This is interesting… but not simply because of the surface visibility. Yesterday there was an event in Charlotte, North Carolina, that brought together Apple CEO Tim Cook, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, U.S. Workforce policy advocate Ivanka Trump and U.S. CoC President Tom Donohue (on the margin).
Today, Apple Inc announces a restructuring of their supply chain away from China. In the media report notice the nations that likely stand to gain, and reference Trump’s 2017 golden ticket tour of Asia.
(Reuters) – Apple Inc has asked its major suppliers to assess the cost implications of moving 15%-30% of their production capacity from China to Southeast Asia as it prepares for a restructuring of its supply chain, according to a Nikkei Asian Review report on Wednesday.
Apple’s request was a result of the extended Sino-U.S. trade dispute, but a trade resolution will not lead to a change in the company’s decision, Nikkei said s.nikkei.com/31zCGhw, citing multiple sources.
The iPhone maker has decided the risks of depending heavily on manufacturing in China are too great and even rising, it said.
Earlier this month, credit rating agency Fitch said it views Apple, Dell Technologies Inc and HP Inc as potential blacklist candidates if China blacklists U.S. companies in retaliation for restrictions on Huawei.
The countries being considered include Mexico, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. India and Vietnam are among the favorites for smartphones, Nikkei said, citing sources who did not want to be identified as the discussions are private.
Last week, Foxconn said it had enough capacity outside China to meet Apple’s demand in the American market if the company needed to adjust its production lines, as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to slap further $300 billion tariffs on Chinese goods. (read more)
In November of 2017, President Trump traveled to a specific set of Asian nations to meet with their leaders in advance of the APEC summit. Included in the individual bilateral discussions (disconnected from APEC) was: Moon Jae-in (S Korea), Shinzo Abe (Japan), Tran Dai Quang (Vietnam), Rodriquo Duterte (Phillipines) and Narenda Modi (India).
Notice the flow… Shinzo Abe, then Moon Jae-In, then meeting with Xi Jinping.
Who are the principals in the DPRK hostage release of Kim Jong Un? Abe, Moon and Xi.
It’s clear that for two-and-a-half years U.S. President Trump has been working on two connected objectives: (1) removing the threat posed by North Korea by severing the ability of Beijing to use the proxy province as a weapon (Kim is hostage to China); and (2) deconstructing the growing economic influence of China.
The second phase of the 2017 tour took place after Trump visited China. Additionally, there was a simultaneous shift in language. President Trump began using the term “Indo-Pacific”. The tour continued with extended bilateral trade discussions with Vietnam (Tran Dai Quang), India (Modi), and Philippines (Duterte).
In hindsight the connection and strategy is clear. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the fulcrum for the two objectives: (1) North Korea (denuke via hostage release); and (2) China (global trade rebalance).
There are ASEAN regional economic beneficiaries for #2, breaking the Chinese supply chain and targeting a manufacturing retreat. Namely: Japan, Vietnam, India, South Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia… and Mexico (think USMCA).
[Additionally, Singapore and Tokyo pick up the financial benefits from worries over Hong Kong. More pressure on Chairman Xi]
Back to yesterday… Tim Cook, Wilbur Ross and Ivanka Trump:
Flashback to June 2018:
.
Tick Tock, Tick Tock.
Oops!
Not an Apple iPhone I guess………
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Who is that Troll attacking Ivanka?????
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Donahue?
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Ivanka…should take off shoe and hit king of CofC head…
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Lift right foot, put knee firmly in fork.
Repeat till subject is horizontal.
THEN use heel, targeting eyes and temple, until tired. Rest and continue till subject meets his maker.
Forgive me lord, but I really don’t like that ,….satan spawn Donahue!
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A tried and true female technique Dutchman.
One of many that works well.
You must have daughters that you have raised right.
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I do, at that.
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Ivanka is wearing pointy shoes with high heels.
Don’t waste time with the knee. Plant that pointy shoe hard into the top of the fork like kicking a field goal from center field.
Repeat until he drops down, plant the point of the shoe in his side and when he rolls over, nail the genitals with the heel.
It should take months for CofC Donahue speak in anything but soprano.
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With mine he’s dead, with yours he simply WISHES he was. I’m good, either way. Rumors are Ryan is being groomed as Donahues replacement.
For him, your solution isn’t sufficient.
