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Apple For Dummies
Since last night's blockbuster earnings by Apple presented yet another "paradigm shift" in how the company is presented to potential new investors (how many are left one wonders); namely, no longer reliant on incremental US purchases - just to avoid the thorny issue of wireless company subsidization - and one now dependent on Chinese consumer demand for future growth, we thought, in conjunction with William Banzai, to present a graphic simplification of what the Apple business model is all about going forward. Two words: "value added"
Courtesy: William Banzai
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The beggar rackets and prostitution are not being driven by former Foxconn employees. This may come as a surprise, but these kinds of Triad activities long preceded the computer industry.
Those of you who have a genuine concern for Chinese laborers should take the time to research the working conditions in all the plants manufacturing all the other Chinese stuff you live with (ie just about everything) and then make a decision on what if anything to do about it.
You will find that Foxconn is not the only gigantic factory operation in a country of factory cities.
No one said the beggar and prostitution rackets in China are being driven by former Foxconn workers. That would be absurd. What I was attempting to convey to the reader was that many former Foxconn workers who were "brokered" by Triad activities into employment in the factories of Foxconn are at risk of physical and mental harm if their job performance is considered sub-standard and they are fired. The "labor brokers" will simply take many of these people and reassign them to, shall we say, less desirable employment. This threat of reassignment is a fate worse than death for some of these people and therefore suicide is the sad result.
Anyone who has spent time in China and has done business there as you and i have, would not be surprised that Triad operations precede the computer industry. The Triad or variations thereof have been in existence for over 200 years and came into their own criminally pre WWII. The group and it's splinter organizations permeate through Chinese society. Many U.S. companies pay a "tribute" to this syndicate just for the honor of doing business in certain geographic areas.
Let's put it this way, the Triads are praying on ordinary working people just like organized crime does everywhere.
Suicide and the related mental calculus of failure, as you know, is also something with a deep rooted cultural/historical significance all around North Asia. Ever wonder why so many buildings have window bars on high floors? It's not to repel ninja burglars.
My point is these general phenomena are being stereotyped as Apple/Foxconn specific when they are actually general features of the current social landscape.
I abhor worker exploitation just like everyone else, but I am also sensitive to the hypocrisy involved when you consider who is driving the market for these goods. Another element of this is the cultural tolerance for misery. Even in Hong Kong, a world class city by all measures, I see people happily living or subsisting, depending on your point of view, in conditions no American would find remotely acceptable.
There are no simple formulas to explain what we are seeing here. Like yourself, I count myself lucky to observe it first hand.
Agreed, my fellow wayward traveler.
Perhaps I am still a bit idealistic and hopeful that maybe the execs at Apple and other companies will wake up one morning and say "Enough. We cannot continue to support slave labor. "
But alas, the days when corporations stand up and do the right thing for all stakeholders (shareholders, employees and community) are long gone. As long as there is high demand for products, which are manufactured cheaply by inexpensive labor, the status quo will remain. You see, people here in the US don't want to know how something is made as long as it is affordable and cool. It reminds me of a friend who owned a butcher shop when he told me, "My customers don't want to see how the sausage is made. It would disgust most of them. They just want to eat it. "
All the best WB
Good God Almighty. Is there no limit to the evil in this world? My God we've been lucky here in America...so far.
the middle ages of Europe; when Franciscan friars tried to save the poor from their robber barons who mutilated them if they were slackers at work. What's new in the world!
Read the Templars at work at Bram in 1209 or at Minerve, during the Cathar Crusade, and then you will have the additional twist of beholding a mutilated face in the name of "God wills it", as icing on the feudalista cake!
Refininement in torture when its done at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib in the name of "reason of state" today, as it was for "reason of God" then; as it continues in China "for reason of i-pad-Gad-on-earth!"
Same greed, same hubris, same punishment of innocent.
For all you elliott wave followers - the SP500 appears to be completing it's correction up as is the NASDAQ100.
Wave 3 down appears next. Have a look.
http://bullandbearmash.com/index/nasdaq/hourly/
But they do make nice gadgets.
Fear
Just because.... no one else did it...
ibitchez!
iROC
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aresauburnphotos/795234582/
Why all this hype about Apple ? Let's talk about Bananas. Specifically Man-Bananas.
Also, isn't apple also often depicted as the forbidden fruit?
Hopefully people don't demand delivery of their apples from the AAPL ETF. Rich banker problems.
Is there any kind of charted or chartable ratio like AAPL share price vs iPhone price?
double post bitchez
IEmpty?
Shiny little iMasturbation toy
Stick with what you know, Tyler Durden should stick to credit and try to get past his equity envy
igloo
i-slaved-for-16-hours -a -day -and- now -my -hands- are -too -arthritic -to -operate -the -damned- doo- dad.
iProstitutes in china use iPhone, otherwise no iClient.
ipost
therefore
i am..
