The Apple of Foxconn’s i
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The daily purchase of iphones exceeds the number of babies born each day. Whether or not that is a commentary on taking an Apple product to bed instead of waking a loved one from slumber, is a topic for another discussion.
The question going forward is how America replaces Foxconn with American workers, in the most lucrative worldwide manufacturing industry for the foreseeable future. The numbers are irrefutable with respect to the will of the people; 13 Billion in profits, 46 billion in sales, just for the latest quarter of 2011. Apple’s comment on this blowout response to its product was; earnings would have been higher if productivity would have kept pace with demand.
The world has spoken, and the message is clear. The numbers dictate consumers worldwide are willing to look the other way for a 23% discount with respect to slave labor. So, here we are again, fighting the same battle our ancestors fought. Albeit, this battle of self interest is conducted in the Boardroom’s, yet nonetheless, pervades each and every household, not unlike the War Between the States.
The phrase that comes to mind is plausible deniability. The fact that Apple contracts its manufacturing operation to sources of cheap labor camps is a way to create distance as well as off the charts, parabolic profits, for their shareholders; 70 million iphones, 30 million ipads, 60 million otherApple products sold just in the last year.
Another phrase that comes to mind is creative destruction. At first, it seems like an oxymoron, similar to military intelligence. It is a movement, infused within the corporate business Boardrooms worldwide. Apple is hardly alone in this modus operandi. The list of innovators manufacturing products worldwide utilizing slave labor is omnipresent.
This is an industry going forward that is as American as Apple pie; an industry that American workers should be sharing a piece of the Apple pie; an Apple pie that is absent of plausible deniability or creative destruction, one we feel good about the morning after we make love to it.
