Free Trade arose spontaneously. Merchant Law arose spontaneously. Monetary systems (coins, trade instruments, etc.) arose spontaneously. Free Trade isn’t an experiment any more than an ecosystem is an experiment. Perhaps you should read some books written by people who are familiar with, and actually practice such arcane methods as “rational thought”, “logical analysis”, and “critical thinking”. You’ll find that your expectations align far better with reality, and you’ll be less frequently disappointed.

“Free Trade has been a disasterous experiment on the world.” Please tell the readers of this page that you didn’t actually write this crap yourself, but simply copied it from a book by “a long overlooked journalist”. If these are her words, I hope she’s perpetually overlooked, as her ignorance will never serve to guide anyone to better understand the realities of the global economy.

If your point is proving that you’re incapable of rational discussion and have to resort to name-calling because you’re incapable of saying anything intelligent, congratulations – you’ve proved it.

And, no, free trade isn’t destroying anything. The problem is that we haven’t had free trade for decades (if ever). International trade has been extremely one sided for a number of reasons (exchange rates, environmental rules, liablity laws, etc) since before I was born. Don’t blame free trade – blame people who are promising free trade and then delivering something else.

The bigger issue is that free trade is destroying the nation. The mistake of theappleblog is to use Apple as an example because most Apple users are emotional little girls who will defend Apple all the time.

The current manufacturing cost is probably around 50% of retail – or $125. Adding $58 to the manufacturing cost is about a 45% increase, not the stated 23% increase.

Please learn a little bit about business economics before posting drivel.

First, the above doesn’t consider a wide range of factors. For example, it doesn’t consider the cost of having the COMPONENTS made in the USA – which would greatly increase the costs. It doesn’t include the cost of complying with USA environmental laws. It doesn’t include the ‘litigation tax’ which needs to be considered in putting a factory in the USA. And so on. Most of the time when I compare Chinese prices to US prices for high volume goods, the price for completed Chinese products is lower than my cost for raw materials alone. (fortunately, I deal with low volume specialty things so I can still compete).

Most importantly, it’s all irrelevant. No company is going to accept a 30% increase in its cost of goods without some MAJOR justification. Legally, they can’t do it even if they wish – since they are required to maximize shareholder returns.

Not to mention the obvious question of why you’re picking on Apple here. The US made a decision years ago that they would rather be a net importer nation rather than a producer and allowed that to happen via a variety of things – tax policy, import policy, exchange rate policy, and so on. It’s not just Apple who’s doing this, it’s the entire US economy.

Take it up with your Congressman and other elected official. We need to stop (and eventually reverse) the massive outsourcing that has driven our economy for at least 20 years. Expecting one company to do it on their own is extremely misguided.