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When Will Apple Stop Screwing The US Economy?
Submitted by Andrew Zatlin via Moneyball Economics,
Ty Cobb was a famous baseball player. Infamous, really. He set 90 Major League baseball records, some of which continue today. He was skillful but also mean; he had a reputation for playing dirty. Cobb was known for spiking other players: sharpening his cleats and sliding into them. Nobody much liked playing against him.
Apple is the Ty Cobb of corporate America. Like Cobb, Apple has set some impressive records. Nine years, a trillion dollars in sales, and almost no taxes paid. Apple risks having a legacy of tainted success and isolation.
The Apple Way
There’s a story I heard about electronics company Sharp. The company was about to go bankrupt and default on some major debt. This put Apple at risk, since Sharp was a major source of Apple’s LCD screens. The story goes that rather than come to Sharp’s aid, Apple instead approached the bankers and offered to buy the factory assets after bankruptcy – for pennies on the dollar of course. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down! True or not, when I share that story with others who have dealt with Apple, they shrug their shoulders and say that they aren’t surprised. That’s the Apple way.
Business is not a popularity contest, but when the winner-take-all, cripple-the-other-guy approach goes too far and begins to damage the economy, it’s time to rein things in.
The issue at hand is the way Apple’s relentless greed has undermined the US economy and damaged its future industrial competitiveness. All so Apple can make $5 more per phone.
After oil and cars, smartphones are the US’ biggest import. Almost $100B of phones was imported in 2014 (per the Census Bureau). Half of them were Apple iPhones.
The trade in smartphones cuts two ways:
- It is singlehandedly keeping afloat the economies of China, Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam.
- The flip side is that it is steadily hurting the US economy, as I’ll show in a moment.
The Winners’ Circle
Korea: Roughly half of Korea’s IT exports are cell phone handsets or semiconductors. Thus Korea’s total exports are growing only as long as IT exports do. For Korea, with a slowing economy, the smartphone is the only thing standing between them and a big recession.
Taiwan: It’s the same story but even more so because Taiwan’s portfolio of exports is more tied to high-tech (unlike Korea which also sells ships and cars). Taiwan’s economy depends on exports which in turn depend on smartphone sales.
China: While China has a much larger and more varied economy than Korea or Taiwan, its growth is also now driven by smartphone exports to the US. China’s total exports to the US now rise and fall on the US consumers’ appetites for the next phone.
The US’ Loss is Everyone Else’s Gain
It’s like an unintended Marshall Plan for the 21st Century. The US is transferring $100B a year to three Asian economies, creating over a million jobs and helping them accelerate up the high-tech manufacturing ladder so that US jobs are now in jeopardy. In other words, the standard complaints about corporate America off-shoring production. But there’s a twist: the high-tech competitive advantage that we are losing has bigger, costlier consequences.
“Hold on a minute!” you might say. Assume that handing a $100B+ high-tech industry to Asia can’t possibly be in the US’s long-term economic interest. Why blame Apple? For starters, because Apple started the hollowing out of American semiconductor dominance and made certain that the critical jobs and manufacturing went offshore. Secondly, with 50% of the US smartphone market, Apple is the only company which can make an impact, but it won’t because that means losing $5 per phone.
Apple Undermining US Manufacturing
Nine years, a trillion dollars in sales, and almost no taxes paid. That’s just the starting point for wondering about Apple’s actual contribution to the US economy.
Apple’s success drags down the US GDP. The behemoth that is Apple sold almost 200M phones last year, none of which were made in the US or used components made here. Instead of exporting $100B in iPhones, the US imported $50B. That $150B swing matters in terms of balance of trade, GDP and jobs. If you wanted to improve the US economy, there’s no better place to start than with Apple and smartphones.
Apple undermines the US manufacturing base. Assembly matters and manufacturing matters more. There was a time when Apple could have assembled phones and tablets in the US, but that would mean spending an extra $5 per phone since that’s approximately the extra labor cost to build that $700 phone here instead of in Vietnam or China. Assembly may not be a competitive, value-add step but it does employ a lot of people.
Unfortunately, it would also cut Apple’s profits by $1B, shrinking the company’s annual net income from $45B to $44B. Apple wouldn’t notice a drop in profits of $1B because it’s not putting its cash to use: Apple has $200B in cash conveniently parked outside of the US, not doing anything. On the other hand, assembling in the US would employ tens of thousands of people. A bit more productive use of capital, I believe.
Semiconductor manufacturing is more important in the grand scheme of things. It’s a fact that higher-skilled high-tech jobs create more wealth for an economy because they lead to innovation and new product development. Again, Apple could have its chips made in the US, by Intel for example. Instead, Apple turned to Samsung (Korea) and TSMC (Taiwan), going offshore to save another few dollars.
With a healthy dose of Schadenfreude, one notes Apple’s struggles to compete with Samsung, its past and present chip manufacturer. When Apple turned to Samsung to manufacture chips, the company also transferred vital intellectual property. Samsung learned everything it needed to know to design its own chips and phones. Apple saved ~$2B per year. In return, Samsung gained $100B a year in smartphone market share.
But while Apple’s greed makes it penny wise and pound foolish, it’s the US that pays the price. Shifting manufacturing of the most cutting-edge chips has permanently eroded our manufacturing base and high-tech competitive edge.
