It's OK being a Janitor ...

... said the doctor, lawyer, politician, the economic patricians of this world, anywhere in the world for there is little difference, the reality is the janitor, the janitors wife, the janitors children, they all share the janitors lot in life.  The janitor is of course the metaphor for anyone who might be regarded as one of the little people, described as proletariat by some British politicians.

But far worse than the label is this concept by our new aristocracy that the little people of Britain, or anywhere in this world, need to "know their place in the social order", and although a little more subtle in the USA, in the land of the free this same social order exists today.

So the search for justice is to no avail for our janitor, his wife, his children, they will never become stakeholders in today's society, the new aristocratic families of politics will assure that societies order is maintained, by David Cameron, by Edd Miliband, by President Obama, by Mitt Romney ...

In Birmingham this week Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary who has never been a janitor, says...

"We will have to take more money out of welfare" 

We will have to squeeze the Janitor !

For the janitors of Britain it is time to brush down the cloth cap, and practice the doff in deference to the new aristocracy......

Iain Duncan Smith is of course FoS, and decorated with the FoS award for services to Janitors, wherever they might live and work, and of course their families ...

I would prefer the Janitor to become a stakeholder in this brave new world ....

Hillary Clinton is right and wrong ...

... when she said "... make the rich pay more tax".  Although such a strident call will appeal to the radical political left.

It comes across better when she expanded her thoughts with "... there are rich people everywhere and yet they do not contribute to the growth of their own countries".  This type of rhetoric will stir the blood of societies poor.

She further elaborated during a glittering New York conference by saying "... one of the issues that I have been preaching about around the world is collecting taxes in an equitable manner, especially from the elites in every country".  People are becoming a little more comfortable with the notion.

With three sentences she appealed to probably 70% (my guess based on anecdotal evidence) of the population, but the most important offering is the third when she used the term "equitable manner", it is an expression that seems to be underpinned with fairness.

This is not socialism, that political concept is dead and buried, it is "Stakeholder Politics" where everyone contributes to everything, not equally .... but not disproportionately, where rewards are proportional in a country where people are able to do more than just survive, and a country where everyone has the opportunity to achieve their full potential.

Is she telling the electorate they are "stakeholders", interesting times for the peoples of the USA, interesting times for the Republican Party, can they ever win where the vast majority realize they will never have a stake in the USA when the Republican  Party is in the White House.


We have issues in the UK, a senior tax lawyer might tell you to "leave before we set the dogs on you", referring to a well-spoken band of undercover protesters known as "The Intruders" as "trespassing scum", all because you might not approve of people such as ...


... the former HMRC boss Dave Hartnett,   The Intruders presented Mr Hartnett with a spoof "Golden Handshake" gong, the group were ejected by a dinner guest who called them "trespassing scum". A video of their exploits went viral yesterday on YouTube. Under Mr Hartnett's watch, HMRC was accused of agreeing "sweetheart deals" with major corporations such as Goldman Sachs and Vodafone. A Public Accounts Committee report criticised Mr Hartnett for being "too cosy" with big business. He was accused of signing off on a deal that saved Goldman Sachs £20m in tax payments and another which cut Vodafone's tax bill from £8bn to £1.25bn.


What chance the little people of the UK when our taxman was Dave Hartnett, we need a Hillary in Downing Street, but more than Hillary we need UK businesses to pay their unavoidable taxes, is that wishful thinking ?

This is why Obama ...

... must win:

Searching for a better life than the impoverished one he had in his native Mexico, Martin Cervantes moved to Chicago and took a job at a car-wash on the West Side.

But after a year and a half there, and fed up with work conditions, he quit and took a job in a factory.

Cervantes said he was never paid an hourly rate at the car-wash and was compensated only through tips. He said he worked long, gruelling hours — sometimes without a break — but never received overtime pay. Once, in order to pay rent and buy groceries, he had to sell his TV set.

"This is supposed to be the country of opportunities, but I can assure you the American dream is hard to fulfil," Cervantes, 29, said through a translator. "We want society to open their eyes — this job is poorly paid and hard work."

Cervantes gathered with other car-wash workers Thursday at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum for the release of a report detailing a bevy of negative labour conditions and abuses in the city's car-wash industry. The report was issued by the Labour Education Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Titled "Clean Cars, Dirty Work," the report, funded partially by United Steelworkers, found that a majority of Chicago car-wash employees, who are mostly men and Latino, earn less than the state's hourly minimum wage of $8.25 and work more than 40 hours every week.

