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http://www.thenation.com/article/165979/sure-apple-could-build-iphone-here

Sure, Apple Could Build the iPhone Here

When President Obama dined with the kings of Silicon Valley last year and asked, “Why can’t that work come home?†Jobs’s reply was “unambiguousâ€: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.â€

 

In loyalties, Apple is spiritually offshore. “We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,†an Apple executive told the Times. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.â€

 

It was the phrase about having no obligation that riled up Clyde Prestowitz, one of the US government’s top trade negotiators in the Reagan years. In an acrid posting on the Foreign Policy website and in a chat over the phone with me from his winter quarters in Maui, Prestowitz efficiently dismembered Apple’s “no obligation†pretensions and its rationale for why it and kindred companies had no alternative to offshoring.

 

In the 1981–86 period, Prestowitz says, Jobs and his executives “had the funny notion that the US government had an obligation to help them…. We did all we could, and in doing so came to learn that virtually everything Apple had for sale, from the memory chips to the cute pointer mouse, had had its origins in some program wholly or partially supported by US government money…. The heart of the computer is the microprocessor, and Apple’s derived from Motorola’s 680X0, which was developed with much assistance, direct and indirect, from the Defense Department, as were the DRAM memory chips. The pointer mouse came from Xerox’s PARC center near Stanford (which also enjoyed government funding). In addition, most computer software at that time derived from work with government backing.â€

 

Prestowitz points out that Apple also assumes the US government is obligated to stop foreign pirating of Apple’s intellectual property and, should supply chains in the Far East be disrupted, to offer the comforting support of the Seventh Fleet. “And those supply chains. Are they the natural product of good old free market capitalism, or does that scalability and flexibility and capacity to mobilize large numbers of workers on a moment’s notice have something to do with government subsidies and the interventionist industrial policies of most Asian economies?â€

 

What about those jobs that “aren’t coming back� We’re not talking about simple assembly that costs a bundle per unit in America and mere cents in China. In the mid-’90s, at the Apple plant in Elk Grove, California, the cost of building a computer was $22 a machine, compared with as little as $5 at a factory in Taiwan. This is not a dominant factor when the machine sells for $1,500 and you have costs like transport to figure in. Furthermore, stricken America is actually becoming a low-wage magnet.

 

The high-wage, more complicated manufacturing jobs are in microprocessors, memory chips, displays, circuitry, chip sets and so forth. This is where America is supposed to have a comparative advantage. So why are Asian countries supplying the memory chips and microprocessors and displays instead of the United States? Prestowitz points to government subsidies and protection for Asian producers, currency manipulation and bureaucratic pressure on US corporations by Beijing to make the product in China.

 

So there’s nothing irrevocable about the job loss. US workers, taught the necessary skills, can put things together properly. But if the jobs keep going away, why would any American lay out the money to learn those skills? Obama’s recent State of the Union speech was a step in the right direction: calling on business leaders to “ask what you can do to bring the jobs back.†Specifically, he proposed ending tax breaks for US corporations operating overseas, rewarding US-based production and turning the unemployment sinkhole into a re-employment system. “These jobs could and would come back to America,†says Prestowitz, “if Washington were to begin to respond tit for tat to the mercantilist game…. It wouldn’t be difficult to make a lot more of the iPhone in America and to make it competitively if either Apple or the US government really wanted that to happen.â€

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/07/u-s-jews-should-heed-top-israeli-soldiers-who-oppose-bombing-iran.html

 

perhaps American Jews should start noticing that an astonishing number of Israel’s top soldiers and spies are warning against bombing Iran. It began last summer, when Meir Dagan, fresh from a highly successful, eight-year stint as head of the Mossad, called attacking Iran “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.†He noted that while in office, he had joined with Yuval Diskin, director of the Shin Bet, and Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Fund, to block this “dangerous adventure.â€

Since then, a throng of current and former security officials have issued similar warnings. In December, Dagan’s successor at Mossad, Tamir Pardo, suggested that an Iranian nuclear weapon was not an existential threat. This month, another former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, declared that “it is not in the power of Iran to destroy the state of Israel.†Former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz added that “Iran poses a serious threat but not an existential threat†and that bombing would mean “taking upon ourselves a task that is bigger than us.†It’s remarkable, when you think about it. Almost every week, Israeli security officials say things about Iran’s nuclear program that, if Barack Obama said them, would get him labeled anti-Israel by American Jewish activists and the GOP

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There are 55,000 people taking the MSAT each year. Of those, 35,000 apply for medical school and 17,000 are accepted as medical students at one of the 131 medical universities in the U.S. There are plans on building several more medical schools. I'm not worried about fewer students applying for medical school. I'm not advocating it, but I think that you could double the class size and still have more than enough qualified students applying for admission.

