I meant if Apple is selling products at less than wholesale prices to Apple-brand Apple retailers (the resalers Apple owns), then that's not legal.
There are TONS of stupid rules corporations have to abide by, but on the other hand, corporations are unconstitutional anyway. They're basically tiny little branches of the government. Congress can make hordes of stupid laws governing them, and there's a reason corporations put up with it:
Limited liability, and "public" market stock exchange.
As a libertarian you should know that two wrongs never make a right, they make at least two wrongs and probably more.
I'm a rabid libertarian myself, I'm all for ending owners' limited liability. There is nothing wrong with stock market, is there?
Anyway, if a company prices their products dearer or cheaper, that has absolutely nothing to do with if it's also polluting us out of existence. Both things should be addressed: first one by making it unequivocally, permanently legal, and the second one by internalizing the costs via a tax.
That's what Apple is hoping, they want these resellers to fall flat on their face or give up. This will be the second time Apple destroyed their competition, clones anyone. Everyone hailed Steve when he came back to Apple except for the thousands of people that lost their lively hood because of the clone ax. Maybe Apple didn?t like Powercomputing, Radius, UMAX or Motorola making a better Apple then Apple, god forbid if you stand in the way of a monopolistic thinking CEO.
it's not apple's fault the resellers were doing an absolute piss poor job. if apple hadn't opened up the chain stores like they are, do you think the resellers would have? the answer to that is a big fat no. the simple truth is it takes a company like apple to get the ball rolling on something as expensive as designing, staffing, and opening 100s of stores in malls across america. none of the resellers would have had the capital to take on a project like this.
That's what Apple is hoping, they want these resellers to fall flat on their face or give up. This will be the second time Apple destroyed their competition, clones anyone. Everyone hailed Steve when he came back to Apple except for the thousands of people that lost their lively hood because of the clone ax. Maybe Apple didn?t like Powercomputing, Radius, UMAX or Motorola making a better Apple then Apple, god forbid if you stand in the way of a monopolistic thinking CEO.
Well, the problem was that Apple should NEVER have allowed clones in the first place and although it may not matter to you or others in the class action suits, Apple barely survived the clones and if it were not for the monopolisitic CEO, Apple would not exist today. Yes *some* would have lost their jobs when SJ returned and thousands more would have done so had he *not* returned- take your pick. Since then Apple products and its OS have established the benchmarks for great products. Perhaps you wouldn't mind if that all went away and then we could reap the benefits of having just Wintel! Now, imagine THAT!!!
In case you are wondering, I think Apple should pay an appropriate price for any illegalities it entered into.
First, you can sue someone for getting out of bed in the morning. The suit might not go anywhere, and the judge might come down on you for wasting the court's time, but you can do it. So this in itself doesn't mean much.
However, I've been hearing about real complaints with Apple from dealers for years, long before the first Apple Store opened. I believe the case has merit—which is not to say that the outcome is a foregone conclusion, only that I'm sure there'll be enough meat to the lawsuit for the court to give it a full hearing.
Quote:
Originally posted by kenaustus
First remember that that the charges stated were written by a lawyer that is probably being compensated with a percentage of any jury award that may be issued. Sort of like a hard driving salesman that gets a 50% commission. He's going to say any and everything he can, but it is not proven.
And the flip side of this is that no award == no money for months and years of work, which is a built-in disincentive against taking on frivolous lawsuits. It also means that a smaller claimant can't simply be drowned in legal fees by a larger defendant.
Quote:
Unfortunately for many resellers Apple has set a new standard of what a computer store should be.
True, mostly, but irrelevant. Testimony about this kind of behavior by Apple predates the existence of the Apple Stores, and the Apple Store Online, and it has allegedly continued right along.
We simply don't know enough to say where this will go. It will wind through the courts, as you put it. But I would be surprised indeed if the lawsuit were purely a desperate act by store owners unwilling to invest in brighter overhead lighting and a Swiffer. I doubt it would have gotten this far, and from what I've been hearing for years, there should be no shortage of real material evidence and testimony to bring to bear.
Apple is a corporation, and the temptations to cut corners and short people you don't really care about can be hard to resist, especially when you're powerful enough to feel that they can't hit back. It looks like we'll find out whether they succumbed to that temptation in a year or two. Or three. Or five.
I meant if Apple is selling products at less than wholesale prices to Apple-brand Apple retailers (the resalers Apple owns), then that's not legal.