People were talking about marinated polar bear livers today. They be eating everybody out here.
Thank you, sir. Can i have another?
ijesus
ibarf
iBuprofen - my head hurts. Can we just get on with the reset.
Iwait
iCeberg
APPL is a "generational SHORT" just like Microsoft was in '99. Like RIMM two years ago - these are not "proprietary products". They can be re-engineered.
I am short from $633 and adding into every rally. If a $.30 penny mining stock was at $6.25 with the BEST NEWS IMAGINABLE already reported, YOU would short it.
APPL is a SHORT.
That's some great timing, congrats, now how about a prediction not hindsight 20/20.
Absurd gap up - something not supported by any fundamentals. I normally don't "cry manipulation" because I seriously barely care except on multi-year fundamentals (e.g. metals, energy). This, however, has no correlation to any serious market activity by product-customers or by market correlations which otherwise are tightly locked from C to BAC, from AAPL to ZSL.
I wonder, just a little, if this has to do with a chance to write Puts on margin for a few insiders-folk. Don't really know, don't much care. AAPL is still on its way down. I'm not normally one who believes in the religion of gap-filling either but when the gap is that damn big, even a non-believer can admit the math now favors higher chances of a "fill".
You know earnings came out, right?
You know I said "absurd" right? Meh. If the AAPL resumes its rise I'll just shake my head at the nonsense. I consider AAPL over $400/share to be over-priced and invalid.
Did Apple count the "fake" iPhones sold out the back door of the Foxconn factory?
I work with Chinese factories and speak with chinese workers every week. A lot of them bought iPhones but none of them bought one from Apple. In every back alley you can buy a real iPhone for 1/10th the cost of an official one.
Nobody buys a product from a US owned store in China outside tourists and factory owners. New Balance found that out the hard way.
Yep, I suspect they will learn a hard lesson on this. A manufacturer I used to work moved their valve manufacturing to China and caught the same companies pirating their product outright several times, better copies on each successive occasion. The government there slapped the offenders and told them they were very bad boys but did nothing real about it. In the end the Chinese will just steal everything they need from idiot Western companies and sell their own knockoffs domestically.
All of the luxury brands have showpiece stores in China, which funnel sales to their Hong Kong premises.
I have looked at many iPhone knock offs and pirate versions on the street. None of them were full featured and they were all clearly inferior. Not worth buying even as a curiosity.
The pirate goods problem is not unique to Apple. And this may come as a surprise, most Chinese look at pirate goods as low class and would not be caught dead carrying a fake in public. The pirate goods markets are filled with foreigners.
"In every back alley you can buy a real iPhone for 1/10th the cost of an official one."
That 1/10th figure crushes any seriousness of your above statement :)
iThink : iAm
iThink all these iPuns are iSores.
To all the haters out there: don't hate the company, hate the system. We need more Apples, regardless of how screwed up the system is and how much money you have in commodities and foreign stocks.
And let's not blame Apple for producing iStuff outside the US. Remember: it's the US government who's responsible for that.
OT- silver drops below 30 FRN an oz.??!!
stupid mutherfucking manipulators, any idiot can see that the spot price is sorely lagging behind inflation, nevermind real supply/demand metrics.
looks like i'll be stacking another 100 oz. again this month.
so thanks assholes! i'll be stacking while you're running out of runway. and i don't hope these piece of shit manipulators aren't buying, but unfortunately, the price move is most likely indicative that they are.
Correct, since end of february it has been nothing but manipulation. PM want to go up but they are not allowed to. At some point they will skyrocket, like a spring releasing its tension. Also watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F87XfPeagWw&feature=g-u-u
PM suppress is the right time to add up the collection. Let them suppress it, it's time for us to sneak in... :D just ignore all the noises and distractions :)
We've been Shanghai'd.
China is TBTF. Send the mf'ers my mother's social security prescription money why don't you. You no good scum bastards. So they can buy f'n iPhones!
iDream of Jenie with the light brown hair
Time Cycle Analysis
http://change-in-trend.blogspot.com/
Years from now this generation will be wondering what retirement would be like if they hadn't spend $200 per month or more on the likes of AAPL. It sucks now, but it sure was great to get streaming FOX news live for all those years..........
ilove my iPhone. And idon't care if u care or not. iwin#
The camera in the 4s is a killer. It's a great camera that happens to be a phone.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'm sick of this!
With the so many rising stars of the homegrown makers with killer products as highlighted in Giz China at half the price or at least 30% cheaper, i doubt the Fruit can make a substantial penetration in Chinese market.
Among the many, check what GSM Arena said upon this Quad-core clocked at 1.5 GHz, 10-inch tablet with 1920 x 1200 resolution resulting into a pixel density of around 226 pixels per inch, weighs 598 g and is just 8.8 mm thick.
If you need a new iGadget every two years, you are a fucking slave.
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