Why America Doesn't Need More Tech Giants Like Apple 631
Hugh Pickens writes "Optimists says that if only America produced more companies like Apple and Amazon and Google and Facebook, the country's economic problems would be fixed — America could retrain its vast, idle construction-and-manufacturing workforce, and our unemployment and inequality problems would be solved. But Apple's $1 billion new data center in North Carolina has been a disappointing development for many residents, who can't comprehend how expensive facilities stretching across hundreds of acres can create only 50 new jobs, especially after thousands of positions in the region have been lost to cheaper foreign competition. In fact, Apple actually exemplifies some of the reasons why the U.S. has such huge unemployment and inequality problems: 'Digital' businesses like Apple employ far fewer people than traditional manufacturing businesses, Apple's 60,000+ jobs are not just in the U.S. — they're spread around the world. Companies like Apple 'create amazing products and vast shareholder wealth, but they don't spread this wealth around as much as earlier industrial giants did,' writes Henry Blodget. 'So, yes, we should celebrate the success of Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon. But we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking they're going to solve our unemployment or inequality problems.'"
Need (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Need (Score:5, Funny)
What we need is small, independent, companies competing directly in the same way Linux distros compete with each other.
Aggressive flamewars on slashdot and mailing lists? I'm not seeing that work.
Re:Need (Score:5, Insightful)
And, it should be pointed out, we have that - there are thousands of small tech businesses in all sorts of fields.
What happens, of course, is that some of them start building up successes, and then the vulture capitalists get involved, and then the business press goes gaga over them, and then there's a headline IPO, and then they aren't small tech businesses anymore. That's what happened to Microsoft, to Apple, to Google, and to Facebook. And if you are the founder of one of these thousands of small tech businesses, and you had the opportunity to take this kind of ride and make millions, would you really not take it?
Re:Need (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. It's something of an oddity these days that there are so many tech companies that, instead of growing larger, are instead being bought out. That is to say, the game now is to build a company that gets bought out in (say) 5 years, not one that will last 200 years.
Re:Need (Score:4, Interesting)
It's because the stock market is so pathetic. Economic incentive is to get bought out rather than tempt fate on a stock market that people have lost faith is in any way valuing things correctly. If the stock market were to somehow regain the public trust I bet we'd see far more IPOs and far less buyouts.
Re:Need (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not the stock market. It's the legal system. Especially the patent system. If you're the little guy and you start to challenge the big guy, you get a nastygram to the effect of "this is a list of our patents that you're infringing. You can take a license for ONE BILLION DOLLARS, or you could just sell is your company and retire." Naturally the little guy doesn't have to sell his company to the bigger company. There is another option: He can sell his company to a different bigger company, which has sufficient defensive patents to tell the first bigger company to go to hell. Which is why the little guy can get good money -- the big guys will bid against each other for which one buys him out. There just isn't any option left of "remain an independent company."
Re:Need (Score:5, Insightful)
It's another form of the lottery, pro-sports, famous actor/actress syndrome. Everybody sees it, everybody wants it, reality is that only a very very few can actually get it - if everybody got it, it wouldn't be desirable anymore.
Thousands of small businesses, or small business units of larger corporations, toil away toward the brass ring while only a few ever even come close to reaching it.
Just like the OWS 99% problem, the brass rings need to be more numerous and less shiny. The serfs (working poor, small businesses, etc.) are going to stop trying for them when it becomes apparent that they'll die before they ever get there.
Re: (Score:3)
It's another form of the lottery, pro-sports, famous actor/actress syndrome.
Difference being that these small companies actually produce something worthwhile while trying to strike gold.
And for those that do get lucky, they normally deserve their new found riches much more than a girl with big tits who can emote on camera.
Re: (Score:2)
Too much infighting and duplicated effort?
Re:Need (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. I mean, if your goal is keeping a lot of people busy, efficiency is the one thing you don't want.
If two distros have their own people working on packages, then that's twice as many people being employed as if there was just one.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What we need is for the entire patent system to be thrown out since only the big companies have enough patents to be ALLOWED to innovate without fear of a lawsuit crushing their company out of existence. That is the REAL problem, where if you come up with an idea for a $5 product that would sell millions of units, yet you need to pay $50 per unit worth of legal fees to protect yourself from lawsuits.
Apple is a PERFECT example of this, where they will start lawsuits over their so-called intellectual proper
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So, the whole point of "competition" is to eliminate competitors.
