Business
photo: Richard Harris
Robert Reich:
"...The American economy has moved way beyond outsourcing abroad or even "in-sourcing." Most big companies headquartered in America don't send jobs overseas and don't bring jobs here from abroad.
That's because most are no longer really "American" companies. They've become global networks that design, make, buy, and sell things wherever around the world it's most profitable for them to do so.
As an Apple executive told the New York Times, "we don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible." He might have added "and showing profits big enough to continually increase our share price."
Forget the debate over outsourcing. The real question is how to make Americans so competitive that all global companies -- whether or not headquartered in the United States -- will create good jobs in America.
Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States but contracts with over 700,000 workers overseas. It assembles iPhones in China both because wages are low there and because Apple's Chinese contractors can quickly mobilize workers from company dorms at almost any hour of the day or night.
But low wages aren't the major force driving Apple or any other American-based corporate network abroad. The components Apple's Chinese contractors assemble come from many places around the world with wages as high if not higher than in the United States.
More than a third of what you pay for an iPhone ends up in Japan, because that's where some of its most advanced components are made. Seventeen percent goes to Germany, whose precision manufacturers pay wages higher than those paid to American manufacturing workers, on average, because German workers are more highly skilled. Thirteen percent comes from South Korea, whose median wage isn't far from our own.
Workers in the United States get only about 6 percent of what you pay for an iPhone. It goes to American designers, lawyers, and financiers, as well as Apple's top executives..."
Click here for the whole article.
Robert Reich:
"...The American economy has moved way beyond outsourcing abroad or even "in-sourcing." Most big companies headquartered in America don't send jobs overseas and don't bring jobs here from abroad.
That's because most are no longer really "American" companies. They've become global networks that design, make, buy, and sell things wherever around the world it's most profitable for them to do so.
As an Apple executive told the New York Times, "we don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible." He might have added "and showing profits big enough to continually increase our share price."
Forget the debate over outsourcing. The real question is how to make Americans so competitive that all global companies -- whether or not headquartered in the United States -- will create good jobs in America.
Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States but contracts with over 700,000 workers overseas. It assembles iPhones in China both because wages are low there and because Apple's Chinese contractors can quickly mobilize workers from company dorms at almost any hour of the day or night.
But low wages aren't the major force driving Apple or any other American-based corporate network abroad. The components Apple's Chinese contractors assemble come from many places around the world with wages as high if not higher than in the United States.
More than a third of what you pay for an iPhone ends up in Japan, because that's where some of its most advanced components are made. Seventeen percent goes to Germany, whose precision manufacturers pay wages higher than those paid to American manufacturing workers, on average, because German workers are more highly skilled. Thirteen percent comes from South Korea, whose median wage isn't far from our own.
Workers in the United States get only about 6 percent of what you pay for an iPhone. It goes to American designers, lawyers, and financiers, as well as Apple's top executives..."
Click here for the whole article.
The headline on this story in today's Guardian is the kind that triggers immediate massive disbelief.
An excerpt:
"The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned.
In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five "responsibility deal" networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies. Some of these are expected to be used in the public health white paper due in the next month.
The groups are dominated by food and alcohol industry members, who have been invited to suggest measures to tackle public health crises."
It seems that the UK government has decided to really be the 51st State and be completely subservient to the business world as is the US government.
Further in the article we learn that Mr. Lansley doesn't think that enforcing regulations is a good thing and that business compliance should be "voluntary."
I've read the article three times and I'm still feeling flabbergasted.
Click up above for the whole article and don't miss the comments; there are some gems.
An excerpt:
"The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald's and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg's, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned.
In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five "responsibility deal" networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies. Some of these are expected to be used in the public health white paper due in the next month.
The groups are dominated by food and alcohol industry members, who have been invited to suggest measures to tackle public health crises."
It seems that the UK government has decided to really be the 51st State and be completely subservient to the business world as is the US government.
Further in the article we learn that Mr. Lansley doesn't think that enforcing regulations is a good thing and that business compliance should be "voluntary."
I've read the article three times and I'm still feeling flabbergasted.
Click up above for the whole article and don't miss the comments; there are some gems.
Recently a Danish study suggested that 50% of the babies born this decade will live to be one hundred. The story got widely circulated, though I didn't find the conclusion that surprising, all one has to do is notice at what age so many people are dying these days to see that we are well on our way.
Anyway, someone, a certain Thomas Perls, MD, MPH, FACP, has seen the mercantile possibilities in the interest in longevity and if you go to his ad-plastered website you can take his free test to see how long you will live.
After your age of death appears on the screen (in my case 93, though I know I'm living to at least 126) he thoughtfully supplies links to information and services that could lengthen your life beyond the number disclosed, each plus measured - .5 years more if you cut down on candy, 1.5 more years if you do one more day a week exercise, etc. He also would love to connect you to a boomer social site, since that virtual contact with others is, according to him, a veritable fountain of youth.
Anyway, someone, a certain Thomas Perls, MD, MPH, FACP, has seen the mercantile possibilities in the interest in longevity and if you go to his ad-plastered website you can take his free test to see how long you will live.
After your age of death appears on the screen (in my case 93, though I know I'm living to at least 126) he thoughtfully supplies links to information and services that could lengthen your life beyond the number disclosed, each plus measured - .5 years more if you cut down on candy, 1.5 more years if you do one more day a week exercise, etc. He also would love to connect you to a boomer social site, since that virtual contact with others is, according to him, a veritable fountain of youth.