Apple has crossed a $4 trillion valuation. That’s $495 for every single person on Earth — if we all shared it. But we don’t.
This video explores how its shareholders extract vast profits from billions of people locked into Apple’s ecosystem — and what it means for inequality, democracy and tax justice.
I ask: who really creates Apple’s wealth — and who benefits?
The people who buy Macs and iPhones gain the wealth because they get to use Macs and iPhones. We gain our Sagacity from Ely in this manner.
Why is the consumer surplus such a difficult thing for political economists to understand?
I have £X. The Apple product costs £X. I want the Apple product more than I want the £X. The Apple product means more to me, is worth more to me, than the £X. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t buy it, because buying the Apple product takes more effort than not buying the Apple product.
I buy the Apple product. I am better off.
Which bit of that does Spud not get?
And in return Apple gets your £X, which is worth more to it than the product it has just sold you otherwise it wouldn’t have engaged in the bother and expense of selling it to you. From this we learn (at least) two things:
Not hard, is it?
I wonder why he chose Apple crossing a $4 trillion valuation. In other news Nvidia crossed a $5 trillion valuation.
Didn’t he buy some expensive Apple stuff because he “needed” it?
Yes he solicited “buy me a coffee” donations on his blog to support his vital work and then spaffed thousands on top of the range Apple tech. This from a man who criticises everything Apple stands for and could make do with a £50 refurb and open office. But the potato needs to look like professor flash in the Ely coffee shops
He can see the apple on the side of his toys. The NVidia logo is inside where he’s never seen it.
It’s the economist’s trick playing on the reader’s ignorance.
The alleged valuation of Apple et al is stock price times number shares. A useful number. BUT should any of these large shareholders start dumping their stock, share prices will drop precipitously, hence valuation will drop.
IOW, you could actually get 4T for Apple.
You couldn’t actually get 4T for Apple.
Nobody is locked into the Apple ecosystem any more than you are locked into the Ford ecosystem by buying a Ford car. It is a marketing choice of what you are prepared to spend versus what you are going to get for that spend.
Apply kit is very user friendly and easy to use. Part of that reason is because they control the OS and stop people doing silly things. Now what we think is silly and what apple think is different but you don’t have to buy and use their kit.
Now I’m locked into many things. I have to use the council recycling scheme and they just take the money from me under force of law. In fact most government schemes are services I don’t want them to do but have no choice but to pay for it anyway.
There’s a cost in time and possibly money of switching but it really isn’t that much.
As for user-friendly, there’s really no difference to Android. And you can only do silly things with Android by overriding the default.
Agree however I wasn’t talking about user friendly. I was talking about security. Most people are not IT literate as you clearly are and these OS allow people to open security holes because they don’t know what they are doing and just see a single benefit.
Apple only allows it’s apps to bypass security for their benefit not yours.
“This video explores how its shareholders extract vast profits from billions of people locked into Apple’s ecosystem — and what it means for inequality, democracy and tax justice.”
It has no impact on the last two and is great for the first. There are people with more money than sense. The idiot spawn of rich people, lottery winners, and people who somehow were in the right place at the right time. It is unnatural that these people are rich, and the purpose of Apple, Mulberry and various Burgundy producers is to restore the balance. To take money from rich people and give it to the poor, the smart.
Poor and smart people buy from Dell and Moto. Like all the CEOs of large companies that fly economy and drive beaters.
Anyone who claims to be a bit of a leftie should view Apple as being on the side of angels.
On the subject of Spud, one of his great ideas has been tried in the real world and didn’t end well:
Of course his plans will work better because of wavy hands reasons.
A three quarter loss on a $468m investment, when the fund is over half a trillion, is SQRT(FA).
Also, that site gives me the GDPR whining, so they can fuck off.
Does it need to? It spunked half a billion on investments into ‘green’ bollocks. It was bound to lose that money.
OK, let’s share it. $495 apiece sounds great. Waiting for the cheque.
