Erstwhile politician and consumer protection/environmentalist activist Ralph Nader has peened (typo and it’s staying) the following open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, verbatim:
May 9, 2018
Tim Cook, CEO
Apple, Inc.
One Apple Park Way
Cupertino, CA 95014
Dear Mr. Cook:
Last week, you announced the largest single stock buyback in corporate history, amounting to $100 billion. Probably no more than you and two other Apple executives made this decision prior to receiving the expected rubber stamp from your congenial board of directors. Your company’s owners – Apple stockholders– were neither consulted nor asked for their approval.
Executive compensation packages rely on stock buybacks. (See The CEO Pay Machine by Steve Clifford, a former CEO who has served on corporate compensation committees.) From 2005 to 2016, stock buybacks by the S&P 500 totaled $5 trillion – equal to half of net income and twice as much as paid to shareholders in dividends. By the end of 2018, this figure will grow to well over $6 trillion. The owners of these companies – the shareholders – were not asked by management for their approval. After all, it is their big money, notwithstanding the out-of-control reliance on the “business judgment rule.” Were they given the clear choice between stock buybacks or dividends, most shareholders would have preferred receiving this surplus in cash dividends now.
With your $100 billion announcement, you are telling shareholders, your company’s owners, without a detailed explanation regarding other options, that this is the best you can do to advance their interests. This is short-term nonsense, except for its positive impact on executive compensation metrics.
Studies have shown that stock buybacks are just one variable in a large matrix of variables – internal and external to the company – that shape stock price and they are a weak variable at that. (See attached list of studies). You can examine major company stock buybacks for yourself (e.g., Cisco and Walmart) and see the accuracy of that observation. Cisco, after huge buybacks and much greater profits and size, has its stock about one-half of its March 2000 value.
It is the better part of prudence and foresight for you to pursue two courses of action. First, suspend the $100 billion decision or its implementation. Second, enter into a professional, detailed exchange with your shareholders – institutional and individual – explaining why you do not think there are better uses long term and short term for their $100 billion. Receive their considered feedback all in public for other interested parties to be informed and educated.
You also owe it to less-favored taxpayers in America who don’t have the offshore repatriation tax reduction demands that Apple and other companies regularly pursue. As Larry Fink, Chairman of the giant Blackrock investment firm wrote in his February 2018 letter to CEOs, “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. Companies must benefit all of their stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate.” (See attached).
In that context of proper expectations, here are some issues you can address in ways that would receive positive public reactions:
1. For less than 2 percent of your $100 billion buyback, or $2 billion, you could award a full year’s pay bonus to the 350,000 Foxconn workers who build your iPhones. Think of the economic relief and happiness that gesture would produce. These workers sweat for your immense wealth in difficult workplace conditions, unable to afford the Apple phones they manufacture for your company’s massive profits.
2. You can invest in research and development on ways you can diminish the effects of your company’s toxic supply chain that stretches from the dangerous mines in Africa to the hazardous solid waste disposal when users discard them. Many serious illnesses, fatalities, and injuries associated with manufacturing your products can be prevented.
3. With your reported reflective bent, you can make the case for reducing some of the collateral damage from excessive iPhone use by youngsters that comes with a sedentary life of obesity – now at risk-laden epidemic levels. Apple could invest in needed neighborhood recreational facilities all over the country.
4. Of course, you could always cut your prices for consumers. In the 1960s and ‘70s, such profit margins as Apple’s would have been an antitrust signal of possible monopolistic practices or market collusion.
5. Then there are the conventional applications of a cash-rich company to consider: productive new investments, raising employee salaries and pensions, improving hiring practices, and workforce training and consumer services.
6. Finally, it is unconscionable that the federal government decided to give Apple a huge tax windfall for repatriating its cash from abroad, while it refused to adequately fund the annual budgets of four critical agencies. The egregious examples of these budget inadequacies are the Center for Disease Control ($7 billion), the World Health Organization ($4.4 billion), the Environmental Protection Agency ($8 billion), and the IRS, whose strapped budget made it unable to attempt to collect $450 billion in uncollected taxes (it currently has a budget of only $11.5 billion).
Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith called attention to the problems associated with concentration of private wealth and public deprivation over 60 years ago.
The concentration of corporate power in ever-fewer hands, with expanding immunities and privileges denied “real persons,” continues to rise on matters of gravity to the American people. Conservatives call these privileges “Statism,” or “crony capitalism,” that has enormous influence over government dispensations. Mr. Fink’s cautions are worth pondering in more reflective formal settings.
The undersigned is not the only Apple shareholder who believes that stock buybacks, in contrast with other superior options, should be fully discussed with shareholders and then submitted to a binding shareholders’ vote. You will be hearing from others. Put your $100 billion stock buyback decision on hold.
I look forward to your thoughtful response.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
Source: The Official Site of Ralph Nader
MacDailyNews Take: Yeesh.
Some people deride Apple CEO Tim Cook as a top-notch SJW virtue-signaler, but next to Left Field Ralph, he looks like William F. Buckley Jr.
Yes! Finally!
It’s THE ULTIMATE SJW SMACKDOWN! Who will virtue-signal the loudest, the most often, and the with the craziest, most anti-capitalist lunacy?!
Stay tuned: It’s NADAR vs. COOK! May the farthest left virtue-signaler win!
You should love the guy. He handed W the 2000 election!§
How quickly and conveniently they forget.
Ahhh, no! The voters handed Dubya the win. Happens to winners in every election since the beginning of time, HELLO? …
I remind you that W in his first term was also an “electoral president”, albeit by a much closer margin.
From Wikipedia…
“ Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes. Nader received 97,421 votes in Florida (and Pat Buchanan and Harry Browne received 17,484 and 16,415”
Do you think even one Nader vote would have gone to Bush, even if Buchanan and Browne weren’t running and all their votes went to Bush, Gore would have won.
Dude, puhleeze …
Just math….
More whining than anything else…probably a member of the Trump Derangment Syndicate, too…
It is well documented now that had all votes in Florida been properly recounted Gore won Florida easily. Have you had your head stuck in the sand all these years? Nothing we can do about it now but the truth is that Gore won Florida.