Actually what you've got there isn't a legal issue so much as an accounting issue. I read a disagreement over this issue that it would be illegal for Apple to charge itself wholesale prices. Remember that wholesale price isn't 'cost' to apple, its 'cost + profit'. If Apple were to charge its own store 'cost + profit' for merchandise, you could claim that they were illegally moving money within the corportation to make Apple sales look better (vs. the complaint that it makes apple retail look better).
As for selling 'refurbished' equipment as new, there needs to be a definition of refurbished vs. used. Just because an item is returned doesn't mean it falls under a company's concept of 'refurbished', its 'returned', and unless there was something wrong with it, its still 'new'. Refurbished only technically applies to hardware that was returned due to defect, fixed, and put back on the shelf.
When dealing with Best Buy, though, I always make sure to go through the boxes and look for one that doesn't appeared to have been resealed (if its a big item), or open the box up and make sure all the pieces are there.
I meant if Apple is selling products at less than wholesale prices to Apple-brand Apple retailers (the resalers Apple owns), then that's not legal.
You actually think Apple sells itself computers??? Internal accounting does not equal sales.
Quote:
Originally posted by slughead
corporations are unconstitutional anyway.
You actually expect people to take you seriously after points like that?
Too many people get personal over business. Apple is not your friend, they are a publically held corporation who is duty bound to make money for it's shareholders. Apple will do it's best to make those shareholders happy and remain on the right side of the law, but that in no way means they have any moral responsibility to keep any particular reseller in business.
Apple will help resellers remain in business if those resellers actually show Apple they can help the bottom line, that is in Apples shareholders best interest, you sell more product that way. But whining and suing the goose that is laying the golden eggs is not a good way to show their value in helping the goose.
I have yet to see an Apple reseller that I would repeatedly buy from. That goes back 20 years. I can't remember a single one that didn't either use the "You can only get it here within 100 miles price jacking strategy" or was a sloppily run barely there front end for a mail order outfit. I don't have an ounce of sympathy for any of those folks. I do know people who do make reasonable money providing services for Apple products. They are quite happy. And not suing.
Even liberal CA senators signed up for this one making it hard to label it a conservative republican action.
Quote:
In the Senate, the new rules for class-action suits were supported by Democrats with generally liberal voting records such as Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.). They agreed with such advocates as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that waging class-action lawsuits amid a patchwork of state laws produces irrational verdicts and invites abuse by plaintiffs' attorneys filing lawsuits in certain courts known to be sympathetic to the cases, no matter if there is any particular logic to hearing the case in that jurisdiction.
That's what Apple is hoping, they want these resellers to fall flat on their face or give up. This will be the second time Apple destroyed their competition, clones anyone. Everyone hailed Steve when he came back to Apple except for the thousands of people that lost their lively hood because of the clone ax. Maybe Apple didn't like Powercomputing, Radius, UMAX or Motorola making a better Apple then Apple, god forbid if you stand in the way of a monopolistic thinking CEO.
Do yourself a favor and work for Apple. Then you'll get access to the whopping just over 300,000 Reseller buyers and just then you'd realize that the Clone Market didn't do shit to grow Apple's markets--they just cannibalized already existing Mac users.
Apple isn't Intel. Apple doesn't develop chipsets, motherboard specs and then license them to 3rd parties.
The clone market was designed around the Windows Market and by its very design was doomed to fail.
well.. sometimes corporations don't listen and legal action is required. i think some of the stuff stated in the suit is flaky, HOWEVER they site many things i know to be true which apple should be held accountable for.
You actually think Apple sells itself computers??? Internal accounting does not equal sales.
Yes, actually they do sell themselves computers.
Accounting is tricky, but basically Apple-brand Apple retail stores MUST release their net income.
Recording a lower Cost of Goods Sold (you obviously being an accountant [sarcasm] should know) is a way to scam investors.
Quote:
Originally posted by Hiro
You actually expect people to take you seriously after points like that?
If you would've read where I explained how ADVANTAGES GRANTED TO CORPORATIONS were unconstitutional.. oh wait "read" being the operative word, nevermind.
This is not an anti-capitalism thing, this is not an anti-business thing, this is not even an anti-corporate thing, this is a PRO-free market, ANTI-limited liability, and PRO-freedom thing.
Of course, why should anyone take their freedom to exact retribution on the real villians seriously...
