I was being simplistic. Loisianna and texas have petro-chemical and apparently steel too. Yes, some jobs will come back. even a few million worth which is well worth the effort of putting an end to labor/enviro arbitrage. but how do you get the States to repent of their 30 years of sinful ways and likewise tell the teat-sucking populace to go to hell? Where do you magically find politicians who care about the betterment of the country instead of a single-minded pursuit of collecting graft? Personally we should be hanging politicians from the lamp posts in front of the Congress until they decide to find some morals. But unfortunately capital murder of politicians and banksters and those in the DoJ who refuse to enforce the law is frowned upon.

Wild west justice might not have been such a bad thing after all.

It just proves that humans are still looking to enslave their fellow man, even though we like to pride ourselves on the outlawing of the practice of slavery that's occurred over the last two centuries.

It also shows that the Marxist philosophy of a Worker's Paradise is nothing but a bunch of BULL****! We're not perfect, but workers in Western Democracies (or Republics) have FAR better protections against this sort of treatment than do workers who live under the Communist thumb.

Yea, we have some stupid labor and enviro laws, but by and large many are pretty good. It's not like if we got rid of the silly labor/enviro laws then we would be able to compete with the workers at Foxconn.

These execs are effin evil!

Professor William Black wrote about the same subject; Anti-employee Control Fraud

Wasn't communism a reaction to the exact same practices? Once more proof those -isms are diversions from what is really going on: criminal behavior. What is free of "free markets" and "free trade". The market is free but the people are slaves.

Good Ticker Karl

This is an old Battle.
And it is NOT new in the USA.
Read up on TR and the mess we had before the turn of the Century.
Read Galbraith's small pamphlet/book on the Depression.

Blame Americans?
Come on.....this is and was the result of willful long-term well-conceived plans designed to "Globalize" the entire Western World.
You guys are just way too young to even know how well a family could live decently (with pride and self-respect)<no extravagances> on ONE Salary!

The drive to become Rich is what has killed the USA!
RICH....lazy and mean, Beef for every meal and screw the next guy!
They tried to sucker us with Cash Out Refis!
They "opened" the Door and most of us walked right through---to our eventual impoverishment!
Walk back out the door (like Karl has stated recently)and prepare accordingly.
It is coming.......

Breton

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In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree.

Sounds like an odd skill-level to me.

Sounds more like companies don't think college graduates are worth the salaries college grads themselves demand.

And on Tuesday night, we'll surely hear another plan to help send more of America's youth to college..... where they will either fail to learn the skillsets American companies desire, or emerge with a salary demand (due in a large part to the cost of education) that is too high for American companies to support.

It's funny that We never hear about Brazil and their answer to this problem.

You see Brazil did place very punitive tariffs on imported electronics. For Apple that tariff is 47%. Brazil would like to grow a local labor force and maintain it with the on-the-job training required to remain skilled in the fast changing technology sector.

So what happened? Well Steve Jobs cursed at Brazil. He wasn't happy about their labor cost, or labor rights, and really was disgusted at something they call "The 13th Month" a practice of paying a full months wages as bonus once a year.

But then economics and markets and common sense prevailed. Foxconn decided to negotiate with Brazil and build a 12 Billion dollar factory in Brazil to assemble Apple as well as HP and Dell products there and avoid the tariffs.

Foxconn is behind on getting production going, now expected this month. But, it's easy to see why they are eager to get this factory on line :

12/16/2011
"the iPhone 4S, which is going on sale in Brazil today for the equivalent of $1,830 USD for the 64GB model, compared to the $849 it would cost in the United States."

- http://www.cultofmac.com/135645/iphone-4....

"It makes a lot of sense," said Peter Misek, Jefferies & Co's analyst, citing "punitive" import taxes. "If you're trying to serve Latin America, Brazil is certainly the biggest country you have to hit."

- http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/20....

Tariffs work.

