thedba

9secondkox2 said:

Seems like a smart man’s genuine appreciation of another smart man. 

Good to see. 

Cook is they’re to look ahead and can see the potential blessing of current moves down the road  

avon b7 said:

9secondkox2 said:

avon b7 said:

9secondkox2 said:

As I said a long time ago, intelligent people are in charge snd apple will be ok. The president will have a way to navigate Apple through some difficult decidd add jobs. And it has come to pass. 

Cook was wise to open the door of discussion dnd thr president has been wise in response. 

I know it’s popular in this particular online space to detract from the president no matter what he does, but the fact is tarriffs are necessary -yet it’s sldd add o necessary to protect Americans and American companies. The idea is to put the pressure on other countries, particularly China - and not on American companies. 

It’s not changing mindset. It’s continuing forward motion, msnuevering as needed. That’s only good stuff snd Apple is the better for it. As this year marks time for my iPhone upgrade and early next is my next Mac purchase, I am a pretty happy potential customer right about now. 

If intelligent people were involved, surely none of this would have been necessary. 

He imposed tariffs. There were little to no exceptions. He let that situation sit while markets collapsed everywhere. He doubled down on there being no change of thought and barely hours after saying there would be no backing down, he did just that, suspending 'reciprocal' tariffs for 90 days. 

Then, late Friday exemptions were put in place.

By late Sunday we were being told there were no real exemptions (according to Lutnick) but a sort of pause within a pause and everyone was 'on the hook' (according to Trump) and that new tariffs were being devised to replace the original ones but they simply weren't ready and we know no one will even dare explain them (because they are being cooked up as we speak and don't exist). 

Even within the administration mixed messaging is emerging and now we are to believe Trump is 'flexible'?

It is nice to hear about walls and going over or below them, or even around them but the US decided to crash straight into them. 

There is no intelligence on show here. It's the complete opposite. Chaos and reaction to the problems chaos brings. 

Intelligence would never have seen this mess get to this point. 

Intelligence would not have seen Trump congratulating his pals for stock market gains hours before he announced another walk back (opening him up to valid insider trading accusations). 


Tim Cook and every CEO and small business owner in the US would know what trade policy is and be acting on it. That isn't happening because there is NO stable trade policy.

Everyone is running blind. 

Incorrect. It’s because of intelligent and good people that we are finally addressing long-standing abuses and doing so in a way that is benefitting Americans as much as possible and sparing collateral damage where possible. It’s not changing your mind when you planned to do something already. Trump hinted at this previously and we saw precedent in his first term. And that El Salvador president sure seemed to respect him tremendously. 

The right thing to do isn’t to continue to be ripped off. Nor is it to apply tarriffs without concern for American companies. 

People elected the president in a number of issues. This is one. The previous admin let American get bullied around. We saw a microcosm of that with Apple and the EU. That era is over. All of a sudden we hear the eu saying they’re willing to deal. We hear them second guessing their ridiculously exorbitant fees charged against Apple for stuff they make up as they go along. America is strong again. And as a result, so are Americans and our companies. This is good. A lot of mental acrobatics to try to spin it any other way. 

Are you saying this is the intelligent way to address these issues? That there were no, far, far less damaging options available to reach the same goals?

If you are then that is utterly absurd. 

The damage has already been done. None of it was necessary. 

It was not intelligent to send someone like JD Vance to the Munich Security Conference to proclaim there was a 'new sheriff in town'. That was plain stupid, disrespectful and embarrassing. It wasn't intelligent to belittle world leaders by saying they were queueing up to kiss his ass. It wasn't intelligent to speak of the Chinese as peasants (in any context). It wasn't intelligent to speak about the 'Governor' of Canada or the '51st state'. It wasn't intelligent to speak about using force to take Greenland. It wasn't intelligent to begin 'peace' talks on Ukraine without Ukraine at the talks. It wasn't intelligent to speak about not letting the people of Gaza back. Or taking control of the Panama Canal. 

All of the above should have been approached in an entirely different manner because he has achieved nothing to date and created I'll-will everywhere. Not intelligent when you never know when you might need the collaboration of someone else. 

Tariffs are not new. Tariffs are not a problem. 

The Trump Tariffs are a problem because they immediately became counterproductive and led to pushback and counter-tariffs from the EU (suspended in good faith) and China (pushing back hard).

Not to mention that two weeks after Liberation Day, nothing has been 'liberated'. Ironic. 

Let's also skip over the fact that so much of what he said he would do would happen on Day 1.

So the CEOs of all the top US companies now have literally no idea of what's going to happen next apart from they are all 'on the hook'.

If Trump had done the intelligent thing he would have communicated his plans (those that impacted top US corporations) to make things clear. 

Did he do that, in spite of talking to Tim Cook for example? Because if he did do that, Tim Cook wouldn't have airlifted millions of iPhones from India. Right? Or is it Tim heard him out and still thought 'oh, shit!'.

There is no intelligence on show here and the evidence is piling up daily. 

jfabula1 said:

michelb76 said:

9secondkox2 said:

And I’ll take Donald trump and Bessent any day over some dude on the internet named “stabitha.”

