Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme 218
pickens writes "A midlevel Apple manager was arrested Friday and accused of accepting more than $1 million in kickbacks from half a dozen Asian suppliers of iPhone and iPod accessories in a federal indictment unsealed and a separate civil suit. Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager, and Andrew Ang, of Singapore, were named in a 23-count federal grand jury indictment for wire fraud, money laundering and kickbacks. 'Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business,' Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in a statement. 'We have zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company.' The alleged scheme used an elaborate chain of US and foreign bank accounts and one front company to receive payments, the indictment said, and code words like 'sample' were used to refer to the payments so that Apple co-workers wouldn't become suspicious."
Memo... (Score:5, Funny)
You're "dogs don't shit where they eat"-ing it wrong.
Steve
Not with Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
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You should have said it was a prototype iPod.
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From my recollection of the events from Gizmodo [techcrunch.com], the police, with a search warrant, came in and confiscated items on the search warrant. In the report from the Gizmodo editor, no mention of SWAT was mentioned. But please don't let facts get in your way. After a raid with SWAT sounds much more sensational.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not with Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
They are going to use their budget to go after criminals who kill lots of people or do millions in damage first.
The average cop on the street is not involved in operations involving "criminals who kill lots of people or do millions in damage".
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Sir, my apartment was robbed while I was out of town for a funeral. We came back, saw toothpicks in our lock, and immediately called the police. Fresh fingerprints all over the place and they didn't investigate SHIT, they took a statement from us and we never heard from them again.
I found one guitar behind my apartment in the bushes. You guys couldn't recover one damned thing for me.
All I've ever seen is uselessness from officers. From Texas, to Tennessee, to Oklahoma, to South Carolina, to California and A
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For what it's worth, another anecdotal event, I was burgled a few years ago in Maryland. The cops came, then the next day they sent a detective. They dusted for prints, took notes on what was stolen, etc. 4 months later, they had caught the culprits.
BTW, I very much doubt you have been "From Texas, to Tennessee, to Oklahoma, to South Carolina, to California and Arizona and New Mexico" and witnessed uselessness from officers.
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You doubt but you don't have my moving records, now do you? Nice way to assume without thinking critically.
I have lived in all of those places. Sorry I actually have things to do with my life that don't involve me sitting in one state.
Oh, and it's pretty easy to see most police are inherently lazy. "Hey, I can retire with a Pension at 45" is pretty much all I've heard from police that took the job - that is inherent laziness to an extreme.
I work my ass off and I should be fully retired before I'm 35, burgla
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Obvious troll is obvious
Yeah well, I'll try not to respond to him next time. Actually I do think there are good cops, but I think they are vanishingly small in number and thus statistically insignificant. A good cop is one who would turn in a bad cop and make sure they get what is coming to them regardless of personal consequences. They hang out with unicorns at the end of the rainbow.
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A decade or so ago, there were a string of thefts in the neighborhood I lived in. When the stereo was stolen out of my truck (doing a bunch of damage in the process), I called the police. They had no interest in coming out. Not to check for fingerprints, take photos, file a report... nothing. But I was certainly welcome to go in and file a report. Since my insurance company didn't require a police report in order to cover the theft, I didn't see the point in going in to file a report.The same happened to th
highest ethical standards (Score:5, Insightful)
'Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business,' . That's why we manufacture in China.
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There are more ethical business people in China than the United States. There's lots more unethical ones too.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:highest ethical standards (Score:5, Informative)
slave labor, destroying the environment, etc...
Buying a Nokia soon? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nokia is known to be obsessed with environment and living standards of their workers. They are also one of the most truly global thinking companies who cares about cultural diversity.
Not just that, they purchased Qt from Trolltech and spend millions of engineering hours with millions of dollars to open source their key operating system. That massive work also finds its way to Linux/BSD.
The point is, seen anyone giving a fsck lately?
