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The DOJ couldn't shut down apple. Apple has $200,000,000,000 in cash and marketable securities. DOJ's budget is only 27 billion. That's a lot of lawyer time. It
by jfoutz 11y ago
The DOJ couldn't shut down apple. Apple has $200,000,000,000 in cash and marketable securities. DOJ's budget is only 27 billion. That's a lot of lawyer time. It's a huge waste of money, but there it is.
Way less likely, but Apple could move HQ to another country. And take their secret source code and keys with them.
- LAMike 11y agoThe US government would respond by banning all iOS devices
- koenigdavidmj 11y agoAnd most of the US government's phones suddenly turn into expensive bricks. I'm not sure whether a company should be 'too big to govern', but it is on occasion hilarious.
- ohyeshedid 11y agoIt's not that it's too big to govern, it's that they're too big to fail. Publicly traded, employment footprint, market penetration; too big to fail. The impact of any action that would kill Apple here would also destroy the economy. Never happen.
- thirdsun 11y agoWhich is probably a very good way to cause at least minor riots.
- rawnlq 11y agoI wonder if there's any advantage for Apple to form their own sovereign nation to operate out of. They are already richer than many existing countries. Can't they just buy out a Singapore-sized island somewhere?
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoThey could invade Sealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
- saulrh 11y agoYou know, cyberpunk fiction always theorized that corporations would buy their own sovereignty for economic advantage or removing pesky laws against child labor, the first amendment, or slavery. I never expected them to do it in pure, honest self-defense.
- peterkelly 11y agoI've always thought of Singapore as the "Apple" of countries. Incredibly modern, clean, organised, and well-presented. But run according to very strict rules, like banning chewing gum entirely, and $500 fines for littering.
- avar 11y agoFunny how a lot of Americans think banning chewing gum is oppressive but don't realize the similarity in the USA entirely banning Kinder Surprise eggs. Lots of arbitrary stuff is banned in a lot of countries. Singapore just thought the littering cons of gum outweighed the pros. Note that stuff like nicotine gum and other "therapeutic" chewing gum is still allowed, they just don't allow the candy that leads to littering. And honestly looking around in a lot of cities where the entirety of downtown is slowly growing into a white blob composed of little individual pieces of squashed chewing gum I don't blame them.
- DigitalSea 11y ago> looking around in a lot of cities where the entirety of downtown is slowly growing into a white blob composed of little individual pieces of squashed chewing gum Gum wall in Seattle, case in point.
- naaaaak 11y agoIf this becomes a thing, the world is going to run out of islands faster than companies can buy them to evade totalitarian governments.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoPerhaps Apple, Inc. could become a subsidiary of Apple's Irish operations.