Yeah, well, if ifs and buts we’re candy and nuts everyday would be Christmas. You can’t rewrite history and Dubya won fair and square. Sorry to read you just can’t get over it …
I’m not American. I don’t care who won. I’m just telling you that multiple surveys of ballots that were not included in the recount have clearly shown Gore won Florida, by a significant margin. Bush had a better legal team and strategy. That is why he won. Bush did not win via actual votes from citizens. Again, I don’t care either way. Both parties in your country are corrupt. In that context Dubya won, well, not fair and square in a civilized sense, but by American standards of what is fair, sure I’ll give that to you.
It was settled by the Clinton era Supreme Court, nuff said. Time to move in from 18 years of dwelling on it …
Off topic. Now I’m worried.
Where the f*** is Botty?
You read my mind. I’ve been wondering about him for about two weeks …
“It was settled by the Clinton era Supreme Court, nuff said. Time to move in from 18 years of dwelling on it ”
I’m not dwelling on it but it seems like you sure are. Let me repeat, I don’t care who is president of Dumberica. Bush did not get more votes than Gore in Florida. Bush did end up with the higher vote total in Florida due to a very smart PR and legal strategy.
“I’m not dwelling on it but it seems like you sure are.” Is my name avatar “Gore won Florida?”
Nuff said …
“Amen and ENOUGH of this sour grapes revisionist NONSENSE …”
For it to be sour grapes I would have to care who won and I don’t care at all. It isn’t revisionist nonsense, even the article cited in this thread to prove Bush won says that Gore would have won a statewide recount of all votes. It shouldn’t bother you. Bush was president. Nothing can change that. However, it is a fact that Gore did get more total votes in Florida than Bush did. That isn’t what counted though, only the partial recount mattered and Bush won that. I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand. The partial recount is not a statewide recount. Bush won the partial recount and his legal strategy made sure that was all that mattered. Gore would have won a statewide recount but that was never carried out.
“For it to be sour grapes I would have to care who won and I don’t care at all.” So if you don’t care WHY OH WHY do you keep posting this NONSENSE? BUSH WON! He served eight years. The media and Supreme Court AGREED. Move on …
“BUSH WON! He served eight years. The media and Supreme Court AGREED.”
All of that is true. It is also true that Gore got more votes in Florida. Do you not understand how both statements can be correct? I fear for our future if this is the intellectual level of the tech crowd.
That is one sick obsession you have and you just can’t let it go …
You’re right, it is well documented who won that vote.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/us/examining-vote-overview-study-disputed-florida-ballots-finds-justices-did-not.html
and BTW the NYTimes was not the only liberal publication to come to the same conclusion.
As The Don of Music sings…”Get Over It”….
You do realize the article you cited says exactly what I said, that if a statewide recount had been held Gore would have won. Do you read anything before you cite it?
You do realize I was speaking of Nader as spoiler.
It says that would have been the case only if everything was decided in Gore’s favor in disputes. That is NEVER the case. Sorry, TowerTone. Gore lost.
The US Supreme Court decided the case on the law, not on what you wished could happen.
Not sure where you get that from. Even the NYT, as liberal as they are, did a recount…. and Bush won
Can anyone on MDN read? The article cited says Gore would have won a statewide recount, meaning if they counted ALL the votes Gore wins. The recount you’re talking about was just the partial recount of votes that took place and Bush did win that. I don’t care who won. However, it is a fact that in a statewide recount Gore wins. You don’t even need to factor in Nader as a spoiler. If you count all the votes properly Gore got more votes in Florida. Period. If you redo the partial recount Bush still wins that way.
Amen and ENOUGH of this sour grapes revisionist NONSENSE …
You have to read the STUDY which I have, not the article about the study, to learn that only way Gore would have won a state side recount (especially when you learn he would not even have won a recount of the four majority Democrat areas he had requested be recounted) is if EVERY SINGLE DISPUTED VOTE was decided for Gore. Every hanging chad, every butterfly ballot, every non-vote, every presidential double vote, every ballot from suddenly produced “found” ballot boxes with no official provenance, with every single one decided in Gore’s favor. Then, and only then, would Gore win, and then only by between 42 and 171 votes. . . and that was still excluding the overseas military mail in votes which had never been counted at all due to the Secretary of State ruling the lack of a signature on the outside of the envelopes invalidated them. The likelihood was a Federal Judge would have ruled that decision void and the military vote would have gone heavily Bush. . . but we will never know because they were never counted.
However, Gore had to REQUEST and FUND a state wide recount and he had a window of opportunity to make that request. Instead, his campaign only requested to recount the four heavily Democrat areas that was in the process, being done only by DEMOCRATS, LOCKING OUT THE REPUBLICAN ELECTION JUDGES FROM THE PROCESS, an extreme violation of the election law, when it was interrupted by the US Supreme Court for other violations of the Florida Election laws.
The New York Times and other media outlets along with the Supreme Court declared Bush the winner. Please move on people …
No, even the New York Times agrees that had the vote been recounted correctly as you say, Bush won. Gore did not. Gore did not win Florida.
Per the Liberal Factcheck.com:
“According to a massive months-long study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001, George W. Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida’s highest court.
Bush also probably would have won had the state conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that Al Gore asked for, the study found.”
Only super-liberals go on to claim that Gore won and that is only if every single decision about hanging chads, allowing challenges about the butterfly ballots, and accepting every disputed ballot was decided for Gore. , , and even then it was estimated he would win by between 42 to 171 votes. That is not winning “easily.”
Amazing 18 years later Libtards don’t get it …
May the reality accurate “virtual-signaler” win …
Fuck you First Fuckoff. You’re too shallow to acknowledge the valid points that Nader is making, and too much of a lowlife to think of anyone but yourself. You hate anyone who proposes virtuous actions because you have no positive virtues. Go get yourself an android if you prefer to support companies that don’t signal virtues. Prick.
The butthurt is strong with this one…
Banned Citizen X is the definition of “butthurt” …
… typical response from a lib snowflake who can’t come up with an intelligent comment. As for virtue, it appears you are lacking in that area yourself Nancy.
… take that “mouth” to church with you on Sunday? Do you pray to Christ with that “mouth”? Any lightning strikes near you?
Let’s put it this way had those foxconn employees been making more $ Apple would have made less $ and that positive earnings report could have been negative and Nader wouldn’t have a tree to even bark up on
every single person in this post would’ve been singing the blues because Apple stock would have dumped and losers with no skin in the game like Ralph Nader would just virtue signal on another company for attention
that’s how those guys get laid
Freeloader reaction passed as virtueouse.
