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burgman

macrumors 68030
Sep 24, 2013
2,714
2,292
its funny how 2-3 guys can get 2-3 billions while 200 aint even worth a job. Just shows how wrongly balanced our society is. Nobody is worth that more than any other person, even if his excrement is worth its weight in gold. The world is twisted.
So everyone can do say brain surgery? Is the guy who saves your life worth more to society than YOU?? That's a lot of rooms at Holiday Inn to make everyone equal in knowledge.
 

iMcLovin

macrumors 68000
Feb 11, 2009
1,963
898
But soceity does try to balance this. It's why the lowest income levels pay zero in income tax while the highest pay 40%. We already live in a society with a progressive tax system. It's why there are food stamps, tax deductions for those with kids, low income housing, public transit, massive estate taxes, etc. There are a million examples of the US government helping those that need help. That is a progressive system where the people who have help those who do not.

The fact that 1% of people own a great deal of the national income isn't proof that society isn't trying to help those that are down. Correlation doesn't imply causation. I'd argue that of course the money is flowing to the 1%. These people are typically intelligent, educated, have some work ethic, and the capital needed to make more money. The system is set up that way so that it empowers the people who are capable of making change to be able to make that change. If Elon Musk wasn't capable of making billions it's very possible he wouldn't have the freedom to create such disruptive companies like Space X, Tesla, and SolarCity. What I'm saying is that the system is set up in a way that capital generally flows to those most capable of using it. Bill Gates is capable of making change. He is remarkably intelligent and educated. He has a notorious work ethic. His contributions to society are massive. I think it's absolutely great that he has the capital to do what he is doing. And by comparison, if I were in his shoes I never would have founded Microsoft and I certainly wouldn't spend my years in retirement trying to get cure the world of viruses.

I understand that if you're poor it can be very tough to get that initial jump and that it's much easier to make money when you have money (or at least credit). That doesn't change the fact that nearly everything in our system is set up to help people get that start and that government does nearly nothing to help rich people get richer.


If you think thats how the tax system is in the us you should check the facts I'm afraid.

Nm though, I'm lucky to have a good life, just saying the world is getting more and more unbalanced... And the US economic system is probably the most uneven system of any modern society I can think of. That's just what I think.
 

CFreymarc

Suspended
Sep 4, 2009
3,969
1,149
Expected.

Anyone who did not see it coming was pretending to be an ostrich.

This is typical with a lot of mergers. Usually you will see a reorganization just before the layoffs. Those with poor performance reviews or on the political outs are given the heave-ho.

----------

But soceity does try to balance this. It's why the lowest income levels pay zero in income tax while the highest pay 40%. We already live in a society with a progressive tax system. It's why there are food stamps, tax deductions for those with kids, low income housing, public transit, massive estate taxes, etc. There are a million examples of the US government helping those that need help. That is a progressive system where the people who have help those who do not.

Progressive tax systems are nothing but a move by a bunch of cronies who are suppressing the latest generation from replacing their stoic butts.

Eliminate both welfare and the minimum wage, you will see a resurgence in the economy beyond anything since the Roaring '20s when the Federal Reserved moved in and created the Great Depression with their lapdog, FDR taxing the hell out of new money keeping the cronies in power.
 

randyj

macrumors regular
Aug 23, 2004
175
273
700 people operate Beats? Maybe if they had 1000 they could make good quality stuff.
(Feel sorry for the 200!)
 

mazz0

macrumors 68040
Mar 23, 2011
3,130
3,576
Leeds, UK
I don't mean to sound harsh, but I've never met anyone who works in HR upon whom I wouldn't wish unemployment.
 

ricci

macrumors 6502
Aug 21, 2012
259
13
NYC
While I am not anti Dr Dre, Beats do suck and this deal was overpriced, much like ALL Apple products.

GO APPLE!

PS, I own lots of Apple products, but will never buy Beats, even if Apple owns them and again, NOT because I am anti Dr Dre or Iovine.



