What's more all-American than mom, baseball, and apple pie? Well, plenty of stuff, actually, especially if the best apple pie you ever tasted was baked and served à la mode by your Hungarian mother to celebrate the latest win by the Nippon Ham Fighters, but specifically, we're talking about debt. Good ol' debt! It's debt that keeps this country ticking. Without debt, we'd actually be solvent, and we all know how painful that can be. So, three cheers for debt! Go buy something with plastic today! Finance charges and interest make the world go 'round.

However, apparently not everyone agrees. Faithful viewer mrmgraphics pointed out that 99Mac has posted an email message from The Stevester Himself to all Apple employees, revealing that the company has just blown nearly a third of a billion dollars-- not on some new company to absorb, not on a few extra Gulfstream jets, not even on 3.1 billion mini vinyl frogs. Instead, Apple paid $300 million in cash-- to get out of debt. That's right, kiddies, the billion dollars of debt that Apple had so diligently amassed in the years leading up to Steve's return is now gone. Steve actually frittered it all away in just a little over six years. As of now, Apple is that most anti-American of all things: debt-free.

This isn't exactly news, since CFO Fred Anderson had mentioned during last month's earnings conference call that Apple intended to pay off its last remaining debt this month using a $300 million chunk of change from its cash stockpile, but we figured he must have been joking, especially in light of the announcement of his impending retirement-- just a little parting giggle, right? But no, he was serious, and now Apple carries less debt than most U.S. house pets. Shameful.

Well, if Apple sees the error of its ways and decides to come back and join the rest of us in America, we're willing to do what we can to help. It'll be hard on us, but for Apple's sake, we'd be willing to donate the debt from our mortgage on the AtAT compound-- let Apple pay it off and transfer the debt to the company's books. We've also got several thousand dollars in outstanding student loans we suppose we can give up, and a few credit card accounts we can allow Apple to pay in full with borrowed money. But not the car loan-- never the car loan! We need the debt from that car loan; without it we'd feel like traitors to our country! They can't have it! Never! Oh, okay, what the heck.

No worries, folks; if Apple does assume all of our outstanding debt, we'll be sure to run out and incur plenty more right away. After all, it's the American way.