Should the US offer a $1B annual manufacturing subsidy to Apple? Well, it actually already does, except the amount is closer to $15B. As part of Apple’s ‘Zen and the Art of Freeloading,’ Apple has found arcane tax rules that funnel sales through Ireland and dodge US taxes. The Senate found that in 2011 Apple paid the IRS just $2.5B in taxes on $128B in sales. Before someone points out that Apple’s success boosts US employment by a few thousand workers, the US economy would get much more of a boost if Apple didn’t work so hard to dodge its fair share of taxes.
Intel and US Economy Struggle Together
Intel, on the other hand, is a positive contributor to the US GDP. Intel’s factories are largely US based. Its $50B in annual sales means more US exports and fewer imports, the exact opposite of Apple.
Sadly, Intel is struggling. Its sales have been flat for four years in a row and the company’s product line doesn’t fit consumer demand. The PC world continues to stagnate and Intel’s semiconductor offerings are not used in the tablet, smartphone and wearable device world.
A big part of Intel’s problems is that it faces competition from the very companies that Apple directly employs (Samsung, TSMC). The result is falling production and a loss of competitive edge, both of which directly reduce the US economic strength. Last year Intel canceled a new factory in Austin. That was the first tangible sign that market share loss to TSMC and Samsung was taking a toll on Intel: lower demand for Intel products meant no need to expand production. Fast forward to this month: Intel’s latest earnings announcement included a steep reduction in capital spending – a 15% cut.
Intel tried to spin the CAPEX cut as a harmless thing when in fact it is a big blow to the company’s future. Intel’s entire competitive edge is determined by its ability to out-produce the competition and to be the technology leader. Ultimately Intel is just a manufacturer. Its issues are the typical problems plaguing economies of scale that come with improving production yield.
In the semiconductor world, yield is a real estate game. Semiconductors are built on 300mm silicon platters (aka wafers) and the manufacturing process follows a modern form of the lost wax casting technique: light-sensitive chemicals are layered on the silicon and ‘melted off’ via light. This creates channels that get built up like a layer cake and eventually become the transistors and resistors. The smaller you make that wavelength of light, the smaller the channels and the more transistors you can pack on that wafer. I call it a real estate game because it’s the equivalent difference between building 10-story and 40-story apartment buildings: same land, more money.
Intel has always been ahead of the pack when it comes to shrinking the light wavelength. It can crank out more chips per wafer, and has more factories to do the cranking. This enabled Intel to control the pace at which the industry shifted to smaller wavelengths. For Intel, it meant profit maximization because the company effectively dictated pricing and timing.
Well, not any more. Today, Intel faces stiff competition from Samsung and TSMC, both of whom can produce at similar volumes and using similar cutting-edge technologies. That’s really what the CAPEX cut meant: Intel has lost control. It’s incredibly difficult to regain control when you have not one, but two aggressive rivals.
How the US Has Fallen Behind
The big problem here is that the US lacks an industrial policy. China, Taiwan and Korea’s governments very clearly understand the economic importance of high-tech design and production. The US government… not so much. China fully understands the importance of high-tech jobs and especially semiconductors: it has ear-marked $10B in direct subsidies (or investments, as they euphemistically deem them). This isn’t steel or cement. Whoever produces the semiconductor chips has an edge with high-tech devices, and that means trillions of dollars.
I’m not suggesting that the US become protectionist. In some ways this is just another industry where our trading partners subsidize and incentivize local design and development and penalize foreign imports and production, all while the US government does nothing.
Except this time it is different. The US’ ability to make more or fewer cars was an economic and jobs issue. The US’ ability to stay competitive in the semiconductor space is a national security issue. Semiconductors are the engines for high-tech products, like super computers. Having the most powerful super computers is the linchpin of the US national security platform. (This is why it’s also an area of prime focus for the Chinese government.) With high-tech determining the economic growth of every country, enabling another nation to be more competitive makes no sense.
What is the burden of having Apple be the best it can be? Nine years, a trillion dollars in sales, and almost no taxes paid. And while Apple helps Samsung and TSMC build factories in China, Intel is shuttering factories in the US.
I have no issue with corporate greed per se; more often than not there’s a balance with the public good (lower prices, better products and services). When things become imbalanced, it falls on us, as a society, to re-align things. We need to step in here.
What to Do?
First, boycott Apple products. If you buy an Android phone you can take comfort in knowing that some of that money comes back to the US via Google, which does a lot to support the US economy. Second, let’s encourage Congress to close the tax loopholes that let companies like Apple hide from taxes. Third, don’t support a one-off tax moratorium on cash brought in from offshore. These companies are dying to bring the money back anyway. They dodged taxes to get it offshore, and now they want to continue dodging them to bring it back? No way.
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When the worm comes out.
Apple is a poisonous fruit if eaten at th ewrong altitude and in the wrong season.
By making them available all year round....sickening people, imagine that.
Apples are POISON for most people (plains people especially). Eat that.
So poisonous apple.
Apple in the Biblical garden.
Apple for Pythagoras's student test.
Apple with bite taken out enslaving humanity.
And of course, APPL is suceeding where?
In the BIG APPLE.
Need more?
;-)
Guitar...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWyZu_n0BVM
APPLE is doing gods work conditioning the public to bio-metric devices. I think most ZH'ers should be fitted with blood scanners to track their reaction to stimulus. The adrenaline dump associated with a $.10 move up in gold will be a sure sign they are a seditious dissident. All feelings that these so called "individuals" experience will be monitored and corrected in the new century.
