“the healthy operating margins and steady growth of the wireless divisions is powered by iPhone sales and is helping to mitigate the following headwinds to carrier profitability,” Saibus Research writes for Seeking Alpha.
• Declines in wireline revenue and profitability (AT&T, Verizon and Sprint).
• Increased minority interest expense on wireless business — 45% of Verizon Wireless’s profits go to Vodafone (VOD). We’re glad for AT&T shareholders that Edward Whitacre had the foresight and forward thinking to buy out BellSouth in order to gain 100% total control over Cingular Wireless (AT&T Mobility).
• Poor acquisitions, whether executed or not (Sprint, Nextel and AT&T).
“We believe that blaming iPhone subsidies for carrier misfortunes is like blaming defense spending for the U.S. federal budget deficit,” Saibus Research writes.
Full article with Saibus Research’s analysis as to why Apple is the best friend of a mobile carrier can have – recommended – here.
““We believe that blaming iPhone subsidies for carrier misfortunes is like blaming defense spending for the U.S. federal budget deficit,” Saibus Research writes.””
This is just about the most idiotic analogy anyone has ever made.
It’s actually pretty good. The mobile carriers do not have to offer iPhone, but they do it out of necessity. The U.S. does not have to spend money on having a military, but we do it out of necessity. The actual cause of “deficit” is inefficiency (waste), unnecessary spending, and reduction in revenue.
you might be surprised at the percentage of federal spending that is attributed to the military; it isn’t as big as you think it is. the days are long gone when you could have a significant impact on the budget by deleting money from the military. and there is even less room to cut when you subtract pensions and other items that must be funded.
Sure…$560B or so each year isn’t that much. Are you serious?
I agree that it is necessary for the U.S. to maintain a strong national defense. But I do question the current scale of that endeavor. If trillions of dollars over ten years is not a major contributor to the U.S. deficit and debt, then what is it? We on our way towards defending ourselves into oblivion. As I recall, President Reagan was given credit for ending the USSR by forcing it to spend itself into collapse. We should be able to learn the lessons of recent history.
Let’s not call it “defense”. I am 55 years old and the only Military I’ve ever seen in my lifetime has been “attack”. The US has never in my lifetime ever had to “defend” itself, and not one dime was ever spent on defense. Now we may be getting ready to “attack” Iran because they are building WMD’s yet there is no evidence of Nuclear Bomb tests. Do you really believe they are going to launch an untested bomb on an untested missile? Has there been any bomb tests? No. When they test a bomb, then we have proof, until then, it is just another Iraq.
I think this whole defense spending is getting old, yet since the Vietnam war when I was a kid, if the government wants to call any “attack” mission a “defense” mission, the sheep in this country all fall in line.
Our defense budget should be cut down to what we need to “defend” ourselves, and all of our military should be pulled out of foreign countries.
Why is it that Mexico or Colombia are not afraid of al kaeda? Could it be that Mexico only spends its money on “defense” and has never invaded another country? Since I have been alive we always come up with “good” reasons to invade some other nation!
Here we go, now everyone can call me commie –oh yeah, I forgot, we do most of our business with the commies and give them all our money. Could it be that communism is not all that bad when money is to be made?
OK, maybe calling me a commie, is not good idea because obviously Americans love the commies. How about calling me un-American. That will work. I don’t want to see Americans die to benefit those who abuse the power we entrusted them with when we voted for them. That’s pretty un-American, huh?
Or maybe I am just a conspiracy-theorist because I don’t fall in line and believe everything the government says. Hmm that it, I’m a stupid conspiracy-theorist. That will work. Just call me names, and then nothing I said above will be true.
Come on .. where is the ‘Beleaguered Research in Motion ….’ piece coming after their swan dive performance just after market close today.
Defense spending is only a third of the equation, the other third is the ridiculously low taxation on the rich, and the last third is corporate welfare in its many forms such as “incentives”.
Stupid analogy.
Please “KillBill”, explain to me how you would tax the rich? I really want to know how you think that would look. Also please clarify what you concider rich, your definition/classification.
There I go again, typing to fast and hitting the send button. Damn, I really need this to have “proof” first button. haha
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/economics/2012/05/optimal-tax-rate-top-one-cent-may-be-high-83
Anybody who doesn’t have to work for a living because they exploit it the labor of others.
Commie enough for you?
I’d leave space space below because some nutter will retort with single mother welfare cheats—harping on about the crumbs while the rich run of with the biggest slice.
KillBill,
I don’t see how this will work unless you have a different plan. Take for example a guy I know who owns a business. He is quite wealthy by my standards but, he claims less personal income then I do because his business owns everything. His house, his cars, he has a business credit card, goes out to dinner and just about always takes someone as a client, even his house cleaners are employees. Short of what groceries he buys and some golf clubs, everything else is paid for by the business and is written off which is otally legal from my understanding so, unless you have a way that the rich can not funnel everything through a business and make it so it doesn’t effect every small business, I don’t see how just saying tax the rich is going to help. One thing I’ve learned so far is that every political ad that says things like, ” it’s just a tax break for the rich” is crap and just fodder to get the people who don’t know how the game is played to vote for something that will ultimately hurt the middle class.
The only people that would be subject to the tax in your link are trust fund people or people living off dividends like Mr. Buffet who pays the same amount of tax on capital gains as I do. The difference is I can’t quite live off what I make on those as Mr. Buffet can.
So while your explanation sounds good, I just see how it could possible tax the rich unless you change the business laws and that’s a slippery slope. Because if you change the tax laws on business you ultimately will kill the foundation of this country which is business.
Thanks but from where I sit, that tax the 1% mantra is hollow.
That is why printing money is actually good. It causes inflation and inflation is the PERFECT FLAT TAX. If we have 10% inflation EVERYBODY pays 10% more for everything. Nobody gets a deduction and nobody gets a loop hole.
Printing money is just another form of taxation which is called the Flat Tax. What’s wrong with that? Besides it lowers the value of the dollar making foreign goods more expensive, making US products cheaper, and cheaper to hire Americans. What’s wrong with that?
If there is a government shortfall, just print it. We’ll all pay the “inflation tax” equally. Of course, I suppose everyone will site the “experts” and tell me why it’s bad, but hell, I’m old enough and have lived long enough to see that the only thing that happens when you print money is inflation, and everyone pays. No other evil sinister things happen. It’s not like it hasn’t been going on for over a hundred years!
That is one of the dumbest things that I’ve read in a while, and that’s saying a lot.
amazingly stupid, almost a new low in stupidity.
Since when has Saibus Research been an apologist for the arms industry? But Iam interested to know what the deficit would be without the enormous cost of Bush’s wars…
that is a very hard question to answer because if those wars didn’t happen, especially afghanistan (iraq is practically impossible to justify i think), then there might have been more attacks or attempted attacks on u.s. soil, and perhaps we would have spent even more on alleged security inside the country and even more wasted time by u.s. citizens that isn’t really accounted for, i don’t think, in estimates of our productivity.
Well USA with population around 330(?) Million spends something over 700 Billion dollars to their military per year while rest of the world with population over 7 Billion spends 950 Billion dollars to their military. Obviously something is wrong with the USA. It is irresponsible for China to let you do that. China should stop lending that money to you.
We also have a higher percentage of people in jail than any other country. What’s your point? We need big jails and a world wide military presence so they can’t get our stuff. How else can we keep using the bulk of the worlds resources while we let other peoples children die? It’s our right, isn’t it?