Scurran007, I second!

I will definately be taking a look at getting an Apple made in the USA, so far (though I like Apple computers/tablets etc) I have not gotten anything but an iphone in part because Apples are more expensive and we try to stay on a budget - but this would make it worth spending the extra money. I plan to follow this story and see what Apple does :)

If they really go this route I will definitely get a MAC. I have never owned one before so this will be my first. Though I was thinking of getting one in a few months.

Roger-785733

It may say assembled in the USA, but that is still better than made and assembled in CHINA right? I'll ignore the illegal immigrant comment.

As for Apple, thank you. Its a welcome relief to see an American company employing Americans again.

BTO iMacs, build-to-order, have for a long time, increasingly been made in Apple's California assembly plant. If you custom order it, there's a good chance it'll be made there.

@ ItsaboutTime

Yes it is better then nothing. And as far as ignoring the immigrants, yes our country does seem to ignore them . . commentary or not.

Thanks for your comment :)

Agreed that assembled in America is a start. Next would be the educating of America and the training of Americans so that we can start making these things in America again.

Part of the interview contains Cook addressing the lack of educated workers (and manufactures) in America to be at the standard that these products require on a large scale. He may have put it more politically correct than that, but the sentiment is the same... we've dumbed ourselves out of this type of manufacturing for the time being.

Not quite sure how we'd balance out the pay issue if we did have the ability to make these in America, but that is a different conversation entirely. But heck at least we're making an effort and got the ball rolling with assembly in the USA.

Reading comprehension is a serious problem for some people. (some) Current-generation iMacs say 'Assembled in the USA'. Apple is talking about bringing the entire manufacturing process (for 1 line) domestic.

@Roger, if you watch the interview, you'll see that Apple is increasingly sourcing components in the US. For example, the Gorilla Glass in your iPhone or iPad is made in Kentucky. The SOC CPU in your iPhone or iPad is made in Austin, Texas. Those are the two most expensive parts of those devices.

Apple is talking about bringing the entire manufacturing process (for 1 line) domestic.

The Mac line used to be totally domestic until Tim Cook, then COO, said it would be cheaper to manufacture overseas. Many great engineers lost their jobs when this happened. Color me skeptical that this will be a lasting or expanding decision.

ChKen,

Neither of those components are used in an iMac. Just sayin'.

But, where do you think al those PCs have been made?

It's a sad day when building a product made for the American market from an American company using American labor is headline news.

In any case, those of you who get high and mighty about Apple and China... I see you posting on the internet. Where did you think your hardware came from? Very little of what goes into PCs by any vendor is made outside of China. Look under the hood before you fall of your high horse.

apple products are junk! inferior i-crap made for i-diots. buy android or windows. apple i-crap is yesterdays news! the only reason it's making news again, it's because apple is desperate to try to get free publicity in desperate attempt to promote there outdated i-crap. android and windows technologies are years ahead of apple.

Even if it cost more I would save up and buy American. If we, as Consumers and Citizens haven't learned what outsourcing has caused? Then we deserve what we get!

The Apple OS is much more stable than Windows ever was or will be. I don't have any comparison for smartphones and pads because I refuse to use them. The biggest mistake modern society has made is thinking they need to be "wired" 24/7. It is destroying our society in many ways.

An American company who decides to manufacture their product on US soil: Fancy that! What a concept!

What some of you fail to understand is in today's world very few products with many parts are made exclusive in any one country so being assembled in the USA is a plus. Now if they start making as many components they can in the USA that would be even better.

At least it a turn around from Steve Jobs' statement that it would never come back to the US.

There's another catch, and it's one that politicians don't like to talk about: China has many more skilled engineers than the United States does.

Steve Jobs, Apple's late CEO, brought the issue up during an October 2010 meeting with President Obama. He called America's lackluster education system an obstacle for Apple, which needed 30,000 industrial engineers to support its on-site factory workers.

"You can't find that many in America to hire," Jobs told the president, according to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. "If you could educate these engineers, we could move more manufacturing plants here."

In a May interview with AllThingsD, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he agreed with Jobs' assessment.

"There has to be a fundamental change in the education system to bring back some of this [labor]," he said.

Maybe Obama's plan to put money into our education system will bring back jobs to America. That is if congress will get their collective heads out of their posteriors and work with him.

Lenovo announced two months ago that it is going to start making some of it's ThinkPad/ThinkCentre PCs in North Carolina (starting January '13)...Apple is just following suit and maybe these two companies can get the ball rolling on getting more tech made in the USA. For now assembled in the USA is a start, but the rest of the components still need to be made here.

Damn that Obama! This is ALL HIS FAULT. What about those poor Chinese workers who will be out of work? (*sarcasm intended*)

First I would like to say...assuming Apple does this while employing people at a livable wage they have increased the chance of be buying an Apple product from zero. I can't give a real opinion till it happens.

That said it's a start but people expecting part production to move to America are kidding themselves. Many of the components in out electronic equipment can never be produced in the US due to EPA regulations. Sure they could re-engineer the products and develop alternative manufacturing methods but then were back to them not being able to compete against the global market even if they used cheap.

If companies like Apple and GE (to name the two largest off the top of my head) could at least assemble the products they sell in the North American markets in the US we would have a much stronger more stable economy. So again...its a start.

Made in the USA, assembled in the USA- who cares as it's good for all involved. Advice for Tim, don't hire union workers- if so we can fast forward 5 years (inevitably when a strike will occur) and Apple will have to raise the cost of products or shutter product lines...

If they make them here I WILL consider making my 1st Apple computer purchase

It will come down to the wages they pay the benefits they offer and job security for the workers.. Hopefully union labor !

Next question

What % of the parts are made in the USA ????

Scurran007,

You took the words right out of my mouth. 100 percent agree. I use PC everyday for work and home, but I would definitely add the MAC to my lineup. Especially since I have a couple of kids now and making home movies is a breeze with the MAC

Many people are asking about domestic content of the assembled products...

Seeing as its 0% right now it can only get better and likely will. It will start with small things like screws then as designs are changed maybe some of the plastic and so on...but it will never get very high.

This is a big deal. We bought our first mac in the early '80s. WOW!! Maybe this is a start to bring back much of the "Made in American" products on the world's stage.

Last year I purchased two flat screen TVs... On the packaging it read "Made in China, assembled in Mexico...

I to would purchase a Mac if made in America... It's almost impossible to find anything that is totally made in America...

Now make your iPads, iPhones and your other iStuff in America, and I might actually have some respect for your company.

If the Mac was made in america it would last 1 day over warranty. Apple is running a sweatshop, but now it will be american.

That's a good start. I still can't go Mac for two big reasons. 1st, they don't run any of the software I need. 2nd, not enough bang for the buck.

I love it!! The left-wing media gives Apple a pass since their founder was a hippie liberal. 75% of Apple's jobs are overseas paying slave wages yet Steve Jobs is an idol to all these liberal media outlets. What hypocrites you liberals are! LMFAO!!

So are Dell, HP, Lenova, and all of the other PC manufacturers, ray. And it's not just the computer manufacturers, it is all manufactures, including too many American made products these days. Just look at all of the recalls going on recently.

I've been using CyberPower PCs for years. You pick all of the components/OS/software/case and they build your custom PC in California. I would never buy a prefab desktop PC, but at least it's a step in the right direction for Apple.

If it where only true and they actually make it in America. They may assemble it in America, but the printed circuit boards and chips come from china. Don't get me wrong, having an assembly line in American is a good start, but we need to do more and actually design, create, and assemble in the good old USA.

Pragmatic,

For 2 decades Apple hardware and software products were made in the U.S. It's one reason they were more expensive... and didn't sell well, despite being superior computing devices. Americans almost always choose price over quality. ::forehead slap::

Not only that, Apple was one of the last hardware manufacturers to make computing devices in the U.S.; it hung on as long as it could, but the late 1990s/early 2000s changing tech-electronics market - mostly still American consumers - continued to kill the company in much the same way as they had in the 1980s.

However, the reason for the outsourcing to international assemblers was (a) the competition had long been doing that, while selling already significantly lower cost and lesser designed devices even cheaper, (b) the iPod and later iPhone/iOS mobile devices brought a different supply chain into the corporate picture, as well as a new global market; Apple products were being bought in greater numbers by consumers in other countries - bought where they were made. The collateral success of the iPhone, which continues to grow in market share globally, has resulted in more consumers now introduced to the Mac computing line - and like it.

Remains to be seen if Apple can compete with China's giant Lenovo. Or If Americans will buy American. They didn't before.

“It’s not so much about price, it’s about the skills,” Cook told Williams."

What skills the fact they can get Chinese to work 18 hours a day for almost nothing? I was in China and unskilled workers making products they do not even use or can buy in their own contry is the name of the game.

This may be a start of bringing back manufacturing to America. Be nice to walk out of a store with something you ar hoping does not break before you get home!

You people bawling over where the parts came from need to remove your head from that other aperture you have.

It is better for more of something to be made in the US, so shut it.

Now, yeah, ANY CAR has parts from outside the US in it. But would you rather it be manufactured in Russia and shipped here or made here?

So put on the brain, naysayers. It is there to be used.

Now, if only other manufacturers would do the same thing...

Oh, and calling Apple a 'liberal' company, or saying something like the Yankees are a 'conservative' baseball team shows total stupidity. Beyond help level.

No successful company gets as large as it does with one party voters. But don't tell the idiots that!

@dongwork4yuda

If they make them here I WILL consider making my 1st Apple computer purchase

It will come down to the wages they pay the benefits they offer and job security for the workers.. Hopefully union labor !

In other words- if you get what you want you WON'T be buying an Apple because there is no way in hell you, or anyone else, would be able to afford it.

Folks, try to use a little bit of common sense here. "Made in the USA" is only a good deal when consumers can afford the end product. Let the Chinese have these @!$%#ty assembly line jobs, they need them worse than we do and it keeps the end price of the product at a level most people can afford (even if Apple does sell their crap for 100% markup). We need to focus on creating high-end jobs that can pay people a decent wage. We want to train people to design and innovate these products not stand in line piecing them together.

And dongwork4yuda, may I ask how you made this post since there are currently no computers of any kind that come close to meeting your standards???