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Ryan will be a disaster for them because it will be so obvious what he has done to obstruct Trump . It will get pointed out publicly once he gets the job. That will make him a favorite target .
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He’s already on my ‘most favorite target’ list. Right at the top, actually.
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OMG – I visually see your response, I”m standing arms above head cheering!
Forgive me lord but the Dutchman made me do it.
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Hey, I only wrote it; you are responsible for your responce. And, glad to lighten your day!
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sejmon, I believe she is aiming higher without lifting a foot….
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Yeah its that vile POS CoC puppet-
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Looks like he is going full Biden and trying to get a sniff. The touching…
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Donahue is looking mighty old and ragged lately. Time for him to buy that 2 bedroom condo at Century Village in Delray Beach!
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Hey…I lived in Delray Beach…Put O’ Putrid someplace else…
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You are correct, is looks like Donkeyhue filling up his Hanes Wear.
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Hmmm. What does he really want?
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Why that’s no ordinary troll, my dear friend!
That specie is known as a “Americanus traitorous maximus” troll and they are the WORST!
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You mean the father of all the GOPe and Democrats?????????????
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Ship him in container to China..
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They’ll just send him back homogenized as canned baby food.
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None other!
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Trying to get on the good side? He will never do anything for the good of the country!
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Why, it’s the High Priest of Slave Labor Businesses, Tom Donohue.
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He’s not President of the CoC … he’s President of the CoCC. Chinese Commerce.
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Show em these.
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Love you Katie. Maybe you should replace Sarah Sanders. I would love to see you wipe the floor with our media.
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Wow!
Apple has tons of suppliers.
“At this point, even if Washington doesn’t follow through with plans to slap tariffs on another $300 billion in goods, companies, including Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron, Quanta Computer, iPad maker, Compal Electronics, and AirPods makers Inventec, Luxshare-ICT and Goertek have all been asked by Apple to evaluate options outside of China. Other suppliers are watching these companies, and monitoring where they go.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-19/trade-war-rages-apple-plans-shift-30-production-outside-china
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The problem for China is they cannot get an ally. Everybody wants access to US markets. Trump has an iron fist on US markets. Look how fast Mexico reacted to the specter of emergency tariffs. But more than that, the world was watching too.
The world not only includes political leaders but titans of business. This is why the islands in the South China Sea are now a liability to China. Business will view that as a future conflict and supply chain disruption. This creates uncertainty and money hates uncertainty.
Trump’s creation of uncertainty and unpredictability becomes an asset.
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Large companies like that would be foolish to have one supply chain. They should always have capabilities and supply lines in other countries at all times for this exact reason. Then average your costs overall and you still have a cheap product.
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Build the damn Iphone in America for crissake!
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Doesn’t matter. So long as its out of China, for now.
And the key sentence in the whole news release is, paraphrasing;
“It DOESN’T MATTER”; If Xi and PDJT made a trade deal tomorrow (not gonna happen, folks but) they would STILL leave China.
And, “Those manufacturing jobs REALLY aren’t coming back!”
This is the death nell, its “last one out, turn out the lights” as the exodus begins in earnest.
It will take some more time to “play out”, but this is like a Chess game where everyone knows the outcome, its just a matter of going thru the motions.
IMHO, CCP and Xi are beat, and they KNOW it.
Time is not on their side.
Putin is not on their side.
Kim is not on their side.
Iran is nuetralised.
All their neighbors HATE them, so NOT on their side.
Their agents in U.S. Congress (Pelosi and McConnell) have come up empty.
They are ‘dead men walking’, and they KNOW it.
IMHO
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Putting it another way, same thing…
“President for Life, Xi” must now face a shortened Life.
I think poker players are up to speed on the concept, overall.
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Some time back, we had a commenter who was a professional poker player, (was it you?)
He did several posts, from that perspective, the gist being you leave EMOTION at home, or you lose.
And, when you first sit down at the,table, figure out who the ‘sucker’ is.
If you can’t figure it out,…
YOU are!
So yeah, one of the things people who don’t ‘get’ Trump failed to understand, is NOT allowing emotions to dictate actions, cause THAT will get you KILLED. Or guarantee you lose, etc.
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I wonder if trying to “save face” could be considered an emotional response.
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Isn’t that like saying “trying to avoid being embarassed”? I understand its a cultural difference, and a non oriental can’t truly understand, but I would THINK that would be an ACTION, or responce governed by emotion, rather than logic.
