Freedom From Corporate Responsibility

THE UNITED STATES SENATE is taking a look at the Apple computer company, and is having the audacity to suggest that possibly the giant high tech inc. is playing games with its money in order to avoid paying federal taxes. How shocking. How surprising. How dare the united states government do anything other with an upright righteous american corporation  than turn a blind eye to all its endeavors, especially those having to do with finances.

Are not american corporations veritable paragons of virtue, who, as legal individuals, not only pay their fair share of taxes, but do so gladly, willingly, with only the best interests of the american people in mind, even to the detriment of profits and executive incomes? Perish the very thought that any mega corp would ever attempt to short change the rest of us in any way whatsoever.

First the american government, a vile wing thereof, has the indecency of paying close attention to that stalwart of righteous virtue, the self proclaimed charitable public service oriented Taxed Enough Already gang - and now this. One can already hear the wailings and gnashings of conservative capitalists all across the land of the free to get rich by any and all means.

apple's CEO, obviously deeply hurt by this malicious insinuation, delcared with no uncertainty that his business, with a one hundred and forty five billion dollar stash of cash on hand, not only employs a great number of american citizens, but indeed does pay its fair share. As if he would or could ever say anything else. 

Pretty clever, mister CEO. Nobody is suggesting that your firm does not pay its fair share, but rather, that by keeping profits overseas, particularly in Ireland, you are greatly decreasing, by this clever gimmick, the amount which constitutes what that fair share actually totals, after all the money juggling changes the fair share taxable total by lowering it, substantially.

By keeping the money in the air, over the atlantic ocean, the money is nowhere, and is thus legally taxable nowhere, either in europe or the united states. Doesn't the CEO's cleverly evasive, technically true  simplisitic response that "we pay our fair share" thus constitute de facto dishonesty, and therefore, contempt of congress?

In a country which worships at the sacred alter of wealth, idolizes the wealthy, and hates the poor, we can expect to see nobody going to jail for contempt, but we can expect to see the billionaire owners of apple  continue to fly high above the rest of us, out over the atlantic, back and forth, money safely stashed away in personal pockets, free from all social responsibility to america, or anyone else, save themselves.