Sucks is a nice educated way to express your opinion! I work in a music studio handling many headsets and though I don't own the full cup headset, I do own the original earbuds!( for personal use) Since beat headsets are made for portable market, it's not for everybody! Beats has one line that is professional! Headsets are purchased by listening to them for your individual application! Many companies making many different headset for many different applications! Get it? Monster company made the hardware to Beats, not Dr. Dre! By saying "never" means even if their is a superior headset out there, you would not buy it because of a name and not function? It's the other way around, at least that's how we do it in the music business ! :cool:
 

s2mikey

Suspended
Sep 23, 2013
2,490
4,255
Upstate, NY
You'd have to assume that these 200 "cuts" will be given every opportunity to post for new jobs within the organization, which is very common (and often under reported, because job cuts is much more sensationalist).

No, no.... They'll be replaced by cheap Chinese slave labor. Where have you been? ;)
 

filiale

macrumors member
Jul 15, 2014
36
0
Trim away Dr Dre and then trim away the Beats brand completely. Turn these into better headphones with an Apple logo and keep the price same.

That's the only wise way to go!
 

sinfonye

macrumors regular
Nov 22, 2010
121
3
You're looking at it from a consumer's point of view and not a business point of view:

- Beats has a worldwide recognition as a luxury brand headphone company.
- Beats controls more than 50% of the headphone market
- Jimmy Iovine has been in the record industry for over 20 years and has connections if Apple needs to negotiate with record labels.
- Beats audio streaming was done correctly and Apple could use the design behind it to improve iTunes Radio.
- Dr. Dre is a celebrity which brings more of a "cool" factor to Apple.
- Apple may put out better headphones.

All of these factors make Beats a very attractive acquisition for Apple.

Apple normally acquires companies that have technology that they want, and walks away from deals where the terms are too onerous.
Here they have paid significant amounts of money for something that is not their core business,
and where there is apparently no technology on offer. There is not obviously much more money to
be made from the music industry (or by selling headphones as computer accessories), and Beats does not have any key patents in the area (Bose seems to have those). Apple are also acting out of character by maintaining the company as a separate business rather than simply absorbing it.

Conclusion: something unusual is going on! Wearable fashion technology, perhaps?
 

MagnusVonMagnum

macrumors 603
Jun 18, 2007
5,193
1,442
Ah, the "plus" side of mergers (and outsourcing too). Job killing.

Hey, as long as a few moguls and top 1% management make lots of money from these sorts of deals (i.e. it rarely benefits the public buying the productds or services much if at all), that's ALL that matters in this world. Screw the common man being able to feed his family. Let him find a job somewhere else like McDonalds, which too puts local burger joints out of business that can't compete with a dollar menu. :rolleyes:

I'm thinking perhaps corporations should be outlawed. The entire model precipitates around greed which is anathema to all morality and ethical behavioral patterns that benefit all of mankind and not just a select privileged few. Instead, Mankind continues to beat his collective chest and prove he is nothing more than a lowly self-defecating animal in the grand scheme of things.
 

Gary03mw

macrumors regular
Mar 22, 2013
144
103
If you think thats how the tax system is in the us you should check the facts I'm afraid.

Nm though, I'm lucky to have a good life, just saying the world is getting more and more unbalanced... And the US economic system is probably the most uneven system of any modern society I can think of. That's just what I think.

The facts are that that the highest tax bracket in the US pays 39.6% in federal income tax. Some places pay even more because of state and local taxes. For example, the highest tax bracket in California pays 13.3%. This doesn't even account for sales tax (which is also very progressive because wealthy people typically purchase more) or property tax. It's also a fact that the lowest tax bracket in the United States is 0%. Another fact is that the US has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world at 39.1%.

There's been a ton of political BS spouted about wealth inequality the past few years but it really boils down two things..

For personal income tax it comes down to the tax rates on capital gains and dividend payments. You probably remembered Warren Buffett saying that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. I love Buffet. He's brilliant, modest, and extremely generous. That being said, he achieves his "lower tax rate" through capital gains and dividends. This is probably the most hotly debated topic when it comes to taxes. When you own stock in a company you actually own a portion of that company. If the stock goes up you can sell your stock and pocket the gains (this is a capital gain). If the company has more profit than is needed for the business then the company can pay the owners (shareholders) a dividend payment.

