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Thoughts on profit comparisons

Friday, 3 February 2023

Last night Apple announced quarterly profits of $30bn. I was thinking about how I feel about that number compared to Shell's record profits and why I'm angry at one, but not the other.

I think there are a few differences.

  1. Home energy is a public utility, not a luxury item. It literally keeps people alive and being unable to afford to put the heating on is killing people.
  2. "Scotland produced 32,063 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable electricity, equivalent to around 97% of its entire electricity consumption." Even allowing for export of 50% of that to the rest of the UK, there's no reason we should be beholden to the wholesale prices of gas and electricity set by events triggered by the actions of Russia. Our bills should be subsided - at least for low income households and the elderly. Going further, I would say energy should be characterised by universal access and managed by a statutory corporation, treated the same as water in Scotland. 
  3. Apple aren't breaking into people's houses to force them to pre-pay at an even higher rate than the already inflated energy prices. 
  4. If you choose not to purchase an iPhone, MacBook or whatever there are other less expensive items roughly comparible which will allow you to get your work done. They may not have the user experience I prefer, but they have basic feature parity. There is no choice with energy. Every company is charging the same - essentially they're price fixing.

It's time to put the needs of the people above the wants of shareholders.

I'm definitely looking at this from the privileged position of someone in the West. I daresay if I was a worker in a factory used by Apple in China, I'd have a different point of view.