[Silicon Valley] Apple iPhones: Brought to you by automation

I agree with Trump/Republican belief in that we need to bring jobs back to America. I think Trump does a very piss poor job of explaining what he means. Its no different than when a politician explains how their policy will generate tens of thousands of jobs with no real explanation. These same politicians also believe a job is created even if its only for 3 or 6 months.

Bringing manufacturing jobs back to America does not necessarily mean we are employing US citizens to sit at a table for 8 hours a day tinkering and building iPhones. This kind of work is bested suited for automation. What it does mean is that we are hiring engineers and technicians to build, install and maintain these automation plants. We can't do this if we are sending them to China and Mexico. When we have agreements like NAFTA that basically allow major corporations to circumvent tax revenue and pay no taxes for incoming product to the US, we are creating a huge imbalance.

Im not blaming a political party on this ... I am faulting politicians in general on both sides. While I think Trump has no idea when he says "Make America great again", Hillary has no initiatives or plans to fix our looming problems. Her only goal is to entrench politicians and the wealthy. We need to build the middle class desperately.

Everyone is giving Trump **** for losing nearly a billion dollars of his money. Obama lost over half a billion on Solyndra alone ... which was tax dollar money.

 

This is where the free college education is suppose to come in from "liberals". Engineers and technicians type jobs require some type of training. Even if its just community college or some type of trade school.

Or you could leave it up to the free market and hope displaced workers don't attend Trump U or some other for profit institution scam and make their situation worse by being saddled with crippling lifetime debt.

And sure Trump can propose policy to make building factories more appealing. Foreign car companies have already done just that to save costs for transportation. I'm just not convinced that companies won't just hire a bunch of H1B workers to run the factories while reaping the tax benefits.

 

The whole college/university is a big bubble right now. There is a big difference between getting higher education costs under control vs out right offering it for free. I know Trump U is used as an example, except Trump U is not a university to get a degree. Its nothing more than an elaborate workshop to scam people.
The issue with the bubble is not limited to 'free market'. Private and public colleges are all in on this. There is absolutely no reason to charge $200.00 a book that requires a license key to use the labs one time. This is an issue that all colleges are doing and its on the same magnitude as Trump U. This is corruption and greed which free college wont fix ... all you're doing is passing these costs off on the government.

Companies are not going to hire only H1B workers to do engineering and maintenance jobs. I have less of a problem of using H1B workers for wrench turning jobs if Americans won't do it.

 

What changes you want again? You mentioned enforcing existing labor laws. Is it that? What else? I'm slow and I have a hard time following what you want and arguing about.

 

It is unethical when companies are using countries like China who are known to exploit its workforce. 150+ years ago, it was common to use America for cheap raw materials (cotton) as they were using slaves.

That said, if companies over seas are truly providing sustainable jobs that are bettering the people, then that is ok. Of course, this is all subjective.

 

There was an interesting news story (I need to search around to find the source) talking about how the US has seen a boom in "high value" manufacturing. There are fewer of these jobs available, but they are much more specialized and the workers make a lot more money. The examples they were giving was a lock company that brought all their manufacturing back the US because the lock construction and assembly was so specialized, and training so rigorous, it was better to have highly paid US people working on it. Another example was chemical manufacturing. The Gulf Coast chemical makers are so desperate for more workers to train (it can take up to 5 years to fully train a productive employee) that they were paying $25/hour to high school kids and couldn't fill enough positions. I think the specific example was Formosa.

So while we are losing and have lost lots of "unskilled" or "semi skilled" manufacturing jobs, there are a ton of "skilled" or "train to skilled" openings apparently.

 

My response is appropriate with your posting history.

I don't think you make anything perfectly clear by design. Tony is more patient pulling and teasing out cavities than I am.

You didn't specifically address that living wage issue in this, so I shouldn't have included that in your quote.

It means American customers are more tolerant of lost qualitative aspects in the fast food industry than foreign customers and I expect more automation in those restaurants in the hopes of halving labor costs.

 

This is what many are trying to hammer into the 'automation took our jerbs' crowd. Efficiency has always been a priority since the beginning of time. This would be like fussing at Eli Whitney for creating the cotton gin and taking more jobs.

We dont need to bring back hundreds of thousands of minimum wage jobs. When Foxconn decides to automate the product line and cut 60k jobs in exchange for a few thousand engineer jobs, that is when we really need to bring them back to America.

When people complain that greedy corporations do not pay their fair share, they really do not understand how corporations work. Currently,the corporation entity itself is taxed, the product they produce is taxed, their employees are taxed and their shareholders are taxed. Raising corporate taxes forces the corporation to pass those costs onto the consumer with higher COGS and its employees by reducing benefits and pay. We should be cutting corporate taxes and raising taxes on its shareholders (the Buffets of the world). Unfortunately people get extremely wealthy off of investing and in turn they buy off politicians (ahem Clinton) to ensure this model is never touched.