It's funny as I said, you never hear about tariffs or Brazil and their success in "retraining" the corporations with tariffs in our press or from politicians in the U.S.

It's also interesting how the first countries to suffer through Milton Friedman's brand of economics with it's signature local labor destruction and outsourcing are way ahead of us on the curve to reverse it.

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You see Brazil did place very punitive tariffs on imported electronics. For Apple that tariff is 47%. Brazil would like to grow a local labor force and maintain it with the on-the-job training required to remain skilled in the fast changing technology sector.

So what happened? Well Steve Jobs cursed at Brazil. He wasn't happy about their labor cost, or labor rights, and really was disgusted at something they call "The 13th Month" a practice of paying a full months wages as bonus once a year.

But then economics and markets and common sense prevailed. Foxconn decided to negotiate with Brazil and build a 12 Billion dollar factory in Brazil to assemble Apple as well as HP and Dell products there and avoid the tariffs.

This proves what Karl has been repeating about tariffs. Those that have a lot invested in China point out that tariffs caused a depression, a lie.

People are already programming for nothing, $0. It's called "open source".

It's tough to compete in manual labor with a country where people are used to such a "horrible" standard of living compared to most Americans. There is no welfare as a safety net. You work, or you die. There is no such thing as an obese, poor person in China. Only when one sees this up close in person, does one feel humbled by the reality of the situation in the world. These people working at Foxconn probably have really crappy working conditions compared to what one sees at a decent place in America. However, it's better than doing backbreaking labor on the farm.

Now being in a similar country, the average uneducated rural labor force earn about $10 US a day. Our (my wife and I) single farm hand and soon to be a couple others to be added to the roster, will be paid about the same. The laborers would be hard pressed to WANT to work more for more pay as well. Most by far are happy to have work and be able to go home in the evening, and not be stressed or overworked. IF there were any 'go-getters' who demonstrated the initiative to work longer/harder/better/smarter then I'd be glad to up their pay rate a bit.

Nope, I can only wish, but I will not see such motivated people in this rural environment as far as I've seen so far. Now if I were to be TOLD that $10 a day is slave wages (because 1st world countries consider that to be such), I don't buy it, and suggest that the horse must lead the cart, first.

When we're all on a universal currency with a single world govt and a global 'fairness council' that controls all pay rates and salaries, then we'll all make similar pay for equal work, and everyone will be equal and equally happy.... em hmm.

AAPL and hundreds of other corps are dealing with the situation on the ground, with the legal and economic laws of the respective countries of their operation (for good and bad) and the labor forces available. While corps influence govts, they are subservient to the laws created and enforced by those govts.

If AAPL or any other corp decided to break the laws (in the instance of China) just how long would they be able to operate there? If they were voluntarily paying US wages rates in China just how long could they produce product competitively or remain in business competitively? These are not corp level decisions of morality as the're are not really in the position make the laws.

Nice as it would be to 'bring the jobs home on a more level playing field', it's govt that sets and enforces the rules. Pin that tail on the right donkey.

This is how TPTB deconstruct the USA. Whats worse is that the Times dosent question the morality of modern day slavery. Yet the USA continues to police the world in the name of human rights. Utter Bull dootie.

Excellent Ticker! Great comments and supporting articles linked by other members!

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The drive to become Rich is what has killed the USA!
RICH....lazy and mean, Beef for every meal and screw the next guy!
They tried to sucker us with Cash Out Refis!
They "opened" the Door and most of us walked right through---to our eventual impoverishment!
Walk back out the door (like Karl has stated recently)and prepare accordingly.
It is coming.......

This^^^

I call it "Me first, **** you". Or MFFY.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be rich.

It is only wrong and destructive when you obtain wealth by ****ing over other people.

Thanks for this post Karl. I was an engineer at HP for twenty years and was in the middle of the outsourcing wave. This lie that America can't compete due to our education system is infuriating. HP outsourced for cheap labor, both in manufacturing and design. The Chinese engineers are generally bright but not brighter and are lacking in experience. American CEOs want coolees with masters degrees. It's hard to believe that nobody ever calls the CEOs pronouncements self-serving lies.

