Apple's Pot Of Gold

We all know how to become rich overnight; wait for a rainbow to happen, rush to either end of it, start digging, and excavate your well earned pot of gold. Who needs crypto when there's pots of gold all over the place?

Alas, this is but a fairy-tale. Or so you'd think. Let's first dig into the origin of this age old story we all know so well. The myth goes something like this: at the end of the rainbow, there's a pot of gold guarded by a tricky leprechaun. A leprechaun is, in Irish folklore, a type of fairy, usually depicted as a little bearded man wearing a green coat, that engages in mischief. It's said that when the Vikings lived on the "emerald isle" they buried much of their booty on the island and inadvertently left some of those buried treasures behind when they left. The leprechauns then found those treasures and re-buried them at the end of rainbows, where they guard them till this day.

This story could never be true of course, because there is no end to a rainbow; rainbows are circular. Standing on the ground we can only see the upper half of it, because the bottom half disappears beneath the horizon. Standing on top of a high mountain (there are none in Ireland, as far as I know), or in a plane or helicopter, one can sometimes see a rainbow in it's full circular glory. Search the web for "circular rainbow" and you'll find many examples of this. Rainbows having no end could also be the reason why the pot at the end of the rainbow is often used as a saying to describe something someone hopes or tries hard to get, but is not very likely to get...

But Apple isn't a mere natural person and therefore not bound to the same laws of nature the rest of us must abide by; Apple did find it's pot of gold and it was found in Ireland. The term "leprechaun economics" was coined by economist Paul Krugman in 2016:

Leprechaun economics was a term coined by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman when referring to the 26.3 per cent increase in Irish 2015 GDP, that was later revised to 34.4 per cent, in a 12 July 2016 publication by the Irish Central Statistics Office restating 2015 Irish national accounts.
_{source: Wikipedia}

Ireland isn't just the home of leprechauns, but a well known tax haven as well. In June 2018, Microsoft was reported as preparing to execute a USD 100 billion "Green Jersey" BEPS transaction. BEPS stands for Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, corporate tax planning strategies used by multinationals to "shift" profits from higher–tax jurisdictions to lower–tax jurisdictions, thus "eroding" the "tax–base" of the higher–tax jurisdictions; here's why Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and their peers pay almost no taxes in the U.S. Apple has been fined a 16 billion dollar bill, representing taxes owed to the Irish government, under a 2016 ruling by the European Commission. The money isn’t in the Irish tax authorities’ coffers just yet, though. Apple is still appealing the Commission’s decision, so it’s in an escrow account until that case is over, but whatever happens, the U.S. won't see one cent of it. source: Fortune

We only know about all of this because in 2015 Ireland's GDP was artificially inflated by 25% because of this BEPS tactic deployed by Apple in concert with Irish government officials, but know that this is the standard method of operation for all multinational corporations. Globalization means that capital is free to flow where it needs to flow to maximize profits; this means we put the money where we pay no taxes, and we put the production facilities where we pay almost no wages or taxes for the protection of the environment. I cringe every time I hear someone say that the Chinese never invented anything themselves and that they get rich by making cheap copies of western inventions... These people don't realize that this is part of the deal with China and other emerging Asian economies. China doesn't steal or copy; western corporations GAVE them the technology because they WANTED China to produce their products FOR THEM. This is why Trump will NEVER bring back those jobs to America, because an iPhone will then cost 5000 dollar if they are made in America. We hear dramatic stories about Chinese manufacturing facilities where employees throw themselves of buildings to commit suicide, and get footage of these facilities with "suicide nets" around them to prevent those suicides, yet we wait in line for Apple's latest gadgets...

The answer to this fairy-tale become nightmare is not to give up on globalization and retreat back behind our own borders, as is the predominant reaction in the western world; there are tons of good reasons why it could be more efficient to produce something in a specific geographical location, and producing everything yourself sounds nice but is in many cases impractical. Food-production can and must be decentralized for the most part, but products that need resources found all over the world, like all kinds of modern technology, should not be decentralized as it's impractical and would result in a worldwide battle between nations for resources. International cooperation is a must if we don't want to go back in time and have a reasonable chance of solving the many environmental threats. We just need to stop believing in the fairy-tale that says "profit" and "growth" are humanities ultimate goal and responsibility. They're not. We can do better. We're not leprechauns and we know that rainbows have no end...

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