General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: So Apple is about to have 100 BILLION cash on hand. [View all]badtoworse
(5,957 posts)... and what Apple wants is irrelevant. They operate in a competitive environment under a set of rules that are laid out by governments. The rules that our government has laid out have made us uncompetitive in the world market, opened our markets with no requirements on American content and have put our workers in the position of having to compete with dirt cheap labor in China. I don't agree with those policies - they're idiotic, but they weren't Apple's doing.
Apple competes with other companies and they all play by the same rules. Virtually of the the electronics manufacturers have moved their manufacturing to China or some other low cost country, so why is Apple being singled out? From reading this thread, posters seem to be outraged that Apple has enjoyed enormous success and expect Apple to apply a different standard to itself because of that. That is just not a reasonable expectation. Apple's investors expect management to maximize their returns and there is nothing wrong with that. Management has an obligation to do just that.
The real problem is the government. It needs to make America a more competitive place to do business and it also needs to change tax and trade policies to better protect American jobs.