Snubbing the Media — Strategy or Revenge?

Much of this post was orginally a comment on "Snubbing the Media — Strategy or Revenge?" at Bulldog reporter.  I'm working on a larger post about what a universe run by Apple would look like.

The manufacture of the gadgets that have become part of our lives, and made Apple a hugely profitable company in the meantime, has transformed Apple's operations into a lightning rod for outrage over worker conditions.  Listeners to This American Life were let in on the sad story even before the Times article was released. 

What was damning about the NYT story was that it went further in context and further in exploring corruption.  In context, it was better able to show the matrix of conditions costs and imperatives that are involved with being an apple supplier and a worker at such a supplier.  But in corruption, the NYT was able to get former Apple employees to discuss the company's internal perspective on the problem, without being official mouthpieces.  Culpability seemed to be at the heart of these admissions.  What are we to say about that? Apple ruthlessly prevents outside access to its inner deliberations, and in some ways this culture of secrecy is good business practice, but in others, it allows sensational news items to define the company's story.

So now Apple is using its main currency, (thirst for details about the company), to attempt to control the story and diver the narrative away from the labor issue.  It's an authoritarian move, and we shouldn't expect Apple to change that approach overnight any more than it can change Foxconn's practices overnight; in many ways that approach might continue to work.  

Apple isn't just freezing out the NYT: it is freezing the citizens of the world and the community of its users from being stakeholders in Apple's governance.  

As the goods we purchase transition to digital rather than physical, the tangible devices and experiences we do purchase become increasingly important expressions of their lose their tangibly, the opportunity we have to participate in the industrial decisions surrounding their production is real and a true test of the world's appetite for respecting craftsmanship, effort, sacrifice, and pride.  Will it become harder to exploit citizens of other low-wage countries, or easier?  That much is up to us.

A great wide warzone full of nuclear brothers?

Watched Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead a 1995 classic, and was particulalry struck by this quote (which is more or less humourous in context) and its relevance to technology. By the year 2000...I don't know.\

Rather than a racially-polarized warzone, Urban america has had a more commerically driven fate, with a transformation that made it hip to live in Bushwick or in an industrial building converted to condos.  in the last few years, with the impact of wireless communications and the destruction/revival of cities like Detroit, or the reinvestment in Downtown LA that has gentrified parts the "innner city"- all these cities represent technology consumption enabled by population density, rather than a warzone devoid of it.

Baby Sinister: The fact of the matter is by the year 2000 every city will be black. Thanks to the fax, the modem, conference call, federal-f**king express, the beast will be able to conduct his business from his home in the white suburb leaving the city a great wide warzone full of nuclear brothers.

Rooster: That's what I'm saying man, the fax, modem, FTD...

Baby Sinister: What the f**k you talking about, FTD? Rooster: You got to have flowers in the warzone, Baby.

Options Tax Treatment Reminds us of Broken Incentives

From today's "But NObody Pays That" post on tax treatment for corporattuibs and the wealthy, those who can afford to manage their income for strategic tax avoidance:

“These options gave executives a highly leveraged bet that stock prices would rebound from their 2008 and 2009 lows, and are now rewarding them for rising tides rather than performance,” said Robert J. Jackson Jr., an associate professor of law at Columbia who worked as an adviser to the office that oversaw compensation of executives at companies receiving federal bailout money. “The tax code does nothing to ensure that these rewards go only to executives who have created sustainable long-term value.”

Yes, a highly leveraged bet.  Yes, paid off on the rise in stock prices  and yes rewarding execs who may or may nor have creted susainable long term value.  Thjose are all true.  I think the article unfarily targets Mel Karmazin, whose tenure with the embattled SiriusXM represents management of significant risks.  The mechanics of rising tides - which governemtns world-wide have been instrumental in rising -  do lift all boats, and it is troubling that we need the tides to rise in order to have the appearance of investor confidence.  As the markets freak out time and time again, what goal are we amanaging toward? Are we managing for value?  For whom?

The (mis)alignment of US Tax policy, compensation incentives, and the martket should not be an indictment of Karmazin or others like him.  The critique of the market and the way the few are able to profit from its gyrations remains. But let's examine our need for the apprarance of stability and confidence, for the appearance of growth?  Stroing products, made over the long term, producing customer value, are the way out, not the feckless consumption of lattes and Barbie dolls on credit.  It's a sad and despareate fact that we all need the market to appear to rise- and bailed out the global financial system to ensure it.

According to the Senate Joint Committee on Taxation there is $25 billion in revenue for the treasury at stake with these deductions - and the implicit subsidy from US Taxapayers to employers who use options for compensation is no fun at all. Balancing the budget probably won't happen a nickel here, a dime there - let's face it, $25 billion over 10 years is a drop in the bucket of trillions - but aligning the tax code in more productive ways could certainly help.

 http://nyti.ms/vx14m7