davidw

paxman said:

revenant said:

I used to work for Mercedes-benz, I could not and cannot afford a new one. Were they not paying me enough? 

This is a china problem, not an Apple problem. I am not even sure Apple determines how much people can make at these factories, factories that make products for Samsung, Microsoft, google and the likes I might add. 

I would sincerely like to know how much Oppo and Xiaomi, and Huawei pay their workers.

Disagree. This is a 'world' problem. I am not putting the blame squarely on Apple, nor on anyone else for that matter - I just don't know enough about it. But I do know that people being paid a pittance for mindless robotic work to build devices for super wealthy corporations is a problem to which we are all complicit in one way or the other. People having to work endless hours without any kind of security and at the end of which they are unable to afford proper housing for their families or to feed and school their children is not right, no matter in which part of the world it happens. It definitely is a China problem but it is also a world problem. It is a fucked up world where this is even possible when there is so much wealth around. 

The trouble is that you are over estimating how much wealth there is in the World and way, way, under estimating how much poor (lack of wealth) there is in the World. The common figures they like to throw around is that the top 1% wealthiest people in the World owns 50% of the World's wealth and the the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the World owns 90% of the World wealth. What you never hear is how much wealth does one need to have, to be in the 1% or the 10%. Most people assume the top 1 must all be billionaires and the top 10% are all millionaires. That is so far from reality. To be in the 1% of the wealthiest people in the World, one only needs to have about $800,000 of wealth. To be in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the World, one only needs to have about $80,000 of wealth.  I doubt that any one with $80,000 of wealth, feels wealthy and yet they would be in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the World.  

This is because more than 3B people (half the adult World population) has less than $3,700 in wealth. 1% of the World adult population is 56M people and 10% of the World adult population is 560,000M people. There are only about 2500 billionaires in the World and only about 16M millionaires in the world. All the billionaires and millionaires and people with a least $1M in wealth, in the World, accounts for about 75% of the people in the wealthiest 1%. The other 25% (in the top 1%) are people with at least $800,000 in wealth. By that standard, I'm willing to bet over 50% of the people commenting here are in the 1% of wealthiest people in the World and nearly all are in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the World.

It is no great feat for a dozen of the richest people in the World to have more wealth than the poorer 50% of the World adult population. Not when the 3B people that makes up the  poorest 50% of the World adult population, have less than $3,600 per person, in wealth. A panhandler that makes $10 a day, is wealthier than 50% of the adults of the World's population.  

And then we're taking about wealth not annual income. How much wealth one has is not just based on annual income. A life savings account is wealth. A college fund for your kids is wealth. A mortgage free home is wealth. So is a paid for auto or a Picasso or coin and stamp collection or an Apple 1 computer or an IRA  or stock portfolio or a profitable business. Wealth is not necessarily something that can be replace every year, once it's gone.

Take away Gates $75B that he has amassed in wealth over the last 35 years and give it to the poorest 50% and it's only a one time deal. Gates will not earn another $75B for quite awhile. And it will only come to $22 per person in the bottom 50%. So how will the poorer 50% receive another $75B next year and the year after next? Redistribution of wealth, no matter how much of it is concentrated among the top 1% or 10% of the wealthiest people in the World, is not the answer you are looking for.

 Margret Thatcher put it this way………. "The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

Plus the "wealth" of a corporation do not count. All of the corporation wealth belongs to it's shareholders and is counted as part of the shareholders wealth. You can't count it twice.      



https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/top-1-of-adults-own-51-of-the-worlds-wealth-top-10-own-89-and-bottom-50-own-only-1/  ;

blastdoor said:

sog35 said:

gmgravytrain said:

I remember when Apple used to be practically debt-free and Jobs was always boasting about it. I think Apple needs to acquire some business that mainly deals in domestic sales. There's too much cash being made overseas that Apple can't touch without a huge tax penalty. Apple should get into the cloud business or search business dealing with domestic customers. It's nice Apple is able to get all these bonds but it seems like they're overdoing it. I'm not sure if it's giving Apple that much of an advantage despite low interest rates. Eventually they'll have to repatriate some overseas cash. Apple must be playing the waiting game because they know some tax break is coming this year.

Dude. US sales gets taxed at 35%-45%

Adding more US sales isn't solving anything.

Where do you get 35% to 45%?

Maybe you're referring to the statutory corporate tax rate, but that's a tax on profits, not sales. 

Also, the effective tax rate on profits is lower than that -- more like 25 to 30%. 

But even if Apple did pay a tax rate on profits of 45%, that still leaves them with 65%. Apple makes a big profit on every unit they sell, so that's definitely worth going after. 

The US tax rate on US profits (taxable income) is 35-45% (depending on State tax). With Apple, their 26% effective tax rate is largely due to taking into account the foreign taxes paid on their foreign profits, that are not subject to US taxes (until they are brought back into the US). Thus Apple has an effective tax rate of about 26% on ALL their profits. That is not that same as saying Apple paid an effective tax rate of 26% on their US profits. Apple still owes the rest of the 35-42% on their foreign profits if they bring those profits back into the US. Unless there's a tax holiday. 

