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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (197773)	8/20/2012 4:57:08 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 541264

Oh dear. I don't want to belabor this too much, so I'll try to be brief. On the other hand we will begrudgingly buy stuff from them cheap and low margin stuff that will provide our lower income population a higher standard of living. I think characterizing our trade with China that way is quite simplistic and misleading. Just as an example , off the top of my head, we will sell Apple iPhones at $200. As the old joke goes, what you mean "we", kemosabe? Apple sells iphones for $600 or $650; somewhat amazingly, it sells them in bulk to cell phone carriers for about the same price it sells them at retail. Apple employs people, but in terms of headcount, largely in retail in the US and cheap contracted assembly labor in China. Their R&D spending is remarkably low, by high-tech standards. And they've for the most part chosen not to repatriate foreign earnings, because then they'd have to pay tax. Isuppli currently gives the BOM ( bill of materials, e.g. component cost) for the iphone at a little less than $200, $188 to be exact. It claims manufacturing cost is $8. As for "aspirational value" and "brand recognition", that kind of stuff drives me nuts. I hope the US has something better to sell in general. Couple articles about Apple and China: Apple captivates cachet-conscious ChinaComputer maker unveils iPhone-influenced laptops, new OS By John BoudreauSAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS Published: 8:35 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010 The store clerk polished the iPhone 4 as though it were a diamond. Then he reverentially handed it to Liu Jia. "You have to have it. It's like religion," said Liu, a 29-year-old public relations manager. "I don't think a lot of people understand the essence of the iPhone, but it looks cool and it makes you a star in front of your friends." Apple infatuation has officially arrived in the land of 800 million-plus mobile phone users. ... statesman.com I'm sorry, I just don't dig this kind of "aspirational" stuff. Then there was the big NYT series that lead with this: How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work nytimes.com In which Jobs himself tells Obama the jobs are gone, and ain't coming back.