Turn over your iPhone and you can read Apple’s eight-word business plan: “Designed by Apple in California.  Assembled in China.”  Apple is the largest company in the US; it also is the most profitable.  Apple has been successfully riding the two great forces of our era—technology and globalization.  Consumers have embraced technology and globalization heavily through buying Apple products.

At the same time, the impacts of technological development and globalization have become Presidential campaign issues.  Bringing the jobs back and developing trade policies that demand American corporations create jobs here and not abroad have been consistent themes.

“Bringing the jobs back” –like those in the Apple supply chain—would not be easy, according to Wired magazine.  It would be economically disastrous to Apple, which must continually innovate to ward off competition from Samsung.  Throughout history, the impulse to protect traditional jobs has come at the price of stunting economic growth.

Making iPhones in America would be Disastrous.  Forcing Apple to make iPhones in the US would be as logistically impossible as it would be economically disastrous, according to Wired, the magazine that reports on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy and politics.  Apple requires a vast and remarkably complex supply chain to compile one iPhone, and that supply chain has been cemented over decades as consumer electronics have evolved.  If any of the presidential candidates really want to help ordinary workers they would be wise to focus less on the types of jobs the US has already lost and more on the industries the US is uniquely poised to create.  Click here to read the full article

 

Will Slowing Growth take a Bite out of Apple?  Apple’s iPhone is being tested by lower-priced competitors and more flexible technology platforms like Android.  New adapters coming to the market are not all going to Apple; if anything, they are switching away from Apple. No company can grow and dominate forever, especially n fast-changing technology markets.  The big long-term challenge for Apple is “the gradual migration from hardware to software and services, according to Knowledge@Wharton.  Click here to read the full article

 

Creative Destruction and Globalization.  Creative destruction is a necessary component of the process of economic growth. Despite the net economic benefits from innovation, frequent opposition to economic change is discussed in the Cato Journal.   A lesson of history is that blocking change promotes economic stagnation.  Click here to read the full article

 

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Disclosure – The articles mentioned in This Week with J. Mark Nickell & Co. are for information and educational purposes only. They represent a sample of the numerous articles that the firm reads each week to stay current on financial and economic topics. The articles are linked to websites separate from the J. Mark Nickell & Co. website. The opinions expressed in these articles are the opinions of the author and not J. Mark Nickell & Co. This is not an offer to buy or sell any security.  J. Mark Nickell & Co. is under no obligation to update any of the information in these articles. We cannot attest to the accuracy of the data in the articles..