Good old Germany used to have a base unemployment figure of at least 8 %. A couple of years it was above 10 %. As long as the US is not approaching 11-12 %, I am not concerned. Apple will sell its IPhones also in China and elsewhere. Let´s not be US centric. By the way EUR / JPY 110.18 in the moment. Daily upward slope.
Our REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE (U-6) is actually over 16.5% and that does not include the self employed folks that don't have any clients (which would put us closer to 20%). But don't worry, next month your beloved manchild Odumba will point to all the recently laid off census workers, that will be picking tar balls from the Gulf Coast and say "LOOK! I've saved or created another 250k jobs!" As far as your Euro analogy; Yes, it is nice to see that our 86 pound weak-assed dollar has slowed down on the woop-ass it has been giving to it's 63 pound cousin. But doesn't that make it harder for a US Centric guy like myself to buy an Iphone? No concern here. P.S. Germany's calculation method is much closer to our U-6 method than our official method that lies about it being 9.5%
Apple will manufacture iPhones in Taiwan using Chinese parts engineered in Cupertino by in-sourced Chinese and Indian engineers.