 

Subsidize public colleges and incentivize student performance and utility in specialization over blanket all or nothing policies. Absolutely cut off ALL government involvement with for-profit universities.

Not everyone in Europe gets a graduate degree even if they're free with living stipend. There are plenty of trade schools that are cheaper and more effective at generating work experience, and the IT industry here has certainly taken a nod from its example with hacker boot camps and Big 5 supported online courses.

 

Except companies are sitting on trillions in cash waiting for demand. We have a demand issue, not a supply issue which goes directly against GOP economic platform, regardless of Trump's dumb ass economics.

A third of cash is held by 5 U.S. companies

 

You're grossing exaggerating the word trillions.

I don't see the point in your example, unless you are stating that all companies should operate as a non-profit.

Why do the poor feel like we should tax wealth until they become poor themselves??

I also did not advocate we should not tax corporations at all. All you see is 1.6 trillion that should be owned by someone else. You feel any mean is necessary to take this wealth away even if it hurts smaller corporations.

I really dont care if this money is holed up in a corporation. That money is going to get taxed one way or another UNLESS they move it overseas. What I do care about is when investors get paid out of this 1.6T and they are only paying a very small percentage of tax.

 

I'm sorry if you think the Harvard Business Review is a blog-like source. By the way, they show that China is also losing manufacturing jobs since 1996.

https://hbr.org/2013/01/manufacturing-jobs-and-the-ris

But keep denying reality and enjoy your bubble

 

Well because I was only focusing on US companies.

As I said.... the issue is demand not supply. If the issue was supply then there wouldn't be companies sitting on that much cash or most of the wealth gains wouldn't have gone to the top 1%. You can break the top 1% down even further and find that is the ultra wealthy who has benefited the most.

Who is suggesting that? Or is that just BS since you can't come up with anything better?

So you are putting words in my mouth because you don't understand economics?

Again. I made it pretty clear.... we have a demand issue, not a supply issue. I think I said that like 5 times now and you still are trying to put words in my mouth like I am saying something else....

 

What rules are there that are evenly enforced across the globe?

I wonder if you and Trump know that China isn't in the TPP and in fact the TPP is used to level the playing field with China.

I just don't think you actually understand economics enough to make any statement. You still haven't concisely summed up your argument.... just telling us "you aren't all over the place".

 

The fact is human beings are evolving to make themselves unnecessary. The big social drivers of population expansion throughout history have been the need for agricultural workers and superior numbers in warfare. At the personal scale the drive is the need for support in old age. As theses need become less important in modern societies the population growth diminishes or reverses. Already the overall population growth on the planet is centered on third world countries that haven't advanced technologically.

The difference between our regressives and progressive here is that the progressives see the change happening and contemplate adjusting to it and the regressives try to resist change. But change is the very basis of the Universe, Everything is always changing, from the subatomic to the intergalactic scales.

And what our resident capitalist are forgetting is the demand side of the equation. If we don't maintain incomes for the larger segments of society markets do not grow. If markets do not grow the perceived values of assets goes down and everyone is poorer, the 'Capital' as well as the "Labor".

 

Dude, you are dense. I fully understand your failed concept of a 'supply' issue. Just because a company has several billion dollars in cash reserves does not mean we should tax it until its gone because they choose not to spend it. If you don't like Apples cash reserve, then don't buy their over priced iPhone and their other products. Its pretty stupid to squander away billions of cash because dmoneybangbang thinks corporations should not maintain cash reserves. And if corporations do spend all their cash (which most try to do), then they have NO CASH TO PAY TAXES.

Profits in a company either stay in the company as cash reserves, get redistributed back into the company through R&D/product development/expansion/employees, ect ... or they pay back out to their shareholders.

Apple is a prime example of your whining. WTF would they dump their cash reserves (I have no idea where you think they should dump it) when their stock prices continue to rise with their continued business model? Are you REALLY telling me that Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Cisco and Oracle have a demand issue?? There is a good reason why their stocks are doing so well. You do it by being wise with your money, not squandering it away because the likes of you do not understand the concept of having more than $1 in your bank account at the end of the month.

 

Stop trying to play "gotcha" and read what I am saying. I merely presenting a snapshot of the issue.

I own stocks in all those companies and sitting on cash pays investors like me dividends. There is no whining, merely pointing out the facts. You seem to grasp the issue but perhaps your ideology is causing you to be dense and play "gotcha".

Since there is so much liquidity, why would focusing on supply side policies help?