If the government wanted everyone's biometrics why bother doing it with a smart phone. Get the doctors/schools/workplaces etc to do it unnoticed.
Stop buying AAPL products.
Because Google and Microsoft are so much more proponents of privacy and personal liberty.....
Good point.
Samsung, Nokia, etc don't pretend to be "American" companies.
... APPLE is doing gods work conditioning the public to bio-metric devices.
Maybe, but I have yet to find a half-decent reason for buying and/or using an Apple device. The "cool factor" doesn't work its magic on me, and their competitors (in every field) are usually offering similar (or better) functionality for a fraction of Apple's price...
Fuck the author's "fair share" and letting an unconstitutional entity police and tax through a set of rules so arcane even their own experts do not have a consensus of opinion.
Know your enemy
AD
"Nine years, a trillion dollars in sales, and almost no taxes paid"
So let's imagine that Apple paid EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR OF REVENUE to the Feds. One trillion over NINE YEARS-- that's a popcorn fart in a hurricane to a federal behemoth with $150 trillion+ in unfunded liabilities.
I'm a big believer that corporations, as artificial legal creatures, should pay income taxes, and that natural humans should not pay income taxes. But our federal tax/spending system is so completely fucked up that blaming Apple is disingenuous at best, and misinformation/propaganda at worst.
And another thing. Saying Apple's profits would drop by only a few percentage points if they built their phones in the US is facile analysis. They aren't building these phones in a vacuum-- the entire electronic industry migrated to Asia 20 years ago. There is a gigantic infrastructure there that simply doesn't exist in the US anymore. If you manufacture in China, everybody you deal with is in the same time zone and your vendors are right down the street. The US is on the other side of the planet from everything you need.
The time to worry about this was 1992, when Ross Perot was telling it like it is. When Klinton got elected it was game over, he sold us out to the Chinese and eight years later it was too late. Saying that Apple is the problem is shortsighted and ignorant.
It's not all Apple's fault. Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan are all greedy SOBs that abrogate every trade treaty and through every means block imports of finished materials into their countries. They also resort to bribing our Government to always make trade go their way. Just wait for the new secret Obama trade treaties to fall into place.
"It’s like an unintended Marshall Plan for the 21st Century. The US is transferring $100B a year to three Asian economies, creating over a million jobs and helping them accelerate up the high-tech manufacturing ladder so that US jobs are now in jeopardy. "
So let me get this straight, given the reality set in motion before Apple became a giant, that of our nations acceptance and the US Political/Coorporate fight in favor of globalism, is the fault of Apple?? What a crock!!
Ross predicted what the big sucking sound would represent.
" The story goes that rather than come to Sharp’s aid, Apple instead approached the bankers and offered to buy the factory assets after bankruptcy – for pennies on the dollar of course. "
So Apple instead of pursuing the most strategic economic decision is supposed to bail out other companies, and in so doing decrease Apples own profit margin ??? What kind of coorporate/socialistic utopian bullshit that is.
Author of this article seems to foreget how Apple was 90 days away from bankruptcy back in the 1990's.
For the record their products are overpriced and over rated. I have never purchased one and probably never will.
When I hear about someone not paying taxes I don't think they should, I think that I shouldn't either.
Taxes = money to the government. Each time someone complains about taxes not being paid, he implies that the government deserves to have more money. In my book the person making such statement deserves a punch in the face.
Works for me!
Corporations are people right? Supreme Court said so in the 1800's. 14th admendment protection? Right?
Then I want my offshore tax haven too.....bitch.
First, I need an income high enough to pay federal taxes......<sigh>.
Are you referring to the amygdalin in the seeds?
I know some people suffer from oral allergy syndrome when eating raw apples, but that would only fit a very broad definition of "poisonous."
Water's poisonous, too, if you drink too much.
Really, he's out there on this one. Apple's are health food as in the old saying: an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
No Bastiat, I'm quoting one of the wisest men (organic farmer, naturalist, herbalist) I've ever met.
I have not eaten an apple in 15 years. Or maybe 1 or 2 in desperation..
As for the saying, given how many apples get consumed globally every day, is the doctor really away? Heck NO! Quite the opposite.
Plus, what is pushed so hard by the overlords that is good for mankind at large?
Hmmm?
You quote one man with an opinion. He may be a fine man and be right about many things . . . and maybe apples don't agree with him. This doesn't stand up up to the science.
"Given how many apples get consumed globally?" What kind of thinking is this? How much sugar, HFCS, trans-fat, animal flesh get consumed globally? If you want to consider populations try reading peer-reviewed scientific population studies.
Science has it's place.
Well, sometimes very few people hold bitter truths BAst because no one wants to share them.
Check this out, just frigging make sure apples are available 24x7:
The United States is the world´s second largest producer of apples, behind the People´s Republic of China. Poland, Italy and France rank third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
Approximately one out of every four fresh apples grown in the United States is exported. Fresh exports from the 2012 U.S. apple crop totaled a record 46.7 million bushels. The value of U.S. fresh-apple exports from the 2012 crop also set a record at $1,157.9 million. The top ten export markets for U.S. grown apples in 2012 were:
• Mexico
• Canada
• Taiwan
• Indonesia
• India
• Hong Kong
• United Arab Emirates
• Thailand
• Columbia
• Saudi Arabia
The United States also imports fresh apples, predominately from the Southern Hemisphere, to keep grocery store shelves stocked from March to July. Approximately six percent of fresh apples consumed in the U.S. are imported. The top sources of imports are
• Chile
• New Zealand
• Canada
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ggood luck by the way....the Atctic Apple is a'comin!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Apples
Mine come from Washington State, USA. Organic only. Apples are one of the "dirty dozen," because unless you buy organic they are sprayed with lots of pesticides. I try to eat NOTHING from PRC.
