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Desktops (Apple) United States Apple Politics

No, That Mac Factory in Texas Is Not New (nytimes.com) 310

Posted by msmash from the yes-minister dept.
President Trump on Wednesday toured a Texas plant that makes high-end Apple computers, chatting with Apple's chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, and accepting a plate with the words "Assembled in USA." From a report: It was a pretty typical publicity event, until the end. Mr. Trump walked in front of the news cameras and took credit for the plant, suggesting it had opened that day. "For me, this is a very special day," he said. Mr. Cook stood next to him, stone-faced. The plant has been making Apple computers since 2013. Immediately after Mr. Trump's comments, Mr. Cook thanked the president and his staff. "I'm grateful for their support in pulling today off and getting us to this far. It would not be possible without them," he said. He did not correct the record. The moment was part of a bizarre afternoon in Texas, where the president played up a six-year-old factory as evidence of his three-year-old presidency's success in bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. It showed Mr. Trump's willingness to leverage his influence over American companies in his pitch to voters that he deserves another four years in the White House. And it illustrated the complicated position that Mr. Cook and other corporate executives find themselves in with this president, forced to stand silently by while he sometimes misleads about their businesses.

[...] On Wednesday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Cook a "very special person" because of his ability to create jobs. He turned to Mr. Cook and said, "What would you say about our economy compared to everybody else?" Mr. Cook replied, "I think we have the strongest economy in the world." "Strongest in the world," Mr. Trump said. The president then took questions on the impeachment inquiry and launched into a tirade against "the fake press." Mr. Cook stood silently nearby.
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No, That Mac Factory in Texas Is Not New More

No, That Mac Factory in Texas Is Not New

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  • Tim Cook is adept at flattering lying leaders (Score:5, Funny)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Thursday November 21, 2019 @10:25AM (#59438988)
    It's a skill he honed during his trips to China.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 )

      We really should stop electing leaders that are either so easily misled, or so willing to mislead their constituents.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Agreed.

        But who do you suggest?

    • These used to be called "left handed compliments", seeming to say something praiseful but saying nothing of the sort via ambiguiuty.
      It's great to watch Tim Cook flattering the president with calorie free praise. Next He will say "Without any Qualification, Donald Trump is a presidential leader"" or "We have had the fortune to work with President trump and can tell that You will be lucky to get this man to work for you".

      • Like saying Payton Manning is one of the three best quarterbacks in his family? (Joke from his roast)

    • If you have to go after Tim Cook, why not focus on the REAL issue here? Did Apple actually hire anyone? Or just buy some more robots? No mention in the story or the comments. Also no mention of automation.

      Not surprised.

      I could do broader research, but I already know the answer. Apple hired as few human beings as possible.

      Then again, you could argue that some of the fanbois act like robots.

      I guess I need to include a disclaimer that most of my experiences with Apple as a customer have been negative. Most rec

  • What? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Thursday November 21, 2019 @10:32AM (#59439016)

    In January, Apple announced it was going to move production of the Mac Pro to China:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/a... [wsj.com]

    After tariffs were introduced, Apple announced they would keep production in Austin:

    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/2... [cnbc.com]

    So, yeah, Trump wasn't responsible for *opening* the plant, but he's most certainly responsible for keeping the plant open.

    Not a fan of Trump at all, but holy cow this is some garbage level reporting.

    • Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gamenfo ( 18212 ) on Thursday November 21, 2019 @10:39AM (#59439042) Homepage

      I think there is more behind the scenes there. Apple CEO is on the President's advisory board, sees that Tariffs will at some point make Apple less profitable. The bargaining chip he has is, we make this computer in the US. If we stop making it in the US, then when negotiating for exemptions on the tariffs we can say we'll bring that manufacturing back to the US. Trump and Cook both can be "Winners" while in reality nothing has changed.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 )

      I mean at this point does anyone but his most ardent supporters assume that he lies most of the time. Here is his exact tweet: “Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America. Today Nancy Pelosi closed Congress because she doesn’t care about American Workers!”

      The first point is maybe the threat of tariffs kept the work here in the US however there is also the possibility that Apple could have had two factories with one in the US

      • Well, apple has two factories. The U.S. plant only builds macpros for the U.S.-market, the ones for the rest of the world are built in china. Apple was supposed to close the plant, but they must have figured out some deal with the government so trump can say he saved those jobs. Which he probably did, only at what cost?

    • But he was also responsible for the situation which originally caused the plan to close the plant.

      This really reminds me of the Dilbert strip where someone gets the price for beeing "most overpaid due to gross incompetence".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )

      Many of the responses here make valid points. The story isn't all one thing or all the other thing, it's a mix of both.

      What's The NY Times's excuse for leaving out half the story? Aren't they supposed to be professionals? Is news reporting in The NY Times supposed to be comparable to your average reddit rant?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by bobbied ( 2522392 )

      In my experience, validated by reading a lot of original source materials must of the reporting on Trump is garbage..