What do you mean market valuation is not the same as cash?
What exactly does he think would happen if that $495 could actually be shared out by dissolving Apple and distributed to each person on earth? Would it be a life changing amount for some of the people in poorer countries? I suppose it might. For me it would put a smile on my face but it wouldn’t change my life at all. I personally know a guy who is hopeless with money and is permanently broke. He inherited about ten grand a few years ago and in no time at all was broke again so it would make a brief ripple in his fortunes. Lots of people would be put out of work so there is that to consider too.
Prices would go up and even where $495 was a decent amount and people would be buying crap. In a years time we would be back where we are now except we wouldn’t have Apple. Mmmmm. Let’s at least give it a go. I may be wrong.
Apple has about $120b in US sovereigns. That number is pretty stable over the last few years (since Foxconn started killing it’s employees?). nVidia’s position is another $40b.
Or, about $315 for every person in the US, just for Apple.
Assuming Apple just liquidated those positions giving the cash away, what happens to US Federal tax rates and for how long?
It’s easy to for you all to sneer at professor Murphy. You may have missed in his post, however, that he informs us 18-20% is roughly 1 in 5. AND HE’S NOT WRONG!!!!!!!
So grow up and take his wisdom seriously.
He also makes clear that he and his family, in buying all those iPhones and Apple Macs, have been exploited. And it’s not like they’re unemployable idiots or anything.
So, if it can happen to them….
Is Apple really worth $4Tn?
Is Nvidia worth $5Tn?
OpenAI is going for a $1Tn IPO…
I think there’s gonna be a lot of disappointed people, Tim. These are ridiculous bubble numbers. At least Apple is (still) a very profitable business – not to worry, it soon won’t be if the Indians take over – but the rest are trading on magic flying unicorn rainbow fart fumes.
It seems investors learned nothing from GPT-5, AI is already a joke to IT departments but traders are still buying the hype. Microsoft is able to monetise Copilot because Microsoft already owned your enterprise desktop, but Microsoft itself is dissolving into shit as the Indians metastasise through the business. Windows 11 is a vibe coded turd fresh from the designated shitting streets of Washington State and all of their other new products stink. Other would-be AI tycoons are in a worse position than Microsoft – no plausible route to monetising the very expensive parlour trick of AI chatbots. Oracle – which is not a joke to IT departments but a hated enemy – is boasting about big AI sales but without bothering to check I’d put a fiver on them just churning their existing customers, resigning them up to the “AI” version of existing products. Announce to market and watch gullibles buy the stock so Larry Ellison can afford a seventeenth luxury megayacht.
Morlocks are supposed to be good at engineering, but we’ve gone for the kind of cyberpunk dystopia where nothing works anymore except the one way flights from India, SAAR. Bharat delenda est.
Yup, it’s bubble time. I guess people are unsure where to put their money in times like these.
Apple is so vulnerable to supply chain disruption; I doubt they’ll have detached from China in time for forthcoming adventures. And good luck moving to India.
Nvidia is certainly best placed to supply all the “AI” rendering chip farms that people are going to realise they don’t need and there’s no energy for if they did. See also supply chains.
Interesting times.
You’d think the last couple of decades of rampant IP theft, industrial spying and related Chinky-Dinkery would put Pointy Haired Bosses off the idea of Asian offshoring as all they’ve achieved is to create their own low cost competition and put themselves at risk of the political fallouts, tariffs and international realignment to come.
But the best brains in the FTSE 100 are still slavishly copying whatever the Americans did 2 years ago. They don’t know how to create value, so we’re racing to the bottom with international labour arbitrage.
So, we sacked UK teams of 10-20 people who knew what they were doing and now have teams of 60-100 Indians who don’t have a fucking clue, but they’re “cheap”.
They cost us ££££ in unnecessary mistakes, overruns and departed customers, but they’re “cheap”.
They abuse their positions to hire (and only hire) other Indians whilst funnelling company money to dodgy Indian businesses run by their relatives, but they’re “cheap”.
