Quote:
Originally Posted by
XNine 
I'm not defending Apple's (well, Foxconn's labor conditions and treatment of employees), but really, how many countries have been decimated and lives lost over oil? We're talking people who have been brutally slaughtered so that politicians and the big corporate oil companies could make millions/billions of dollars.
The suicide nets wasn't because of horrible working conditions. They were put up because people were killing themselves to make their families wealthy (relatively speaking). Their suicide gave their families more money than they could ever earn, so, off they went. It had nothing to do with the actual working conditions (which is actually above Chinese standards). The reason the contracts came into play is because of the suicides, because of the payout. Now Foxconn won't pay out for suicide.
Don't be mad at Apple, be mad at the Chinese government for allowing such working conditions.
What what an immense excersize in rationalization, pretty pathetic. You'd fit right in with those who defended slavery as being a better existence for the slaves than their lives would have been in Africa.
Blame China? China isn't stupid, China KNOWS that Apple and ALL other countries/companie come to China because the crappy conditions lead to dirt cheap labor. China just exploits the capitalist system and it's apparent need to dehumanize and debase humans. If only we could be robots! and just work work work, with no internal quirks that make it impossible for us to ever be that way.
How anyone could be okay with a company making as much as Apple does, while the people who actually make their crap suffer in conditions we would all find abhorrent says something very profound about our culture, and the cowardice of our collectively consciousnesses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Steelbarrage
As a student going into the mineral exploration industry soon I can assure you gold does not have a "highly limited supply".
You are correct in your statement that its demand is quite variable. The process of mining for gold is directly related to its commodity price as that determines the feasibility of projects moving from an exploratory phase to a production phase. Demand is just so high right now because everyone wants a commodity that has a tangible real world value for securities sake. If you want a good basis for a highly limited supply you need just turn to rare earth elements in which China has a near strangle-hold on production of until mines around the world open up in the next decade.
Also I love how many people think Apple is so valuable.
Several pages back someone brought up the actual assets that Apple has is no where near their market price.
If you don't know what this means is that Apple is massively over valued and is pretty much just like the credit bubble that no one in this generation will forget. I'm still surprised people are still buying Apple stock as its one misstep away from a horrible tumble.
So until Apple has the same amount of tangible assets as Exxon has they aren't very valuable in my eyes.
(Think on the order of owning a couple of drilling platforms, production platforms, auxiliary equipment/ships and all the refinery capacity)
Rare earth minerals are not rare... They are everywhere aren't they? They just require intense operations to mine them.. No one can compete with China on Rare Earth Minerals because China will and does heavily subsidize it's mining, making it way near impossible for any company to compete against China and be profitable.
Not only that, but Rare earth mining is a very dirty process, have you seen the mines in China that do it? Yikes.
Edited by Cesaro Summability - 2/17/12 at 6:46am
