Saturday, January 28, 2012
Only way to profit?
Supposedly Steve China-Jobs set up the huge Foxconn factory in his beloved motherland of China because Apple couldn't make a profit on its phone devices otherwise.
Let's think about it. Did we always need to have slaves working 35 hours without a break, ruining their bodies, just to supply all Americans with telephones?
Hell no. For 70 years Western Electric supplied phones for every American. WE's Hawthorne Works employed about 50,000 Americans, and was famous for good working conditions. In fact it was a laboratory for improving working conditions.
Are the new devices so complicated that they require a different level of labor? I doubt it. In electronic terms the iPhone is literally a billion times more complicated. But in terms of human labor the old and new are about the same, with roughly two dozen parts needing human assembly. So the comparison is valid.
Was the old Bell System actually able to make a profit, despite using those horrible lazy unskilled American workers and paying them actual money in exchange for labor? Hell yes. Back when stocks were bought for steady dividends instead of picosecond-scale pico-variations in share price, ATT stock was the gold standard.
So what's the difference?
Industrial policy.
Bell insisted on protection against foreign competition because its executives liked America and understood Henry Ford's correlation between contented workers and contented customers.
Apple insists on "free trade" because its executives are sadistic treasonous monsters who hate America, love slavery and enjoy using Chinese slave labor. This system is called "The Free Market" or "Individual Liberty".
That's the difference. ¶ 12:31 PM
Let's think about it. Did we always need to have slaves working 35 hours without a break, ruining their bodies, just to supply all Americans with telephones?
Hell no. For 70 years Western Electric supplied phones for every American. WE's Hawthorne Works employed about 50,000 Americans, and was famous for good working conditions. In fact it was a laboratory for improving working conditions.
Are the new devices so complicated that they require a different level of labor? I doubt it. In electronic terms the iPhone is literally a billion times more complicated. But in terms of human labor the old and new are about the same, with roughly two dozen parts needing human assembly. So the comparison is valid.
Was the old Bell System actually able to make a profit, despite using those horrible lazy unskilled American workers and paying them actual money in exchange for labor? Hell yes. Back when stocks were bought for steady dividends instead of picosecond-scale pico-variations in share price, ATT stock was the gold standard.
So what's the difference?
Industrial policy.
Bell insisted on protection against foreign competition because its executives liked America and understood Henry Ford's correlation between contented workers and contented customers.
Apple insists on "free trade" because its executives are sadistic treasonous monsters who hate America, love slavery and enjoy using Chinese slave labor. This system is called "The Free Market" or "Individual Liberty".
That's the difference. ¶ 12:31 PM
