Tuco, I don't understand. We don't pay laborers enough, but we keep sending jobs out of the country because we can pay laborers less? Make up your mind.

Done. ng,ng

Difficulty score 14.

the eu fining Ireland highlights the biggest problem we face in the west. Companies are using the different tax systems and inducements to avoid paying their fair share. I see people in the US are complaining as they may end up footing the tax bill, but if Apple can seriously morally justify paying 0.05% in tax I'd like to hear it.'

If governments only received 0.05% tax who would pay for the roads, health, eduction, disability pensions, etc etc.

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It was legal. Does that justify it? Or would you like to change the tax laws after the fact as the EU is doing?

So how do you justify fining Apple for following the tax laws?

Companies, like all of us do business where they can save money. I doubt you shop at the store with the highest prices just so you can pay your fair share.

Next time you buy an iPhone offer them an extra 10 or 20% so they can pay their fair share in taxes.

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@drwho appple did NOT follow the tax laws. They did NOT pay their fair share. That is the whole point. There have been similar cases in the past in Europe, Starbucks in the Netherlands f.i.

Because drwho Apple is already ripping off the consumer and the people who make them by charging the exorbitant price they already get for their garbage products. How about Apple passes their labor savings on to the consumer

I gladly pay 20% more for good service. And I gladly pay $33 a month to support a Labor Union that does nothing for me. Join the IWW. One Big Union!!! Happy Labor Day!!!! Workers of the World, UNITE!!! Don't mourn, ORGANIZE!!!

You actually made a very good point drwho except your looking at it from a greed perspective. If making the Iphone overseas and not here in the U.S saves the consumer money, then why aren't Iphones and MacBooks cheaper than Dell or HP? Because they pass the savings onto the shareholders and board members all the while being on of the most PROFITABLE companies of all time. We are all paying at least 10 to 20% more for that Iphone than what it is worth. Those of us who are gullible enough to believe that they are getting their moneys worth buying Apple. Personally with the exception of placating my teenage daughter I will never purchase an Apple product. Yes I have used them. I have been provided 2 Mac PowerBooks by my employer over the years. However I no longer accept them. My last work provided machine is a Dell laptop I requested for the express reason of saving money. I have been a Linux user for almost 20 years now and I can not see paying Apple prices for a BSD clone in a shiny box.

Drwho: "I doubt you shop at the store with the highest prices just so you can pay your fair share." Actually, I don't pay highest prices, but I do avoid stores (read: Walmart) where the wages are so low most workers have to rely on assistance.

"what it is worth...you have this backwards. It is worth exactly what you paid for it. If it was worth less to you, then you would not have paid for it. You are confusing "worth" with "cost" or "profit margins"...profit margin is the difference between the hard and soft cost and the price which reflects the WORTH to the customer.

Companies who offer products which are NOT WORTH MUCH to customers, do not make profits (generally speaking) and they are not PROFITABLE and they go out of business.

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I didn't mean people are paying 10 -20% more than what the iPhone Costs Apple to build. I meant what is worth in the market compared to other phones. An unlocked iPhone 6 has a starting price of $649, Apples manufacturing costs are said to be $200.

The phone is worth about $350 - $400 compared to comparable phones. IMO. So the consumer is paying a lot more than 10 - 20% more so they can have a rusting apple embossed on their product

Diane, good for you! Walmart employs many people who would not have a job otherwise. B.T.W. if you think Walmart or some evil capitalist somewhere sets wages you art

...you are mistaken. Wages are determined by the market. The people who work at Walmart would work somewhere else if they could get higher wages. But Walmart is the best they can do. So boycott Walmart and maybe those people won't have a job.

And you can feel good about yourself.

Tuco, Apple is making a profit. That's how they stay in business. That's how they can afford the R&D to make the next generation of phones better. And if you think the iPhone is only worth $350-$400 you obviously haven't bought one. Why would you? It's over priced, for you. But clearly, many people disagree with your valuation of the iPhone, otherwise Apple couldn't sell them for $649+.

The only significance of the cost of manufacturing an iPhone is its relation to the market's valuation of the iPhone. Since the market values the iPhone at greater than $649 and up, Apple can afford to make them as long as their costs are less.

Yeah right, no one has ever purchased something that was over priced. No one has ever been abused by their employer by being paid sub-standard wages. What a wonderful world you live in.

In a free country you don't have to take it if you don't want to.

But again, you are assuming that you can determine what a standard or sub-standard wage is. You cannot, the market does that.

