Truth is, Apple assists in the ruination of any economy where it sets up shop, by taking the money and running... to any tax haven where it can't be touched by authorities trying to recover unpaid dues, etc.  In other words, Apple does not contribute anything of worthy of mention to the economies gracious enough to host it. 

As for my interest in the new Mac pro, while it is an impressive piece of equipment that would look good on my desk, I very much doubt that I'll ever be able to afford one at the over-inflated price being asked, so it's not likely that I will be contributing to Apple's ever growing coffers/exponential greed.

If Apple is evil, why do millions of people voluntarily give Apple money?

Clever marketing.

You stick an 'i' infront of a bucket of shit and 'I' MUST have it....;p

....and I ain't one of those 'millions' ....;)

Apple had about two hundred million customers in 2011 according to TechCrunch. 200 million people voluntarily giving Apple money.

Marketing is all it takes?

Some would venture to say Microsoft is just as evil. Recall back when they would buy out their competitors just to force IE on the masses?

When would a company not buy out their competitors given the opportunity?

Yes.

It's a consumer society...;)

I have personally successfully avoided their products.  Not a penny of mine has contributed to their tax-free society, nor will it.

Meanwhile...if you took a minute to read each of the comments in this thread Rinehart has made onemillionandseventyseventhousand dollars in that time....;p

Aahhhh!  Now I know what i gotta do while I try selling my body to raise the money to be able to afford the new Mac Pro... put a fechin' i in front of it.

Same trouble as me, eh?  Can't afford Apple crap cos you can't feching give it ^ away, much less sell it.

It's like the time I was downtown trying to sell my body to raise the money to buy an iPad, and I figured I'd start low so as not to price myself out of work.

Anyway, this sour old biddy comes up to me - well you didn't think I was gonna attract any young uns, did ya - and she asks: "Well... how much is it, then?"

Feeling a little hesitant I replies: "Um, how's five bucks sound?"

"You gotta be kidding, old boy..." as she she snorts heartily: "I just wanna borrow it for half an hour, not take a feching 6 month lease on it."

Orright, so now everybody knows why I don't got an iPad, but at least I'm not supporting the 'Evil Empire' from ill-gotten gain.

As for the aforementioned bucket of shit... reckon I'd get a refund if i took one into an Apple store and complained the 'i' was defective?

Look, Paul, I get it that you hate Gina Rinehart with a deep-seated and dedicated passion, I really do, but do you have to keep mentioning her name so often here in the forums?  It's not that I mind you expressing your absolute contempt/total disgust for the woman [term very loosely used for the want of a something better to describe it]... but every time you use its name, my lunch, dinner, breakfast, whatever, wants to regurgitate itself with the force of a projectile fired from a canon.  Now I wouldn't mind so much if I weren't trying to really hard to economise on the food bill, but I'm never going to afford that Mac Pro at this rate of mention

Now I don't wanna deprive you of your daily bitch, cos everyone needs one to relieve tension, so I've come up with a few variations that may delay the realisation of who you're speaking of long enough for me to settle enough to keep my breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever.... so here goes:

Gina Swineherdt

Gina Lollipiggida

Gina Blackheart

Gina Heartless

or Temporary Gina [and that hopefully she kicks the proverbial sometime soon]

Close....

MS did it on purpose just to make sure IE was the only browser out there. And they got in trouble for it as well.

Ah yes.  Microsoft sued over using their own browser in their own operating system.  

Yes, that was inherently wrong.  There 'should' have been no issue with MS providing a web browser with their OS.  Afterall it's pivotal to an OS's functionality...;)

People like Nutscrape simply got their knickers in a twist and the faction-mad EU jumped on the bandwagon...;p

Because in general people are naive and uneducated on these type things, and even if they do know and it doesn't directly affect them in any way, they could care less. Another sickness of our society... and there are soooooooooo many.

AND... when the press does not give ample coverage to this type of thing..

Seems it is more important to make a big deal out of something someone said on a reality show than to address REAL issues.

200 million naive and uneducated people.  With enough jack to buy their products.

OK.

PS: Nice pic of Gina.  Thanks for that, Jafo.

Yep, and that's 200 million people that have iTunes accounts with credit cards on file, that doesn't necessarily mean they use them. I had an iTunes account years ago too, but I never used it.

Actually? While posing to be for the underdog (Netscape), the EU thieves were just after their Danegeld.

I don't know if they were dangling or not Doc, but making a gelding out of em would be easier if they were!!

I would've thought Gina Swineherdt might have been the go... oh well, Miss Piggida will do.

So, 425 million in taxes paid to Australia for the past 5 years is not contributing? That's the amount the story you link to states they paid once you do the math.

You may say that's not enough but by their accountants, that's what they were legally obligated to pay. You can't blame them for looking for loopholes to avoid paying more than they have to. Matter of fact, they owe it to their share holders to make the company as profitable as possible.

I doubt there are others that would voluntarily pay more taxes than they are obligated to. If they did, I would wonder about their sanity.

Oh yeah, they're dangling alright.  Given some of the bullshit they've espoused in recent years, them fellers in the EU hierarchy 'd have to have balls that big they'd have no choice but to dangle.

If they were not fiddling their books and 'hiding' 6 billion a year in profits offshore they'd be paying about 5 times that much.

Call it 'clever accounting' others call it 'rorting the system'...no different to sneaking yourself OS to somewhere where there are no extradition agreements to avoid criminal prosecution.

ONLY the shareholders [and the well-paid accountants] are on the side of 'that's clever, Apple'.

HONEST people pay their dues.

I did say "worthy of mention".... and what I mean by that is that Apple has extracted billions upon billions in that time, and the tax it paid on those earnings is a piddling amount in comparison.  In other words, Apple betrayed its Australian customers and the Australian taxpayers by shifting the bulk of its profits to offshore tax havens... meaning the onus is then shifted to the people who supported Apple to make greater contributions... and while all this may seem piddling when compared to the US economy, which spends more on its war machine than Australia does on its entire budget, we have a population of a mere 21-22 million and Apple's cowardly and deceitful behaviour is taking food off the table of our poorest families.

Oh, and the key thing here, is that Apple hides its ill-gotten gain in tax havens where is cannot be retrieved by tax collectors, etc.  That suggests there is something quite wrong with the practice and is likely illegal

So by this you are saying it's perfectly okay for big corporations to cheat on taxes, thus placing greater onus on the average Joe to contribute more to prop up government tax coffers?

I hope not because it's the kind of attitude that eventually people suffer for.

isn't it common internet knowledge that the people that buy premium products are naive and uneducated, while the smartest people on the internet live on welfare?