Ps is there such thing as negative vertue ? 🧐🤓
Ralph , now at the nadir of his influence, is still unsafe at any speed.
Yeah, you know, because it’s not the investors’ money…they didn’t build that…
Love it when Marxists eat their own….
Roll up! Roll up! It’s all here on TDN
The ultimate sociopathathic, half_wit, reality_denying Tea Party for sub-optimal IQ freaks. The lies! The anti_truth! The loudmouth lunacy! The kakistocratic crew of cretins reveal their inner selves! The horror!
Yeah, it’s sad how LOW the Democratic Party can go …
I agree with every one of Nader’s points.
People forget how Henry Ford rocketed thousands of Americans from subsistence living into middle class by simply offering his workers a living wage and his customers a great value. Now the greedy rich extoll the virtues of taking advantage of everyone and playing shell games to hide the money that isn’t going to be used for any productive purpose.
Did all the prior stock buybacks push Apple to be valued at a higher ratio than the other tech biggies? Of course not. That is because the other tech stocks keep pushing out new products and services constantly. They show they are working for the future. Apple on the other hand uses the same near slave wage factories as the scum companies, and Timmy can’t keep 3/4 of the legacy products fresh.
If you want to run an exceptional company for the long term, you need to spend that huge cash pile to invest in your people and your future products, not just stock games.
For the record, every poster on this blog signals values. For some, it’s enhancement of Apple quality and sharing the good fortune so Apple will become stronger in the future. For others, greed and self aggrandizement is the only value they have ever praised here. Nader has saved more lives than any one of you here. His points are valid and would make Apple a better company.
“If you want to run an exceptional company for the long term, you need to spend that huge cash pile to invest in your people and your future products, not just stock games.”
Certainly Apple can invest enough money into manufacturers to provide a living wage …
What part of Foxconn’s employees are NOT Apple’s employees does Nader not grasp? As a stockholder I would file suit against Apple’s management if they did any of this with MY money.
Moron !
Mr Nader, stick with seat belts
Pfffft, Ralph. Still high on the Kool-Ade and tilting st windmills. He musta been lonely to have come out of the woodwork for this jem.
Ralph boy is desperate for relevance.
If you bothered to read what “Ralph boy” said, you might come away with a different perspective …
Thank God for Ralph Nader. Every action needs an equal and opposite reaction. Vive la difference!
I never thought I’d ever say this, but Ralph makes several strong points.
Two key takeaways:
1) Raise the salaries of people that made you RICH.
2) Consult the shareholders and not run ROUGE …
One, Apple consults the shareholders every year at the Shareholders Meeting where the issue of dividends and buybacks get discussed. Apple has already returned $200B thru buybacks and dividends. The additional $100B is totally inline with past actions. Shareholders have not been run over roughshod before, and they’re not being run over roughshod now.
As for raising the salaries of people that made you rich: one, those aren’t Apple’s employees, and any bonus, will result in Foxconn compensating workers less. Essentially, any bonus will end up in the employers pockets. Two, Foxconn workers, like my family in Zhengzhou, made anywhere from 2000 to 6000RMB in a year, farming the land. At Foxconn Zhengzhou, salaries start at over 2000RMB a month. Ex-farmers make many times more at Foxconn than they did as a farmer.
“Apple consults the shareholders every year at the Shareholders Meeting where the issue of dividends and buybacks get discussed.”
Every year? How about every day. We now have instant e-mail, text messaging, etc.
“As for raising the salaries of people that made you rich: one, those aren’t Apple’s employees”
So they mean nothing to Apple’s success?
I have to give you credit for defending a greedy company making products thinner and cheaper like the old robber baron days, but now in 2018 …
There is a process. If any shareholders want to put a question on the shareholders’ ballot, there is a process. If any shareholders want to sue, there is a process.
Clearly, you like to read meaning into people’s statements that don’t exist.
“I have to give you credit for defending a greedy company making products thinner and cheaper like the old robber baron days, but now in 2018 …”
Ah, now I get it. You have an agenda, and no amount of reasonable discourse, will open your mind to consider anything but your own ill-formed opinions.
OK, so there is a process. Would that be revelant today to a $100 billion stock purchase? Please provide evidence that all the shareholders were notified and approved …
Wow, I’d give you a nickel to buy a clue, but I think I’d be wasting the nickel.
Every year at Spring conference call since 2012, Apple has announced their capital return plan. And, every year, in the Spring, shareholders have a meeting where they can ask Tim and Luca about that capital return plan, express their support or displeasure, or put a question on the shareholders’ ballot if they so wish. That’s the process. I think I’ve already stated it a couple times, but hey, some people don’t read the answer the first time.
Now, as I’ve pointed out to you before, you have a tendency to read into people’s comments. NOWHERE did I say shareholders were “notified”. So, why would I need to provide evidence for something I didn’t say?
And, if some shareholders don’t like what Apple is doing, they can sue. Has anyone sued Apple over returning $200B already? Has anyone sued Apple over returning the $100B now? No? What are they waiting for?
Wow, I won’t give you a penny fanboy.
Yes, you have accurately described the status quo process. What I asked you and you failed to respond to is Apple allowed to go ROUGE and consult shareholders after the fact only once a year? You say yes, correct?
“And NOWHERE did I say shareholders were “notified”.
Right. You did not say it I said it. Sheesh …
The management of Apple, of or any company for that matter, cannot just willy-nilly just give the assets of that company away to some other company’s employees, GoeB. That would be considered a criminal act. The management must perform their duties under the laws of the United States and they cannot just usurp their fiduciary duties. The money they are holding is NOT THEIRS to do with as they please or you or Ralph Nader pleases. It, along with the rest of the company, belongs to the investors. There are only certain things they can do with it. Giving it away to someone else to whom it does not belong is not one of them.
My naive point was simply to inform shareholders for INPUT before making the largest stock repurchase of all time. Guess that is pie in the sky and not how it works …
“Raise the salaries of people that made you RICH.”
And don’t forget to stop overpricing for people who made you RICH.
Your passion and logic are noted. (Rare to see both from a single commenter!) But I think you meant rogue when you said rouge, which is a cosmetic product I use to make my face more appealing. You seldom fail to amuse me, GoeB, even inadvertently! 😄
Yes, I am guilty of a cosmetic misspelling, thanks …
How about Nader quit telling others what to do with their money. Nice socialist he is.
