Since84
Moderator
To infinity and beyond!
Posts: 3,933
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Post by Since84 on Nov 22, 2016 3:22:16 GMT -8
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Post by Apple II+ on Nov 22, 2016 7:01:42 GMT -8
And what the hell is wrong with benefiting investors? The entire point of a corporation is to enrich them. Since when? Take Apple for example. Apple exists to enrich us? I don't think so.
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Post by tuffett on Nov 22, 2016 7:17:16 GMT -8
And what the hell is wrong with benefiting investors? The entire point of a corporation is to enrich them. Since when? Take Apple for example. Apple exists to enrich us? I don't think so. Exactly. Investors are just a thorn in Apple's side.
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chinacat
Moderator
AAPL Long since 2006
Posts: 4,431
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Post by chinacat on Nov 22, 2016 7:31:20 GMT -8
And what the hell is wrong with benefiting investors? The entire point of a corporation is to enrich them. Since when? Take Apple for example. Apple exists to enrich us? I don't think so. While I have to agree with JD (undoubtedly causing confusion and regret in his mind), I think what is being missed in this discussion is the "how." Do I doubt that the Board and Apple executives are fully committed to increasing the value of the company and thereby that of their own holdings? I would be very surprised to find that not to be true of any publicly held company, and of course privately held ones, too. IMHO, what has made Apple different from most is that the approach taken in order to make that happen is to focus on making great products in order to do so, rather than cutting costs in areas such as salaries, materials and quality. YMMV
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Post by tuffett on Nov 22, 2016 8:04:21 GMT -8
Making great products and being shareholder friendly are not mutually exclusive. Apple is doing better of late, but it came about from a ton of pressure, not from their own volition.
I'd also argue that the "greatness" of their products is markedly less than it was 5 or 10 years ago. Still best in class for the most part, but the gap is steadily narrowing.
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Post by gtrplyr on Nov 22, 2016 16:16:30 GMT -8
Trump says Tim Cook from Apple called him, so did Bill Gates. 0 replies 152 retweets 112 likes Max Pain 110 It's the new reality ... like it or not he won. We have to try and make the best of it and I have the utmost respect for a guy like Tim reaching out. I'm not sure where you heard Tim called him ... if it came from him , which is what I'm assuming , it would be par for the course to mention this to add to his already overinflated ego. People with class would keep such information private ....
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JDSoCal
Member
Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,185
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Post by JDSoCal on Nov 22, 2016 17:06:21 GMT -8
Nothing is wrong with benefiting investors .... BUT the idea was that having a tax holiday would bring back money which in turn would would get companies to bring back manufacturing jobs. Why ? I have no idea and it won't do a damn thing to bring back manufacturing jobs. That's the point of the article and I agree with them, politics aside, I don't see any reason Apple should manufacture certain products here .... frankly I don't even think it's possible. Once again .... people in this country who are waiting for the "jobs to come back" are going to be sorely disappointed. Surprise ... Surprise. I agree. But I don't think that is, or ought to be, the main point given for a repatriation discount. I think the main point ought to be that bringing back that much capital to the USA, thus making it [more] available for investments in the USA, could potentially result in the creation of NEW and different jobs here. And lest people make the flippant comment that "it's mostly going to end up as stock buybacks anyway", so what? Whether the cash remains in the company's hand to invest somewhere, or in the hands of the folks who sold their stock in the buyback, it will still eventually be invested into something here. Thought I'd move this discussion to today. I just reject the Keynesian premise in the first place, that a corporation is supposed to be a jobs program or pro-social in general (instead of specifically for those who scrimped and sacrificed to invest instead of spending for short-term gratification, i.e., moral incentive). If anything, the measure progress in an industry is for it to require less labor to do the same job. Of course, dropping billions into the hands of the investor class surely is better for the economy than it idling away overseas - not to mention, better than borrowing hundreds of billions in some dumb stimulus package that had no effect other than to add a trillion to the national debt. Eventually, investor money will enter the economy as both taxes and spending. It's how I bought my house. I trust myself and my investor brethren more than I do the government to do what's right with my money. And I totally reject this nonsense about how our economy's health should be viewed solely through the consumption/spending metric. I know that 70% of our GDP is consumption (much of which is borrowed). We were a much stronger economy when we were a save-and-invest country instead of a borrow-and-spend one. See how having a ton of debt instead of savings works out for you when you are 85 and assisted living is $85,000/yr. Social "Security" and Medicare won't help you then.
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JDSoCal
Member
Aspiring oligarch
Posts: 4,185
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Post by JDSoCal on Nov 22, 2016 17:13:00 GMT -8
And what the hell is wrong with benefiting investors? The entire point of a corporation is to enrich them. Since when? Take Apple for example. Apple exists to enrich us? I don't think so. Of course it does. It's called a fiduciary duty. Tim Cook himself has a fiduciary duty to us as an inside director of Apple. That doesn't mean they don't try to make great products and services and be customer-centric. But we own Apple, not the Board, not Apple Store employees, not customers, and certainly not the government or society as a whole. You think Steve Jobs was just interested in soldering circuit boards to share with Woz's geek friends when he incorporated, and when he took Apple public? No, he wanted to be a billionaire. But there's a legal duty you take on when you go public and raise billions of other people's money - there's a catch.
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