If the Mac was made in america it would last 1 day over warranty. Apple is running a sweatshop, but now it will be american.

Absolute nonsense. Dell manufactures it's customizable line in the USA. These systems run rock-solid. Your perception, simply put, is not based in reality.

@Derek-381097

Oh, and calling Apple a 'liberal' company, or saying something like the Yankees are a 'conservative' baseball team shows total stupidity. Beyond help level.

No successful company gets as large as it does with one party voters. But don't tell the idiots that!

"Apple does, however, gain ground for outpacing Microsoft in partisanship: Since 1989, 86.3 percent of the company' employees' reportable contributions have gone to Democratic candidates."- http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/01/capital-rivals-apple-versus-microso.html

When 86% of a companies political contributions go to a single party I think it is safe to say that company leans a certain way.

Idiots are people who make statements without bothering to look for any pertinent facts.

Kepone,

Dells run rock solid? What are you smoking? It was having 3 Dells break down in 2 years that made me switch to the Mac.

American manufacturing is a joke.

@1.3 -- Roger said "Assembled in the USA and Made with Chinese Parts." You should do your homework before you put your foot in your mouth. Look online at any teardown analysis of an iPhone, iPad or iPod and tell me whose parts are in there. Not all of them are American, but many of the more important and expensive ones are. Integrated circuits from Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Cirrus Logic, Skyworks and others -- all U.S. companies. And of course the main processor is Apple's own design, but manufactured for them by Samsung (South Korean, not Chinese).

The criticism has always been that even though Apple used American suppliers for its components, their final products were assembled in China -- "Assembled in China and Made with American Parts."

That Mitt Romney. He must have been running as a Democrat. Those Republican reporters sure got fooled!

http://macdailynews.com/2012/03/19/republican-candidate-mitt-romney-confirmed-apple-ipad-user-with-video/

NEXT!

@scurran007 Most PC's aren't made in the USA as well... Here is a list of all of the other companies that use the same factory That Apple Uses (The Factory is called Foxconn and has no Factories in the USA).

Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
Amazon.com (United States)
Apple Inc. (United States)
ASRock (Taiwan)
Asus (Taiwan)
Barnes & Noble (United States)
Cisco (United States)
Dell (United States)
EVGA Corporation (United States)
Hewlett-Packard (United States)
Intel (United States)
IBM (United States)
Lenovo (China)
Logitech (Switzerland)
Microsoft (United States)
MSI (Taiwan)
Motorola (United States)
Netgear (United States)
Nintendo (Japan)
Nokia (Finland)
Panasonic (Japan)
Philips (Netherlands)
Samsung (South Korea)
Sharp (Japan)
Sony Ericsson (Japan/Sweden)
Toshiba (Japan)
Vizio (United States)

- Headquarters in the parentheses -

@Roger-785733 I find your comments on how the product is "Assembled in" and not "Made in" the USA to be ill conceived.

When it comes to technology of this kind, quite a substantial number of components aren't manufactured in the USA by anyone.

LCD panels for computer displays aren't made here. both solid state and traditional spindle based hard disk drives aren't made here. Memory modules aren't made here. Most logic boards aren't made here.

Certainly Apple can help to instigate change with some of this, but not overnight. And Apple can't be expected to suddenly start manufacturing components they currently procure in obscene quantities from others.

To move even assembly of product to the US is a major step for any company, let alone one known widely for protecting is pricing margins as much as Apple is.

Dell is swirling down the toilet bowl. Stock off 50% from this years high.

Apple doing damage control is all here... jobs is gone, they are greedy, their image is tarnished after the map debacle and the plethora of APPLE MADE IN CHINA articles.

This is called DAMAGE CONTROL and nothing more

ZT Systems' PCs are assembled in America (in New Jersey, I believe). I bought one last December, and it's been a fantastic computer. It doesn't come loaded with bloatware, and the components are well-made. Upgrades are a snap. It was cheaper than the Gateways, HPs, etc., that I looked at.

It isn't just Apple, hi tech manufacturing is moving back to the USA wholesale for a variety of reasons. GE has moved almost all of its appliance manufacturing back to the USA.

Gotta love you people for making this a political thing when it is purely economic. Not to say Apple isn't trying to get some marketing play out of a purely economic decision on their part. There is a sucker born every minute willing to fall for it.

First, high energy costs have made shipping more expensive. Energy will only go up so there isn't any relief in sight for those costs.

Second, wages in China are increasing and are expected to go higher.

Third, laws in China regarding investment options are adding to the cost of manufacturing there. For example, foreign companies cannot own the plant used to manufacture the product. This makes the next factor more troublesome.

Fourth, intellectual property/technology theft is rampant in China. A manufacturer may be making your product on one side of a factory and on the other side making the same thing and shipping it out under their brand name.

Fifth, having design and prototyping under one roof pays off huge. For example, GE would design a product and send it overseas to the manufacturer to be protyped. They would do it exactly like the plans called for regardless of difficulty in production because labor was cheap. When GE did the same process here the manufacturing engineer and workers doing the protyping would point out ways to do things better and GE would be left with a better, cheaper, more reliable design (less complex devices are generally more reliable).

Some low tech manufacturing that is very labor intensive things will never return (like clothing) but those aren't staying in China either. Those manufacturers are already moving on to lower wage countries like Vietnam and Pakistan.

I would also point out it isn't just American companies. A lot of foreign manufacturing is moving here too. We recently purchased a new car and we looked at 6 different models. Four were foreign manufacturers and two were domestics. All were made in the USA. In particular Japanese manufacturers are moving a lot here because the tsunami showed them their manufacturing plants were vulnerable to natural disasters. The tsunami cost their companies billions in lost revenue and allowed Hyundai and USA car companies to grab market share when they couldn't get cars to the USA market......

Sounds as if you read the Atlantic article as well. Sun Microsystems tried this with a line (bringing back on shore) about 10 years ago. An evolving pattern. The GE appliances include high end and high tech models not the low-end counter top toasters, kettles etc. The commodity level fryers are being driven by price alone by the public and retailers like WalMart.

“The consumer electronics world was really never here,” Cook said.

Do some actual research, Mr. Cook.

Until about 40 years ago, The US produced all their own electronics at home and they were all American brands.

Lets see how long before Obama forces unions on Apple !!!!! BLS-744646 This will not help or hurt this country Obama is well on his way in sending this country down the tubes stupid.

On why the entire production isn't moved here, Cook said its not about the cost its about the workers skillset. Give me a break. You mean the people in China that come from the rural areas to work in the sweatshops are better educated? Does he think we are that stupid?

Obama wants ALL vendors for ALL federal work/supplies to be union. Wait till ya see what happens to your taxes then!

Mr Cook is grossly incorrect, virtually all of Apple's early production occurred in the USA. He is either ignorant of his company's history or is being willfully incorrect in an attempt to make Apple look better. In 1994 I lived in Colorado Springs, CO and they had just built an Apple plant near Fountain. It sold the plant in 1996 (only a couple of years after it went online) to a subcontractor that continued manufacturing Apple equipment but that only lasted until 1999 or so.

@bob n Ia, yep but a lot of other articles from other outlets indicate even lower tech consumer electronic goods are coming to the USA since they have such rapid technology advances that it is becoming difficult to keep up with the market from China. NBC had an article a while on some new plant in Michigan making an item I never figured could be made here in the USA. Wish I could remember what it was, maybe TVs or computer monitors? I know that is surprising but I remember whatever it was really surprised me....

@Backcountry164

When 86% of a companies political contributions go to a single party I think it is safe to say that company leans a certain way.

Interesting, I didn't know that. And yet, Apple is now the most valuable company in history:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2012/08/21/apple-now-most-valuable-company-in-history/

When Democrats are better at making money, you know the GOP must really be in trouble.

@ chris giddings

When it comes to technology of this kind, quite a substantial number of components aren't manufactured in the USA by anyone.

I have to laugh, thats exactly my point..

it needs to be made in the USA..... again, thats my point .

Thanks for the comment Chris, read before you speak...LOL

@eastcoast

with a little research and internet searching for parts, you can make a computer made from all USA parts. i made my own machine, it is made from all USA made parts. you can do that instead of buying one out of the box made in china. by the way it has outlasted the 3 comps my brother in law has bought out of the box that where made in china, while costing less in the long run. the little bit of extra time was well worth it imo.

@1.58 -- jason wrote "On why the entire production isn't moved here, Cook said its not about the cost its about the workers skillset. Give me a break. You mean the people in China that come from the rural areas to work in the sweatshops are better educated? Does he think we are that stupid?"

On the contrary, he is exactly right. The Foxconn factories in China -- especially the huge complex in Shenzhen -- are the most state-of-the-art electronics assembly factories in the world, by far, and are highly automated. It's not that those rural Chinese workers were better educated than Americans when they arrived in Shenzhen and applied for a job at Foxconn. More to the point, the experienced Foxconn worker who has been on the job for 6 months has skills and experience that American workers do not have -- simply because there is nothing like that facility anywhere in the U.S., or in any other country for that matter. No American resume is ever going to honesly claim work experience on an automated high-volume consumer electronics assembly line -- unless that American has spent some time as a Foxconn employee in China.

Could the Foxconn factory setup be duplicated in the U.S.? Of course it could -- all it takes is money -- billions of dollars. Could American workers be trained to operate that factory? Of course they could. Foxconn does it every day with a labor force that mostly came to the city from the farms of rural China.

But the million dollar question is would American workers be willing to do that job for $1.50/hour? Of course not. And that is why the vast majority of all electronics products, from TVs to cell phones to game consoles to tablet computers, are now assembled in China. It's an unbeatable combination of well-trained but very cheap labor plus the most state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in the world.

Given that, why doesn’t Apple leave China entirely and manufacture everything in the U.S.? “It’s not so much about price, it’s about the skills,” Cook told Williams.

Echoing a theme stated by many other companies, Cook said he believes the U.S. education system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes. He added, however, that he hopes the new Mac project will help spur others to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.

Load of BS. It's all about prices. He is the main reason why Apple moved all their manufacturing jobs to China. Where can you find skilled engineers that are willing to put up wages of 16k per year? Not here in the US.

