Do I think 20% of 7% of their trade surplus is a massive blow to their economy? No, I don't, because I can do basic math. The rest of your post is full of the same dumb shit you cusco of, although nobody can accuse you of not being a team player. Enjoy the ride, I guess.

That's what they've done. Or rather they've bought the politicians who create the regulatory frameworks. But if people woke up and realized they've been frog-boiled into giving away their privacy, then that would be prohibitively expensive.

As long as Logitech brings back their Trackman Marble trackball, they can do whatever they want with their board of directors.

To quote myself from another comment above: I'm not a fan of Darth Cheeto, but it's a stupid take to blame him for something that is the result of 50 years of bipartisan policies. IF I was putting the headline "China has overtaken America" at the feet of any specific individual, it would be a toss up between Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. The "so much winning" in that context was the idea that we would convert the Chinese into western style democracy by growing their economy.

I'm not a fan of Darth Cheeto, but it's is a stupid take to blame him for something that is the result of 50 years of bipartisan policies. IF I was putting the headline "China has overtaken America" at the feet of any specific individual, it would be a toss up between Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. The "so much winning" in that context was the idea that we would convert the Chinese into western style democracy by growing their economy.

"This is Chinese propaganda"

Do a quick self-learn. The amount of solar panels China was selling to the US before exports was only around 20% of their total solar module exports. Their total solar exports are only about 7% of their total intl trade surplus. They sell as much capacity to Europe in a year as the US has installed *total, nationally*.

I'm not arguing they don't care about loss of business to the US, obviously it impacts them.

But watching the US self-elect to fall farther behind, checking of boxes down a veritable "how to" list of losing US hegemony is far more valuable to them.

In that sense - maybe it is propaganda, but reverse psychology style, because you're doing the lord's work for them.

I essentially made the argument that if we want capitalism to work the way we were taught in civics class it is supposed to, companies must be forced by regulation not to undermine the basic assumptions that lead to efficient operation of the free market.

I am neither here nor there on a basic income. I think it depends on circumstances, which of course are changing as more and more labor -- including routine mental labor -- is being automated. We are eventually headed to a world of unprecedented productive capacity and yet very little need for labor, but we aren't there yet.

This program became high politicized as it was a pet project of the ousted prior president and a promise of the incoming administration to eliminate.

Teachers unfamiliar with technology in general hated it, but the end of the article shows that students and teachers alike that embraced it enjoyed it.

AI is becoming the new boogyman and many people will simply be unwilling to use it in any fashion.

Anybody who is pushing AI services, particularly *free* AI services, is hoping to mine your data, use it to target you for marketing, and use the service to steer you towards opaque business relationships they will profit from and you will find it complicated and inconvenient to extricate yourself from.

The question is -- ideas that are bad for *who*? This may be a very bad idea for you and me, but it is a very good idea for Microsoft, especially as, like their online services, they will make money off of us and it will be very inconvenient for us to opt out.

In civics-lesson style capitalism, which I'm all in favor of, companies compete to provide things for us that we want and we, armed with information about their products, services and prices, either choose to give them our business or to give our business to a competitor.

Not to say that stuff doesn't *ever* happen, but it's really hard to make a buck as a business that way. So what sufficiently large or well-placed businesses do is earn money *other* ways, by entangling consumers in business relationships that are opaque and which they don't have control over, may not even be fully aware they're signing on to, and which are complicated and awkward to extricate themselves from. In other words a well placed company, like Microsoft or Google or Facebook, will constantly be looking at ways to make money outside the rigorous demands of free market economics.

ODF is widely deployed but doesn't meet the "lowest common denominator" bit I mentioned. Try opening an ODF file in Safari on an IOS device or Chrome on Android. ODF files are also file creation formats and not distribution formats.

They could include things like special lines at immigration, rather than just visa requirements. Arriving in Amsterdam with an EU passport is much less of a hassle than arriving with a US passport, but they both count the same on this report. Then there's the question of whether you need a permit to stay indefinitely, or just the passport.

I suspect the idea they are hinting at is that ancient yeast might have been living on (then-livable) Mars and got meteorite-blasted over to Earth, and survived the trip. For a temporary trip like that, survival is sufficient.

It wouldn't be cost-effective in China either were it not for state support.

There is no doubt that global free trade in commodities, in the absence of any government support, would be the most economically efficient thing to have. But China -- probably correctly -- identifies dependency on foreign supply chains for critical materials as a *security* issue. So they have indirect and direct subsidies, as well as state owned enterprises that operate on thin or even negative profit margins.

Since China does this kind of support on a scale nobody else does, China produces more rare earths than any other country, even though it is not particularly well endowed with deposits. This solves China's security problem with the reliability of the supply, but creates a security problem for other countries.

China thinks like Japan did before WW2, like empire building European countries did in the 1800s. Control over resources is a national security weapon, both for defense and offense.

The behavioral model you have isn't supported by data. When you raise the standard of living and food security of population, the fertility rate goes down. When you have nothing, children are economic assets whose labor can support the family. It's not a great option, but some people live in conditions where there are no good options.