Congressman Complains That iPads Are Killing Jobs In The Paper Industry
from the what's-next,-that-automobiles-are-killing-jobs-in-the-buggy-whip-industry? dept
Incredible. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. apparently decided to cement his position as a full-on luddite by going on the floor of the House to claim that the iPad was killing jobs in the paper, publishing and bookselling industries, while really just creating jobs in China. You can see the video here:"A few short weeks ago I came to the House floor after having purchased an iPad and said that I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time this new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs. Now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad and download your newspaper, download your book, download your magazine. Chicago State University, in my Congressional district, in Freshman class, they're not being given textbooks any more. They're all being given iPads as they enter school. President Wayne Watson is hoping for a textbookless campus within four years, where this state university they no longer have textbooks! Well what becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs? What becomes of bookstores and libraries and all of the jobs associated with paper? In the not too distant future, these jobs simply won't exist."Now, to be fair, I think he's trying to make a slightly different point than most are getting from this, but doing an incredibly bad job of it. This can certainly be read as a traditional luddite screed against iPads. Later in the speech, he admits that the iPad may have made life more efficient for Americans.
What is true is that disruptive innovation does shift around jobs. No one denies that, and I think that's the point he was trying to make, and then arguing that Congress should be helping those displaced workers. Of course, instead, it comes off as an anti-iPad screed. Separately, it comes off a bit as an anti-Chinese screed, because later in the speech he bitches about the fact that the iPad is made in China, so they get the "benefits" of it while Americans do not.
Of course, that's simply wrong. As Gary Shapiro points out in his article (linked above), the Chinese get very little of the value of the iPad, and the reason the jobs are there is because they're low cost jobs:
The Chinese believe their people only get a few dollars of the iPad’s cost, as the profits, research and development, and many of the components are sourced from outside China. The Chinese only get paid for the lowest value assembly their workers provide. Most Americans do not want this type of repetitive assembly work – and if Apple used Americans to make their products, the products would be much more expensive and less accessible to most Americans. Yet, devices that access the Internet allow the poorest among us to have access to a wealth of education and information.But the key point that Rep. Jackson appears to be totally missing is how the iPad and other technology innovations create a ton of new jobs in the US as well. Technology disruption does that sort of thing. Automated phone switching was supposed to be horrible in that it would put all those human operators out of work... but it also enabled the internet, which now certainly accounts for much greater employment opportunities.
Rather than complaining about the iPad, or saying that it's killing jobs, why isn't Jackson encouraging more such innovation which creates new jobs?
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Filed Under: ipads, jesse jackson jr., jobs
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This is absolutely true, but those jobs are probably further separated from the manufacture of durable and non-durable goods than the manufacture of the iPads themselves, and I do think that's a problem. Of course, Mr Jackson is probably not arguing the best economic ways to bring the manufacture of iPads to America ... It would be awesome to have BOTH the core manufacturing jobs and the support jobs stay here, but that's a whole different subject that Mr Jackson very much the wrong person to debate.
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He just said it badly.
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Are there not hundreds, if not thousands of Americans at Apple and elsewhere who create and design the iPads and tablets and write the system software for them? Right here, in the US?
Are there not hundreds, if not thousands of Americans running online stores like iTunes and the App store and Amazon and so on?
Are there not thousands of Americans busy writing iOS and Android and Windows 7 apps and software? Creating cases and accessories?
Are there not thousands, if not millions of American workers creating the books and music and articles and web sites we consume daily using these devices?
The ripple effects here are wide and deep.
iPads and tablets are disruptive technologies, true. But the horse breeders and saddle and buggy whip makers probably said the same thing about the automobile.
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Oh right. In order to that we all have to become slaves in a dystopian 1984 horror story. Why? Because this website says so.
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IP is not a product that does anyone any good. It's just a claim to a monopoly privilege. Your argument is akin to
"Since we can't innovate, lets start claiming monopolies on what others do".
If anything, your argument points out that IP is not needed, innovation occurs in other countries without it. and the U.S. already protects IP while these other countries do not, how is that working for us? Who's innovating and who's stalling?
and don't tell me that they're their innovation is a result of them copying all of our ideas that we come up with and never implement.
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"The U.S. comes up with all of these ideas, we never implement any of them, but other countries who never come up with any ideas of their own simply copy and implement all of our ideas instead and they end up benefiting from all of our ideas without compensating us."
