iPod City

[Epaminondas]

Let them eat cake.

[krissel]

Apple's response...

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?home&NewsID=14935

http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/27109

[Gregg]

Stay tuned...

(with iTunes?)

[RHPConsult]

A useful aid in evaluating press attention to controversial business/social issues:  John Strossel's Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity : Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong is helpful in providing perspective.  

[sandbox]

Capitalism is a race to the bottom of cost in the aggregate of material and labor. The abuses that our own history reveals to us throughout the industrial revolution will be reflected in every developing country around the world. Eventually a stand will be taken by the exploited,  lines will be fought over, lives will be lost, like in Huey Long story, where he was assassinated for his stand on social reform, but his cause was taken up by Franklin D. Roosevelt .

Apple has a White Paper policy that can stand as their defense mechanism, which lays out the guidelines for contractors. What happens in the real world can be ignored, for the most part, because China is another nation far away with  different culture, laws, and standards.

That is..... until the contradiction is brought to the media's attention, and then, and only then, will they investigate, only to fall back on their initial document that established the rules of contractual engagement.

You can't argue with success, or stop a train on a dime. Apple's momentum has moved them into a race that takes no prisoners, and that's the Bottom Line.

[Paddy]

AAAAAAHHHHH....JOHN STOSSEL AS AN AUTHORITY on myths, lies and downright stupidity?

PLEASE. Before I go ballistic - that guy is the one of the chief sources of media lies. His report on schools back in January was so far off the mark that it made anyone involved in education (other than the ultra-right) want to throw up.

If you want a great book on that subject - at least as it relates to education, try Jerry Bracey's "Reading Educational Research : How to Avoid Getting Statistically Snookered."

To point to John Stossel as a good source on anything is right up there with pointing to Fox News as a good source of unbiased reporting.

Before this strays even further into the political realm, I will shut up.

[krissel]

Thanks Paddy for expressing what was going through my head when I saw Dick (we forgive you... ) use Stossel as someone who pretends to be exposing things. He  needs to do an exposé on himself.



-----

I was reading another article mentioning the iPod in China issue and I had to smile when I came across this:

QUOTE

As befitting a computer behemoth all is being taken in stride by Apple, which now says it is investigating the allegations.

iPods in China

Isn't it nice to hear Apple referred to as a behemoth rather than beleaguered?

[sandbox]

To say that Apple has no representative in China watching the Golden Goose, keeping an eye on quality control, knowing nothing about the production or assembly of their product is a leap I'm not willing to accept.

If this story is a fact then Apple was well aware of it long before the story broke, if the story is false they could tell us so today. The image thing that Apple portrayed really did little for business. They were just the only alternative to the Dark Side, and used the socially responsible mantra to separate themselves from Team Ruthless at Microsoft.

They merge with Team Ruthless, and are trying ot keep a foothold on the #1 place in music hardware. They're having to meet or beat price points from larger companies like Sony, and hungrier companies in emerging market nations while growing their stock value. The only possible way to do this is to corner the market on the material or have the lowest production costs.

Apple will have to sacrifice their image as a socially responsible company in order to compete in this field and I suspect they have.  

[Gregg]

Is John Stossel the new Geraldo?

[sandbox]

QUOTE(Gregg @ Jun 16 2006, 08:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is John Stossel the new Geraldo?

Stossel is a libertarian and likes to shake things up a bit. He may have written something of use in the book RHP has suggested, he is well recognized and awarded.

QUOTE

Awards

Stossel has won many awards, including 19 Emmy Awards. One year, he won so many awards that another winner said in his acceptance speech, "I'd like to thank John Stossel for not having an entry in this category." Stossel has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Among his other awards are the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award

On education, (a different issue) he has been challenged.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200601200003
http://www.educationnews.org/writers/marty...ohn_Stossel.htm
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1762

[LR827]

QUOTE(krissel @ Jun 15 2006, 11:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks Paddy for expressing what was going through my head when I saw Dick (we forgive you... ) use Stossel as someone who pretends to be exposing things. He  needs to do an exposé on himself.