But seriously. There are so many ways to look at this. It definitely exposes predispositions. If you already hate Tru p, you’ll work to find the pessimistic angle. If you already like him, you’ll work to find the positive angle. And if you’re just a simple common sense guy, you’ll work to can appreciate what he’s trying to do while retaining the ability to see where it may go wrong - but also retain tje ability to see where it may go right. So far, for common sense folks, tje goal is admirable, results are mixed with the short time in action, and the pivot seems to preserve both the American tech company as well as the inherits of the action to begin with. The downside of all of it is of course the “short term pain” of stock volatility and posdible higher prices. But that was always a known quantity. Not some surprise. But the long term gain of fair trade is what the goal is. And it’s certainly at the very least worth the attempt. If it wasn’t trump, it would be someone else. The status quo is not sustainable without ceding our economy and leading status in the world. As one of the few truly free places in the world, this matters. We are all her for all things apple. They’re a great company. Another reason their great is that they stand for human rights, privacy, security, etc. on top of making the best stuff on earth. But take away the foundation of freedom upon which they operate and things go south. We see a microcosm in the EU and China. Hopefully, with the bold moves being made on the big stage, that’s as far as it goes. 

If Europe decides to bond together and increase production and trade amongst themselves, they no longer need the US for 90% of the stuff and will have a much larger market than they would ever have had with the US. In reality they need very little US products because most of those are low quality and don't adhere to European standards and regulations. (cars, food) They trade with the US because of allyship. That's going to go out the window fast now. Europe has a reliance on US tech companies, but work is underway to reduce that. BRICS countries removing reliance on the dollar will absolutely hurt the US for generations. A next president is not going to be able to correct this. The damage done to the US in the past months will take decades to recover, if ever. There is no short term pain, only long term pain. There is a lot of gain for those in power though, but that's a very small group.

It seems quite an argument, you are probably right if the status quo continues. America will be gone with $36T & counting owed….it’s sad but nobody is talking about it here but blaming a President who’s trying to do something about it, no suggested solutions either, just whine and whine. It doesn’t bother me if Apple is raising prices cause I can afford them, but the rest of younger Americans has no future for this $T we owed, unfortunately they will be the one paying for It. 

9secondkox2 said:

michelb76 said:

9secondkox2 said:

And I’ll take Donald trump and Bessent any day over some dude on the internet named “stabitha.”

But seriously. There are so many ways to look at this. It definitely exposes predispositions. If you already hate Tru p, you’ll work to find the pessimistic angle. If you already like him, you’ll work to find the positive angle. And if you’re just a simple common sense guy, you’ll work to can appreciate what he’s trying to do while retaining the ability to see where it may go wrong - but also retain tje ability to see where it may go right. So far, for common sense folks, tje goal is admirable, results are mixed with the short time in action, and the pivot seems to preserve both the American tech company as well as the inherits of the action to begin with. The downside of all of it is of course the “short term pain” of stock volatility and posdible higher prices. But that was always a known quantity. Not some surprise. But the long term gain of fair trade is what the goal is. And it’s certainly at the very least worth the attempt. If it wasn’t trump, it would be someone else. The status quo is not sustainable without ceding our economy and leading status in the world. As one of the few truly free places in the world, this matters. We are all her for all things apple. They’re a great company. Another reason their great is that they stand for human rights, privacy, security, etc. on top of making the best stuff on earth. But take away the foundation of freedom upon which they operate and things go south. We see a microcosm in the EU and China. Hopefully, with the bold moves being made on the big stage, that’s as far as it goes. 

If Europe decides to bond together and increase production and trade amongst themselves, they no longer need the US for 90% of the stuff and will have a much larger market than they would ever have had with the US. In reality they need very little US products because most of those are low quality and don't adhere to European standards and regulations. (cars, food) They trade with the US because of allyship. That's going to go out the window fast now. Europe has a reliance on US tech companies, but work is underway to reduce that. BRICS countries removing reliance on the dollar will absolutely hurt the US for generations. A next president is not going to be able to correct this. The damage done to the US in the past months will take decades to recover, if ever. There is no short term pain, only long term pain. There is a lot of gain for those in power though, but that's a very small group.

If it were that easy, they’d have done so already. Europe is not so friendly with the US. If there was a way to stick it to America beyond drawing up laws designed specifically to target American companies or applying tariffs, they’d already have done so. We don’t need Europe. But they do need us. 

And can you imagine how tragic life in Europe would be with no Apple? Man that’s just really really sad. 

jfabula1 said:

lordjohnwhorfin said:

You voted for this buffoon, you own this. People losing their
jobs, their house, their retirement money. Innocents being deported to foreign prisons and tortured. And worse coming. You own the ruin of this once great nation. I hope you one day realize the immense depth of your stupidity.

What? Quit that fear mongering. I didn’t lost my house and my retirement. If it’s the same.. you will not have America to called home. $36T and counting…are you not scared of that for your kids and grandkids?? 

Go Apple raise your prices, cause I can afford buying Apple. If you can’t buy a new one, there’s a lot of used and still workings. We been so materialistic that we are in debt up our head and ignoring what we owed just so we can spew our political views. It’s pathetic that this AI becomes cnn.