China took American manufacturing through currency manipulation, exploitation of child labor, blatant abuse of its citizen workers and complete disregard for intellectual property laws … facilitated by Wall Street’s ravenous appetite for short term profits and woefully naive academic theorists.
No one benefited more from it than Steve Jobs … and no one has been more blind to it as Barack Obama.
Original: http://www.idatix.com/manufacturing-leadership/its-not-coming-back/
Renaud says
There is no “exploitation of child labor” in China.
How about the lack of respect of their factories regarding any environmental standard? Or the way they screw up any naive western importer? Or the tons of unsafe toys they ship to the US and to Europe? These are real concerns.
Bill Waddell says
Renaud – apparently you missed the recent reports of Apple/Foxconn getting caught red handed using 14 year olds.
Dave says
I have never seen Obama deviate much from the traditional academic view that all our economic problems can be solved with a bit more education and pursuit of “high value” jobs. Romney’s response was better, unfortunately his track record is nothing to be proud of
Renaud says
Bill, child labor is extremely marginal in China.
I see a lot of old women doing very low-paid jobs in factories, but very very few kids.
William Milz says
This article is walking the fine line between supply chain information and politics. I’m disappointed that a source that I respected for factual information is getting caught up in these type of bias presentations.
Agustin C says
Bill,
I’m as disapointed as everyone with those jobs gone to Asia. And I agree that politics can help or severely cripple a country’s manufacturing. But along the lines of your recent post, don’t just offer a complaint, offer a solution that would be acceptable to apple.
Bill Waddell says
Augustin,
I don’t think any solution would be entertained by Apple. Their success in the existing model seems to have made them into a very culturally insular organization. Job’s quote that the jobs are NEVER coming back seems to indicate a pretty closed minded situation.
William & Augustin,
I apologize for the lack of facts and solutions. I occasionally forget that we get new readers and sometimes write as if the only audience are our long time readers. Thank you for reading EE and I will do my best to keep folks like you in mind in the future.
Apple, the academic elite and the government folks who have bought into the notion that cheap labor is the center of economics in general, and manufacturing in particular have been the subject of coutless posts over the years.
I would refer you in particular to a document that I edited but was actually the result of a colaborative effort by over 400 EE readers a few years ago that was widely distributed and published, called “The Hollow American Economy – A Clarion Call for Leadership” You can read it at http://www.bill-waddell.com/images/CLARION_CALL_MASTER.pdf
I would also refer you to numerous posts over the years on Evolving Excellence. here are a few of them:
Concerning Apple & Steve Jobs:
Kevin’s “Beyond Just Words – What Apple Could Do”
January 30, 2012
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2012/01/beyond-just-words-what-apple-could-do.html
Kevin’s “Sorry IndustryWeek – Apple is not a ‘Manufacturer” and not “Best’ “
July 19, 2012
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2012/07/industryweek-apple-is-not-a-manufacturer.html
Kevin’s”Sorry Apple, Not This Time”
February 28, 2012
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2012/02/sorry-apple-not-this-time.html
My “One Dimensional Geniuses”
April 5, 2012
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2012/04/one-dimensional-geniuses.html?cid=6a00d834521be169e2016303e3c4f4970d
My “Let History Be the Judge”
April 9, 2012
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2012/04/let-history-be-the-judge.html?cid=6a00d834521be169e2016764f9de28970b
Concerning Obama:
My “Obama’s Job Speech”
September 5, 2011
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2012/04/let-history-be-the-judge.html?cid=6a00d834521be169e2016764f9de28970b
My “The Pecking Order”
April 27, 2011
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2011/04/the-pecking-order.html
My “Nice Call There Bamo”
January 22, 2011
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2011/01/nice-call-there-bamo.html
My “Throwing In the Towel
November 10, 2009
http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2009/11/throwing-in-the-towel.html
Agustin C says
Hi Bill,
Just a small note (or maybe not that small), I am a long time reader although I’ve offered my opinion only a handful of times. Even though I own an iphone, I am fully aware of Apple’s background and ‘supply chain’ practices.
My previous post was more to trigger the thinking and formulating solutions that would solve potentially disastrous situations (such as people jumping of roofs to get away from making iphones). Rather than offering textbook “do this, do that” or “invest in this, spend money there”. This blog has people like me interested because every now and then there are fresh, new ideas that trigger our thinking process. New points of view that challenge what we know and … who knows, maybe cause Apple-like companies to look at different strategies.