Hey Ralph, how about I tell you to give your home to the homeless and your money to workers in Turkey…
Ugh…
Liberals. So many ideas with so many other people’s money.
With clarity, he lays out the liberal’s penchant to claim ownership of another’s resources. I always wonder where the mindset comes from, or how does one live with it w/o guilt or shame? Kind of like Obama’s statement, “I think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” To be the judge of what that amount is for another person is mind-boggling to me. Pompous, righteous, omniscient, god-like are just a few adjectives that come to mind. Needless to say, for Obama to then go on and make millions of dollars & buy a few mansions, adds hypocrisy to the mix of words.
Liberals…where does this urge come from and how is it rightfully justified?
Besides my befuddlement of the Liberal’s god-like judgement, as it relates to other’s money/resources, there’s a more repugnant reality to the story. In short, the liberal is less charitable as an individual, as a voting block and as a country. The book titled “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. The Red states as a voting block also give more to charity. Americans give almost 2x of their GNP to charity, compared to the British. French are the tightest in Europe (from Book; Philanthrocapitalism). Our more liberal neighbor, also gives less to charity.
Author of “Who Really Cares states; ““When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”
Liberals, isn’t it time to note the significant discrepancy and emptiness of a political “nerve” that has a “short?” Speaking so loudly and proudly that another’s money is “yours,” when in effect it’s empty group-speak, is really tragic. For those that lean even farther than liberal and embrace the virtues spoken of Bernie and other socialists, this mindset is how the monster is fed. Do as I say, but not as I do.
These people will never realize that every single time socialism has been tried, no matter by whom, it abjectly fails and its surviving victims, those that are still alive, always take generations to recover from the good intentions of those who inflicted what ever form of socialism of the day on them.
Whether it be communism, Nazism, Fascism, the modern form of socialism being practiced in Venuzuela, it always ends badly. Even the “civilized” socialism of modern Europe is burning to the ground as its do-gooding leaders are turning blind eyes to raping and rioting “Immigrants” who demand more-and-more free stuff and refuse to join society while demanding society bend to their norms, while the native people must accept their leaders’ invitations to even more of the invaders who set up larger and larger no-go zones where even the leaders’ police cannot safely go, much less the native population.
Yet these same socialist leaders still claim “everything is fine,” and bury their crime statistics, as their women are beaten and raped while native citizens are killed and their countries burn around them, being rapidly turned into replicas of the third world hellholes their “refugee” guests-with-beards supposedly fled pretending to be children.
Well said …
Hypocritical freeloaders.
I dont need anyone forcing me to be charitable…
I am and will be when i choose to…
‘
Remember the concept of freedom of choice?
Proposing that a corpoation invest in its people is freeloading? Wow. How terrible it would be for a Foxconn worker to make enough money and have enough free time to legitimately buy and enjoy Apple products. Capitalism should not revert into feudalism just because unscrupulous greedy investors want to get rich quick.
No , someone suggesting that my risks/ due deligance / investment and returns should be dustributed to others becouse they just idealize so is freeloading. Its Lazy.. it promotes entitlement and lazeness… ( hey your are doing good.. not fair.. give me some ) …… path to mediocrity!!
“unscrupulous .. greedy investors..”. Talking about an insulting blanket statements.. …….. so if one invests.. they are greedy and unscrupulous! How shallow minded and shortdighted can a comment get . Wow
Its not for Nader to suggest what i should with my money… ill be charatible when i choose to be.. i dont need someone making that decision for me.
He can do whatever the f he wants with his..
In the meanwhile…
anyone has problems with capitalism ..
i suggest you move to a country with a more harmonious system for your ideologies.
( do u have any idea how much apple has contributed to well being of workers at fox-con and alike … it is one of the most sought after jobs for the upcoming class …. everything is relative.. you should travel more. )
A Flat society is a dead society… it easy to idealize BS.. go get a taste of what that ideology actualy looks like in its implemented form. Ie communist societies…..
I suggest Paul try a command society such as Venezuela, see how that’s working for them.
The workers at Foxconn, especially those on Apple’s assembly lines who already receive more than their fellow workers on other assembly lines working on other companies’ products, are actually receiving a living wage for THEIR economy and cost of living. Not, of course, for our economy and cost of living, but those are two entirely different things. The Chinese cost of living is considerably less then is our cost of living. The two are not one-to-one comparable.
Many of the workers actually DO own the products they assemble. How else do you think that China just grew to become a larger market for Apple’s products than the EU?
Ralph makes a lot of sense. The smack talkers are likely high net worth people who stand to prosper in a buy-back. Letting the owners (shareholders) decide makes all the sense in the world.
Exactly! Unfortunately we as a society are lazy to stereotypes and past history. We are reluctant to look beyond the knee jerk response and evaluate present day …
Uhm, Ralph argued that buybacks don’t work. Yep, he argued both sides of the coin.
“Studies have shown that stock buybacks are just one variable in a large matrix of variables – internal and external to the company – that shape stock price and they are a weak variable at that. … Cisco, after huge buybacks and much greater profits and size, has its stock about one-half of its March 2000 value.”
Wow, he argues both side of the coin; on one hand, exec comp depends upon buybacks, but he then states that doesn’t necessarily raise share price!?!
Second, he states most shareholders would prefer dividends, which is not true at all.
Third, he proposes a discussion with shareholders, but Apple has done that every year in the Shareholders Meeting. Each year, the issue of dividends vs buybacks come up.
As to his proposal to give Foxconn workers a bonus, unfortunately, all that will do is allow the manufacturer, Foxconn, to lower compensation afterward, because they’ll just use the “bonus” as an excuse. The party that will benefit won’t be workers, but Foxconn’s owners. I have family in Zhengzhou where Foxconn manufactures iPhones.
As for investing in R&D to study the supply chain, has he even been paying attention? Apple has monitored its tin source, and will monitor its cobalt supply source, and has invested in a new way to smelt aluminum, announced only yesterday. There’s not another company doing as much as Apple in these areas as Apple.
They walk the walk; while others like Nader just talk.
Profits don’t indicate monopoly or antitrust concerns. Utter rubbish.
Sadly, I think Mr. Nader has become senile.