No, the point of competition is to sell your goods or services for less than it costs you to supply them. Eliminating a competitor can make that easier to do, because it's one way to increase your price without increasing your costs. However, there's a limit to how effective that can be so long as barriers to entry are low. You must keep your price low enough that it wouldn't profit a potential competitor to enter your market.
~Loyal
No, that is not it either. (Score:4, Informative)
There is no point in competition for any business. None.
Businesses are FORCED by antitrust laws to maintain a certain level of competition instead of simply eliminating it with any means possible.
If they could get away with it they'd divide the pie into various noncompeting monopolies and live happily ever after.
Perhaps buying off, or taking over or selling a monopoly or two here and there.
And when you have an undisputed monopoly, you don't need to innovate or do research - so even friendly competition through research is simply a drain on your bottom line.
Competition has a point ONLY to the consumer.
So, it is not "to sell your goods or services for less than it costs you to supply them" but for the customer to have the widest choice possible.
Whether they choose according to price, quality, availability, variety, service, color... that is up to the (potential) customer.
All 7 billion and counting of them.
Corporations, companies, businesses are not there "to create profit".
Oh sure. Profit IS the motivation for the owner of the capital to create a business/company - through PROVIDING A PRODUCT OR SERVICE NEEDED BY THE SOCIETY.
If there is no need for the product/service they are providing, there is no need for that kind of a company.
And there is no motivation to create it as there is no profit to be made in things that nobody will buy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see the problem (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
There's a limit to how much gay porn you need. Even for Apple.
Re: (Score:3)
One data center per town* in the US!
*A town must have at least 50 employable residents to qualify for an Apple Data Center.
Re: (Score:3)
It's definitely more complicated. But when Apple has more money than the government, you tend to think that maybe they could help out a little more. They don't need to make the same profits on the devices, they simply don't need to. They can take a revenue cut and still be very profitable, and be able to slap a little "Made In The USA" logo on their products. Consumers tend to be willing to spend a little more if they think they're helping out.
small vs. large businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:small vs. large businesses (Score:4, Interesting)
Most small businesses are support business for large business. It is absolutely the case in the US that their is mobility between businesses, small businesses grow and large business often shrink. However this can take quite a bit of time and really doesn't change the fact that big business is the ultimate engine.
Re:small vs. large businesses (Score:5, Funny)
Apple and HP both started in a garage in silicon valley.
And HP has recently announced they're moving back to their garage.
Re:small vs. large businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
I call hogwash on this meme of "small business is the backbone of America".
Granted, I don't get out as much as I used to, but I have been to quite a few parts of America, and that simply hasn't been the case in any of them.
I live in the deep south. I have to drive through numerous small/medium sized semi-rural or commuter type towns to get anywhere.
Here's what you see almost every time:
1) The nicest building in town: The Jail
My guess is that's probably either a side effect of 9/11 paranoia funding, or privatization + drug war funding. But this is the case in a *shockingly* large number of towns I've driven through lately. And it is super depressing.
2) the second nicest building in town: The Hospital ... move on to #3
presuming they have one. Otherwise
3) Wal-Mart (or sometimes Target, but mostly Wal-Mart)
most of the time it's the "supercenter", and that means it's the town's grocery store, hardware store, and auto-repair shop as well.
4) the court house, the police station
the third or fourth nicest place in town, depending on if they have a hospital. Almost always with some sort of super nice show vehicle or parked in the parking lot. One time I saw a tricked out hearse with the "DARE" logo on it once. I suppose this crap keeps the kids off drugs. Or something. Sometimes you see some ridiculous armor outfitted hum-v or what have you. One supposes for meth raids.
5) The abondoned Factory / Textile Mill / Office Park
Almost every one of these small towns has a few decaying carcasses of their former glory. Also super depressing.
And that's it. That's what's happening in small-town America. Believe it.
The small business that you see are BS "gift stores" that spring up in the abandoned downtown areas (where the trains used to pull in back in the day usually) probably they're just tax write offs for rich housewives, because it's literally impossible to imagine people living in these crapholes lining up to buy $30 potpourri stuffed decorative chickens and shit. But then, maybe that jail work really pays off, and they do support themselves.
Either way, that shit is not the backbone of America.
And good luck starting a business in your garage and growing like an Apple or an HP today.
It's impossible, because the victors have written the rules, and you'll find yourself under a completely different tax system than the large corporations.
Some fundamentals have gotta change before things get better, and it's not going to fix itself.
Re:small vs. large businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs aren't the only effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Those 50 jobs aren't the only benefits that came out of the data center.
