With only 5% of its liquidity, Apple could spark a complete resurgence to American manufacturing, at least in one major city. Let’s say, for instance, that the company chooses to build a manufacturing facility in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit has been plagued with poverty and one of the highest unemployment rates in the US as it reels in agony from the collapse of the American automotive manufacturing boom. It’s almost certain that Detroit would make it well worth Apple’s time and money to invest into a plant within its borders.
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Interesting take from Brad over at The Next Web. Click through for an attempt at breaking down the numbers. What are the odds of Apple actually considering this?
MG?
How Apple Can Solve a PR Nightmare
(via david-noel)
It’s funny, Emma and I were JUST talking about this. But I do think a lot of people missed some key elements of that NY Times article - namely that Foxconn can rally some 8,000 hardware engineers at the drop of a hat. Apple would have to do more than open a plant in America and hire 700,000 unemployed people. They’d have to build their own universities, and offer some GI-Bill like education plan where you’d get a free education in hardware engineering if you agreed to work at Apple for X number of years. And then you’d have to convince some 10-20,000 people to do that, along with hiring some 700,000 more people.
And on top of that, you’d still lose the geographic factory density that Shenzen has.
I still think it’s worth considering, though. Say it costs, what? Double what this article estimates. Say it costs $10 Billion. And, of course, it’d take 4 years to get the engineers through the schooling and at work. BUT STILL, it could be awesome. The NY Times article pointed out if would add $64 to the cost of a phone if it were made in America. Their recent financials mentioned something over a 40% margin on their products right now, right? Though they did caution that was probably temporarily high. Still, sounds like they could absorb it all.
But how would the stockholders react? Is it really a $10Billion emergency? Is it really their job to start a university and pay for everyone’s college just so they can get the engineers they need in this country, when another country has plenty? It’s a tough argument.
(via david-noel)