Ditto that!


As for the main thread of this string, let's look in our own USA backyard before pointing fingers at Apple in China, or anwhere else:

From the Associated Press, June 7th, 2006:

KATRINA: Study: Immigrant workers endure hazardous conditions, abuse post-Katrina

by Rukmini Callimachi

"They are the backbone of post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction: Workers who converge at dawn and wait to be picked up for 14-hour shifts of hauling debris, ripping out drywall and nailing walls.

"But because many are in the country illegally, immigrant workers rebuilding New Orleans are especially vulnerable to exploitation, according to a study released Tuesday by professors at Tulane University and the University of California at Berkeley.

"The illegal immigrants often work in hazardous conditions without protective gear and earn far less than their legal counterparts, the study said. Nearly one-third of the illegal immigrants interviewed by researchers reported working with harmful substances and in dangerous conditions, while 19 percent said they were not given any protective equipment."

...Read the rest of the article here

[krissel]

Stossel has been criticized for more than his education stories:

Organic foods report

Trial lawyers

Global warming

and many more.

 

[sandbox]

Kris, he seems to be a controversial fellow, not being an ABC viewer i really wouldn't know.

RHP is promoting his book here and elsewhere as an authority on a few subjects it seems, maybe the book is not like the movie?

The point of the topic is challenging Apples human dignity policy and how the Chinese assembler may be operating outside of it. Some will question whether this is condoned by Apple and if profiteering has cause them to alter their business practices.

I doubt that much of Apples business is generated from their view of the world, but rather the products they present, human dignity aside. The purchasers of their products or stocks don't ask how the labor is being treated before they decide to buy, and, when the stock rises up I doubt that anyone is asking if their share was made by the hands of exploited humans.

Anyone in the stock market today has to know that there is a chance that part or parcel of the businesses they finance are involved in someway with developing nations and that someone somewhere is not getting a fair deal.

Investing is a safe way to separate oneself from the abuse that we have to assume is taking place in third world labor markets around the world.

20 years from now the Chinese will be sending some of what they produce to a developing nation in Africa to assemble, while they find more profitable tasks to perform.

In 2036 there will be 9.5 billion people on board and the laws of supply and demand are not on our side. The largest issues that face our species, like population control, haven't even been broached because there's no money in it.

Maybe that's what RHP is trying to tell us!  

[krissel]

Yup. I just get burned whenever I hear of that guy being taken as seriously as he wants himself to be taken. As long as we all realize that virtually everyone in the media has some sort of agenda as do those in business and politics (oops, taboo subject) and to figure that into the equation.

In the meantime, Lorraine has a good point about the underclass in this country being used as cheap labor. And it will probably be ever so. We are a capitalist country and unless we and the rest of the world delve into complete socialism there will always be a division of class.

We can do what we are able on an individual basis according to our personal moral beliefs and hope our pocketbook can keep up.

[sandbox]

Yup, but why stop there, as do people in education have an agenda as well. As long as you have some skin in the game your bound to lean into the wind.

In the iPod case, if it is true and Apple is part of the social problem, then not buying and iPod or an Apple product would be the avenue that would support a persons anti exploitive convictions and the pocketbook would be spared. Would it make a difference? Not to the market that Apple now appeals to. Today Apple could replay that Big Brother ad from the 70's and most wouldn't be able to make the connection. The question is..... success at what cost?

Is there a greater good? Does the exploitation of labor in underprivileged regions pay off in the long run? What would the Chinese be doing if iPods went to Mexico? Would it take them 10 years longer to reach a middle class? Would another generation of Chinese starve as a result? Would their desperation create another scourge across Eurasia?

I suspect that there are larger issues that I can only speculate about, much is nothing more than a guessing game by the sharpest minds as life has recently revealed. I could blame this short coming in leadership on our educators or our theology, but it might turn out to be something in the water.