Now it’s Occupy Apple?

Some of the Occupy Wall Street crowd has turned its attention to Apple and its roll out of the iPhone 5. After all, this evil company decided to take on the two largest phone makers non-US based Nokia and RIM, and make them irrelevant in less than half a decade. Moreover, these disciples of Satan from Cupertino had the gall to have their stock increase by hundreds of billions of dollars and in the process help hundreds of thousands of investors including people holding IRAs, 401Ks, and those who benefit from pension funds like school teachers, firefighters, policemen and legions of other union and non-union workers.

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One occupy protester, Shiloh Coral (above) said it best when she explained that instead of enriching Apple and the consumer culture it benefits from, we should invest in education and helping low-income families. After all, it isn’t like Apple hires anyone in the US or has retail stores where just about anyone who has the drive and ambition can sell products. Also, its not like tens of thousands of salespeople benefit from these device launches in companies like AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Best Buy or T-Mobile.

It isn’t like these devices have spawned an app ecosystem with hundreds of thousands of choices where the poorest of the poor can go to a public library, learn how to program on free government computers and develop the next must-have app while becoming wealthy in the process.

It’s not like jobs allow low-income families a source of income or anything like that. Moreover, its not like taxes on income from the above-mentioned jobs reduce state entitlement costs on things like housing and food stamps, allowing them to increase education funding if they choose.

But sarcasm aside, did we stop teaching young people how to think??

Let’s see – the most successful company perhaps in the world resides in our country and people from the same country are angry with them? For what? Yes, it is worth pondering the sign below that says Apple minimizes the taxes it pays to the US government. But the US has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world – can you blame them? After all, the last time I checked, the company has competitors like HTC and Samsung who don’t have to worry about tax rates which are as onerous.

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And as scary as this may sound to the young – in business you have to compete every day or you risk losing, which means potentially bankruptcy or a fire sale on your distressed assets.

Which by the way almost always results in job loss. 

Don’t think such a thing could happen to a company like Apple – well consider it almost did in the nineties.

This isn’t the first time protesters have targeted technology – you may recall this sign “F&*k Capitalism” from the MWC show in Barcelona from earlier this year.

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My favorite “Occupy” irony is the app which was developed to tell others you are being arrested. The point is – you take one of the greatest achievements of capitalism – the multibillion dollar 3G and 4G cellular network coupled with microprocessors and myriad phone components funded by “capitalist” investors and use the resulting cellular-powered device to assist your anti-capitalist movement.

Perhaps the best way to conclude is with the humor from a comment on the matter from Casaiir:

I wonder if they would sell their spots in line.

The whole idea of these people protesting Apple would be funny if it wasn’t so cry_smile.

See also: EDITORIAL: Demand for iPhone 5 contrasts with ‘Occupy’ banalities

Photos courtesy of CNET

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