The organic apples are in orchards right next to the insecticide sprayed ones. Make sure you wash them!!
"Science has it's place."
Science?
We don't got no science.
We don't need no stinking science!
Spelling has *its* place too.
He was quoting your mistake grammar nazi.
"An Apple A Day Keeps the doctor away"
So does ObamaCare
Not just the seed thing, overall.
See my point on fractality...
"Need more?"
Less is more.
This Apple is rotten to it's liberal progressive core.
Fed.gov outfit has screwed America much harder than Apple. Giving Fed.gov more money merely encourages them
"Last year Intel canceled a new factory in Austin"
It was Chandler, AZ, if you can't get that right, everything else written more than suspect.
Intel is exactly like Apple
Intel ONLY manufactures the raw uncut wafers in USA due to 'National Security', all of the assembly is ALL offshore!
Check this legitimate ways to mak? money from home, working on your own time and being your own boss... Join the many successful people who have already used the system. Only reliable internet connection needed, no prior experience neccessary, that's why where are here. Start here... www.globe-report.com
Apple is the problem? At least they make something fucking real, no mention of useless fucking paper-pushing bankers and financiers? Thanks to their politcal puppets and attorneys they don't pay taxes either you stupid fuck.
Tick tock motherfuckers...
You are so right. I don't use Apple products - I don't like closed systems - but they make things people love and they make good margin on them. Good for them! They're supposed to do what? Hand money over to inept managers of dying companies? Use the most expensive contract manufacturers? Wake up. Apple is a business. We need more Apples - less banks.
Bingo, given that there is no real collateral behind money creation anymore, banks are nothing but useless fucking middlemen between a printer and everyone else (customer and producer) in the real economy. Kill the fuckers already.
Middleman is at least a potentially useful role, in some contexts. But creating money out of thin air to overpay TBTFs for bad assets or buying equities, getting ownership of real companies by conterfeiting, is purely criminal. They are racketeers and parasites.
Apple is a marketing company; the baubles are just a necessary part of the scheme.
Pet Rocks were "real products," too.
Sure, the point being, if people are stupid enough to buy pet rocks let them. Ever hear of this thing called sales tax?
A stupid populace seems to be beneficial to both gov and biz.
Gov and biz = Fascism
And with as much Fascism as we have in the country, and it's growing everyday, I'd say the population is pretty farking stupid and getting more so by the day.
We are all about paper-pushing. It's going to be nothing but paper from now on, forever, until it's not about anything.
I think as Capitalism slowly dies of TBTF cronyism, greed and malinvestment, people who don't understand how that happens are going to start looking for "bad capitalists". You know, the proverbial bad apple (in this case, Apple) in the bunch that is ruining it for everyone. Because they cannot face the other possibility that the basket and all its contents were destined for ruin all along, probably since 200 years before.
Denial. The drug of this century. Breathe it deep, and go mad.
First of all, I don't buy bullshit about apple products costing $5 more if manufactured in the US. Labor costs? What unions, factories, cost of bribes (that are cheaper in the 3rd world and are a part of every single enterprise). What about the environmental costs? We ain't just shipping manufacturing over. We're exporting pollution - the worst kind that gives you red smog and turns your rivers yellow. And the money paid for imports - that cash always comes fresh off the printing press. Because of the Fed there is no such thing as a trade surplus or a trade deficit. Anything and everything will be papered over. The reserve currency finances every purchase.
When Asia sends us goods they don't do it so they could get an equal volume of goods back. They do is so that they can get enough dollars to buy oil with from the OPEC. And OPEC (mainly Saudi's) sell oil for dollars in exchange for weapons and for our willingness to go and stir shit up in the Middle East to keep their little beheading amusement park safe.
So, it is a lot more complex than simply paying $5 more. If Apple trinkets were manufactured here not only would they cost double, they'd probably run like a car off a Detroit assembly line. We'd have monthly recalls and class action lawsuits from people whose toupee caught fire.
And lastly, doesn't the whole article revolve around Apple dodging taxes? And the author has the arrogance to say that a domestic iPhone would cost $5 less when he just said he wanted Apple to get taxed like a typical government-friendly corporation? Would that $5 cover labor and taxes?
And what about having to ship components here from Asia? All apple does is slap pieces together all of which are made overseas. We aren't talking one factory. We're talking dozen different ones. Microchips, memory, displays, batteries, sensors, plastic and metal enclosures etc.
A locally made iWatch would probably look like this fine US product: http://www.adafruit.com/images/1200x900/950-00.jpg
What a steaming bullshit pile of an article!
Someone has read Diamond, I see. Excellent post.
Just as soon as fags stop buying their overhyped, overpriced junk.
The freakshow these ipeople provide is priceless.
fucking a! stop blaming the craapl maggots. every dumb mother fucker in this country who buys their overpriced crap products and stocks is what causes this. fuck it, they deserve the screwing. let it burn.
Steve's death was engineered and accelerated. He didn't want 'this' Apple.
Steve Jobs was a loose cannon whose politics were completely unreliable and was a man who couldn't be controlled. Tim Cook-- bean counter, homosexual, and politically correct to a "t"-- is the picture of the "modern" CEO.
