[dba-Tech] Apple's move to Ireland

Arthur Fuller fuller.artful at gmail.com
Sun Nov 29 02:55:12 CST 2015


Got to call you on this one, Rocky. The notion that the purpose of a
corporation is to maximize shareholder value was created in 1974 by tow
Harvard economists. Prior to that event, the purpose of a corporation was
to maximize community value. Look it up. I am correct on this.

Being a leftist, I tend toward the former definition. But that's just me,
and I realize that. There;s no way to build automobiles in the absence of
corporations, but that is not to say that the purpose of GM and Ford and
Hyundai is to maximize profits. The purpose of these companies is to
deliver products for the minimal cost to the maximum number of people, for
the least amount of environmental footprint. Yes, this last clause I added,
but that is the new world that we inhabit, and this realization extends
from coffee to vegetables to automobiles. And we have to grow used to this
new way of regarding the planet.

One very radical thing that I would suggest is a worldwide wage-equality,
so that it becomes impossible to export jobs from America to Malaysia, so
that it makes economic sense to keep these jobs in the USA and Canada
rather than exporting them. There is an ancillary issue, which is probably
tougher to deal with: nations that offer tax-deals to foreign corporations
who choose to locate there. The ugly villain in this case would be Apple,
which has just chosen to move its HQ to Ireland, and thus escape billions
of taxes otherwise owed to USA.

This is wrong wrong wrong. You can call it the Spirit of Capitalism, but it
is wrong wrong wrong, and it should be stopped, retroactively.


On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 8:01 PM, Rocky Smolin <rockysmolin at bchacc.com>
wrote:

> Let's start with legislation.  The companies aren't doing anything wrong.
> Their job is to maximize shareholder value.
>
> Why would a company voluntarily choose to not take advantage of something
> that could save them tens of millions of dollars which at the same time
> would put them at a competitive disadvantage.
>
> The companies are the wrong targets - they're doing what they were designed
> to do - act in the interest of the owners - just like you would if you were
> running a bakery.
>
> The true target of your angst should be the Congress which made the laws
> that allows these inversions.
>
> BTW - do they have the same thing going on in Canada?
>
> And are you going to sell those shares?
>
> r
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-Tech [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of
> Arthur Fuller
> Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2015 4:50 PM
> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
> Subject: [dba-Tech] Apple's move to Ireland
>
> I own a few shares of Apple. This move to landing the company off-shore to
> Ireland disgusts me. I'm not sure how to fix this; let's start with the HQ
> should be based on the amount of revenue generated by any given country,
> There are probably flaws in this simplistic solution, but it's a start. A
> way larger solution would involve all the nations coming together on a
> uniform tax deal so it would not benefit any company moving its headquaters
> to somewhere else. I doubt that this is going to happen, since many nations
> see only the short-term prospects. But I remain in the hope that we can
> view
> the big picture. Yes, I am naive.
>
> --
> Arthur
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-- 
Arthur


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