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> Who is benefiting from Apple’s profits being the size of a small country’s GDP? Not most people, therefore, why would this be optimized for? Off the top of m

> Who is benefiting from Apple’s profits being the size of a small country’s GDP? Not most people, therefore, why would this be optimized for? Off the top of my head, probably the millions of people who have a pension through one of Apple’s institutional investors like CalPERS. The effects of Apple’s profitability goes far and wide.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
These numbers are always trotted out like these people have a material majority investment in the equities market (“won’t someone think of the teacher pension”), when per the Federal Reserve, the top 10% of Americans by wealth hold 93% of US equities. This doesn’t entirely discount that CalPERS holds almost 40M shares (~$8.7B) of Apple (its top holding), just that them doing so is not reason enough to be more judicious about governing corporate profits. Still profits, but less. Those profits have to come from somewhere. (CalPERS has $502.9B AUM ending June 2024, making APPL ~1.72% of their total assets) https://www.calpers.ca.gov/docs/forms-publications/acfr-2023.pdf https://www.calpers.ca.gov/docs/forms-publications/acfr-2023... (page 115) https://calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2024/calpers-preliminary-investment-return-fiscal-year-2023-24 https://calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2024/calpe...
- jonnybgood 2y ago
  That seems all quite orthogonal. You asked who benefits and I’ve given you an example. Some benefit directly and some indirectly. But millions in the economy benefit and not just through institutions such as CalPERS.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Fair point, some people lose when policy is patched.
tivert 2y ago
> Off the top of my head, probably the millions of people who have a pension through one of Apple’s institutional investors like CalPERS. The effects of Apple’s profitability goes far and wide. That's like a member of the working poor who owns one share of stock, "benefiting" from company lobbying to keep the minimum wage down. He's got two-hundredths of a cent more in dividends, and has lost many hundreds of dollars in potential wages.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

These numbers are always trotted out like these people have a material majority investment in the equities market (“won’t someone think of the teacher pension”), when per the Federal Reserve, the top 10% of Americans by wealth hold 93% of US equities. This doesn’t entirely discount that CalPERS holds almost 40M shares (~$8.7B) of Apple (its top holding), just that them doing so is not reason enough to be more judicious about governing corporate profits. Still profits, but less. Those profits have to come from somewhere. (CalPERS has $502.9B AUM ending June 2024, making APPL ~1.72% of their total assets) https://www.calpers.ca.gov/docs/forms-publications/acfr-2023.pdf https://www.calpers.ca.gov/docs/forms-publications/acfr-2023... (page 115) https://calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2024/calpers-preliminary-investment-return-fiscal-year-2023-24 https://calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2024/calpe...

jonnybgood 2y ago
That seems all quite orthogonal. You asked who benefits and I’ve given you an example. Some benefit directly and some indirectly. But millions in the economy benefit and not just through institutions such as CalPERS.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Fair point, some people lose when policy is patched.

tivert 2y ago

> Off the top of my head, probably the millions of people who have a pension through one of Apple’s institutional investors like CalPERS. The effects of Apple’s profitability goes far and wide. That's like a member of the working poor who owns one share of stock, "benefiting" from company lobbying to keep the minimum wage down. He's got two-hundredths of a cent more in dividends, and has lost many hundreds of dollars in potential wages.