I want to know how someone with terminal pancreatic cancer gets on the list for organ (liver) transplant. Someone with pancreatic cancer has, at best, about 2-years to live. One of the criteria for getting on the list for organ recipients is an expectation of living a somewhat normal life with the new organ. So, how did Jobs, with his terminal pancreatic cancer, get that liver?
Corporations pay no taxes. When will you get it thru your thick heads that Apple customers will wind up paying the taxes in higher prices for an apple product or service.
You wooly headed taxers need to take a course in economics, accounting 101, and cost accounting b 4 displaying for all the world to see your total ignorance.
I don't own but one IPAD. I don't care about I phones and other apple products but if I did I would be certain that apple would have ME paying the taxes you think are being paid by Tim Cook.
Your headline should read: "When will government control prices so that corporations do not pass their taxes on to their customers".
Price controls do not work, the Soviets did a lenghty experiment in that area.
At the very least I'd be happy when corporations that don't produce something of real fucking value or who's value and shareholder wealth gets gutted by management actually go fucking bankrupt and those managers go to prison.
In the absence of any kind rule of law we go back to the free-for-all of dark ages, only a matter of time.
I'm not advocating for price controls, just illustrating---or trying to---that Corporations PAY NO TAXES.
You can't make them.
We who are the end users of products and services pay ALL the taxes.
You miss the point. Apple customers only wind up paying the taxes if they CHOOSE to buy the Apple products in the first place. That's the difference between corporate income tax and personal income tax. Try "choosing" not to pay your personal income taxes, and see what happens.
The corporate legal fiction offers many benefits not available to natural persons-- two of these are perpetual existence and the corporate veil, but there are plenty more-- and as creatures of the state, they should pay the state in exchange for these benefits.
That is the rationale for the corporate income tax.
You accounting and business illiterates are beyond redemption.
Until you have government controlling prices, ALL costs are paid by customers. Why single out Apple???
Proctor and gamble maintain an illusion that THEY are paying income taxes and you idiots buy it.
Nobody is being forced to buy crapple products. If they cost more because of taxes then so be it that it is the people who willingly purchase them pay the difference. At least it doesn't come out of my pocket.
Apple and Cook STILL won't be paying taxes, THAT's the point!!
When will Apple stop being the US economy?
I think we hit #PeakApple with the iPhone6+ christmas sales... that Apple Watch is a dud no matter how much pub they give it or get douchenozzles to wear them. They will have to pick-up the US Economy slack as more of the shaleoilers go-bust with the low oil prices and will be TeamUSA's economy 'til the irish bankers steal all of their cash that's parked there.
Since Steve Jobs augured in, his reality distortion field has disappeared. Now questions are starting to be asked, but AAPL is one of the stocks used to levitate Wall St. All we can hope is the hipsters to go away and let Apple slowly implode.....
Server demons strike again....
But that watch goes so well with my hipster ensemble!
Oh look, another product and company I don't and never have done business with . . . .
Get a xiaomi phone, fuck em all
Jobs made a cataclysmic mistake by not making the iphone screen bigger
Now Cook follows suit with the watch that has the screen that's too fucking small
Either the screen is too small or the watch is too big (see Samsung). It's a mistaken concept.
You could substitute "Apple" with just about any other major US materials corporation. Intel, HP, IBM, Walmart, Cisco, GM, Boeing, Amazon. Pretty much the entire Fortune 100 that isn't financials. And the financials have fucked everyone over too, just not in the sense that manufacturers and retail have. And don't get me started on the social network and media/entertainment plays.
Cap on AAPL all you want. Won't change the landscape.
"blah blah…it’s time to rein things in."
This is the business equivalent of 'people that make too much money.'
You would almost think he was talking about the importance of who makes .mil stuff. Oh wait, he was.
I've done my part to slay this beast; I don't own a single Apple product and never will. In fact I'm the most un-trendy mother fucker in these parts. That's right and fuck Starbucks and Chipotle too.
Every time I see a person fondling their crApple phone/pad/whatever, I see a person that is largely incapable of independent thought.
Gawd, another progressive propaganda hit article. "Biznuss is oh so bad, but corrupt big progressive government good." Fuckin makes me want to puke. Where does this shit get dredged up from? Looks like right out of Marx's asshole.
The US economy has been slammed by big government progressive criminal policies. Period.
Most of government needs to be arrested and shot for blatant law breaking treasonous crimes. Hope they hit the writer of this garbage article too. The rest needs to be reduced to less than 25% of what it is.
The blowback against criminal big government progressive oppression will be a tsunami that comes without warning.
Grimaldus
Most people realize they can't stop big government at this point. The author did give attention to a subject that individuals can have an impact on - don't buy apple products. Of course, shilling for the NSA's other brother wasn't exactly endearing (google). At least most people can understand the apple story even if they have no idea who Snowden is.
Dude - apple is about as liberal as it gets including it's employees and customers. I am a constitutional conservative and by an large - big business sucks. Small and medium business, usually, is great and creates more jobs than big business.
Apples are Muppet Food!
And now Apple is not even an equal opportunity corporation, I cannot buy the iFag Watch because I have ink all over my arms? What about my rights? What about equality for iFag people? disgusted absolutly shattered I cannot dong on the iFag and prounce around like a toolbox.
Zero Hedge attacks Apple and makes fun of its products because Apple is the brightest star in the U.S. economy, and that bright star gets in the way of the dreary Zero Hedge narrative.
