I've been reading over the last couple of years about massive global corporations playing the system to avoid paying any tax. Vodafone, for instance, hasn't paid any corporation tax despite making profits of billions. Apple, by dodging between jurisdictions with differing taxation principles, has built up $188 billion in its subsidiaries' offshore bank accounts, untouched. The list goes on and on and on.
Why should they pay tax? Because tax makes their profits possible. Taxes empty their bins. Taxes educate their workforces in schools and universities. Taxes pave the roads on which their products and executives travel. Taxes fund the research which makes innovation profitable. Taxes keep their private jets from hitting other tax avoiders' private jets. Taxes keep the lights on, the water running and the sewage drained. Taxes heal their sick and investigate shoplifting. Taxes pay for the courts they repeatedly run to when they think their copyrights have been infringed. Taxes pay to prosecute the illegal downloaders and taxes protect their patents. Taxes make up the gap between what these companies pay their poorest workers and what they need to live on (the biggest, sickest subsidy of all).
Apple, Google, Tesco, Amazon, Vodafone, the banks and a whole range of organisations need us – but they don't want to pay their share. They are stealing from us, building huge profits not from innovation or efficiency, but from ducking out of the agreement we all make to be part of a civilised society.
It's time to hit back. Cut off the water. Block their sewers. Stop the police from answering the phone when they call. Wipe Vodafone HQ off the ambulance service database. Block off their access roads. Withdraw their executives' passports. Cut off the power. When CEOs fly in, tell Air Traffic Control to close the airspace until a very large sum of money arrives in the state's bank account.
Seal off Canary Wharf and similar enclaves of capitalism, and see what happens without all the things we pay for and they sponge off. Don't let them withdraw from their social duties while continuing to enjoy the privileges of membership of developed societies. If they want to exist in a no-tax, no obligation polity, invite them to move their HQs to Somalia.
And then we start sending in bills. Work out how much each employee cost to educate and add it to local and property taxes that they can't avoid through transfer pricing and Double Irish manoeuvres. Bill them in A+E. Coin-operated courts, police cars and ambulances – or simply refuse to come out. Let the bins pile up outside Vodafone's offices unless they pay cash. If they decide to move their businesses offshore, we tax the imports until we think they've paid back what they owe. Most of them claim to be doing their business elsewhere anyway, like Google's London sales team which 'books' the actual sales in Ireland.
The principle comes from a passage in Lewis Jones's 1937 novel Cwmardy, in which one sell-out miner refuses to join the union. He loads up his truck, down in the blackness, and it starts to slip down the incline. Desperate, he begs them to help before it rolls down over him. Grimly, they refuse: he's refused to share their load and in return they teach him a lesson in collective struggle. Eventually, they relent when he promises to join the union, suitably chastened.
What they did to one class traitor, we can do to any number of free-loading, thieving corporations. Vodafone has started 'rounding up' pay-as-you-go bills to squeeze even more money out of their customers. Fine: let's do the same to them. Pay As You Go services until they give in and cough up.
(This is, of course, pure fantasy. While the government talks big about corporate tax, the truth is that they're actually making it easier to avoid tax. They're cutting corporate tax rates to 20% and George Osborne has made it easier for companies to hide their money offshore. Of course he has: they're his friends. He'd rather they paid a few millions to his party than many millions to the state).
Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Friday, 26 July 2013
Thursday, 26 July 2012
Mounting a Lion
This morning I'm trying to use the new Mac OSx dictation software. Any errors are therefore the responsibility of Apple Macintosh and the rotting ports of Steve jobs. I didn't say the rotting ports except the rotting ports know I said the boxing courts oh for gods sake this is getting ridiculous outcome I expected to bumped about the state of the world stoke city and lo-fi indie music is bloody piece of software cannot understand a simple clear distinct accent. You can't even understand me when I tried to say the word courts meaning the body of that body of Steve jobs. God knows how this machine would cope with the absence of my friends from Stoke Terry Limerick and all points west. Colts Colts Colts Colts. Dammit I'm trying to refer to the Cadabra of Steve Jones. No, the dead body of Steve jobs which deserves desecrating for this awful awful piece of software. What if I tried American accent? Clearly some improvement when I tried crystal from Dallas.