Anyway we're way off topic. I hope I explained why you should take this seriously though. I should probably have not even mentioned it.
Quote:
Originally posted by Hiro
Too many people get personal over business. Apple is not your friend, they are a publically held corporation who is duty bound to make money for it's shareholders. Apple will do it's best to make those shareholders happy and remain on the right side of the law, but that in no way means they have any moral responsibility to keep any particular reseller in business.
They're a publicly held corporation that must operate from within the rules.
Obey the law, even if you don't respect it.
IF Apple is indeed inflating it's retail sales figures in this way, investors will drop out of the competition and invest in Apple instead.
How about that, unfair business practices. It's a case for disgorgement if nothing else.
This isn't an Apple-only issue.
Quote:
Originally posted by Hiro
Apple will help resellers remain in business if those resellers actually show Apple they can help the bottom line, that is in Apples shareholders best interest, you sell more product that way. But whining and suing the goose that is laying the golden eggs is not a good way to show their value in helping the goose.
Apple makes more money by selling its own product than having resellers do it for them.
Thus, by eliminating the competition in the reseller areas in which they can compete (IE california and wherever else they have their own stores), they are making more money.
There are ways that NON-Apple-brand Apple resellers can expand the market, such as in areas in which there is no Apple presense. Or, in the case of Macmall, people who don't want to have to pay sales tax who would otherwise not buy a mac in the first place.
The stores who are suing, however, are invading on Apple's self-proclaimed "turf" and thus Apple is allegedly screwing them.
Quote:
Originally posted by Hiro
I have yet to see an Apple reseller that I would repeatedly buy from. That goes back 20 years. I can't remember a single one that didn't either use the "You can only get it here within 100 miles price jacking strategy" or was a sloppily run barely there front end for a mail order outfit. I don't have an ounce of sympathy for any of those folks. I do know people who do make reasonable money providing services for Apple products. They are quite happy. And not suing.
So they're just mean old price gougers who deserved to be illegally destroyed anyway.
Anything to give Apple a leg up, eh?
I agree the law should be changed.. I'd change a lot of things if I could. However, rules are rules and they must be consistant if we wish to compare investment opportunities (which is the whole point of most of these regulations).
Even liberal CA senators signed up for this one making it hard to label it a conservative republican action.
I'm for eliminating all class-action law suits, not just the frivilous ones.
Such a thing will always be more corrupt than it is useful, so let's stick with 1 plaintiff like the founding fathers wanted, k?
According to most experts, however, this bill will effectively eliminate most if not ALL class actions anyway, without discriminiation between frivilous and substantive.
As a libertarian you should know that two wrongs never make a right, they make at least two wrongs and probably more.
I'm a rabid libertarian myself, I'm all for ending owners' limited liability. There is nothing wrong with stock market, is there?
I'm for keeping the stock market too, I just don't know how it could work without intense regulation though, unless we just made GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) a law, which would be nightmarish (because accounting is not nearly as exact as you think it is).
Maybe a system like now, but with no LLC's. I donno, what did Badnarik say about it? He tells me what to think.
well.. sometimes corporations don't listen and legal action is required. i think some of the stuff stated in the suit is flaky, HOWEVER they site many things i know to be true which apple should be held accountable for.
OK, you intrigue us. Examples please!
The coverage of the suit doesn't exactly paint a picture of blatant abuse. The refurb and AppleCare issues may turn out to be true legal problems, or maybe not. The rest of the points in the story sound like a sob story rather than legal problems. This is also on top of another suit by resellers that is going nowhere fast, hence making this one all to easy to color with the same brush. And Trade Secret stealing? Since when is using registration and AppleCare data stealing trade secrets of the retailers? Or do we hear head slapping as to how the customer lists get to look the same...
I'm all for the big ugly stick when something actually illegal is done, but I don't believe something is illegal just because someone doesn't like it. Give us something to work with and decide if it's jilted-lover complaining or big bad corporate abuses.
I'm for eliminating all class-action law suits, not just the frivilous ones.
Such a thing will always be more corrupt than it is useful, so let's stick with 1 plaintiff like the founding fathers wanted, k?
According to most experts, however, this bill will effectively eliminate most if not ALL class actions anyway, without discriminiation between frivilous and substantive.