The corelary is, I don’t think DJT would mind embarrasing himself, if in the process he achieved his objective. Because he doesn’t allow his emotions to dictate his actions.
Hence, if letting others take the credit, will achieve his objective, whereas insisting on getting the credit prevents him from achieving his objective, he will gladly eschew the credit.
WHAT, are you kidding? It costs NOTHING,..”credit”, can I put it in the Bank? Can I use it as collateral for a LOAN?
Anyway, pro poker; do NOT allow your emotions to govern your actions.
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Well said.
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2 E Z 2 DO
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Apple probably needs to balance its China labor and local material costs more with China sales to avoid currency retrieval problems.
So, fewer Chinese iPhone sales = fewer Chinese jobs. So Xi using Huawei local sales against iPhone to avenge himself still boomerangs on China.
Funny how that works.
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If China and NK get straightened out in the near future, then it would be nice to see some indictments of the corrupt DOJ/FBI/Obama/Clinton bunch as a fitting wrap up before the 2020 election.
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Have you seen this? (Bet the Communist Chinese have ALL the Obama “destroyed” U.S. government owned records.)
Barack Obama plunged America into darkness as ‘The Enthroned King of Fake News’.
Obama’s ‘wholesale destruction’ of tens of thousands of National Archive Records
https://canadafreepress.com/article/obamas-wholesale-destruction-of-tens-of-thousands-of-national-archive-recor#Comments
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Very interesting article SwampRatTerrier.
I did notice that the Canada Free Press writer refers to the articles as “missing” not “destroyed”.
Somebody somewhere has them, they always do.
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Hopefully he will go all the way and erase himself from every history book too.
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Keep them in the history books as a warning for future generations of what out of control government is capable of. Though, the history book could be corrected to give an accurate assessment of what the Democrats/Republican Uniparty did.
Never again should a U.S. citizen think about saying, “Oh, it could never happen in the United States.”
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zozz1;
IMHO, irrelevent. When your up to your *ss in alligators, with boa constrictors dropping from trees to encircle your neck, pyrahnas and water moccasins slithering inside your waders, malaria carrying mosquitos biting you, and one foot in quicksand, its very hard to remember your GOAL was to DRAIN THE SWAMP.
Hence, you DO NOT wade in and start battling the creatures. Instead you go miles away, and DIVERT THE WATER.
THEN, you dig drainage channels, to drain the water which now won’t be replaced.
As the water drains, the creatures are exposed, and will fight amongst themselves for the remaining, dwindling water, with the last survivors wandering off for more hospitable environs.
And THAT is how you drain a Swamp.
Put EMOTION aside, DO NOT allow it to effect your actions.
With China crushed, McConnell and Pelosi have no water ($) and will wander off and croak.
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If China and NK get straightened out in the near future, then it would be nice to see some indictments of the corrupt DOJ/FBI/Obama/Clinton bunch as a fitting wrap up before the 2020 election.
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It will be entertaining to see VSG President Trump skewer the Dems with SpyGate on the stump! He set them up beautifully with the Stephanopoulos interview.
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Just a one track mind ,and nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
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President Trump has accomplished more than any US President while at the same time, enduring an all out, 365/24/7 assault from D-Rats, Rinos and Media-rats.
Just imagine how great things could be for We the People right at this moment if the Rs had represented the American citizens and stood behind President Trump.
It really disgusts me the constant media-rat propaganda and D-Rat/Rino continued assaults on the greatest President in the history of the USA, President Trump!
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FL_GUY: you are so spot on. I wonder with the same “disgust” about that with each passing day.
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I couldn’t agree more – but if we had an honest objective media and the politicians weren’t selling us and their soul for filthy lucre, we wouldn’t have President Trump, so…
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What about making iPhones in … (gasp!) … the USA?
I’ll bet we could beat anyone hands-down once we put our minds to it. Why don’t we bloom where we are planted?
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Part of AAPL’s 900B market cap is formulated upon its ability to source mfg and assembly at a discount rate in China.
Manufacture in the USA would take a hit to their profit margins on their products for sure, but the company would remain viable with their stock investors taking the hit.
Wall St. got greedy and it’s time for them to pay the piper.