Get real.
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This iPad post isn't about about innovation. It's about how Western labor will never be competitive again for manufacturing compared to 3rd world factories. Even for tech support, Western workers are not competitive. That has nothing to do with IP law whatsoever. It is strictly a fact of industrialization.
As a result, IDEAS are about the only thing of high value the West can still produce, and those are being ripped off.
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The point of my point was that America very well COULD be competitive in manufacturing and other jobs if we wanted to be.
You can't have an economy built on "ideas".
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I mean, seriously.
Imagine if someone told their boss that he shouldn't work because he should just sit around and come up with ideas all day for other employees to simply copy and he should get paid for only doing that? and, furthermore, he should get paid more than the other employees. As if those other employees can't come up with any ideas of their own and need him to do nothing else. That's not how the real world works. Now get to work.
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Sure you can. The software industry is built on ideas. The movie industry is built on ideas. The pharmaceutical industry is built on ideas.
Cumulatively, those alone represent hundreds of billions a year to Western economies.
But of course, restricting ideas with monopolies is "wrong", so that should all be stopped, right? That way, Chinese factories can legally pump out generic clones at a fraction of the price, right?
You can't compete directly with sweat shop labor. The only way to compete is to focus on your strengths, and for the West, those are in ideas.
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Anyway, you are skipping a step somewhere. China has it's own laws so whatever laws you set up in your country have no effect on whether the clones China pumps out are legal or not.
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"That way, Chinese factories can legally pump out generic clones at a fraction of the price, right?"
Yes, they should. Why not? They put in their time and labor to create the product, why shouldn't they be able to sell it? Again ideas are worthless without the labor to execute them. Nobody has the right to claim an idea as their property nor do they have the right to bitch when someone else implements the same idea.
"But of course, restricting ideas with monopolies is 'wrong', so that should all be stopped, right?"
Yes it is, when you realize that it takes labor to create these things, placing monopolies on the results of that labor make no sense when they can be paid for making it rather than thinking of it.
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FTFY. I think you confused this discussion with some other discussion about a different subject.
You ask the question like its a bad thing. What exactly is wrong with copying good ideas? What exactly is wrong with improving on them and spreading them?
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Sure you can. The software industry is built on ideas. The movie industry is built on ideas. The pharmaceutical industry is built on ideas.
Cumulatively, those alone represent hundreds of billions a year to Western economies.
But of course, restricting ideas with monopolies is "wrong", so that should all be stopped, right? That way, Chinese factories can legally pump out generic clones at a fraction of the price, right?
You can't compete directly with sweat shop labor. The only way to compete is to focus on your strengths, and for the West, those are in ideas.
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Many of those pharmaceutical drugs are funded with tax dollars. That those drugs are patented is a tragedy.
and just because monopolists benefit from monopolies doesn't mean that those monopolies should exist. Yes, an industry can consist of a monopoly, but industries can exist without monopolies as well. It's not the govt imposed monopoly that creates industries, industries will exist regardless, they just won't be as centralized.
The lack of monopolies, on the other hand, produces more aggregate output, and the purpose of having an industry to begin with is to produce things for consumers.
"The only way to compete is to focus on your strengths, and for the West, those are in ideas."
Yes, the West is somehow granted with the unique ability to come up with ideas. We're special like that. Nobody else can do it or, if they can, we're somehow better at it.
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I guess the main problem with your line of thought is that it goes something like this.
The government grants monopolies on almost everything.
Those monopolies produce big centralized industries.
Because those industries are big, and hence their size makes them well known, they are a success.
The U.S. is successful at producing these types of goods.
But that kinda logic isn't good. First of all, people in other countries are probably much more aware of the movie (and product) producers in their country than the ones in our country, and people in the U.S. are more aware of our movie/product producers. Just because we have movie/product producers that are well known to us doesn't mean that they don't have ones that are well known to them.
It might also be possible other countries are more open to the cultural products of others than the U.S.
Secondly, just because other countries may have less centralized art/product creation than the U.S, and hence it's more difficult for a single producer to gain widespread notoriety, doesn't mean that they produce less of these products than we do and are worse at producing these things than we are.
and I'm not really sure that ideas are a strength in the West. How do you measure the strength of our ideas vs the strength of theirs (and please don't say number of patents)? I think the best measurement is in who does better in the market place. Since they are doing better in the market place, maybe it's because they have better ideas than we do. At least they have a better idea of how to compete.
