Following the recent bankruptcy of Borders Bookstore, U.S. House of Representative member Jesse Jackson, Jr. recently gave a presentation to the House, addressing the United States’ current unemployment crisis and claimed the iPad was “probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs.” The ironic thing about his stance is that he himself is an iPad owner:
“Why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes and Noble? Just buy an iPad and download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine…What becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs? What becomes of bookstores and librarians and all of the jobs associated with paper? Well, in the not-too-distant future, such jobs simply won’t exist. [...] The iPad is produced in China. It’s not produced here in the United States. [...] There is no protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work.” [Source]
The Illinois 2nd congressional district rep also went on to point out the cons of Chicago State University’s recent initiative to replace textbooks with iPads for the next group of incoming freshman stating that it will “fundamentally alter how we will educate our children”. I wish I did have an iPad during my young school days! Although he does make some valid points..
well myself being a ipad owner (typing this from the ipad right now) i mean even though this is VERY nice an save me from carrying around my laptop i STILL need a laptop i STILL lik being in a library sitting and i STILL lk seein things in a hardcopy but i get where he goin with this but he needs to argue that we need to transfer jobs done overseas to over here rather then blame it solely on the ipad…ppl who cant afford ipad cant and wont buy one so stop trying to point the finger at stuff…
Mr. Jackson is absolutley right. This is one of my soap box rants that I disscuss with people all the time, not that I don’t appreciate the technology it’s that it’s doing great damage to our economy by not replaceing jobs with jobs. People like Mr. Jobs, Mr. Gates & Mr. Knight(Nike) who have an American company should strongly consider manufacturing some of the products in the country in which they reside and have benifited from. By being able to start there companies and from the large amount of products purchased by us and we are the people who give the go ahead that makes a product able to be mainstreamed. These do not have to be high income jobs but a lot of Americans would love a steady job and make the product with pride. In closing Top Level GREED will be the downfall of America.
@VELL: First of all, you are wrong, Mr Jackson is a certified imbecile. Secondly, those are not American companies, they are PUBLIC companies with ownership traded on multiple exchanges to anyone anywhere. Thirdly, Steve, Gates and Knight are not responsible for the perverse, one-sided consumerist culture in America. They are free, tax-paying civilians answerable to their shareholders alone. As intelligent entrepreneurs, their overarching responsibility it to deliver the best possible gross margin their business can shoulder. Finally, I have yet to see a marketer transact any of these products at gun point. You want to eat your cake and have it? Get real, people. If our economy becomes decimated by a flood of Indian engineers, Chinese financiers, or Russian whores, it won’t move me one bit. Read the constitution and prepare for the worst.
FYI, just so you know also, not even our “government” is American. U.S. Treasury bonds are sold to the highest indiscriminate bidder and can be called in at anytime. I truly believe that concomitant benefits to citizenship should be earned through testing. The complacency is simply baffling.
FACT IS AND WILL ALWAYS REMAIN…that jobs will always be in jeopardy.! Esp. in this economic “crisis” America is undergoing. Innovations of technological gadgets and software will continue to expand and be bought by those who want them. So for Jesse to point the blame on an iPad is absurd and plain out dumb cause it won’t stop the next man from creating something that else better than the iPad. Indeed the paperbacks, magazines and newspapers will be eliminated into extinction but that was when an Einstein created the internet not an iPad. Jobs lost but trees are left the fuck alone.! And this is coming from someone who does not own or has no desire to buy an iPad.
He made a great point. USA has sold its self to China thats it!
This is nonething new, most of our products are made in different countries. Which is good for the U.S, and also not so good. Look at everything in your house, and most of it is from another country. We just have to education ourselves for the new jobs that are being created everyday, so if you do not have any experience in international business or future technology, your not going to be competitive in the future, so university have to do a better job at educating young people for future jobs.
I see where he’s trying to go but he didn’t make a valid point to me. Ipads are created for entertainment. Noone forces anyone to buy them. If these places are trying to make books obsolete then they need to be held responsible. He also fails to realize that Apple didn’t start the digital book trend. Kindles and Nooks are used solely for the purpose of reading books, magazines, newspapers, etc. What about them?
Maybe some jobs are lost with this change but what about the gain in jobs for developers? Who do you think makes all those apps? Lots of people do and you can get paid for it.