Computer says no.
A small prize to anyone who can decipher what I was actually trying to say in the above paragraph.
Computer says no.
A small prize to anyone who can decipher what I was actually trying to say in the above paragraph.
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
How not to conduct a survey
One of the dreariest tasks I've undertaken in the past is teaching research methods for social sciences: not my forte at all. But clearly it's quite important.
I've just responded to an Apple survey about my latest purchase, an iPhone. Oh good, I thought. An opportunity to highlight the pros and cons of the device. But no: the questions were largely 'where have you sought support?' and 'are you satisfied?'. No boxes to provide detailed feedback (I like the phone, but the battery life is appalling), and one final kicker: despite this bit
I've just responded to an Apple survey about my latest purchase, an iPhone. Oh good, I thought. An opportunity to highlight the pros and cons of the device. But no: the questions were largely 'where have you sought support?' and 'are you satisfied?'. No boxes to provide detailed feedback (I like the phone, but the battery life is appalling), and one final kicker: despite this bit
We value and appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation!(and no, I can't understand why there's an exclamation mark there other than to fake enthusiasm) the last line is:
For any issues with your iPhone please contact your carrier for support.which sounds like 'run along and don't bother us' to me. Survey fail, customer relations fail.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Making the best of a bad Jobs
Steve Jobs, co-founder and until recently head of Apple died last night. As a long-time Apple user, one with all his previous Apples in storage (a Mac II SE, a blue clamshell iBook, a white iBook, and I'm typing this on my battered and semi-broken MacBook Pro), you might expect me to be weeping geeky tears onto my backlit keyboard and joining in with the web's wailing and gnashing of teeth, and of course I am saddened by a premature, painful death (and have posted something kinder and more philosophical about it here).
But this nerd isn't joining the howls of anguish. When I got my first Mac (from a skip, 1997), I had no idea what was odd or distinct about it other than the fact that you could make it quack like a duck: it was a free, small computer discarded by my university. Needing something more portable later on, I acquired a used laptop and gradually became aware that a) people laughed at Mac users and b) the company was in deep trouble. For a while, I was dumb enough to identify with the corporation, thinking that using an 'alternative' system made me a culture warrior, something more than a consumer. I revelled in being in a minority, sucked up the rumours about the origin of the bitten apple logo (supposedly referring to the poisoned one eaten by poor persecuted Turing, which now seems like a monstrous appropriation by a capitalist corporation).
It wore off. I became conscious of the fact that Apple was then simply a less successful corporate monster, and is now the most successful one in the jungle. I continue to use Macs because they're designed beautifully, in visual, computing and interface terms, but my membership of the Cult of Mac has long been over. I'm hopelessly compromised, as are we all - I know through friends in music, design and other fields that the Mac has transformed Western lives. But I also know that 'Designed in California, Made in China' means that for all its modernist sleekness, the Macintosh, my iPod and everything else Apple - just like whatever machine you're using to read this - is soaked in blood and the sweat of exploited workers. Apple is a capitalist machine, nothing more.
This is the guilty secret in which we're all complicit. While Jobs, Ive, Gates et al. wow us with shiny toys, their real innovation is in the financial sphere: they've all harnessed the legal and political forces of darkness to make billions on the backs of their subcontracted non-employees, customers and states, while hiding the vast majority of their profits from the legitimate demands of government. Apple is a company with 50% profit margins and virtually no employees: like most companies, manufacturing is subcontracted to distant, poorer places with few or no environmental or labour regulations. You might say that the iPad or iPhone are classically postmodernist: the smooth lines and virtual absence of physical presence hides an economy based on globalised exploitation.
As an aside, our lovely Tory government thinks that the way to revive our economy is to ape the world's sweatshops by removing the minimal worker and environmental rights for which we've fought. Witness the egregious Louise Mensch, scion of massive inherited wealth and privilege, who is unlikely to ever require the kind of protection she's happy to abolish for others:
The obituaries for Steve Jobs make much of his famed attention to detail, which frequently slipped into dictatorial, 'asshole' territory. He became a billionaire who refused to join that group of philanthropic rich men who tried to make amends for their distortion of the economy. Apple used lobbyists and lawyers to extract tax concessions while sitting on a cash pile of $50bn and exporting manufacturing jobs to dictatorships: with those profit margins, Apple could have thrived while running factories in the US.
