Apple Nearly Worth 1 Trillion Dollars

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Swatson said:

>be ltt forums
>someone shits on apple
>no one jerks off any company
>posts snide greentext to feel like he's won an argument

 

It’s only funny when it’s true 

 

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

Thats because the point was already made that Apple is pretty much the worst offender for tax evasion, yet aren't being taken to court over it like Google has. The projection seems more like it's okay for Apple to do it, yet LTT forums shits all over MS or Google for anything else.

I guess we're supposed to praise Apple for ripping off people with insane margins and offshoring profits to screw over consumers even more.

If it’s the cheeky Apple vs Google vs Microsoft, let’s bring up Privacy issues.

 

At the end of the day people buy what they want and it’s their choice and I gave up a long time (1-week) ago convincing people otherwise. It’s always the same argument and it’s pretty hard to change people’s minds. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Swatson said:

>be ltt forums
>someone shits on apple
>no one jerks off any company
>posts snide greentext to feel like he's won an argument

 

It’s only funny when it’s true 

 

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

Thats because the point was already made that Apple is pretty much the worst offender for tax evasion, yet aren't being taken to court over it like Google has. The projection seems more like it's okay for Apple to do it, yet LTT forums shits all over MS or Google for anything else.

I guess we're supposed to praise Apple for ripping off people with insane margins and offshoring profits to screw over consumers even more.

If it’s the cheeky Apple vs Google vs Microsoft, let’s bring up Privacy issues.

 

At the end of the day people buy what they want and it’s their choice and I gave up a long time (1-week) ago convincing people otherwise. It’s always the same argument and it’s pretty hard to change people’s minds. 

[abazigal]

Man, this thread sure is salty. 

[IntMD]

FYI to everyone yapping about tax and its lack of being paid by anyone. It's tax avoidance, not tax evasion. One is generally legal ways to reduce your tax liability & the other is basically hiding the money and not declaring it is your money to the government for example (generally, there are exceptions to this being illegal if you're in certain places) so that you don't have to pay tax on it. 

 

They are in general pretty different things, just sometimes with similar outcomes.

[Amazonsucks]

3 hours ago, asus killer said:

tax evasion, child labor, almost slave labor with anti suicide nets, selling stupidly overpriced products, making products obsolete on purpose with bad warranties, no repair, no parts, making it as hard as possible to repair, makes one very rich. 

Harvard Case Study incoming.

 

Good for them the world is for the smart people, natural selection and all that. And.. There is one born every day.

Hey you beat me to it. Apple was for computer and technologically illiterate kids when i was a kid and nothings changed. Now its also for people who dont care about slavery and other moral atrocities.

[Amazonsucks]

9 minutes ago, IntMD said:

FYI to everyone yapping about tax and its lack of being paid by anyone. It's tax avoidance, not tax evasion. One is generally legal ways to reduce your tax liability & the other is basically hiding the money and not declaring it is your money to the government for example (generally, there are exceptions to this being illegal if you're in certain places) so that you don't have to pay tax on it. 

 

They are in general pretty different things, just sometimes with similar outcomes.

https://youtu.be/wpEaFmK3lrY

[thexzenon]

People need to keep in mind. Being worth 1 trillion dollars does not mean they actually have that much in cash reserves, those are different things and some of those who commented seem to not understand this. 

 

OT: As someone who doesn’t own stock, I dont’t really care, but damn that’s a large number

[asus killer]

 

1 hour ago, IntMD said:

FYI to everyone yapping about tax and its lack of being paid by anyone. It's tax avoidance, not tax evasion. One is generally legal ways to reduce your tax liability & the other is basically hiding the money and not declaring it is your money to the government for example (generally, there are exceptions to this being illegal if you're in certain places) so that you don't have to pay tax on it. 

 

They are in general pretty different things, just sometimes with similar outcomes.

if it were legal as you say they wouldn't be fined, have to pay and contest a court decision to pay 15.4 bilion in back taxes. The rest is semantics

 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/4/16736114/apple-ireland-european-union-order-back-taxes-agreement

[Sauron]

8 hours ago, themaniac said:

what... the... fuck...

I mean it is apple so its not a huge surprise that they are worth a shit ton, but nearly 1 trillion seriously!?!?!?!?!!?!

Yeah, turns out if you sell your products at a 70% profit margin you end up making a lot of money. They have about 5% of the phone market and 80% of the profits. iPhones are relatively cheap to produce (once you get past the comparatively cheap design phase) and they get new features as slowly as possible (e.g. the rumoured upcoming dual sim support - which has been on even low end android phones for so long it's not even funny), then they are sold as luxory items. Even if only a fraction of the market buys them they're still cash cows.

8 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

I guess this is due to the fact that they have very good sales of the iPhone. In fact, Apple sells more iPhones than Macs. 

Oh, a LOT more iPhones than macs. They have been orders of magnitude more profitable ever since they started selling mobile devices.

[IntMD]

2 minutes ago, asus killer said:

 

if it were legal as you say they wouldn't be fined, have to pay and contest a court decision to pay 15.4 bilion in back taxes. The rest is semantics

 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/4/16736114/apple-ireland-european-union-order-back-taxes-agreement

lol, mkay. You may wish to re-read that article, if you're going to quote it to try and support what you said above...

[asus killer]

33 minutes ago, IntMD said:

lol, mkay. You may wish to re-read that article, if you're going to quote it to try and support what you said above...

i read it, did you? it wasn't legal and i don't care what you call it, like i already said.

[Brooksie359]

9 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

Just like a government decides to allow loopholes to exist. Just because you view it as different doesn't change the fact that the tax code doesn't. 

