NYT report: Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class

I would think -- don't hold me to this, but I am pretty sure this is correct -- that it's a wash (at best) in such a situation. The payroll tax rate (S.S. + Medicare) is 7.65%. But payroll taxes are taken out before a firm's net income -- upon which corporate taxes are based -- is calculated, and the lowest corporate tax bracket is 15%.

 

But as well documented Apple shelters a lot of their profits through their overseas operating units. In 2010 P & L shows that they kept $30 billion off shore. Their financial statement shows that they paid $4.5 billion in Federal taxes for 2010.

However you slice it, it's clear that it would be better overall for the country if Apple had those 500,000 employees working on their payroll in the USA.

 

If only Jobs hadn't invented taking jobs overseas!

 

Don't blame the player; blame the game. Corporations have exploited the world economy because they can, aided by the politicians whose steadfast allegiance they've bought as well as the generally lazy and selfish American consumer.

Expansion of the Fair Trade movement and vastly improving international and domestic labor standards is a better long-term option than protectionism when it comes to ensuring the ability of US workers to compete in a world economy and an upwardly mobile middle class. Ultimately, people need to take ownership of the issue through better educated consumerism.

Want to help preserve solid working class jobs in America? Buy an American-made car. Buy pair of US-made New Balance sneakers. Refuse to purchase foreign-made products manufactured with inferior labor standards. Maybe wait until June for your blueberries so you can purchase them from New Jersey instead of New Zealand.

That type of consumer activity says a lot more about your sense of patriotism than wearing a fucking flag pin on your lapel.

 

Certainly he did not invent it but perhaps raised it to an art form.

It's not just Apple. Certainly their are plenty of other companies that do the same such as GE.

It's just ironic because Apple is perceived to be such a socially responsible organization. No doubt that the Occupy Wall Street folks are sending out missives portraying Wall Steet as the anti Christ on their Mac books.

 

A flag pin made in China no doubt.

 

I think there's a little projection at work here about how certain people feel about certain products. Is Dell the computer of the GOP? Chevy a Republican car?

 

I guess I'll (as usual) have to be the lone voice in favor of shipping jobs overseas.

The problem with our economy isn't the jobs that go overseas (and the jobs lost to increases in productivity, which are more numerous but harder to complain about). The problem is our utter stagnation and failure to replace them with any real new industries.

Industries going away as we find more efficient means of producing things is the natural order of economies. It's a good thing. It's a cliche, but nobody mourns the fact that there are no more buggy-whip factories. The assembly line put a lot of skilled craftsmen out of work during the Industrial Revolution, but society made massive gains because of it.

It's sort of like PEDs in baseball. They were rampant and nobody cared, until the balance got out of whack and it caused HR records to fall. Jobs being lost to more efficient means of production has always been a fact of life, but it didn't seem so bad until the balance was upset by a lack of new jobs being created.

 

The GOP does not use computers. That is what assistants are for.

 

Miss Hinsley, gas up the jet! And fetch my computing device! We're off to Davos!

 

OK, I see your point, because a net increase in corporate income as a result of outsourcing decisions does not automatically translate into a proportionate increase in corporate income tax liability. On the other hand, an improvement in corporate income does result, in general, in a stock price increase, leading Apple's investors to pay a larger amount in capital gains taxes when they cash out Apple stock (which of late has been the only way to profit from Apple stock, since the firm hasn't paid a dividend in close to 20 years).

Although I question some of your calculations -- to make your numbers work you have to assume that Apple pays its average manufacturing employee something on the order of $300,000 in wages alone -- I understand full well how hard it is to get a clear grip on some of this from afar (as we all are). Nevertheless, I don't think it's clear that the country would be better off if those jobs were here rather than in China.

 

I'm not a whiner by nature, so don't worry about it. I certainly don't blame others for my plight in life.