One of the biggest business news items of the day was the Apple earnings release -- the company reported fiscal second quarter revenue of $13.5 billion and profit of $3.07 billion (reasonable? or excessive?), which sent the stock up nearly 6%. At this rate Apple's sales, which Yahoo! finance puts at $46.7 billion for the past 12 months, are approaching the entire GDP of Syria, which the CIA World Factbook puts at $54.99 billion.
Why use Syria as a comparison? Why, because Mr. Jobs's biological father, Abdulfattah Jandali, was a Syrian professor of political science who came to America and gave Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs up for adoption.
We bet that Syria wishes Jandali had stayed. America should be glad it let him in. More broadly, what an amazing and inspiring example of the opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators available in free societies, like America, that just aren't available in unfree societies, like Syria.
FutureOfCapitalism.com is produced on an Apple desktop computer (the same one on which the Samuel Adams biography was written), so Mr. Jobs and his team deserve some thanks for making this venture possible.