Different industries have different ways of lowering their effective tax rate by using different tax credits for the industries. This largely requires that the corporation reinvest some of their taxable income in a certain way, pertaining to their industries or they already did. (Like maybe Apple is getting a tax credit for the money they spent installing solar power on their new HQ.) Corporations that over paid their taxes one year can apply that over payment toward next year taxes, thus lowering the effective tax rate for the year. That year's US profit , minus any tax credit, was still taxed at about 35-42%.

The effective tax rate in only meaningful to investors as a means of measuring how well a corporation is managing their tax liabilities from one year to the next or among different corporations of the same industry. It s not a metric that corporations use to measure how profitable they are because the effective tax rate can change from year to year, for different reasons and is only known after all the figures are in. But the US statutory tax rate of 35-42% on taxable income is a known. Lowering the effective tax rate doesn't always mean more profit because some of the taxable income must be reinvested a certain way, in order for it not to be taxed.

This being said, it makes no difference if Apple makes their profit in the US or on foreign soils. Foreign profits will be subject to the same tax rate as US profits, when they are brought into the US. (This after deducting any foreign taxes already paid.)  Thus Apple increasing US profit to avoid of issuing more debt with bonds (to pay for dividends and buy backs) would be the same as using their already foreign profit cash pile, because the taxes they have to paid on the profits will be the same. In other words, tax wise, using foreign profits in the US is the same as if those profits were made in the US.     

Soli said:

gmgravytrain said:

yojimbo007 said:

Timing is kind of interesting.. Why sell just a few days before earnings...? What are the rules of the game.... I dont know about you... but to me its not very comfortable that he is selling now... Rather than after earni gs report... Any thoughts? Thanx

Why do you think he's selling now? He's selling because he knows Apple's share price is going to tank upon earnings. For a CEO, he has little confidence in his company. He's not setting a very good example for 'fellow' shareholders. He could easily wait a bit longer before dumping. It will probably lead to more selling off of Apple stock by example. It's really disappointing how Apple's share price is going to drop while the rest of the major tech companies stocks are going to soar upon earnings. I'm willing to bet Alphabet's stock gets to $1000 in a matter of weeks. I honestly don't know why Tim Cook isn't able to satisfy Wall Street even a little bit when other companies make it look so easy.

He could totally wait 3 months instead of selling now¡

But what if he placed a trade order to sell these shares at $120, a year ago? Then it is only coincidence that the sale took place a week or so before earnings. It's the only time AAPL traded at $120 in a year. If AAPL had hit $120 around Xmas, then the shares would have sold then. Or if AAPL never got to $120, Cook would still have the shares. So long as he put in the trade order before he was privy to any information about the upcoming earnings report, he can't control the sale date and he's done nothing wrong. 

Mikeymike said:

guelahpapyrus69 said:

yojimbo007 said:

Timing is kind of interesting.. Why sell just a few days before earnings...? What are the rules of the game.... I dont know about you... but to me its not very comfortable that he is selling now... Rather than after earni gs report... Any thoughts? Thanx

There are quite a few rules regarding the sale of stock by an executive of a publicly traded company.

http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/rule144.htm

Among them is any stock issued has to be held for a year, the corporation has to sign off on it, it has to be sold by a broker etc..

Due to the "process" these sales are scheduled a year or more in advance. They are essentially put into a trust with the broker and they are sold on the scheduled dates no matter what. Whatever the price is that day is what they are sold at, I'm not sure you could stop the sale. Once it's scheduled it's going to happen on that day.

i read in another article. The recent sales were originally scheduled from a 2015 filing. So this was planned 18+ months ago. 

You are confusing Company buyback with individual's holdings.

Tim can sell his shares anytime he wants after a specified period of holding (probably a year)
He chose to sell now for whatever reason he chose.

 
Cook can sells his shares of AAPL once they become vested. However, if he holds it for at least a year, any gain, from the share price at date it became vested to the sale date, will be taxed as capital gains. So the shares he's selling now are shares that he had held for over a year. He's still holding on to the shares that were just vested. And for all we know, he's selling shares of AAPL that had before the last 7 for 1 split. 


Company employees can not trade their shares of company stock if they are privy to information that can affect the value of the stock. Information that have not yet been made public. This not only includes earnings, but upcoming acquisitions, mergers, lawsuits, recalls, SEC audits, etc.. Otherwise it's insiders trading. And this restriction applies to any family members or close friends, that the employees may have revealed that information to. Or even if the employees just tell a friend to buy the stock, without actually revealing what privy information he knows. 

So Cook can not possibly be, nor would he risk, selling his AAPL if he already have information on Apple upcoming earnings. In order to trade right before or after earnings, he must put in the trade order before he's privy to any information about the earnings. This could be 3 or 6 or even 9 months before the actual earning report. However, he can put in a trade order, right after the release of earnings report, once the public can also trade on the same information.  

So Cook can put in a trade order to sell AAPL, right before earnings, based on AAPL usually running up before earnings. But he can not sell AAPL if he already knows anything about the, not yet made public, earnings report.  If the SEC finds out that Cook placed an order to sell AAPL, even shares that he purchased with his own money, after he was privy to information about the upcoming earning report, he would lose all his gains and be fined for insiders trading.