Raise the pathetic wages and guess what? You will have demand and alot more promising students will gravitate to that field. Look at nursing school. They had to turn away prospect students because they are filled to the rim with students. For 16k a year? Good luck with that.

I bet there is a interior motive behind moving manufacturing jobs back to USA and its not because it's patriotic. Weaker dollar against stronger Chinese yuan, higher gas prices and raw materials, labor costs over there are steady increasing while our wages are depressing, etc

I'd like to see the definition of made in America... I would bet at best its final assembly and at worse its final configuartion and packaging. Apple has zero assembly capability - they rely on their suppliers for the design and assembly aspects of their products. Samsung designs and manufactures its displays and most processor based electronics... Apple is great at UI and cosmetic design - they have zero skill in technical design...

Ever wonder why they are chasing the rest of the field in technical capability? The iPhone 5 is still a generation behind the leaders...but hey Americas only want sexy and affinity with others. The rest of world Apple is chasing Samsung, HTC, etc.

@Get Real, the opposite definition of Made in America is a lot more important. You focus on final assembly, or at worst just configuration & packaging. There is very little value added by those processes. In Apple's case, the hardware design, software design, industrial design (look & feel), supporting ecosystem design (iTunes, iCloud, apps, music & film industry deals), marketing, management, etc. are where the majority of the value is added to Apple's products.

Out of the $600 retail price of an iPhone, the Chinese assembly process accounts for at most two or three of those dollars.

You are correct that Apple has zero manufacturing capability -- they've never had any, nor wanted or needed any. But it is grossly incorrect to say they have zero skill in technical design. Apple engineers in California designed the last several generations of their applications processor, the latest one being the A6. So what if it is manufactured for them by Samsung? Given the bad blood & lawsuits between those 2 companies, it is likely that Apple will move some or all of that chip production to TSMC at some point -- but they will not be moving that to the U.S. because Apple doesn't own a chip fab, nor would it smart of them to go spend several billions to build one -- here or in any other country -- when others like Samsung or TSMC or who knows, maybe even Intel, are perfectly capable of manufacturing Apple's processor chips for Apple's exclusive use.

Likewise, Apple engineers in California specify and carefully direct the design of some of the other chips used in Apple products, even though those chips bear the names & markings of other companies (U.S.-based companies mostly). And Apple engineers in California design the motherboards used in Apple products, right down to oddly-shaped rechargeable batteries, in an effort to elegantly and efficiently pack a lot of capability into the smallest possible form factor.

And all of the above is just on the hardware side. As you might know, Apple engineers also designed iOS and many of the basic apps that come pre-loaded on Apple products, as well as designed the framework for 3rd party app developers.

Finally, Apple invented many of the smartphone UI features that we now take for granted, like pinching & un-pinching to zoom in and out, have the screen "bounce" when your finger hits the bottom, and numerous other UI features that have been very successfully copied by Samsung, LG, HTC, etc.

Apple products, as measured by value added (percentage of that $600 retail price) and by number of jobs created among all their U.S. suppliers, are very much "Made in America" and I personally could care less whether the guy who tightens the screws on the final assembly is in China or Thailand or wherever. Those are not the good high-paying jobs we want to create in the U.S.

@had_enough -- those Chinese manufacturing jobs have nothing to do with engineers making 16k a year. In fact, the Chinese factory worker who assembles products for Apple, Cisco, HP, Dell, Nokia, Motorola, etc. doesn't make anywhere near 16k a year.

@McGee-9to5

When Democrats are better at making money, you know the GOP must really be in trouble.

They aren't necessarily better they just get to play by different rules. When a republican makes a ton of money they are demonized by the left especially if they ship jobs overseas. When a democrat makes tons of money they are praised by the left even if they ship jobs overseas.

After all, Jobs made every penny using the exact same methods liberals scream about, dirt cheap overseas labor and suing anyone under the sun, yet even OWS had a moment of silence when he passed. Sure seems like hypocrisy to me.

I'm glad my TV brings me back 20-30 years when I turn it on. If I want annoying viagra ads, I'll open my laptop. If I want to watch TV, I'll turn on the tried and true.

Please celebrate something good happening here, even if you're not from the U.S. or have a "doomsday" approach to life.

Americans have never being "patriotic" (when the word involves their financial interests and purchases). We had that alternative for decades, including not only cars but home appliances and household items and dress apparel.

World giants like Dell have become successful assembling parts manufactured by others. Parts are not just "glued together" like some said, but every production line requires human intervention. This production effort is great news because the whole manufacturing process of the parts assembled will be U.S. manufactured (at least for that one line). And that involves not only technical expertise but the engineering and improvements behind the sophisticated parts to be manufactured.

As we all know this is an ever-changing process in the present world requiring constant education and training.

I manufacture computers in the USA. For myself. Parts still come from Asia, nothing's going to change that without the cost increasing 700%. And the quality dropping through the floor.

But I'm sure you'll all drop your NVIDIA/ATI cards, the Intel/AMD processors, and all those tiny components on the board made by FoxConn for something entirely made in the USA. Which would be good, the internet is too crowded with people thinking they know anything about tech these days anyway.

Some of you are confusing the terms "manufactured" and "assembled." There are numerous computers assembled in the U.S. The components, however are not manufactureed here. Check out the labels on your "manufactured" in the U.S.A. computers. Each component will have this clearly marked. Take those computers apart and tell us which components are manufactured here.

As for Foxconn, let's not forget that this company is highly subsidized by the Chinese government. The government has provided much financial aid for their expanding factories. Apple is benefiting from those subsidies.

@g0ne4n0w & BW, which parts on your computers -- homemade or otherwise -- come from Asia? You are aware, I hope, of the global nature of the electronics supply chain and that things are not always what they seem, especially when you look at who added what value and where.

I buy Intel processors, which are designed & manufactured in the USA -- many of them about 15 minutes from my house as a matter of fact. If you're an AMD fan, those CPUs are also designed in the U.S. and until recently were mostly made in Austin, TX -- but since AMD spun off it's manufacturing operations as a separate company, it's possible they your particular CPU might've been made elsewhere (Dresden, Germany is one possibility). Upstate New York will soon be another possibility when the AMD spinoff -- now known as Global Foundries -- finishes its new fab there.

But integrated circuit assembly -- the process of packaging the silicon die (chip) into a black plastic package with solder bumps on the bottom -- is exclusively done offshore. So even a chip that is 99.9% Made in USA -- like an Intel processor -- might have its final assembly/packaging done in Malaysia and be labelled as such. Then you would incorrectly assume that Intel chips come from Malaysia, when in fact they are designed in Oregon, manufactured in Arizona (among other places in the U.S.) and only that final assembly step -- worth about 50 cents on a 200 dollar CPU -- is done overseas.

I buy NVIDIA graphics cards, and NVIDIA's graphics chips are designed & developed in the U.S. Like many fabless chip companies, they use TSMC (Taiwan) to manufacture their chips. If contract chip manufacturers like TSMC weren't around, companies like NVIDIA -- and Qualcomm and Broadcom and numerous other U.S. chip companies -- would be forced out of business, because none of them are big enough to be able to spend billions of dollars on a modern semiconductor fab that they can't fill to capacity by themselves. But collectively, those companies employ many thousands of Americans in design & test engineering, supply chain management, sales & marketing, management, quality and other disciplines. Those are high-paying American jobs -- so what if the chip manufacturing is done in Taiwan by a company whose entire business is manufacturing other companies' integrated circuits for them, and so what if the board stuffing is done by Foxconn in Shenzhen on the mainland? Those are low value-add activities -- not exactly the kind of high-quality, high-paying American jobs we want to create anyway.

If you buy hard disk drives that are made by Western Digital (#1 in the world) or Seagate (#2 in the world), those are also U.S. companies that do their engineering, marketing, etc. in the U.S. The drives will be labelled "Made in Thailand", but 98% of their value is Made in USA and only 2% in Thailand.

I could cite countless other examples, but I think you get the idea. Your homemade computer (I make my own PCs too) is a lot more American-made than just your final assembly that you do at home on the living room floor.

@g0ne4n0w

You don't "manufacture" PCs at home, you assemble them. I do that too and went through all the A+ Certification and so.

You do realize that the components you mentioned and you assemble at home are PC components, don't you?

Apple manufacture and assemble their own. They do assemble some lines in the U.S. But on this particular one they're going to both manufacture and assemble here. (And no, it's not Intel/AMD or any other component) LOL

Part of the problem in the US is too many of our young are going to college and getting easy almost worthless degrees in liberal arts. We need more engineers. For the most part these kids are just too lazy and don't want to deal with getting real degrees. I told my kids I wasn't paying for any liberal arts degrees, one has a BS Electrical Engineering and the other has a BS in computer science, and they both have good jobs.

Given that, why doesn’t Apple leave China entirely and manufacture everything in the U.S.? “It’s not so much about price, it’s about the skills,”... the U.S. education system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes.

Translation: Whenever someone gets an education, they expect more pay and we can't find enough people with an education that is willing to work for what we want to pay.

The price will probably double and Apple will lose sales.

If it is made in America...then I would buy a MAC ( And I am a PC guy!) It would be my first MAC!

I started with PCs before Windows, back when you had to install a modem yourself and set the DIP switches manually. Yes, I'm o-l-d. But I thought the first iPad was a cool gadget and bought one, expecting it to be a sophisticated PDA.

I never looked back. The only time I touch a PC now is when one of my friends begs for help, and my help comes with a strong suggestion to get a Mac and some mumbling about how I put in years of frustration and wasted time on Microsoft junk and shouldn't have to anymore.

Actually, I never use my Mac anymore, either. There isn't anything I do that requires more than my iPad, and nothing my iPad doesn't do better than a PC, except trade Forex on Metatrader. They just won't get with the program, so I'm ready to dump my broker of 10 years and go elsewhere.

Pages is better than Word, with no learning curve. Keynote is better than Power Point. If you're a photographer, FilterStorm Pro leaves Photoshop in the dirt and costs $15 instead of $600. In fact, my iPad is loaded with highly sophisticated software and all of it together didn't come close to the cost of Microsoft Office. Furthermore, upgrades are free and there is little-to-no learning curve.