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Competitive with 3rd World Factories
Why not just re-institute slavery? And make it voluntary?
I can just hear it now - "Nobody forced you to take this job."
Meanwhile, wealth concentrates at the top & the American middle class evaporates. What's the biggest market for iPhones? China. Not Chinese assemblers either.
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Re: Competitive with 3rd World Factories
That's what we already have. The Chinese, on the other hand ... (not that I support doing what China is doing either).
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If you want those jobs to come back, the only way that will happen is when the USA is a third world country. Your beloved President is well on his way to making that happen.
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So the U.S. has a competitive advantage on ideas, yet when it comes to tech support (which is sorta the communication of ideas), we don't have a competitive advantage?
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ie: see (though this one relates to broadband)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100826/17381010788.shtml
(U.S. phone companies have been known to push for regulations that keep competitors out of the market. Long distance calls, especially for business lines, is very expensive in the U.S. and tech support forums would require business lines)
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ie: see (though this one relates to broadband)
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100826/17381010788.shtml
(U.S. phone companies have been known to push for regulations that keep competitors out of the market. Long distance calls, especially for business lines, is very expensive in the U.S. and tech support forums would require business lines)
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and if the U.S. wants the IPad to be produced in the U.S. then abolish the patents that prevent it from being so.
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No such thing. Not on this planet anyway. Antitrust, regulatory bodies, bailouts, police ...
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While I'm no fan of Donald Trump for president, I think he's right about this one.
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Trump should be secretary of something. The problem is, I don't think he wants to be anyone's secretary.
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China can set their policies however they want just like the U.S. can. The bottom line is the U.S. wants what China supplies more than China wants what the U.S. supplies.
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Tariffs are a way of trying to make a nation more wealthy by increasing the costs of things. It's utterly asinine. If the Chinese can make something cheaper, let them make it cheaper. The Americans that use those things (either as an end to itself, or in the manufacture of other things) will save money by buying it from them. The Americans who can't compete with the Chinese in those things so put their capital to use in something they can do better at than the Chinese. Tariffs do nothing but increase the profits of a few local manufacturers, while decreasing the profits of a nation and the rest of its citizens.
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I completely agree, but it's also bad for a country when other countries implement them against us. I'm against tariffs, but tell that to China.
But how is China benefiting from our money? How do they benefit from the tariffs? Because it creates jobs for them? Well, jobs aren't an end of themselves. They're producing all this stuff for us (which does benefit the U.S.) in return for .... worthless paper or IOU's (debt) and they're not letting us sell them anything in return because of their tariffs. How do they benefit when they give us stuff and they get nothing in return? Or are they buying something in return? Is is title to U.S. property? If that's what it is, and if the U.S. is afraid of losing too much of its property to China as a result, maybe higher export tariffs to U.S. property tariffs are in order? How exactly does China benefit from this debt?
I think part of it is that, sure, it makes the U.S. lazy and so we get to have all this stuff without working while the Chinese advances and works hard for what they have. Well, how exactly does that benefit China again? Giving us stuff in return for nothing benefits them nothing neither in the short term nor the long term.
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maybe higher export tariffs on U.S. property titles are in order?
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Or, if they want us to pay them back in the form of investments in U.S. property/title to land, that's fine too, but we'll put huge export tariffs on that. We'll charge them an extra premium for it when they ask.
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But, if and when the time comes, when you do ask me to do stuff for you, is when I'll get to work. and when that time comes, I'll charge whatever amount of poker chips that I want for my labor as well. We'll negotiate how many goods I will provide you for in return for a given number of chips.
China is doing all this work for us, giving us all of these products, and they don't ask for anything in return (because of their tariffs). So what? The day China decides to remove its tariffs and their citizens start to ask us for things in return for money, we'll provide.
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But that's not what the U.S. is doing. We're buying stuff from them in return for money that we will produce stuff for. It's China's fault for not buying stuff back, not our fault for not selling stuff back in return. In trying to "scam" us, China is really just scamming itself. But that's not our faults.
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Us "competing" with them is fine, but even if they produce many things better than we do, we can produce some things comparatively better than they do and we can both benefit from trade in opposed to not trading.
