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Comment by black_13 | Hacker News Reader

You could move it to the US? Im just saying. To say appalachia?

There's not enough people.

Unemployment rates are like 4%, population density is like 115 people per square mile, and workforce participation is like 60%.

That's like ~2.8 per square mile you can employ. That's not even ~100,000 people in a 100 mile radius. No way you're going to attract 10% of them to work in your factory.

Somewhere like Detroit might be possible - ~4.5M people, 6.1% unemployment, ~62% participation = ~170k - a lot with previous manufacturing experience.

All that in a ~33 mile radius instead of ~100 mile radius...

Plus a port, excellent rail infra, and a massive international airport. There's a reason that Detroit was once the factory of the world.

I think that _something_ like this will eventually happen, as SEA moves up the wealth ladder.

I'm not sure why this comment is dead. I certainly would prefer that West Virginia get some economic activity besides destroying their mountains for coal better left in the ground.

I thought the same thing. The iPhone is already quite expensive. It shot up from an MSRP of around $500 to $1000+ in the last 5 years. Clearly the market is willing to pay a large sum for the iPhone, and monthly payment schemes/subscription programs take away 99% of the sticker price shock (for better or for worse).

Considering people will by an iPhone almost no matter the price... why not manufacture some in the US, with minimum wage jobs and no worker exploitation, and charge $1500 a pop for 'made in the USA'?

That may get some sales in the US. I doubt the Apple customers outside there would be delighted to pay 50% more for that label.

For sure. I wonder if there's an optimization available for a company that centralizes manufacturing for each continent, minimizing the "ship" and "plane" part of shipping costs.

Imagine iPhone factories in West Virginia, Romania, and India, to start. I suppose the economics depend on how much you can spread out component manufacturing: I know TSMC is the only manufacturer even capable of making the top-of-the-line iPhone SoCs at this point, but I suspect batteries, motherboards, cameras, metal, and glass have a little more competition.

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