I think for companies it would be more akin to abusing a return policy or some other practice they have. The thing about loopholes is they are unintended by nature. If it isn't unintended then it isn't a loophole. Like let's say valve for example has the 2 hour return policy so people start buying small indie games that are relatively cheap but also have short playthroughs and complete the game and refund it afterwards. It may not be illegal but it is pretty crappy thing to do. Going and abusing loopholes in the tax code isn't really a fair thing to do. If you are making money in a country you should pay taxes on it. I understand why apple does it but it doesn't make it ok. 

[handymanshandle]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Yeah, turns out if you sell your products at a 70% profit margin you end up making a lot of money. They have about 5% of the phone market and 80% of the profits. iPhones are relatively cheap to produce (once you get past the comparatively cheap design phase) and they get new features as slowly as possible (e.g. the rumoured upcoming dual sim support - which has been on even low end android phones for so long it's not even funny), then they are sold as luxory items. Even if only a fraction of the market buys them they're still cash cows.

Oh, a LOT more iPhones than macs. They have been orders of magnitude more profitable ever since they started selling mobile devices.

Who in the hell uses dual SIM? Lol

I know in some countries they do but in America at least? No one here uses as far as I'm aware. Well maybe some do but most don't.

[TVwazhere]

Fun fact: Apple might be about to reach $1 trillion, but they're not the most valued company in history. That title belongs to the Dutch East India Company, back in the 1600's

 

[Brooksie359]

9 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

As far as the law goes, if you can’t definitely prove it’s illegal, it’s legal. 

 

So if shareholders of any company start demanding said company move money to offshore accounts, then it’s legal and they are obligated to do it. They can say no, but there will likely be consequences and possibly a hostile takeover. 

That's a load of crap. Yeah and companies are obligated to give their employees crap wages and poor working conditions because it saves money and they are "legally obligated to do it". 

[D13H4RD]

In other words, welcome to corporations 

[captain_to_fire]

When people throw shit at Apple for making a lot of money, here’s probably how Apple will respond: 

[captain_to_fire]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Oh, a LOT more iPhones than macs. They have been orders of magnitude more profitable ever since they started selling mobile devices.

And that’s why they made iTunes compatible to Windows 

[79wjd]

41 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I think for companies it would be more akin to abusing a return policy or some other practice they have. The thing about loopholes is they are unintended by nature. If it isn't unintended then it isn't a loophole. Like let's say valve for example has the 2 hour return policy so people start buying small indie games that are relatively cheap but also have short playthroughs and complete the game and refund it afterwards. It may not be illegal but it is pretty crappy thing to do. Going and abusing loopholes in the tax code isn't really a fair thing to do. If you are making money in a country you should pay taxes on it. I understand why apple does it but it doesn't make it ok. 

When a loophole knowingly exists for decades it's no longer unintended; at the end of the day, the government is choosing to leave the exemptions in place.

[Sauron]

55 minutes ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

Who in the hell uses dual SIM? Lol

I know in some countries they do but in America at least? No one here uses as far as I'm aware. Well maybe some do but most don't.

Plenty of people use different SIM cards to have separate personal and work phone numbers. If people don't do that in the US that doesn't mean they won't elsewhere... the world doesn't revolve around the US. Besides, if you are only basing yourself on your immediate surroundings you hardly have the numbers to claim people don't do that in the US at large...

[Sauron]

27 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

When a loophole knowingly exists for decades it's no longer unintended; at the end of the day, the government is choosing to leave the exemptions in place.

I want to answer that but I'd get very political, very quickly 

 

Let's just say that governments can be steered by lobbies and those in charge don't always want what's best for their people - and in those situations, some people with a lot of money may steer their decision to create profitable loopholes. Abusing one's monetary power to profit off of legal loopholes, at the expense of tax paying citizens, is hardly a moral thing to do.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I want to answer that but I'd get very political, very quickly 

 

Let's just say that governments can be steered by lobbies and those in charge don't always want what's best for their people - and in those situations, some people with a lot of money may steer their decision to create profitable loopholes. Abusing one's monetary power to profit off of legal loopholes, at the expense of tax paying citizens, is hardly a moral thing to do.

The exemptions still exist regardless of the reasons. The government is still choosing to allow them. 

 

And again, companies are no different in this regard than the rest of the population. 99% of people will do the same thing -- they will take advantage of any money saving method as long as it nets them an overall benefit. The difference is that individuals don't view companies the same way as other people -- it's the same reason why people are more willing to steal from big companies than they are from individuals.

[Fasterthannothing]

10 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

A product or item is only worth as much as people are willing to pay for it. Just because you don’t believe a specific item isn’t worth the asking price doesn’t mean that millions of others agree with you. 

 

Apple sells their products at the prices they ask for them, meaning at the very least, they are worth it to some people. 

I understand that people value things differently than I do that's fine. What I don't like is them acting like their products cost that much and pretend they don't have huge margins on their products (which would help accurately show the true value of the products). Take for example in Linus's video on repairing the iMac they charge like 3/4 the price of the iMac just for the board that insane.They literally mark up replacement parts to make it seem like their stuff is worth that much.

[MEC-777]

What a complete joke.

 

Proof that marketing works. 

[handymanshandle]

58 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Plenty of people use different SIM cards to have separate personal and work phone numbers. If people don't do that in the US that doesn't mean they won't elsewhere... the world doesn't revolve around the US. Besides, if you are only basing yourself on your immediate surroundings you hardly have the numbers to claim people don't do that in the US at large...

No, but Apple is an American company so it's not that hard to expect them to not put dual SIM in their phones.