Posted on 02/23/2015 11:55:40 PM PST by Swordmaker
Just how ginormous is Apple Inc. now?
As the iPhone-maker’s shares continue to set fresh record highs, its market cap is now above $765 billion. Combined with Exxon Mobil Corp.'s pullback over the past six months, Apple has pulled off the rare occurrence of being worth at least double any other publicly traded U.S. company. No. 2 Exxon’s market cap has eased to $374 billion.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
seems you’re blissfully unaware
off the top of my head, Aramco has at least $36 TRILLION just in assets
Aramco is an American company?
it started as an American company, yes
It sure ain’t one now ... LOL ...
I am an Apple user. Too bad they use communist slave labor. Kind of takes the fun out of it. I am sure the profits would be virtually unaffected if they brought manufacturing home. The labor per phone is around 16 dollars and they retail for hundreds..
You dolt old as in old line technology. Macs have been around for decades.. Quit twisting words. You knew what I meant.
And “start bringing” ... is exactly what Apple has been doing ...
Why Apple Is Bringing Manufacturing Back To The United States
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmcquaid/2012/12/06/why-apple-is-bringing-manufacturing-back-to-the-united-states/
Today’s news from Tim Cook that Apple is bringing some Mac manufacturing from China back to the United States is encouraging for the first reason you’ll think of: it’s a tentative move to disengage from appalling labor practices at the company’s Chinese contractor, Foxconn, that tether anyone who owns an iPhone back to the developing world economy heart of darkness.
how do you define an ‘American’ company?
would it be the number of employees that are American?
if that were the case, Apple wouldn’t be American either (if you count it’s overseas manufacturing employees)
Apple manufacturing partner looks to build factory in the US
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101364554
Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, the main manufacturer of Apple products and a symbol of U.S. outsourcing, is reportedly weighing a plan to build an advanced display manufacturing facility in its largest market.
At the company’s 40th anniversary celebration on Sunday, Chairman Terry Guo said he is looking to relocate capital-intensive and high-tech manufacturing to the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported.
Automation, software and technology innovation will be our key focus in the U.S. in the coming few years,” Gou said, according to the WSJ.
Hon Hai, which is better known by the trade name Foxconn, draws an estimated 40-50 percent of its revenue from assembling gadgets and other work for Apple.
It’s where it’s based and the ownership of it ...
Apple wants to make products in U.S., but that’s not so easy
http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-wants-to-make-products-in-u-s-but-thats-not-so-easy/
Let’s make the iPhone in the good ol’ U. S. of A. Who’s with me?
There are few Americans who don’t like the idea of an all-American iPhone, iPad or MacBook. “Designed in California,” sure — but why not made there, too?
During the D: All Things Digital conference this week, Apple chief executive Tim Cook suggested that he wanted his celebrated tech company to make more components, and perhaps assemble them, here in the U.S.
But it’s not that easy.
Cook knows it. As a longtime operations guy, there are probably few things the man knows better than a supply chain. When he says the semiconductor industry is good in the U.S., it’s good. When he says there aren’t high-tech manufacturing skills in the U.S., he’s probably right. But actions speak louder than words, and there are good reasons why Apple no longer makes its millions upon millions of products stateside — because it just doesn’t make good business sense otherwise.
We’ve seen this film before. Before founder Steve Jobs died, he made headlines for the same reason, as the national economy crumbled beneath Apple.
Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times report in January:
It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.
The reason: there’s a very real tradeoff between what’s good for workers and what’s good for business. When push comes to shove, business wins — which is why Apple’s American employees enjoy comparatively nice perks while employees of its supply chain partners live in 8,000-strong dormitories, ready to be woken up at midnight to start a 12-hour shift making new parts for an iPhone that received last-minute design changes from California.
Imagine trying to do the same with an American worker. Unions would never stand for it, obviously, and chances are the rest of the family unit wouldn’t, either.
My point is not to illustrate the benefits and drawbacks of unions, or even what’s fair; rather, I’m trying to illustrate a landscape in which American companies can go overseas for greater flexibility, lower price and sheer speed. So long as there are nations in this world willing to do work others aren’t, outsourcing will exist. In the capitalist system, businesses can’t win in the free market unless they exploit every advantage.
There’s a reason Apple, and GE, and many other well-regarded American companies keep most of their money offshore: so long as there’s a cheaper alternative, it will be taken. There is no morality in money-making, even if there’s still plenty to be made.
(Speaking of GE, that company has run into similar issues — though for refrigerators and turbines, not computers.)
That’s not to say things aren’t changing. GE CEO Jeff Immelt has said that the U.S. is becoming more competitive as American firms, tired of decades of deterioration, snap to attention. Wages in the U.S. are still elevated — good for individuals but bad for business — but the skills, flexibility and speed are catching up.
The skills and education aren’t here in the USA to do that. It’s going to take a better education system and better skilled workers. The USA just doesn’t “have it” any longer. It will take a while to get those kinds of workers back here ... OF COURSE we could import the skilled workers from overseas to work in the USA ... that would do it!
Apple will bring Mac manufacturing back to U.S. in 2013
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2012/12/05/991497ac-3fa4-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story.html
“You can’t find that many in America to hire,” Jobs said. “If you could educate those engineers, we could move more manufacturing plants here,” according to the biography.
In a separate interview, NBC News anchor Brian Williams asked Cook what would happen, hypothetically, if Apple had to move all its production to the United States
“Honestly, it’s not so much about price, it’s the the skills, etc. Over time, there are skills that are associated with manufacturing that have left the U.S. Not necessarily people, but the education system stopped producing them. It’s a concerted effort to get them back,” Cook said.
No skills and no workers won’t be solved by that.nand the tax situation in the USA won’t be solved by that either.
A long-standing product line is “bad” for the USA?! ... LOL ...
Swordmaker is the keeper of the stats and figures. I’ve just notified him on your question ... :-) ...
Companies like Mercedes and BMW seem to have no trouble find manufacturing workers.
This BS should be unacceptable to every American regardless of political party.
True but oil is a commodity. XOM will be around for a long time. So will AAPL. Both will have their ebbs and flows. Such is the nature of markets.
BTW AAPL has built, and is planning on building more, massive solar farms for data centers and other buildings so their direct reliance on oil is diminishing. Of course their supply chain depends on oil products and there is no way around that.
If Texas stood alone, it’s economy would collapse and it would go into a depression. It’s successful now BECAUSE it’s inside the USA! ...
Fixed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.