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Apple’s stock price is already “beyond sensibility.” It’s nothing more or less than Wall Street speculation. (Tim Cook should have learned a lesson from former IBM Chairman Lou Gertsner, who in Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? points out that IBM exists for its customers, not Wall Street.) Nonetheless, Apple could easily afford to manufacture its products here – and it would in fact gain considerably because many of its products are ultimately sold here. This is one company that really doesn’t have to worry about where its next paycheck is coming from . . .
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Yep I agree. I think Apple would be wise to get out of China and let investors take a bath if it means that their supply chains are secure as well as their IP.
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They make so much that they could swing it. I think they could convince their iPhone fans to pay a little more.
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They desperately need to bring back an updated version of the small phone – the SE model – last made in the 5 series and currently resting in my jeans pocket where it FITS, unlike any other phone around.
This phone could be a renewed moneymaker for them because it is smaller and presumably would cost less to make, would sell at a price point more customers would like, and solves a growing problem those of us with arthritic hands are experiencing with the larger and larger phones.
Yes it’s smaller print – a problem that can be easily be solved by pinching the screen or wearing reading glasses.
(Then again as a lifelong myopic, my close vision is beginning to approach the strength of Superman’s, so all I need to do is take off my far-sight glasses and voila, it’s as if I were wearing a magnifying glass. I understand this also happens to more and more of us as we age.)
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Obamacare, labor unions and regulations cause the American worker to cost too much
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snellvillebob —
Perot warned us in 1992
— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3LvZAZ-HV4 —
and he was spot on.
If you watch the video notice how similar Bush’s and Clinton’s smarmy expressions are. Says a lot right there. THEY KNEW he was telling the truth. Just didn’t care since their sorry posteriors weren’t losing THEIR jobs.
How high on the hog do the labor LEADERS live while selling the workers down the river?
I hope workers catch on that the labor leaders are as much or more their enemies than “management” and “corporate”. Seems like they’re starting to..
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Wow, smarmy is right….R..Perot had to have gotten tired of being condescended to by ignoramuses.
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Not even mentioned as a possibility.
You can understand attacking the economic power of China but spreading the work around Asia, in what one suspects could be Chinese subsidiaries or front companies, is hardly MAGA.
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“Not even mentioned as a possibility.”
That is incorrect.
Foxconn is already building a huge plant in the upper Midwest.
Apple has recently “mentioned” that they could shift some manufacturing here with only a slight hit to the bottom line profit.
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Scott Walker 4-D chess with the Trumpster! Love it!
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Spreading the money making opportunities about in SE Asia will endear those nations to USA/Trump and certainly NOT endear them to their neighbor China/Xi. Good move in my book to let them have those jobs, (or at least some of them). We are at full employment in USA and, although those jobs coming back to USA would be good jobs, we are 1.) short on labor and 2.) We need to put an end to the status quo in China and turning their neighbors (who already despise them), more toward USA helps. Hungry people get ruthless, even in China. The Hong Kong incident was very telling IMHO.
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The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max start at $999 and $1,099, and go up to $1,349 and $1,449, respectively. They’re anything but cheap, although there are plenty of ways to make those prices more tolerable. But how much does it cost Apple to manufacture them? The first bill of materials for the 256GB iPhone XS Max, priced at $1,249, says it cost Apple just $443 to manufacture this model.
https://nypost.com/2018/09/26/making-the-1249-iphone-xs-only-costs-apple-443/
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Apple probably controls the pyramid of transfer pricing enough to optimize taxes with some nice escalators over their actual costs lower down in the chain.
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Labor costs are less of a factor. Important factors:
1) Supply chain sources. Need the final assembly to be cost efficient from a logistical standpoint.
2) Environment laws and regulations. There are genuine safety concerns, but the non-genuine rules and regulations are the biggest hurdles.
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The CIA/NSA recently intercepted communications sent to “Paper Tiger”. They were full of desperate pleadings on how to proceed and remain viable with their status quo. They were all signed anonymously as “Paper Dragon”.
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Trump should bring a tiny Origami Violin to the G20 and present it to Xi.
“Shinzō Abe had this made for you. We had a good chuckle, hope you don’t mind.”