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There are 55,000 people taking the MSAT each year. Of those, 35,000 apply for medical school and 17,000 are accepted as medical students at one of the 131 medical universities in the U.S. There are plans on building several more medical schools. I'm not worried about fewer students applying for medical school. I'm not advocating it, but I think that you could double the class size and still have more than enough qualified students applying for admission.

 

I've read where there is collusion to keep the number of doctors to a certain amount so as not to 'flood' the market. More doctors means less average wage. I have to find that article somewhere. Basically it says that the medical industry, particularly the AMA which is a guild, saw the legal industry and the number of lawyers out there and didn't want it to happen to them.

From what I understand (and I dont know for sure) American medical school entry is tougher than other industrialized nations but we all know that European doctors and other industrialized physicians are on average just as good as American doctors. In highy specialized procedures, yes, American doctors are the best but most people don't need complicated brain surgery or a need to have their cojoined, siamese twins separated. Basic medical needs can be done by more doctors IF we will allow them.

 

I have a friend of mine who was a top UCLA student. She's a brainiac. Malaysian Indian descent, very good MCAT scores and had to go to the Caribbean for medical school because she couldn't get into a good enough medical school. She got through the Caribbean school with flying colors and is finally in residency in Philadelphia. (pretty girl as well btw. Just a buddy, like a sista really but hot!!)

 

Plenty of sub continent doctors come to America and easily obtain a medical license because their training was as good as Americans here.

 

The AMA and the medical industry have tried to market the brutal selection process as one of public safety guaranteeing the best medical care in the world but in reality its about keeping the numbers low. The AMA is NOT obligated under the hippocratic oath, its members are but the actual organization is a guild for doctors.

 

As I've posted links to this a few times, the AMA has initally fought EVERY progressive advancement including HMOs, Medicaid, nationalized healthcare because initially they thought it would reduce their wages. They came on board for Medicaid when they saw how much money they could make through their lobbying efforts to change it to their advantage but they were intially against it.

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Khun Steve..I've seen u post this at least four or five times over the years: "I've read where there is collusion to keep the number of doctors to a certain amount so as not to 'flood' the market. More doctors means less average wage. I have to find that article somewhere. Basically it says that the medical industry, particularly the AMA which is a guild, saw the legal industry and the number of lawyers out there and didn't want it to happen to them."

 

But never seen u provide a source. I think it's some tin hat stuff. Check with Cav. He'll sniff it out. LOL Most doctors have plenty of patients. Lots of areas underserved. Hospitals gotta compete to get doctors. There's no good reason for doctors to be afraid of competition in the U.S. I had a surgeon tell me that if it wasn't for imported doctors, we'd be in trouble. He wasn't concerned one bit. Also, there is a relatively new primary care position called a "nurse practicioner". It's similar to getting a Masters Degree. These people get some serious money (think $80,00+) and are in very high demand. They are basically allowed to do a lot of primary care stuff previously only allowed by MD's, such as diagnose and prescribe controlled medicines. I'm sure that the AMA would've stopped this if it was concerned.

 

HH

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But never seen u provide a source. I think it's some tin hat stuff. Check with Cav. He'll sniff it out. LOL

 

Ah...saved u and Cav the trouble. As I suspected...nonsense: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4561/does-the-ama-limit-the-number-of-doctors-to-increase-current-doctors-salaries

 

So, can we put that to rest now? 5555555555555555

 

HH

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Hey HH, how I first learned about it was several years ago. There was a radio talk show in LA that was syndicated called The Larry Elder show. He was a black conservative/libertarian. He had a guest that discussed it. This was during the 'Billary' health plan days. I've posted links to the AMA's wiki info before and I'll do it again.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association

 

The AMA's political positions throughout its history, however, have often been controversial. In the 1930s, the AMA attempted to prohibit its members from working for the then-primitive health maintenance organizations that had sprung up during the Great Depression, which violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and resulted in a conviction ultimately affirmed by the US Supreme Court.[4] The AMA's vehement campaign against Medicare in the 1950s and 1960s included the Operation Coffee Cup supported by Ronald Reagan. Since the enactment of Medicare, the AMA reversed its position and now opposes any "cut to Medicare funding or shift [of] increased costs to beneficiaries at the expense of the quality or accessibility of care". The AMA also "strongly supports subsidization of prescription drugs for Medicare patients based on means testing".[citation needed] However, the AMA remains opposed to any single-payer health care plan that might enact a National Health Service in the United States, such as the United States National Health Care Act. In the 1990s, the organization was part of the coalition that defeated the health care reform advanced by Hillary and Bill Clinton.

 

The AMA has also supported changes in medical malpractice law to limit damage awards, which, it contends, makes it difficult for patients to find appropriate medical care. In many states, high risk specialists have moved to other states that have enacted reform.

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