“The egregious examples of these budget inadequacies are the Center for Disease Control ($7 billion), the World Health Organization ($4.4 billion), the Environmental Protection Agency ($8 billion), and the IRS, whose strapped budget made it unable to attempt to collect $450 billion in uncollected taxes (it currently has a budget of only $11.5 billion).”
Somehow, I don’t think anyone is feeling too sorry for agencies with multi-billion dollar budgets, having to make do with a little less.
So you are opposed to Apple raising salaries for their dutiful workers. And not consulting shareholders is also fine with you? …
You don’t read, do you?
One, Apple consults shareholders every year. Two, have you heard any complaints, other than Ralph’s?
Three, I explained that Apple cannot raise salaries for Foxconn workers, because they work for Foxconn, not Apple. However, Apple can apply pressure on Foxconn to raise wages, and they have. Foxconn is at the high end of the manufacturer wage scale. The issue is that if Apple were to offer a bonus, the end result would be that Foxconn would ultimately reap that bonus, not the workers, as they would delay raises, and higher salaries. It’s just like tax repatriation. As long as you know that the gov’t has offered repatriation in the past, you will always assume they’ll do it again. If Apple were to offer a bonus to Foxconn workers, then Foxconn will compensate their employees assuming that Apple might give them a bonus in the future. That is, Foxconn will pay their employees, depending upon Apple’s bonus. The net result will be that employees will get the same total compensation and Foxconn will reap the bonus.
“Three, I explained that Apple cannot raise salaries for Foxconn workers, because they work for Foxconn, not Apple.“
So it is against the law to give them a bonus? …
Actually, it is. You do know the laws in China, don’t you?
I admit I don’t know labor laws in China. Do you??? …
Apple’s money belongs to Apple stockholders, Tim Cook has no right just to give it away. And Apple is a for profit company not charity.
Ok, so Apple’s money is owned by the stockholders. Were the stockhoholders CONSULTED before the the company decided to spend the largest stock buyback of ALL TIME? …
Buyback and dividends benefits stockholders. Idiot
If only what you wrote was true. The entire purpose of creating a complex legal entity called a corporation is so that professional managers run the thing. Investors have zero personal liability, and perform no actual work. You don’t get a say in how the company is run. All you can do is pull back your money or petition the board if you don’t like where the money is going. Good luck with that. The boards of corporations are still good ol’ boy incestuous clubs designed to enrich each other first and foremost. That’s why executives take thousands of times what other employees— critical professional employees— are given. They sit on each others’ compensation committees.
Enlightened companies that actually want the company to be great in the long term have instituted profit sharing programs so that employees are justly rewarded for the company success. Apple, on the other hand, outsourced almost all its manufacturing so the Foxconn slaves get no additional reward for making an iPhone better than any other electronic gadget. You’d think Apple would want to hire and retain the best people at all levels, but no, that’s not how Apple runs today. There seems to be no incentive for Apple designers to update Macs more than twice a decade, no incentive for iPods to ever be updated at all. No incentives for squashing bugs or restoring features that prior software had. The only thing Apple leadership is doing is pumping stock prices while coasting everywhere else. These days, it is the 3rd party apps and accessories that sells Apple products. The executives at Apple are too busy counting their self-given stock options to do anything else.
Right on! …
What?!?!
Paul wrote: “Investors have zero personal liability, and perform no actual work.”
You are another one who has ZERO clues. Investors have very much of a personal liability. They may have their entire life savings invested, idiot! They could lose it all if some “professional manager” does what Nader is suggesting. . . and the company goes under due to a sudden loss of investor confidence in the sanity of the management.
You go on to state this glorious falsehood: “Apple, on the other hand, outsourced almost all its manufacturing so the Foxconn slaves get no additional reward for making an iPhone better than any other electronic gadget.”
That shows you have no clues about how Apple conducts business in its supply chain. Apple contracts with its suppliers SPECIFY the treatment of the workers on its products… and they are ALWAYS specified to be better than the workers on other makers’ products and for better wages. Because of Apple, the Consumer Electronics manufacturing wages in China have been pushed upwards over the past two decades. Apple puts its OWN employees into every one of its suppliers’ plants to monitor working conditions and the treatment of workers. As a result, workers on Apple’s Chinese assembly lines actually receive living wages, so they can live in an apartment in town, if they prefer and many do. Apple actively monitors employment practices to prevent underage employees, requiring that any employer who hires anyone under age MUST provide that worker with a college or University education through age 26 or graduation, including room and board. So much for YOUR lack of knowledge.
“There seems to be no incentive for Apple designers to update Macs more than twice a decade, no incentive for iPods to ever be updated at all.”
Wow! What decade are residing in? The iPod is inside every iPhone and iPad. The iPod as a product is essential as dead as a buggy whip because it was superseded by a new product. The Macs are updated regularly but YOU don’t notice it because Apple doesn’t redesign the case. . . You seem to have missed the iMac Pro. The MacBook Pro upgrade, etc. I just bought a new Mac Pro and it’s processor and ram are NOT what was sold in 2013 or even 2016. It’s been quietly upgraded to little fanfare. Apple just does not make cosmetic changes for no reason.
Apple employees DO get stock benefits and get to take advantage of the same benefits as upper management. You really do not have any clues about what you bloviate about.
“The Macs are updated regularly but YOU don’t notice it because Apple doesn’t redesign the case. . . ”
Are you serious? Macs are the bald red headed stepchild of Apple. MacPro “updated regularly” as of 2013??? Nuff said …
GoeB,
He’s trying to tell you the facts of ECONOMIC LAWS. Nothing happens in a vacuum. . . but in actual fact, it actually is against the law for Apple to give this money away because it is not the management’s money to give. Apple’s management would be SUED by the stockholders, and likely imprisoned, for misappropriating company funds, if they did anything like this.
Certainly, giving money to Foxconn’s employees would certainly be considered a tortuous interference in Foxconn’s business and I would be willing to bet that Foxconn would sue Apple for doing it. They’d win too. Apple would have intervened in Foxconn’s management of their own employees by stepping into their compensation. The other Foxconn employees who were NOT compensated by Apple would demand equal treatment from Foxconn who does NOT have the resources to do anything of the sort. Ergo, sue Apple. . . and they would win in either Chinese or US courts.
They’s likely have a case of breech of contract as well.