I agree especially about all of the jobs going to China. That includes foreign cars I see so many foreign cars and its like support American made cars because that supports American jobs. I understand someone who can buy a BMW 755 that is a luxury foreign car that is lovely but that person can still afford a Ford Focus too. But people who buy those little ugly Kia Cube’s those cars are so ridiculous looking. This argument could be made also for all of the foreign made products in our home from our TVS to clothes that would bring so many jobs to America and recent college grads. like me would not me be struggling trying to find a job. OK I digress.
Michelle, alot of these Nissans, Toyotas, Mazdas, etc are made here in the USA. Buying foreign doesn’t mean you’re taking jobs out the hands of Americans. Most of our American car companies owned considerable portions of foreign companies until recently when they sold them back for cash to stay afloat during the economic crisis:
Ford: Mazda, Land Rover, Jaguar
GM: Vauxhaul, Opel
Chrysler: Mitsubishi, Subaru
Now if they really want to find out what is sinking jobs in this counrty, perhaps they should start by acknowledging the fact that globalization is killing us. Giving tax breaks to US companies to move jobs overseas nations was one of the worst policies we’ve adopted in terms of our ecomony and our position as a major player as an industrious nation.
Cars took jobs away from horse, wagon and hay businesses.
Electricity took away jobs from candle businesses
Computers took a host of jobs from almost all industries.
The answer? More education, innovation and accountability.
Most of our engineering jobs go to foreigners in our country – not to many American citizens like that class major, but there are pleanty of jobs there. Most of the jobs that went overseas are headed by American companies, — they should be held accountable with tax penalties. Chinese people are hungry for education, many US citizens take it for granted. Some in the USA who hunger for it can’t afford the secondary part of it. Government, colleges, universities, communities, churches and parents should not neglect our young — they will be the ones to take care of this country in the future, so we need to build that strong fundation.
Great post.
I agree with you, we are simply a consumption based economy. There is no industry that won’t suffer a little from the technological advances made. China and India are graduating high rates of engineers compared to us. And you are right america has given up on competing on the educational level.
We will be working and living in a wall mart sooner or later.
Now there is a guy that aced Metaphysics and Economics. You want to know why the U.S. is going broke? Well one reason is that a moron of this caliber can hold a government office and live of the goodwill of taxpayers. What a blithering buffoon. Smh. I guess when all you fat Americans were sitting on your lazy asses soiling your sweatshop-manufactured game consoles with chicken grease and guzzling cheap oil with your Hummers, you failed to grasp the realities of capitalism in their entirety. I don’t know who to slap, that imbecile son of a dupe preacher or the band of illiterate Negroes on his bandwagon. Bloody imbeciles, all of you. The worst is yet to come, and you will deserve every bit of it.
I don`t think that it`s just bookstores that are becoming obselete,but if they keep shipping jobs overseas America will become obselete, it`s the reason why our government is in debt,and has no money to pay for services, our government raises money by taxing people who have jobs,but our goverment can`t get money to pay for services, because there are no jobs to tax,states and cities are going bankrupt, because people don`t have a job,Federal,State and Local governments have no one to tax and raise money to pay for services,The city that I live in just declared bankrupycy,Reports say, that 40,000 U.S. companies have left America and have taken tens of millions of jobs overseas with them, to China,India etc.,Everytime we send a job overseas we are sending our taxbase over there, and no nation in history has ever survived when their tax base collapsed.
Great video….. it’s not about ipad all products created outside of american, we consume everything and produce little. why does china get all the manufacturing jobs…. “Because of their little hands” one customer told me. i laugh.. so why can’t american be trained to produced.. Ipads, Ipods, and electronics in general
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To blame an object, like the iPad, is odd. Unfortunately displaced workers can be collateral damage in advancements in technology, but that is nothing new. Many workers were displaced at the beginning of the industrial revolution, then people had to be trained to operate industrial machines. Then professionals who pushed papers were displaced when the bulk of daily work became automated with computers, then people had to be trained to operate computers. As an I.T. professional myself, I was told from day 1 to never stop learning and getting training. If I relied on what I learned in college 6 years ago, I’d be useless right now. There are very few jobs where you can “stop learning”. Even doing something as simple as reading trade magazines to stay in the loop is helpful. Practicing that kind of initiative is the difference between complacent and ambitious workers- and in extreme examples, the difference between being employed and unemployed.
