Does the world really need another iPhone?

[SuN]

I think not

 

[SuN]

Nets slung around Apple factories to deter suicidal employees

SHANGHAI: Protesters have made a traditional Chinese funeral offering to the dead at the headquarters of Foxconn, the makers of Apple's iPad, after the 11th suicide attempt - nine of them successful - at the company's factories so far this year.

Li Hai, a 19-year-old man from Hunan province, fell to his death from the roof of a dormitory building at Foxconn's Longhua factory on Tuesday, leaving the world's largest electronics manufacturer in crisis.

The spate of suicides at Foxconn has highlighted concerns over working conditions inside the giant Longhua factory, where 300,000 workers assemble goods for clients including Apple, Sony, Nintendo, Dell and Nokia.
Apple has not commented.

 

[SAUSAGEMAN]

Um, duh. It's pretty well accepted that, by living in a first world country, pretty much everything we do and consume is unnecessary. The world? Also doesn't really need TK. Or you.

 

[Further]

This isn't suicide, it's fucking kamikaze by Apple Hating Gooks, that's the only explanation, way to take one for the team.

Or maybe it is the combination of poor working conditions and the constant reminder of western decadence that puts them over the edge.

Either way, this iPad shortage is intolerable, CHINA YOU NEED TO INSTITUTE LONGER WORKING HOURS AND ALLOW PEOPLE TO BREED MORE CHILD LABOR. DON'T FORCE US TO START PAYING BACK OUR DEBT.

 

[Conchaga]

Look at the like/dislike chart for this video.

The people have spoken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHngLJ0RlNg

 

[Kitty]

Look at the like/dislike chart for this video.

The people have spoken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHngLJ0RlNg

Thumbs Up: 4822

Thumbs Down: 13609

lol

 

[Further]

Because a faster CPU and higher res screen WILL CHANGE THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.

I'm still waiting for fucking hoverboards damnit.

 

[The Question]

Why don't they stop outsourcing this shit to gooks altogether? Sure, they'd have to pay legal U.S. wages, and yes, that would mean that prices would go up -- but hey, guess what happens then? More American money changing hands in America. So the next iPhone would cost $600 instead of $200 -- but holy shit, with more money in your pocket, it would come out the same, wouldn't it? Plus, we'd have fewer motherfuckers on the dole.

 

[Conchaga]

STOP MAKING SENSE!

 

[Conchaga]

Stop it.

 

[The Question]

I like that you amped up the saturation in your avatar and added a glow filter. Really punches home the "Man, he's really trippin'!" statement.

 

[SAUSAGEMAN]

STOP MAKING SENSE!

Here's a spoiler:

Spoiler

he's not making sense

 

[Further]

Hmmm lemme think...drastically increased prices on many commonly used mass produced products all to give 5% of the US's unemployed population minimum wage jobs, sounds like a great idea!

No outsourcing == isolationism tax

Companies don't care about increased taxes, they just pass them along to the consumer who has no easy way to increase their income to offset stupid economic policies.

 

[Conchaga]

Stopped by the local mac store today. There was a huge line outside for hours. Apparently, Philadelphia wants the new iPhone.

 

[The Question]

Hmmm lemme think...drastically increased prices on many commonly used mass produced products all to give 5% of the US's unemployed population minimum wage jobs, sounds like a great idea!

It does, actually, because it adds more circulation to the local economy instead of handing it over to another country, as well as improving the morale of the American working citizen.

No outsourcing == isolationism tax

Tax on whom? With the increased capital that remains in American pockets, how is that a tax at all, much less a worse tax than we already have to pay with less money than we ought to have?

Companies don't care about increased taxes, they just pass them along to the consumer who has no easy way to increase their income to offset stupid economic policies.

Except that in this scenario, the "increased taxes" directly correlate to increased income.

 

[The Question]

Here's a spoiler:

Spoiler

he's not making sense

The only ones to whom I'm not making sense are the ones whose jobs are comfortably safe from being outsourced.

 

[Conchaga]

Like farmers... no, wait... we buy a lot of produce and meat from central and south America.

OK, here's a good old-fashioned one: Baseball Player. nevermind... We're hiring Ricans and Japs like crazy, because they're cheaper than the black or white American counterparts.

Well, seems like we're never gonna have a totally secure-from-outsourcing job in the US.

 

[The Question]

Seems like we used to. Seems like when we did, Americans were a shitload richer, too. Oops -- there's that inconvenient "reality" thing.

 

[Conchaga]

The last time I can think of when we didn't outsource so much we were literally an isolationist state and then the stock market crashed.

 

[The Question]

The last time I can think of when we didn't outsource so much we were literally an isolationist state and then the stock market crashed.

Protectionism in the United States
Free trade and protectionism are regional issues. Free trade in America is the policy of economics developed by American slave holding states and protectionism is a northern, manufacturing issue.[citation needed] Although not as animating an issue as slavery, differences in trade between the two regions contributed to the Civil War and remain a point of national difference even today.[citation needed]
Historically, southern slave holding states, because of their low cost manual labor, had little perceived need for mechanization, and supported having the right to purchase manufactured goods from any nation. Thus they called themselves free traders.
Northern states, on the other hand, sought to develop a manufacturing capacity, and successfully raised tariffs to allow nascent Northern manufacturers to compete with their more efficient British competitors. Beginning with 1st U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures", in which he advocated tariffs to help protect infant industries, including bounties (subsidies) derived in part from those tariffs, the United States was the leading nation opposed to "free trade" theory. Throughout the 19th century, leading U.S. statesmen, including Senator Henry Clay, continued Hamilton's themes within the Whig Party under the name "American System."
The opposed Southern Democratic Party contested several elections throughout the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s in part over the issue of the tariff and protection of industry. However, Southern Democrats were never as strong in the US House as the more populated North. The Northern Whigs sought and got higher protective tariffs, over the bitter resistance of the South. One Southern state precipitated what was called the nullification crisis over the issue of tariffs, arguing that states had the right to ignore federal laws. Mostly over the issue of abolition and other scandals, the Whigs would ultimately collapse, leaving a void which the fledgling Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, would fill. Lincoln, who called himself a "Henry Clay tariff Whig", strongly opposed free trade. He implemented a 44 percent tariff during the Civil War in part to pay for the building of the Union-Pacific Railroad, the war effort, and to protect American industry.[5]
This support for Northern industry was ultimately successful. By President Lincoln's term, the northern manufacturing states had ten times the GDP of the South. Armed with this economic advantage, the North was easily able to defeat the South by starving the South of weapons through a near total blockade, while at the same time was able to supply its own army with everything from heavy artillery to repeating Henry rifles.

So really, by supporting foreign outsourcing of labor, a century and a half ago you would have been a Confederate.