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Apple reports fourth quarter results

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Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#71
post #42

All these companies depend on TSMC for their life.

Had to look up what TSMC meant (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). What would Apple's next best option be if a war rendered TSMC unavailable?

If a war rendered TSMC unavailable it would crash the global economy. There is no next best option.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#72
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had to look up what TSMC meant (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). What would Apple's next best option be if a war rendered TSMC unavailable?

>What would Apple's next best option be if a war rendered TSMC unavailable? Onshore TSMC fabs followed by Intel fabs. Properly motivated, I think Intel and Apple could do a lot relatively quickly.

The supply chain for this simply does not exist.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Corporate income tax is really a tax on shareholders (alternative to paying tax is paying shareholders a dividend). The corporate tax rate hits all owners regardless of income/wealth. That includes pension funds, 401ks, small investors, etc. Proponents of progressive taxes should be against corporate tax and in favor of income tax, property tax, etc.

It also takes money away from the corporation, when they should be doing one of these: - spend their profits to try and grow, but fail; thus spreading their capital into the rest of the economy - spend their profits to try and grow, and succeed; not only spreading capital but creating new wealth that will eventually work its way around to the shareholders - return it to shareholders, where it gets taxed

Isn’t that how it already works? They can spend all of their profits or pay taxes on profit and sit on the rest?

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#74
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We keep hearing that the next generation is "true computer" illiterate. We had that development with cars. 40 years ago, it was common to fix your own car. Nowadays, we have a subscription for seat warmers. The manual tells you to visit the dealer to get your brakes checked. Makes me sad, somehow. But people have choosen this path as a collective.

People choose what to outsource and, as cars have become more complicated and require more diagnostic equipment, they go to a dealer/mechanic. Personally, I've never done a lot of personal car mechanic work. On the other hand, I've done my own cooking more than not. You make choices about what you do yourself and what you have others do for you.

> cars have become more complicated and require more diagnostic equipment

For the consumable stuff every car owner has to deal with, nothing has really changed in 40 years, honestly! A brake service is still done the exact same way, same with virtually all the fluid services.

I just find far more people parrot "modern cars are so complicated" today and don't even consider that in fact, it is relatively simple to change a brake pad and disc, or your own oil, perhaps an air filter, even on most brand new cars. Fluids filters and brakes are like 90% of most people's maintenance needs nowadays.

YouTube has also massively lowered the barrier to working on cars, given there are multiple easy to follow guides for just about any car service for any car model you can think of.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#75
post #74
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People choose what to outsource and, as cars have become more complicated and require more diagnostic equipment, they go to a dealer/mechanic. Personally, I've never done a lot of personal car mechanic work. On the other hand, I've done my own cooking more than not. You make choices about what you do yourself and what you have others do for you.

> cars have become more complicated and require more diagnostic equipment For the consumable stuff every car owner has to deal with, nothing has really changed in 40 years, honestly! A brake service is still done the exact same way, same with virtually all the fluid services. I just find far more people parrot "modern cars are so complicated" today and don't even consider that in fact, it is relatively simple to chan…

Except many new cars are locked down in software, for example not allowing to release rear parking brakes without authorized service subscription, keeping the electronic keys for each VIN unique and stored in the cloud. Yes, there are workarounds on releasing the brakes manually but it is a burden.

Also similarly as with iPhones, many cars require connecting to the authorized service to change headlights and other parts since they are paired with the MCU.

I know how to work on my car but I am not able to because someone decided to lock it down.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#76
post #75
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cars have become more complicated and require more diagnostic equipment For the consumable stuff every car owner has to deal with, nothing has really changed in 40 years, honestly! A brake service is still done the exact same way, same with virtually all the fluid services. I just find far more people parrot "modern cars are so complicated" today and don't even consider that in fact, it is relatively simple to chan…

Except many new cars are locked down in software, for example not allowing to release rear parking brakes without authorized service subscription, keeping the electronic keys for each VIN unique and stored in the cloud. Yes, there are workarounds on releasing the brakes manually but it is a burden. Also similarly as with iPhones, many cars require connecting to the authorized service to change headlights and other pa…

[deleted]

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#77
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also takes money away from the corporation, when they should be doing one of these: - spend their profits to try and grow, but fail; thus spreading their capital into the rest of the economy - spend their profits to try and grow, and succeed; not only spreading capital but creating new wealth that will eventually work its way around to the shareholders - return it to shareholders, where it gets taxed

Isn’t that how it already works? They can spend all of their profits or pay taxes on profit and sit on the rest?

Depends on what it gets spent on - capital purchases dont reduce net income. You can write it off, but there are rules limiting how much.

So you could have a situation where you have $1m in profit, and you want to buy a $1m machine, but the machine goes on your balance sheet and not your income statement, so your books still show $1m in profit, even though you now have no cash. And now you still have to pay tax on the $1m.

Now, in the next year, the rules allow you to write off say $200k of that machine, reducing your profit by that much. Eventually, you get to write off much / all of the machine.

But cash is king, and on a cash basis, the tax man is doing very much better than the business in this scenario.

Better to dispense with all the accounting intrigues, tax corporations at 0%, and just tax dividends, buybacks, and salaries.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#78
post #23
post #11

Kind of telling that 1, the iPhone outsells every other category by 5-7x ratio, and the Mac (which includes everything from Macbooks to Mac Minis to iMacs) barely sells more than the iPad. 2, Services (iCloud, apps, music, TV shows etc.) now bigger than every other category, except the iPhone, combined Basically 76% of the sales are iPhones and Services (millions) iPhone $209,586 Mac $33,708 iPad $28,023 Wearables, H…

Seems like the obvious reason for this is that Mac is now a niche for people that operate computers, where there are likely 6 people that don't for every 1 that does. We keep hearing that the next generation is "true computer" illiterate. The second reason is likely that there are computers that are 1/3 of the price subsidized by the terrible ad-supported OS installs. (Has anyone tried to setup a MS computer lately,…

My wife has been without a desktop or laptop for more than a decade. Her primary computing devices are her phone and iPad.

For doing tasks like online banking or booking plane tickets, I find the mobile experience frustrating and therefore do it on my laptop. She finds the laptop clunky and finds mobile much easier.

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#79
post #31

All these companies depend on TSMC for their life.

And TSMC depends on machines by ASML they can also sell to others. And ASML licensed the technology from EUV LLC. Which was a conglomerate of a bunch of state-funded US research labs. And the US cut its science funding. Misery all the way down!

It’s a conglomerate of researchers that were employed by the feds and private institutions who met have received various forms of grants

I think the science funding cuts will be inconsequential to that entity

Re: Apple reports fourth quarter results

#80
post #11

Kind of telling that 1, the iPhone outsells every other category by 5-7x ratio, and the Mac (which includes everything from Macbooks to Mac Minis to iMacs) barely sells more than the iPad. 2, Services (iCloud, apps, music, TV shows etc.) now bigger than every other category, except the iPhone, combined Basically 76% of the sales are iPhones and Services (millions) iPhone $209,586 Mac $33,708 iPad $28,023 Wearables, H…

> Next 5 years or so (or even less) both the iPad and the Wearables, Home and Accessories category will overtake the sales of Macs. I view this the exact opposite way. The death of the laptop in favor of tablets has been touted for about a decade now, and it has still failed to materialize. Wearables have even surpassed the iPad. Not to mention, the Mac laptops have seen a recent surge of popularity last few years, d…

Even if people still own laptops, if they aren’t using them as much they aren’t going to upgrade as frequently and they aren’t going to buy the expensive models.

Theres also the fact much of the developing world went straight to mobile, skipping laptops.

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