Live data from Hacker News

Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

apple.com

141–150 of 265 posts

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#141
post #31

>Apple’s $430 billion in contributions to the US economy include direct spend with American suppliers, data center investments, capital expenditures in the US, and other domestic spend — including dozens of Apple TV+ productions across 20 states, creating thousands of jobs and supporting the creative industry. I dont like how Apple spin this as investment in the headline, when it is clearly contribution . If you buy…

Well, it’s all spending, but is all spending investment?

From an accounting perspective, when a business spends money on a factory it’s an investment since you end up with an asset on the balance sheets. But the same is true of spending on inventory. There are also intangible investments that don’t end up on balance sheets (like writing software) and for high tech companies that can be pretty substantial.

You could simplify this to “Apple says they’re going to spend a lot of money in the US.” Okay, I guess that’s good?

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#142
post #31

>Apple’s $430 billion in contributions to the US economy include direct spend with American suppliers, data center investments, capital expenditures in the US, and other domestic spend — including dozens of Apple TV+ productions across 20 states, creating thousands of jobs and supporting the creative industry. I dont like how Apple spin this as investment in the headline, when it is clearly contribution . If you buy…

> I dont like how Apple spin this as investment in the headline, when it is clearly contribution. If you buy something at Walmart, or any of your daily needs, is that an investment in US?

You can argue yes, if you pay Walmart $50 for eggs and stuff. That means Walmart pays taxes (goes to the Gov), Walmart pays employees (so they can buy other stuff), Walmart buys a product (paying every individual person from shipping to receiving, etc). Opposite would be saying going to Canada and buying it all, and all you would pay would be an import fee. Or buying something from Aliexpress and getting free shipping, which is probably a net value on the US economy.

But you can also argue no, cause it's so small that it is almost insignificant.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#143

Announcing a new multi-billion dollar campus during a pandemic strikes me as so fucking out of touch, and goes against the direction the industry was already going pre-pandemic. IMO at this point they should just fold and start transitioning to permanent work from home like the vast majority of startups and tech companies. This terrifies FANG because then they will have a vacant campus and whoever commissioned it wil…

They sell hardware and lots of it. That requires labs and direct collaboration at many points in the process. It also requires lots of highly specialized test equipment and test facilities. This cannot be done with everyone working from home. It is naive to suggest otherwise.

Also, many of us enjoy and still want direct in-person collaboration. If you don't and your job doesn't require it, then good for you. Enjoy, but there is no need to project that onto everyone else.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#144

I don't care why they are doing this, but it should have happened a long time ago. The cynism here is disappointing. If companies start investing their money domestically then excess savings will fall, deflationary pressures will be gone and the economy will start growing quickly again and that means wages will grow too.

My money SHOULD be worth more tomorrow than it is today. Tomorrow the economy is just a tad bit more productive, so my dollar should go further... Why is deflation a curse word nowadays? I feel one of governments only role is to ensure that the dollar is not being debased and slowly losing value of time or atleast at a rate that is known. When the FED prints an unlimited supply of money, it breaks down the social contract or useful fiction that we all accept about our money.

i've read some rhetoric somewhere that deflationary money is a terrible thing for the economy since it reflects in asset prices and makes you more concerned with saving. From my perspective, that's a very good economic consequence and would stop all these boom bust cycles that we seems to be creeping up at irregular intervals of massive spending.

A better system of stock trading would be bonding. When i buy a stock, the money is locked into a contract that is reimbursed to me after the purchase period. say i buy $100 worth of Tesla for a 1 year stock period. At the end of that lease, i will recieve my $100 back and Tesla may reward me with a % based on the performance of that year. I have no liquidity but my only 'Loss' is the loss of other rewards i could have gained by betting in another industry or company. Everything being completely liquid allows for HFT and the banking industry to drain our economic fecundity by placing it in the realm of fairy-land instead of investments in infrastructure, energy generation and manufacturing.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#145

Also, with many trillion dollars of money printed recently vs 0 CNY, it is very likely that the value of the USD will slide significantly compared to RMB. It is not that far-fetched to think that in a not so distant future China consider the USA (and Europe) as sources of cheap manufacturing.

