Economic Growth

Way back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, American workers lived in factory towns, earned little, and worked when and how they were told to. The long drawn out process of limiting owners and managers power over workers took a combination of labor unions, political radicalism, and the pragmatism of TR's brand of progressivism. Today we learn that for the fast-talking exploiter of today economic "growth" means a reversion to the worst of 19th-century industrial capitalism:

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

Leave aside the horrific working conditions, the rampant and unabated pollution, and the quotidian corruption that attends this systematic exploitation of workers and ask your self what the cost of waiting a week for Apple would have been.