I ain't got it.
Posted on 01/15/2012 11:38:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
We love our iPhones and iPads.
We love the prices of our iPhones and iPads.
We love the super-high profit margins of Apple, Inc., the maker of our iPhones and iPads.
And that's why it's disconcerting to remember that the low prices of our iPhones and iPads--and the super-high profit margins of Apple--are only possible because our iPhones and iPads are made with labor practices that would be illegal in the United States.
And it's also disconcerting to realize that the folks who make our iPhones and iPads not only don't have iPhones and iPads (because they can't afford them), but, in some cases, have never even seen them.
This is a complex issue. But it's also an important one. And it's only going to get more important as the world's economies continue to become more intertwined.
Last week, NPR's This American Life did a special on Apple's manufacturing. The show featured (among others) the reporting of Mike Daisey, the man who does the one-man stage show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, and the NYT's Nicholas Kristof, whose wife is from China.
Here are some details:
The Chinese city of Shenzhen is where most of our "crap" is made. 30 years ago, Shenzhen was a little village on a river. Now it's a city of 13 million people--bigger than New York.
Foxconn, one of the companies that builds iPhones and iPads (and products for many other electronics companies), has a factory in Shenzhen that employs 430,000 people.
There are 20 cafeterias at the Foxconn Shenzhen plant. They each serve 10,000 people.
One Foxconn worker Mike Daisey interviewed, outside factory gates manned by guards with guns, was a 13-year old girl. She polished the glass of thousands of new iPhones a day.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
.. and some say that's bad?
Protectionists! Anti-free trade, anti-capitalist Commie!
Didn’t someone do a follow-up after Rebok was bullied into closing one of their plants overseas that employed 14 year old girls as workers?
And didn’t they find that over half of the formerly employed girls became prostitutes in order to survive?
So make your own value judgements — is it better for the children to experience the deplorable conditions described in the article? or to starve because they cannot find work? or to suffer the experience of being a prostitute in a third world country?
This article is a perfect example of propaganda by telling only part of the story to people who do not understand the economics of third world countries.
Not every country is like the US. One size does not fit all.
Exactly.
Kewl...that's why they're affordable! AND, the kids fortunate enough to get the work now understand what it means to 'work for a living'.
Looking at marketshare figure, I see that about twice as many Android phones are built by 13 year olds than iPhones.
Android uses 200% more child labor than iOS! :-)
Because China at least is smart enough to understand it’s stupid to have a minimum wage regardless of a person’s age....the minimum wage here has killed teenage employment.
It is a two sided coin. On one side is rights on the other is responsibility. You must accept both. Some people prefer not to have them. Some people will fight for them.
I ain't got it.
I built houses I couldn't afford to live in either, but was grateful there were buyers who could.
Like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd managed to do to such buyers, the columnist wants to destroy the buyers of cell phones.
Thanks for posting it, it's a reminder to everyone that the socialist mindset is determined to destroy us in any way possible.
What’s worse, that or our 13 year olds sitting on their butts playing video games. The former will contribute to society, the latter is learning democratic parasitism. Frankly I’d be proud of the kids that work to live.
Youd be surprised at how productive folks can become when they are hungry and want to eat.
Sooo, UPS driver, You quaking in your boots worrying that the U.S.Postal service will drive you out of bid ness?
As horrible as this is, people come to work in the factories because it is an improvement over life back on the family plot.
250 years ago our ancestors were going to Nigeria to buy slaves. We owed them more dignity, i.e. freedom than was granted. I think that even without the dignity most were better off picking cotton in LA than having a spear thrown at them in Nigeria. That is, their life expectancy was greater as slaves than as free Nigerians.
Just about everything in America is "hand made"
But American employers who subcontract to foreign countries can have a say in the pay and working conditions of foreign workers. Would you like your 13 year old daughter to have to choose between these slave-like conditions and prostitution? The Bible says something about depriving a worker of their wages as being a sin that cries out to heaven for justice.
But American employers who subcontract to foreign countries can have a say in the pay and working conditions of foreign workers. Would you like your 13 year old daughter to have to choose between these slave-like conditions and prostitution? The Bible says something about depriving a worker of their wages as being a sin that cries out to heaven for justice.
I’m not too concerned.. I’m retired. :-D
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