If it costs $1billion to build that data center, then that's $1billion added to the economy, affecting a lot more people than 50 direct employees.
(How many people did it take to actually construct the place? to handle permits for construction? To deliver food for people that handle permits? To handle mail to deliver food to the people that handle permits for construction, etc..)
Jobs created don't provide the overall picture of an economic effect. Actual spending does.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Short term vs Long term.... Construction of the Data center was a short term gain in employment for the region. In the long term, only 50 jobs were added, the point being, a manufacturing facility would employ more people for a longer time. A much smaller manufacturing facility, with a much smaller land and resource footprint, say 1/4 the total area, employing 100 employees, would have been a much bigger LONG TERM gain for the area.
Re:Jobs aren't the only effect (Score:4, Insightful)
Construction of the data center was not short term. It was yet another contract for the contractors. They are constantly needing to fill their time with a new contracts, lest they go out of business. You don't think a company just popped up out of nowhere, built the data center, then went away, do you?
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The big problem is that you are talking about two very different things. You have the need for long-term jobs, and you have the need for short-term/temp jobs. Construction is a dangerous area to talk about, because for those who have a career in the construction industry, you need to have new contracts that come in so you have work AFTER each project is complete. This means you need to have a sustained environment of growth, or at least building(tearing down and then re-building would work too). So
Re: (Score:3)
You're looking at the wrong thing.
Yeah, 1 billion might be a big number. But that number is much smaller than the total that would result from 1000
small datacenters that would provide the same capacity. Building a huge datacenter saves money, and needs fewer people to run. That's why they build things like that in the first place.
Re: (Score:3)
Now take all you just said and multiply it for, say, 500 people of a car factory. A value-added product, that transforms raw materials into a car. The $1B data center doesn't take any raw materials, its sole purpose is to deliver Angry Birds to your iPhone.
But hey! If it makes you better to think that a huge capital investment of $1B is better than probably $1B operating cost over 3 years for a factory that actually sells products for export (and has an expected life of 10-20 years until a complete overhaul
And your proposal? (Score:3)
For example- in Japan many (most?) private homes are demolished after 20-30 years [wikipedia.org] and rebuilt on the same spot. Certainly a boon to the construction industry, but not very efficient and very costly for the homeowner. There are similar practices in Engineering and Industry- pow
and othe ongoing jobs to support it (Score:3)
from the mundane items like sewage and garbage, maintenance of roads to and from, proving electrical power, educating the children if any of the plant's workers, to providing police and fire protection.
It might be only fifty people in the facility but the support mechanism to allow such a vast process does involve hundreds if not more going forward.
Re:Jobs aren't the only effect (Score:4, Informative)
That's how barter works. Presumably at least some value was added in the process and thus some wealth was generated.
50 jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
who can't comprehend how expensive facilities stretching across hundreds of acres can create only 50 new jobs
Yup! Its amazing that the whole project was actually completed with only 50 local people... who now have posh jobs running the place. Actually, it would have taken far less people, but curious onlookers kept getting too close to the packed ACME Instant Data Center (tm), so Apple had to hire 49 more people to make sure the crowd stood back while a single drop of water was added to the ACME package and it expanded instantly into the glorious data center that stands there today.
Re: (Score:3)
who can't comprehend how expensive facilities stretching across hundreds of acres can create only 50 new jobs
Yup! Its amazing that the whole project was actually completed with only 50 local people... who now have posh jobs running the place. Actually, it would have taken far less people, but curious onlookers kept getting too close to the packed ACME Instant Data Center (tm), so Apple had to hire 49 more people to make sure the crowd stood back while a single drop of water was added to the ACME package and it expanded instantly into the glorious data center that stands there today.
Yup, and now that the $1B construction job is done, do we just ship the construction workers off to "somewhere else"?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yup, and now that the $1B construction job is done, do we just ship the construction workers off to "somewhere else"?
You obviously have never worked in the construction trades. They don't just go down to Home Depot and pick up 200 guys from the parking lot to build a complex like this. Nor do they haul a trailer on site, put up a sign saying NOW HIRING, and wait for locals to show up with hammers and work boots. A job like this will be contracted out a large construction company, in this case Holder Construction. They then subcontract to large specialist companies for electrical, plumbing, concrete, ironwork, etc. Those s
Re:50 jobs (Score:5, Informative)
Yup, and now that the $1B construction job is done, do we just ship the construction workers off to "somewhere else"?