To me, Jobs and Branson are the true products of the 60s: underneath the easygoing grins, the polo-necks, jeans and Converse which convey rejection of stuffed-shirt orthodoxy beat the hearts of cold and ruthless entrepreneur who parlayed the period's fascination with self-improvement into pure self-interest.
Like your Apple. Just don't get sentimental or superior about it.
(For a witty in-joke memorialising Jobs, see this XKCD cartoon and don't miss the roll-over panel).
But this nerd isn't joining the howls of anguish. When I got my first Mac (from a skip, 1997), I had no idea what was odd or distinct about it other than the fact that you could make it quack like a duck: it was a free, small computer discarded by my university. Needing something more portable later on, I acquired a used laptop and gradually became aware that a) people laughed at Mac users and b) the company was in deep trouble. For a while, I was dumb enough to identify with the corporation, thinking that using an 'alternative' system made me a culture warrior, something more than a consumer. I revelled in being in a minority, sucked up the rumours about the origin of the bitten apple logo (supposedly referring to the poisoned one eaten by poor persecuted Turing, which now seems like a monstrous appropriation by a capitalist corporation).
It wore off. I became conscious of the fact that Apple was then simply a less successful corporate monster, and is now the most successful one in the jungle. I continue to use Macs because they're designed beautifully, in visual, computing and interface terms, but my membership of the Cult of Mac has long been over. I'm hopelessly compromised, as are we all - I know through friends in music, design and other fields that the Mac has transformed Western lives. But I also know that 'Designed in California, Made in China' means that for all its modernist sleekness, the Macintosh, my iPod and everything else Apple - just like whatever machine you're using to read this - is soaked in blood and the sweat of exploited workers. Apple is a capitalist machine, nothing more.
This is the guilty secret in which we're all complicit. While Jobs, Ive, Gates et al. wow us with shiny toys, their real innovation is in the financial sphere: they've all harnessed the legal and political forces of darkness to make billions on the backs of their subcontracted non-employees, customers and states, while hiding the vast majority of their profits from the legitimate demands of government. Apple is a company with 50% profit margins and virtually no employees: like most companies, manufacturing is subcontracted to distant, poorer places with few or no environmental or labour regulations. You might say that the iPad or iPhone are classically postmodernist: the smooth lines and virtual absence of physical presence hides an economy based on globalised exploitation.
As an aside, our lovely Tory government thinks that the way to revive our economy is to ape the world's sweatshops by removing the minimal worker and environmental rights for which we've fought. Witness the egregious Louise Mensch, scion of massive inherited wealth and privilege, who is unlikely to ever require the kind of protection she's happy to abolish for others:
The left think they're helping working people by providing more rights, but all that actually happens is you create poverty and despair, because jobs go to your competitors who have fewer rights for workers. So which is the compassionate policy? I believe Toryism is the compassionate policy."
The obituaries for Steve Jobs make much of his famed attention to detail, which frequently slipped into dictatorial, 'asshole' territory. He became a billionaire who refused to join that group of philanthropic rich men who tried to make amends for their distortion of the economy. Apple used lobbyists and lawyers to extract tax concessions while sitting on a cash pile of $50bn and exporting manufacturing jobs to dictatorships: with those profit margins, Apple could have thrived while running factories in the US.
To me, Jobs and Branson are the true products of the 60s: underneath the easygoing grins, the polo-necks, jeans and Converse which convey rejection of stuffed-shirt orthodoxy beat the hearts of cold and ruthless entrepreneur who parlayed the period's fascination with self-improvement into pure self-interest.
Like your Apple. Just don't get sentimental or superior about it.
(For a witty in-joke memorialising Jobs, see this XKCD cartoon and don't miss the roll-over panel).
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Some people have no sense of humour
An activist group in Italy has struck PR gold by launching an iPhone game which requires you to catch staff as they leap from phone factory roofs, oversee child labour down the coltan mines (it's a rare element essential for mobile phones) and generally engage in the dubious activities required to be a successful techno-capitalist.
