Free Republic

"This is America, where racism is the No1 value our populace seeks to uphold above all others."... This is the kind of sentiment you used to only hear in faculty lounges, freshman dormitories and left-wing struggle sessions. But times are changing. These are the words not of some blue-haired student, but of Jack Krawczyk, one of Silicon Valley’s most influential figures. Krawczyk is the senior director of product management for Gemini, Google’s main group of artificial-intelligence models. Krawczyk, who tweeted that in 2018, was the person primarily responsible for the implosion of the obscenely woke Google Gemini AI last month....

Look out, Apple (AAPL)! Microsoft (MSFT) is right on your tail and gaining fast. Supercharged by its AI chops, Microsoft's market value is now $2.8 trillion — just 5.7% shy of Apple's at $2.98 trillion. That means Microsoft's share price only needs to hit 400.53 — it's already at 377.80 — to dethrone Apple as the most valuable S&P 500 company. Given Apple's reliance on now-ubiquitous smartphones, it's only a matter of time when it bows out to faster-growing Microsoft, analysts say. "As markets and investors start to wrap up the year, Microsoft seems destined to be the most valuable...

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Crypto YouTuber and trader Lark Davis has posted a tweet, in which he reminded followers of the recent news of the Bitcoin whitepaper spotted within the operational system of Mac computers...The blogger also stated that the periods when Satoshi went off the grid and Steve Jobs differ by just one year, with these events happening in 2010 and 2011. With this tweet, he started a poll, offering his audience the choice between three answers: "yes" Steve Jobs was Satoshi, "no" he was not and "it does not matter."A total of 37.7% of the respondents chose "no." Slightly less but close...

Apple on Monday launched its Apple Card savings account with a 4.15% annual percentage yield. It requires no minimum deposit or balance...once a user sets up a savings account, all of the Daily Cash that is earned from then on will automatically be deposited there...Daily Cash is the Apple Card reward program that offers up to 3% back on purchases.

By a dusty stretch of the deafening road from Chennai to Bengaluru lie three colossal, anonymous buildings. Inside, away from the din of traffic, is a high-tech facility operated by Foxconn, a Taiwanese manufacturer. A short drive away Pegatron, another Taiwanese tech firm, has erected a vast new factory of its own. Salcomp, a Finnish gadget-maker, has set one up not far away. Farther west is a 500-acre campus run by Tata, an Indian conglomerate. What these closely guarded facilities have in common is their client: a demanding and secretive American firm known locally as “the fruit company”. The mushrooming...

Outbound shipments in October shrank 0.3% from a year earlier, a sharp turnaround from a 5.7% gain in September, official data showed on Monday, and well below analysts’ expectations for a 4.3% increase. It was the worst performance since May 2020. The data suggests demand remains frail overall, heaping more pressure on the country’s manufacturing sector and threatening any meaningful economic revival in the face of persistent COVID-19 curbs, protracted property weakness and global recession risks. Chinese exporters weren’t even able to capitalize on a further weakening in the yuan currency and the key year-end shopping season, underlining the broadening...

Due to the interest in Pelosi's trading after her NVDA, AAPL, and AMZN trades after releasing options, we show all her trades in one place. In the House and the Senate reports, we showed that both parties, no matter their allegiance, seem to be trading and often legislating to benefit their own positions. Pelosi.....or rather her spouse.....seems no different. Here are one year returns for Pelosi at the current date, in her stocks and options positions. So far, Pelosi's family has done very well trading over the last year. Her one year returns for her stocks is 45.59%, and her...

Nancy Pelosi's son was involved in five companies probed by federal agencies – but has never been charged himself, a DailyMail.com investigation reveals. A shocking paper trail shows Paul Pelosi Jr.'s connections to a host of fraudsters, rule-breakers and convicted criminals. His years-long repeated business dealings raise two troubling questions Nancy's son has been unable to answer: why did he get mixed up with such unsavory characters over and over, and how involved was he with the criminal investigations into his fraudster colleagues?