My dad is a retired lineman, and he spent half his career doing electrical construction. Yes, shipping construction workers somewhere else is exactly how it's done. I didn't see much of my dad as a teeneger when he was tramping around the country building towers and stringing cable.
Not spreading the wealth around? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not spreading the wealth around? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even worse for many companies like Apple you have to actually sell the stock to realize any benefits from it, because Apple doesn't pay dividends. So unless you have a lot of money, you can only be a temporary owner and hope that you can stay an owner until other people want to be an owner more than you do.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How much stock do you have to own before it generates enough revenue to actually live on (never mind getting rich on)?
What are the currently unemployed and / or in debt going to buy that stock with?
How many companies / governments with excellent ratings have tanked, taking the investor's money with them?
How much of that investment then goes towards exorbitant executive pay?
Most people don't want to gamble on making a living. They want to work and make a living.
Traditional Manufacturing Businesses (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Welcome to the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I can imagine how this will work in the much hated in the US 'welfare states', but the US society itself is in a lot of trouble the way it is set now.
You don't think "'welfare states'" will be in trouble if 30-50% of working age adults become unemployed? (Note, "welfare states" is not the term I'd use; I'm quoting the previous poster.)
Re:Welcome to the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Same problem.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem here is the same thing that is effecting all our decisions. We look at the top 1% (people, companies, whatever) and get angry because they have everything, and then look at the bottom 1% and get angry because they have nothing and think one must cause the other. And we completely overlook the middle.
Its the middle thats important. Because from there you can fall to the bottom too easily. Only from there can you typically rise to the top. The middle is the backbone. As mentioned already, th
JR (Score:2)
The US needs companies like JR and JP. They employ lots of people who seem to do nothing.
Why Politicians Love Data Centers (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes sense if you think of it (Score:3)
Large companies at first look seem to employ a lot of people. But the amount of people they employ is much smaller than you'd expect.
If a small company needs a sysadmin, accountant and receptionist, then that's 3 people that are employed. If there are 3 such companies, then each needs their own, so that's 9 people employed.
But what if they merge? All those people are probably not working at their limit at the new company. The sysadmin that managed 10 servers probably can manage 30. The new company is not so huge as to have more than one door, so only one receptionist is needed. The accountant can handle a bit more work. And so it's quite likely that 6 people will be laid off.
If the objective is creating jobs then what you want is creating inefficiency: lots of small companies that employ people below their full capacity. Large companies are experts at employing as few people as possible. If there's one thing that would be counterproductive towards that goal, it's them.
I've been saying this for YEARS! (Score:5, Informative)
Municipalities and state governments are MORONS. There is not one reason to spend a single cent of tax incentives on a data center. They hear "Google", "Apple", "Facebook", and they have visions of hundreds of highly-paid software engineers sitting in row upon row of cubicles, and then going home to their brand-new houses, spending all their millions in local stores, etc.
Not even the companies themselves promise much in the way of jobs, but the governments aren't paying attention.
If you have finite electrical generating and grid capacity, it's far better to lure in SOME kind of manufacturing facility (they do still exist) then a data center that will book a huge portion of the output while employing a tiny handful of people that really don't get paid that much.
Wages as percentage of GDP peaked in 1972 (Score:5, Insightful)
Increased automation was supposed to bring more leisure time and higher pay --- instead it's been used to prop up corporate profits:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1345 [cbpp.org]
I want a politician to stand up and demand a shorter work week --- force companies to either hire more workers or pay more overtime.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It worked in Germany.
Re:Wages as percentage of GDP peaked in 1972 (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately corporate greed knows no boundaries, certainly not international ones.
You make people too hard to squeeze, they'll just squeeze who they can over in China.
The mantra that "greed is good" fails to take into account that hurting other people is part and parcel of helping yourself if there's only so much pie to go around.
Never mind that monopolies that hoard market share are responsible for the so called shortages in the first place.
If you hoard, you'll cause a shortage.
Re:And who owns those corporate profits? (Score:4, Informative)
Stock market doesn't create money or value, it swaps money from one pocket to another, and some people are so good at swapping money from others pockets to theirs that they become very rich.
In the old days that was called robbery, but now that it's based on whether you got the info first instead of whether you have a gun or not, it's become legit and morally OK ?
Same principle, different mechanisms.
Not related to unemployment (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:3)
The invisible benefits of Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Note: What I am about to say remains true even for other companies, I just present things specific to Apple....
You only see 50 jobs from Apple for a data center. But what about:
* All of the construction jobs when building out the center.