Microsoft doesn't begin to hold a candle to Apple. Yes, you pay more in the beginning, but you save countless dollar and--most importantly--time and frustration after that. In comparison, PCs are clunky, stripped down, and feel like your father's Oldsmobile.

I wish I had known this decades ago.

Your friends shouldn't buy cheap $200 crap computers. If you knew as much about computers as you are trying to say you do, then you would know that most problems with Windows and BSOD's are hardware issues, or operator error(like clicking on pop-ups that they shouldn't click on).

I've been using PC's for over 20 years now, all with Windows and they have always been rock solid, I can't begin to tell you how many I have built, all with Windows and all worked fine for many years. I currently have 2 machines with Windows 8, and 1 with Windows 7 and ALL of them will run circles around a Mac.

Another thing, people think Mac's are superior to PC's (when the FACTS are their components are made by Intel, Nvidia, Asus and more. They are the same as a PC. They also lost the video advantage many years ago, I know people heavily into multimedia design, animation and motion video and the fasteset computers they use are PC's, why? because Mac's and slower and time is money.

BTW - I'd pit my Nokia 920 Windows phone against your iPhone any day, then you'll see what old and clunky looks like, and it's not the Windows 8 Phone.

I'm no computer geek, and didn't mean to imply otherwise. But I do have many years of experience working with PCs and IMO, they suck.

Can't get any clearer than that.

Patter123,

Thanks for making your points in post 1.79. I will be getting a Mac next after all the trouble I am having with this PC. I just hope that making it in the US doesn't drive the price up too much.

I hope they build that plant in a low-tax, right-to-work state so they keep the costs down.

I use PC's, Iphones, and Ipads. I prefer the PC's over Macs, but I will look into buying a "built in the USA" Mac, because I like to buy American. None of the PCs were built in America, either. At least this is a start, and I hope there is more to come. Even if it is just "assembled" in the USA, that is better than nothing. I have been annoyed with Apple over their patent law suits, I think some of the patents should not have been issued in the first place, hell I was expecting to read that Apple had been awarded a patent for "1's and 0's" based some of the patents they had been granted. Building more products in the USA does make me feel a little better about the Evil Empire though.

Republicans hate this news. They want to see this country go down the tubes so they can say they are right.

True stories Only

Last night I had a dream of a friendly gathering within a retreat and suddenly saw a young female who I was interested in over 20 years ago, her name was Libya. I completely forgot about this young lady until seeing her in my dream.
Then all of a sudden I see Hilary Clinton who arrived and enjoyed herself along with the rest of us.

I couldn't figure out after not dreaming for years why did I have this dream and why was it sooo vivid???

Today, I went to look for wood for the fireplace with dad and found an odd piece of wood.
It was also, odd how it all came about, because we were looking for wood on an isolated street where hardly any cars were coming. Out of the blue a man who looked as though he was able but homeless told us to go to the curve up the street where we could find oak instead of the slow burning pine that we first gathered.

When we used the chain saw to cut the wood, dead in the center there was a red marking that looked as if the tree was bleeding from the inside.
When we looked at it more in detail, more and more it began appearing to look like a Phoenix "Fire Bird" to us.

To me it was symbolic!!!
Because also today, I talked to my mother about what I thought man's purpose in life really is and how we all have been side tracked by various distractions. Taking us away from our true purpose.

I explained to her how from paying attention all of my life and trying to reveal the true meaning of life where I currently was in my beliefs.
I explained to her that the universe/s were composed within a vast body similar to how are cells are within our body. Same principle but we are smaller.
Within the universe and all it's composed of, acts similar to how our bodies work cells and all.

Then I mentioned the ways viruses tried to enter our cells by fooling the things that fed good proteins to the cells within us. I told her that a virus has entered into our world and is corrupting us similar to how a virus mutate the cells within us.

I then began seeing many viruses out here and how they have changed our thought process which is turning the entire planet sick.

Next thing you know, during the same day we found what we have never found ever in many lives....

"THE PHOENIX"

Does this represent a higher level of thought and is this a true sign.......

I really think soooooo.....

PEEL LAYER.....

You are dreaming about Hillary Clinton? Dude, go get a girlfriend now!

-

Peel-layer forgot his or her meds today

Uh ya.... That type of story is like listening to a diagnoses of schizophrenia... right as it is occuring, lol.

Sorry peel... not that you werent interesting... but people who connect wood to bleeding hearts and then phoenixes.... who spend that much time thinking of all that stuff... generally are experiencing schizo breaks from reality. If you haven't already, go see someone.

Derek,

You are a whiny. little B_tch. LOL!

Actually BLS this is great news, for all. I'm a republican and I am very pleased to hear this. Although like many have said, this seems to be simply damage control. Notice they stated "Apple Computers", they did not mention iPhones, iPads, and all other apple toys.

The fact that some of Apple products might be manufactured in the US may almost justify the ridiculous prices...

At least it seems like they are trying, and I'm sure that apple will still make a profit while keeping assembly in the US, but they may not be able to report record profits every year. At least some of their products may not be manufactured by little kids in a sweat shop, some.

It will be even more interesting to see see the truth about how many of these jobs will be supported by U.S. Taxpayer money. Government subsidized jobs are not real. They are only another form of welfare.

The unions are already drooling thinking about how much money they're going to squeeze Apple for. I doubt it'll ever expand beyond this one factory. Once they're reminded of the nightmare of union negotiations and striking.

Bloomberg's Josh Tyrangiel: You were instrumental in getting Apple out of the manufacturing business. What would it take to get Apple back to building things and, specifically, back to building things in the U.S.?

Apple's Tim Cook: It's not known well that the engine for the iPhone and iPad is made in the U.S., and many of these are also exported—the engine, the processor. The glass is made in Kentucky. And next year we are going to bring some production to the U.S. on the Mac. We've been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to it. It will happen in 2013. We're really proud of it. We could have quickly maybe done just assembly, but it's broader because we wanted to do something more substantial. So we'll literally invest over $100 million. This doesn't mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we'll be working with people, and we'll be investing our money.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-06/tim-cooks-freshman-year-the-apple-ceo-speaks#p1

Also, Foxconn is looking to move into the U.S. market; it already has factories on every continent and nearby countries (Mexico), not just in Asia, as so many unschooled Americans presume. But then, Foxconn also has @ hundred tech clients for which it assembles and churns out all manner of goods. Apple, Inc. is but one of those clients.

Bobster and Breadex actually when you guys thought of your names you were thinking with child like minds.

Closer to being crazy than anything that I actually went through.
All I can do is produce the truth and nothing more.

The TRUTH is both of you Breadex sounds like you got banged by BOBSTER!!!!

Both of you need to stay off of the XXX men sites.

LOL....

You two fools look at the evidence "the picture of my profile."
I wish that Hilary could come and say prayer over the bleeding pieces of this tree I found....

it's more real than the KING James VERSION!!!!
In the since that it is fact.

Do I since jealousy in the fact that nothing symbolic has ever happened to the two nobodies banging each other???

How about this....
go put on your leather outfits and strap a red ball in your mouths like on Pulp fiction.
both of you will be in your element once you guys do that and will feel fine.

Oh yeah No Meds needed....

Just pulled your Layers....

Playa....

Also, I commend this move that we have been pushing for sometime by APPLE!!!!

CONGRATS!!!!

Why didn't the Democrats make this happen 4 years ago? Oh, that's right, they don't create jobs. But you do have to give Romney credit for without all the Bain Capital remarks no one would have written stories about how many jobs Jobs at Apple and others sent overseas.

For all you who say you'll buy if it's made here -- You are full of crap. All the products went overseas the past 3 decades because you liked the cheaper prices. Go back to Walmart and do your Chinese shopping.

It's about freakin' time. He makes enough money here, he should have been giving jobs to American's a long time ago. If they make a little less, they can certainly afford it. It'll be an good investment anyway. I've got a 6 year old HP. This news tells me what my next computer will be, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. "Made in America" screams quality to me and most of the world.

Me too. That's why I buy Florida's Natural OJ.

completely agree... but the key point is... good quality, reliable products...

I already do

here is a website that tells you what vehicles are manufactured here and wha t% of parts are made in the USA

http://www.nhtsa.gov/Laws+&+Regulations/Part+583+American+Automobile+Labeling+Act+%28AALA%29+Reports

Share this with friends and family and co-workers

uhhhh....which country in America?

For 50+ years, Americans have climbed all over themselves to buy cheap foreign goods. American companies simply answered the siren's call. But the global market changed forever all American companies, especially once Richard Nixon opened up trade with China in the 1970s.

Steve Jobs warned Bill Clinton in the 1990s about both the looming global hammer coming down on American jobs, as well as the shrunken U.S. manufacturing and supply chain that was about to force Apple and most tech companies to move most of the manufacturing operations overseas. No one in the federal govt. listened. In fact, what came was NAFTA and other tragically onerous trade laws that proved toxic to America and American workers - but great for Mexico & Co., as well as China and the WalMarts of the U.S.

Hallelujah - This is a good start!

The ONLY REAL FIX is to Raise Revenue, by Bringing Back Jobs to US Citizens who Pay Income Tax.

Massive cutting just puts more people on unemployment, which just depresses the economy even further.

Returning private sector jobs to American Citizens will provide income tax revenue to OUR Government versus our government having to pay unemployment benefits to those who would be jobless instead. We need our elected officials to Start Protecting American Jobs and do whatever it takes to bring back the jobs they let go. We need leaders who will actually stand up for the American people.

The bottom line is that “Our Government” has to protect domestic industry and the jobs that those industries provide. If they do that, the rest will take care of itself.

We may have to pay a bit more for products made here in the USA by US citizens, but at least we'll still have jobs and a future for our children.

Steve Lynch-800439 America is were they make junk get a clue.

rx7turb0 Florida's Natural OJ is from Mexico and South America you people had to vote for Obama your so uninformed.

Are there ANY manufacturers of mainboards in the USA? Foxconn has the biggest portion of the market in that area, so things will be assembled like most of the cars these days ie Corvette engines and made in Mexico.