The value of Apple’s stock, the value of ownership of every stockholder would DROP drastically. Why? Because they’ve suddenly lost $100 billion in cash from the valuation which has been misappropriated! This would invoke the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, which holds personal fines and imprisonment for the management of Apple of up to $20 million and 20 years! So, GoesB, under several legal theories, it would be illegal to do what idiot Nader thinks would be a “nice thing to do with other people’s money.”
Thank you taking the time to provide a detailed and convincing response. Guess I’m just as naive as Nader trying to do the right thing for workers …
In addition, Apple SHOULD CONSULT shareholders INSTANLTY for chrissake on a $100 billion spending. Get a grip …
I’m rather surprised that First Whatever hasn’t responded to point out that the United States is not a democracy, and neither is Apple. In both cases, the primary stakeholders select managers whom they trust to make detailed decisions. The managers in a representative polity are elected because the voters believe that their representatives have better access to important data (including classified or proprietary non-public information) than the average stakeholder does or possibly can. They also have more focus and analytical resources. Finally, they have more experience and interest to do the analysis than the average voter/stockholder.
The fact that the suggestion can even be made just confirms the deep American ambivalence with the idea that some people are experts who are simply better situated to make decisions within the scope of their expertise than some random member of the general public. No, a night at Holiday Inn Express does not qualify you to do brain surgery, and owning a share of stock does not qualify you to run Apple.
The person who should “get a grip” is the one losing their mind based upon ignorance. You clearly don’t know anything about the situation, and yet you want to shout what everyone should be doing.
So you are saying Apple has no responsibility to inform shareholders before making this decision? …
If investors are not pleased with what Apple is doing with their investment, they are free to take their investment out at anytime and go elsewhere with their money. They simply sell their shares to someone else who wants to be invested in a company that is doing what Apple is doing.
THEY VOTE WITH THEIR FEET BY LEAVING THE COMPANY—Instantly, GoeB.
The stock market is the ultimate democratic voting mechanism for people, investors, to choose how they want their money to be used. Each of them can put their money where and how they want it to be used. They do it by buying those stocks in companies that most match their views. It is THEIR responsibility to find out which corporations best fits their wishes, not the corporations to fit theirs. The responsibility of the corporation is to maximize return for their stockholders while providing goods and services for their customers in a rational, ethical, and legal way.
Apple seems to be one that cares about doing an excellent job in all of those areas and actually DOES takes steps to assure that people who do work for them are taken care of and not abused.
However, businesses do not survive by allowing either their customers or their stockholders make every decision for the company. The stockholders, if they are wise, hire a professional board of directors to make professional, educated business decisions, divorced from the emotional pressures of investing, and ignorant of internal factual data that the stockholders cannot be privy to for competitive reasons, that causes investors to jump to poor conclusions, for them. For day-to-day management, the board of directors further hires professional managers who are experienced in areas of finance, production, employee compensation, public relations, sales, design, engineering, promotion, etc, to do the micro-management for THEM. . . and they don’t interfere unless absolutely necessary.
All of these people, especially a good investor, know that delegation of decision making with the proper people in place is what makes an excellently run corporation that becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
You make a heap of sense and a lot of good points, Swordmaker.
“The stock market is the ultimate democratic voting mechanism for people, investors, to choose how they want their money to be used.”
OK, so let’s say I choose and don’t agree as a stockholder with Apple using my investment on a $100 billion buyback.
“It is THEIR responsibility to find out which corporations best fits their wishes, not the corporations to fit theirs.”
So the only democratic choice for me is to buy in or buy out and keep my mouth shut. Got it.
All I’m saying, which is pie in the sky probability, is in today’s day and age with instant communication — maybe the rules should be re-examined and the largest buyback in history — why not consult the shareholders? Tear up the old rules. Nader makes a lot of sense. But then again, things rarely change for the better …
Everyone is always trying to tell Apple how to run the company. How is that that no one ever tries to tell Jeff Bezos how to run his company? It’s just crazy. Everyone has an opinion but I’m sure there are darn few people who actually know how to run a nearly trillion dollar business.
“Everyone is always trying to tell Apple how to run the company. How is that that no one ever tries to tell Jeff Bezos how to run his company?”
Because Bezos is running the company just fine, thank you…
“It’s just crazy. Everyone has an opinion but I’m sure there are darn few people who actually know how to run a nearly trillion dollar business.”
Cook is not one of those few. Everything is pointing toward the eventual downturn of Apple if he runs it like this. And it won’t be too long before we see it. He has just been lucky to date. The real challenge is coming and he is not the one to navigate Apple through it.
“Cook is not one of those few. Everything is pointing toward the eventual downturn of Apple if he runs it like this. And it won’t be too long before we see it. He has just been lucky to date. The real challenge is coming and he is not the one to navigate Apple through it.”
Smart forward thinking I agree with …
It is? And Apple is not, KenT? Yet you can sit there and not realize that Apple made MORE money in the last quarter, one of the slowest quarters of the year, than Amazon has made in its entire 23 years in existence.
That says that Bezos is not doing a very good job of running his business. He’s doing a great job of convincing Wall Street that somehow it has value but it has never returned a single cent to investors except in speculative growth as they trade it back and forth in religious fervor always believing that someday it will someday pay off by starting to throw off dividends. Pie in the sky by and by.
Mean while Apple has been paying dividends and buying back stock as it generates money like no other business in history. So far Apple has returned over $200 BILLION to its investors in the less than four years since they started their capital return program. . . and they still have $285 Billion cash on hand. Apple has had more liquid cash on hand than the government of the United States of America has had at times!
Ralph made important advancements to increase the responsibility of corporations to consumers, especially in automobile safety.
Unfortunately, it seems that his mind is wandering off with his emotions in his old age.
Well that probably makes Ralph more qualified than you or me to propose wise decision making that considers the full impact on the world as opposed to short term enrichment of the few.
Did you have any specific points to make about what Nader proposed or do you need more time to understand it?
The few. Do you realize your pension is most likely invested in Apple? Your insurance policy is also most likely invested in Apple so that you will get paid off if you get injured. Same with your annuities. By far, the largest investors in Apple are not “the few” but institutional investment funds. i.e. all of us, through our pensions, insurance, and other financial instruments.
Doesn’t anyone at all grasp finance?
“Demands”? And what, pray tell, will he do if Apple is disinclined to acquiesce to his demand? Shoot someone? Lock someone away?
Nader, and most leftists, sound waaaaaay too 1930’s Germany for my taste.