* All of the revenue from shippers going through nearby towns to and from the data center with supplies and equipment.
* More abstractly, the side benefits of helping Apple grow. If you are helping a large company like Apple gain something, leverage that - you could put together incentives to convince iOS app developers to live in your town, or offer free training to those interested to learn iPhone development. Then you can help ride the tide of a rising Apple.
* Also did they bargain to have Apple put in an Apple store locally (don't know if they have one already or not). That helps local revenue and residents alike.
Basically I think it's short-sighted to complain about a low number of jobs when you can derive other benefits, plus as noted get the one-time benefits of construction related revenue.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not possible anyways (Score:3)
Currently it is impossible to make another Apple. The current business model is to think of something unique, patent it, and get bought by Apple/Microsoft/Google/Samsung/IBM/Someone Big. Reason being, patents.
You need a patent "war chest" to fight off these big guys and survive in their ecosystem. Typically by buying smaller companies that have patent portfolios already. To get that you need cash. And to get that kind of cash, you already have to be gigantic.
This is why none of these large players are pushing for patent reform. If software patents were to go away the ecosystem would open up and the big companies would have to face new competition.
Green Jobs (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Americans (Score:5, Informative)
Who hurt you man, why so jaded?
Maybe that comes from the fact that Asians are not as lazy and against "stupid jobs" (when they are in fact the most useful ones) as Americans?
A quick google search reveals the average manufacturing job in China pays $134 per month. It has little to do with laziness or stupid jobs, its simple economics.
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Who hurt you man, why so jaded?
Maybe that comes from the fact that Asians are not as lazy and against "stupid jobs" (when they are in fact the most useful ones) as Americans?
A quick google search reveals the average manufacturing job in China pays $134 per month. It has little to do with laziness or stupid jobs, its simple economics.
Exactly. People are so quick to comment on "lazy" Americans, and yet fail to realize that unless you're willing to bring manufacturing to the US and increase the price of everything at least 300%, manufacturing will likely stay in parts of the world where it can be done the cheapest. Even if you found a willing worker, you'd be hard-pressed to survive anywhere in the US on $134 per month.
Nike shoes (Score:5, Insightful)
Nike Premium Shoes. Cost to make £4 materials $6 labour. Sale price (USA) $200.
Now how much more does labour cost in the USA than China? Tenfold increase? That'd be a $260 trainer, then. Or £60 less profit.
Re: (Score:3)
bingo. This is the hilarious reality people have not realized.
Don't forget that the the labor *costs* go up, but the cost of transporting the goods goes way down.
People manufacture outside the US because it's not as strictly regulated and companies don't give a shit about following rules, laws, etc that they cannot have drafted themselves. It's not a "cheaper" issue, not in the long run, nor has it ever been.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"In China you just don't have that problem. [In America, t]he massive left wing agenda to redistribute the wealth has caused these problems."
Ladies and gentlemen, death93.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Nike shoes (Score:5, Interesting)
hi, troll!
you're talking about infrastructure costs, not the costs to go into business.
In a large majority of the united states, the cost to register a business is somewhere in the range of $200-400 maximum.
The cost to go into business could be astronomical or it could be near zero due to a wholly digital business. Any example you make here is simply full of shit because it doesn't reflect on the range being anything from near zero to billions of dollars.
Your examples for based on a restaurant, which is one of the most notoriously bad businesses to open with a really really high rate of failure. Long story short on opening a restaurant: if you aren't a professionally trained chef, don't try to open a restaurant. Fees, are something that should be calculated for. If you can't handle the fees, then the problem is the *business you're trying to open*, not the fees. In the US, a lot of these fees are for safety regulations. China doesn't have those problems because they don't have those regulations, simple. I'm not going to get into "better" or "worse" or the bureaucracy of it.
Re:Americans (Score:5, Interesting)
"unless you're willing to bring manufacturing to the US"
Continental and Bridgestone and other FOREIGN manufacturers bringing manufacturing to the US to the tune of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars invested. BMW make cars in the US and sell them in MAINLAND CHINA. Caterpillar has massive export sales.
"manufacturing will likely stay in parts of the world where it can be done the cheapest"
Tiny (compared to the US and China) GERMANY is the WORLDS SECOND LARGEST EXPORTER.
Hello, that's with high wages, UNIONS, socialized medical care, and Autobahns as contrasted with US practice. They also have more sexual freedom, real beer, and much less superstition/religion.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Funny thing about Germans is most of them speak at least passable english, unlike the U.S.
