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FoxConn is not a Chinese company, but a Taiwanese company, which is treated as a foreign company in mainland China, where the assembly factories are.
Of course government policies have bearing on people's actions, most of it for the worse. However, the salient point here is that, are you suggesting that iPod/iPhone/iPad would not be built at all because the factories for making them would not have been built anywhere else in the world if not for the Chinese policies on land use, labor and currency?
For what it's worth, Apple and FoxConn's business practices are very much superior alternatives to what the Chinese government use their own country's land and labor for (e.g. keep constructing, tearing down then constructing again empty buildings to boost GDP stats; government spending being a direct component in GDP formula). As for currency manipulation, all fiat currencies are artificially defined against other currencies; that's what fiat currency means, it has no "intrinsic value" because the issuing power can produce unlimited amount of it at near-zero cost. If you actually believe the Chinese Yen is being held down by their government manipulation, why don't you convert all your life savings to Chinese Yen? I wouldn't.
The so-called "currency manipulation" is simply their government playing a role prescribed by the international dollar standard, tying their currency to the USD in a narrow band being in effect dollarization. Manufactured goods are cheaper there for the exact same reason that peanuts are cheaper in Georgia than NYC. The higher price for the item represents opportunity value of a pound of peanuts or dozen of socks in NYC vs. their place of production, more ready to be exchanged into other commodity (including money) in a market place. In fact, that price differential has to be there in order for commerce to take place at all (would you ship anything and plan on losing money for your effort?). High quality beef, milk, salmon and lobsters are much more expensive in China than in the US; so are almost all cars of American/European/Japanese standards, almost by a factor of two or more. Chinese preference for the US dollar in overall trade pattern (instead of goods) is simply a reflection of the insecurity in that country. Put it another way, would you convert your own life savings to the Chinese Yen? Of course not. The Chinese people simply trust the US government far more than they trust their own government.
That's how people in countries with liberty are able to enjoy fruits of labor from other countries. These imported goods normally should be producing new jobs utilizing the goods (including marketing, sales as well as any use as factor input, e.g. cheap imported office furniture makes it less expensive to run an office). Job loss in this country is not due to cheap imports, but due to government intervention ruining the job creation process. The clearest example: during the fastest growth years of trade deficit in the late 1990's, the US was scraping the bottom of the labor barrel; the problem we are facing now is due to the bubble-blowing and inevitable bust by the FED manipulation of world reserve currency, driving American youths into zero-sum or negative-sum career pursuits.
posted by 75.67.1...
, Fri, 25 May 2012 06:21:08
, Fri, 25 May 2012 09:39:12, Fri, 25 May 2012 08:45:03
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