The study also states that most do not receive safety equipment, such as gloves and goggles, while on the job, even though they use harsh chemicals when cleaning.

Meanwhile, Arise Chicago, an interfaith workers rights group, has launched a campaign to improve work conditions for the "carwasheros," a Spanglish term for car-wash workers.

Along with hearing the complaints of local car-wash employees, the organization was inspired by car-wash workers in New York and Los Angeles who have either unionised or boycotted work to fight for better health and safety rights.

"We won't stand for that kind of treatment, and we're willing to help (employers) change their ways," said Adam Kader of Arise Chicago.
Though he had not read the study, Eric Wulf, chief executive officer of the Chicago-based International Carwash Association, said his national organization's 12,000 members treat their employees fairly. But not all carwashes are part of his association, and he said variations of work conditions exist in nearly every industry, including his own.

"It's like restaurants," Wulf said. "There are lots of wonderful restaurants, and then there are some you might not go to, some that might not follow every rule."

Disgusted with his work conditions after 14 years, Angel Nava, 56, left his job at a carwash on the Near Northwest Side in 2011. There, his employer kept the tips, overtime was never paid and health insurance didn't exist, he said.

Nava, who still works in the industry, said he hopes the government and other agencies take control of the situation, though he doesn't know what to expect.

"But we are here and we are fighting to improve our working conditions," Nava said. "This is not only me talking; this is carwash workers in all of Chicago."

jmdelgado@tribune.com

...  No man or woman should be reduced to serfdom to survive.

... the importance of the common ...

 ... good, the common weal, in Wales, Germany, Hong Kong and the USA.

In Wales we have Jac who considers the common weal to be a narrow view of the xenophobic, the intense and irrational dislike or fear of people from England ...

In Germany there are the considerations of the Euro, is the financial rescue fund considered crucial to the future of the euro to get the green light.  A poll published on Friday on Spiegel Online showed that 54% of Germans were in favour of the court blocking the legislation, reflecting the degree to which public opposition to bailouts is increasing.  Is the common weal the good of Germany, or has the definition extended to people of one country extending their largess to other nations ?  Do the German people see themselves as kin with the peoples of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France .......


In Hong Kong it's very serious, will Beijing allow universal suffrage, even though it doesn't exist as a democratic process in China itself, universal suffrage has little value in a single party state.  The effect of extending democracy to Hong Kong which has a semi-autonomous status in China, is to open the doors to a "China Spring", in effect the demise of Communist China.  When  thousands of demonstrators protest against the plan for mandatory patriotism lessons, you know there is trouble ahead ! 

Whilst in the USA the battle between Republican and Democrats will be resolved when the peoples who vote decide who are the stakeholders, is it all the peoples of the states, or just a small group who hold the wealth, an important consideration when considering the Common Good, and lets not forget the prayers !

Back to Britain and there is a kind of hush, our politicians are driven by opinion polls rather than the Common Good, it's quite pathetic.

Wiki Jimmy Wales versus Westminster ...

... in the battle for the moral high ground.

The Guardian article by Alan Travis, home affairs editor can be read here so you can make up your own mind.

Myself, the civil-servants and their very dim politicians behind the proposals are full of the proverbial, the information that can be gained that is so powerful has little to do with solving crimes, it is to do with profiling ...

... what value to the unelected civil servants and other string pullers being able to profile political puppets of the future ?

... the United Kingdom's (government) "snooper's charter" is a blackmailers dream, in 20 years the British public could be reduced to servitude because few politicians will be cast in the mould of Joan of Arc, where will be the activist when secrets are published.

Jimmy "the High Plains Drifter" Wales wins the argument for me, but I'm afraid with politics so full of career politicians, who care for their personal future before the future of the electorate, the future is a future that will travel back in time to serfdom.


For the philosophers of the world ...

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, remember the mayonnaise jar & the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. 

They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. 

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded a unanimous 'yes. ‘The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. 

The students laughed. 'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passion, if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. 

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. 

The sand is everything else, the small stuff. ‘If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. 

The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. There will always be time for the small stuff. Take care of the golf balls first the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand. 

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked. 'The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

... a fistful of horrors, 400 ...

... in fact.

The richest 400 people in the USA have a wealth that equal the wealth of the bottom 140 million people combined.

To put it into perspective, each of the 400 has the combined wealth of 350,000 citizens.

If each of the 400 wealthy few could corral these 350,000 people they would each need a city the size of New Orleans.

For a more considered opinion you might try the decline of the great American middle class by Robert Reich.

