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How the US lost on iWork

A fascinating look at how the US lost on iPhone work from the New York Times.

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

...

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

Student Protest in Hossana

VOA reported students protested in Ethiopia over the last week. Muslim high school students in Addis Ababa protested the removal of their Imam and other perceived government interferences in their education. College students in Nekemte protested over poor cafeteria food conditions. Meanwhile, post-college students in Hossana also protested. But why?

It was reported that 429 recent college graduates in Hadiya zone got together in Hossana, the regional capital, to petition the regional administration for jobs. The students elected their representatives and went to the government office to discuss their petition. When the student representatives remained in the office for a long time, the students outside suspected foul play and started asking for their representative to come out. The police, however, responded by beating the students and shooting at them. That is when the petition turned into a protest.

These job-seeking college graduates should be given credit for being proactive in their job search, but I am baffled as to why they thought it was worth their time to petition the Hadiya zonal government for jobs. Don't they know that regional governments at the zonal level in Ethiopia have no authority to tax and, therefore, no real power to create jobs? Regardless, the fact that they had the temerity to organize themselves to petition at a time when such activities are not tolerated, as was clearly evidenced by the way they were treated, is in itself a pleasant surprise!

Santorum makes a lot of sense!

The Left in the US has been trying to make a mountain out of a molehill on this issue (see the video) for quite sometime. If you ask me, this is just one more sign of a society that is fast loosing its priorities. A tyranny of the minority is not the antidote for a tyranny of the majority! In this case, the people who advocate for this issue are a minority and will always be a minority in this republic.

Europe at the Brink

A WSJ Documentary - Wall Street Journal editors and reporters examine the origins of Europe's debt crisis and why it spread with such ferocity to engulf much of the continent and threaten the entire world.