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How do you market that? How do you make "investors" care? (nvm how such widespread practices would probably greatly increase the opportunities for investment...though a bit too long term and not within so limited club, I guess)
Re:Buying a Nokia soon? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nokia is known to be obsessed with environment and living standards of their workers. They are also one of the most truly global thinking companies who cares about cultural diversity.
Not just that, they purchased Qt from Trolltech and spend millions of engineering hours with millions of dollars to open source their key operating system. That massive work also finds its way to Linux/BSD.
The point is, seen anyone giving a fsck lately?
I know that there are plenty of people living in their small imaginary world, where is everything to them, but there is a real world out there, and it's not playing by geek standards.
In other words, I bought a Nokia phone yesterday. And I'd never change it for any iPhone/Android/WM phone.
Also, I don't wear Nike.
Re:Buying a Nokia soon? (Score:4, Informative)
Nokia actually owns the facilities manufacturing their phones. By far most of dozen of them not in China, half of them in the EU, one even quite close to Cupertino.
Re:highest ethical standards (Score:4, Insightful)
dont forget 13 suicides + the attempted ones, and the over priced hardware sold in the US.
Apple is all about raping the people for as much profit as they can get away with.
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Have you looked at the Chinese labor market recently? There's a shortage of workers in many places--esp. in Gwangdong--and considerable mobility for workers who are unhappy with their current job. Gross abuses likely still exist in small factories, but the larger ones have to compete on the basis of wages and amenities. The new frontier appear to be Vietnam, and conditions there bear close monitoring, IMO.
Re:highest ethical standards (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly.
The goal for all of these companies is a FREE work force. They want you to work for free, because that means massive profits for the shareholders.
The goal is free slave labor. So far they have to pay their slaves 65 cents an hour and force them to live in the factories.
Just think about it. If you could make something that sells millions of units world wide, and it costs absolutely nothing to make or advertise... wouldnt you find a way to make that happen?
Well thats exactly what they're doing. Findin
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Re:highest ethical standards (Score:4, Insightful)
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There are some companies that treat their employees well. I happen to work for one now. If they can afford to stay in business, that's great, and I hope to see more companies follow their practices.
If the companies can't stay in business, then that's too bad. Their employees will have to look elsewhere for employment, and I hope that other companies won't be too broke to hire them.
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Sorry, but I'd rather not have my Slashdot discussions associated with my employer. Not that I've talked of anything illegal or even distasteful, but I'd rather keep just it separate as a matter of principle. As far as treating employers well, it helps that there are less than 100 employees in total. However, there have already been several discussions on how to keep the environment the same as it grows. As an example, we recently moved into a larger office, which is a part of a big stereotypical corporate
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The difference is in one place capital is put ahead of labor, instead of where it belongs.
Germany respects workers. The US does not (any more).
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:highest ethical standards (Score:4, Interesting)
The labor unions aren't inherently the problem. It's what they argue for (in America, at least).
For example, I'd have no problems with a union arguing that the CEO can't make more than 10 times the average starting salary, or that workers must be allowed to take a significant (but reasonable) amount of unpaid leave without risking their job.
I have a problem with unions requiring a certain minimum salary, paid vacations, and other amenities that only serve to cost the employers money without increasing productivity.
In my opinion, all details of that agreement should be negotiable on an individual basis.
If employees want to group their negotiations, that's fine. Don't apply the terms of one employee's contract to someone else. Don't require workers to participate in a strike if they don't want to. Don't require union membership. Don't drive the employer to bankruptcy pushing for ever-higher wages.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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You've never heard of a closed shop, have you? They are plentiful in non 'right to work states'... and that ignores the whole 'card check' issue in Washington right now.
Depends on the union and shop... in quite a few places because the union does the negotiations for wages (whether you like or not, wheather you are a member or not) may negotiate things in such a way that you are required to
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There is a constitutional guaranteed freedom to unionise and that freedom would be defective if anyone was forced to join.