Obviously, they knew Apple would ban the game because major corporations still can't spot an elephant trap. Result: instant win and the point's made. In fact, another good point is made: that Apple's developers and content providers are so in thrall to the company's apparent non-ideological position that they've internalised its ideological values to the point at which almost nothing is 'banned' because nothing 'objectionable' is submitted.
The best bit is one of Apple's objections to the game:
Obviously, they knew Apple would ban the game because major corporations still can't spot an elephant trap. Result: instant win and the point's made. In fact, another good point is made: that Apple's developers and content providers are so in thrall to the company's apparent non-ideological position that they've internalised its ideological values to the point at which almost nothing is 'banned' because nothing 'objectionable' is submitted.
The best bit is one of Apple's objections to the game:
guidelines relate to depictions of "violence or abuse of children", and "excessively objectionable or crude content".So, in this hyperreal existence, it's OK to abuse children and adult workers for profit (remember, they'll always tell you that moving production to dictatorships and countries with lower employee and environmental protection is 'efficient'), but it's definitely not OK to play games in which you abuse children and adult workers for profit. One of these just isn't funny: but I can't help thinking that Apple's picked the wrong one.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
14 Cents a day…and your soul
Decisively rejecting its reputation as not evil, Apple has launched its newspaper for the iPad, The Daily (great name, Poindexters).
For 14 cents, you get a stunning piece of electronic design, but there's a pretty major worm in the apple, if you'll excuse the pun: it's a Murdoch publication, so it will be vacuous, banal celebrity nonsense and sport distorting the public sphere at best, and vicious, reactionary propaganda at worst, with all stories depending on the illegal interception of mobile telephones.
Oh yes, they'll also call their rivals Nazis - then deny it: see RIE's blog for evidence.
For 14 cents, you get a stunning piece of electronic design, but there's a pretty major worm in the apple, if you'll excuse the pun: it's a Murdoch publication, so it will be vacuous, banal celebrity nonsense and sport distorting the public sphere at best, and vicious, reactionary propaganda at worst, with all stories depending on the illegal interception of mobile telephones.
Oh yes, they'll also call their rivals Nazis - then deny it: see RIE's blog for evidence.
Friday, 21 January 2011
Poisoned Apple
As you may know, I've been a fan of Apple's computers for many years now. They don't (often) break, they're secure and they don't need upgrading. They're also very easy to use. And they look good.
However, I'm not a member of the Cult of Mac, though people often assume I am. When I first got one (from a skip), Apple seemed to be on the verge of bankruptcy and closure. Apple users were die-hards, insisting that their machines were better. Back then, the technology was far superior, as was the OS: it wasn't a matter of style, as Macs weren't much better looking than anything else. Gradually though, the Cult grew, ignoring the evidence - underpowered machines with obsolete tech - until St. Steve returned, and transformed everything with his golden touch.
I knew differently. The products got better and better, and I doubt I'll ever stop using a Mac. But I always knew that beneath the punchy, chippy underdog was a grasping corporate capitalist monster dying to get out. So the reports of low pay and mistreatment at their contractors' factories in China didn't surprise me at all. Imagine: an American corporation outsourcing its social and environmental responsibilities along with its manufacturing! Heavens above, whatever next. My take is: find me a computer that isn't made in Chinese slave conditions and I'll buy it. Meanwhile, let's pressure everyone to work greener and fairer.
Apple's latest little trick is a beautiful example of corporate greed and contempt for its customers. Simply by changing the screws on your iPods and computers to a version widely unavailable, they're able to stop you getting into your machine yourself, or taking it to an independent repair shop. Apparently, if you take your existing gadget to them, they replace the old Philips screws with the new ones, guaranteeing that you'll depend on them for ever.
Despicable. But also very cunning.
However, I'm not a member of the Cult of Mac, though people often assume I am. When I first got one (from a skip), Apple seemed to be on the verge of bankruptcy and closure. Apple users were die-hards, insisting that their machines were better. Back then, the technology was far superior, as was the OS: it wasn't a matter of style, as Macs weren't much better looking than anything else. Gradually though, the Cult grew, ignoring the evidence - underpowered machines with obsolete tech - until St. Steve returned, and transformed everything with his golden touch.
