Things You'll Never See On The CBC

CBC doesn't stoop to wallowing in finance,they are in place to inform and enlighten Canadians, especially those in remote outposts such as Kelowna,and Brandon.

No,while other corporations prostrate themselves before evil capitalists in the name of the filthy god mammon, the CBC rises above the others producing pure, clean, family-oriented TRUE information for the teeming ignorant masses.

Ask any CBC radio listener about the veracity of my statement.

During the Macintosh era Apple was super cool and reportedly had similar profit margins. Ten years later they were almost bankrupt.

Will they be able to sustain their performance this time? The are going to be discontinuing the Ipod next year. What happens if they cannot come up with the next great products? I'll take stodgy old energy stocks for long term performance.

This chart is telling. For one, pinkos are *all* blind Apple devotees. After all, the global warming high priest, Al Gore, sits on Apple's board. And Apple is a cult, and pinkos like cults.

Two, Apple is overflowing from top to bottom with Democrats and Obama lovers. Indeed I suspect that if you were a Republican and worked at Apple you wouldn't last 1 month before you got kicked out.

Three, the left hates big oil. Oil companies and businessmen are supposedly blood sucking, earth destroying, evil capitalists that care about nothing other than their pockets.

Yet there you have it, Apple, the poster child of the left, wallowing in the benefits of raw capitalism and oil. How do those itoys all find their way from cheap labour plants in Asia to the US - OIL. How are the plastic parts in all those 100s of millions of itoys made - using OIL. How do most Apple employees get to work - OIL. How does that Apple corporate jet take off - OIL.

So in summary, the chart Kate has posted demonstrates once again the staggering hypocrisy of the left.

Tablet computers and smartphones are now dime a dozen. And there are many offerings as good as if not better than what is offered by Apple.

Just about time for another "One More Thing" moment.

sure would like to see the backup for that chart, as I don't believe that shell would be that "bad", them tite wad Dutchman ain't stupid, and love money:-))))

We need to rage against the man and disrupt the plans for global domination of Big Info. /s

There will always be those who have a "hate on" for Apple. I hope Apple finds ways to continue, since they do have a superior product. From personal experience they last a lot longer (of course there are exceptions). My first iBook from 2002 is still working, and I could go on with a list. Best of all... no viruses!! They exist, but you have to allow them to be downloaded. Even if you download it you still have to open it like you would a software download. For that alone I can suck up the pain of paying anyone that kind of profit margin.

Apple's 21st century turnaround can't be attributed to any one thing, but rather a continuing interconnected stream of things. No one thing will sink them, but it is true that no entity is immune from failure. They were already called on the carpet by congress for being so successful without a lobbying presence in DC an therefore not being part of the symbiotic relationship between gov't and business surrounding donations, lobbying, regulations and insider information. Then there is the innovation side.

Everyone is envious of their unbelievable profit margin especially among manufacturers. Therefore the attacks will continue. Success always draws attacks as well as the following.

It should be considered that for the most part people WANT to buy apple products and don't really WANT to have to buy gas and oil. Plus Smart Phones and iPads aren't loaded down with excess government taxation like they do on the energy industry. So it is natural that Apple will have a higher profit margin that Shell.

Apple is good value. It is of a quality that Bill Gates can only dream off.

Gas is a pretty good value too all things considered. It will move your two ton SUV about twenty miles down the road for about three bucks. Try that without gas.

I have an iphone 5 , my personal take on the whole smart phone thing is this I origionally had a galaxy 3s it was awesome ...in fact to awesome to big ,to fast and to much phone for me I am pretty simple, phone text tweet take picsnvideo a few apps here or there but that's it. I find apple to be a good size and able to compete . I would never say it is better than a galaxy or any of the other phones they are far superior in my opinion. but the iphone works for me its alittle smaller than the other screens and phones and I like it . it fits nicely in my pocket (with the otter box) and it does what it does. there is now a kit u can buy for 20 bucks of the net to replace the battery when it wears out even comes with the tools you need. I am not bragging about the iphone at all. I think the company is a bunch of left wing hypocrites as stated here but I think its great for me. performance based it is no where near as fast or a competent as the other smart phones out there.

Wow, I just read some of the other comments. There is a hate on for Apple here. I struggled with the Inferior PC for over 20 years before I decided to switch. Two years ago I bought a MacBook Pro .. it was and still is faster and more reliable than any PC I ever owned. I then bought a desktop unit an iMac. Same story ... then I bought my wife an iPad .... fantastic ... then a mini pad ... we didn't bother with iPhones since we don't make or receive many calls, nor do we need the cost of an iPhone plan with one of the rip off providers in Canada.