Remember the 140,000,000 are not the underbelly of a nation, they represent almost half the citizens of this powerful country.

Now my question is ...

... are not these 140,000,000 people stakeholders in the USA ?

... and when you say YES, you might like to consider ...

... the 400 have a combined wealth of $7.5 trillion, whilst the 140,000,000 share an equal amount !

Is this Justice or might it be very similar to the society of Moses in ancient Egypt

... and is it so very different here in the United Kingdom .............. I doubt it !

Our NHS in Wales ...

... is like looking through a distorted mirror, take obesity ...

... to qualify for Metabolic and Obesity Surgery in England the criteria is :

... people must have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 35 with related health problems, such as diabetes or sleep apnoea, or 40 without.

In Wales to qualify for the same procedures the criteria is :

... people must have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 50 with related health problems. This means patients can only be operated on once they are in poor health

... yet the peoples of Wales pay the same taxes as their cousins to the east of Offa's Dyke.


It would be best if the British taxpayers were treated equally .......... on both sides of the dyke !


I digress ...



... something amiss !

... two views, two ...

... quite different perspectives !

The UK government through its Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said the rich of the UK pay sufficient into the tax pool, check out the figures ...

... almost 90% of tax take is paid by the top 50% of the income groups.

This particular coin has a very different other side, the wealth of the top 50% ...

... dwarfs the wealth of the bottom 50%.

You might say that the wealth has been earned therefore such comparisons should not be made, as George Osborne said ...

... beware of "driving away" the UK's "wealth creators"

I have this feeling that our politicians are not being particularly honest with the electorate.

Is it the politics of envy to ask the top 50% of taxpayers to contribute a little more to pay for the poverty that underpins their wealth, Is it true that if taxes increased for the wealthiest 50% they would depart our small island leaving an unfilled vacuum ...

Or could it be true that the top 50% of taxpayers exist because of the production of the little people at the bottom of the pile, could it be true that an economic vacuum cannot exist except in the empty minds of politicians.

It's not necessary to invoke the politics of envy to right an obvious wrong, it is important to maintain a culture where aspiration is a motivating factor ...

... but it's equally important that we do not have a social underclass as a foundation of society.

Economic Justice is as important as Criminal Justice.

Clegg is wrong to suggest the wealthiest people ...

... could be asked to pay more tax for a limited period.

 A weak politician with feeble ideas, if he had a backbone he would have said ...

Every person earning above the average should be taxed to support the lowest paid in the economy, the lowest paid that underpin our economy through their poverty.

The idea is, we are all players in the game of life, and, with a few exceptions, contribute to society, unfortunately some contribute much effort for little return, and those of us who were cast a better hand are given an advantage that is unjustified.

What is the worth of a doctor to society, when compared to his nursing colleague, compared to the hospital porter, compared to the hospital grounds cleaning team !

The aim of the Liberal Democrats could be a levelling game, the levelling of opportunity for people, this is not the model of Marx but the models based on the propositions of John Rawls, deliberations from behind his "veil of ignorance" to promote social justice.

Would we condemn people to poverty if we might be tomorrows pauper, would we set a minimum wage that is insufficient to sustain our existence.  It's true that poverty is relative in a discrete society, it is not useful to compare the poverty of Britain with the poverty of Brazil when exploring local solutions, solutions to issues that Clegg might consider today;  although in the greater scheme such comparisons will expose our humanity or lack of.

For Clegg he might begin a British long march towards Justice and the elimination of poverty, as a start he could do well to consider the reform of taxation in our country, a reform to ensure that no-one person or company doing business in Britain fails to contribute in full.  That is the foundation, a society where contributing is a virtue.

A digression following on from yesterday in the USA ...

... in the USA during 2007 the following words were expressed ...

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democratic president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women."

... by the conservative Fox news guest and celebrity pundit Ann Coulter.

... she would disenfranchise half of society, what hope for the little people ?

Martin Luther King or Royston Jones ...

I have a dream or the language of hate .

First from the Western Mail today ...

SIR – Dennis Coughlin ........

This anti-Welshness also explains why the Welsh Government refuses to run Wales in the interests of the indigenous population ..........

ROYSTON JONES

Tywyn, Gwynedd

... for the whole letter, it's the last in the list.

... second, check out the language of hate, Martin Luther King would recognise the sentiments, would this Royston Jones recognise the Alabama of the 1960's in his vision for Wales.

But for the politicians of Wales an impossible citizen, a citizen who is unable or unwilling to recognise his absurd hatred.

