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Comment by jajko | Hacker News Reader

Because nobody would buy 3000$ apple products and we wouldn't be even discussing them. Apple got premium price, but not because they manufacture in US, they just have much higher profit margins, hence the valuation of company.Every buyer approved this with their wallets, knowingly or not

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People do buy $3000 Apple products. You're going to be more specific and talk about price difference as a percent not an absolute value to make your point.

But let's be charitable and assume that you're saying that the price of Apple products will double if the cases are machines in America -- I don't think that would be the outcome.

What percent of the cost of an apple product goes to towards the aluminum case? What percent of that cost is the material, what percent of that cost is the milling machine, and what percent is the labour?

It's not foolish to want to maximize manufacturing capacity in America and minimize it in China. If you want to be able to beat China in an armed conflict then manufacturing is what will do it -- not software development.

The price of Apple products in the US is literally doubling as of today, so we get to test this hypothesis in real time.

My comment was regarding the manufacturing of the aluminum cases of Apple products, not the manufacturing of the entire device.

The cases are probably the easiest parts to potentially remake in America, that's mostly machining that can be automated pretty easily we know how to run CNC in the US still, but it's only a tiny part of the picture. What about the rest of the phone in particular assembly? the massive chip and display manufacturing?

I'm talking about cases be cause this is a these about 'the decline of the U.S. Machine Tool industry...'

A more realistic estimate would be 10X to allow for the cost of factory investment, raw material refinement and processing, and assembly by local semi-skilled workers.

Computers used to be made like this. The hardware cost the modern equivalent of tens of thousands to tens of millions, partly because the assembly workers were well-managed, well-trained, and well-paid. This was DEC's business model, and it worked well for a couple of decades.

Offshoring from the early 80s on allowed US corporates to double dip and explode their margins. Local workers were laid off and replaced with cheaper offshore workers, wages for most jobs were cut in real terms (with a few critical exceptions, like software dev), but the people who did have jobs had access to much cheaper imports.

Property became catastrophically expensive, but other sectors, including consumer goods, electronics, non-premium clothes, and domestic essentials like furniture became much cheaper in real terms - which took the sting out of the loss of the better-paying jobs.

You can't reverse that overnight without catastrophic damage, because prices will explode but wages will still be depressed.

You will be making domestic commodity products that have no market.

Reindustrialisation is a fantasy. You can't bring the factories back without reinventing the economy from the ground up and making all of the parts fit together in new ways.

That would take decades, and a level of strategic insight the US is completely unable to imagine for political reasons.

lots of people bought $3000 apple products more than 20 years ago:

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2001/08/24Apple-Offers-Aggres...

more than $5000 in 2025 dollars!

Have much in the way of sales numbers for that? Smells like a halo product more than a major sales mover.

I don't -- Just my recollections FWIW. I remember when they were hot. I remember seeing them around. I still have mine!

My counterpoint would be the thousands of dollars computers people bought 20+ years ago that had not even a fraction of the utility of an iphone. My first computer cost me $2000 and it was obsolete in like 2-3 years. My cell phone that cost $100 that I bought 6 years ago still runs brand new programs fine.

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