I am confused by this comment. "[M]any trillion dollars of money printed recently" -- are you talking about the US Federal Reserve? That isn't money printing; it is quantitative easing -- now also practiced by European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, and Bank of England. It does not cause inflation. If anything, weirdly, it appears to cause deflation. Money printing is Weimar Republic (~1920s) or Zimbabwe (2000-2010). If there was out of control "money printing", we would see unprecedented inflation. Do we see that? No. Please correct me if I misunderstand your comment.

"0 CNY" -- Do you not consider expansion of credit by state-owned commercial banks equivalent to "printing money"? I do. It causes inflation through rising housing costs. (All major central banks now include housing costs in their inflation figures.)

The more likely scenario of the future of "cheap manufacturing" is (near) total automation in highly developed countries with (near) zero-cost green energy. That means their carbon intensity will be very low. Thus, carbon (import/export) taxes will be very low. Why sew socks in a country with very low labour costs, but coal-generated electricity? A machine/robot can sew the same socks using green energy in a factory located 100km outside a major city in a highly developed country. As an example: Look at Fast Retailing (Uniqlo, etc.), headquartered in Japan, but truly global as a retail brand. They are a world leader in highly automated manuf. of clothes. (Same for Zara.) I can imagine they will be one of the first to aggressively "on-shore" from developing countries to Japan, where clothes will be (near) 100% robot-made. I have heard much the same about Adidas and re-shoring shoe manuf. to Germany with (near) 100% automation.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#146
> Apple is the largest taxpayer in the US and has paid almost $45 billion in domestic corporate income taxes over the past five years alone.

They just had to slip this in there. If they were taxed appropriately on the money over seas we would see an additional $10billion. Being the least scummy in a field rife with tax evasion isn't saying much.

Also...

> Apple’s contributions in the US have significantly outpaced the company’s original five-year goal of $350 billion set in 2018

So it's only upping the amount it had already pledged. So they were already doing it anyway

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of Apple’s money is made abroad. Is there a reason why it should come back to the US at a loss for the stock holder?

> why it should come back to the US They are a US company, reaping the tax benefits of that nexus. If they'd been an EU company, they would have paid a lot more in various taxes (including higher wage taxes) over the last 40 years. IOW, they would not be as wealthy a company today.

The US is one of the only countries that taxs worldwide income.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#149

Reading between the lines, anyone else seeing an inhouse FAB! In the name of vertical integration, that is the last thing they need to consolidate after M1. Imagine Processor, Graphics, Modem, Baseband, Power Control all chips designed inhouse and manufactured on own FAB. ;)

I doubt they have the scale to make owning a fab worthwhile.

Certainly, unless they branch out into selling more mundane chips, they would have a problem using the capacity in their fabs for their own chips once those fabs get older.

Re: Apple commits $430B in US investments over five years

#150

Also, with many trillion dollars of money printed recently vs 0 CNY, it is very likely that the value of the USD will slide significantly compared to RMB. It is not that far-fetched to think that in a not so distant future China consider the USA (and Europe) as sources of cheap manufacturing.

I am confused by this comment. "[M]any trillion dollars of money printed recently" -- are you talking about the US Federal Reserve? That isn't money printing; it is quantitative easing -- now also practiced by European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, and Bank of England. It does not cause inflation. If anything, weirdly, it appears to cause deflation. Money printing is Weimar Republic (~1920s) or Zimbabwe (2000-2010). I…

Yes - we do and are seeing rapid inflation.

We see rapid asset inflation across the board. Check recent commodity prices across copper, lumber, food, water etc. Everything has been rising dramatically during the period that the world has been practicing what you call 'Quantitative easing'. Inflation isn't just related to Forex if all the worlds currency's are inflating, albet just maybe faster than the USD. And the only reason the US is not inflating faster than the rest of the world is because the IMF is based in USD.

Post reply on HN