... what exactly is his "indigenous population", how is it characterised, what are the criteria, who would be excluded from our democracy ?

The answer lies somewhere in the dark area's of society, those area's that politics can only imagine might exist !

But for those who believe that "the modern state that is the whole body of a nation expressing its will",  what place for Royston and Co, how does our Assembly satisfy the wants of extremist Wales.

A digression ...

... in the USA reports are coming out that legislation to prevent electoral fraud has disenfranchised a huge swathe of US society, people are unable to register for voting because they do not have unexpired government-issued photo ID's,.

... as many as 11 percent of eligible voters—roughly 21 million Americans—lack current, unexpired government-issued photo IDs.

It only takes a small drop of ink in many parts of the world ...

... to enfranchise its citizens.



Martin Luther King would have recognised this particular anomaly in the democracy held up as an example to the rest of the world.

Might the legislation to prevent electoral fraud have included a mechanism to capture everyone eligible to vote, after all this is what democracy is about.

... the stakeholder eisteddfod,

... in stakeholder Wales, in a stakeholder world.

It doesn't really matter how small the taxpayer contribution is, but for every penny of contribution (for every cent of contribution) we become stakeholders, and as stakeholders everyone should be included.

It's a simple formula, as a taxpayer (and that is everyone) we should expect an equal return on our investment, so the National Eisteddfod if it is to receive any funding from government must become inclusive, and to this end it should be subsumed by a new "Wales Eisteddfod" where the cultures of all the peoples are celebrated, where every stakeholder is able to share their particular cultural niche with everyone.  And Carwyn Jones our First Minister is well placed to lay the foundations for a celebration of everything that is Wales.

.................................

I digress ...

In the USA Apple have been awarded an enormous sum as damages from Samsung, but will the little people receive a stakeholder percentage through taxation, or will the damages be absorbed by Apple's offshore tax avoidance vehicles.  Just thinking ..............

.................................

Returning to Wales ...

If Carwyn Jones created a new eisteddfod he would become the first to create a cultural celebration for all ... the first to recognise the stakeholder citizen.

Apple or Scott McKenzie ...

... are both in the news, innovative Apple and the harmonies of Scott McKenzie who died a few days ago.

Scott is remembered here ....


... whilst Apple is reported in today's news as :

... the most valuable company ever !

... as reported in the Telegraph.

There is no dispute that Apple is an icon of the age, there is little dispute that its success will probably outlive the fan-base of Scott McKenzie ...

... but when will Apple pay its taxes to the peoples of the USA, that's the big question that neither Washington nor the little people of the States seem to be asking in a voice loud enough to be heard, strange ....

... in Wales politics seems to have become a dry husk ........... no change there !

This weeks FoS award goes to ...

... Paul "Petey" Ryan, running mate of Romney.

... written in The Times by Sam Coates Deputy Political Editor

Mitt Romney’s running mate in his campaign to become the next US President has been sharply critical of the NHS, claiming that free healthcare distorts the democratic process because it makes patients dependent on government help.

Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman who was announced on Saturday as the Republican vice-presidential contender, has also compared the British economy to those of Greece and Ireland, saying the “day of reckoning” has already arrived in all three countries.

The remarks are likely to cause further transatlantic friction after Mr Romney’s troubled visit to Britain last month in which he criticised preparations for the Olympics. 

Mr Ryan’s attack on the NHS was part of an effort to stop President Obama’s healthcare reforms, which the Republican said would put the US "on a glide path toward European-style socialism". He wrote in the Wall Street Journal:  "We need only look to Great Britain and elsewhere to see the effects of socialised healthcare on the broader economy. Once a large number of citizens get their healthcare from the State, it dramatically alters their attachment to government.

"Every time a tax cut is proposed, the guardians of the new medical-welfare state will argue that tax cuts would come at the expense of healthcare — an argument that would resonate with middle-class families entirely dependent on the government for access to doctors and hospitals." The analysis came in 2009, in an article co-written with Peter Wehner, a former adviser to President Bush.

Our NHS is not "European-style socialism", its a recognition that we are all dependent on one another at some point in life.  A recognition that there are aspects of life that require just a little more intervention than the markets.

In the UK, we as a people through the ballot box, have decided that our imperfect NHS, a service that is totally inclusive, is a better civilised solution to health care than the models that Ryan and chums subscribe to.