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When I arrived at Sembach AB in 1981, the Luftwaffe officer speaking during newcomers orientation spoke English flawlessly and much more clearly than the American who preceded him.
US primary education is shit because the public LIKE it that way so they won't feel threatened by their offspring turning out more capable than they are. Forget the charges of manipulation by the elites who supposedly want an ignorant public. The PUBLIC want to be ignorant.
Ignorance is COMFORTABLE. See "religion".
I'd rant longer b
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The US has *much* better beer than Germany (or anywhere in the world for that matter, with the possible exception of Belgium).
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Nah.
While I like microbrewed beers and ales, a Sierra Nevada pale ale tastes about like a Red Hook pale ale which tastes about like a Deschutes Brewery pale ale which... same for porters, stouts, hefeweizens, etc...
Granted, they are all far more enjoyable to drink than BudCoorsMiller or TecateSolCorona dreck.
But I'm amazed every time I drink a different German (or Czech or Belgian) beer or ale. Even amongst the same style of beer or ale, they each taste...unique.
Re: (Score:3)
Because, by volume [beerinfo.com], American's are drinking the crap that you don't think should be mentioned in a discussion with real beer.
And, quite frankly, if you look at the top beers of 2011 [worldbeerawards.com], other than Sam Adams, I'm not recognizing a lot of American breweries ... enough to make me refute the assertion that America has better beer than Germany, starting with pointing out Budweiser and Mil
Re:Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you actually been to Germany?? There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of regional beers. There are monasteries that have unique brews. There are many brands that are found only in a single city! There are more styles of beer than you can possibly name.
There are definitely some great beers in the US and there is a lot more choice than there used to be. I'd still say that if you walked into a bar and ordered a beer at random that the odds of getting something really enjoyable are much higher in Germany than in the US.
That being said, my favorite beer is from Denmark.
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I'm so amused when people say the reason jobs are moving to Chine is because of "the unions". As if a union bringing wages from $16/hr to $19/hr is going to matter when you've got people in China making $134/month.
Plus, in China nobody's going to mind if you pour the toxic waste from your fabricating plant into the water supply.
It's going to be interesting to see what China looks like as it becomes the ultimate corporate state. Let's see what they look like after all the "John Galts" have their way with it for another decade.
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You're making two very poor assumptions; one, that factory worker's wages in the US are merely twice that of such wages in China. In fact, they are
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe with a not so quick Google search there is different data that comes up? [averagesalarysurvey.com]
Career Entries Gross (USD) Average Gross Salary Average Net Salary
General Manager 8 $93,657 595,656 CNY 447,625 CNY
Director 5 $88,050 560,000 CNY 446,000 CNY
IT Manager 8 $69,055 439,187 CNY 348,081 CNY
Manager 7 $59,973 381,428 CNY 300,285 CNY
IT Project Manager 6 $51,834 329,666 CNY 252,666 CNY
Human Resources Manager 6 $43,606 277,333 CNY 209,
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
I absolutely agree.. Full disclosure: I am an Indian.
The management of businesses in the US and the first world make it seem like the Asians are all hardworking geniuses and that is why all the work is being outsourced to Asia - but the truth is that the work is only being farmed out because the salaries in Asia are much lower than in the first world.
The truth be told, for the most part, the Asians aren't as skilled or as educated as their western counterparts. Not to say that Asians don't have degrees - there may in fact be more Asians with postgraduate degrees than the first world.. and not that Asians are stupid or lazy either.
It is just that the educational institutions in most Asian nations are there simply to hand out degrees not an education. In the west, a lot of students take up courses because they enjoy the subject - but most Asian students take up courses with a view of getting a high paying job - with very little interest in the subject. And this impacts the quality of their skill and also their overall understanding of the subject.
By the way, when I say Asians, I am also including Indians into this - we are also part of Asia.
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
A quick google search reveals the average manufacturing job in China pays $134 per month. It has little to do with laziness or stupid jobs, its simple economics.
I think it's important to point out how US-centric this article is. People in China need jobs too. They apparently need them so badly, they are willing to work for $134 per month. The jobs go to those that need them the most, those that will take the lowest pay. Americans simply don't need those jobs bad enough, even if they are unemployed. Our standard of living is too high.
I only see a few ways out of this situation:
1. Return to protectionist policies. [wikipedia.org]
2. Create enough growth to saturate the economies of the third world and raise their standard of living. (The ultimate goal IMHO)
3. Reduce the standard of living in the US to remain competitive with the third world. (Hint: this plan will not be popular)
Re: (Score:3)
Americans simply don't need those jobs bad enough, even if they are unemployed.
The Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25 per hour, or about $1256 per month. It is illegal to pay someone in the U.S. less than that (with some exceptions), so the game is already stacked in China's favor.
Re: (Score:3)
Why should U.S. be in the business of providing jobs to citizens of China?
Who says we are? We aren't in the business of providing anyone jobs. We're in the business to make money.
Would you rather pay a premium to buy American products and watch news stories about starving children in third world countries (you do donate to those children...don't you?), or would you rather put those children's parents to work making your iProduct?
People tend not to care about other people an ocean away because we don't see them every day. However, they are people too. Just because they don
Re:Americans (Score:5, Informative)
But no; everyone just looks at absolute numbers and not relative numbers.
Re: (Score:3)
The rate of suicides at Foxconn (14 in a year and a half out of 920,000) was lower than the country as a whole by an order of magnitude (19.5 per 100,000). The whole thing was blown way out of proportion by the media.
Re: (Score:2)
let's see how smart the chinese will be once we pollute their country and people start dying of cancer, birth defects and other diseases
americans learned not to pollute decades ago
Re:Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
What diseases and cancers does the pollution addresses by the Kyoto protocol cause?
None? So how is that applicable to the point in the slightest?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, Those Lazy Unwise Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that comes from the fact that Asians are not as lazy and against "stupid jobs" (when they are in fact the most useful ones) as Americans?
So many citations needed here. Okay so you say "the fact" and I'm asking you where you get your "facts."
You say that Asians have this awesome work ethic and will do all the dirty work? How do you prove that? If you go by GDP per capita, I think the US is doing alright comparatively [wikipedia.org].
Could you please prove that Americans are against "stupid jobs?" I used to pick rock, bail hay, bus tables, work at a parking booth, etc. Now I code computers. There's my pitiful sample set of "one" please send me your numbers that prove it is applicable to all Americans. I think a lot of Americans working in the middle of nowhere get overlooked by people like you.
When you say "(when they are in fact the most useful ones)" I question how objective the superlative "most useful" is here. The factory worker, the quality control worker, the designer, the investors, etc. They all have a use. Which is "most useful" is totally a matter of opinion. The question I have for you is, do you think that Apple would just stop making iPhones if they were suddenly not allowed to import them from China? I highly doubt it.
I challenge you to grow up and to stop relying on tired stereotypes.
It applies to work, woman and everything. Everyone is selfish and looking for their own good, in a way or another.
So what you're saying is that you've learned that there is no place for love or satisfaction of a job well done? Just money? I'm really really sad you find yourself in that position ... keep manipulating your wife based on her greed. You know what else Americans are good at? Divorce [divorcerate.org].
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
How about if people crying about "there are no jobs for me" would either make new products or services people want or improve themselves to be more useful to employers? But nooo, now they're crying how no one is giving money for what they think they want to do.
Actually, the people Google sent be interviewed for the one article did just that, but unlike you, they recognize that asking a 50 year old guy who's been working in Furniture manufacturing to learn computers so he can get a new job is pretty futile. Most companies won't hire him because he's too old with too little experience.
It becomes an interesting question of what percentile of people do we allow to become permanently unemployed. Is it the bottom 10%? 20%? And what do we do with the least useful people? Do we give them enough money to survive or do we do as the Libertarians suggest and let them die from the crime of not being useful enough?
The point of the article is that the U.S. would need more Apples than it could possibly sustain to fix it's employment problems. The U.S. needs to have some manufacturing jobs because there a lot of people who are more suited to that work than to other jobs. This might seem like a problem of not adapting, but it's just a problem of numbers. Why would anyone want to hire someone from the bottom 50% of applicants for any job? The way to deal with this is to have a robust and diversified field of employers. The U.S. has failed to protect most of it's manufacturing industry from MBA idiocy that considers a hiring a Chinese company to do work inherently superior to employing Americans.
Statutes against such age discriminazis (Score:5, Interesting)
Most companies won't hire him because he's too old
Such companies that hire an inexperienced young person but don't hire an equally inexperienced older person may find themselves in violation of the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 [dol.gov] or foreign counterparts.
Re:Statutes against such age discriminazis (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
"Do we give them enough money to survive or do we do as the Libertarians suggest and let them die from the crime of not being useful enough?"
