By Richard Mellor from California, USA (Afscme trade union, Local 444, retired)
I read today that January 3rd 2022 is an important day, a day of celebration and high fiving. Apple shares hit a record high of $182.88 and that put the market capitalization of the company at a little over $3 trillion.
This is good news and shows how capitalism is truly the end of civilization, the apex of human ingenuity and culture.
This good news comes after the end of 2021, when what are referred to as “company founders” sold their stock in the companies they worked all that overtime to create at historic levels. The free media, that owned by capitalists, points out that 48 top executives reaped some $200 million each from these sales.
Get ahead if you work hard
The owner of Estée Lauder cosmetics company is worth over $5 billion, is an ardent Zionist and a friend of the neo-Nazi, former Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu. He is quite outspoken against oppression, Palestinians excluded. Ronnie started work at his parents’ company, the Estée Lauder Company in 1964. “In 1984, he became a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy at the United States Department of Defense.” (Wikipedia). You see, you can get ahead if you work hard. You can start at Walmart, work your way up and own the company in 20 years and be appointed to a position in the US defense department. Just do it man!
Members of the Walmart family and the kid Zuckerberg have all sold shares at record levels. In fact, what the Wall Street Journal refers to as “insiders” sold a record $63.5 billion shares through November 2021. Spurring this sell off is the possibility that legislators might pass legislation imposing a “5% tax on adjusted gross income over $10 million starting this, year and another 3% on income over $25 million, including capital gains from stock sales.” (Wall Street Journal) This is nothing but tyranny. Surely, the wealthy who worked hard for their money, have the right to keep more of it through avoiding taxes by selling off at this time.
Capital gains tax
Microsoft is based in Washington State and Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, sold off half his stake in the company for almost $400 million. It could be because of a state capital gains tax of 7% starting this year, according to reports. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, sold shares worth about $1.5 billion in 2021. Page is worth $123 billion and Brin $119 billion, according to Forbes.
Like all of them, Walmart family heirs and Mark Zuckerberg have philanthropic ventures because they care about people and so many of them claim to want to give away all their wealth to charity but they never seem to be wealth free. The Walton family funds help non-profit initiatives, say company spokespersons, and Zuckerberg has a for profit fund aimed at helping people who refused to work as hard as he did. He and his wife plan to invest $3 billion over the next 10 years in developing a research lab that can help cure diseases. They are apparently not aware that such projects as clean water systems, health care, access to medicines would be a much cheaper way of ending many of the world’s diseases.
So, Apple’s market capitalization hit $3 trillion today and this is proof positive that capitalism works. The pandemic has been very good to some. But there is no dancing in the streets strangely enough.
How many shares do you own?
This article first appeared in the website “Facts for Working People” (here). Reproduced by permission.