I knew differently. The products got better and better, and I doubt I'll ever stop using a Mac. But I always knew that beneath the punchy, chippy underdog was a grasping corporate capitalist monster dying to get out. So the reports of low pay and mistreatment at their contractors' factories in China didn't surprise me at all. Imagine: an American corporation outsourcing its social and environmental responsibilities along with its manufacturing! Heavens above, whatever next. My take is: find me a computer that isn't made in Chinese slave conditions and I'll buy it. Meanwhile, let's pressure everyone to work greener and fairer.
Apple's latest little trick is a beautiful example of corporate greed and contempt for its customers. Simply by changing the screws on your iPods and computers to a version widely unavailable, they're able to stop you getting into your machine yourself, or taking it to an independent repair shop. Apparently, if you take your existing gadget to them, they replace the old Philips screws with the new ones, guaranteeing that you'll depend on them for ever.
Despicable. But also very cunning.
Monday, 20 September 2010
Bad Apples
I'm such an idiot. My office has windows and a door (obviously). When the wind's blowing, the unequal air pressure sends things flying.
Today, what went flying when a colleague walked in was one of my framed pictures. What it hit was my lovely Apple MacBook Pro. Terrible cracks in the glass and a dent in the body. The machine's still working, but I' m looking at £150+ repairs. I'm such an idiot. What a waste of a large amount of money. Looks like the book diet's back on.
Today, what went flying when a colleague walked in was one of my framed pictures. What it hit was my lovely Apple MacBook Pro. Terrible cracks in the glass and a dent in the body. The machine's still working, but I' m looking at £150+ repairs. I'm such an idiot. What a waste of a large amount of money. Looks like the book diet's back on.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Down the rabbit hole
Adam sent me this: a taste of what new media can do to literature. This almost makes an iPad worth buying…
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Size matters
Apple has withdrawn a slew of iPhone Apps by small companies and individual focussing on sexual content - aggregators of pictures of naked women mostly 'because women… found the content getting too degrading and objectionable'.
What do you think? I'm not a fan of porn, taking a feminist stance on this, but I'm also concerned that major corporations shouldn't be the arbiters of what adults should or should not see - that's up to elected leaders. I'm also interested in the notion that there's an acceptable level of degradation.
However: that's Apple's right - it's their store. What does annoy me though is their inconsistency. While deleting apps by unknowns, they've retained the Playboy and Sports Illustrated apps. Why? Because, according to Phil Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing (and what an appropriate surname that is), Playboy is 'a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format'.
Which is hardly a moral stance. If you're a highly successful pornographer, your products can't be objectionable. If you're an amateur, you're degrading. So size does matter.
How capitalism works, folks.
What do you think? I'm not a fan of porn, taking a feminist stance on this, but I'm also concerned that major corporations shouldn't be the arbiters of what adults should or should not see - that's up to elected leaders. I'm also interested in the notion that there's an acceptable level of degradation.
However: that's Apple's right - it's their store. What does annoy me though is their inconsistency. While deleting apps by unknowns, they've retained the Playboy and Sports Illustrated apps. Why? Because, according to Phil Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing (and what an appropriate surname that is), Playboy is 'a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format'.
Which is hardly a moral stance. If you're a highly successful pornographer, your products can't be objectionable. If you're an amateur, you're degrading. So size does matter.
How capitalism works, folks.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Nerd heaven
Afternoon all. I've spent two hours at the Apple Store in Birmingham, taking advantage of the assistants' kindliness. My lovely new MacBook Pro is all sorted out bar transferring my iTunes from an external hard drive back onto the new machine. That's proving quite difficult - any help gratefully received…
The sun shone as I left Wolves - by the time I returned there was an inch of snow and the sky was the colour of beaten copper. Within a few minutes it turned bruise blue and snow once again swirled - though only for a few delightful moments.
Time to do some work.
The sun shone as I left Wolves - by the time I returned there was an inch of snow and the sky was the colour of beaten copper. Within a few minutes it turned bruise blue and snow once again swirled - though only for a few delightful moments.
Time to do some work.
