Russia selling gas to China is completely orthogonal to Nord Stream issue.
The strategic win in bombing Nord Stream was that Ukraine finally got Europe on their side. Before NS was blown up many countries, especially Germany were sitting on the fence, reluctant to give Ukraine any help. They were hoping for Ukraine to lose the war quickly, then they would give Putin some slap on the wrist punishment, and return to "business as usual" with Russia. Nord Stream being destroyed removed the biggest incentive for doing that.
Cognitive ability or performance? I can imagine that being in your 50s you would hit a sweet spot between declining ability to learn new things and a vast body of knowledge and skills already acquired.
I think the 50's, 60's and 70's (and beyond) are highly correlated with the challenges we take on.
Children thrive on regular, daily, habitual challenges, mental, social and physical. But so do people in their 90's.
The amount of regression or hard limits on progression associated with aging, that are actually inherent to aging, are surprising small.
Although, reversing long term regressions gets more difficult. And we can run into impediments and unfortunate events beyond of our control at any age, but age makes us more vulnerable.
Well, the CCP does not hide their ambitions at all: they aim to replace the US as the global superpower, and with Trump as POTUS they actually start looking like a more stable, more reliable alternative.
I mean: Trump is a clown, and the US under his rule is becoming a circus.
I do not understand why such news would cause gold price to go up... What Trump is clearly aiming for is to replace gold with cryptocurrencies - that's why his recent moves to have his own coin, allow crypto in 401(k), push toward "crypto dollar", and now trying to limit gold inflow to US with tariffs. If this goes as planned then gold will become less relevant in global monetary system, so it should go down, right?
I have a simpler explanation: he's bought a bunch of bitcoins and uses his position to inflate its price. If it's true, at some point he'll decide to cash out and announce that he will make bitcoin illegal to drop its price back. Maybe he'll repeat this cycle a few times.
shipping gold is essentialy free right now, so
the "tariff" is a hint that MOVING gold will get extra expensive, making the gold in various places worth more, possibly much more
and Trump is most definitly, a, gold bug
with a magic toy
What about university students? They also start their classes in September, and while they have no "budgeting deadline", they still need to buy some computer around that time.
interestingly, i have a teen that will be heading off to college in a couple years. My plan is to send him off to the dorm with a Macbook and not his gaming rig heh. Although, inevitably, it will be up to him to decide how to make the best use of his time..
One of my first jobs was working for my university while attending. We had a small student lead team of people that did IT work for other students, and faculty. We'd fix or at least attempt to fix any software issue or hardware issue that we feasibly could with the tools we had available.
In my unsolicited advice, I recommend your son take both devices. I'll spare you my countless war stories, but I can confidently say I have seen many students up a creek without a paddle at some of the most unfortunate times.
Not the original commenter, but if I was that parent, I’d explain to my kid the amount of money I would be contributing towards their education and expenses if they bring it…and if the don’t bring it. They can make the educated choice then.
That seems to me to be the least likely outcome of that decision.
A common outcome would seem to be a year spent bombing in their classes because they can’t separate themselves from some stupid game to study while accumulating $10-20k in student debt.
I think Apple has historically used the college student market to clear out their remaining stock of last year’s MacBooks. Otherwise why release the new models just after classes have started?
Considering a base MBA M4 can be had for $899 (and it's a monster) and a base MBP is about 80% more, I can’t imagine the bulk of freshman buyers who have so many things to buy just to go to university for their first year would opt to spend an extra $650 on an MPB.
As someone who's worked at a (small) university for a decade and a half, IME most of the ones who get Mac laptops get the Air. This has been especially true since the Apple Silicon transition, as the chip in the Air is still damn good.
I think you might be surprised at the extent to which iPad sales cannibalize MacBook sales in the current crop of undergrads, especially ones who don't anticipate having to write papers or code. An iPad Air will do everything many college students need at half the price and size and weight, and it can have a pen, which the MacBook can't. When you do get a surprise assignment that the iPad can't do, there are always lab computers, and many universities will loan out laptops upon request.
> Of course, if you want to move the company out of the country, you'll need to pay taxes on any value increase the company had. As others have described this is pretty reasonable though - you get taxed exactly as if gains were realized.
There's nothing reasonable about it, it's just an extortion. Your gains might never materialize, but your country does not care, they are just punishing you for leaving.
You are so naive to think that US actually cares about democracy. Do you ever wonder why they invaded Iraq two times, but never really bothered to invade Cuba, which is in their backyard? Because Cuba has nothing of value, no natural resources, no valuable technologies. So the US tolerates communist regime in Cuba, because there's no money in invading it.
I will disregard "Bay of Pigs Invasion", since that wasn't really US military operation, but some small scale, CIA orchestrated coup.
