I’m not a Trump supporter, but if assembling products in the US led to a 10% price increase, I’d still buy it.
a lot of people would buy locally if it were a bit more expensive because they know it's going to pay locally and help local economies. small businesses in local areas, and other ancilliary benefits.
I know I have and done so in the past. When I played goalie, I could easily get made in China Reebok pads for $400. My first set was actually one of those. they were garbage. they fell apart fast and I actually got injured THROUGH THEM
I found a local manufacturer who hand builds every set of pads. custom designs. custom sizing. friendly. invited me to visit the shop. Pads cost $1500. easily lasted me 10 years (over 600 estimated games)
it was worth every penny. The guy grew his business. hired local craftsmen. expanded his product line, hired more people and now has a relatively succesful local manufacturing business that supports his community. None of that Reebok was willing to do (they were even in the process of closing the last reebok pad factory here so it could be moved to china)
the min/maxing of profits like this is horrendous for economics. It tends to keep money isolated and concentrated in few hands. Local businesses paying good livable wages tends to have a feedback affect of boosting economic conditions as more people with more money on hand tends to spend that money, which further stimulates economic growth.
this wall street catering by corporations for stock price is shortsited nearterm foolery. we've been here before. it resulted in the great depression when suddenly nobody had enough money to even buy bread. if people can't even afford the basics, they're not buying even cheap stuff to prop up your stock value.
We cannot move all trade local. there are things we need trade for. free trade itself is not inherently bad. However, the rampant humane rights abuses to ensure the constant min/maxing while keeping money out of the real economic drivers is bad. manufacturers should attempt to provide localized manufacturing in the regions they sell in. Apple shoul have multiple locations for final manufacturing in the west, eu and asia for those markets.
as I said before, Apple IS perfectly capable of doing it. Many many smaller and less profitable companies do it succesfully. Apple doesn't do it because they don't want to and it's 100% about stock value
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Lenovo assembles some computers in the U.S. to meet TAA (government) orders.
Of course Apple doesn't want to do this. It makes no sense from a supply chain nor skilled labor perspective.
All of this is about forcing Apple's hand. Sure, they could subsidize production in the U.S. and suffer from quality and supply chain issues. One of the reasons why Apple is so profitable is because they're able to extract so much value from the supply chain.
It's like asking Tesla to manufacture batteries in California and then test and do final assembly in New York. It makes no sense to separate out the work. The teams are in different time zones. The feedback loop is broken.
you're still talking about min/maxing though.
yes, from a min/maxing point of view, you're right. unfortunately, life isn't about the mn/max and people everywhere, including local town usa still need to eat.
this behaviour isn't new to the world though. Go read the Communist Manifesto (though, don't fall into communism, that's not the point). Marx and Engel, while their "solution" was kind of bad, describe economic conditions of the time in great detail and what led to the desire of communism.
constant min/maxing and the shifting of jobs to places where cheap labour could be abused, crippled the russian economy by growing the poor classes, until the point where the poor were so poor they had no choice but to rebel. There are striking similarities between that state of affairs and today.
at some point, corporations, which are part of society have to answer to, and take cresponsibility for ensuring that same societies well being.
