By the time a gadget reaches Apples flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City or any other U.S. retailer, it may have passed through the hands of a heavily indebted Filipina migrant worker on the graveyard shift in Taiwan, a Taiwanese “quality control” worker wholl soon be fired without warning, and a young Chinese worker clocking 80-hour weeks on a final assembly line, at less than a dollar an hour.

via Apple News | Supply Chain Management.

I’m glad that someone has taken the time to write this sort of article. This all relates back to the Story of Stuff in which we are all somewhat guilty of supporting such a system. I’m typing this post on a Lenovo laptop and I am not sure where it was assembled &c.

What the hell is wrong with these people? Why are they paying one thousand dollars for an applicaton called “I Am Rich” in the iPhone app store?

Its function is exactly what the name implies: to alert people that you have money in the bank. I Am Rich was available for purchase from the phone’s App Store for, get this, $999.99 — the highest amount a developer can charge through the digital retailer, said Armin Heinrich, the program’s developer.

Once downloaded, it doesn’t do much — a red icon sits on the iPhone home screen like any other application, with the subtext “I Am Rich.” Once activated, the user is treated to a large, glowing gem. That’s about it. For a thousand dollars.

I can’t believe that eight people actually bought this thing.

Technorati : I am rich, iPhone