[Traster]

I kind of hate the way Apple phrases their business investments like they're performing some great charitable act. Also, I'll wait for an external audit of whether they're paying all the relevant local taxes before I would consider giving them credit for these "investments" in local infrastructure they're making.

[JumpCrisscross]

> hate the way Apple phrases their business investments like they're performing some great charitable act

Why do you think domestic investment is so economically useless that it must be a charitable act?

Cupertino is announcing spend. Spending here is better for people here, ceteris paribus, than spending there. If they announced $430bn in new Southeast Asian contracts, there would be a twin top comment lamenting Apple's lack of domestic spending.

[anon_tor_12345]

>Why do you think domestic investment is so economically useless that it must be a charitable act?

that's not what op (the person you're responding to) is saying at all. they're simply saying that apple disguises its infrastructure spending as charity and that that's off-putting. in fact it's not charity and furthers their own goals.

it'd be like me claiming to be a philanthropist because i had to a build a road connecting my factory to my mine that incidentally connects towns along the way. note this is example is right on the nose because this is exactly what corporations do.

[JumpCrisscross]

> apple disguises its infrastructure spending as charity

Except it doesn't. It uses the word "investment" 17 times in the announcement. If someone reads this as a charity pitch they're doing mental gymnastics.

Apple is not even doing the whole "Made in the USA" schtick, where companies imply they're taking patriotic pain for the good of the country. This is fully pitched as a competitive play. An investment to yield returns.

[plater]

To continue as a company they have to invest just like any other company. As Apple is so big, of course the investments they make are big. But not necessarily bigger than what any other company invests in percent of revenue or profit.

This announcement makes it sound like it's something amazingly special they do. But in fact, any company throughout history has invested a certain percentage of their revenue, just like Apple is now doing.

[gumby]

It's a press release. What else would you expect?

They aren't claiming to be investing more or less than anyone else. They are simply advertising their plans.

I think Apple's "amazing" infomercials are over the top, but this press release seems anodyne.

[ojbyrne]

And pretty well any company throughout history has made sure the public knows about its investment.

[jdmoreira]

It could never be charitable because Apple is a publicly traded company and investors want returns.

People talk about companies the same way a hunter-gatherer applies animism to trees for example. Companies are not people, they can’t be cynic nor greedy they just are what they were created to be. Profit machines.

Apple is extremely good at being. High returns on invested capital, huge moat, etc...

[nanny]

>Why do you think domestic investment is so economically useless

GP never implied that it was "useless" at all. Your question (to use some more Latin) is a total non-sequitur.

>there would be a twin top comment lamenting Apple's lack of domestic spending.

Yes, different people have different opinions.

[JumpCrisscross]

> GP never implied that it was "useless" at all

The announcement uses the word investment 17 times. Reading that as a charity pitch requires a few logical leaps.

Companies announce foreign direct investment all the time. Nobody thinks they're trying to look like a charity.

[anon_tor_12345]

the subtitle of the article is

>The accelerated commitment will fund a new North Carolina campus and *job-creating investments* in innovative fields like silicon engineering and 5G technology

other pull quotes from the article

>Apple is doubling down on our commitment to US innovation and manufacturing with a generational investment reaching *communities across all 50 states*

>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.

> designed to prepare students for careers in hardware engineering and silicon chip design — to engineering programs at *Historically Black Colleges and Universities* across the country.

>bringing *clean energy and high-paying jobs to local communities across the country*.

[JumpCrisscross]

If you're a regular at a restaurant, and you point out to you friends that you've supported said restaurant, you are not claiming a charitable act. You are pointing out the consequences of your actions.

If someone wants to see that as charity, it speaks more to them than anything else. (And claiming your patronage was an act of charity would be rightfully seen as a diminishment of said business.)

[jrwoodruff]

Not an article, a press release from Apple. Of course their PR team is going to spin it as positive as possible, that's their job. Used to be, reporters would pick this up and do their best to take the spin off, do a few interviews and provide additional context.