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Wound? Meet salt. 🙂
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Posted this on the previous thread but better fit here:
“Apple explores moving 15-30% of production capacity from China: Nikkei”
*****
Interesting article. IMO, Pres. Trump has PRC and Xi by the b*lls. New to me, all of the Apple and many other Brand name electronic mentioned are manufactured by such companies as Foxconn, Pegatron Corp., Wistron Corp., Quanta Computer Inc., Compal Electronics Inc., Inventec Corp., etc.. These are all multi-billion dollar, world wide, development, design, engineering and manufacturing OEMs that are Taiwanese corps, not PRC corps. They have large assembly facilities in the PRC but also many other countries and can be moved.
Seems to me, it’s a similar situation to motor vehicles, appliances, etc, “Hecho en Mexico”; Mexico isn’t manufacturing, for example BMWs, they bolt the parts together; same with PRC and i-Phones, Macs, etc. These things are labeled “Made in China”, it should be “Hecho en China”. China “prosperity” here today, gone to India, etc. tomorrow. (Stupid me, I thought PRC companies were running the show and Xi had leverage)
Another question, how much financial “skin in the game” do corps such at Foxconn, Pegatron, etc. have in the PRC assembly facilities. Does the PRC gov’t provide land, “development grants”, “tax incentives” to attract Taiwanese corps to locate there or are the Taiwanese corps providing the capital?
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I like the Chinese. I like Asians in general. Smart, law abiding generally, industrious. All good things. But Asia, especially China, has been kicking our butts these last x number of years. I don’t know when it started. I generally date everything to when H. W. Bush became president — New World Order guy and all that. As POTUS says, not Asia’s fault. They’re just doing what our establishment politicians let them do. Encouraged them to do so those reaping the rewards (top 1%) could pocket the proceeds. Ross Perot warned us in 1992 — we didn’t listen — and had we not elected VSGPDJT it might well have been too late. I want China to do well. I want Japan to do well. I want everyone to do well. What I don’t want is for American workers’ to be sold down the river so some potentate in a Manhattan High Rise or in a DC condominium could make a killing.
And while I’m at it (grumpy today) let me point out that much of the stuff they make they have no idea what it’s used for. Example: Have you tried to make a bed with a fitted sheet these last ten years? It’s a darned CIRCLE. It takes twice the time to make the bed because you can’t find the long end. At least I can’t. And don’t get me started on bubble lights. Love the things at Christmas. Made in China now and guess what. They glow but the DON’T bubble. The point of bubble lights. Not the factory’s fault. I doubt the Chinese quality control supervisor ever saw a bubble light in action.
There. Done. Thanks. You guys rock. Every now and then YY4U gets cranky. Today’s one of those nows.
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Noma (brand) bubble lights from the 1940s and 1950s were the best. Lasted for decades. Not cheaply made, plastic (or Bakelite?) used for sockets and the wiring was far heavier than anything coming out of China. The large wall plugs had fuses in them.
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Funniest one I saw, was on a late night talk show, several years ago.
The product was a small, inflatable santa clause, made in China.
Now, like any such inflatable, it had to have a small, projecting ‘nozzle’, to inflate it,…right?
Now WHERE would be THE MOST inapprorpriate place to put the nozzle?
No, the butt would be SECOND most,…yup. Right in the fork!
I understand and respect cultural differences,…but REALLY? So, yeah, we have had CRAP foisted on is for so many years, a whole generation have grown up expecting stuff to be poor quality, adulterated raw material, poorly designed,…CRAP!
Its inherent in the Conmunist system, NOT inherent to the people, just the system. This is NOT about “the Chinese”, its about Conmunism, a scourge on humanity.
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At a trade show in China last year I saw a Chinese-made ski resort snow groomer with a beautiful full colour, 12 page brochure that I brought home. The cover reads “Austria Technology….Quality of Sperm”. I get a nice chuckle every time I look at it.
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Major start was,…the Clantons. Bill lobbied hard for China into WTO.
There is a reason Hillary wears those mao pantsuits, besides concealing, …whatever.
They were manchurian candidates, all along.
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I empathize on the sheets.
You can usually identify one of the long corners by finding the manufacturer’s inside label – it’s always at a long corner.
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“Last week, Foxconn said it had enough capacity outside China to meet Apple’s demand in the American market if the company needed to adjust its production lines”
Already positioned. This is huge.
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Onlookers with careers and even lives at stake look on Pres. Trump’s coalescing vision –meditated over thirty years– and wonder, Why has no U.S. President from the post-Soviet era on so much as attempted to stir this Globalist anthill?