It's a bit like the goth chick making fun of a bubbly, effervescent and popular girl's enthusiasm.
+1 insightful
Popular girls do tend to be whores though.
I'll give Apple one thing: no other company is better at brainwashing the Goyim. They've actually conviced cattle to camp out in front of their retail stores...that's amazing!
ZH is consistent in bashing cronyism. Apple benefitted mightily from favorable (to the corporate bottom line but not the country's) political actions.
Please post a link to a ZH article that calls for favorable treatment by government to a particular company. All I've ever seen is calls for equal treatment under the law, calls for simpler laws, and complaints about the lack of both.
Apple and their NWO corporate rockers US and Saint Bono are the biggest tax cheats on the globe along with Soros, Buffet, GE and a bunch of others.
As for taxes, businesses, corporations, don't pay taxes, their customers do.
With that said, whatever Apple supposedly did not pay means that there were $billions fewer to be used in the stealing, oppressing, and killing around the world by Zion's DC US war dog.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Considering the criminality and Unconstitutionality of the DC US, it is now a moral duty NOT to pay taxes.
This is the new country, greed above all else. In keeping with the baseball analogy, Ted Williams interrupted his career to fight in WW II. Think any of these star assholes would do that today? We r done.
We all make stupid decisions sometimes.
I think Pat Tillman put an end to that idea.
>>This is the new country, greed above all else. In keeping with the baseball analogy, Ted Williams interrupted his career to fight in WW II. Think any of these star assholes would do that
Prophetic indeed.
"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power" - 2 Timothy 3
The only war worth fighting is a Revolution against tyranny.
Regarding all other wars, as many, but not enough know, "War is a racket." And let me add, regarding wars of today, Zion are the racketeers.
Liberty is a demand, Tyranny is submission.
"War is a racket." Zion are the racketeers.
Ted Williams was an exceptional pilot as well as the greatest baseball hitter in history.
The corrupt govt called him back for the Korean War as well. Ted realized he was being used because the Air Force generals wanted him to play baseball for the air force team.
If Ted Williams had not been drafted twice - he would have broken every baseball hitting record including home runs even the ones set by juiced up fakes. Ted was that good.
Scrapple
Seriously, I don't know where to start with this POS article; 1) Emperor Goebbels does more to fuck the middle class than Apple could ever hope for, 2) you blame Apple for taking advantage of US fucked up tax laws?, and 3) they are supposed to pay "full price" for Sharp's POS assets? Why don't you take your money and compete with them, then you can do all the things you say you would do; result , is bankruptcy that's why not.
www.traderzoo.mobi
Agreed, the only people that would benefit from the takeover of Sharp, would have been the banks.
It is the business's responsibility to maximize shareholder value.
The reason that Apple doesnt manufacture in Amerika, is because Amerika is not competitive in the manufacturing space. Any attempt to start an industrial enterprise is immediately halted in a regulatory quagmire.
If you think regulation is more of a factor than cost of good sold then you are kidding yourself.
Not sure of the point you are trying to make. it is next to impossible to run, or build a new refinery, lead smelter, coke oven, coal power plant, or any other enterprise.
Hell, I am supposed to get my local government's permission before I cut down a tree on my farm.
The only way to deal with companies like Apple (there are many others) is to apply a US tariff or tax on all their products sold in the US -- until or unless they re-patriate all their dollars. If you give full accounting and do the re-patriation, then you pay no tariff. If you move outside the US to avoid taxes, then you pay the tariff.
Otherwise, we have loopholes so big that you could drive a trillion dollar company through and leave no trace -- or taxes.
Right, because those isolationist polices have and are working out so well...
FAIL.
"Right, because those isolationist polices have and are working out so well...
FAIL."
Our cuntry was funded by tariffs for quite some time. Worked out quite well too before we decided to run the world.
Who the fuck cares? All taxes are punitive when you can print money. A better question to ask is when the fuck will apple make products without software and hardware back doors?
Apple, Walmart, the Military Industrial Complex.
Offshoring employment, profits, and death and destruction since 1991!
duh! taxes are things serfs pay to their lords
bow down to your iLord bitchez and kiss his ring
I've been using the same Sony phone for three years. Until the iPhone6 my Sony phone was still ahead and with the 6 Apple has just caught up. When I tell people I've had the same phone for three years they say it is impossible because the screen isn't broken. I'll then drop the phone on the ground. The $90 Motorola G is superior to every Apple phone up to the 5s. It is the only phone to ever pass the wife test, meaning it lasted more than two months without breaking. She's on eight months so for $90 I have got my money's worth.
My phone has dropped on the corners, on the back, and on the screen. My son has knocked it out of my hand many times and it is no worse for wear.
I tell people that their iPhone broke because Apple makes crap. Some people agree, but most iTards just get defensive and say Apple is great because they are Apple not because of what they make. The insanity defense.
Why does every newscaster on every channel in the entire U.S. hold and fiddle with an iPad while they're reading the news?
They are watching either cute kitten videos or online porn.
i-fucked up!
I've never heard of the author here or Moneyball "Economics", but if this article is representative then I don't think it's worth further reading.
The author makes the typical layman's mistake of confusing $$$ with real wealth (real GOODS). Say, hypothetically, "we" keep sending "them" money, and "they" keep sending "us" stuff. Who's the winner then? "They" get increasingly worthless paper that is printed at will, and "we" get goodies to play with. And the jobs "they" get then result in their working to enrich "us".
