The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Apple, In Shift, Pushes an Audit of Sites in China,” is not only good public policy; it represents the kind of PR move more companies should make when their operations or products are questioned.

The issue of labor practices in third-world countries has bedeviled organizations such as Nike and the electronics industry in general. But Apple has now taken an “unprecedented” step to investigate the internal operations of its suppliers, plants that make Dell, HP, IBM, Sony and Toshiba products as well.

The independent organization hired by Apple, the Fair Labor Association, is an industry watchdog and does have some ties to former electronics executives on its Board of Directors. But the Board also consists of university academics, and the staff write the reports without any prior consultation or influence.

The article notes that more than 90 percent of Apple’s production facilities will be inspected by the association, and thousands of workers will be interviewed. It’s probably the best that Apple can do under the circumstances.

For anyone who has ever used an Apple product and marveled at the inventiveness and care of Steve Jobs, this report represents unmitigated good news. I recently purchased an iPhone and can say without qualification, that it’s a step above every other smartphone on the market, and it would be a shame to inhibit the joy of its users in any way. Apple’s independent audits go a long way towards accomplishing that.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Tax Benefits from Options as Windfall for Businesses,” exposes a tax loophole that will cost the Treasury billions and dilute the stake of other shareholders for major U.S. corporations.

The loophole concerns the current practices regarding stock options. Stock options provide a stake in a company by allowing the purchase of company shares at a set price over a specified period. The options can be cashed in at a later date at a much higher level, but companies can then deduct the difference. This additional deduction is the loophole that can save these companies billions; it has even resulted in companies paying no federal tax as a result.

Today’s revelation comes not long after it was revealed that Congresspersons can engage in insider trading with no penalty, and it provides just one more example of elites profiting from legal benefits typically unavailable to the general population. The only explanation given by companies interviewed about the matter concerns the fact that they can only deduct income/salary for employees up to $1 million per person, so the stock options become a viable alternative.

Meanwhile, since stock options do not cost a company any money, they represent a way of increasing deductions at a later date. One hopes Congress will repeal this loophole if and when they reform the tax code.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Redined the Digital Age as the Visionary of Apple,” provides an obituary and life summary for Steven Jobs, who passed away yesterday from pancreatic cancer.

Mr. Jobs, best known for his creation of the Apple, popularizing the graphical user interface in personal computers and creating the mouse pointing device, was a revolutionary in the digital world in many other aspects as well. From the iPod to the iPhone, he created market-transforming devices that were phenomenally popular with consumers and eventually made him a billionaire.

Even less known, he purchased Pixar Studios and created Toy Story, a full-length computer-animated film in a genre that really didn’t exist before.

Mr. Jobs punctures the myth that one person can’t make a difference, and his history is not a conventional one. He dropped out of the liberal Reed College in Portland after one semester, claiming that it was depleting his parents’ savings, and he founded Apple in the basement of their home. He left the company claiming that “he wore the wrong kind of pants” for what the organization had become — he wore jeans — yet came back several years later.

Many tributes are yet to come for Mr. Jobs, and his loss is a loss for our nation and all mankind.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “U.S. Files Lawsuit to Block Merger of Phone Rivals,” represents an “at last” moment for consumer advocates waiting for the Department of Justice to live up to President Obama’s campaign promise to more actively intervene in business mergers to save jobs and foster competition.

The merger between AT&T and T-Mobile had proposed a union between the second and fourth-largest cellphone carriers respectively, and many felt that the low-cost option of T-Mobile would be lost forever. The $39 billion deal would have inevitably resulted in the loss of jobs through redundancies even though unions were in favor of it, largely because T-Mobile is largely non-union while most members of AT&T belong to the Communications Workers of America.

The action will now wind its way through court for many months, and the DOJ isn’t holding out much hope of a settlement. In addition, the FCC must also approve the merger in any case, and it generally concurs with Department of Justice actions.

The case also represents a departure for the Obama administration which had allowed other large mergers to go through including Ticketmaster with Live Nation, and United with Continental Airlines. One wonders if the upcoming election played any role in the decision.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Jobs Steps Down, Saying He Cannot Meet His Duties,” is about more than the resignation of Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple and the extraordinary company he created through the introduction of the iPod, iPhone and iPad in addition to his groundbreaking Macintosh computer. It is about the system of American capitalism itself.

Steve Jobs succeeded, as almost everyone acknowledges, because of his willingness to take a risk and because he was right. His entrepreneurial endeavors took on the aspect of a start-up as he moved into new fields and created new products without any precedent. Mr. Jobs was able to anticipate the demand of the American public, what they wanted, before they even knew it themselves.

And our system awards that talent to anyone who possesses it regardless of their class, wealth or any other attributes. Mr. Jobs was able to tap into the very thing that makes America great and in so doing, he created a company that was temporarily superior to even Exxon Mobil in its wealth and profits.

So to today’s youth, struggling to find a job, I commend Steve Jobs as an example, a paragon, to emulate and to consider an entrepreneurial career when others won’t hire you. Jobs is the perfect example and solution of the jobs dilemma in the United States today.