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4% pay raise is too much. Those pay raises fuel inflation. Wages in the US are much too high. They need to go down.

wages in the us are much too low. the wages of bottom earners don't fuel inflation. almost all of the cost of anything goes directly to stock buy backs so that the wealthiest people on the planet can hoard capital
 
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Sorry, I guess I’m new to this. I know that dividends are a predetermined payment per share to each shareholder, so that doesn’t seem like market manipulation and it seems pretty obvious how that benefits the shareholder.

But I don’t see in your explanation how the buyback benefits you as a shareholder. You say you had $10 of value pre buyback, but for your after buyback example you say you then have 11% of $90, which would be $9.90.

You did mention it being tax efficient, so are you taking the 10 cents loss as a write-off?

The dividend seems an obvious net positive, but I don’t see the positive in your example. Did you leave out some detail that causes you to have more value?

Good questions. My numbers were rough but here is a link that shows dividend-buyback equivalence with full calculations: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabiliti...rchases-and-dividends-which-create-more-value

Regarding the tax efficiency, I said that basically for two reasons: dividends can/could sometimes be taxed at higher rates than simply selling an appreciated stock that's taxed at long term capital gains rates. I believe this reason is not as significant as it used to be since most/all of your holdings in US-based companies can now be considered "qualified dividends" which are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income (prior treatment of dividend income) and are comparable to LTCG tax rates. Most importantly to me, you have a choice. If you hold a stock from a company paying a dividend you receive the dividend and owe taxes on it. You have no choice. In a situation where a company returns cash to shareholders via buyback you can make that choice for yourself - sell a portion of your holdings into the market and realize gains on those sales or simply hold your stock and see your % ownership of the company increase over time.

I'm certainly not saying all buybacks are good corporate financial decisions, I just don't think it constitutes market manipulation. If the companies are telling you how profitable they are by the financials being public, telling you roughly how much they're buying back, etc then everyone has the information they need to make the right choices for themselves. No one is being deceived. Both buyback and dividend policies can be horrible decisions but that's all dependent on the company's situation and outlook.
 
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That people deserves nothing, they are nothing to Apple. Apple can’t afford to share the small profits every year!
 
The wages that we collectively accept for others are inseparable from the amount which we value their lives.
 
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Good questions. My numbers were rough but here is a link that shows dividend-buyback equivalence with full calculations: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabiliti...rchases-and-dividends-which-create-more-value

Regarding the tax efficiency, I said that basically for two reasons: dividends can/could sometimes be taxed at higher rates than simply selling an appreciated stock that's taxed at long term capital gains rates. I believe this reason is not as significant as it used to be since most/all of your holdings in US-based companies can now be considered "qualified dividends" which are taxed at lower rates than ordinary income (prior treatment of dividend income) and are comparable to LTCG tax rates. Most importantly to me, you have a choice. If you hold a stock from a company paying a dividend you receive the dividend and owe taxes on it. You have no choice. In a situation where a company returns cash to shareholders via buyback you can make that choice for yourself - sell a portion of your holdings into the market and realize gains on those sales or simply hold your stock and see your % ownership of the company increase over time.

I'm certainly not saying all buybacks are good corporate financial decisions, I just don't think it constitutes market manipulation. If the companies are telling you how profitable they are by the financials being public, telling you roughly how much they're buying back, etc then everyone has the information they need to make the right choices for themselves. No one is being deceived. Both buyback and dividend policies can be horrible decisions but that's all dependent on the company's situation and outlook.
Thanks for the link! Their first sentence made me think they were actually against buybacks, but they did have a reasonable explanation and comparison. Now my main question is in their explanation of the buyback where they state:

“On a per share basis, for those shareholders who don’t sell, each remaining share will increase in value to $16 because of the lower share count.”

Is there some process to automatically adjust the stock price, like when there is a split? I had thought the price changing was just the usual “market moving because there is less supply”, so not nearly as exact as their description, but if there is a price adjust similar to a split, that statement makes more sense to me, and I’ve learned something new!
 
Why is there not one union for all Apple retail employees? That would be real meaningful collective bargaining and not a separate union for every store.
 
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The CEO of a for-profit company prioritizing the financial health of the company itself as required by law for someone in his position? No way!
"Financial health"? "As required by law"? Friend. Where to begin.

This isn't CCP, it's CA. This isn't Xi, it's Daddy Cook. If DC (Daddy Cook) wanted to give a $5/hr, or $10/hr, across the board, to retail employees, he could. Sure he'd need to get approval from the board etc, but let's not get lost in the weeds here: there is a difference between preserving the "financial health" of the company (the richest in the history of humanity, who, for the record, are doin' just fine) and doing right by the employees that enable your company to function (and therefore bring in the money).