Not this time …
Nadar is a fruitcake who is bad for America. Tell him to go bother some other country. Nadar deserves jail.
And what is with all these Amazon ads taking over the page and my machine when i’m on this site?
Come on MDN, stop it.
Jail on what charge? For exercise of his constitutional rights?
If you think that it is criminal to write a letter, then you should be locked up too.
Oh, I forgot to add, Ralph is a flat out liar and egoist. He cares about Ralph, not the country or Apple.
Tell Ralph he’s a fool, to shut up and go mind his own business while looking for his old folks home.
You offered zero evidence to prove your point, meaning it is opinion only. Definitely not a fan of Ralph, but I have to admit he makes sense on several points. Park the bias and embrace reality …
Pants on Fire ! How about you back up your outlandish BS claims with some facts, since you think you are the final arbiter of truth? You are off your rocker.
Mr Nadar makes some good points. I’d be surprised Tim, at the level of private opinion, doesn’t agree with them.
I think this is a reality check and an appeal to Tims humanity,
Tim makes great moves in doing the right thing I’m sure he could sit on his laurels and claim the high ground but we must not forget that being the biggest profit making company in the world which actively has taken a stance on humanitarian issues. Tim should be held to account for his stance on the issues he champions, so there is real context between the success of the company and his humanity goals.
With this in mind I totally agree that if Tim wants to really show he is making a difference to changing the world, then he should go beyond just making his own company 100% green.
He could do much more for society as part of Apples ethos and I do think it would increase Apples value as a brand and in sales of what ever they decide to make.
Yes I felt this letter put some perspective to how little he is doing when balanced against the profits his company is making. Tim Cook chose to use Apple for championing human issues so he has to be judged with this in mind.
If Tim truly is trying to make a human difference as head of Apple corp. Then he has to be held accountable for his achievements in a balance between profits vs humanitarian goals.
With that in mind I would say that, as the biggest company in the world he is not doing enough in his humanitarian goals and I’m sure many Apple users would on balance say he could do much more with all that money while raising the stock price through the company humanitarian actions.
If a poor man gives his only 10 Dollers to charity and a billionaire gives 10million, who has given the most? if you don’t know the answer then you can not be a true humanitarian.
Many fine points and this one in particular: “If Tim truly is trying to make a human difference as head of Apple corp. Then he has to be held accountable for his achievements in a balance between profits vs humanitarian goals.” …
That is not his job as a ceo of a publicly traded company.
Depends on whether you want to maximize short term profits or if you want to build a strong company for the long haul. Jobs clearly thought long term in product design and customer enjoyment. Cook just outsources every thing, and collects app store revenue. Not much to show that Apple hardware or software is always better than the competitors anymore. Especially considering that Apple couldn’t make a single iOS device without the help of LG and Samsung and Foxconn, etc. Sad how technically undermined Apple has become in several specific areas.
This is an old argument which boils down to Capitalism vs. Socialism.
Apple is a business. Apple’s purpose is to make products that people will buy so they can make a profit for their owners.
Apple and all of their suppliers pay what the market demands for goods and services of employees, etc. In all companies with a profit motive, employees have to be paid less than they are worth to a company or the company won’t hire them or keep them employed. It sounds harsh, but if employees understood that, they would understand that to be paid more, they need to be worth more to the company than they cost the company. Any company that does not understand that, will fail. Any employee that understands that, will strive to be worth more to the company that hires them or to the general market for their services.
Any company that pays out bonuses, does so either because they want to keep their employees, or because they think the PR will cause them to make more profit in the long run.
Apple has this duty to its owners (share holders). It is the shareholders money, and not Ralph Nadir’s or anyone else’s to decide what the owners should do with their money.
Nothing in the world is 100% capitalist, and nothing is 100% socialist. Enough with the bipolar thinking. That is what is killing the USA now. Inability to work together to resolve the grey areas.
Well, today President Trump just erased one grey area in Irsael …
Call it bipolar if you will, still, you don’t have the right to fix the world with other people’s money. Maybe you should donate your shares to the cause. Just leave mine alone. And by the way, you probably think that who you work for should pay you more because they have a lot of money. Why should they have a lot and you don’t have as much.
Your ideal imaginary world is unworkable. Somebody has to pay to pave the streets. Deep down, even botvinnik level extremists don’t want every pathway to be a tollway.
In a larger sense, we all have to pay for the civilization that we take for granted. Look at education and law enforcement. Slowly but surely, inadequate money for education breeds kids who are left behind with inadequate skills, which eventually enlarges the prison population, inflates insurance rates, and sells shitloads of security stuff. Don’t believe me? Every recession brings a rash of petty crime, look it up for yourself. Education leads to employment and adequately paid employees are happy honest hard working employees.
So now you have a secretary of education who wants to slash the entire department to nothing. The administration instead proposes more taxpayer money spent on militarization of police forces, great walls of china, and a for-profit prison industry doesn’t reform the bottom dwellers very well. Why the support for blowing taxpayer money there?
Charter schools, the other popular tagline, fundamentally accomplish nothing whatsoever except eliminate consistency of education. Results of those experiments are all over the map. Just another way for corporations to run a for-profit business that takes public subsidies.
So why does the right wing think corporate profit maximization is the only way to run the world? These multinational corporations never take responsibility to clean up the problems they create. Every new technology becomes a double edged sword, with the taxpayer always fixing the problems after the profits have been collected and privatized. If requiring corporations to pay living wages and take responsibility for their pollution and other externalities is now called “socialism”, then i’m all for it. Somebody has to check the insane wealth and power that selfish CEOs wield today. Id Apple practced what they preached, your ROI would still be just fine.
The U.S. easily spends more than twice the amount of other G8 nation’s on education. The return? Dead last. Get a grip …
Too complicated to discuss here Goeb but in general Paul isn’t far off base. What makes comparison difficult is, education systems are different.