[ABeeSea]

None of that sounds like charity or even framed as charity. They need workers to work at these factories they are building. US workers don’t have those skills. So they need a training center for their business investment to work out.

[skeeter2020]

This is the exact same approach governments use when trying to go the other way: politically motivated hand-outs framed as "investments". It's a meaningless word in a PR statement.

[nanny]

>The announcement uses the word investment 17 times. Reading that as a charity pitch requires a few logical leaps.

Again, a non-sequitur. Even if they read "investment" as "tea party" 17 times, they still never said or implied that it was useless.

The Apple article is obviously trying to paint the investments as acts of goodwill. Not many people would expect anything else, it's just good PR. "Charity" might be an exaggeration, but can't you see why it could rub people the wrong way?

[jokethrowaway]

One potential reasons is that a lot of things are more expensive in the states - including hiring.

If they did their massive campus in Eastern Europe they would get a lot of cheap smart talent, cheap building and probably a favourable tax treatment (if they needed even more of that).

Replace with Canary Islands, Cyprus or Malta if you want somewhere with nice weather.

This is part PR, part gaining political favours.

[temp8964]

Why investments should be like charitable act? Investments are suppose to be win-win, because they are investments, not handing out money ...

Also, it is a very low level misconception that paying local taxes is how you contributing to the local community. No. Investing is already contributing to the local community. The business will build campus there, and hire people there, and also increase other local businesses surround the campus. And those people work for them pay income taxes there and also pay consumer taxes there. Every local government understand these, that's why they want to attract investments and give their tax breaks, because investments alone bring benefits to the local community.

It would be extremely stupid for any local government to say: Hey we don't you invest hundred millions in our community, unless you pay full taxes. Lol.

[MAGZine]

You've just described trickle down economics but for society.

Companies are more than welcome to make themselves at home iff they pay their dues, and should not be welcome if they don't.

[throwaway2037]

This comment touches a personal nerve with me. I am not against it, but I have seen it so many times traveling in developing countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia. When (South) Korean and Japanese companies invest in a developing economy, it is with head, heart, and wallet. They go 100%. How many times have a seen Korean or Japanese business people on a local flight study local language from a book or try to practice local language with staff? Too many to count! I makes me proud, and I am neither Korea nor Japanese. This is how it should be. And, (for the most part), they are welcomed by communities. To be fair: I feel the same about Volkswagon's recent commitment to Rwanda to build their first plant in Africa. I am suspicious of UK/US/AUS/China firms that show up with the "resource extraction" mindset. Five or ten years later, there are terrible environment consequences or social unrest. Almost never, do I see that with (South) Korean or Japanese firms. (Yes, I have seen it first hand in SA/SEA developing nations.)

[temp8964]

How is economic growth trickle down for the society? It is not. Strong economic growth is the best thing to level up a society.

What is really trickle down for the society? The dead loop between more taxes and economic stagnation.

[MAGZine]

Do you not see the similarities between "give rich people low taxes and they will create economies around them," and "give rich corporations low taxes and they will create economies around them?"

Companies will seek the lowest taxes in an area that suits them. If they're building in America, it's because it behooves them to build in America. There are lots of places they can go to lower taxes, but they're not competitive.

So you still have companies who are VOLUNTARILY building industry in places with high taxes, because it behooves them. Can you see how a race to the bottom in this regard is damaging? They're already committed to paying high taxes, its just a matter of how high. So—do you really want to be the place that cheats yourself out of the most income, for a company that really doesn't care if they settle in your county, the next one over, or the one across the country?

The minute you become noncompetitive, the company will move, and your countrymen are the people who paid for it. The real winner? the company, who got to hang onto more of their vast profits. :-) Apple committed almost $100B a year. And places are fighting over... how much tax revenue? there's plenty of room for fair taxation.

[temp8964]

Good reasoning. So just stay poor, and don't let the big companies make money, this sounds like a great advice to local communities.

[MAGZine]

You've done nothing to convince me that allowing big companies to exploit the local economy and infrastructure for free actually ends up in a net benefit for anyone other than the company.