I don't remember anything in the constitution about how you can file a lawsuit. Just general fair protections of our rights. Let's not go revisionist. Filing methods and their restrictions are procedural, not constitutional. I doub't the experts on either side of the issue are 100% correct either. There will still be Class action suits, it's just harder to not get tossed right away for frivoloty in a Federal Court.
I don't remember anything in the constitution about how you can file a lawsuit. Just general fair protections of our rights. Let's not go revisionist. Filing methods and their restrictions are procedural, not constitutional. I doub't the experts on either side of the issue are 100% correct either. There will still be Class action suits, it's just harder to not get tossed right away for frivoloty in a Federal Court.
Well I am not a lawyer, I just read the synopsis and it makes sense. Essentially the federal civil courts would be so flooded it would take up to a decade just to have your day in court.
If they officially banned class actions, Nader would probably finish off what's left of the democrats next election. This way, it's harder to say what they're doing, but perfectly clear what they're trying to accomplish.
BTW I didn't mention the constitution that time, I was merely talking about the general time frame. There are rules for courts that the founding fathers talked about, for instance, in the Cato papers. It's not revisionist to say that class actions are a relatively recent invention, and that the system was working "well enough" before then.
If you think about it, it makes more sense for each case to be heard, so that way there's no dispute about who owes whom and how much. Also, the real victim (if there is one) stands to gain what they lost, instead of with most class actions where they get like $100 and the laywer gets a few hundred million (like in the recent M$ state settlements).
If you think about it, it makes more sense for each case to be heard, so that way there's no dispute about who owes whom and how much. Also, the real victim (if there is one) stands to gain what they lost, instead of with most class actions where they get like $100 and the laywer gets a few hundred million (like in the recent M$ state settlements).
IANAL nor do I play in real life. And I generally agree with you until the lawsuit turns into: Consumer plaintiff with $1000 available for a lawyer to fight for $100 in damages goes up against Corporate defendant with billions in cash to pay for a lawyer. How do you go about legitimately winning a case if you can barely afford to bring it to trial?
I'm for keeping the stock market too, I just don't know how it could work without intense regulation though, unless we just made GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) a law, which would be nightmarish (because accounting is not nearly as exact as you think it is).
Would you invest in a company whose financial wellbeing you can't determine by any means? I don't think so. And that is why they will have to keep their books in order, if they expect to keep their capital.
If you can't figure out their books yourself - and obviously most people can't - then the market is able to provide the necessary services for assessing the financial state of the company and if the company is telling the truth or not. If regulations decrease, these services will be in greater demand, and consequently there will be more competition among the info vendors. The prices will decrease and quality will go up. Free market is fully capable of "regulating" itself in a question that does not include negative externalities... such as this one.
If there are no regulations, at any moment in time there will be businesses that do bad accounting, but they can't expect to get much capital when competitors significantly exceed their trustworthiness.
IANAL nor do I play in real life. And I generally agree with you until the lawsuit turns into: Consumer plaintiff with $1000 available for a lawyer to fight for $100 in damages goes up against Corporate defendant with billions in cash to pay for a lawyer. How do you go about legitimately winning a case if you can barely afford to bring it to trial?
I suppose a laywer would pony up a half million dollars of his own money, get ten thousand clients (half of them just shills), and each of you would get precisely $1 while he rakes in millions.
And by the way, $100 is small claims and therefore they'll probably just give it to you, or send some clown down there with a clip-on tie and a sketch pad to waste your time for an hour.
Congratulations to apple, because they once again have come to annoy the crap out of me. Of five G5 powermacs I recently bought, two had major hardware faults. The strange thing is, is that the two faulty units had the OS fully installed, unlike the other three which didn't. I know for sure that my reseller didn't do this, so I suspect as the lawsuit suggests, apple (or their NZ distributors) are refurbishing faulty machines and sending them out as new. But then again I can't prove any of this.
It always astounds me that at least in my experience there is such a high rate of failures in 'fresh from factory' units in the multitude of macs I buy every year.
Apple's monopoly is starting to really annoy me, and in my opinion, they deserve to be sued. Otherwise there is absolutely no incentive for apple to change its bad practices. Too many people think apple can do no wrong, mainly because they're not microsoft and their product enclosures are sooo cuuute. But apple's unreasonable company practices cost my company too much money. Can I sue in New Zealand? No, because trade laws are a lot less 'restrictive' than they are in the US.
Personally I implore all who are elegible to join the class, as I see it as the only way of forcing apple to improve.