Precisely two 36-year epochs past Hiroshima, this newly forming post-Postwar period is throwing everyone but Trump for a grand loop. As all falls into place, the consequences will surely prove benign for all concerned… and as time goes on, collectivist/Statists’ century-old nightmare will fade to enterprising business-at-hand freeing 21st Century cultures to a new “esprit d’escalier”, an aspiring spirit aiming for the stars.
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It was both fashionable and expected that CEOs and corporate BODs would take whatever steps possible to increase profits and shareholder value. Once the gates were opened to having manufacturing moved offshore to locations of both cheap labor AND little if any environmental regulations/ concerns, it was a “no-brainer.”
And for a while, the huge returns to Americans 401k’s overshadowed the devastation in the Rust Belt, the South, across the country. The “rich get richer while the poor get poorer” was deflected by the mostly-corporatist Republicans as merely a Democrat whine.
Yet the DemoncRATs saw an opportunity to endear themselves to a permanently unemployed underclass by pursuing increasingly socialist policies. So they had no incentive to return the independent wealth created by domestic manufacturing to our shores.
Obama tried to seal the deal with his “new standard” remarks and his “no magic wand” statement. But Trump…..
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Too late for Motorola. BREAK UP Facebook and Twitter, but ESPECIALLY Google:
Motorola’s American dream is over
Company will shut down US assembly plant by end of 2014
May 30, 2014
https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/30/5764836/motorola-shutting-down-us-assembly-plant
Motorola won’t be assembling phones in the United States for much longer. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the company will close its Texas factory — essential to its Moto Maker assembly process — by the end of this year. Motorola has since confirmed the unfortunate news to The Verge. And the reason is simple: Motorola’s smartphones aren’t selling well enough to keep the place running. “What we found was that the North American market was exceptionally tough,” Motorola President Rick Osterloh told the Journal. The decision potentially leaves hundreds of American workers out of a job.
The plant’s fate was thrown into question after Lenovo [a Chinese company] announced plans to purchase Motorola Mobility from Google early this year. On the conference call announcing that deal, Lenovo executives were cagey in discussing what would happen to the facility, though they did say they expected to turn Motorola’s fortunes around in just a “few quarters.” With the Moto X not selling as well as expected and Motorola bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter, closing the Texas plant is an obvious step towards profitibility.
Approximately 700 people currently work there — down from a high of several thousand — which suggests that Motorola has quietly been pulling away resources for some time. All of Motorola’s future manufacturing will now happen overseas.
———-
Motorola Mobility
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Motorola Mobility LLC is a smartphone brand company, a subsidiary of technology firm Lenovo. Lenovo primarily manufactures smartphones and other mobile devices running Android under the Moto brand.
Motorola Mobility was formed on January 4, 2011, after a split of Motorola Inc. into two separate companies, with Motorola Mobility assuming the company’s consumer-oriented product lines (including its mobile phone business, as well as its cable modems and pay television set-top boxes), and Motorola Solutions assuming the company’s enterprise-oriented product lines.
In May 2012 Google acquired Motorola Mobility for US$12.5 billion; the main intent of the purchase was to gain Motorola’s patent portfolio, in order to protect other Android vendors from litigation. Under Google, Motorola increased its focus on the entry-level smartphone market, and under the Google ATAP division, began development on Project Ara—a platform for modular smartphones with interchangeable components. Shortly after the purchase, Google sold Motorola Mobility’s cable modem and set-top box business to Arris Group.
Google’s ownership of the company was short-lived. In January 2014, Google announced that it would sell Motorola Mobility to Chinese consumer electronics firm Lenovo for $2.91 billion. The sale, which excluded ATAP and all but 2,000 of Motorola’s patents, was completed on October 30, 2014.[2] Lenovo disclosed an intent to use Motorola Mobility as a way to expand into the United States smartphone market. In August 2015, Lenovo’s existing smartphone division was subsumed by Motorola Mobility, and in November 2016, Lenovo announced that it would discontinue its existing, self-branded smartphone lines in favor of Motorola-branded devices going forward.
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Uggh, Lenovo! That was the Chinese company that took over manufacturing of IBM laptops in 2005.
Has anyone seen, much less bought, an IBM branded laptop lately?
‘Nuff said!