At the moment The Netherlands and Denmark have the lowest unemployment rates in the EU at below 5% and at the same time their unionisation is only about 25% in The Netherlands but 75% in Denmark.
(Northern) Europeans treat unions with respect and expect the unions to be responsible.
(That's maybe why the UK is generally not considered part of this el
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During the cold war it was the same USofA that was continuously beating the drum of the right to form independent unions and political parties.
For that right to be complete it needs to include the freedom not to join, a union that negotiates a closed shop should be dragged into court, even when it's based on international treaties that are being violated.
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I'm not sure what your grievance is here. Why would a worker want to sell his labor for less? I did a check of states with right to work laws, and their unemployment rates tend to be high if you except agricultural states like Wyoming and Nebraska.
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That's true, for some lax definitions of "true" [blogspot.com].
In my case, when I was sitting without a job for a full year, I would have gladly taken a low wage job, just to get back to work and have some income.
Instead, as the economy got worse, American jobs kept disappearing. One company I called with a question before even applying said that they couldn't afford to hire anyone else. Their application (online) was gone the next day.
Personally, I think the situation's the same in other companies. In addition to the ag
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I have a problem with unions requiring a certain minimum salary, paid vacations, and other amenities that only serve to cost the employers money without increasing productivity.
I guess you didn't hear about the teachers' union demanding medical coverage for viagra.
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> Don't drive the employer to bankruptcy pushing for ever-higher wages.
Why not?? Employers have less "right" to employ people than workers have "rights" to jobs. If the business is not a benefit to society then it is missing its main purpose for existing: to provide JOBS. No, its not to make or service people - the purpose is to gainfully employ people - we have far far too few necessary jobs to employ the ever increasing population so we need FLUFF filler jobs to employ the majority of people and a s
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Nah. The problem with American labor unions is that 60 years of rampant McCartyism has turned most Americans into brainwashed zealots.
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Now that you've recognized your problem, you're well on the way to solving it. I would suggest googling for deprogramming services in your area.
Check corporate officer pay instead (Score:3, Insightful)
"Blaming unions is the easy thing to do" - by CRCulver (715279) on Sunday August 15, @12:02AM (#33254852) Homepage
Agreed, because corporate officer pay is outrageous in larger corporate bodies (millions per week, and yes, I have seen payrolls in my time the last nearly 17 yrs. as an information systems worker who has done payrolls programming and reporting in numerous organizations). Fact is, quite a few corporate officers' personal pay on an annual INDIVIDUAL BASIS (e.g. CEO) often exceeds the entire payroll outlay of entire smaller companies. This is the insane fact no one ever seems to mention or note, and I often
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Everyone mentions it. But none of us have any authority over company pay scales. The only people who could do something are those with voting shares. And from what they say in the press, they would like to reduce CEO pay, but then they would have trouble filling
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Unions could never stop a company moving offshore. The reason companies were able to move to China and other cheap labor locations away from US first became Nixon and opening trade with China and then the collapse of the USSR.
How can a labor union prevent a company from opening a branch offshore and then from moving operations there? It would be probably a little more difficult but it couldn't stop it, after all even companies that had unions went offshore.
Personally I never wanted to be part of a union i
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The problem is not unions, but the US implementation of unions. I can't speak for the nordic countries, but in the UK it's very common for employees to have the choice of several different unions to belong to. In the USA, unions tend to be a monopoly. Since they don't have to compete for members, they no longer have to serve the members' interests. They often force companies to only employ union members, meaning that they have a guaranteed membership. Their only interest is in keeping as many people em
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There might be another side of that overseas labour. Yes, since they are willing to work much cheaper, they have that work. But going further, cheaper - possibly a work of a type which doesn't have to be optimal in benefitting their place much by itself; but can easily draw people away from those which could, almost via modern day frippery.
Who knows if/in how many places the latter is the case...
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My guess would be "not many".
If a rural village has a factory producing widgets for the Global Widget company, that rural village is exchanging one resource (labor) for another (money). As in all economics, they can then exchange that resource for another (food/amenities/whatever) produced elsewhere.