I don't care if democrats like Apple and work for Apple .... you are all buying tons of stuff made in communist China .... they are ancient democrats who have no concern for the human condition .... why not hate them for awhile. It is impossible to find everything you might need without buying chinese. It's not a perfect world, but Apple products come as close as anything to being perfect. Why deny myself that use of that great stuff.

Canada's largest non-profit.

Aren't charities supposed to be posting their tax returns on the CRA website?

You could draw the same chart for any tech company that sells high-margin software or cloud services. Apple's company valuation was higher than Exxon's at one point which was well covered on all news outlets.

Apple depends on its cult following to keep prices high. One of the major problems in the computer market is that one has a choice of either shoddily made cheap machines, or Apple machines. IMHO, Apples quality is far higher than that of most computer makers. IBM makes the best laptops (or used to) and HP was good 20 years ago but has now gone downhill. The only way now that one can create a good desktop machine is to build ones own.

When the Mac first came out, Apple provided a set of very detailed Inside Macintosh manuals which allowed one to easily program Macs. Since then Apple has become more and more closed source and I'll never get an iPhone or iPad as I like to be able to write and download my own software on Android devices. What turned me off on Mac desktops was when Apple dumped the PowerPC in favor of wintel chips. I like the PowerPC, but I guess the performance wasn't up to the speed of Intel's latest offerings.

All that Mac does is just layer a nice GUI over a Unix kernel and it's far more reliable than windoze. The reason I no longer buy Macs is because on the PowerPC desktop, I was able to run my 680x0 based Mac software; a feature that Apple dumped with the PowerPC. So now, I use BasiliskII in order to run my old Mac software on a PC.

For the price of a single new Mac laptop, I can buy 5 lower quality PC laptops but do have to perform frequent HDD imaging so that when one machine dies I can run the software intact from a VM image in Virtualbox. PC laptops are cheap enough that I can dedicate them as custom controllers that are faster to setup than a Linux based microprocessor as I program far faster in VB6 than C. A bit more space occupying than tiny Linux microprocessors, but faster to implement.

What I'm hoping is that there's going to be an open hardware Linux laptop that will be of as good quality as the Apple based machines. The biggest cost now for laptop manufacturers is the "windoze tax" and it's criminal that one can't easily buy laptops with no OS installed. I'm willing to pay $2K for an AMD 64 bit high quality open hardware Linux laptop, but just try to find one locally. Hard to believe that when the AppleII came out, it was a totally open platform and now Mac is one of the most closed source companies in the world.

First time a computer related comment of mine has been caught in the spam filter.

The progressivia have no idea what return on investment (ROI) is. I always compare an investment opportunity today to a minimum 5% return what I call a quick and dirty opportunity cost calculation. IOW something that generates $1000 in annual income shouldn't cost more than $20,000 - a decent quality dividend equity or real estate portfolio will do at least that if you don't monkey with it. Yes, it's imprecise because income takes many forms but it's always my first cut.

Otherwise why bother taking the risk if it can't at least do that well long term - in fact you should do much better. Up and down years may happen, but if can't pass the quick and dirty test, don't do it - stick to "guaranteed investments." Lots of equity mutual funds have 10 year returns under 5% - it's not acceptable to me.

If business can't make money then they won't do business, taking the jobs, innovation and economic growth with them. Again statists think business (mostly small btw) is a never ending well of money they can milk, asking for a little more, and more and more until they bleed it dry.

Lefties always say at some point that if you make a certain amount of "profit" then the ROI calculation doesn't matter - to them - you're already making "too much" and of course not paying "enough" tax. The fact that the top 1% earners pay around 20% of income taxes doesn't faze on them - most have never run a business or met a payroll anyway.

BC - what Apple offers is an alternative to the PC. You don't really argue that Windows is anything but productivity killing crap, do you? The only laptop I will ever buy, will be an Apple, as I can not afford replacing my PC as , over the course of 3- 4 years, it gradually grinds to a a near standstill, speedwise.

As for Google, I don't really know yet whether or not they are building a giant spying apparatus, disguised as a vendor of a zero cost license operating system, cutesy glasses, and other gee-whiz stuff crap.

So far, it looks like they are running an operation built on incessant spying on their " customers " and which info they are very willing to provide to the Obama admin, in violation of e 4th Amendment.

By the way, Steve Jobs, for all the lefty nonsense he spouted, supported full school choice. Some supporter of the status quo!

when I read the Jobs bio , found out he was a nasty piece of work and despite his apparent hate of Gates. Gates bailed him out twice and provided the software for the some of the original Apple products , something I wouldnt have thought Jobs would divulge

Yes a sad reminder that in the conditioned relity of the zombie horde there are evil grasping corporations and good enlightened progressive grasping corporations. Apple hardware is fabricated in slave states perpetuating worker bondage but they have a really cool logo and good press from the culture manufacturing media.

