The White House is insisting that Donald Trump’s vision of Apple’s flagship iPhones being manufactured in the US will come to fruition, despite assertions from analysts and the company itself that it would not be possible.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters during Tuesday’s briefing that the president believed Apple’s recently announced $500bn investment, as well as increasing import costs sparked by his trade tariffs, would encourage the company to ramp up manufacturing in the US.
“He believes we have the labor, we have the workforce, we have the resources to do it. If Apple didn’t think the US could do it, they probably wouldn’t have put up that big chunk of change,” she said.
How? By taxing the shit out of the wealthy.
There should be no billionaires. Period. If someone created something so insanely valuable that they actually earned a billion, then awesome for them. They can still have $999 million and be better off than 99.999% of the world. Most people who have over a billion got that money through screwing over people and exploitation. They don’t deserve to have more than a billion. Nobody needs more than a billion, and I can’t think of anyone who has actually earned it.
The next step is targeting the way wealthy people get wealthier. Tax assets instead above some number of millions instead of just income and capitol gains. Change the way corporate officers are paid and how boards of directors are made up of other corporate officers all voting for each other to get higher salaries. I’m not smart enough to come up with a way to attack the profits made by exploiting cheap labor in other markets, but maybe something like a global minimum wage that lifts up workers in other countries while not giving CEOs as much incentive to do it.
Finally, I would go after housing costs. I would ban corporations from owning single family housing and place a HUGE tax on individuals owning more than 3 homes (with moderate taxes on more than 1 home, then a higher tax on the 3rd home, then a ridiculous tax on the 4th). Limiting foreign ownership would also help out.
I haven’t heard this idea before and I really like it. You want to have your product manufactured by minimum wage workers in Cambodia? Sure, go ahead. But you’ll be paying them the minimum wage from your business’ home country, not theirs, and then paying shipping afterward to move your items to the sale location so it doesn’t actually benefit the business to abuse sweatshop labor rates.