Depending on the location, it may even be preferable to work on widgets than on farming. In Niger, for example, farmland is scarce, and a decent crop is ever more rare. Nigeriens working in a foreign-run factory
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That omits again how said labor generally has similar end value but is not priced similarly; which after all could also be the case for the place which would "feed" the factory one.
There might be somewhat more frippery in making and selling fruits, etc. (and not very optimal ones when it comes to farming methods and consequences) via the "global company."
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This isn't about what is wanted or not wanted; more about what works better or worse. Look at stupid SUV uptake and collapse of automotive industry for more at home example.
Re:highest ethical standards (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm no fan of unions in their modern guise as bargaining collectives, but in the early days unions made tremendous contributions to workplace safety (even matters as small as functional fire escapes). Still, it surprises me that your rant makes no acknowledgement whatsoever of having encountered a positive argument on the validity of unionization. It's clear that some powerful unions overstayed their welcome, and damaged their membership through excessive demands. No organizational structure is perfect. Union leaders make good coin, and sometimes succumb to the temptation to justify their fat pay packet by engaging in brinkmanship negotiation tactics. It takes an extremely secure leader to pocket a fat pay cheque and do nothing, even where that's the best course of action.
On the wage front, it's fairly orthodox among modern economists to believe that a minimum wage does more harm that good to low income earnings (by making it impossible for many to get a job at all).
On the other side of the zinc coin, it's already the case that many companies view minimum wage earners as a pool of disenfranchised schleps who wouldn't know their legal rights if bitten on the backside. Many rights in America exist only if you're wealthy enough to (credibly) threaten to enforce them. Even small-claims court is daunting for someone at a sixth grade literacy level who grew up in an Elbownian-speaking household. It's true the disenfranchised could pool their resources together to protect their rights, in a process resembling unionization, with no fear of reprisals as they work the bugs out of their collaborative process. I've always thought that shit flows down hill well enough on its own accord without so many eager and active helping hands. The reason many economic theories don't work out in practice as advertised is that in much of America, shit flows down hill in pressurized pipelines. Discussions on how to reduce the pipeline pressure lead to questions of civil society, a total non-starter in present day America. First reduce the pipeline pressure, then eliminate minimum wage. In that order, I think it would work.
Is there a way to eliminate the minimum wage to reap the theoretical economic benefits without hanging a "kick me" sign on the bottom rung of the employment ladder? Still haven't figured this out. I'm not against two year apprenticeships at a wage lower than the current minimum, as more of a temporary kick-me sign, though it would surely be abused in some quarters.
Your African aphorism is a bit of red herring. By the time a country has the social infrastructure to engage in productive international trade, the standard of living is already rising abruptly. Ten to twenty years later, not so cheap any longer, and maybe not a bargain at all in relative productivity. I believe the standard of living in Mexico is now comparable to the standard of living I experienced growing up in Canada, long ago.
Usually after an abrupt rise in standard of living a nation faces a painful round of internal change before resuming rapid growth. Even Japan had a major hiccup after achieving American affluence until an old custom regarding financial reporting shell games was finally dismantled.
What I'd like to hear from Apple is that they have canned all the corrupt vendors who went along with the other side of the illicit transactions. That would send a strong message that they mean business on ethical procurement. Merely sacking the individuals with their hands caught in the cookie jar is 99% business as usual.
Re:highest ethical standards (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the experience in the UK. They introduced a minimum wage in 1999, and increased it every year. For years after, employment went up, not down. None of the claims that businesses would go bankrupt, or stop employing certain categories of workers turned out to be true.
For sure there are problems with unemployment now because of the recession caused by the banking crisis. But that isn't caused by the minimum wage.
If you examine executive pay for public companies, you'll see that companies usually can afford to increase the payroll. It's just that the executives get to decide which part of the payroll to increase, and big surprise, they choose to pay themselves more, rather than increase the wages of the lowest level employees. It takes minimum wage legislation or unions to deal with this problem.