Mac is a great tool but way overpriced IMO, been assemblintg my own PC's for 20 years, no frills no trial garbage...

one simple solution go back to the past high tarrifs and end the free trade agreements that have siphoned american jobs away from america. free trade is great for international corporations but not great for a nations economy. when you look at the countries that are doing well economically, you will see they have no free trade agreements. they have high tarrifs and limited imports, for example germany and canada.

Scientist, you are correct but you have to admit: we have to start somewhere and you have to give credit to Tim Cook for starting the process of getting jobs back here in America. No other electronics company of ANY kind has done so.

Now it's time for us to put up or shut up when it comes to the mantra of Buy American. THAT will be the telling factor.

More companies would do the same if we mined and used 'rare earths' from US soils. As it stands now China and other countries are sitting on and mining the majority of 'rare earths'.

I do not know if your estimates are correct or not, or your source. But the fact is that this is extremely positive for our country. Who knows? Maybe manufacturing comes back and all of those components these devices use will too be made in the US... So, those Macs would not just be 'Assembled in the US', but rather 'Completely Made in the US'.

Scientist, you are correct but you have to admit: we have to start somewhere and you have to give credit to Tim Cook for starting the process of getting jobs back here in America.

I love to trumpet this fact: Tim Cook was the man who sent Apple's manufacturing overseas in the first place. They used to make 'em here. Back then it was called "Streamlining operations." I have to wonder aloud how long before operations get streamlined overseas again.

Pragmatic...it doesn't change the fact that they are NOW COMING BACK. Please tell us who else is doing this?

Again..It's.A.Start. Perhaps you have information showing some other computer company doing this so we can give them proper kudos?

not true.. that's been changing the last few years. Companies are bringing jobs back

as the dollar weakens, it makes it easier for corps to justify building stuff here.

Which always made me think that this deficit and debt issues were a planned way to tank the American economy while economies like China rise up.

Pragmatic...it doesn't change the fact that they are NOW COMING BACK.

I'm skeptical it will be both a lasting move and an expanding move.

Perhaps you have information showing some other computer company doing this so we can give them proper kudos?

I have a few PC vendors that never shipped them off in the first place. Systemax, ZT Systems, Puget Systems, Lotus PC, etc. And ironically, there's Lenovo, a Chinese company, who announced they would be bringing manufacturing to the USA in October. None of these companies are headline news quite like Apple, which makes my BS sense tingle.

That has to change. Countries can no longer afford to send all their money over seas. everyone should manufacture their own stuff as in the past. That would force Mexico and Malaysia and China to improve their products. Now in most of these countries it get the crap on the container ship so we can get paid and they do not care what it looks like. When I was in QA one time we rejected 11 straight containers from China. They snet people over here to fix the problems and on the first 5 we rejected them again.

Randoo

Again..It's.A.Start.

No. It's nothing more than a PR campaign and judging from the initial response it will likely be a successful one.

I'm curious to see how this all plays out and for how long. There are so many variables in a global economy that this could go any number of ways. Apple is a company profitable enough that they can eat any losses on U.S. manufactured items. Are they big enough to shift the global scene or will they fall victim to the status quo? Trade agreements, labor laws, etc. currently give the advantage to foreign countries when it comes to attracting manufacturing operations. The deck might be stacked against Apple but they are probably the best built to take on those odds.

@4.3 -- oliverb, many of the most important components in Apple products already come from U.S. suppliers, but in the electronics business, nothing is completely made in the U.S. The main processor, for example, is Apple's own design, but Apple doesn't own a chip factory -- nor would it be a wise business move for them to build one here or anywhere -- so that chip is manufactured for them by Samsung in S. Korea -- yes, the very same company that is Apple's biggest competitor in phones & tablets and is being sued by and counter-suing Apple over patents. Perhaps in the future, Apple will move some or all of that chip manufacturing to a different supplier -- most likely in Taiwan, but it has been suggested that Intel could be a great manufacturing partner for Apple, although Intel does not today make chips for other companies. Note that Intel does nearly all of it's chip manufacturing in the U.S.

Other U.S. chip suppliers whose products are found inside iPhones, iPods & iPads include Qualcomm, Broadcom, Texas Instruments, Skyworks & Cirrus Logic. Among that group, only Texas Instruments has it's own chip factories -- which in fact are located in the U.S. The others on that list are "fabless," meaning they farm out all of their chip manufacturing to foundries -- companies whose entire business is to manufacture other companies' chips for them -- and most of those factories are located in Asia (Taiwan in particular).

Even U.S. chip companies that have their own factories here -- Intel, Texas Instruments, Micron, IBM & Freescale -- still primarily use offshore assembly sites to package their silicon chips (made in USA) into their final product -- the familiar black plastic package with metal pins on the sides or solder bumps on the bottom side.

The electronics industry has, for decades, had a global supply chain and that is not likely to ever change. But for U.S. chip companies, most of the highest value-added activities and most of the best paying jobs are here in the U.S., and to the extent that this remains true, that is a very positive thing. The fact that Apple, just a few years ago, bought a U.S. startup company that had a unique processor design, and now Apple designs its own processors for its products, is a positive step for U.S. engineering & technical jobs -- even if the actual chip manufacturing is done by Samsung in South Korea.

I'll take "most of the value added in the USA" over "not at all made in the USA" any day :)

I'm with you. If they make good on this my Apple hating days are over. I'll buy one of their computers in a heartbeat.

This is not news, HP already manufacturs a majority of its Desktop Computers in the US in a factory in Indiana, typical Apple propaganda. HP never stopped manufacturing in the US

That's not true Scientist1 we have nothing left to send. I guess Burger King, and Wal-Mart are left. I'm not going to buy $30 tee shirts just to say its made in America. So save my Wal-Mart from leaving the US I need my $5.00 tee shirts.

mmc1770, HP manufactures all of its laptops & printers in China and is a major Foxconn customer, just like Apple.

In April of this year, HP announced plans to build a printer manufacturing facility in Chongqing, China. It is expected to produce 60 million printers a year there when the factory is completed in 2015.

Please google the pcworld dot com article about that announcement before you praise HP for doing anything different than what Apple and other electronics companies are doing.

allen i buy 20 dollar t-shirts made in the US. guess what? they are made better from thicker material and outlast the 5 dollar walmart cheaps by a large margin. in the long run buying the better made USA shirt saves you money.

Yup, the only way they can compete with the US labor and environmental laws and outrageous insurance premiums (which have gone up 4X since the changes in the law) is to not pay pensions and other expenses. Otherwise, kiss it goodby and the apple keyboard will be Chinese.

That my friend is bull and you know it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with unions. It protects the worker from abusive practices. If not for the union movement in this country, we would not have what is commonly called the weekend nor a 40 hour work week - much less "overtime". The American worker deserves everything he/she can get including a union membership.

Why is that your only criteria? Are you saying that you want to make sure the Mac is being made by people being paid low wages, just like currently being paid to foreign workers, with deplorable working conditions, no health benefits, long sweat-shop hours, etc. that the US unions helped to end for many workers decades ago? Yes, American unions do have their problems, but they are also often the only way that a worker can get "fair" working conditions with greedy employers. Do you really want 19th century working conditions? It is only when a company realizes that they MUST provide union type wages/benefits that they can prevent attempts by their employees to unionize. Companies who have moved to "right-to-work" states realize that very quickly.

We all know Apple will get a pass on being Unionized. Apple is a liberal bastion and they love their products, so they don't have to play by the same rules liberals expect other companies to play by. I mean, what other company can have such a poor international labor record and yet have virtually no liberals condemning them.

Do you really want 19th century working conditions? It is only when a company realizes that they MUST provide union type wages/benefits that they can prevent attempts by their employees to unionize. Companies who have moved to "right-to-work" states realize that very quickly.

No. There are these things called LAWS now. That's why 90% of America is non-unionized today, and why it could be 99% non-unionized and would be just fine. (I do agree that harzardous jobs like miners & foundry workers need unions as they're in high-risk professions.) However, there is *no reason* why teachers, blackjack dealers and dozens of other jobs need unions. Ever see a job a union created? No, I haven't either.

No, companies move to right to work states because unions are a needless expense in a market where they're competing with cheap international labor.

That's why I despise unions. That a teacher can graduate from college and work a job for 20 years, retire at 90% wages (with IMMEDIATE withdrawl... so they're collecting checks from age 43), take another teaching job and work 15 years and again retire at 90% pay (now collecting 2 checks at age 58), then take a third teaching position and work for 7 years and start collecting THREE checks, all paid by the taxpayers? That's not fair working conditions, that's exploitation.

To say that without unions Apple can open a sweatshop in 2012 in the US is preposterous. Are you still using carbon paper, checking your tubes at the drugstore and sending telegraphs? When was the last time you've paid for developing a roll of film? Did you buy coal to heat your house this winter yet? Oh, and be sure to leave the money for the milkman!

Time. It has passed the unions by.

What state has that kind of teacher retirement? I'm from a teaching family. My mother and her twin, one of my sisters, her daughter, and one of my brothers-in-law were/are teachers. My sister just retired after 39 years of teaching, and believe me, her retirement is NOT that great and certainly isn't 90% of her last salary rate.

Teachers are NOT the only ones who can do the double-dipping you claim. Actually most states have a state teacher's retirement program and you cannot do that kind of "double-dipping". You CAN work in other government fields, or any other private field, and retire after 20/25/30 years, and collect retirement from that job. Career military get to do the same thing. Retire after 20 years, collect the retirement pay,get a private sector or government job, and retire under that job's retirement plans. But I don't know of any jobs that let you collect a retirement pay with just 15 years or less of employment, unless you have reached the federal retirement age of 65-67. Even pension plans have a minimum age before you can collect on them.

As I stated elsewhere, unions do still have their place today, especially in the "right-to-work" states because of the deplorable working conditions that companies think they can get away with, even today. That is why unions started back in the early last century, and that is why new union groups start up every day, even today. Workers get tired of being "used" for the greed of their employers and can only get changes made when they group together. That is what a union is...a group of workers demanding together fair working conditions and wages. Yes, too many of our national unions have become too powerful, and don't even really benefit the members, and changes do need to be made in that respect. But to say that teachers, firemen, policemen, and other government workers don't need unions? They need them just as much as any other worker. Unions aren't the only ones who haven't created jobs, and in some cases, they have helped to create jobs by creating a fair working condition.