Librarians are going to be just fine- they won’t be out of work. Many current and future librarians are being taught database creation and management because of the way publications are being/will be archived. The duties of librarians will become increasing technical, and the training is already included in Master degree programs in many colleges, such as Drexel University for example. The key is training and education.
As for where products are manufactured, well that’s a whole ‘nother topic.
@ZZZZ: You are a patient person, and I sure hope you make more money than the “talented” Mr. Jackson. What an embarrassing waste of space.
We’re slowly but surely innovationg ourselves out of neccesity. Then what? We have machines that can do surgery, build cars, teach, etc. Machines that can cook and clean are not far away either. We’re all gonna have to start ho’ing. And a year after that, there will be a robot for that too. This obsession we have with upgrading everything constantly will be the end of us.
I agree 100% with Jesse Jr’s presentation, this is exactly what I’ve been trying to explain to my mom a few weeks ago that one day in the near future bookstore’s like “Barnes & Nobles” will cease to exist. I mean blockbuster store’s are beginning to decline. I live in Florida and at least two block buster stores were closed down in my town everyone is going to “Red Box” to get their movies now and that’s exactly what is going to happen with books and paper for that matter. I’m 23 years old and in college if I need to research anything at all I dont go to the library anymore I use Google it’s just that simple I dont watch television anymore because I can watch whatever I want on the computer, I dont buy CD’s anymore because I can either buy an individual song that I like instead of the entire CD or download it for free, which is wrong but I’m a dirt broke college student. Technology is changing the world it’s making our lives in a way easier but if you look at this situation from a different perspective it’s making life harder for us because people are loosing their jobs because they are being replaced by technology. I believe our economy is in the position it is in now because technology is evolving faster than we can keep up, That’s why we had the “Great depression” years ago because our world was changing and there weren’t enough jobs available to keep up with the change. I believe the resolution to our country crisis is simply to create training and jobs that are compatible for the future and we need to find a way of producing our own instead of relying on other countries to survive.
With progress and technology advancing so rapidly, exactly what jobs can we train people for? We are going to have to police ourselves and forego convenience in order to preserve our own necessity. You may not loose your job to an Ipad but just remember, all those out of work folks will now be competing with you for jobs if you need to find a new one which will greatly decrease your chances…
Just to present a different POV to your examples- technology cannot build itself or operate itself. There are still human workers needed. Like the Redbox vending machines don’t fill themselves. And someone has go around the collect the money from those machines. Someone has to fix those machines when they malfunction. Those people are more likely to keep their jobs b/c Redbox does’t have the overhead that a chain store has. Blockbuster has to rent out a store spaced, hire/buy security, retail workers, and everything else that goes with operating a retail store. The library is still necessary because there you can obtain access to certain databases, especially in universities, like LexusNexus and Dialog that have extensive articles that are simply not available on the world wide web. And most novice library users are not familiar with how to search on those databases because it’s not the same as using an internet search engine, which is where the library tech comes in and helps patrons create queries for their searches (which is why librarians won’t ever be obsolete). And as far as the music industry goes, this is just my personal opinion, but they are on the decline because of their own doing. They were getting over for years making consumers buy entire albums without knowing if the entire album was quality. I remember buying CDs and only liking 2 or 3 songs. Sometimes only ONE! The music industry got a lot of money doing that. At least in the hood people relied on DJ mixtapes to get a preview of songs from certain artists, but in general the music industry teased people with strong singles, but consumers had no way of telling if a few singles meant an entire album is worth purchasing. Now the music industry is complaining that iTunes has ruined them. No, iTunes and the like is finally making the process of buying music FAIR. And people would buy entire albums if artists made strong albums from start to finish. But I digress. I do agree that the resolution is to make training available to more people, and even career counseling, because how will young people know what training they need if they don’t know what kind of new jobs are out there and what kind of skills they need for it?
In that case, we should go back to trains, no wait, boats, no the horses need love
He’s ridiculous. Technological advancement happens. Deal with it and adapt.
And yay, we can kill less trees and not carry heavy ass text books.
all of you who agree, give up your car, give up your computer, give up your dvd player, cable box, microwave, and refrigerator. Its the same thing. New things make old things obsolete. Sorry.