Indians see the business in much the same way as ants see your picnic – a free watering hole the stupid white people allowed them access to, and which they’re going to swarm and pillage until there’s nothing left.
I used to like Indians until I was forced to work with them. After years of dealing with their dishonesty, workshyness, broken English and wobbly headed bullshit I want Mumbai nuked with a high-cobalt thermonuclear device. Funny how you get more right wing as you get older.
They make some nice motorbikes there.
And say goodbye to the free biscuits in the break room, they get taken home.
Gresham’s law of employment.
Incidentally, we used to be told there’s no market for the Tories to do right wing stuff, the public will only tolerate more Blairism.
But in reality, British people are more right wing on immigration and “diversity” than Trump supporters are
“At least Apple is (still) a very profitable business – not to worry, it soon won’t be if the Indians take over – but the rest are trading on magic flying unicorn rainbow fart fumes.”
The question is.. for how long? I don’t know the answer to that. Personally, I find a £250 Moto does all I need. I’ve used an iPhone for work reasons and can’t tell much difference. They feel like jewellery and if your company is selling jewellery people can stop tomorrow.
“Oracle – which is not a joke to IT departments but a hated enemy – is boasting about big AI sales but without bothering to check I’d put a fiver on them just churning their existing customers, resigning them up to the “AI” version of existing products. Announce to market and watch gullibles buy the stock so Larry Ellison can afford a seventeenth luxury megayacht.”
Not existing customers. Oracle bought up tons of this high end Nvidia kit and are hosting it for these bullshit AI companies that are burning through VC cash.
They feel like jewellery and if your company is selling jewellery people can stop tomorrow.
They are jewelry. But instead of a great deal like Gerald Ratner would give you, Apple products are for dumbasses willing to spunk over a grand on a phone. After Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook hired senior execs from the fashion industry because Apple is a fashion/lifestyle brand now.
All the people I know who buy Apple products these days have no children and don’t understand computers, so there’s that I spose. I remember having money too.
Apple has a pretty good ecosystem of consumer services built around the iPhone and iCloud even tho expensive so their main risk, imo, is consumers tastes potentially changing and them wising up to the stupidity of buying hardware at 1000% markup. Or the big A shitting its own bed through complacency and institutional lethargy. Not sure what could cause that but the international situation looks more volatile than either 1914 or 1939…
No, some are for dumbasses willing to spend a few hundred quid. My first smartphone (I resisted a long time) was an iPhone SE (the one with the newer gubbins stuffed into a 6 body). The only reason I went Apple is that most of the people I would interact with were on iPhones, a reasonable selection choice given the pretty good ecosystem you mention. The SE was the cheapest I could buy and turns out it was brilliant. Indeed, I would go so far as to say it was absolutely bwiwwiant. Not exactly jewellery, just a clean aesthetic of form following function. And small. It decided to die (probably battery) during a family emergency and I had to replace it that day. There were no SEs (the newer, bigger, less good ones) in town for some reason so I ended up with a 13 mini. More than I wanted to spend but it at least had the benefit of being small. It’s absolutely okay.
Cook’s fashion designers are taking the piss. The latest mainstream iPhones are fugly as ugly fuck with clunky design and horrible colours that discolour and wear / chip. They’ll be losing customers over this (probably mostly people skipping a generation) and it’s an incredibly dumb release. The exception, pretty wise, is the iPhone Air which is probably a good phone but way too expensive. It’s very unpopular and they’ve slashed production. I bet it becomes a sought after classic.
Apple’s biggest problem is that the 2 main products they do have reached a point of maturity that a better version isn’t that valuable to most customers. Sure, there’s people like me buying a Core Ultra 5 laptop with 32GB of RAM because I’m running 5 IDEs, a database engine and Docker but most people doing general office work are fine with a 3 year old reconditioned Dell Inspiron. Same as how £250 droids are now very capable phones.
