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Trump's Plan to Force Apple to Manufacture in U.S. Demonstrates Complete Ignorance of Manufacturing Processes
Can we not use Core77 as platform for political discussion? As we head into election season, we in the US are all going to be bombarded with it from just about every conceivable angle angle and there are many other venues to sound off on your thoughts ands observations about XYZ candidate or party.
If you think Design as a concept or a profession is divorced from politics you are in for a big shock some day. "Politics" as we see it in the campaigning is indeed a lot of bluster, false promises, and outright lies, all often driven largely by ignorance and ego. But Politics eventually finds its way to Policy, and that is where the rubber hits the road. Policy is law and regulations, trade negotiations, union contracts, and worst of all Protectionism, usually local and at the expense of everyone else. My point is that forgetting the aspect here of how insulting ignorant Mr. Trump (and I'd say almost every candidate) is about real trade, manufacturing processes, we all pay the price for how it translates into Policy. You need to understand why, for example, it is that a certain design path you may think is the right one to use but is off the table due to it's higher cost, is almost always related to someone's political decision at some point in the past.
And this is not just from the conservative side of politics either. All our high costs of tooling and manufacturing in the US? You can thank the various unions for forcing insanely high wages and benefits from all the US manufacturers for those costs being pushed along to the customer. Or for encouraging those companies to just move their whole operations overseas. Either way, that all comes back to us as designers and consumers.
Still, if Trump ever was to be President we'd all have much bigger things to worry about than his notions of how to get iPhones made in the US, but the discussion here is amply valid.
Hi Dan and Carlos,
I don’t consider anything within this article to contain “political discussion,” “political opinion” or “political debate” at all. If you read the article carefully you’ll notice I’ve not mentioned either of the two parties, nor written a single word in defense or attack of either, nor criticized or supported either party’s policies, let alone mentioned any of them.
What the article does contain, IMO, is the latter half of the two phrases you’ve written, “discussion” and “opinion.” (I don’t see much of the way in “debate,” as I don’t consider it debatable that manufacturing sophisticated consumer electronics requires suppliers.)
As far as it being objective, the points about manufacturing are objective facts. That Trump clearly does not understand these facts is my subjective opinion.
- Rain
Hi Rain, thanks for the reply. I'll just close the book on this one by saying that I absolutely disagree on just about every point, but I respect that you tried to clarify.
I believe this article is needed, I am about to start studying product design at university and one of my biggest beliefs is the effect of design on the everyday life, one part of that being politics. We must consider every part of society to become effective designers for the 21st century.
I don't think this is necessarily a solely political discussion. Actually, I find that Core77 can be a really interesting platform for discussing global issues from the designers' and manufacturers' points of view. To this end, I think that this article is relevant and valuable.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that the article could have been written more objectively. But the fact is, it wasn't. At all. What could have been an interesting read and discussion was instead injected with the venom of political opinion and snark.
Personaly I find this to be an interesting read. I think it's more about the intricacy of a global production process and how the lack of mainstream design culture affects public perception (even political propaganda) and less about Donald Trump.
Aramis - I see your point, but the overview of the global production process is sandwiched between blatant political snarks and jabs (including the obviously loaded headline).
Every action has political ideology embedded within. If you are so ignorant to think that design is not political, or economic you are simply a designer. Great article. Personally I think we need to address the socioeconomic side of design. different idea though
On the last few products (cookware) I've had quoted we really wanted to build the entire product in America. Unfortunately while the per piece price in the US was actually slightly cheaper than in China (I was very surprised by that) the tooling was outrageous in the US. The tooling here was $130K per tool, and in China it was $30K. We had four different designs we wanted to bring to market, so our cost to get the program up and running would have been $520K in the US, vs $120K in China.
Rob, thanks for this input, for mentioning your location and spelling the decision out with the numbers; it's always illuminating to hear what's happening on-the-ground in different areas. Do you think, btw, that the T&D issue will eventually be addressed here, or do you think that ship has sailed? I have a bad feeling it's the latter but I always hope for the former.
"America has simply stopped training their workforce in a set of formerly crucial skills."
Hit the nail on the head, plenty of people would love to have those kinds of skilled jobs but no one wants to train them. It is amazing how many places lament the lack of skilled workers but refuse to hire entry level people into those trades so that skilled workers would later be available. At this point I do not know of a single manufacturing machine shop that has any apprentice positions. When businesses won't invest in these they pay later in a lack of workers.
As for Snark, Rain Noe is a master of it and its presence in his articles is a constant that has nothing to do with politics.
and why are you wantonly wasting pixels to tell this audience that trump is an ignorant gasbag ? why not, for the sake of efficiency, parse it back to: Trump's Plan ... Demonstrates Complete Ignorance.
Trump is a rich developer, used to dealing with creatives in broad strokes rather than on their terms. He would not be anyone's idea of a great client.
America did well in the so called space race, but it seems the country has fallen far behind in the manufacturing race. Even Boeing is manufacturing in China now. Is it worth the investment to build up the infrastructure necessary for America to be a lead player in manufacturing, or does America have a different role to play in the global economy?
I really agree w/ Dan Hamilton. I don't think though that certain realities can be ignored.
I think the problem w/ Apple's response is that they take no responsibility for the fact that they advocated for tax breaks and other export subsidies to move their manufacturing offshore in the mid 90's. They are also members of organizations that advocate for stifling education whenever possible
This is extremely hypocritical when you find out that Donald Trump's own campaign merchandise and clothing range is manufactured in China, for the same advantageous reasons as Apple (cheap labour). Bernie Sander's merchandise is actually made in the USA but you don't see him saying anything about companies moving their production to the USA, he understands the nature of capitalism better than Trump :'D
Agree that this is too political for this website, plus the article is loaded with biased facts to support the opinion of the writer. I doubt dirty industrial apple complex would like to manufacture elsewhere as it would hurt its profitability.
Pretty sure Trump knows how a factory works. But you're right bud, let's just do nothing. Let's keep the poor on welfare. Who cares. Factory jobs? That's just stupid. And why should American companies have to pay taxes and not shelter money? Trump is dumb he thinks marbles go in. Blah blah blah.. You're right, maybe we will just wait for the next Apple to come around. They will surely build factories here. Totally. Great plan.
I'm wondering, just wondering. What percentage of Core77 readers seriously support Donald Trump?
You should know better than to let facts stand in the way of a good sound bite.
Yew know it.