Apple Computer's market capitalization (that is, the total number of shares outstanding multiplied by the share price in $$) has surpassed Microsoft's. YAY!!!!! Steve Jobs is brilliant fellow, and I take my hat off to him...
Apple is the darling of Hollywood, the Media, the super cool, hip, techno wow, pro-choice, save the world folks that brought music to your pocket.
Only thing is, that's all a bunch of Horse Sh*t.
Apple, like Dell, IBM, Hewlett Packard and the rest of the techno-gentry... internalizes profits, and then pays taxes so that the U.S. can continue to overfund an absurd military budget in order to externalize costs across the rest of the planet.
Take a gander at the photo above (I lifted it from Sharon Astyk's excellent blog... I am sure she won't mind...). We (The U.S.) send our e-waste to India, Africa, the Caribbean and any country desperate enough to employ their people handling heavy metals and other nasties in the absence of a HazMat suit.
Believe you me, I am not the only Republican out there that sees this for what it is, contrary to what you read about in the papers... just follow the money... its the Democratic party, Pro-Choice groups, Liberal groups et al that are the beneficiaries of payola largess of the techno-gentry.
Hypocrisy knows no bounds, no party affiliation, no special interest group - it only knows money.
If the Techno-gentry had to pay for the environmental costs of disposing of their products they would not be worth 25% of their current market cap (IMHO), nor would their shareholders be paying all that capital gains tax (still believe in Corporate welfare? Get a grip.)... The costs easily surpass the profits - it ain't even close.
The "enlightened" are not merely blind... they are FOS.
9 comments:
One of the nice things about being "peak oil aware" is the realization that international participation in the world economy, or "globalization," relies a lot on cheap oil to deliver raw materials and finished products, and that many of the international issues, like the one brought up in your piece, will self-correct. I can't wait till globalization is dead, and wastes stay where they are supposed to stay.
You mentioned in one of your earlier pieces about "bunker fuel" imports dropping. Took me awhile to figure out, when I was first reading up on peak oil (2006) what "bunker fuel" (an oil product) was. Usually it is used to push ships, the kind of ships used in international trade. On the one hand, we shudder at the idea of decreasing oil product imports. On the other hand ... yaaayyyyyyyy!!!! :)
I myself can't wait for globalization to come to a screeching halt. I want the majority of airplanes around the world (I hate flying AND planes), to be pancaked into the Atlantic ocean, to fall to the bottom and never be heard from again. Jet fuel imports (another oil product) decreasing too? Terrific!!!
Raw oil imports into the U.S., however, have been increasing in 2010, as I mentioned earlier.
Greg,
You don't watch enough TV. All these companies are way "green". They tell us all the time what good doobies they are. C'mon now. Let's build a couple wind mills. That'll make it all better.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Other than by government regulation, how do you proposes that the computer companies be made to internalize the cost of the hazardous waste disposal of their products?
I think it would be an excellent idea for all US corporations to internalize such costs. Particularly the oil drillers in the Gulf and the coal companies in WVA.
They seem to do quick kill externalization as opposed to the slow kill of melting down computer parts.
But how do you make it happen?
Libertarians ARE NOT Anarchists. The sad fact is we over regulate just about every *&^ING thing, except the stuff the Left's money does not want regulated.
Yes, I am a Pro Life Republican... I am also a hunter, fisherman, hiker and great lover of the outdoors and the natural world. Take a good, HARD look at the environment in much of Asia... its an OMG!!! moment.
The West seems to think "out of sight out of mind"... this stuff CAN and DOES hurt.
Check back. I am in the mood out a bunch of other politically incorrect FOS stuff.
I thought it was are right as Americans to throw are waste on them poor smucks :). On the postive side I hate Apple and can't wait till them and all of their techno geeks fail. I don't know how they will live without their Iphone, Ipod, and Ipad. I read a story a few months back about some girl in New York. I think that she fell in a hole and sued the city. How the hell could she be expected to pay attention when she is watching music videos on her Ipad.
By way of disclosure... I like Apple's products VERY much, and have an apple Imac and an Iphone. I also think Steve Jobs is a freaking genius... I have PC's and Flat screened TV's, etc...
The point was internalizing profits and externalizing costs... something that the Left and Right do indiscriminately, meanwhile the Left excoriates the Right on this issue daily in the media... earning them, FOS #1.
#2 thru ! to follow.
Debating Pigouvian taxes is an exercise in intellectual masturbation, they are going nowhere. The carbon credits scam was their one big shot and it went down in flames.
Also, apple makes pure junk. If you want to make your puter slow right on down just install iTunes. Every last one of their apps self-servingly auto-load on startup, increasing CPU load, whether you want it to or not. To top it all off all of their hardware is disposable. Go ahead, look for the battery cover- it aint there. After about a year my cell phone starts dropping calls and acting up in general, until I change the $6 battery. It always works, excepting the time my 5yr old thought it was dirty and ran it through the dishwasher. After about a year a $300 iphone- needs replaced. Same goes for the overpriced Mac-books, unless you want to leave it tethered to a wall.
Dan:
Just pointing out FOS stuff we are bombarded with daily...
There is a good alternative to the environmental problems of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and the construction of WEEE recycling plants.
In www.redsolenergy.com we design and construction of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), thereby eliminating the major problem of electronic waste in a clean and renewable. We work in countries of Europe and America.
Post a Comment