How are you liking that new iPad? To die for, is it?

[orb85750]

If the above is true, it is not the first such problem that apple has had.  There was a story quite some time ago about the sweatshop iPod manufacturing.  Purportedly, that was all sorted out and there were no more worries about sweatshops ... so they said.

[orb85750]

The still-growing population of religious Apple followers would still buy an Apple iPad/Pod/gizmo even if they knew that humans were tortured in the manufacturing process, IMO.

[orb85750]

I would prefer that Apple, and in fact every company operating in the US, do all their manufacturing right here in the US. The story goes that US employees would refuse to work for low wages so product prices would increase. I would be okay with with paying higher prices for 100% domestic manufactuered goods though, as the social benefits would be immense. But I'm in the minority.

However what we would then see is the liberal outcry that jobs are being taken away from non-domestic workers overseas for whom unemployment may have much worse ramifications.

There is no win-win situation. Even if you replaced all manual labor with robots you would still have unions complaining.

I would (and do) happily pay over twice the price for Fair Trade products.  It would be nice to have this option for all electronics.  The fact is that "inflation" is almost flat (in the US) only because electronics keep dropping in price while many necessities (such as food) go up.  Electronics are now absurdly low in price and the average Westerner apparently has an insatiable appetite for gadgets that most don't really need -- or even want 1-2 years down the road.  Every purchase you make is an ethical choice, like it or not.