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That's not the experience in the UK. They introduced a minimum wage in 1999, and increased it every year. For years after, employment went up, not down. None of the claims that businesses would go bankrupt, or stop employing certain categories of workers turned out to be true.
We introduced the minimum wage near the start of a bubble, and unemployment fell during the bubble. It's not clear what effect the minimum wage had - would unemployment have fallen faster without it?
The correlation is actually not quite what the grandparent implies. A minimum wage increases the minimum cost of a lot of things. This causes a corresponding increase in the cost of living, which is most noticeable for poor people (who spend a higher proportion of their income on essentials), necessitating
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Minimum wage will create incentive to avoid hiring low-pay labor. This will take one of a few forms.
One option is automation. A fancy $1M machine doesn't make much sense if you can pay somebody 10 cents an hour to do the same work (depends on a lot of factors though). On the other hand, with minimum wage that machine starts looking a lot more attractive.
The other common approach is evading the law's jurisdiction. Why pay US workers $7/hr when you can pay somebody in some 3rd-world nation $7/month.
There
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On the wage front, it's fairly orthodox among modern economists to believe that a minimum wage does more harm that good to low income earnings (by making it impossible for many to get a job at all)
The minimum wage brings a more important benefit than the money in the pocked of the worker
When a man works for less than the properly established minimum wage he is actually costing society as a whole and only his employer has (short term) benefits.
The lack of minimum wages often leads to a downwards spiral, less pay, less turnover in the supermarket, less houses build etc.
Besides, a responsible employer wouldn't want to pay a man less than subsistence, and that's what most (legal) minimum wages are at.
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Is it the American standard where working 40 hours in an air-conditioned building, getting paid extra for overtime, and making a minimum of $15,000 a year is barely acceptable?
You do realise that in the UK and EU, we would consider 40 hours a week, only one week per year holiday (maybe two, if you're very senior) and $15,000pa minimum to be pretty much slave labour?
That reminds me, I've still got three weeks of holiday to use up before December.
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When a job doesn't return enough money to pay for your livelihood that job is a waste and society would be better off without it
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Regular workers? By that, I assume you mean Americans who had to lower their demands to get a job. Yes, of course there will be less money per person. There will also be more jobs, and less outsourcing. That means more money stays in America, and we get to keep buying stuff. I think your assumption of my line of thought is horribly wrong.
Maybe it's simply un-American to reduce our demands in a financial crisis. That would certainly explain the UAW's actions. They're the poster child for American unions. May
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Taking advantage of the highest technological systems in the world, and at the same time exploiting poor peasants who will work for pennies per day just seems terribly unethical. Face it - without the infrastructure provided by past generations of American workers, NONE of today's name-brand manufacturers would be where they are today.
Think I'm wrong? Fine - take yourself to Africa, with nothing more than you can carry on an airplane and inside your head, and set up shop to compete with Apple.
What's that
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Taking advantage of the highest technological systems in the world, and at the same time providing employment for poor peasants who will work for pennies per day...
Seems a little different now, doesn't it? All economic exchanges are based on exploiting others. You go to the store, and con the innocent shopkeeper to give you a gallon of milk for only $2. Meanwhile, the shopkeeper sells off one of his many gallons of milk to some schmuck for $2. At the end of the exchange, you both say "thank you", because you both feel like you've gotten the good end of the deal.
Rural villages in third-world countries making parts for American companies get the money they need to build
Re:highest ethical standards (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it looks different when you change a couple key words. It's called "spin", and it's practiced daily by the newspapers and other media.
"Providing employment" suggests that people who had nothing can now make purchases, such as housing, automobiles, clothes, etc. In fact, "providing employment" often translates to a marginally better diet, and increased chances of survival. I point to Africa as a prime example. I'm quite sure that you can use Google to locate any number of stories about Gap jeans and other factories located in Africa. If anything, the overall quality of life has been degraded in some of those towns. Entire villages have been overwhelmed with unregulated refuse dumps, and their populations have been reduced to scavenging the dumps for survival.
