Apple shows the way.

Apple is going to pay a dividend for the first time since 1995. The company has $98 billion in cash and a market value of $546 billion making it the mast valuable company in the world. The price of one share touched $600 on Friday before closing at $585.57. TOI, March 20. In 1995 one Apple share would have cost $10 and it declared a loss of $816 million in 1996. Apple is going to give away $2.65 as dividend per share and will spend $10 billion on a share buyback which will increase the price of shares even higher. In the IPhone and the IPad it has products that everyone in the world wants to buy and analysts predict that its cash reserve will increase to $150 billion next year. Thus Apple seems to be the ideal advertisement for globalisation. It is also the ideal example of why globalisation is totally perverse and must fail. $2.65 for a $10 share is a return of 26.5% and is excellent but for someone who has bought shares at $600 it is just 0.44% or 44cents for $100 which is nothing. Such a person will make some capital gains when share prices are pushed up by the buyback but his gains will be nothing compared to Apple executives who will make windfall profits by selling stock options. Apple manufactures its products in China to keep them cheap. Working conditions at Foxconn, a Taiwanese company manufacturing Apple products, were so poor that many employees committed suicide last year by jumping from upper floors of the residence building. The company has now erected safety nets at first floor level to prevent suicides. Many have been severely burnt by exploding aluminium dust in its factory. Apple is transferring American money to China where it is creating jobs while increasing foreign currency reserves of the Chinese government. Cheap Chinese made products help to keep inflation at very low levels in the US encouraging people to buy more. China uses its dollar reserves to buy US government bonds which makes the dollar stronger relative to the renminbi thus keeping Chinese products cheap in the US. It also keeps interest at very low levels encouraging Americans to spend more on their cards resulting in a huge public debt. With more than $3 trillion in reserves China is buying up mines and oil wells all over the world while restricting sale of rare earths to force foreign companies to shift manufacturing to China. Thus companies like Apple are transferring American wealth to China. Apple would argue that the money belongs to the company so it can do what it likes with it. However, currency is a sovereign asset and should be used to enrich your own people and not a bunch of cockroach eaters. Obama may strut around thinking he is the strongest man in the world as commander-in-chief of the strongest armed forces but by not having control of his country's currency he is just a straw-man. It was an apple that resulted in man being kicked out of paradise and it is Apple which is showing us the way to a global collapse. Very apt.