“It’s maddening. It’s disappointing. It’s clear that this comes from a political place…When you’re accused of doing something so foreign to your values it brings out an outrage in you…
…They just picked a number from I don’t know where…It lacks any level of fairness…It’s total political crap.”, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook responding in the press on Thursday, September 1, 2016 re. a European Union ruling that the company owed Ireland up to $14.5 billion in back taxes, “CEO of Apple calls EU tax ruling ‘political’”, The Los Angeles Times, September 2, 2016
“This is how I felt when our federal government’s largely unaccountable bureaucrats at the SEC and FDIC made their bogus crisis-era claims against me…wholly unproven to this day (because they weren’t true)…..and everything that went to court (where the facts could be heard), I won. This is why I have spent so much of my time and my life these past few years (since this was all legally resolved in 2014), studying the financial crisis and documenting my case (and other related ones) on this blog.”, Mike Perry, former Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bank
Not Too Big To Fail 
Apple and others of its ilk have supported these same political elitists who have promoted this type of arbitrary behavior whereby governments extract the assets of shareholders/individuals without specific bases in facts….now their getting some of their own medicine. What about the forced settlements with the US financial industry where tens of billions of dollars were extracted though multiple settlements when actual damages were not proven or where claimed actual damages were a small percentage of the settled amounts. $14.5 Billion is chump change compared to what others have suffered. Let’s see if Apple and its directors, executives, and shareholders change their view of what kinds of political elites they support in the future….I doubt little change….just bring out iPhone 7 and let it rock.