That all being said, I would say Apple is, at worst, a symptom of the problem and not the cause. There's plenty wrong in the world today (central banks, taxes, and a myriad of anti-competitive "regulations"), but companies like Apple are just playing the game.
No - they are fu*king hypocrites like their corporate NWO stooge pals Bono and U2 who are fellow tax cheats.
These moral superior leftist, which includes Apple and their customers, love to moralize and get the middle class to pay their taxes.
PS: Get off that stupid overused sports talk/insurance sales man cliche of "that being said." It sounds ridiculous and every f**kwit going uses it. It is such a meaningless phrase used by jocks and other half wits.
Apple is just a modern day version of GE....billions in profits made and zero in taxes paid. Hell, GE has even gotten a refund almost every year for the last 10 years, even after paying NO TAXES.
Fuck me... it's called international business. What a ridiculous article. Profit maximization is the aim of a company and last time I checked Apple wasn't a government organization or non-profit.
Why would you act surprised when a company doesn't do what's best for "the people".
Another article for the "woe is me" crowd to sit in satisfaction that their lot is somehow someone else's fault.
One thing I notice is that the local Apple Store is less and less crowded--this has been going on for many months.
It used to be consistently packed.
That's called "deflation"
To compare Ty Cobb to present day Apple takes a certain kind of moron. The author fits the bill with the rest of his haranguing, stupefying, fully retarded message.
(S)he misses all the salient and insightful points and focusses on a few ("they" are great at what they do but nobody likes them because ...) PC ridden cliches.
The US Trade issues are deeper than this limp wristed Dbag can communicate and the US Tax issues are way more simpler this this pencil necked weasel would admit to.
And to just let the author know.. that if you interrupt my lunch with a "Blacks Lives matter" I will dunk your head in my soup bowl.
Good for Apple. Fuck paying into this piece of shit system. Why fuel Congress any more than the minimum legally obligated to?
the author's ignorance about semiconductor industry is amazing...
intel never opened its fabs to third parties until recently, and even so, it opened only to low volume and hand picked partners... in no circustance intel would sacrifice it own products to meet apple volume requirements... btw, every pure play chip designer dreams of using intel fabs, including apple, but its intel that doesn't want it to happen, after all, this would go against the 40% profit margin target intel has, chip fabbing is a low margin business...
also, the claim that fabbing chips at samsung made it learn how to make chips is the dumbest claim ever... most of the tech on phone socs are licensed from arm, imagination, qualcomm, etc. nothing that samsung doesnt have access already...
if anything, its apple that is "learning" how to make chips, the iphone began with a soc completely designed by samsung and fabbed at tsmc, then it designed its own soc, but using a stock CPU arm core and imagination GPU, then they bought the PA Semi company and designed their first in-house CPU core... the next step is probably apple designing its own GPU core
a last note... intel has bad products for tablet/smartphone market, period... they're heavly invested in PC and PC is dying... how can the author conceive that as apple's fault?
Okay but it's still all Apple's fault.
Good post, though the PC is hardly dying. Sure mobiles have taken some of the market share and they're here to stay, but that hardly means that the trend will continue to the point where mobiles make PCs obsolete (at least for the foreseeable future). Mobiles lack the processing power and interface (multiple large screens + full sized keyboard and mouse) needed to do scientific/engineering/IT/CGI work. Example, the #1 thing you can't effectively do on a mobile that you can on a PC: develop mobile software. Until that changes, which seems very unlikely for at least the next few years (20 years out who knows), it's too soon to write to epitath for the PC.
the point most ppl forget when discussing market trends on hardware (be it pc or mobile) is that volume matters... without volume, you can't sustain your R&D... true that PC is still necessary for professional tasks, but volume is dwindling because the hordes that used PC for facebook and youtube are doing it now on mobile... when I said dying, I didn't mean 100% disappearance, but it becoming a niche
Your want to suggest that if Apple's phones were produced in the USA, they would cost only $5 more.
They would cost much-much more.
The corporate tax rate in California is 43%, and politicians want to raise it even more.
The corporate tax rate for high tech companies in China is 15%.
Why would anybody build a high-tech factory in California?
-----------------
If you are an electronics hobbyist, you know that if you want to build a project cheaply and with modern components, you have to contact an online electronics store in Shenzhen - they have almost everything. Try to go to a Radioshack store - they have nothing. Mouser.com is better, but prices are high compared to Ali.
That's because American kids are not interestered in electronics anymore.
Vincenze:
OMG; http://ledpixelart.com/shenzhen/
This statement isn’t exactly true:
For starters, because Apple started the hollowing out of American semiconductor dominance and made certain that the critical jobs and manufacturing went offshore.
The hollowing out began in earnest in around 1990 after the fall of Berlin Wall. Francis Fukuyama wrote the book, “End of History,” which trumpets the West’s winning of cold war. China, Asia and others decide to open their economies.
Large scale semiconductors invented by American ingenuity and investment are targeted. It is known that this technology will improve efficiencies of all sectors of economy. Those who don’t master it, will fall behind.
Note: It is American public spending into Colleges and DARPA which was the seed that created internet and subsequent high technology industries. Private industry piggybacked on this public funding.
Wall Street circa 91,92 starts to approach American Business as says, “I want some wage arbitrage.” If you don’t start shifting your industry to China, then we will buy you out.