Comments
Originally posted by slughead
I meant if Apple is selling products at less than wholesale prices to Apple-brand Apple retailers (the resalers Apple owns), then that's not legal.
There are TONS of stupid rules corporations have to abide by, but on the other hand, corporations are unconstitutional anyway. They're basically tiny little branches of the government. Congress can make hordes of stupid laws governing them, and there's a reason corporations put up with it:
Limited liability, and "public" market stock exchange.
As a libertarian you should know that two wrongs never make a right, they make at least two wrongs and probably more.
I'm a rabid libertarian myself, I'm all for ending owners' limited liability. There is nothing wrong with stock market, is there?
Anyway, if a company prices their products dearer or cheaper, that has absolutely nothing to do with if it's also polluting us out of existence. Both things should be addressed: first one by making it unequivocally, permanently legal, and the second one by internalizing the costs via a tax.
Originally posted by Relic
That's what Apple is hoping, they want these resellers to fall flat on their face or give up. This will be the second time Apple destroyed their competition, clones anyone. Everyone hailed Steve when he came back to Apple except for the thousands of people that lost their lively hood because of the clone ax. Maybe Apple didn?t like Powercomputing, Radius, UMAX or Motorola making a better Apple then Apple, god forbid if you stand in the way of a monopolistic thinking CEO.
it's not apple's fault the resellers were doing an absolute piss poor job. if apple hadn't opened up the chain stores like they are, do you think the resellers would have? the answer to that is a big fat no. the simple truth is it takes a company like apple to get the ball rolling on something as expensive as designing, staffing, and opening 100s of stores in malls across america. none of the resellers would have had the capital to take on a project like this.
Originally posted by Relic
That's what Apple is hoping, they want these resellers to fall flat on their face or give up. This will be the second time Apple destroyed their competition, clones anyone. Everyone hailed Steve when he came back to Apple except for the thousands of people that lost their lively hood because of the clone ax. Maybe Apple didn?t like Powercomputing, Radius, UMAX or Motorola making a better Apple then Apple, god forbid if you stand in the way of a monopolistic thinking CEO.
Well, the problem was that Apple should NEVER have allowed clones in the first place and although it may not matter to you or others in the class action suits, Apple barely survived the clones and if it were not for the monopolisitic CEO, Apple would not exist today. Yes *some* would have lost their jobs when SJ returned and thousands more would have done so had he *not* returned- take your pick. Since then Apple products and its OS have established the benchmarks for great products. Perhaps you wouldn't mind if that all went away and then we could reap the benefits of having just Wintel! Now, imagine THAT!!!
In case you are wondering, I think Apple should pay an appropriate price for any illegalities it entered into.
However, I've been hearing about real complaints with Apple from dealers for years, long before the first Apple Store opened. I believe the case has merit—which is not to say that the outcome is a foregone conclusion, only that I'm sure there'll be enough meat to the lawsuit for the court to give it a full hearing.
Originally posted by kenaustus
First remember that that the charges stated were written by a lawyer that is probably being compensated with a percentage of any jury award that may be issued. Sort of like a hard driving salesman that gets a 50% commission. He's going to say any and everything he can, but it is not proven.
And the flip side of this is that no award == no money for months and years of work, which is a built-in disincentive against taking on frivolous lawsuits. It also means that a smaller claimant can't simply be drowned in legal fees by a larger defendant.
Unfortunately for many resellers Apple has set a new standard of what a computer store should be.
True, mostly, but irrelevant. Testimony about this kind of behavior by Apple predates the existence of the Apple Stores, and the Apple Store Online, and it has allegedly continued right along.
We simply don't know enough to say where this will go. It will wind through the courts, as you put it. But I would be surprised indeed if the lawsuit were purely a desperate act by store owners unwilling to invest in brighter overhead lighting and a Swiffer. I doubt it would have gotten this far, and from what I've been hearing for years, there should be no shortage of real material evidence and testimony to bring to bear.
Apple is a corporation, and the temptations to cut corners and short people you don't really care about can be hard to resist, especially when you're powerful enough to feel that they can't hit back. It looks like we'll find out whether they succumbed to that temptation in a year or two. Or three. Or five.
Originally posted by slughead
I meant if Apple is selling products at less than wholesale prices to Apple-brand Apple retailers (the resalers Apple owns), then that's not legal.