Yeah, iPhones have marginally nicer cameras and are slightly thinner but I’m not spending another £300 for that. Who spends £300 on that rather than hookers, wine, or just wasting it?
“Windows 11 is a vibe coded turd fresh from the designated shitting streets of Washington State”
W11 has finally made me bite the linux bullet. My perfectly functional W10 PC won’t run W11 and I don’t fancy having AI shoved up my fundament by MS, so I’ve bought a cheap laptop with Linux Mint installed and am going to play with that for a bit, with the intention of moving over to that in the long run.
Is that exclusively Linux or a dual boot with Windows11? If the latter be very careful as the Windows can brick the Linux under some circumstances (including total loss of data).
Just Linux, no W11
It’ll run W11 just fine, without a Microsoft account and without the AI and other spyware bullshit. It just takes a bit of watching on YouTube to find out how. You’ll need to do a clean install rather than an update so make sure your backup is up to date. You can also make the Win11 look and (pretty much) operate like Win10 too, if you’re happy with that.
More to look forward to from Spud
“Video developments, inclduing more ‘walking about'”
Given that he styled himself a “Mile End Road economist” I think he should walk the length of that road and talk to the locals about his economic theories
The donkey tells me that Bigwad Dicky wants to use him as a ride to the Ely dogging locations. Let’s hope the Health and Safety folk don’t hear about it
I thought I would summarise what work is in progress here right now.
Significant themes in development are:
An alternative budget, which will come out in several parts, is now in draft.
Jesus Christ – even Aging rock bands vary their repertoire slightly
Thoughts on housing reform.
We’ll reduce prices by allowing more immigration and reducing mortgage rates
Issues around a transition to independence in Scotland
Please let them go independent!!
.
A guide to using AI. This will be 40 plus pages.
I can’t wait for this based on the quantum series
An outline of a book on the politics of care, which is growing quite fast.
But you don’t care about anyone other than yourself and others who have spent years living at the taxpayers expense.
A plan for a possible Funding the Future event next year
With hand picked sycophants in attendance?
The next stages of the quantum series, with several more chapters now under development as the idea has grown like topsy. Jacqueline is doing a lot of the drafting on this at present.
Well based on the first few I have never seen more proof of AI’s inadequacies
More ‘economic questions’. There is no shortage of ideas.
More ‘economic myths’. Similarly, there is no shortage of issues ot address.
So more revelation of your own ignorance?
More glossary entries. Many have been requested.
Yes – I am sure you have been inundated
Video developments, inclduing more ‘walking about’, where James is writing scripts at present.
Any chance you can take a trip to Handsworth – preferably near an ISIS mosque??
Tomorrow’s video
.Can’t wait…:.
Life is not quiet right now.
There’s bills to pay and both kids unable to get productive employment
Indeed. Unless we buy it, in which case bob’s your uncle. In much the same way we don’t share your hovel or fetid pants. Altho, I’d buy Apple.
“people locked into Apple’s ecosystem”
Last time I looked you could buy a second hand Android phone for about £100, and a second hand laptop running Linux for about £150.
The good thing about Apple is it identifies who cares more about style over substance.
Apart from the Apple kit, Murphy also likes to buy (more than one) top of the range Sony cameras to take pictures and videos of himself, a duck or two and some flowers. No doubt the taxpayer is on the hook for the cost of all of this conspicuous consumption and pampering he allows himself.
He’s a classic dupe, ain’t he? Almost as if he was a gullible tw@t influenced by advertising.
Probably why he wants to ban advertising – he realises he’s been duped by it, and doesn’t realise that most of us are much more sceptical and sensible.
He wants to ban advertising because he wants everything he sees advertised & can’t afford it. Just pure jealousy
Lefties are often like this. They always claim to hate consumerism but they’re really into conspicuous consumption, far more than conservatives. Because they have nothing else but social climbing.
He’s just pissed off that he didn’t buy AAPL ten years ago when the price was one tenth of today.