Walmart can raise the price on all their items by 10c and be able not have any of their employees qualify for food stamps. Apple could charge less for their phones and/or move the jobs back here and pay a decent wage and barely cut into their profits. Yes the shareholders may have to take a little haircut but so what? All they risk is cash. Not their sweat.

No, they risk losing customers.

Keep believing in the magical market. Using your logic we should still have child labor in the mines and a 6 day work week.

I would classify a substandard wage as anything that qualifies you for public assistance if you are working 40 hours a week.

Keep believing in a planned market and we will all be standing in line for fruit and other staples at the grocery store, just like they did in the old USSR.

that is a falses equivalency.

Scare tactic

Minimum wages only make more people unemployable.

The USSR was a planned economy, your wet dream.

See now you are name calling.

But you are right, we evil capitalists exploit the laborers. We get them to produce 10 times what the old soviet system could, and we pay them more and goods and services are plentiful. Oh wait, maybe its not so bad here.

Hey Mr. 2nd Amendment what do you think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v\n._Miller

Why are you bringing the Soviet Union into this?

They don't even exist anymore.

They didn't when the Labor Movement started either.

You never learn from history, do you?

Nor do you obviously. How are you a Capitalist?

Because history shows that planned economies always fail.

Who is talking about a planned economy other than you bringing it up as a scare tactic?

Better regulation is not a planned economy.

You want to set wages and prices (what else could you mean by standard wages) but if you do, you will never know what to produce. It is price that signals what is in short supply and that motivates people to produce it.

Having corporate boards consist of 40% labor is not a planned economy

I am not for setting wages. Only a wage floor. Kind of like a work week ceiling. A daily hourly ceiling. etc.

It's telling the owners of a business how to run it and who to put in charge.

No it is not.

It is part of the cost of doing business.

It is why we had a Civil War.

You obviously don't believe in freedom. You obviously don't believe in property rights.

We (The People) have the right to demand Labor is valued as highly or greater than Capital.

I totally believe in property rights.

Again, price setting.

Nope not at all.

Not if business owners cannot run their business as they see fit.

Now here is the rub. Why should a business owner be allowed to run a business that harms the People.

When Sam Walton ran Walmart he only sold U.S. made products and paid his workers a fair wage. Since he has gone his heirs and corporate board rely on the people to subsidize his workforce payroll through food stamps and medicaid.

If a business is harming you, I'm sure will avoid it. They won't stay in business for long.

That is what I am talking about. Not tethering business but reigning them in when they become a detriment to the Commons. I am a partner in a small business.

That is Ayn Rand bull crap. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

So who are all the dummies patronizing businesses that are harming them?

Personally I do avoid Walmart and your point about the people that work there is insulting and misses the point. They have to shop there because they get paid what they do.

Walmart hasn't harmed me. I don't think you could get many Walmart employees to agree with you either.

They "dummies" have no where else to go. Kind of like the mining town paradigm.

I don't work at Walmart, and I shop there because the prices are low, not because I can't afford anything else.

Talk to all the small business owners that Walmart has put out of business.

Talk to all the manufacturing employees who no longer have a job because the crap they used to make that was sold at Walmart is now made in Viet Nam, China, etc..

I worked in a shoe factory in the 70's it started happening then.

Walmart is not a manufacturer. So what is your point.

Like the gorilla glass for the Apple iPhone? That is made in China because Corning could not build a factory in time to meet Apple's demands. The reason they could not was government regulations.

Corning has their own problems. The probably couldn't do it on what Apple was willing to pay them.

And blame it on Gov regs.

I live about an hour east of Corning, NY.

Valuing Capital over Labor is the problem.

Labor creates all Wealth.

Happy Labor Day!!!!

"Labor is the true standard of value." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

And where are you getting your info about Corning? Here is what I have found concerning iPhone and Corning. http://www.recode.net/2016/7/28/12305062/appl\ne-iphone-gorilla-glass-sapphire-screens

So Corning is making the glass in China because of government regulations. Okay. Hopefully they are not one of the polluters that has turned Beijings air poisonous. But that's okay if it is. The Market will clean it up and pay for the cleanup out of the profits from the Gorilla Glass and iPhone sales and the taxes they pay. Ooops. probably not.

So drwho you accused me earlier of hating freedom and wanting a planned economy like the old Soviet Union. I guess then your idea would be to follow what the Chinese Communists are doing now. No?

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in and out :)

start

ding, nice puzzle