Apple is now richer than America
- Thread starter Hero in a half shell
- Start date
Recommended Videos
I think this is a measure of people's collective vanity.
Seriously, Apple make nothing that is technically any better than its rivals...
But oooo look a shiny pretty thing lets buy it!
Seriously, Apple make nothing that is technically any better than its rivals...
But oooo look a shiny pretty thing lets buy it!
I think it works just fine. It's the government that doesn't work... -_-Simalacrum said:
I mean, really. They just voted to raise the debt cap again. But... it's the cap. It's the limit. It's there for a reason, to tell you when to STOP, that you're spending TOO MUCH MONEY. But then they just raise it and keep going...
What's the point of even having it?
It works in theory, much like communism does. You look at the world today and how corporations have more power than the government, and it certainly doesn't seem to be working in practice.Averant said:
And no, the US government is still split on the issue is it not? The Senate rejected the bill passed in the house of representatives.
gamezombieghgh said:
Whoops, in my defence a billion has 2 different values, the long scale, which is a million million, and the short scale, which is a thousand million. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BillionUberaDpmn said:
I just chose the wrong scale, silly me, but when you get to that amount of money it's pretty impossible to comprehend it.
Cash on hand is a worthless number. If there's a millionaire who left home without his wallet, and a homeless man meets him on the street with a dollar in his can, the homeless man's cash on hand is greater than the millionaire.
But for all those ragging on the US for their debt, here's something for you to chew on:
US debt: 14.3 trillion, 45,000 per citizen in USD.
Australia: 1.1 trillion, 53,000 per citizen in USD.
EU debt: 13.7 trillion, 28,000 per citizen in USD. (not bad!)
UK debt: 8.9 trillion, 144,000 per citizen in USD. (WHAT!)
China: 406 BILLION, only 303 per person in USD.
Countries with ZERO debt: Macau, Brunei, Liechtenstein, Palau. Good job guys!
But for all those ragging on the US for their debt, here's something for you to chew on:
US debt: 14.3 trillion, 45,000 per citizen in USD.
Australia: 1.1 trillion, 53,000 per citizen in USD.
EU debt: 13.7 trillion, 28,000 per citizen in USD. (not bad!)
UK debt: 8.9 trillion, 144,000 per citizen in USD. (WHAT!)
China: 406 BILLION, only 303 per person in USD.
Countries with ZERO debt: Macau, Brunei, Liechtenstein, Palau. Good job guys!
Well, to be honest the point of "hoarding" all that money is for the company to continue on as an institution/legacy in it's own right. If it gives it all to charities then by definition the money is gone and the company ceases to be that powerful, and a multinational corperation like Apple becoming more powerful than major nations has been an endgame for a lot of them for a long time, and the subject of various dystopian future novels like those written by guys like William Gibson, which in turn inspired works like Cyberpunk 2020, and Shadowrun.Hero in a half shell said:
Personally, I have mixed feelings about things. On principle I do not like the idea of punishing the rich for their success, and taking more money from them because they do better than everyone else. I do not agree with liberals who argue for "billionaire hunting" so to speak. at the same time I do find situations like the one with Apple kind of ridiculous, and I think provisions need to be created for situations like that, Apple uses the US Markets and honestly when the company is worth more than it's parent nation I think that's a good sign that Uncle Sam isn't demanding big enough of a cut.
Honestly though I think these numbers are also deceptive, and used for a political point, so it's probably irrelevent. The US budget is measured in trillions, the liquid assets right now are doubtlessly AFTER the US has spent it's budget on other programs like the military.
As far as the US goverment not funding the space program, and why it doesn't give it to private industry, people, especially those leaning left (the few that don't think it's a waste) miss a big part of the point. Going up into space represents a threat to various nations because you could be doing anything in the sky above their heads. It's possible to inspect satellites before launch to an extent, but guys going up in manned missions could be doing anything up there in theory, and modifying those satellites. As a result everyone is paranoid of everyone else's space prescence. Back when it was the USA and the USSR the "space race" seemed exciting, but I think people underestimate the paranoia it engendered, and with the Cold War open there is a lot of diplomatic action to prevent the richest nations from taking over space since it's not a situation where every people can have a piece of the sky. Not to mention the whole issue of what you put in orbit over a nation, and the right of a nation to consider space over their country part of their airspace (so to speak) and how to police it.
Do a search for China, Satellites, Lasers (the keywords) I've mentioned this before. you'll find that since 2006 China has been developing ground based lasers designed to blind satellites (like a computer guided laser pointer) and other things. China has also been developing a space program and there has been kind of a standoff between it and the US. One of the reasons why we haven't created a next-gen shuttle apparently is that if we do China is going to do more besides "develop" theirs and next thing you know we will be in an orbital arms race.
With all of this garbage between nations it's pretty obvious why nobody wants to let private industry up there on a serious level, since companies can basically become the pupppets/fronts for goverments easily. Besides you at least have some control/influance over goverments in most cases, you don't have influance over corperations who nowadays might be located all over the world. The US or China with missles in space might be able to be reasoned with to some extent, someone like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates with orbital death rays or missles is more likely to leverage them for profit, and would be far more difficult to stop. If say Apple said "The Jobstar now has radiation dispersers and missles armed with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons aimed at earth, all nations will now pay 10% of their GNP to my coffers. If they fail to do so they will be destroyed" folloed by Steve Jobs getting himself a thin mustache, a black cape and cowel, and marrying a new supermodel every other week using the same marriage vows from the end of Flash Gordan.... it's nice to say that the world would unite against him, but realistically that wouldn't happen since half the world would toady up to him, and really with Apple spread all over the world how do you actually attack it anyway without gutting the world and destroying it anyway before he could fire, not to mention how do you find out what mansion-bunker God-Emperor Jobs is actually in?
It sounds silly and I'm exagerrating for the sake of lame humor (and this is too long for a side point as well, I know), but the point is that people HAVE thought of issues like this and there are no real good solutions.
Incidently that is one of the reasons why I am such a bastard and talk about the need to unite the world under a single goverment. Something that could be done in part through the spread of ideas, but will also involve the eradication of entire cultures and the deaths of billions for the sake of the people that will come later. Simply put the future of humanity lies in space, and we need the resources (minerals and such) very badly as it is, mining the astroid belt is rapidly becoming a nessecity. I could go into all the reasons why, but the bottom line is that to get to that point we can't have seperate nations because as long as we do simple paranoia is going to mean that everyone is going to be afraid of what everyone else is doing up there. It's not a nice thing, but sadly that's just the way it is.
At any rate, I think the relative budgets are exagerrated, but still I think there does need to be some increased tariffs charged on companies like Apple in such a fashion that they can't just pass the price onto the consumers. It should be done through operations/sales/market taxes though for doing business in our markets, not in the sense of a general income tax. I think the US is generally too generous in the way we let big business use our markets, especially when it comes to foreign goods, and goods produced by US companies in foreign countries (which is largely what Apple seems to do).
Khada said:
I'd say that it depends upon the country but apparently Britain has changed to match the American number, naturally I am going to either ignore this or pretend it didn't happen.UberaDpmn said:
This is all fine and dandy in theory, but how would goods be made and sold without incentive? The whole world isn't going to go hold hands and make of the goods that we want. Why was the PC invented? Money. If you genuinely look at it,(almost) all the technology made is for money. We would have no reason otherwise. So yes, it is a necessary evil.Shadow-Phoenix said:
