greed

                The passing of Steve Jobs and the Occupy Wall Street "movement" provide a most interesting juxtaposition.  One of the protestors #1 targets is corporate greed.  But how do we define or measure greed?  I would think the best way would be profit, and an easy way to compare companies is via profit margin %.  Common examples of these greedy corporations are in the Oil and Banking Industry.  Exxon's most recent annual profit margin = 9.7%, which is pretty solid and has been aided by higher prices at the gas pump.  Bank of America's most recent profit margin was 1.9%, and this was before another round of restrictive regulations were imposed to further limit their avarice.

                But how about Apple?  I would guess that there are a fair amount of IPods and IPads are being used among the protestors, and millions upon millions of people get to enjoy the fruits of Steve Jobs' brilliance.  Jobs was self admittedly liberal on most issues, and probably someone many of the Occupy Wall Street truly admire.   Apple's last reported Profit Margin was 23.5%.  That is nearly 2.5X of the robber barons at Exxon and over 12X the evil bankers at BOA!  Jobs definitely charged more than he could have for his great products - is this not the "greed" being chanted about on city corners across the USA?  But, if he had settled for less than the market would bear in terms of pricing, maybe the incentive to create such awesome devices would not have been there, and we would not even know the name Steve Jobs today.  Something for you to think about as you tweet about evil business today on your Mac.