Actually what you've got there isn't a legal issue so much as an accounting issue. I read a disagreement over this issue that it would be illegal for Apple to charge itself wholesale prices. Remember that wholesale price isn't 'cost' to apple, its 'cost + profit'. If Apple were to charge its own store 'cost + profit' for merchandise, you could claim that they were illegally moving money within the corportation to make Apple sales look better (vs. the complaint that it makes apple retail look better).
As for selling 'refurbished' equipment as new, there needs to be a definition of refurbished vs. used. Just because an item is returned doesn't mean it falls under a company's concept of 'refurbished', its 'returned', and unless there was something wrong with it, its still 'new'. Refurbished only technically applies to hardware that was returned due to defect, fixed, and put back on the shelf.
When dealing with Best Buy, though, I always make sure to go through the boxes and look for one that doesn't appeared to have been resealed (if its a big item), or open the box up and make sure all the pieces are there.
Originally posted by slughead
I meant if Apple is selling products at less than wholesale prices to Apple-brand Apple retailers (the resalers Apple owns), then that's not legal.
You actually think Apple sells itself computers??? Internal accounting does not equal sales.
Originally posted by slughead
corporations are unconstitutional anyway.
You actually expect people to take you seriously after points like that?
Too many people get personal over business. Apple is not your friend, they are a publically held corporation who is duty bound to make money for it's shareholders. Apple will do it's best to make those shareholders happy and remain on the right side of the law, but that in no way means they have any moral responsibility to keep any particular reseller in business.
Apple will help resellers remain in business if those resellers actually show Apple they can help the bottom line, that is in Apples shareholders best interest, you sell more product that way. But whining and suing the goose that is laying the golden eggs is not a good way to show their value in helping the goose.
I have yet to see an Apple reseller that I would repeatedly buy from. That goes back 20 years. I can't remember a single one that didn't either use the "You can only get it here within 100 miles price jacking strategy" or was a sloppily run barely there front end for a mail order outfit. I don't have an ounce of sympathy for any of those folks. I do know people who do make reasonable money providing services for Apple products. They are quite happy. And not suing.
Even liberal CA senators signed up for this one making it hard to label it a conservative republican action.
In the Senate, the new rules for class-action suits were supported by Democrats with generally liberal voting records such as Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.). They agreed with such advocates as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that waging class-action lawsuits amid a patchwork of state laws produces irrational verdicts and invites abuse by plaintiffs' attorneys filing lawsuits in certain courts known to be sympathetic to the cases, no matter if there is any particular logic to hearing the case in that jurisdiction.
Originally posted by Relic
That's what Apple is hoping, they want these resellers to fall flat on their face or give up. This will be the second time Apple destroyed their competition, clones anyone. Everyone hailed Steve when he came back to Apple except for the thousands of people that lost their lively hood because of the clone ax. Maybe Apple didn't like Powercomputing, Radius, UMAX or Motorola making a better Apple then Apple, god forbid if you stand in the way of a monopolistic thinking CEO.
Do yourself a favor and work for Apple. Then you'll get access to the whopping just over 300,000 Reseller buyers and just then you'd realize that the Clone Market didn't do shit to grow Apple's markets--they just cannibalized already existing Mac users.
Apple isn't Intel. Apple doesn't develop chipsets, motherboard specs and then license them to 3rd parties.
The clone market was designed around the Windows Market and by its very design was doomed to fail.
Originally posted by Hiro
You actually think Apple sells itself computers??? Internal accounting does not equal sales.
Yes, actually they do sell themselves computers.
Accounting is tricky, but basically Apple-brand Apple retail stores MUST release their net income.
Recording a lower Cost of Goods Sold (you obviously being an accountant [sarcasm] should know) is a way to scam investors.
Originally posted by Hiro
You actually expect people to take you seriously after points like that?
If you would've read where I explained how ADVANTAGES GRANTED TO CORPORATIONS were unconstitutional.. oh wait "read" being the operative word, nevermind.
This is not an anti-capitalism thing, this is not an anti-business thing, this is not even an anti-corporate thing, this is a PRO-free market, ANTI-limited liability, and PRO-freedom thing.
Of course, why should anyone take their freedom to exact retribution on the real villians seriously...
Anyway we're way off topic. I hope I explained why you should take this seriously though. I should probably have not even mentioned it.