Both countries are better off freely trading than not trading, but one of the problems is the high tariffs that China imposes on the U.S. that keep us in debt. What does China buy with our debt? If it's U.S. property, maybe we need to put higher export tariffs on titles to U.S. property. If the Chinese want us to pay them their debt back then they need to allow us to sell them stuff so they can give us our money back in return. Money is just a means of transferring goods, if we're in debt to them that means we owe them all these goods and services. But they have all these high tariffs which makes it harder for us to pay them back. So then how do they benefit from our debt? They get all this worthless money (or IOU's) and we get all these valuable goods? No, not quite.
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Lots less paper
Can't see the harm in that.
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Re: Lots less paper
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Does a tree in a tree farm produce less oxygen for the atmosphere (or remove less CO2 for that matter) than one in the forest?
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the fact that the current industries that are being phased out (newspapers mainly)have not really done too much to accept tech is their own failings. News is news, its has no value except the media its printed on; imo it has become right to get our news for free. you can't have an exclusive story since we all are reporters with twitter, facebook. our local stations in mpls, mn have embraced social media and use it to help get news tips and stories and do investigative reports on. the newspapers need to take this approach more. just my usual .02
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What good is getting a low paying manufacturing job building more expensive ipads on American soil if it won't pay off the tens of thousands of student loan debt you have?
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A nice thought, but currently not the case. My school is offering e-book versions of a lot of the textbooks. The publisher is still requiring them to charge about the same price as a used copy of the printed book for this electronic version... maybe $25 less than a new copy.
This is, unfortunately, not going to save anyone any student loan debt unless publishers wise up and realize that e-book versions should not cost as much as the 'dead-tree' version.
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Oh wait you are serious! Oh I agree they SHOULD be but it does not work that way in the e-book world.
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No Wonder a Balanced Budget Can't be Passed
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Putting thousands and thousands of scribes out of work!
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Evolve
Their problem, not the tax payers problem... stop wasting my tax dollars by opening your mouth about such pitiful discussion points!!!
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I didn't get promoted until I went to the board again, years later, but I certainly stepped up and helped inspire a new generation of junior leaders.
Mike, I'm serious. When I eventually start campaigning, I want to speak with you. Any tech-savvy politician who doesn't value this blog is missing a HUGE opportunity.
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While I'm no fan of Donald Trump for president, I think he's right about this one.
Why not a simple policy...
We match tariffs country by country. If China charges "X%" - then we do the same. Kinda simple and fair.
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Not so much - but in tyrannical, dictatorial, socialist and communist governments - you see little of it and why would you bother?
If you are going to make "X" amount of money regardless of what you do - why bother with anything above the minimum to get by?
I mean - seriously; how many 'new ideas' come out of China? North Korea? Iran?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_China#Scientific_and_tech nological_stagnation
....
How many come out of Ireland? UK? USA? Japan? Germany? France? Countries that since the Industrial Revolution have mostly been 'free to innovate', obvious exceptions depending on the time frame, of course.
http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=2984
http://corporate.britannica.com/press/inventions.ht ml
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Standard operating procedure
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All those American jobs
Authors. Yes mostly American or Western, but more often than you think factual research is being body shopped overseas. But it's not like they lose out.
Typesetters. Guess what? Modern typesetting for book printing is another industry dominated by India.
Printers. Think books are printed in the US? Think again. Made in China. Though personally I have no clue about the paper.
Design. While this is hit and miss, more and more work is finding their way overseas.
Editors/proofreaders. Depending on the topic/sector, this is either entirely overseas or still here at home. But like with authors, it's not like iPad books don't need spell checking right?
The only thing he may have a point on is newspaper publishing. That is still entirely local. But saying the iPad is killing the newspaper industry is like saying the guy who jumped off the building was killed by those dangerous sidewalks.
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If your really so concerned about losing jobs overseas, than you should work on making America a viable place for companies to produce products by cutting inflation. If inflation wasn't so high, than people wouldn't need to be paid as much to maintain their standard of living, so products can be manufactured at more reasonable prices, with will allow the US to compete with other job markets.
Unfortunately, the government's response has been to poor billions of dollars into the economy, causing massive inflation, which causes wages to go up and making businesses less viable in the US. Great job guys. You would think a basic economics course would have been required for these polititions to graduate college, but I guess not.
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jesse jackson jr. against ipad tech
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Unfortunately, that's where everyone runs to these days for job security. and, for the most part, it works.
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OBSOLETE
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Should have been 1 post
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