For the little people, those who have been denied opportunity by accident of birth, working with asbestos during the 20th century developed incomprehensible debilitation by virtue of occupation.  These people produced products used by all, produced products upon which vast fortunes were made.  This is the single example needed to justify an inclusive health service is provided by all to everyone with a need.

The little people need this service when their earnings hover around the poverty level .... 

Professional politicans rarely experience this type of need .......

 .......... so we award the Full of Shit medal to Paul "Petey" Ryan, not a friend of the little people.

Mitt Romney and Team GB ...

... is there a lesson to be learned ?

The London Olympic was a success from its stunning opening ceremony to the end game party last night, some have described it as the most successful exhibition of sporting excellence of all time, for myself its success lay in the projection of inclusive stakeholder participation by all;  athletes, audience and organisers, that's not to say everything was perfect, but as Sebastian Coe said at the closing ceremony ...

... when it came to our turn, we did it right !

In the USA, the appointment of Paul Ryan by Mitt Romney as his Presidential running mate, sends a very clear message to the population that "things, they will be changing !"

It is the change that is causing concern ....

The most damming condemnation ...

Network, a Catholic social justice lobby group, which organised a six-state "nuns on the bus" tour last month, damned Mr Ryan's proposals as "immoral".
Sister Simone Campbell, Network's executive director, said: "His budget deliberately harms people at the economic margins. It is also unpatriotic because it says that we are an individualistic, selfish nation."

Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" is long on words, with a very simple underlying message, government must shrink!  The full document can be found here, it runs to 99 detailed pages, it might have added a page to explain why Sister Simone Campbell's "people at the economic margins" are not considered as stakeholders in the great nation that is the USA.

As a small country Great Britain came third in the medal tally for this Olympic Games, the success must in a great part be attributed to the way the peoples funded the athletes in the years prior to the games, as Samantha Murray said after winning the silver medal in the very last event, modern pentathlon, "If I can do it, and I'm a normal girl, anyone can do what they want to do."

Shrink government at the expense of the little people of this world and it is a poorer, brutal existence, not civilisation........

Sunday 2 - Apple dilemma, a cash crisis !

Not the usual cash crisis that the little people face when they are unable to feed their families, not the cash crisis of a company competing on an uneven playing field, this is the cash crisis of a company that has not paid its tax due to the US treasury ...

... currently a potential (estimated) $25 billion in back taxes.

For those not able to read the Sunday Times report by Simon Duke .......

APPLE’S CASH CRISIS*
The tech giant must find a way to spend its $117bn pile and deal with threats to its dominance.
With his dark jeans, open-neck navy blue shirt and matching sports jacket, Tim Cook had assumed the mantle of Silicon Valley kingpin with ease.



