One of the world’s great companies provided us
evidence of the extent to which political maneuvering can influence an American
company. The last time Apple was occupying the front page of any news
vehicle, it was defending itself against Carl Levin’s (D-MI) Senate
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
With wide-grinning sidekick
John McCain at his side, Levin led a liberal charge against Apple, accusing the
largest taxpayer in the Nation of avoiding taxes on its $44 billion in earnings
from overseas businesses. Levin’s words
were specifically accusatory of Apple, “the real issue is the billions in
taxes it has not paid.” Apple has not broken any laws and is
conducting itself as everyone and every company does – it maximizes
profitability and minimizes taxes.
Whenever you appear on the
national stage, peered at from above by a long-sitting Senator, looking at you
down his nose, over the rim of his reading glasses, it matters little what is
being asked, you just look like you have done something wrong. You must be
guilty. Why else would you be dragged to a public interrogation on such a
distinguished stage?
Tim Cook testified, “We
not only comply with the laws, but we comply with the spirit of the laws. We
don’t depend on tax gimmicks. We don’t move intellectual property offshore and
use it to sell our products back to the United States to avoid taxes. We
don’t stash money on some Caribbean island. We don’t move our money from our
foreign subsidiaries to fund our U.S. business in order to skirt the
repatriation tax.”
Doesn’t matter Tim, you
lost, and in reality, you were just getting squeezed. The grandstanding was
pathetically transparent, but the MSM was playing right along with the script
and the refrain across all news channels convinced the widely dispersed flock.
The MSM also could not help itself and it ground into our percepts the
recently published suspicions on the working conditions inside the Chinese
manufacturing facilities spitting out iPhones and iPads by the millions.
In the hateful climate of
Chicago-brand strong-arming, newly perfected by the present Administration,
and being perpetrated on corporate America, how does one stop the public
humiliation? How does one stem the public reaction against your brand for being
so unpatriotic? How does one react to very public extortion?
Claiming that you’re not
guilty of wrongdoing and evidencing that you are a diligent citizen in good
standing paying all taxes owed, has little affect on the advancing assault on
your credibility. The Washington establishment and the Federal bureaucracy,
emboldened by an MSM-fortified, arrogant, and vindictive Administration, have
launched a never before encountered enemy, and an impossible foe against which
to prosecute a war.
Tim Cook has spent his life
as a corporate manager. A loyal worker, a doer, a workaholic. He
built Apple’s unsurpassed manufacturing ‘system’ under the demanding guidance
of Steve Jobs. Cook is a foreigner to Washington politics. On the
other hand, when shareholders pressure you to perform your fiduciary duty in
exchange for making you a centimillionaire, you do what you believe you have to
do. You succumb and you ingratiate yourself with the overwhelming, and
very political powers threatening your future well-being.
For Tim Cook, that
ingratiation will take on numerous manifestations, and currently includes the
hiring of Obama’s recent head of the EPA
(Environmental Protection Agency) Lisa Jackson. Lisa who?
Well, she’s become very influential around the beltway. And
yes, that’s the same Lisa Jackson embroiled in the multi-horned scandal now
boiling at the EPA. Similar story to the IRS abuse of power – just
different people and different part of the monstrous Federal bureaucracy acting
very politically.
Who will this Lisa be reporting to at Apple? Why, she’ll be reporting to Tim. If Tim delivers enough guilt money to the right causes important to Lisa’s former bosses, she’ll open doors along Penitent Boulevard and she will guide Tim through the appropriate hallways which will eventually lead him and Apple to salvation. Tim will see the light. He will understand the full meaning of shakedown.
Reviewing Tim Cook’s rationalizations
for the hire, and his explanations for the ‘new job,’ is very simply, . . .
embarrassing. He’s skating very obviously and uttering hollow non-sense,
but he has a job to keep and he has to ensure that the company he manages walks
in goose-step with demands and expectations of a politicized bureaucracy and a
Washington machine bending to a regal Presidency.
Unfortunately,
Apple’s new hire may have difficulty managing the company’s advance along the
road to redemption as her past actions, while head of the EPA under this
Administration, place her in the eye of a widening scandal. This hiring
may prove to be Tim Cook’s version of Jumping The Shark.
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