Friday, 29 January 2010
OMFG
Just pressed 'buy' on the Apple Store. 2.53Ghz, 4Gb memory, 320Gb hard drive 13.3" MacBook Pro. Certainly the most expensive object I've ever bought, despite the Education discount. I already feel guilty…
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Drool…dribble…slurp…mmmmyPad
Oh how I want the Apple iPad. I've resisted the iPhone on financial grounds. I've kept my iBook G4 for 7 years: I'm a sensible Mac user. Or I was until today. Rationality has been swept away. I don't really need an iPad - I've no internet at home and prefer reading books, but there's something wonderful about a good idea executed well.
I know this makes a sad, consumerist hypocrite, which is probably why I'll never own one. I am going to buy a MacBook Pro next week though…
I know this makes a sad, consumerist hypocrite, which is probably why I'll never own one. I am going to buy a MacBook Pro next week though…
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Just because I can
Going home, despite its drawbacks, has its advantages: digital TV (reminds me that multichannel = lots more of nothing on), wood fires, a fat kitten (which apparently tries to get at the snooker balls on the television screen) and mother's new MacBook Pro. I'm very attached to my 7 year-old iBook, but it's starting to struggle. A MacBook keeps appearing in my dreams (largely, it must be said, enabling me to mark endless essays) and now I'll have to buy one… In the meantime, I'm just playing with this wonderful machine.
So, apart from marking, what have I been up to that I'd want to share with the world? Well, reading. I know, I know. It's a crazy zany mixed-up world. How about if I said I was reading TO THE EXTREME!!!!!? NU-reading? Reading to the MAX? Mm… perhaps not.
What have I been reading? While marking, I read stuff that I'll never have to teach. Recently it's been Norman Spinrad's Child of Fortune, a really interesting exploration of the hippy ideal and where it went wrong - set in space (which is very 60s in itself). I've also read Burgess's End of the World News which is fun and interesting, and now I'm on Francis Wheen's Strange Days, his history of the paranoia and weirdness of the British political scene in the 1970s. Highly recommended.
So, apart from marking, what have I been up to that I'd want to share with the world? Well, reading. I know, I know. It's a crazy zany mixed-up world. How about if I said I was reading TO THE EXTREME!!!!!? NU-reading? Reading to the MAX? Mm… perhaps not.
What have I been reading? While marking, I read stuff that I'll never have to teach. Recently it's been Norman Spinrad's Child of Fortune, a really interesting exploration of the hippy ideal and where it went wrong - set in space (which is very 60s in itself). I've also read Burgess's End of the World News which is fun and interesting, and now I'm on Francis Wheen's Strange Days, his history of the paranoia and weirdness of the British political scene in the 1970s. Highly recommended.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Take a bite
I know I'll lose most of you now, but yesterday was a glorious one for Apple Mac users: new iPhones (time to get one), a stunning new OS coming in September, and radically upgraded laptops - I'll be replacing this 7 year-old iBook with one of these beasts in September, thanks to the education discount we can all get.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Mmmmacintosh
I haven't posted anything geeky for a while (hey, by my standards anyway), so here goes. I run Mac OS X 10.4 on an old iBook G4 which is frankly struggling now. However, it means I can run Phantom Gorilla's Unofficial BBC Widget - a brilliant, free little app on the Dashboard which simplifies listening to the BBC's radio streams like you wouldn't believe. As it's a good idea invented by a person who only wants to help us and support the BBC, the inevitable result was harassment by letter, e-mail and phone by the BBC legal department - despite technical support from BBC geeks- for using BBC logos in the display. The absolute morons.
Monday, 22 December 2008
'Inspired' by the past
A few weeks ago I visited London to see my old chum Adam (who as a financial software creator, essentially caused the credit crunch), but who finally has found that special other to wield his second lightsabre (a few photos here).
While there, I dragged him round the V+A's Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970 exhibition. Lots of it was predictable, but it did evoke a sense of awe, that people saw industrial design and city planning as our friends - science as our saviour from lives of agricultural drudgery. Some visions have worn better than others. The vertical cities designed to protect us from the polluted (irradiated?) Earth are stunningly beautiful but nostalgically futuristic, whereas Dieter Rams' designs have clearly inspired modern industrial products (yes, I mean you, Apple).
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