China has it's own towns that have been inundated with waste dumps. I saw one set of photos from China of a home that nestled between piles of scrap and refuse, pretty much lost to view from any other home.
You call it "providing employment", I call it exploitation.
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Now compare that to the number of villages that are already overrun with dumps.
When I volunteered in Africa, most of the towns I was in had a large amount of land dedicated to holding refuse. In one village, there was a small (2 or 3 cubic meter) dumpster. It was surrounded by a pile of refuse 10 meters in diameter. Elsewhere in that village, there was an area roughly 50 meters by 100 meters, piled about a meter high with refuse. This was a village without any large industry, mind you. Every day, dozens of
Re:Everything you use are made in Switzerland? (Score:4, Informative)
And when I shop, I do look at where it is made at. I have no real issue paying 10-20, even 100% more for better quality products.
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At this point, who hasn't moved their production from USA, EU, and Japan? I know there are cars, some food products, and really, really big things built here. But what (brands or genres of stuff) are still built in the US or Europe or Japan?
I don't mean this facetiously, I simply don't know.
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Shouldn't be too hard finding quite a few examples. Nokia is not abad one - actually owning around a dozen of their manufacturing facilities, by far most of them not in China, half of them in the EU; there's even one quite close to Cupertino...
And I'm not sure if you should even really ask about Japan.
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My wife's Camry was built in Kentucky. My '08 Tundra? San Antonio, TX.
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Plenty of semiconductor fabs all over the US and Europe and Japan. [10stripe.com] Still a LOT in Japan.
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Bit out of date I think. Analog Devices closed their fab in San Jose, CA, several years ago.
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HTC in China (Score:2)
HTC has manufacturing facilities in China as well:
HTC Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. engages in research, development, design, manufacture and sale of computer, personal digital assistant (PDA) handsets. The company also engages in design and development of computer software and also provides related technical consultancies and services. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is based in Shanghai, China. HTC Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of HTC Corporation.
http://investing.bu [businessweek.com]
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We're talking about when Apple are buying, not selling.
Want to fail comprehension? There's an app for that!
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No, Monster Cable charges top dollar and everyone gripes.
Monster Cable is intentional overcharging. Aren't they a subsidiary of Best Buy or something?
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The Good News (Score:5, Informative)
http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?BID=1&method=mExternal.showJob&RID=58206&CurrentPage=7 [apple.com]
Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme (Score:5, Informative)
In case you wanted to know what the scam was, and not read the article.
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So shouldn't he be complimented for daring to Think Different?
Re:Apple Manager Arrested In Kickback Scheme (Score:5, Interesting)
So shouldn't he be complimented for daring to Think Different?
Actually, it's not that different in Silicon Valley. There's an exec from Fry's Electronics going to jail for doing something similar and blowing it all in Vegas.
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Yup - the important lesson is to not rob from your employer. That is, unless you are at the top and your employer is the shareholders. Then it is just fine...
Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
I am amazed (and pleased) that apple care about this. In most places I have worked this is either accepted or actively encouraged. When I worked for Vic Roads [vic.gov.au] the CEO signed a big vehicle fleet outsourcing deal, then retired and jumped straight into a job with the new operator. The general feeling was "meh".
Somewhat inevitable? (Score:2, Insightful)
Where there is excessive control, there's plenty of place for corruption/etc.
Re:Somewhat inevitable? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where there is excessive control, there's plenty of place for corruption/etc.
So a complete lack of control would lead to few places for corruption? Your argument makes absolutely no sense.
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So, how hard was it to miss "excessive"? (and it does work like that; I had plenty examples, in a place formerly behind the Iron Curtain...)
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Where there is excessive control, there's plenty of place for corruption/etc.
So a complete lack of control would lead to few places for corruption? Your argument makes absolutely no sense.