Originally posted by Hiro
Too many people get personal over business. Apple is not your friend, they are a publically held corporation who is duty bound to make money for it's shareholders. Apple will do it's best to make those shareholders happy and remain on the right side of the law, but that in no way means they have any moral responsibility to keep any particular reseller in business.
They're a publicly held corporation that must operate from within the rules.
Obey the law, even if you don't respect it.
IF Apple is indeed inflating it's retail sales figures in this way, investors will drop out of the competition and invest in Apple instead.
How about that, unfair business practices. It's a case for disgorgement if nothing else.
This isn't an Apple-only issue.
Originally posted by Hiro
Apple will help resellers remain in business if those resellers actually show Apple they can help the bottom line, that is in Apples shareholders best interest, you sell more product that way. But whining and suing the goose that is laying the golden eggs is not a good way to show their value in helping the goose.
Apple makes more money by selling its own product than having resellers do it for them.
Thus, by eliminating the competition in the reseller areas in which they can compete (IE california and wherever else they have their own stores), they are making more money.
There are ways that NON-Apple-brand Apple resellers can expand the market, such as in areas in which there is no Apple presense. Or, in the case of Macmall, people who don't want to have to pay sales tax who would otherwise not buy a mac in the first place.
The stores who are suing, however, are invading on Apple's self-proclaimed "turf" and thus Apple is allegedly screwing them.
Originally posted by Hiro
I have yet to see an Apple reseller that I would repeatedly buy from. That goes back 20 years. I can't remember a single one that didn't either use the "You can only get it here within 100 miles price jacking strategy" or was a sloppily run barely there front end for a mail order outfit. I don't have an ounce of sympathy for any of those folks. I do know people who do make reasonable money providing services for Apple products. They are quite happy. And not suing.
So they're just mean old price gougers who deserved to be illegally destroyed anyway.
Anything to give Apple a leg up, eh?
I agree the law should be changed.. I'd change a lot of things if I could. However, rules are rules and they must be consistant if we wish to compare investment opportunities (which is the whole point of most of these regulations).
Originally posted by Hiro
it appears timing is everything... Bill signed to limit frivilous class action suits
Even liberal CA senators signed up for this one making it hard to label it a conservative republican action.
I'm for eliminating all class-action law suits, not just the frivilous ones.
Such a thing will always be more corrupt than it is useful, so let's stick with 1 plaintiff like the founding fathers wanted, k?
According to most experts, however, this bill will effectively eliminate most if not ALL class actions anyway, without discriminiation between frivilous and substantive.
Originally posted by Gon
As a libertarian you should know that two wrongs never make a right, they make at least two wrongs and probably more.
I'm a rabid libertarian myself, I'm all for ending owners' limited liability. There is nothing wrong with stock market, is there?
I'm for keeping the stock market too, I just don't know how it could work without intense regulation though, unless we just made GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) a law, which would be nightmarish (because accounting is not nearly as exact as you think it is).
Maybe a system like now, but with no LLC's. I donno, what did Badnarik say about it? He tells me what to think.
Originally posted by sandboxface
well.. sometimes corporations don't listen and legal action is required. i think some of the stuff stated in the suit is flaky, HOWEVER they site many things i know to be true which apple should be held accountable for.
OK, you intrigue us. Examples please!
The coverage of the suit doesn't exactly paint a picture of blatant abuse. The refurb and AppleCare issues may turn out to be true legal problems, or maybe not. The rest of the points in the story sound like a sob story rather than legal problems. This is also on top of another suit by resellers that is going nowhere fast, hence making this one all to easy to color with the same brush. And Trade Secret stealing? Since when is using registration and AppleCare data stealing trade secrets of the retailers? Or do we hear head slapping as to how the customer lists get to look the same...
I'm all for the big ugly stick when something actually illegal is done, but I don't believe something is illegal just because someone doesn't like it. Give us something to work with and decide if it's jilted-lover complaining or big bad corporate abuses.
Originally posted by slughead
I'm for eliminating all class-action law suits, not just the frivilous ones.
Such a thing will always be more corrupt than it is useful, so let's stick with 1 plaintiff like the founding fathers wanted, k?
According to most experts, however, this bill will effectively eliminate most if not ALL class actions anyway, without discriminiation between frivilous and substantive.
I don't remember anything in the constitution about how you can file a lawsuit. Just general fair protections of our rights. Let's not go revisionist. Filing methods and their restrictions are procedural, not constitutional. I doub't the experts on either side of the issue are 100% correct either. There will still be Class action suits, it's just harder to not get tossed right away for frivoloty in a Federal Court.
