dpd1 - 7:14 am on Dec 12, 2012 (gmt 0)

I agree that there are people with a conscience. Luckily, I have many of them as customers. My feeling though, is that MOST people don't. And when it comes to what big companies or governments do, most people don't care what they do, until it affects them directly. Which is not morality, that's actually selfishness. Morality is when somebody cares about something, even if it does NOT affect them. ie... Most people in the US complain about taxes and how much the government wastes "their" tax money. Until an 'I want to get re-elected' refund check or freebee handout check shows up in their mail box... Then they suddenly don't have a problem with how the government spends tax money.

I personally think the public has a lot more power than they give themselves credit for. I have been on a quest to find made in US sellers for a lot of stuff I buy. It's not easy, but you can do it. And for the people that want to camp out on city hall lawns for months and disrupt traffic, complaining about the evil banks and so-forth... It would probably be a lot more easy just walking into their big evil bank and taking their money out. Plenty of small banks would be more than happy to take their money and treat them better. But most of the 'occupy' crowd won't do that, because that would take effort.

Personally, I welcome the big companies to keep getting bigger. Because the bigger they get, the worse job they do. I've never seen a single company handle huge growth well yet, and Amazon won't be an exception. Just got a shipment the other day where they crushed my $400 camera in a box full of heavy stuff, with zero padding. Got a form email back that didn't even apologize. So there you go... Already on the way down. Apple will eventually slide as well, not because they don't pay taxes, but because they are so arrogant, that they think everything they touch turns to gold. I've been there since the Apple II, and I think they are far worse off now than in the dark days of the early 90's. You can checkout my laptop battery that looks like a balloon for proof, which they condescendingly tried to tell me was "normal wear". When a company starts lying to you, and doesn't even make the effort to make it a good lie... It won't be long until the big fall. I love them, but I would personally sell my APPL stock and call it a nice run.