Starting off with the ubiquitous Apple Maps jokes (heckuva job, Scottie!), Jon Stewart soon tires of lazy pickins and segues into Apple’s appearance at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The U.S. Senators do not fare well. Unfortunately, as happens far too often on a comedy show that certain segments of the population inexplicably rely upon for “news,” neither does the truth. No wonder so many people today are so misinformed.
Most of us here know this Apple story inside and out. We’ve been covering it and you’ve been reading about it for weeks. Most of us can plainly see where Stewart bends the truth or creates entirely incorrect, unreal happenings in order to support his jokes. It makes us wonder: What other events is Stewart manipulating for the sake of humor? What does this do to viewers who use Stewart’s show as their primary source of information? Not Stewart’s problem some might say, but it does tend to result in an interesting group of people who exist in an actual reality distortion field. Consuming real news, from myriad sources, must seem like absolute torture by boredom for these people.
Apple is not “dodging taxes.” Apple pays all the taxes they owe, every single dollar. Apple simply doesn’t own any “hell factories” with “suicide nets.”
Stewart would be funnier – if only everyone realized that his shtick is mainly meant just to be funny. That said, this time, Stewart does hit directly upon the crux of the issue:
Corporations are the only reason the tax code is so complicated in the first place… Our tax code is purposefully complex, so that corporations with resources are the only ones who can find the buried goodies their own lobbyists have hidden in the labyrinth. – John Stewart
Stewart fails to mention that for many years while the tax code was being lobbied to death and loaded up with goodies, and pretty much to this day (it’s growing recently, mainly due to DOJ actions against the company), Apple has a very insignificant lobbying operation in D.C. So, contrary to what Stewart implies, Apple didn’t make the loopholes, they just read the law and followed it to a T. As usual, Apple’s just better at what they’re doing than everyone else.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Related article:
Jon Stewart blows it, calls Apple ‘Appholes’ over Gizmodo’s 4G iPhone imbroglio (with video) – April 29, 2010