At a meeting of technology executives in late May, the chief executive of Apple made it plain he expects other West Coast traditions to be upheld.
Under Cook’s command, the culture of mystery that helped transform Apple from a basket case into the world’s richest company was to be strengthened. The iPhone maker would “double down” the air of secrecy created by his predecessor, the late Steve Jobs. And all the more so where takeovers were involved.
“We buy companies. We don’t like to make it public,” Cook told his high- powered audience. “If I don’t have to, I won’t.”   The 51-year-old has lived up to his word. Just two months after this bold declaration, Cook didn’t bother to release a press release when he splashed out $356m (£228m) on a company that produces fingerprint recognition technology.
For the typical chief executive, a deal of this size would be a serious gamble, garlanded with corporate spin to win over investors. Not for Cook. With Apple banking almost $1 billion a week, the takeover of Authentic ate up less than two working days’ profit.
Like a latter-day Croesus, he has almost limitless resources at his disposal; he could buy almost any company on the planet before hitting the bottom of Apple’s war chest. With $ 117 billion ( and counting) in the bank, the cash hoard is larger than the market value of Glaxo Smith Kline, one of Britain’s largest businesses and the 33rd most valuable company in the world.
Cook, it would seem, is sitting pretty a year after succeeding Jobs. However, he is facing a critical test next month with the launch of a new iPhone.
For the first time, Apple will be leaping ahead without the creative imprimatur of Jobs, who lost his battle with pancreatic cancer in October.
Cook cannot afford any slip-ups if Apple is to maintain its supremacy. Rivals are already making inroads — Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant, sold twice as many high- end phones as Apple in the second quarter. The two companies are now slugging it out in a Californian courtroom over a multi-billion dollar patent infringement case.
Cook has not been afraid to show an independent streak. Breaking ranks with Jobs, who was set against returning money to shareholders, he has launched a $10 billion share buy-back plan and sanctioned Apple’s first dividend since 1995. He is also showing a thirst for takeovers. Apart from the Authentic deal, Apple has held talks with Twitter about a significant investment in the short-messaging service.
Although Cook’s $117 billion piggy bank is the envy of the industry, a cash crisis has begun to afflict Apple. The bulk of its money is trapped overseas — out of reach of the tax-man but also the company’s shareholders. The shining star of America’s tech industry isn’t prepared to hand over some £ 25 billion in back taxes to bring its riches home. In a courtroom in down-town San Jose, the self-styled capital of Silicon Valley, a middle-aged man with long hair and an untidy, grey- flecked beard launched a tirade against a perceived enemy.
“We’ve been ripped off, it’s plain to see. It’s offensive,” he protested.
It may sound like a domestic dispute or a street robbery, but the furious attack in fact came from one of the most respected figures in the tech industry.
Christopher Stringer, a long-time Apple designer who worked on the original iPhone, gave his explosive testimony during the opening skirmishes of the lawsuit that Apple has brought against Samsung.
It has accused the Korean rival of copying iPhone and iPad designs and is seeking damages of $2.5 billion.
Apple’s design team is a group of 16 “maniacal individuals” whose job is to “imagine products that don’t exist and guide them to life”, Stringer said. When Samsung started to “rip off” his pioneering ideas soon after the 2007 launch of the iPhone, it was hard not to quell the anger, he told the court.
Samsung rejects the charges. “This is not some copyist, some Johnny- come- lately doing knock-offs,” its lawyer said.
The case is just one flank in a worldwide legal battle between Apple and handset makers that use Google’s Android operating system to win control of the booming smartphone market. In addition to damages, Apple is seeking to have copycat products removed from the shelves around the world.
The stakes are enormously high. According to documents filed with the court, Apple earns a profit of as much as 58% on each and every iPhone shipped. At an average wholesale price of $650, that means the company has generated earnings of nearly $100 billion from the ground- breaking smart-phone since 2007.
In the current year alone, the iPhone is forecast to bring in earnings of $ 30 billion — equivalent to two- thirds of Apple’s expected profits. By contrast, the iPad contributes a modest 15% to the bottom line.
With Apple’s fortunes so tightly tethered to the iPhone, investors were unnerved by the second-quarter results.
Operating profits may have jumped 23% to $ 11.6 billion between April and June, but that fell short of the vertiginous growth rates Wall Street has come to expect.
Worrying soft patches have emerged. Sales in China, for instance, tumbled 28% compared with the previous quarter. Though an estimated 270m people in China can now afford to own an iPhone or iPad, sales of cheaper Android handsets are becoming the staple in the world’s second largest economy.
Europe’s economic woes also took a toll. Sales in France, Greece and Italy were “particularly poor”, Cook admitted, while the historically resilient German market registered growth of mere “single-digits”.
Much of the disappointment can be attributed to Apple’s savvy customers. The company may officially keep its own counsel on the timing of its next big launch, but it ticks like a metronome. The iPhone is reinvented every autumn, so Apple fans hold back in the spring and summer before upgrading.
There are reasons to fear that this pattern may be disrupted. For one thing, rivals are finally catching up. By fair means or foul, the third version of Samsung’s latest Galaxy handset has become a formidable competitor to the iPhone. Although badly wounded by Apple’s domination, Nokia and BlackBerry are fighting back.
Whether the Californian behemoth can continue spewing out profits will become clearer on September 12, when Cook is set to unveil the company’s latest iPhone.
As well as a better camera, a higher-resolution screen and a more powerful processor, it is expected to work on new super-fast mobile phone networks that offer lightning- quick downloads on the move. Although these fourth-generation services won’t be launched in Britain until next year, they are being rolled out rapidly in American, Scandinavia, Germany and developed Asian economies such as South Korea and Japan.
Other factors are likely to work in Apple’s favour. The new iPhone will be widely available for the Christmas gift-buying season in the West and for the Chinese new year. More importantly, the combination of the iTunes and Apps stores is locking customers into Apple’s devices.
“The great majority of iPhone users intend their next phone to be another iPhone. No other brand has the same loyalty,” said Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis, the research service. STEVE JOBS offers an object lesson in how fast and fickle the technology industry can be. Apple, founded by him and Steve Wozniak in 1976, was floundering by the mid-1990s. Close to bankruptcy, the once pioneering firm re-hired Jobs as chief executive in 1997, 12 years after he had quit.
Within 12 months, he had overseen the launch of the iMac personal computer. The sleek desktop was a hit with consumers but greater successes were soon to come. The iPod and then the iPhone not only turned the music and mobile phone markets upside down but transformed Apple into the most powerful and richest company in the world.
Cook and Stringer, the design guru who has spent nearly two decades at Apple, know all too well that the tech industry is brutal and the lifespan of world-beating companies can be pitifully short. As the decline of Yahoo and AOL has shown, the apparently impregnable are in reality never more than one false step from falling into irrelevance or worse.
Apple at least has the comfort of a thick cash blanket to keep ahead of its rivals. After Facebook’s calamitous float, Cook’s interest in investing in Twitter has waned. His company has the means to buy a Hollywood studio, such as Disney, to bolster the television set it is rumoured to be launching next year.
Great riches, though, are rarely the panacea they seem.
About $80 billion of Apple’s wealth is held in a gnarly web of foreign subsidiaries, where it is shielded from the US tax-man. To bring it home, the company would have to pay an estimated $25 billion in back taxes.
Because of this enormous potential bill, the treasure is effectively trapped abroad, with Apple unable to return the cash to investors or use it to fund American takeover deals.
Unless Cook solves this conundrum, he could be crushed by the burden of inherited wealth.