You don't get rich by giving things away (unless if you've figured out how to make this possible—in which case, please ready a room for me :-))

[pydry]

>Why investments should be like charitable act?

That's the point. It isn't. The OP was asking why it's therefore being sold as one.

[nix23]

>>Apple phrases their business investments like they're performing some great charitable act.

Phrases....

[tamcap]

NC just announced they will give Apple close to a $1B tax break... (granted, over up to 30 years)

[OliverJones]

Arrgh ... never give a sucker politician an even break. RTP is a fine place to put this project, good enough in fact that the state doesn't have to bribe them to do it.

This tax-break-if-you-locate-here thing is a longstanding scam against politicians by companies.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/corporate-tax...

These tax incentives should be structured as follows:

1. Do your payroll and pay your payroll taxes (FICA, Federal and State unemployment, whatever).

2. Submit your payroll tax receipts to the state incentive operation.

3. Get a rebate of some percentage of that payroll tax.

In other words, no tax-break payments until people get actually paid.

This incentivizes the company to do what the state wants: employ people in good jobs. If the company gets a "better offer" from some other place and moves, then the state doesn't get completely screwed over.

[dev_tty01]

Please indicate the phrases that imply a "great charitable act." I see normal, straight-forward corporate press release speak. If Intel or Google were making a similar announcement it would sound quite like this one. They are making significant investment. Would you "give them credit" if they were not making the investments?

[bhk]

For starters, they use the word "contribution" several times, which is a pretty weasely way of describing spending money on yourself.

[cromka]

I read it and also don't see any notion of charity. Op is really making it sound like something it clearly isn't.

[geodel]

Well that's the way everyone is doing. When individuals eating some good food nearby call it "supporting local African-american business". Why wouldn't Apple or any other company make a virtue out of necessity.

> I'll wait for an external audit of whether they're paying all the relevant ..

They will be paying minimum legal taxes possible not maximum possible. If this is something one need to feel outraged they can start early and not wait for reports/audits.

[tracer4201]

I’m curious if you could quote what exactly in this news is written as if it’s a charitable investment on part of Apple.

If this announcement was in India or China, folks would be grabbing pitchforks that Apple is sending jobs overseas. So they’re bring net new tech jobs here, and your response feels like “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”

[fullshark]

Well that's the reality of our economy in 2021. A tech behemoth coming to your town and adding jobs + the human capital + tax base that comes with it can be transformative, and there's few other options for localized economic growth sadly.

[JKCalhoun]

I don't know, with so much of American business capital seemingly having gone to Asia in the past several decades, it is rather charitable to be investing in the U.S.

I mean, I wish it were not, I wish it were normal for U.S. business to invest in the U.S., but here we are.

[zitterbewegung]

How many people did Apple have to hire to make the new Apple campus? You can directly see the impact that had. Compare that to Amazon or Foxconn. At least they actually seem to hold a large majority of their promise.

[alexfromapex]

I don’t like how the local government is courting these businesses. It just reeks of corruption when they’re getting special tax breaks and treatment.

[gogopuppygogo]

I’ll wait to see the halo effect of high paying tech jobs in a community.

Any community with half a functioning government should give tax breaks to get these kinds of jobs from such a reputable company.

[delfinom]

>I’ll wait to see the halo effect of high paying tech jobs in a community.

Increased homelessness from rapid gentrification

[gruez]

Seems like you can't win. If you stay in bay area you get accused of concentrating wealth in the bay area and not spreading it. If you move to other areas you get accused of gentrifying the area and pushing poor people out.

[Apocryphon]

Seems like everyone needs to come up with new solutions to this dilemma.

[mrits]

What you are saying is not possible at Apple with quotas in their hiring process.

[gher-shyu3i]

Taxes will be payed purely by virtue of hiring the 20,000 employees they want, which will stimulate the economy. Let's not dumb down the conversation by claiming that companies lowering their tax expenditure is somehow bad.

Tax breaks stimulate innovation and investments.