A quick check showed it is estimated that Apple gets about 18% of it's profits from China but only maybe 7% from EU countries (ignore Apple's definition of Europe!).
Maybe China is easier to work with - perhaps their rules are made clearer?
China has 1.4 billion people and they are rapidly increasing their wealth. The only surprising factor is that Chinese cell phone producers haven't eaten up apple's marketshare yet.
Both New Zealand and Australia have about 30% of the population born overseas. Immigration does lead to some stresses but it also has bonuses. Immigration seems to clearly help in the short term.
But yes, immigration doesn't solve the demographics issue, because immigrant citizens also get old and expect government support.
Immigrants do often have good sized families so that brings in a fresh generation of New Zealanders. Plenty of my married friends are from mixed cultures.
In some cultures their children give more time to care for their own parents or elderly family. New Zealand born children seem less likely to do so.
The local born often whine because whinging is a significant part of our colonial heritage from England.
> crunching the numbers I could have retired years ago
How do you reconcile the apparent hypocrisy of your wealthiness?
The stereotype is a boomer taking their winnings and then complaining about the system.
I've got just enough money to start worrying that my savings will mostly be taken by my government. Perhaps it is time for me to join the old white man complainer's club (is HN that?).
> How do you reconcile the apparent hypocrisy of your wealthiness?
Does this specific category error have a name? I see it so frequently, it's ridiculous. Being genre-savvy/aware of the meta-game doesn't mean one can opt-out, or refuse to play. Recognizing how a game is rigged often allows one to play it better than the average person.
I'm not GP, but my acknowledgement that society is unequal, and that I sometimes benefit from the inequality doesn't mean I have to be dude under the bridge, nor is it immoral since I cannot opt out of humanity. All I can do is minimize my odds of falling into societal cracks, and I make no apologies for that.
For myself I usually call it "(not) playing to win", after David Sirlin's book (see also https://www.sirlin.net/ptw for the free web version). In it, he describes a phenomenon in competitive videogaming where some people try to forbid valid moves in an online game because they are "broken", like throws in fighting games or rush strategies in RTS games. Sirlin argues that because they recognize a powerful tool but refuse to use it, they needlessly handicap themselves. As such, they're not playing to win but playing to feel morally superior and consequently lose to those who do use all the tools the game provides.
In reasonably balanced games, it usually turns out the "overpowered" strategy is not all that overpowered and that they have huge downsides when played against people who know how to counter them. In real life, which has no requirement of being balanced, we can recognize that certain strategies ((explicitly legal and often even encouraged!) consistently work really well. Choosing not to use those strategies doesn't make one morally superior, just bad at playing the game of life.
That said, "minimizing your own odds of falling into societal cracks" often still includes caring for others around you. On a small scale, being rich but alone because everyone around you went bankrupt and/or became estranged to you is not much fun. On a bigger scale it's just good governance to make sure everyone has food, safety and entertainment, just to keep the pitchforks away.
> How do you reconcile the apparent hypocrisy of your wealthiness?
I'm not sure this is full on hypocrisy.
In this case this is the game we are forced to play (late stage capitalism). Doesn't mean I need to like the game, but since I'm forced to play I will darn make sure to win as much as I can.
20% of boomers are already dead and only 5% expected to be last another 30 years (AI).
The world isn't likely to change much over that time, so my guess is we'll collective find new victims to blame for everything rather than boomers. Old people are such great targets.
Maybe China is easier to work with - perhaps their rules are made clearer?
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