I lived there n the USA for 40 years and have several family members who worked in education from coast to coast. In the USA education for most kids is public for kindergarten through high school, other nations may fund kids with early preschool programs through college or trade school. Trade schools are often funded by a public private partnership with labor unions and industry, which is getting rare in the USA. In the USA, most kids finish college with large loan repayments to look forward to. In the USA, schools entwine lots of sports into the experience, but only the best actually play. Most kids either sit the bench or never try out. Sports don’t always pay for itself so some question the value for the minority who do engage in it — we are strong proponents but just have to give both sides here. In other countries, sports are almost always city leagues or clubs. Intensive child support regions like Scandinavia spends money early with children and parents being exposed to healthy educational stuff before birth, through extended parental leaves, right through primary school. In the USA, it’s a patchwork. If you can afford it, time spent at home and on early health measure and preschool is common, after school prigams are available and extracurricular stuff is possible. In the other vast majority of the USA, a shocking number of kids show up to kindergarten undernourished yet obese, with shockingly little preparation to start learning. Arts and music have been slashed from lots of US schools due to lack of funds.
Since we moved to the Netherlands, we are pleasantly pleased with how well educated all the multilingual kids are. There are no homeless people and crime is extemely low. Healthcare is high quality and accessible with no fuss. Yeah there is bureaucracy but quality of life is quite good. Tou can whine about how evil socialism is all you want, but I don’t think most of the libertarians have a clue what life is kike in newer more modern democracies. Having a strong social safety net does offer a lotnof good to the common man. So unless you’re inthe top few percent rich elitists, total quality of life may be way better than in the formerly great USA.
Nader would be respected here in the lowlands, and his ideas discussed rationally. Perhaps that more than anything is why we prefer a nation that isn’t hellbent on tearing itself in two along politcal party lines.
Many, many interesting points. I agree with you regarding sports in schools. Total waste of big money on the privileged handfuls. At least with arts and music everyone can play. I also think it’s outrageous that a young kid can attend one year of college on a scholarship, then claim himself eligible for the draft and become an INSTANT millionaire in a day. And for what? Running a ball across a white line or dunking a basket? Meanwhile, how many years does it take to train a brain surgeon, the money spent, the years of testing, the intelligence and training needed to get a degree is mind boggling. And after all that hard work to get a degree their salary is a fraction by comparison. Anyhoo, Nader makes some strong points and glad you have an open mind to evaluate and weigh them …
I never said that socialism was all bad. That is why we have taxes. If we elect governments that paves roads, etc., then so be it. Many, many things make sense to be funded by the government with funds collected by the people.
That does not translate to people outside a company ‘demanding’ the use of a companies money to pay another companies employees more money. Who or what gets to decide how much an employee should make if not the market for the employees services.
Does Tim Cook owe Ralph Nadar a response? No I’m sure Tim Cook receives many such letters a month on how to run his company. If Tim decides to respond, the response should be short and simple. “I respectfully disagree” that’s it. No more, no less. Ralph Nadar is trying to “goat” Tim Cook into a response so he can make more out of it.
Two misspellings:
1. Nader, not Nadar.
2. Goad, not “goat”.
Goad: (figuratively) That which goads or incites; a stimulus.
Yes, Tim receives letters regularly on how to run the company. But to my knowledge, this is the first from the counter culture media icon Ralph Nader who is famous for taking on huge corporations and Apple now tops the list.
Self serving, re-emerging after many years out of the spotlight? Quite possibly. But that does not negate the excellent points he has made and in the past I was no fan of his activism.
The first post by Firsty nailed it. Two liberals going at it for different reasons. Interesting to see how it will play out. That said, my guess is Timid Tim will lay low and let it blow over …
Wow, and he’s a spellchecking nitpicker. By the way, it’s not Ralph’s first letter to Tim.
When you have something MEANINGFUL TO SAY, then respond to my posts …
If you would stop shouting, that’s as bad as other people’s misspellings.
As for meaningful, I pointed out it’s not Ralph’s first letter to Tim. It’s a fact. Look it up.
As long as we’re correcting spellings……it’s “Rogue” not “Rouge” (unless you’re speaking of the color red in France).
Absolutely correct and thanks for that. Guess I was thinking about cosmetics for my girlfriend …
FACTS:
1) Ralph Nader is a multi millionaire
2) He is richer than many apple investors he wants to take money from. WAY RICHER. Many working folk have a few thousand in aapl in the 401 etc.
He is WAY RICHER than ME. Yet he wants to take my money…
WHY DOESN’T Nader GIVE ME some of HIS money — since he wants to RE DISTRIBUTE WEALTH ? Following HIS LOGIC it is only fair… (see the hypocrisy? )
Supposing I have only ONE DOLLAR in aapl and that is my total wealth, Nader wants to take that away and give it somebody else who might have 100 dollars. Is that FAIR ?
he is making a GODLIKE ASSUMPTION that ALL aapl shareholders are richer than those he wants apple to give money too.
3) Nader is many many many times richer than 99% of all those Chinese workers he is so worried about.
4) When investors lose money, for example recently when the stock dropped to 160s from high 170a Nader didn’t say “lets get a fund to help those Apple investors”
Investors TAKE ALL THE RISKS. When my aapl went to HALF price in 2007-2008 I didn’t see anybody bail me out. Some of my stocks I’ve invested in went to zero. Did Nader give me a part of his millions to make it up… NOPE.
5) It’s rare that there is a winner like Apple, many stocks lose money (otherwise there would multi millionaires — like Nader — on every street). When we invest in a rare stock and get lucky, millionaires like Nader want to take MY money and give it somebody else WHO FU-KING SAT ON THE SIDELINES drinking beer TAKING ZERO RISK. (I invest all my beer money) . Don’t say poor people can’t invest, you can invest pennies… If you invested pennies in Apple 40 years ago you would be pretty rich.
Investors fund companies that PAY FOR EVERYTHING, all government services, all government salaries can be traced back to cash made by companies .Screw investors and there will be NO economy (like North Korea) –simple truth. Even Steve Jobs borrowed money from investors otherwise there would be NO APPLE.
Millionaires like Nader are most generous with OTHER PEOPLE’s money.
When multi millionaire Nader follows Jesus advice and gives all his wealth away or walk around like Ghandi with only a loin cloth, i.e walks the talk, maybe he would have more credibility.
Sh..t maybe I should start a PRESSURE GROUP to embarrass millionaire Nader to donate all his money…
More rambling incoherent idiocy from banned Citizen X …
Fuck you Ralph Nadar.
I’m a stone cold liberal and I fucking hate Nader. After the damage he’s caused this country, he’s in no position to tell ANYONE what they should be doing.
I’ve read that Ralph has more than $1M in Cisco shares. I wonder if he writes letters to the Cisco CEO to give all their cash, ~$78B away to workers in China, lower prices, etc., etc., etc.