Originally posted by slughead
quote:Originally posted by Hiro
You actually think Apple sells itself computers??? Internal accounting does not equal sales.
Yes, actually they do sell themselves computers.
lost cause
Originally posted by Hiro
Yes, actually they do sell themselves computers.
lost cause
IN ACCOUNTING TERMS YOU SILLY MONKEY!!
Originally posted by Hiro
I don't remember anything in the constitution about how you can file a lawsuit. Just general fair protections of our rights. Let's not go revisionist. Filing methods and their restrictions are procedural, not constitutional. I doub't the experts on either side of the issue are 100% correct either. There will still be Class action suits, it's just harder to not get tossed right away for frivoloty in a Federal Court.
Well I am not a lawyer, I just read the synopsis and it makes sense. Essentially the federal civil courts would be so flooded it would take up to a decade just to have your day in court.
If they officially banned class actions, Nader would probably finish off what's left of the democrats next election. This way, it's harder to say what they're doing, but perfectly clear what they're trying to accomplish.
BTW I didn't mention the constitution that time, I was merely talking about the general time frame. There are rules for courts that the founding fathers talked about, for instance, in the Cato papers. It's not revisionist to say that class actions are a relatively recent invention, and that the system was working "well enough" before then.
If you think about it, it makes more sense for each case to be heard, so that way there's no dispute about who owes whom and how much. Also, the real victim (if there is one) stands to gain what they lost, instead of with most class actions where they get like $100 and the laywer gets a few hundred million (like in the recent M$ state settlements).
Originally posted by slughead
If you think about it, it makes more sense for each case to be heard, so that way there's no dispute about who owes whom and how much. Also, the real victim (if there is one) stands to gain what they lost, instead of with most class actions where they get like $100 and the laywer gets a few hundred million (like in the recent M$ state settlements).
IANAL nor do I play in real life. And I generally agree with you until the lawsuit turns into: Consumer plaintiff with $1000 available for a lawyer to fight for $100 in damages goes up against Corporate defendant with billions in cash to pay for a lawyer. How do you go about legitimately winning a case if you can barely afford to bring it to trial?
Originally posted by slughead
I'm for keeping the stock market too, I just don't know how it could work without intense regulation though, unless we just made GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) a law, which would be nightmarish (because accounting is not nearly as exact as you think it is).
Would you invest in a company whose financial wellbeing you can't determine by any means? I don't think so. And that is why they will have to keep their books in order, if they expect to keep their capital.
If you can't figure out their books yourself - and obviously most people can't - then the market is able to provide the necessary services for assessing the financial state of the company and if the company is telling the truth or not. If regulations decrease, these services will be in greater demand, and consequently there will be more competition among the info vendors. The prices will decrease and quality will go up. Free market is fully capable of "regulating" itself in a question that does not include negative externalities... such as this one.
If there are no regulations, at any moment in time there will be businesses that do bad accounting, but they can't expect to get much capital when competitors significantly exceed their trustworthiness.
Originally posted by foshizzle
IANAL nor do I play in real life. And I generally agree with you until the lawsuit turns into: Consumer plaintiff with $1000 available for a lawyer to fight for $100 in damages goes up against Corporate defendant with billions in cash to pay for a lawyer. How do you go about legitimately winning a case if you can barely afford to bring it to trial?
I suppose a laywer would pony up a half million dollars of his own money, get ten thousand clients (half of them just shills), and each of you would get precisely $1 while he rakes in millions.
And by the way, $100 is small claims and therefore they'll probably just give it to you, or send some clown down there with a clip-on tie and a sketch pad to waste your time for an hour.
It always astounds me that at least in my experience there is such a high rate of failures in 'fresh from factory' units in the multitude of macs I buy every year.
Apple's monopoly is starting to really annoy me, and in my opinion, they deserve to be sued. Otherwise there is absolutely no incentive for apple to change its bad practices. Too many people think apple can do no wrong, mainly because they're not microsoft and their product enclosures are sooo cuuute. But apple's unreasonable company practices cost my company too much money. Can I sue in New Zealand? No, because trade laws are a lot less 'restrictive' than they are in the US.
Personally I implore all who are elegible to join the class, as I see it as the only way of forcing apple to improve.