Don’t be evil?

See if you can guess the company described here:

When news arrives that Xxxxxxx is interested in a particular product or service, small celebrations often erupt. Whiskey is drunk. Karaoke is sung.

Then, Xxxxxxx’s requests start.

Xxxxxxx typically asks suppliers to specify how much every part costs, how many workers are needed and the size of their salaries. Executives want to know every financial detail. Afterward, Xxxxxxx calculates how much it will pay for a part. Most suppliers are allowed only the slimmest of profits.

So suppliers often try to cut corners, replace expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives, or push their employees to work faster and longer, according to people at those companies.

“The only way you make money working for Xxxxxxx is figuring out how to do things more efficiently or cheaper,” said an executive at one company that helped bring the iPad to market. “And then they’ll come back the next year, and force a 10 percent price cut.”

WalMart you say?  It must be since this behavior sounds like the very epitome of evil capitalist behavior.  You would be wrong, it’s every hipster’s darling (and America’s most profitable company) – Apple.

The NY Times continues it’s series on Apple and it’s (main?) overseas supplier Foxconn.  The subject this time is employee safety. Again I am going to let you draw your own conclusions without too many comments.  I just want to note that however you may feel on this subject I find it interesting that these articles start the same week as the President’s State of the Union address, in which he castigated American companies for using overseas manufacturing.  Which was the cart and which was the horse?