Comments on: Maybe the Feds Can Diagnose What Ails Apple and Steve Jobs (and Whether It Matters or Not)

By: Bill Youngs

Bill Youngs — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:41:43 +0000

What is interesting about this article is that Kara Swisher goes beyond the push and pull of the debate about whether Steve Jobs and Apple should or should not be more forthcoming about Jobs’s health. Kara asks a deeper question, how did we become so obsessed with this subject anyway, obsessed, that is, beyond the normal human reaction of wishing him well? Certainly as investors and students of the economy, we should be interested in a wide array of facts indicating where we have been and where we will likely be going. Know more about these facts and we can make better investments as individuals and as a society. — But the way so many journalists lock in on THE APPLE STORY as all about STEVE JOBS’S HEALTH is fundamentally unhealthy. It smacks of the magazine covers you see at grocery market checkout stands where all the world revolves around who is divorcing whom and whose cellulite is least attractive. Most likely, no one, not even his doctors, can predict for certain the medical future for Steve Jobs. Uncertainties are a part of the life of individuals and of corporations: just look at Microsoft’s recent announcement that it will give no guidance for the next quarter due to “the volatility of market conditions.” Imagine the storm of protest that would greet a similar announcement by Apple about Steve Jobs’s health. — Steve Jobs asks, “Why is this important?” At another level, the real question should be, why are so many journalists, purported business analysts at that, so obsessed with making this important? Wouldn’t we all be better off if a few reporters asked a much more important question: how is it that in a seriously declining economy, even with it’s CEO hampered by a mysterious ailment, Apple just posted the best quarter in its entire history. That’s the line of inquiry about Apple from which we might learn some valuable lessons. Those lessons might even help the nation move forward in a troubled economy. But all too many business analysts are wallowing in superficial, flashy cellulite reporting. It’s a shame. — Bill Youngs, American Historian

By: Piper Burnette

Piper Burnette — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:06:43 +0000

HIPAA expressly prohibits employers from accessing patients medical records – along those lines, Apple’s Board may have had little insight into Job’s medical condition. He was under no obligation to tell them anything until he exercised his rights under FMLA and/or ADA. Even then, Job’s medical privacy was still covered under HIPAA, and Apple would have been in clear violation of the law had they chosen to reveal the nature of his illness without his express permission.

By: Wednesday Morning Tech Roundup | lalawag

Wednesday Morning Tech Roundup | lalawag — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:01:23 +0000

[...] personal business. The SEC, however, didn’t like any of the shenanigans and has decided to start a probe into Apple’s disclosures to stockholders. To all other CEOs out there: no one still cares if [...]

By: Kirk Schubert

Kirk Schubert — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:48:11 +0000

Gee, let’s throw Steve’s name in with a convicted felon and another person who is about to be a convicted felon. This is quality journalism. Since the SEC has not done its jobs managing mark to market issues on trillions of dollars in assets and let Bernie create billions and billions (not a type o) of dollars in fake transactions, let’s get Steve for his behavior when he got sick.
BTW, your idiotic, unquestioning interview of McNamee shilling for a company in a death spiral is just right.

By: Maybe the Feds Can Diagnose What Ails Apple and Steve Jobs (and Whether It Matters or Not) [BoomTown] | heave-ho.org

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:31:47 +0000

[...] Read more from the original source: Maybe the Feds Can Diagnose What Ails Apple and Steve Jobs (and Whether It Matters or Not) [BoomTown... [...]

By: Levander Thomas

Levander Thomas — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:36:02 +0000

The reason we get so many stupid stories (like this one) about Jobs’s health is because it’s something even the financial media understands. Stuff like return on equity, gross margins, it’s too difficult for most media outlets to understand enough to write a decent story on.

By: Kevin coffey

Kevin coffey — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:04:01 +0000

Wow, it had to come to this! Apple really must have their heads up their …to think that it would just go away. I’m glad about it. I wanna know if apple will be run by a creative visionary genious or an operations manager. Thats why this is important.

By: Maybe the Feds Can Diagnose What Ails Apple and Steve Jobs (and Whether It Matters or Not) Video

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:01:47 +0000

[...] first collected Added 20 Jan 09 from kara.allthingsd.com Flag as inappropriate or [...]