BTW, those very laws that you reference came about BECAUSE of the unions forcing such laws. And in this period of economic recovery, companies are pushing those laws to the limit in terms of the hours they are requiring of their employees rather than hire on more people. They find every way they can to avoid overtime pay, yet expect the worker to work extended hours. And this is especially true in those "right-to-work" states that you seem to love so well. Just talk with some of the workers, like the one comment below.

Mark from Bridgeport... I don't know any teachers who retire after 20 years and draw retirement of 90% of their pay. But then, why would you stoop to using facts in your argument. All you have proven in your argument is that you can add 23 and 20, and 43 and 15.

The only reason there are laws protecting labor at all and in many cases the environment is because of union-supported legislation that passed through tooth-and-nail fights brought on by union-supported politicians with politicians that drew their support from business owners. There needs to be balance if we're going to say the U.S. is defined by the success of the majority of its citizens rather than the success of its owners.

@anti-trust

Pennsylvania ... and the pension system is broke.

BAM! Well said, my friend. Unions have outlived their usefulness and have actually become counter-productive to the labor effort. Too much time, money and resources are devoted by companies in an effort to pander to these losers who give most employees nothing for their monthly check-off dues.

Weel we see the Koch bros and others are still paying the anti Union trolls to spread their misinformation. Ruffb is one who does not know dick about what he speaks of

I could not agree more. Unions NEED TO GO!

@DeJay: But then, why would you stoop to using facts in your argument.

You're clearly ignorant of how teachers are compensated in the People's Repblic of Connecticut. How ignorant you are of the rest of the country, I'm not sure. But public sector unions are destroying the country. Look at Chicago: the average teacher earns DOUBLE what the average person does!

All the necessary things that unions fought for are now preserved in labor laws (and, to a lesser extent, building codes). At this point in time, the only purpose they serve is to make the union presidents rich off of the backs of the rank and file. They're really no different than the "evil CEOs" they are 'battling'. To be of any actual worth, unions need to go into foreign countries and fight for the same working conditions we have here. That would at least even the playing field and slow down the exodus of manufacturing from America.

@breadex: Yeah, that's ingenious. I'm *sure* a couple of guys worth BILLIONS would waste money paying for people to post things on the 'Vine.

What's next, everyone who knows different from you is being paid to lie? LOL!

Hey, watch this: How long have you been on George Soros' payroll?

Computer companies in the USA have a long tradition of treating employees pretty well. I spent 10 years inthat industry, and we enjoyed good employment.

Union or not, if a good product for a reasonable price, I'll get one. Some of you have really got to quit worrying about unions, quit villifying them. That's a company and employee choice - if it works for them fine. If it doesn't, fine.

A relief if we can get the IT crowd to show some loyalty to US workers who helped make them the powerhouses they are.

@anti trust

a smart teacher will move from state to state, work the required time to recieve that states pension and end up with 2-3 pensions. by the way all those state pentions are supplemented with federal tax dollars. i really feel that this needs to be stopped. my buddy i served with in the airforce did this. he is going to end up with 3 pensions at retirement all payed for by our tax dollars. i feel that a person should only be able to receive one government pension and that is it.

career military can no longer double dip. they changed it so now you can only take either your ss or your retirement pay for military service at 65. you can no longer have both. military is the only group that currently gets the shaft on this. we can only choose one pension if we serve our 20.

That's why I despise unions. That a teacher can graduate from college and work a job for 20 years, retire at 90% wages (with IMMEDIATE withdrawl... so they're collecting checks from age 43), take another teaching job and work 15 years and again retire at 90% pay (now collecting 2 checks at age 58), then take a third teaching position and work for 7 years and start collecting THREE , all paid by the taxpayers?

You simply do not know what you are talking about, this does not happen

eric1964

Most everybody receives at least 1 federal pension (SSN) so you statement is flawed. Some don't if their pension plan excludes them from social security (for example, teachers in my state). All military retirees will get 2, SSN and their military pension. Which one do you want them to give up?

Your statement on career military is incorrect, you can receive both. I am also retired military and know for fact you are grossly incorrect. You need to look again. The only thing affected by your turning 65 is Medicare and Tricare.

Your situtaion about teachers makes zero sense. Teachers pensions are based on the number of years worked and their salary so moving from state to state has no financial benefit. It could in fact be counterproductive if the new job puts them at the bottom of the pay scale.

People who get on here and make blanket statements using flawed data and assumptions need to get with it.

@Chris: You simply do not know what you are talking about, this does not happen.

Okay, I admit it. You caught me just by your own say so. I have no idea what's going on in my own local and state government. [/sarcasm]

I mean, it's not like my friend's wife is collecting two pension checks and is working at a third Connecticut school right now. It's not like my wife's cousin (a cop) has retired from a police department after 15 years service @ 90% and is now working at another town as a police officer.

I had an Apple 2 plus with a serial number below 10K used those old big floppies and had no HD. Built like a tank. Jobs was a great inovator but he made a lot of mistakes. One was manufacturing overseas and the secon big one was giving his Ipad business to AT&T which is just SBC hidden under a new skirt and the worst communications business on the planet. Look at the I phones the Ipads and other things they produce The Ipad is third generation and they still do not have it right The I phone is up to gen 5 and I had 2 of their mp3 players and both broke down. By the time you find out you have a problem that needs fixing when you are going over seas you have so much stuff in the pipeline it almost guarantess you disaster. If you make it at home a quick phone call and you can stop the bleeding.

And because of that, we have to import "educated" foreigners to fill those jobs the Americans refuse to take or can't fill because of the job specs. Just look at the high number released a couple of weeks ago of American jobs unfulfilled because of the type of requirements businesses are putting on each job qualification. They are making it almost impossible to fill those jobs because they don't want to spend any additional effort to "train" the employee for the specific job opening. No school can train an individual to specifically fill these restrictive specs of today's job openings, especially our colleges and universities. That is why we need to rebuild and strengthen our trade schools.

Anti it's good to see someone who gets it! I don't want to work in a sweat shop either, I live in a right to work state and companies here are terrible for abusing their employees, and they wonder why they can't get anybody to work for them. Again your right on, companies aren't willing to train anyone for their specific process, they just want to sit back and complain about how they can't get qualified workers, I call BS on that.

I agree, jobs are looking for such specific experience and really don't want to put in any investment of there own anymore to train people. They expect people to already be trained and the government and the people themselves to pay for it. At the same time, our education system doesn't train people for technological manufacturing jobs nor reward people for taking these jobs. The 4-year bachelor's degree trains and rewards mostly just paper pushers, not producers.

There is likely a good reason this country is producing a bunch of under educated dumbies - bad teachers. When plumbers (union) and electricians (union) make more than teachers that is a problem. Bad unionized teachers can't be replaced and good teachers can't be rewarded. Good teachers aren't encouraged to stay in the profession when they can't make a decent living. Here are a couple of examples of our educational system: ...don't want to put in any investment of there (sic) own to train people (Brett-294987); ...Again your (sic) right on, companies aren't willing...(Lawnscaper)

Kids take the easy route and get useless degrees hoping to get that cushy job. Twenty years ago that worked. Today it does not. When I changed careers I got the education and training I needed to make the change. Others will need to do the same. Don't rely on someone else to do it for you. Make the commitment then figure out how to do it.

Those components are supplied by other vendors. If it is just the cases and small other components such as screws and the assembly process being Made in America, that's still a big deal. Would you prefer the entire unit to be assembled by slave labor overseas then?

Your focusing on the wrong thing -- the actual manufacturing or assembly steps, which are low value-add steps, as opposed to the higher value-add activities like design, test, supply chain management, sales & marketing, etc.

Those hard drives you mentioned may have a "Made in Thailand" sticker on them, but they are most likely either Seagate drives or Western Digital drives. Those are both U.S. companies -- the #2 and #1 (respectively) hard disk drive manufacturers in the world. They employ a large number of Americans who perform those high value-added activities I mentioned.

Many of the high dollar integrated circuits (chips) used in Apple products are also supplied by U.S. companies like Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Cirrus Logic and Skyworks. The TI chips are probably made in the U.S. (they have factories in Texas), but the others are definitely not, because they don't own chip factories at all -- here or anywhere else. Those American chip companies don't do any manufacturing, and yet some of them are huge companies that employ thousands of Americans in high-paying jobs.

You might also be aware that starting just a few years ago, Apple began designing its own processor for use in iPhones, iPods and iPads. They bought a California startup company and expanded the size of that team, so now Apple is in the chip design business, just like Qualcomm and those others I mentioned. Those are high-paying American jobs that didn't exist before. You can say it's a shame that Apple uses Samsung -- a S. Korean company and fierce Apple competitor -- to manufacture those Apple processors, but that's the nature of the electronics business. Even mighty Apple with all its money could probably not justify building its own chip factory -- here or anywhere else in the world.

Focus on the higher value-added activities and the number of high-paying American jobs created and you might not be as upset that your American hard disk drive has a "Made in Thailand" sticker on it, or that the genius piece of American technology that is the brain inside your iPhone is actually manufactured in S. Korea.

That was a BS excuse price led them to China

These Mac's are going to be assembled in the USA from parts made worldwide. Not made in USA. Also, if they are smart, they will locate in a "right to work" state where workers can get good wages, benefits, and treatment, versus being saddled by union rules and payments.
An assembled in USA is a great idea and will help revive the work ethic in this country.

I'm sure that whatever PC you used to post this was made in China. Along with your cell phone, TV and just about everything else in your house. Do you really think that boycotting Apple will do anything?

So tell me oddball...what American made computer/smart phone or tablet are you typing this from?

Your statement is hypocritical at best. If you buy ANY electronics, you have bought from someone using Foxconn's labor. (or some other asian company)

The fact is: when Apple starts making something over here (probably their iMac), it will be doing something NO other electronics firm has done and thats bring a job or 2 BACK to the US.