And about making products else where. The companies serve to make as much money as they can. Its better for them AND consumers that its made abroad.They make more money, which helps the economy as well. The products are cheaper which makes them better for us to buy. Its a double sided thing.
Make an iPad in America, the price will be way higher.
Because China is our banker and manufacturing base the concept you imply is a black hole. The problem is the government making it way to easy for American companies who make huge profit and pay little tax who ships to many of our jobs abroad. If you don’t have a job, you can’t buy the IPAD. Now there are many engineering jobs out there, but unlike many Asians, many Americans don’t get educated in that field. College tuition is at a high and there is no outcry. How are we to compete if we can’t afford to compete. Many American companies, colleges, universities and training facilities are robbing the American way of life in the name of greed-from-profit. Walmart executives make record salaries and bonuses, while most of their workers get minimum wage (you can’t pay for college with minimum wage – you can barely live with minimum wage). At least if you ship the jobs, pay the American workers a decent wage. This way the taxes can help with the debt we owe China and create more jobs, because people will spend more if they make more.
Thanks Jesse
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he makes a valid point!
I hate arguing for the sake of the “haves” or “have-nots”. If any of you took economics, you would know money only circulates. If the “haves” outsource jobs to make a larger profit, they’ll have to pay higher taxes. If they produce the goods here at home the price of goods will go up (because half of you undereducated, underachievers believe you should be making $60K-$70K a year). It’s a push and pull effect; no one really wins.
Thank you
Your statement is unfair and highly judgemental. Most rational people do not feel entitlement to a $70K job without higher education as you claimed. That being said, people can be paid by skillset and I think it eats your type up that a person can make $70K due to demand for their real world experience rather than one gained by reciting textbooks in college. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and it’s not unfair to expect an employer like Apple to pay salaries that allow people to live a dignified life and not be subjected to threats of giving foreigners your jobs due to opportunistic companies. It’s one thing to make money and be profitable, yet another to be just plain greedy.
P.S. For all of you okay with jobs being outsourced. The number one export in America right now is debt. And for all of you hounding the entertainment industry, the number two export is entertainment.
U.S. companies that outsource jobs overseas pay no U.S. payroll taxesThey are getting over like a fat rat.Apple made about $15 billion dollars last year,if you are an Executive corporate officer at Apple, you make $14 million dollars a year.And,yet,Apple only pays Chinese workers about $120 dollars a week to make the Ipad,those are slave wages.the average american can`t even take care of their basic needs ,making only $120 a week,plus,Chinese workers have no health insurance,retirement pensions,or unions,that is slavery, and would be against the law in America , Apple makes more than enough money to make the Ipad in America, but they are greedy,they don`t want to pay American workers a fair wage to make the Ipad so they take the Ipad overseas and economically enslave the Chinese workers to make the Ipad for peanuts,while Apple makes billions, this is greedy and criminal.,
And I don’t wanna pay $300 more for one
If the workers abroad are being abused, its an issue. But if that equal with comparable jobs and the price of living in said area, ok. Its not Apple (or any other co’s) job to change their government regulations. They should be responsible and care for human rights but everything can’t fall on their shoulders IMO
Also part of the problem, and sorry if I’m repeating didn’t read the comments in advance, a lot of people go to Border’s, B&N and just read in the store, never to make purchases there so I guess it’s Ipads etc. coupled with that fact. I brought one book on my Ipad that I wanted to read right away otherwise I want to be able to hold my magazines and books and keep them, plus it doesn’t make sense to me that a Mag on an Ipad is the same as a print Mag so long story short, my having an ipad hasn’t changed the way I buy books/magazines. I wish more was done to make people purchase before reading in the stores because that IMO is where they are hit hardest. I just learned that the Border’s near me is closing and it breaks my heart.
Absurd line of thinking that is meant to rile up ‘patriots’. Casting blame sure isn’t solving unemployment. Apple is made abroad, yes. All intellectual property belongs to the U.S. This is the way trade works. Take a course in economics Rep. Jackson. Capitalism is all about profit. And there’s no profit with high manufacturing costs. If Congress wants to create jobs they should really start investing in the energy sector. But of course it’s that critical period of campaigning for 2012 elections and congress is divided. I’ll be surprised if anything will get resolved between now and the election.