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steph_gray: When Lenovo acquired IBM’s PC business, Lenovo got a license to the IBM name for a certain period of time, after which, Lenovo could no longer use the IBM name. Not that the IBM name means anything to anyone anymore, at least in the consumer market.
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Thanks for the heads up about the sheets.
Re Lenovo…have never had one. But last year my Windows 95 IBM laptop finally refused to boot. I couldn’t use it if course, no internet capabilities and 20 yrs old, but i wld boot it up now and then just to look at the old programs and data that i hadnt transferred. I was sorry to see it go. That was a computer!
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Xi,
This could have been you! Smile!
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Good that Donahue was there, I think from this meeting that he can see the CoC is on the wrong side of the trend. In the end, he is not an enemy, he just goes where the money is. Now that money is flowing along President Trump’s fault lines, Donahue can raise money for candidates who will pour cement on top of MAGA.
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I disagree, respectfully – Donahue is not going to come into the sunlight – he strikes me as a terminal TDS sufferer.
Agree totally that it would be best thing for him to do, of course! Just can’t see it happening.
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I noticed SD has not brought up China shipping through Vietnam, et al to eschew tariffs. Is it not a concern, or just small potatoes compared to everything else that’s happening?
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As with oil, and autos, and money, and all things plastic, paper, and steel, off they went to lands far far away. Because of unions or labor markets or what? Why does a Chinese robot cost less per hour than an American robot? But let’s look closely at whom controls the enterprises that involve foreign governments and foreign companies. How do things move from point A to point B and how are these industries funded, Who controls that funding? Since the 1960’s and 70’s, the government has done everything possible to get the control of business into the hands of corporations and under the regulation of government. Shipping, manufacturing, insurance, banking, finance, research and development, supply chains, labor, and energy are all under either direct or indirect control of the federal government in one way or other. Mom and Pop does good? But they won’t buy anything much less compete unless it comes through the government.
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I pray for Wilbur Ross. Brilliant man, but no spring chicken
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Have you seen his wife? He’ll be fine.
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I wonder if China has a fall-back plan; something lucrative and dealing in a commodity that’s in high demand, and with a supply chain they can control. Hmmm, I wonder what it might be?
https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2019/06/19/report-suggests-china-preparing-muslims-concentration-camps-organ-harvesting/
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China’s fatal mistake: Threatening foreign companies on its soil.
Of all the available options, I would avoid Indonesia as fundamentalist Islam is spreading.
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“China’s fatal mistake: Threatening foreign companies on its soil.
Of all the available options, I would avoid Indonesia as fundamentalist Islam is spreading.”
Absolutely YES on both points. Communists are & always will be totalitarian. 1400 years of ‘religion of peace’ should be long enough to have a good idea of what it is fundamentally (their prophet put his words & commands in print, and his bloody deeds makes it impossible to twist them).
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Why would a billionaire tech CEO object to being put on trial for a capital offence in a PLA People’s Court in Beijing? Really, they don’t think they’d get a fair shake? Nothing like a few Mao style threats to put the fear of Mao into them! LOL
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I remember being a kid and wanting to play baseball at the local field. There was 10 of us, and we had everything but a ball.
This where a local jerk came in let’s say he determined who, what and how we played. We didn’t like it but he had the ball. This went on for a while, until one day we stood up to the jerk with the ball. He said you don’t have a ball so you have to do what I say.
Well I had mowed lawns the last two days and got not one ball but 10 balls to share with my friends. The jerk left and we did not see him for along time. Then one day he asked if he could play we said shure but not by his rules.
The jerk looked at the ground and said OK. You see the world is not so different than when we were kids. China is slowly finding out that Trump has bought many balls and is sharing them with others. China will have to play by the others rules or be left alone. Nice play president Trump. I heard Donald as a child was very good at baseball. Perhaps he learned this same lessen long ago in a field near his home. You see it’s really a very small world we live in.
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I believe he was a baseball champ at his military college.
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“In hindsight the connection and strategy is clear. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the fulcrum…”
And the enthusiasm of the people and government of Japan, for President Trump’s inclusive attention to an “Indo-Pacific” alignment of allied regional interests, could not have been more powerfully expressed than it recently was, by the Japanese government in the events of President Trump’s state visit and his historically unique royal reception.
I shudder to think how that might have gone, with Big Mike and Fair Barry leading the delegation.
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