In the land of corrupt politicians, profits trump the rule of law.

Everything else is bull****.

"A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories... Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day."

One Chinese can produce only 1.25 iPhones a day? Really? The article claims that Chinese manufacturing is leaps and bounds beyond American technical capability (another casualty of offshoring - technical evolution in production occurs elsewhere), but then glides right over these sentences that suggest the iPhone (at the time) was practically hand made.

I guess placing a "Hand Made For You By Chiang" label on the box is counterproductive when the accompanying picture is of an empty stool and a body falling past a window in the background.

Gen is right, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be rich. The problem we have is that an entire class of people have systematically stolen the "opportunity" to get rich from the public at large by hollowing out our manufacturing base. I too was ultimately affected by this over the past 10 to 15 years as it became progressively more difficult to find and hang onto a job in the US in a manufactuiring industry.

For those of you that have NOT ever been exposed to the manufacturing industry from the inside (not just engineers, but all internal positions at such an entity) you may not understand just how demanding it is. It is the most difficult of businesses to manage...period. It requires a wide berth of knowledge ranging from the technical to the financial and economic to do so. It is unforgiving. The service economy is NOT AN EQUIVALENT. It will be painful to get it back but we have to get it back. We cannot have an economy based on selling real estate and healthcare to each other. It won't ****ing work and has not really worked thus far.

To those of you who have NOT seen the working conditions of a China, let me tell you is FRIGHTENING. I was there in the late 90's (1999) and I will never forget what I saw just outside my 5 star hotel in Suzhou.

I saw an entire river turned black with pollution. I was the creeks running through neighborhoods of one room concrete living quarters chocked with black substances and utterly still liquid. The smell in 120 degree (F) heat was something I'll never forget.

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One Chinese can produce only 1.25 iPhones a day? Really? The article claims that Chinese manufacturing is leaps and bounds beyond American technical capability (another casualty of offshoring - technical evolution in production occurs elsewhere), but then glides right over these sentences that suggest the iPhone (at the time) was practically hand made.

Nashvillian brings up and interesting point. 1.25 per day per worker. Would that be acceptable in say....Germany? Even here in the US? NO. It's inefficient and wouldn't produce enough to cover overhead....oh, wait, China doesn't really have to worry about Overhead other than biscuits and water right???

Atu, Great post and your first. Thanks for that. I'd have never known about that stuff otherwise.

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Those that have a lot invested in China point out that tariffs caused a depression, a lie.

Oh they'll cause a depression alright.... in China!

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I saw an entire river turned black with pollution. I was the creeks running through neighborhoods of one room concrete living quarters chocked with black substances and utterly still liquid. The smell in 120 degree (F) heat was something I'll never forget.

Wow! So what did the local Sierra Club chapter have to say about this? Did you sign the petition that was no doubt being circulated in the neighborhood? There was a petition, right?

Part of the problem is that, at least from my observation, lots of younger folks expect to get paid simply for showing up on time for work. They don't do ****, and expect "respect" and "bonuses" merely for the fact that they hold the job.

Additionally, these folks are INCENTED not to provide good quality of job or customer satisfaction but instead to drive bottom line profits to the corporation, so the definition of "doing a good job" has morphed to the median baseline level of performance expectations that doesn't get one singled out for totally screwing up.

None of this helps run a good business over the long term, IMO.

No PJ, this was in the middle of an industrial city. Hope you're being facetious here. Trust me, I'm not tree-hugger. I had just never seen anything that disgusting on a such a large scale.

Oh it 's worse than that Nanna. You'll get singled out for even suggesting something that might point out the flaws of whatever strategy the Ivy League *******s who just happen to be running the company. When things go wrong, you'll be the one who gets fired or laid off.

US High School problem solving at its greatest ...

This kid will probably become an engineer ...