Return on sales can be misleading. A "good" return varies by industry.

A better measure is "Return on Investment."

Return on investment = profit / sales x sales / investment

Food retailers can be extremely successful with a 5% return on sales because their sales are very high compared to the amount of money invested.

To be successful, shipbuilders need a much higher percentage because the investment is very high compared to sales revenue.

My life is not defined by the brands I choose to use.

The best technology is intuitive and transparent.

Does anybody have information on the profit margin for the top 3 Canadian banks?
Just curious.

One thing you'll never see on CBC is that there was any profit margin made by the CBC itself.

CBCpravda runs a 1.3 billion dollar hole in the balance sheet .

Occam -
Is there any example of free market capitalism that you approve of?

The West shipped its manufacturing off to China through its corporate income tax laws, and by turning the regulatory power of the state over to the radical left, whose stated goal was ( and is ) to destroy capitalism ( and among other things, constitutional republics ) so that they can impose a totalitarian socialist state run by themselves. In their view, worse is " better ".

Your rhetoric ( " worker bondage " ) is that of Alinsky and Marx, and as such It should be said that the Chinese workers are not, in fact slaves by any definition of the word. They can, in fact quit their jobs.

The patents for the PC were sold off to the 4 winds long ago.. There is simply to much competition and razor thin profit margins to go around.. Its a volume business with lots of crappy machines on the market..

This does not mean that PCs suck, but it does mean you better know what you are doing..

Apple is an American Company with as many Apple patents under the hood as possible..
All the hype and mysticism could very well be written off as buy American..

Thinking your machine is still awesome after 5 years means your running a 5 year old OS and software.. Yes! the build quality is top notch and it should be for a full 1/3 more in price..

If your happy with Apple hardware and the Apple ecosystem all the power to you :)

Myself, its just hardware no different than my BBQ.. To be replaced every 5 years..
800 to 1200 dollars at Tiger Direct is a build your own solution that saves you about 1/3 off full machine retail.. and its fun!

The approximate price range of the build your own PC..

250 dollars for motherboard..
250 dollars for AMD CPU.
250 dollars for video card.
200 dollars for 16 gig of decent ram.
100 dollars for power supply
100 dollars for case
100 dollars for windows 7

Thats 1250 (remember everything goes on sale from time to time and if your willing to be patient you can get a this for under 1000)

Yes its all PC 2nd and 3rd tier components but its gonna be a very good machine with no bottlenecks built in (like most finished machines in the 800 to 1200 dollar range)..

Enjoy..

I have some Apple stuff around Chez Phantom. Most of my actual work gets done on an AMD box I built running Windows XP. Apple stuff is for playtime. Its good at playtime. Not so good at working.

The thing that disturbs me about Apple is the lengths they go to to keep your fingers out of the gears. The ipad is so locked down as to be almost unusable. No terminal? No file system access? No FTP?

Stupidity. Its just Unix, nothing magic about it. I'd jailbreak one, but the chances of bricking it are non trivial and the updates don't work right. Plus, it phones home.

Apple, where the user is always wrong. No wonder liberals love it.

Geez! I thought the point of the post was CBC hypocrisy.

"I have problems with "corporatism" (look it up) because the nature of large corporations industrial/business syndicates and crony capitalists is to become monopolistic or oligopolistic through the exercise of undue influence in either the media, markets or government."

The nature of ALL capitalism is to become monopolistic. Every capitalist worthy of the name wants to corner the market.

You should repost graph with additional bar showing the tax each company pays.The oil companies pay additional taxes and royalty fees.

I think motorists hate oil companies because so much of their money goes to filling their tank. They think oil companies get that money, when, in reality, most of it goes to the government in taxes and royalties.

What it's like to own an apple product
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

Occam - With full respect, all posts are taken at face value.

Crony capitalism is corruption, but creating new operating systems is a big and risky bet, and Apple's products were and are competition for MS. For tht reason, Apple has benefited consumers.

I agree that in an ideal world there would be more competition, but some is better than none.

"[C]reating new operating systems is a big and risky bet, and Apple's products were and are competition for MS. For tht [sic] reason, Apple has benefited consumers."

Regardless of our brand loyalties, both companies have benefitted consumers.

Indeed, by putting PCs, laptops, notebooks, tablets, handheld devices and so forth into the hands of millions and millions of ordinary people across the world these companies and their competitors have quite likely done more for the advancement of mankind than any government programme.