing to realize how quickly it all changed - how the door to so much opportunity and a secure future suddenly slammed shut after Apple began to subcontract out the making of its basic products and then shipped all the work to other countries. One day they had great jobs and the next day some were nomads, going from one employer to another, never knowing how long each job would last.

In the mean time Apple put all our record stores and book stores out of business too and again the money goes in their pockets.