Right now dividends and long term capital gains (stock held over a year) are taxed at 20%. This is how Buffett claims to lower his effective tax rate. The issue is that as an owner of the business (a shareholder) this money was already taxed 39.1% on the corporate level. Simply transferring it from his company to his personal account costs an additional 20%. Basically the business owners are being taxed twice on the same money. If I were personally in charge of taxes I would lower the corporate tax rate to make American business more competitive globally and raise the dividend and capital gains rates to the 39.6% taxed. This would help American business and get rid of the perception that some people are avoiding massive amount in tax.

The second thing being spun for political gain is the corporate tax rate. Apple has come under fire recently for dodging taxes. If Apple sells a phone in the US then they pay the corporate tax rate of 39% but the issue is that Apple sells a great deal of phones all over the world. The people saying that Apple is dodging taxes are basically saying that Apple should pay the US government for profits made elsewhere. So instead of bringing the money back to the US Apple is simply letting it sit in a bank overseas. Apple would like to be able to get to the money and the government would like a piece of it, but the tax rate is so high that it's prohibitive. As the global economy continues to grow and other countries continue to progress more business is being done outside of the US. This is the reason that US companies are holding record amounts of cash offshore. It's also the reason that multinationals have started doing what is called a "tax inversion." Basically they are buying companies overseas and moving their headquarters there to pay a lower tax rate. This will continue as long as the repatriation tax is obscenely high.

I know that was a lot, but that's basically a summary on everything going on with US taxes. We live in a very progressive tax system where the wealthy pay significantly more than the poor.


Progressive tax systems are nothing but a move by a bunch of cronies who are suppressing the latest generation from replacing their stoic butts.

Eliminate both welfare and the minimum wage, you will see a resurgence in the economy beyond anything since the Roaring '20s when the Federal Reserved moved in and created the Great Depression with their lapdog, FDR taxing the hell out of new money keeping the cronies in power.

Care to clarify? I fail to understand how a progressive tax system is an attempt to suppress a new generation? Wouldn't a regressive tax system be much more effective? If the rich "cronies" are in charge and just want to keep the latest generation down then why not just tax the young/poor at a high percentage and tax themselves nothing? And you do realize that welfare and minimum wage are both in place to help poor people right? That neither of these things are available to the wealthy?

Apple normally acquires companies that have technology that they want, and walks away from deals where the terms are too onerous.
Here they have paid significant amounts of money for something that is not their core business,
and where there is apparently no technology on offer. There is not obviously much more money to
be made from the music industry (or by selling headphones as computer accessories), and Beats does not have any key patents in the area (Bose seems to have those). Apple are also acting out of character by maintaining the company as a separate business rather than simply absorbing it.

Conclusion: something unusual is going on! Wearable fashion technology, perhaps?

I agree with much of what you say here. I don't think something unusual is going on though. Don't over think it. It's still pretty obvious that streaming is the future of music and Beats already has a product (a fairly good one) in this market. It's a market that is growing rapidly. Past that, there are other synergies... Apple doesn't currently offer speakers or high end headphones so there is no conflict on product lines there. Also Apple can immediately take these products to a global scale with their retail network. Last was Jimmy Iovine and Dres relationships in the music industry. These guys have worked in the industry for their entire life and they know people there. Maybe Jimmy can help Apple negotiate lower rates than competitors for streaming (maybe he already has with Beats and Apple inherited this advantage). Tim said that this deal would be accretive to earnings in 2015. Thats remarkably fast to acquire a company and make more than you paid for them. And if streaming takes off like I think it will then Apple will have made much much more than 3B when it's all said and done.
 
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baypharm

macrumors 68000
Nov 15, 2007
1,951
973
Well it was reported that 40 per cent of Beats employees are out of a job. Shame shame
 
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