In your example, I think Libertarians would suggest he start his own business of hand-made furniture and charge 100x the standard IKEA rate for hand-quality work, also they would have suggested, if possible, he did something to save for retirement (or have his house paid off so minimal expenses.. so on)... note the 'if possible' part.. it's not possible for everyone..
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Take away the patents and innovation will sprout once again. The small startups simply don't have the deep pockets required to defend against the private monopolies riding on patents.
Patents divide us. Free ideas unite us.
Re: (Score:3)
So the Treo was a dumbphone? I had that before Apple's iPhone. I had a SonyErricson smart phone before the iPhone. The Sony phone had pretty good speech recognition, too. The Android phone has been a hotbed of innovation without any patent protection and they executed the product rather well with plenty of money behind it.
You seem to be making a giant assumption about whether or not a company would execute on the idea of a smart phone without patents. There is no conclusive evidence that innovation would fa
Re: (Score:3)
"Triple the costs" (Score:5, Informative)
You underestimate how little money companies are prepared to save by betraying their countries.
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
They'd be far more likely to buy a $700 iPod if they had a job that afforded them that kind of disposable income.
The whole "we can't afford to manufacture in the United States" idea is completely contrary to our own history. For decades we made most of our shit here, and consequently there were decent paying jobs to be had by most anyone with any skill level. Those jobs afforded those employees to buy the shit they were making, which is the fundamental problem we have today...wages have completely stagnated. People can't afford to buy the shit, even when it's made in China for pennies on the dollar. The race to the bottom has finally trickled up to the point where they're killing off their own customers.
Back in then 60's, my grandfather drove a truck for a living and supported himself, his wife, their four children, paid off a modest home for them to live in, had a new car in the driveway every few years, had enough scratch to pile the kids into said car every year to take them around the country on vacation, as well as put money aside for retirement and the kids college fund. The man barely had a high school education due to running off to fight in Korea and do his duty like those that had just a few years earlier in World War II.
This was possible because he wasn't competing with people on the other side of the world living in 3rd world conditions for his job. This was also possible because his boss was also a vet, as were all of his co-workers, and they would not tolerate one of their own being fucked over that way. He brought the boss home for dinner, the boss came to visit him when he was in the hospital. Point is, they actually gave a shit about each other beyond their ability to profit off of the labors of each other.
That $700 iPod isn't scary to someone that has a decent job. Paying the guys on the factory floor a decent wage allows them to buy the shit they're making, which leads to more demand for the product, which leads to more decent-paying jobs. This leads to a stronger economy, which increases the value of a dollar, which leads to lower prices. What it doesn't lead to, though, is ridiculous lopsided bonuses and salaries for the handful of people running things at the top.
In our grandfather's day, if their employer had brought in illegals or foreigners to work their line, paying them less in order to pad their own paychecks, there would have been a shit storm. They would have been shunned in the community, their products boycotted, and they likely would have had investigations into their business practices. But more importantly, most of those employers wouldn't have done it anyway, because they cared just as much about their country as their employees. That's something we lost in the drive for globalization and ever increasing profit margins.
The fallacy of trickle-down economics is why our country is sitting on the edge of a cliff right now. It took 30 years to fully flower, but we're finally hitting the point where even making shit in China isn't cheap enough due to inflation and the ridiculously stagnated wages we've been suffering under since this voodoo economics bullshit started. When less and less of us are able to justify the expense of an iPod at any price, where does that leave Apple (or any other manufacturer)?
Re:Time for... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:America is not a country (Score:4, Funny)
No, America is TWO continents.
NORTH America is a continent.
Re:Tech giants want to offshore/inshore all jobs (Score:4, Informative)
Yep. The world needs a minimum wage.
That's not the answer. People forget that third world economies are different from first world economies. You can pay a third worlder less. When I was stationed in Thailand in 1974, it was a third world country with a median income of $1,000 per year. But you could rent a bungalow (woman included) for $30, feed four at a nice restaraunt for under a dollar (including expensive American soda), take a bus anywhere in the country for a nickle. They weren't really that poor. Likewise, I'm twice as rich as someone living 200 miles away in Chicago who earns the same wage as me, because verything cost twice as much up there.
What the world needs is for these people to be unionized. Management bargains collectively with you alone, you have no power. They bargain collectively with your own collective, now you have power.
Do you like your 40 hour workweek, sick time, vacations? Thank the unions.
Yep. The world is connected by the intertubes.
That always makes me laugh. Computers haven't had tubes for over fifty years! And to us geezers, and innertube was inside a car's tire.