And it's not just electronics. The same goes for appliances, clothing, and almost everything else you buy these days. Just look at the label in your clothing. Look at the label on your stove, your refrigerator, power tools and hand tools, etc. Almost NOTHING sold at K-Mart/Sears, Wal-Mart, or any of the other "discount" stores is made in the USA any more.

I boycott Apple for much more practical reasons: I can't afford their hardware.

You get what you pay for. I'd rather pay a little more for a Mac that will last for several years than a PC that crashes within a few months. And I was a PC person until I started working for newspapers where the Mac was supreme (for graphics and word processing.) My first computer was a Comodore 64 back in the 80's. I got my first Mac in '99. I've gone from a desktop (which I used for over ten years) and added a laptop in 2004. Later upgraded to the MacBook Pro for better productivity in my graphics work, and added a 27" iMac two years ago because I wanted to go back to a desktop for a lot of the work I was doing...wanted a larger screen than the 17" laptop.

anti-trust proponent: Got tools, cookware, and a flashlight all made in the U.S. within the past two months. There are made in the U.S. items even in stores like K-mart and Wal-mart

Like I said, ALMOST nothing. Yes, there are still a few items stamped Made in America, but more and more of it is NOT. That is the problem. And the components inside those products are often also not made here. Supposedly, to be stamped Made in America, it must contain at least 75-80% US made components.

@anti-trust.

Thank you for buying American. I have been doing that for three years and it is absolutely not as difficult or as expensive as people want you to believe. There are a few items that just are not made here, but 100% of what we NEED is available from American suppliers and 75% of what we WANT is American made / grown, so it can be done. Many times the American-made items are the same price or less than the imports, too.

Mostly people don't do it because they are just too damned lazy or have been brainwashed into believing something that's not true. There are so many nay-sayers out there. People also have a hard time not being impulse shoppers, so they grab crap on the store end caps by the register while waiting in line ... unnecessary junk and, usually, imported.

Anti-trust.

I can see that you are a MAC proponent now, but in our office we have seen PC's outperform and outlast the MAC's. Just over the last few years the leads have all switched to MAC's for their needs as they no longer need to do any engineering just proposals and project management. In those few years almost all of them have had hardware issues of some sort or another meanwhile none of us using Dells or HP's have had one issue. My lead alone has gone through two mac book pro's in two years. These are computers that are in continuous use 5-7 days a week and the MAC hardware is not holding up. Now do they have a more stable OS, most likely, but we keep all our spam, antivirus etc up to date on our PC's and have never had an issue. Just my personal experience though.

I would however as stated earlier that I would buy a MAC for personal use if they were made in the USA again. They do have their place, but I would be extremely pissed if I paid $2,000 and it craps the bed in 2 years.

In our apparel printing business, the problem is that the American Made clothing is a lot more expensive and our clients want the cheapest they can get. They never want to spend more than $8-10 for a custom printed tee shirt, even in quantities of less than 50. The only way to offer that kind of price is to use Hanes, Gildan, Anvil, Badger, Augusta, etc. commercial quality (retail quality does NOT print well or embroider well) products and those are all made in third-world countries. Just look at your clothing labels, even in the "designer" fashions. Most will say "made in Bangladesh, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvadore, India, and yes, China, and occasionally Vietnam.) We would prefer to use only American made products, but you have to use what your customers demand. I would love to buy American ONLY and do try to do that for my personal consumption as much as possible. But until Apple and PC manufacturers, appliance manufacturers, etc. bring production back to the states, it is hard to do. Most of my purchases now are related to food so that I can get mostly local or mainland, but even some of the food is imported...you never see where those oranges come from that is in that American made OJ (except Florida Natural, supposedly).

@Think. We have had the same problems with Dell and HP products failing. HP printers especially are a piece of crap. The owner of the business I manage is having constant problems with his Dell laptop and they can't seem to solve the problems. Plus their customer service sucks to say the least. The only thing I use my PC side of my Mac for (through VMware Fusion) is my TurboCad program because it was originally written for the PC and the Mac version shows that their programmers have no understanding of the Mac OS system, even the latest Leopard and Lion versions. That is the nice thing about the new Macs...you can use them as both a Mac and a PC with the VMware Fusion program.

@monkey...part of my problem is living in the USVI. Many of the products sold in the territories here (including PR) are only sold through the manufacturer's "Latin American" division and can come from any source they desire. I often have to order things online, have them shipped to my business associate in CO, then sent on to me because the mainland company will not sell or ship to the territories. I even have to have one of my credit cards with his address to bill some of the purchases. Oh, the joys of living in "paradise."

You get what you pay for.

Not necessarily. I've heard numerous horror stories about Macs having hardware issues after a year or two. Happened twice to a friend of mine. And on our 2008-era iMac we've had to nuke the OS a few times just to install an upgrade, a piece of software, or some other simple task. Meanwhile I have an Asus EEEPC 701 from 2007 that hasn't had a single problem yet. Of course it runs Linux and not Windows or Mac OS X. That was $400 in an era when the cheapest of the cheap laptops was around $700. Additionally, there are plenty of PC's that will crash and die on you and cost more than a similarly spec'd MBP.

@Think. We have had the same problems with Dell and HP products failing.

I always tell people to avoid Dell or HP. Lenovo makes some pretty good stuff. Asus can be hit or miss but usually does a good job. Heard nothing but good from Samsung.

My Samsung monitor for a PC we use for the apparel printing business is a nightmare...one of the stupid "widescreen" units that does not do a proportional sizing...stretches everything and doesn't even show everything from the laptop screen. Still haven't figured out how to make the appropriate adjustments.

I never got involved with LInux, because so many of the software programs I used just would not work with Linux at the time. No one was writing the code for that OS. You were lucky if you could get a software that would work on both Windows and Mac. At least with the new Intel Macs, that isn't so much of a problem.

My Samsung monitor for a PC we use for the apparel printing business is a nightmare...one of the stupid "widescreen" units that does not do a proportional sizing...stretches everything and doesn't even show everything from the laptop screen. Still haven't figured out how to make the appropriate adjustments.

You have to adjust the resolution on the monitor. It should be a wide-screen aspect ratio: such as 1600x1050, 1600x900, 1366x768, 1400x900 (older MBP display). If you select a resolution that is 4:3 (made for the older "square" monitors) such as 1024x768, 800x600, 1600x1200, etc then it will look ugly and stretched. The monitor should match the resolution of the laptop if you want to see everything from the laptop on it. Windows isn't a very smart OS and you gotta tell it explicitly what to do.

I never got involved with LInux, because so many of the software programs I used just would not work with Linux at the time.

Probably still true. It's fine for the basic sorts of things people do these days, but if you have a specific application and it ain't there, it ain't for you.

oddball, take a look at the Wikipedia article on Foxconn and read their list of customers besides Apple. It is a who's who of the giants in electronics.

Apple uses a large number of U.S. suppliers -- most of the high dollar integrated circuits in an iPhone or iPad are provided by U.S. companies. I personally could care less if the person who slaps those chips on a circuit board or tightens the screws on the case is in China or some other place. That final assembly step is not where the big added value comes from, and those are not the kind of high-paying jobs we want to create here.

Kudos to Apple for the huge boost their success has brought to multiple American companies and thousands of American engineering & technical jobs!

Show me the proof of that. 300,000 jobs in the US are unfilled right today because the employers can't find the right "skilled" people to fill the jobs and they don't want to have to spend a dime to train them.

Why would our public schools teach kids how to work on a production line? I agree with them not wanting to train people, a lot of people could do the job if just show how.

My grandma used to help build the patriot missiles in the 80's before she retired from McDonnell Douglas. She only had an 8th grade education, because she was the oldest girl when her mom died, so she had to become a mom to her siblings (one was an infant). But companies were willing to train people back then and you didn't need a college degree to do it.

And in those thirty years you refer to of your grandmother, production has become even more complex. Just read my other comments about changes we made at Campbell Soup Company in that same time period you are referring to. High School graduates today are NOT receiving the type of skills they need for the computerized production lines of today. Neither are our college graduates. Only trade schools teach those skills. Just look at some of the posts here on Newsvine and you can begin to understand why so many jobs go unfilled. If you can't read, write, and comprehend the English language, as well as the computer language (programming), it is very difficult to fill these skilled jobs. Plus, more and more companies have other job qualifications that people can't pass, like drug tests, etc.

BTW, I'm 68 so I lived through all of these upgrades in our manufacturing systems. I'm not sure, even with all of the training I've had, that I could walk into today's production lines and work any of the jobs without getting weeks or months of new training.

Why would our public schools teach kids how to work on a production line? I agree with them not wanting to train people, a lot of people could do the job if just show how.

This is a big problem with businesses today. They don't want to train. Training costs money and the employee might just leave in a year or two. Most workers don't have much loyalty to the company they work for, probably because most companies have no loyalty to their workers. They'll lay 'em off at the drop of a hat to boost the dividend the shareholders get. They won't offer stock, so the employee is strictly working for themselves and their family.

Never mind the recent trend I've been seeing where it's popular to just hire temps to fill an immediate need. Then you need to hire people who are highly skilled and can hit the ground running, but will put up with lousy pay, no or minimal benefits, and zero job security. Highly skilled people aren't going to do that if they can apply their skills and get a decent salary with benefits and some certainty they will have a job past the next quarter. I've even seen companies hiring temporary doctorates. You can bet if I slaved through school for 8 - 10 years, I wouldn't be getting accepting a temp job.

Colleges aren't job training programs, but many employers treat them like one. So they require a college degree for menial jobs somebody with an 8th grade education could do with a little training. But you still have to train the college graduate, because most college degrees prepare you for a higher degree, not for a menial job.

Rant over. Sorry.

BTW, I'm 68 so I lived through all of these upgrades in our manufacturing systems. I'm not sure, even with all of the training I've had, that I could walk into today's production lines and work any of the jobs without getting weeks or months of new training.

As someone who's been on the line recently, much of the equipment was state of the art 10 - 20 years ago. It probably varies by industry though

Right, so companies need to start hiring kids out of high school, paying them low wages and training them to do the job. If you think high school kids can't pick up computer language quickly, you haven't been paying enough attention to kids for the last 10 years.

