On Max's comments about offshoring and outsourcing I would have to agree. There is no reason the US couldn't declare Detroit a free trade zone allowing the tax free import of components and re-export of finished goods - and with the depression in Detroit you could acquire a disused factory or the land to build a factory on for next to nothing. Even "developing countries" such as Thailand can work this out. I worked on a IT project in the GM car plant in Thailand in 2004 and every component imported into the factory was duty free and every completed car exported again was duty free, only the cars sold locally were taxed. The plant was so successful and employed so many people that they had a fleet of high end coaches to bring in and home the thousands of workers. Sure it might cost a bit more to manufacture in the US but at $499 for an iPad I think Apple could swallow the $50 to allow them to print on the back of each product "Assembled in the USA".
I wish to thank Steve Jobs for bringing beauty to IT and saving us all from the beige box, but as a Silver Bug I also wish to thank him and the company he founded for producing hundreds of millions of devices each containing small amounts of silver, most of which will never be recycled and will end up being de-mined into a land fill. Thank you Steve, future generations will make new fortunes from mining your discarded products hundreds of years from now.
The man who gave the world the Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad died on Wednesday. News of his passing spread globally on the very devices he had created. He left behind a fortune of more than $8bn but can the true legacy of Steve Jobs ever be quantified?
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