What's more interesting to me is the bizarrely pompous / totalitarian-leaning tone you're taking. Honestly, it feels genuine, as if you have a financial stake in defending Apple's financial moves. Wherever you got your MBA - they ain't accredited, friend, and you need to get your tuition money back. **I never get involved in this dumb crap - here we go**
 
Curious to know what the employees think they deserve when there's 30,000+ retail employees and do they expect part timers should get the same as full timers and should new employees get the same as employees who have been there longer? 😂😂

Apple retailer employees have nothing to do with the success. These people are dumb as hell and know nothing about what they are talking about. You wouldn‘t believe on how many lies I have caught them saying about Apple products.

Apple‘s success is simply the “goodwill“ Steve Jobs left behind. The latest iPhone 15 Pro Max is hardly an upgrade, yet the 1TB iPhone 15 Pro Max has a 2 month waiting list. That is what the Apple logo by Steve Jobs does.

If the iPhone 15 Pro Max was an Android phone, you know sure as hell this thing wouldn‘t sell like hotcakes. That is the mighty power of the Apple logo.

Apple can simply steal 2 old Android features, and the Apple customers goes nuts.
 
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The new normal retail go on strike and hold company hostage and demand more money sorry but it’s only retail
 
The CEO of a for-profit company prioritizing the financial health of the company itself as required by law for someone in his position? No way!

Now, explain to me, convincingly, why someone at the top end of the scale in the article deserves to make $62,400 annually for tapping on an iPad to ask someone in the back of the store to bring out the product I am picking up? And please justify it by also explaining why most of the time I end up knowing more about the product than they do. I worked retail as well, so any claims of elitism will be useless. I just want to know why people like yourself want to pretend these workers are out on street corners selling matchbooks to make ends meet.
I called an Apple Store yesterday to ask about Apple Watch Ultra 2 availability in-store and he recommended to reserve for pickup from the website, which he said would open at 6AM. I don’t recall Apple allowing reserve for pickup for Apple Watches on release day. I’ve been buying iPhones for 10 years. I woke up at 6AM today and surprise surprise, there was no option to reserve for pickup.

That guy wasted 20 mins of my time just spewing bs and I didn’t end up getting a reservation. Plus made me wake up too early (I wake up at 9AM). Going to another store now to check availability because the Apple Store is a total mess on release day.
 
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Because they provide significant value for a massively valuable company, because people deserve living wages, and because cost of living makes that $60k not actually all that much money in at least most urban areas in the us.
But the concept of a “living wage” is flawed because not all people have the same cost of living even within the same economic boundaries (I.e. urban areas, as you mentioned). A person choosing to live alone, in a larger apartment, with certain spending habits has higher financial “need” than someone in the same occupation who chooses to live in a smaller apartment, chooses to live with partner/roommates, or chooses to live with family (Which is not historically unusual). The second category can live quite comfortably in those circumstances. And that’s beyond all the other things that factor into financial stability and health.

Sometimes people conflate “cost of living” with “living wage”, but they’re not the same and the first concept also is not entirely unambiguous.

“Living wage” is a political concept that has no use in the real world beyond trying to influence policy, so it’s not useful in this discussion of Apple Store employee compensation.
 
In early 2022 I went into an Apple Store to upgrade my iPad 5 to an iPad Pro. After 20 minutes I left without ever talking to a retail employee because they were ignoring me.

In the summer of 2022 I bought a Mac Studio M1 Ultra to be picked up at an Apple Store. I went into the Apple Store and after 45 minutes I left without ever talking to a retail employee because they were ignoring me. I never walked into an Apple Store again.

I guess at 67 years old that the retail employees feel that I do not exist. As far as I am concerned from my experiences with an Apple Store that the retail employees need to be fired.
 
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This is utterly gross. Apple not even matching inflation means people are getting a pay decrease as Apple are expecting them to rake in record holiday profits. They'll probably give employees some usb-c earpods for the holidays and tell them to be grateful. Remember when Apple was good?
 
In early 2022 I went into an Apple Store to upgrade my iPad 5 to an iPad Pro. After 20 minutes I left without ever talking to a retail employee because they were ignoring me.

In the summer of 2022 I bought a Mac Studio M1 Ultra to be picked up at an Apple Store. I went into the Apple Store and after 45 minutes I left without ever talking to a retail employee because they were ignoring me. I never walked into an Apple Store again.

I guess at 67 years old that the retail employees feel that I do not exist. As far as I am concerned from my experiences with an Apple Store that the retail employees need to be fired.
Not sure what a few employees not approaching a guy who didn't wanna approach them has to do with anything here. Fire all employees because of one bad experience? What??
 
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