      Pretty much all of the reporting about Trump, what he says, what he does and what it means is garbage. Apparently he rubs the average reporter the wrong way and they simply cannot resist lashing out and piling on the negative stories. They love to take Trump out of context, edit a sound bite down and accuse him of things which are not in fact true. I'm willing to let a lot of this go exce

      • Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Kevin Stevens ( 227724 ) <kevstev@@@gmail...com> on Thursday November 21, 2019 @11:49AM (#59439442)

        You can read a transcript of everything he said here:

        https://www.politifact.com/tru... [politifact.com]

        He starts off with utter bullshit:
        "Trump: "I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct -- not make a quick statement. The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement. But you don’t make statements that direct unless you know the facts. It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don’t know the facts. And it’s a very, very important process to me, and it’s a very important statement."

        This has been proven time and again that this is the actual opposite of his ethos. At the time, the inauguration nonsense was still fresh on everyone's minds. The context here is important: He failed to condemn the white nationalists for a period of time, caught a LOT of heat for it, then came out with what appeared to be some half-hearted forced statement condemning them- only to then in this conference get in front of reporters and say:

        Trump: "Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves -- and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."

        These rallyers were chanting "You will not replace us... Jews will not replace us" while carrying torches that alluded to the KKK.There is nothing fine about this at all, and if you think there is anything redeeming in that, I can't agree with you one bit.

      • I think the problem is that it is really impossible to report on Trump. He speaks off the cuff in a way that presents as incredibly inconsistent, so an accurate report today might appear wrong tonight once he starts tweeting or tomorrow when his administration holds a press conference and pretends he didn't say a thing.

        This is very useful to him as it lets his apologizers pretend he's being misrepresented by the media.

        At the same time his most bigoted supporters can key in on the worst of what he says, tell

  • On Wednesday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Cook a "very special person" because of his ability to create jobs. He turned to Mr. Cook and said, "What would you say about our economy compared to everybody else?" Mr. Cook replied, "I think we have the strongest economy in the world." "Strongest in the world," Mr. Trump said. The president then took questions on the impeachment inquiry and launched into a tirade against "the fake press." Mr. Cook stood silently nearby.

    Um ... OK? So the sitting president is happy that a business leader called our economy the strongest in the world. And?

  • OFFS (Score:2, Informative)

    by cyberchondriac ( 456626 )

    This is newsworthy for slashdot? Slow news day, think of some way to bash Trump again since he's the new Bush?
    So the NYT "think" that Trump suggested the factory had just opened, when he didn't actually say that? Sounds to me like he was touting the economy, not that the factory just opened (what suggested that anyway?) it was running strong and the economy is in very good shape. What about employment at the factory? Has it increased employment since it opened in 2013? Has their output increased? Tho

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Dude, it's a story about US politics combined with Apple. If there was an explicit social justice activism angle it would be the perfect Slashdot click storm.

    • So the NYT "think" that Trump suggested the factory had just opened, when he didn't actually say that? Sounds to me like he was touting the economy, not that the factory just opened (what suggested that anyway?)

      https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJ... [twimg.com]

      Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America. Today Nancy Pelosi closed Congress because she doesn’t care about American Workers!

      Trump said it. Not suggested, said it very directly.

    • Dude, the NYT didn't "think" anything. Trump wasn't "touting the economy". What "suggested that" was Trump's fucking tweet that says, "Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America". Do you get triggered by the NYT or something? Do you just believe anything that Donnie says?

  • That's what you call "forced to stand silently by while he sometimes misleads about their businesses".

  • Fake news (Score:2, Funny)

    by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 )

    The factory really did open that day, the day before it was a pizza parlor with an international pedophile ring operating in a back room.

  • It has to be said that without trump offering big tax breaks to apple, they would probably have closed the factory by now. It was long rumored that it didn't operate cost-efficiently and would be closed after the end of the "trashcan" macpro. On the other hand, it's quite socialistic to subsidy a factory that would otherwise not make a profit.

  • I mean, it's not exactly a revelation that Trump has a history of trying to exaggerate and take credit for businesses coming back to America or staying in America when it was happening anyway. I believe at last count, it was 23 times the press could cite instances where he did it.

    But Americans need to wake up and realize that we're lied to ALL the time like that. Trump just makes it easier to figure out when he does it, because he's pandering to a lower IQ audience which makes up a pretty good percentage of

    • Trump is like a petulant child. Perfectly well behaved until you try to get them to do something that they don't want to do. Then they throw their toys out of the pram.
      The danger with the current POTUS is that he controls the US Nuclear weapons.
      Humour the man and hope that he is declared medically unfit to stand for re-election.

  • What I find amazing is that there are still people around who type statements that reveal they have failed realize that there is not one single thing Trump says that can be trusted.

    Defenders/Supporters and Detractors alike.

    Carefully now: There are things Trump has said that have turned out to be true. That is not the same thing as saying his statements can be trusted.

  • It's that 21% of the country seems perfectly Ok with being gaslit. I mean, at a certain point you're complicit...

  • SMH (Score:2)

    by Miser ( 36591 )

    All I can do is shake my head at all of these lying, corrupt, money-grubbing fuck sticks.

    Trump lies, we know that.

    Cook won't correct Trump so Trump favors Apple/Cook/etc.

    Same old schtick.

  • Wait....Donald Trump lied and took credit for something he had no part of?

    this is my shocked face

  • Jobs wouldn't have stood by for any of this. He was many things, but never a political pawn.
    The trump people wouldn't have been able to get Jobs to even return their calls.

    Tim Cook doesn't realize that acquiescing to this bumbling idiot only makes tariff problems far worse.
    I had hoped that Cook wasn't that incompetent but this pretty much confirms it.

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