In May 1994 Clinton awards MFN status to China. This then gives legal sanction for Wall Street to start funding off-shoring.
Former public commons and Industry built up with American ingenuity and effort, are then lifted to Asia to be monetized. This allows their industry to ramp quickly due to foreign inputs of know-how, labor, and capital
Wage arbitrage is taken on the China price vs American price. As goods are exported back to the U.S., they enter the market at a price just low enough to unseat American mainstreet, yet still make maximum profit on wage difference (arbitrage).
Dock workers are paid skim, and so are retail and trucking. This keeps them quiet while American mainstreet industry is hollowed out. In the meantime, asset owners on wall street – say those with 401K’s appear to be growing. This action makes wall- street look like a profiting hero, but mainstreet U.S. actually becomes a zero.
Wealth is much more than money. Money is just an exchange medium. Losing jobs to then fund Oligarchy is a loss of wealth.
Apple is just one more player, playing the game. Wall Street and private banks have parasitized the U.S., so it no longer acts in its own best interests.
The “credit” international is the money power parasite that controls the U.S.
TSMC is funded by recycled Taiwanese tax dollars. Global Foundaries (GF) is funded by a Sovereign fund out of Dubai, which in turn is recycled petrodollars.
The entire semiconductor industry is not a level playing field. Sadly, has this technology been harnessed to benefit American Labor (improving productivity), then the U.S. would be “by far” the world-beating economy now.
www.sovereingmoney.eu
Okay so this right here is absolutely fucking brilliant. No sarc here, I mean brilliant. Really really good. Best comment in months -- no years.
Fortunately, by implementing TPP this all will be rectified. Why sure it will, CNBC said so.
"The big problem here is that the US lacks an industrial policy. China, Taiwan and Korea’s governments very clearly understand the economic importance of high-tech design and production. The US government… not so much."
Well said, and very, very true.
The US has let it's manufacturing base be pissed away without so much as a whimper. Shift that, just a bit, the total employed will shift upwards. Continue and I fear for what will happen...
apple makes me sick. what makes me sicker is my company only supports mobile on an IPhone so i've been forced to have one since the 4. i now hae a 6 and it'll be the last penny i ever give these scumbags since my company finally got around to supporting some android phones.
China helps Wall Street target U.S. industry.
China has four large state banks. These State Banks issue loans (credit) targeted at industries they want.
The former Solar-Cell industry of U.S. is a good example. By targeting what they want with new loans, engineers and industry from America are re-located to Chinese soil.
New solar cell manufacturers are then allowed to compete in China, and may the best player win. At some point, one or two winners will emerge.
The losers will be pruned, and their loans forgiven. Winners may even have their loans forgiven; a state bank has loan forgiveness jubilee power.
When a credit loan is forgiven, former credit as money loses its debt association. These former Yuans once destined for destruction in a banker ledger, are now set free to float in money supply. The debt instrument was ripped up, so the credit money no longer is grabbed out of money supply to pay down loan.
In effect, former loan was credit which channeled into a specific industry, to then gain strategic advantage. By buying former industry from U.S., China gains knowledge quickly; much of this knowledge was gained cheaply on the backs of American taxpayers through their public funding.
American’s become less than a zero as they are doubly screwed.
Yuan’s set free are effectively debt free money. This debt free money grows Yuan money supply at a rate commensurate with improved Chinese productivity and wealth creation.
Some of this Yuan debt free money is used to trade for dollars. Excess dollars are held by Chinese manufacturers earned in trade surplus. These dollars become held by a State Bank after trade with Yuans. State Banks then turn around and buy TBills with the dollars. Note that China buys debt, but not American main-street goods. Trade is imbalanced.
Buying T-Bills puts American’s in debt relation to China. Now it’s a triple screw job.
Buying TBills holds the bond price high, and hence interest rates low. New TBills issued by Treasury may be bought by China, thus directly funding U.S. government. When bond price is held high that means dollar is held high.
This is currency manipulation, which signals that American industry is healthy, when it is not. Quadruple Screw Job.
American labor then takes their artificial “high value dollars” and buys more Chinese crap, thus further disenfranchising American main- street from its ability to produce. More industry is lifted in wage arbitrage as the wage gap remains due to currency manipulation. Government likes being funded and thus the ability to pay off Military Industrial Security Complex, and buying votes.
Credit as money does not have good feedback. It is not the medium that should be used to run an economy.
www.sovereignmoney.eu
"greed".. What is whining about jobs, etc.. when we can flip on and off the lights and take a shit whenever we feel like it and the africans can't even take two steps without their shack blowing over... You know, once all the fanatical morons get zeroed, either the psyco-fanatical or smoke-blowing ones, you know, authoritarian/liberal.. When the fucking libertarian psychologists finally realize our boys can't shoot worth a shit compared to the 7.62 shooting 47 packing religious apes... What I'm trying to say is, it's all good till the shit hits the fan.
APPLE: The Leona Helmsley of the business world, "Taxes are for small businesses."
Apple owes no one a "fair share" or any share of its income. Taxation is theft. They don't owe anyone a job either. This type of thinking arises from a obsession with lines drawn by politicians that have no bearing on reality. Labor is a commodity that is bought and sold on the world market, just like anything else. Just because you live on one side of an imaginary line you are not owed anything by anyone.
"Dodging" taxes is a noble act and one of the most common profession among the American founders.
If you don't like Apple, don't buy their products (I don't, but not because of their business practices).