Nancy Pelosi's son was involved in five companies probed by federal agencies – but has never been charged himself, a DailyMail.com investigation reveals. A shocking paper trail shows Paul Pelosi Jr.'s connections to a host of fraudsters, rule-breakers and convicted criminals. His years-long repeated business dealings raise two troubling questions Nancy's son has been unable to answer: why did he get mixed up with such unsavory characters over and over,

Apple's success in China is allegedly down to an agreement with the country's government to help develop its economy, with a report claiming CEO Tim Cook personally lobbied officials to get the best deal for the company.

- CPI surged 0.8% MoM (4 times the +0.2% expected) and exploded 4.2% YoY. That is the biggest YoY jump since Sept 2008 (and biggest MoM jump since June 2008). - The core CPI rose 3.0% over the past 12 months; this was its largest 12-month increase since January 1996. - This spooked investors. Contracts for the Nasdaq 100, which is dominated by technology, fell sharply, while those for the benchmark S&P 500 also declined significantly.

AAPL -0.12% SPX +0.20% DJIA +0.27% MSFT +0.30% Apple’s 4-for-1 stock split goes into effect at the close of trading Friday. In theory, stock splits like this one don’t mean much. If today you own 100 shares worth $500 each, on Monday you will have 400 shares worth $125 each. But it turns out that splits matter more than you’d logically think. The last Apple (ticker: AAPL) split was 7-for-1, in June 2014. There were 2-for-1 splits in February 2005, June 2000, and May 1987. Had Apple never split the stock, the current share price would be around $28,000. Apple...

Apple today hit a market value of $2 trillion, doubling in valuation in just over two years. Apple, the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market cap, is now the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $2 trillion market cap. Apple first reached a $1 trillion market cap on August 2, 2018. On July 31, 2020, Apple surpassed the state oil giant Saudi Aramco to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. MacDailyNews Take: Congrats, Apple and AAPL shareholders! Onward and upward!

Warren Buffett once said that “diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.” The take-away: Load up on what you know. Even if it’s a tech stock, apparently. A recent peek into Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A, BRK.B, $214 billion portfolio underscores that the Oracle of Omaha is following his own advice, considering how much stock Berkshire has accumulated in Apple AAPL. Buffett, thanks to Apple’s stellar run, now owns more than $91 billion’s worth of the iPhone maker, which constitutes 43% of the total Berkshire pie, according to figures cited by the...

It's been well over a couple of years since Apple officially announced the availability of iPhone SE in 2016 and since then the main iPhone line was upgraded on a regular basis but not the SE. But now we know why! Our source which is closely associated with Foxconn's manufacturing facility in India has confirmed the iPhone SE 2 is actually iPhone XE. According to the source, iPhone XE will feature an iPhone X or XS style edge-to-edge 4.8" AMOLED display, but sadly with the notch. The iPhone XE will be having Face ID and no Touch ID is reportedly...

But when Apple began making the $3,000 computer in Austin, Tex., it struggled to find enough screws... After creating months of delay, Apple ended up ordering the screws from China. Eventually, Apple found a supplier in Texas that could produce 28,000 custom screws, although they weren’t the exact screws needed nor in the right quantity, according to the NYT. And they were delivered over 22 trips, often in a Lexus driven by the maker’s owner.

Wow, WTH..? How much bloodletting will this inspire, tomorrow..? Anyone know whassup? I'm not a nervous Nellie, but -8% in a few hours on a company that's almost a trillon bucks, hey: That's nothing to sneeze at.

New York (CNN Business)Stocks fell sharply Monday, dragged down by reports that Apple's newest line of phones may not be selling as well as Apple or its investors had hoped. The Dow fell more than 500 points and the Nasdaq tumbled 2.8%. Apple's stock fell once more after the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple has cut orders for its iPhone XR, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. The new iPhones, which Apple unveiled in September, cost more than previous versions. The $749 iPhone XR is the least expensive new iPhone, but it costs $50 more than last year's cheapest...

An employee who spoke to Mashable said that several shuttles have suffered from broken windows, and on an internal email thread, there was speculation that it could be due to "rubber rounds" fired at the buses. There have been at least four reports of broken windows on January 12 and January 16.