I think he meant excessive control by one person (Jobs). When there is too much control by one person your more likely to see corruption because your stuck with the whims that one person where as if there are many people in control they are more likely to debate amongst themselves and see more of the positive/negatives of suggestions and ideas. So if the one person who controls too much says "no" to your idea that your entire department thinks is amazing then they are more likely to be more corrupt, and sin
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While I detest Apple's products and tactics as a company, I don't think they're any more (or less) prone to corruption than any other company. So, either it's specifically and unrealistically Apple-bashing (there's so many better reasons), or it's a condemnation of government intervention in business (the excessive control), or it's a condemnation of EVERY business. All three of those are flamebait/trolling.
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Also, Apple is the victim here, having to suffer less competitive bids and/or lower quality suppliers.
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Also, Apple is the victim here,
Hence the civil suit mentioned in the summary. It would be interesting to see what federal statutes were violated. Wire fraud and money laundering are mentioned, but generally, anti-kickback laws only apply to government contracts. While IANAL, I've worked for an outfit that let managers pretty much cut their own deals with suppliers (stock options, etc.) and they seemed to get away with it. As long as the transactions were legal (taxes paid, etc.) the law seemed to stay out of it.
back dated options, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
'We have zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company.'
*cough*
back dated options
*cough*
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"Hey it happens guys. Comonnnnn <arms moving back and forth>"
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but no zero tolerance for Foxconn? (Score:2, Insightful)
but no zero tolerance for Foxconn?
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What give out confidential information about there own company so their suppliers could get better deals. Or do you mean the suppliers paying the bribes for inside information, that would make more sense; you where't clear.
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I have a feeling Apple only cares because at some point in the past someone was going to find out about the deal and Apple simply didn't want the negative publicity. If it was going to stay a "don't ask, don't tell" "secret", we wouldn't be commenting on this story right now. Lets face it, more profit is a good thing for all Apple employees and shareholders. Lets also face the fact that most businesses would probably do the same damn thing.
Very strange interpretation of the matter. This manager received about a million dollars from manufacturers for information about Apple products, so they could negotiate better deals. Since the information was owned by Apple, selling it was at least theft - the million dollars should have been paid to Apple. Since those companies wouldn't have paid the money if they hadn't made more than a million using the information, Apple's loss was actually a lot higher.
On top of that comes in incalculable loss thro
White iPhone mystery solved? (Score:4, Interesting)
For me, this explains the white iPhone mystery. It wasn't about the "perfect white tone", it was connected to this guy (IMHO who is doomed) and material manufacturers. I always wondered how Apple, the Apple can't get a manufacturer to produce some tone of white for a device people line up for. It happens to small companies/single designers all the time but not to Apple sized companies.
There was something really mysterious about that white iphone and I think it is connected to this guy and the whole setup.
I think, as it hasn't been settled silently, this thing will be huge soon. BTW; at first read you think like some "cover designer" companies etc. involved, no they talk about the actual device suppliers.
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Sorry I don't get you on this. Can you clarify what the White iPhone mystery was?
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The iPhone 4 was also supposed to come in White. At first, it was to come at the same time. Then "soon" after the black version. Now it is even later, as it is supposedly getting the rumored new iPhone 4 (now without terrible antenna) treatment.
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That's the "mystery"? Why the white iPhone 4 was delayed?
OMG, this is serious! We should get the Interpol involved ASAP!
Wait, that's not enough, let's also get some mystery writers working on solving this too!
Better yet, we have to try and get Mr. Holmes, even if it has to be through some time/reality vortex.
Or even better, we could tune the time/reality vortex to 24th century ST universe and get Lt. Cmdr Data as Holmes!
Did he think Jobs wouldn't find out? (Score:2)
Re:Did he think Jobs wouldn't find out? (Score:4, Informative)
Apple is more well known for being a group of assholes being lead by a super dick.
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Apple has zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company. You'll be hearing from our lawyers shortly.