Anyone watching Apple?

[Eddie Haskell]

Option traders have had their margins raised supposedly because there's too much speculation in the stock. Two weeks ago I read that the stock would be kept down until the Jan. options expired. At the time, Apple was selling near $700/share. The pay off on the call options? ... $600,000,000,000. Yes, thats six hundred billion! Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Apple starts to fall. I think Wall Street's done it again ... They can't afford for Apple to go back up so now they're trying to scare it down.

[GitRDun]

1. This post provides a perfect example of how screwed up this country is.

You have Apple, a company that makes something people actually want, shifting jobs overseas to cut manufacturing costs:

Apple changed the rules. Rather than open new plants in other U.S. cities, and expand existing operations, the company, as other computer and electronics makers were also doing, moved production offshore, largely to China.

http://americawhatwentwrong.org/story/as-apple-grew-american-workers-left-behind/

Apple also does all it can to avoid paying its share of taxes:

At a time when the cash-strapped federal and state governments are looking for ways to boost revenue, corporate tax avoidance strategies have taken on urgent importance. There’s no doubt that Apple, which is poised to set a record this year for profits by an American company, pays less in taxes than other firms. Last year, The Times says Apple paid a global cash tax rate of only 9.8% — $3.3 billion on profits of $34 billion

Read more: http://business.time.com/2012/05/01/apples-tax-avoidance-evil-scheming-good-business-or-both/#ixzz2ECXZsBEc

Then we see all the potential profits on the table for speculators on the stock!

If you look at the big picture here, there is little in this Great American success story that helps America.

Few if any jobs for ordinary people.
Not much tax revenue to support the country that makes business opportunities like Apple possible.

We need a change of culture...we should be asking ourselves what is an American success story? Is all that it means today is a very few folks make a LOT of money while off-shoring jobs to places where there are no environmental laws or workers rights or paying there fair share of tax? I hope that is not the America we are living in today...

[Fuddnik]

2. Looks like it has a worm in it.