Great disparity and unaffordable housing are not an inevitable consequence of some people’s high wages, because they will engage in more consumption, buying bet

Great disparity and unaffordable housing are not an inevitable consequence of some people’s high wages, because they will engage in more consumption, buying better haircuts and so forth in a way that raises other people’s wages. Even the phrasing “consequences of their actions” carried with it a connotation of wrong doing; but the failure of California housing policy to accommodate more people — a legitimate goal, because in the US we have freedom of movement — is simply not Apple’s problem. Because it isn’t really a consequence of their actions, what Apple is doing here is not really the kind of action that we want to see. It’s not like a company coming and cleaning up an oil spill that they made — it’s like a company coming in and cleaning up the government’s oil spill, and it represents an extension of corporate involvement in public life that dealing with the consequences of their actions wouldn’t. They are dealing with the government’s consequences.