A CNN Money headline, ironically authored by David GOLDMAN (I'm sure no relation) notes that by the rules of the casino operation known as "Wall St", the stock (aka gambling chips) of the Apple Computer company are worth more than the nation of Greece, a land area of 50,000 square miles of fabulous, fabled beauty and history, of 12 million people who labor to produce $300B in actual stuff.
At $400 billion, Apple is worth more than Greece
Apple doesn't actually make anything, it contracts with Chinese and other Asian companies that actually make things in low wage, non-union, highly exploitive, near slave labor factories. Apple itself is some real estate and office furniture maybe a few patents worth probably $10B in actual salable assets vs. it's value in gambling chips.
Kind of like WalMart but with shinier products. Of course Apple opening "stores" in Target/WalMart stores completes the circle.
These are the same financial rules that claim that the $14T in US debt is due to Social Security which has actual hard cash assets from direct, dedicated taxes vs. the crazy gambling debts of Reaganomics which invested in Wall St casino chips such as "mortgage backed securities" and "Fannie Mae bonds" and "reinsurance policies" and "derivatives" or the "Savings & Loans" of people like Neal Bush (aptly named "Silverado") all which were Wall St fictions. Fictions that the Reaganomics fans took the actual Social Security money, gambled and lost it on over ht last 30 years.
Instructive because we have seen recent cuts to Social Security funding and Medicare funding based on the casino rules of Reaganomics and are told the lie that $14T in gambling debts are not due to the "mortgage based Silverado derivatives" but due to the hard cash paid by people from their paychecks to fund Social Security at a surplus over the last 30 years.
More instructive still as we read that the White House and the other Wall St enablers are:
White House preparing left for budget they'll hate, but says look for jobs focus by Joan McCarter
Continuing the phony claim that fully funded Social Security is responsible for the $14T in debts owed by the Wall St gamblers paying off DC politicians to buy their gambling chips vs. health care and retirement benefits for the people who paid for them. We have had the $1T paid to bail out AIG, some insurance company that makes "chips" for Wall St gamblers, the $1T paid to bail out Neal Bush and friends "Silverado" casinos. $1T spent on gifts to the worlds richest oil corporations. $10T in money spent on unproductive guns (see Ike for explanation) to protect the assets of the oil companies.
All summed up in a headline that some real estate and office furniture that would sell for $10B on Craig's List is worth more than 50,000 square miles of land and history, 10 million people or the $300B of actual stuff they make every every year. "Apple is worth more than Greece".