Except these factory jobs are likely to require skilled technicians and engineers to run a highly complex automated factory, not workers on a production line of assembling phones. The shop floor workers will most likely do some minor assembly but it won't be a return to the old days where lots of workers churned out product. Besides cost production volume requirements will drive automation to avoid issues like plagued the Mac Pro where the production line couldn't meet demand.
US manufacturing's future is high tech automated production operated by skilled staff with minimal human work on the line; except for possibly high end expensive or custom items where production costs are much less of the final price. As much as many people believe factory jobs like in the 50's and 60's will come back it isn't going to happen; especially since consumers don't want to pay the premium.
50's and 60's? We had manufacturing jobs here aplenty as late as the 90's. We are still hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs. There are articles describing in painful detail recent accounts of workers being asked to train the foreign replacements who will be taking their jobs when factories are relocated to other countries.
Meanwhile, I've been reading article after article on my Apple Newsfeed about my generation and younger dying off due to drug use. There was an article yesterday about how police are having to become social workers in a sense, to deal with the explosive drug problem in many areas of the country. I don't think that the loss of jobs and the growing drug problem are unrelated, given that the problems seem worse in former industrial towns.
I'm the daughter of an Asian immigrant, but that immigrant (now a citizen) raised me to "be American and buy American" when feasible. I've kept to cars manufactured right here in the US. And while I have done my fair share of complaining about the rising costs of iPhones, I would feel happy to buy one at a premium that was made in my country. Providing that the quality is up to standard and the NSA doesn't load it up with spyware ala Cisco
:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...ain-about-nsa-intercepting-its-hardware.shtml
I can't ever say I'm always thrilled with our government, especially the part of it that is not elected and beyond any checks and balances on its power and reach. But I do care about my fellow citizens and our problems. I care about other parts of the world, too, but it's easier to start with the problems in your own backyard. And it's possible to sometimes address both.
I'm older and at a place in life where I can do this. I might not always be. And it certainly would have been a financial hardship when I was in my thirties and younger. So I am understanding that this is not an appealing idea to a lot of people or to Apple. I'm just speaking for myself here, of what I'd like to see and be able to do. An ideal. But I know we don't live in a world where ideals can always be realized. It is what it is.