I have my undergrad and graduate degree and when I finished school back in 2007, I still received on the job training. Heck, I'm still receiving it today! Continuous Improvement and all that...

You beat me to it Pragmatic

If you think high school kids can't pick up computer language quickly, you haven't been paying enough attention to kids for the last 10 years.

I'm a biologist, but in high school and college I spent my spare time writing C code for fun. In elementary school and middle school, it was BASIC.

lovemymeme's, like you I'm still "training". Even though I'm "semi-retired"...collecting my SS, I'll never stop working until my mind or body gives out, I am still learning new things every day. My mother's brother always said we are a student for life...and was still attending writing classes in college at the age of 94 just to keep his mind active. I taught myself how to use QuarkXpress, Adobe, CorelDraw, TurboCad (but had previous CADD training on the job back in the 80's), Intuit POS, and many other software programs. And yes, I even taught myself computer graphics to do advertising development (not just the software, but the actual ad development) and newspaper publishing. I had my own monthly publication from 2004-2008 and was a one person operation, selling the ads, building most of the ads, writing the articles, doing the layout, going to the printer to get it printed, then distributing the paper. Now I help out a friend with his custom printing business, managing apparel and paper printing, inkjet refilling, embroidery, etc. And I'm carrying on my mother's holiday tradition of chocolate candy making and other crafts. I may even finally teach myself how to do her crochet patterns (not the usual stock designs, but custom graphics.) She would pick up and drop yarns to create the crocheted graphic designs.

So what's your answer Dave? Don't bother bringing back any jobs at all from overseas? Any manufacturing process (no matter how automated) needs people-if nothing else-for oversight and maintenance.
Do you see any other electronics firm stepping up and coming back home?

Because it's not bringing thousands (but we have no idea how many yet, do we?) of jobs back here, Apple shouldn't bother?

The fact is; it's a start and we have to start somewhere and Apple did just that. Let's see if the other electronics firms will step up and do the same. I am doubting it but I hope I'm wrong.

Cripes, Dave! Go take your Zoloft, will you? Could you POSSIBLY be any more negative?

In the days of those companies, we didn't really refer to their products as "electronics" That word came about with the mass usage of computer chips. I worked for Sylvania Picture Tube Division in Ottawa OH for a while and my father worked there for many years. Same picture tube, 50 different labels. There was only one or two brands in the B/W tube that we didn't manufacture, and only RCA when we started the color tube production line.

This would be incredibly inefficient (supply chain re-organization) and would end up driving up prices immensely. The US can't stop globalization and to do so would only put us further behind the rest of the world. We need to re-train our "low-skill" workers for high-precision and/or complex manufacturing not repatriating low-wage jobs that don't have the attractive pensions as they did in the 1950's.

BTW, I missed commenting on your "supply chain" comment. Part of today's production problem is that very supply chain. Just look at what happened after Japan's tsunami. Almost every manufacturer has gone to what they termed JIT (Just-In-Time) over two decades ago when I worked at CSC. You order in what you need just before you need it. You keep almost nothing in inventory for more than a few days. The same goes with the finished product. You only produce what you have already received orders for, and you wait to fill those orders until you have enough orders to justify a production run. That is where today's "global" economy has taken us. Any weak link in that JIT chain brings everything to a total halt. So yes, to manufacture any product here, you had better try to manufacture as many of the components here as well, and that means even more jobs being brought back to America.

See my above posts. If our education system was really producing enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes, then why are there over 300,000 unfilled "skilled" jobs in this country? The companies claim that they can't find the qualified workers among our workforce. People are NOT being trained for CADD/CAMM (that is lingo for computer aided design/drafting, and computer aided manufacturing) by our colleges and universities. Not enough young people are attending our trade schools to get that kind of training either. That is why SOME of the unemployed have gone back to school...to get the specific training they need to fill today's "high-tech" manufacturing jobs. Today's production methods are no longer ones where an unskilled laborer stands along a production belt turning a screw by hand. It was already becoming that when I worked for Campbell Soup Company Engineering Department from '85-'92. We were upgrading all of the control equipment to computer electronics systems (TI logic controls, etc.). Just imagine the advancements in the last 20 years in the electronics controls. Production lines were being automated as much as possible. Both maintenance and production workers had to be re-trained to operate the electronic controlled equipment. In the beverage plant we were producing 1200 cans per minute, twice the speed of our old line, with aluminum cans. That conversion required total retraining in the process and handling of the can and painted label. We spent nearly a year in research and development and line conversion. A special cooler had to be designed to cool the hot-filled cans to prevent scratching of the labels. Liquid nitrogen had to be injected in the cans to keep them from imploding during the cooling process. It is this type of "skill" that our education system is not really preparing our workers for. You can't just walk out of a classroom and into today's production lines, unless that school was specifically geared to train the person for that specific job.

If our education system was really producing enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes, then why are there over 300,000 unfilled "skilled" jobs in this country?

Because our public education system isn't a job training program. It gives you a set of basic skills needed for life. It's not going to teach you how to operate every specific piece of machinery you might use. Companies could fill many positions if they'd just commit the time and money to OJT (on the job training.)

People are NOT being trained for CADD/CAMM (that is lingo for computer aided design/drafting, and computer aided manufacturing) by our colleges and universities.

Colleges also aren't job training programs. But they're sometimes stuck in the mentality of the 1700's when rich aristocrats, bored out of their mind, decided to learn something new, so they could discuss something over brandy with other rich aristocrats. College prepares you for more college. You just hope you can learn useful skills in your time there.

It is this type of "skill" that our education system is not really preparing our workers for.

Okay, you're talking about process engineering and not production line operation. Process engineering requires a lot more skill than a traditional line operator. In my industry, anybody can work the line, but you gotta have engineering degrees and trade experience to be a process engineer. But the US doesn't need 30 million process engineers either. So tailoring the education system towards this won't solve anything either.

But companies ARE putting those "process engineer" requirements on their job specs for almost every production job. Just check out some of those 300,000 unfilled jobs and the requirements to fill them. That is why we have so many unemployed SKILLED workers who can't fill those jobs. That is what I was referring to.

The US education system is in NO WAY failing to produce the needed engineers.

How can I say that?

Because untill just the last few years...THEY WERE NOT NEEDED!

It has little to nothing to do with the education system but the programs students have been entering. Production and engineering were the ever shrinking fields for 30 years in America. Everyone that had an aptitude for it and half a brain went into a more IT directed field. Now as the 'old guard' leave the workforce and some manufacturing returns they wonder why there arent enough fully trained engineers?

It's like wondering why you cant find 300k experienced deep sea divers...in Montana.

Now you've hit the nail on the head jcpines. We've trained too many people for the wrong jobs in the wrong locations. By the time a person gets the training in this fast-paced world, the needs have changed and a person is still not "qualified" for the jobs of today. We have become too much of a throw-away society where we make too few products (including production equipment) to last more than a year or two...often for less time than the warrantee covers.

anti-trust proponent,

Excellent points. As were the posts following. We need a lot more intelligent and in-depth discussion of this problem.

Thanks for your input.

What, exactly, is this "union mentality", of which you speak? Better skills for better wages and working conditions?

IT and Hich Tech companies are the least unionized of all industries, because they already offer good wages and benefit packages. They lead in the field of diversity and training. Unions were never a reason why computers and other electronics outsourced to China but because Japan led the way in quality and R&D, and developped an eco-system next door in Singapore, Honk-Kong then China. Cost of manufacturing was a big advantage, but a highly educated young population was their asset.

Computer companies are now reconsidering the domestic market because the cost of manufacturing is rising in Asia and the US are ready to offer incentives to build an appropriate eco-system. Lenovo, number 1 PC maker are hinting on a similar move.

@Tim

What unions reward better skilled members? The only unions set up so they they maybe could do this are the trades (plumber, electrician, carpenter...) but they are still muddled by human nature (greed).

All the other unions reward 'time served' and in no way skill.

Do you actually believe all of the parts will be manufactured here? I don't think so.

You got the union thing right though. If the high tech companies ever became unionized in the US, they would fail miserably. What a lot of Liberals don't quite understand, is that people don't start companies just so they can hire people, they do it to make a profit and to do that, you have to hire the best you can get and pay them the best or lose them.

Can you imagine what the cost would be for a new Mac if they went Union? Can you imagine what the quality would be? If you don't work your butt off at Apple, you won't be there long, and by the way, Steve Jobs was a big Liberal. Go figure!

Can you imagine what the cost would be for a new Mac if they went Union?

It would cost the same but with a lower profit margin. It is an EXTREMELY large profit margin on Apple stuff. That's why they have so much cash.

Not just on the Macs, but many other products sold today. How many of you realize what those inkjet cartridges cost you? Why do you think they practically give away the printers these days? They are programming them so that you can only use their OEM cartridges (especially Lexmark, Epson, and Canon) and they are now making the cartridges NON-REFILLABLE, trying to force you to have to buy their expensive cartridges. Check the little amount of ink in a cartridge (often 3 ml or less, especially in the original cartridges that come with the printer) and then calculate what a gallon of that ink is costing you. For some cartridges, it comes to over $600/gallon. Talk about profit. The packaging alone costs them more than the ink in that cartridge. I know...I do inkjet refills as part of the business I manage. The most any of the cartridges I refill use is 20 ml and I charge $20 for those refills maximum. We usually take the normal OEM price and divide by 50-60% to determine the refill price. That includes my cost of getting the ink to the USVI, where I pay a shipping premium. Save the planet...recycle those inkjet (and even toner) cartridges.

How many of you realize what those inkjet cartridges cost you?

I've been aware of this for some time including some of the countermeasures OEMs are doing. HP has/had "expiring" ink cartridges. Even razor blades follow this model. And slowly but surely in the world of computing, they are trying to get us to pay for them to host our data. iCloud, GoogleDrive, AmazonDrive, etc are all products like this. "Hard drive?! That's for squares AND you can only access it from ONE measly device. Buy another device and while you're at it, buy our hosted storage!"

In the cloud no one can hear your data being examined by strangers. On your hard drive they need a warrant (or good hacking skills if your net connected and don't know how to protect yourself).

Printer ink is the most expensive substance per weight or volume on the planet.