That $25 billion represents the stake that the US taxpayers have in Apple, this money rightfully belongs to the people, the little people who are the unregistered stakeholders ............

How does Mitt Romney sell ...

... it to the peoples of the USA, when he speaks of a nuclear-armed Iran, will his words ...

"The threat it would pose to Israel, the region and the world is incomparable and unacceptable," 

he added that the US had ...

"a solemn duty and a moral imperative to deny Iran’s leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentions".

Are they empty words designed to garner support for his political ambitions, or do they represent a deep seated conviction that would be the foundation of his foreign policy were he to be elected to the Presidency on Tuesday, November 6, 2012 ?

The words that seem to underpin his feelings concerning Iran are ...

incomparable
unacceptable
malevolent
intentions

... there doesn't seem to be a diplomatic imperative amongst them, more a declaration of war !

... will the electorate of Ohio or Oregon vote for a Romney war, or is he another FoS politician ?

Blind, deaf and dumb, pathetic ..

... politics that has a system where regimes that suppress its people are allowed to condone the genocide of the Syria people by applying a veto on civilization.

... student Zaher Shehab has watched, helpless, as the uprising in Syria has torn his country apart. Then came news of a devastating attack on his family, writes Laura Pitel for today's Times

It was a Friday afternoon at the end of term. He should have been working in the university lab. Instead Zaher Shehab was standing in a corridor of the pharmacy faculty, following his mother’s funeral on his mobile phone. He had just lost seven members of his family in a single attack in Syria. His mother, Mayssa, his younger brother, two uncles, one aunt and two cousins had all been killed. They were working in their fields in a suburb of Damascus when they were hit. Two thousand miles away, the Bath University student could do nothing but try to absorb the news, powerless to help. “I can’t remember what I felt because really at that moment I couldn’t feel anything,” he says, his voice calm. “My brain stopped thinking. I couldn’t imagine what had happened. All of them together: my mother, my brother. Everything changed on that day.”

The polite, gently spoken 28-year-old arrived in Britain in 2010 to study for a PhD in pharmacy practice. A top-class student, he came on a scholarship paid for by the Syrian government, and was planning to return to Damascus to teach. But in November, Syrian intelligence snooped on his online exchanges and found anti-regime messages to friends. His funding was withdrawn. The university hardship fund and the Wellcome Trust stepped in. Without them he would have been forced to drop out.

His last trip home was shortly after the start of the uprising, which erupted in Syria last March on the back of turmoil across the Arab world. It was a surprise visit that delighted his parents, particularly his beloved mother. But a brush with the security forces, when he came close to being arrested, has left him unable to go back. Instead he found himself following developments in Syria from the incongruous setting of a West Country spa town.


While fellow students worried about deadlines and grades, over the past year and a half he has watched his country descend into violence. As the movement against President Assad has accelerated, he has seen protests sweep through his town, Daraya, and friends and neighbours killed. As the turmoil has dragged on the bloodshed has grown, with children massacred, whole districts destroyed and the estimated death toll topping 17,000.

Then, on July 6, the conf lict knocked on his family’s front door. He had just that is to blame. “We don’t know the kind of rocket or shelling — if it came from tank fire or helicopters,” he says. “No one could tell me if the rockets came from this side or that side. But for sure, 100 per cent we know that it is the Assad regime that owns these rockets and these tanks.”

