shrave10

Maybe they wanted to protect their iPhones from Chinese and Russian app stores?  Smart move.

araquen said:

I am skeptical. Apple Intelligence is not a product, and everyone gets that wrong. Apple Intelligence is functionality that is intended to enhance and improve the various platforms Apple has (macOS, iOS, iPadOS, etc). How do you monetize that without monetizing the OS? An OS Apple offers for free.

Bundling AI features as part of the OS encourages antitrust zealots like Vestegier to force Apple to give it away for free to third party developers who already enjoy making $ billions off of the Apple ecosystem for free.  Separating advanced features of Apple Intelligence out of the OS and as an optional add-on allows Apple to charge these rich freeloader developers without violating the DMA in EU or similar potential actions in other countries.  

semi_guy said:

In short, greed caused inflation. Crazy spending in excessive tax breaks, low interest, and government handouts to industry added a second wave to the inflation. Pandemic spending prevented many companies and individuals from going bankrupt and that spending ended 3 years ago. However, companies realized they could raise prices and still maintain their customers. Hence, many companies have reported record profits in the past couple of years: greed...

I agree, as per my earlier post on this thread, pandemic related spending and low interest rates definitely contributed to inflation.  However, the resilience of the inflation 3 y out may also be due to the annual increase in trade deficit, particularly with China as they never buy more than they sell.   Biden's effort to friend shore supply chains to work out more balanced trade deals as countries compete for them makes sense.  Trump does not support this, and it makes no sense ... unless of course you take into account his personal Hong Kong bank account perhaps?  Trump walked away from the multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership deal negotiated by Obama.  It would have promoted supply chains to move out of China and these other countries would then be competing for contracts from the US.   Thanks to Trump, we were left negotiating with a manufacturing monopolist for another four years.  Perhaps Trump's Hong Kong bank account may have something to do with it?  It's only thanks to Xi's own threats to invade Taiwan that is now causing supply chains to become a bit more diversified.  However, I am left wondering if a second Trump presidency would reverse even this trend?  How can the American public trust a sitting president that has a personal bank account in their most powerful economic and military competitor?  

hexclock said:

foregoneconclusion said:

The 2017 tax cuts that CEOs used for stock buybacks are due to expire. These are the same tax cuts that the Fed predicted would increase inflation. Go figure…

Reducing the corporate tax rate to compete with other countries allowed  US companies to repatriate billions of dollars back to the United States. 

According to the CBO those tax cuts increased federal tax revenue because the economy grew. Inflation came from all the crazy spending congress has done over the last few years, starting during the pandemic. 

There will always be spending need but this doesn't account for jump in inflation.  Recent jump may be proving stubborn because of money printing during pandemic coupled with increasing trade deficit with a certain manufacturing monopolist country > increased money printing each year to help cover deficit.  Trump thinks he can deal with the problem by raising tariffs and letting the average consumer pick up the tab.  Biden thinks the better way is to raise taxes on the very wealthy and corporations and use these revenues to fund U.S. jobs.  Biden's approach hurts the average consumer less and makes more sense.  Plus, Biden is encouraging friend-shoring of manufacturing out of China while Trump has come out against friend-shoring for some weird reason he is not disclosing.  All the while he maintains his personal bank account in Hong Kong.  Biden has no personal bank account in HK. 

lordjohnwhorfin said:

They must have worked very hard to find the one picture where Tim doesn't look good and Mango Mussolini looks almost human.

Reminds me of Beaker from Muppets