Were they targeted deliberately or unlucky victims of random fire? It’s a question he will probably never be able to answer. The family were not politically active — they spent all their time working on the farm where they lived a simple life, growing tomatoes, aubergines and salads. “But in Syria there is no grey, only black and white,” he says. “If you are not with the government, they consider you against them.”

Friends and colleagues have been supportive and kind, putting him up in their homes so that he does not sleep alone. But they cannot compensate for being so far from Syria. “It is a hard time,” he says. “I can’t say anything else. It’s hard because I’m here, far away. I couldn’t do anything to support them. It’s difficult when one person dies ............

I guess we have to send a big thank you to Russia and China ......

...... and a big sigh of hopelessness when we see the antics of our world politicians unable or unwilling to say NO to the tyrants, thanks to the rump of civilization, UK, USA, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, India, Australia .... et al.

 

behind every ...

... great fortune lies a great crime, Honoré de Balzac.


And what a crime, $21 trillion (£13tn) crime, a crime as big as the combined economies of the USA and Japan.  Fortunes created on the backs of populations pushed beyond the reach of taxation, beyond the reach of the societies that created these buckets of coin hoarded by such a very few people.

In the USA there is the Apple Corporation that holds its wealth offshore, it avoids paying the taxes that could pay for healthcare for the poorest in its society, in the UK we have similar crimes where companies and individuals establish off-shore vehicles to avoid passing back to society a share of the wealth created by the little people in the form of taxes.

The misconception is the owners of capital are wholly entitled to every penny of the surplus (profit) a business makes, this conveniently avoids any responsibility for poverty level wages that require redistributed government expenditure (taxes and borrowings) to pay for subsidised housing, healthcare, education ....... the list is endless.

All profits, as with income, should be taxed at source where it was made .... that way every fortune will have avoided the stigma that ...

... "behind every great fortune lies a great crime".

... and the taxes will help the little people that they might live without the poverty that seems to accompany great fortunes !

These crimes are not restricted to the USA and the UK, the people of Germany, Canada, France, Australia, Japan, China, India ............ are all losers in this great crime of "cheat the people of their dues".

Contrite or what !

"We will apologise, acknowledge these mistakes, answer for our actions and give our absolute commitment to fixing what went wrong."

... a commitment to change,possibly, but how long before it all happens once again.


Another banking scandal, this time HSBC has been caught with its corporate trousers (pants in the USA) around its ankles over :

... a report into HSBC, released ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, that says huge sums of Mexican drug money almost certainly passed through the bank.

This is another case of "compliance gone wrong", I read recently ...

"We did our best, the right boxes were ticked, how could we know?"

Is 21st century compliance more about giving cover from culpability than rooting out bad behaviour ?

... could it be that compliance in banking should be an external organisation.


For those who hold Adam Smith in high regard I humbly remind you of these words :

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

• Book I, Chapter X, Part II, p 152

... a great mind with a crystal ball tuned into 21st century markets.

The FBI will heed the ...

... man within, "one's conscience", whilst the British Government will sit on its hands and fail the people from all over the world.

Guided by its very un-civil service, government breasts will be beaten, sackcloth and ashes worn as a public display of contriteness by bankers, but at the end of this sorry affair unless the police arrest those responsible for fixing the LIBOR rates, and those who supervised the fixing, and those who turned a blind eye to the activities of these thieves.

... and those at the very top, nothing will change !  They rely on false compliance ...

Compliance is much more about giving senior management, and the regulators where they exist, cover from culpability than rooting out bad behaviour. “We did our best, the right boxes were ticked, how could we know?” they are able to say.

... that is not compliance, its a comfort blanket for the complicit.

We need rendition of every one of those involved in this scandal, to the only commonwealth that has both the will and the teeth to send a message of worth to the bankers throughout the world that there is "nowhere to hide".  To do this Britain need Uncle Sam like never before.

And because the British Government is a gutless body when addressing issues of morality and ethics amongst its own, and for Bankers read the Bank of England read British Government (of every flavour), people turn to the champion of law and order in the USA, the FBI.  It is time to repay those little people who rarely ask for favours, help clean this cesspit of banking criminal who laugh at the law, people without a conscience, people who cheated every little person with a bank account ...

... and in Europe ... France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, and the other countries that have banking links with London, you have been affected by the scum of LIBOR, its time the call to fix this scandal of morality and ethics was pan-European ......