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Comment Re:Twice (Score 1) 21

Civil engineering have very clearly defined set of standards for everything they do. Engineers are not liable when they can demonstrate they followed standards. This approach is not feasible in other disciplines, scope is just much wider and standards non-existing (and probably not desirable, due to being too rigid).

Comment Re:Twice (Score 1) 21

(The difficulty in cancelling, IMO, should be a prosecutable criminal offense with automatic prison time, starting with the CEO of the company.)

That will never work even if passed into law (they will hire people to go to jail while real decision makers will remain unaffected). What would work is to make service free for a decade at the highest possible service tier. Can't cancel gym after making reasonable effort? It is free! That will stop this BS almost immediately.

Comment Re:Credit scores are not what you think they are (Score 1) 110

by sinij (#65668368) Attached to: Gen Z Leads Biggest Drop In FICO Scores Since Financial Crisis
I agree with drinkyourpoo, credit scores are not reflective of your ability to responsibly manage your finances. I am fortunate that I do not have to care about CS at this point in my life, but I recall earlier in my life where I had to "game" the system and take unneeded loans only to make payments on them so I can increase my score.

What pisses me off is that CS now widely used in other areas. For example, WTF my auto insurance wants to know my CS when I am offering to pay upfront (single payment)? Why do they get to increase my premium when I refuse credit check?

Submission + - China Is Sending Its World-Beating Auto Industry Into a Tailspin (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On the outskirts of this city of 21 million, a showroom in a shopping mall offers extraordinary deals on new cars. Visitors can choose from some 5,000 vehicles. Locally made Audis are 50% off. A seven-seater SUV from China’s FAW is about $22,300, more than 60% below its sticker price. These deals – offered by a company called Zcar, which says it buys in bulk from automakers and dealerships – are only possible because China has too many cars. Years of subsidies and other government policies have aimed to make China a global automotive power and the world’s electric-vehicle leader. Domestic automakers have achieved those goals and more – and that’s the problem.

China has more domestic brands making more cars than the world’s biggest car market can absorb because the industry is striving to hit production targets influenced by government policy, instead of consumer demand, a Reuters examination has found. That makes turning a profit nearly impossible for almost all automakers here, industry executives say. Chinese electric vehicles start at less than $10,000; in the U.S., automakers offer just a few under $35,000. Most Chinese dealers can’t make money, either, according to an industry survey published last month, because their lots are jammed with excess inventory. Dealers have responded by slashing prices. Some retailers register and insure unsold cars in bulk, a maneuver that allows automakers to record them as sold while helping dealers to qualify for factory rebates and bonuses from manufacturers.

Unwanted vehicles get dumped onto gray-market traders like Zcar. Some surface on TikTok-style social-media sites in fire sales. Others are rebranded as "used" – even though their odometers show no mileage – and shipped overseas. Some wind up abandoned in weedy car graveyards. These unusual practices are symptoms of a vastly oversupplied market – and point to a potential shakeout mirroring turmoil in China’s property market and solar industry, according to many industry figures and analysts. They stem from government policies that prioritize boosting sales and market share – in service of larger goals for employment and economic growth – over profitability and sustainable competition. Local governments offer cheap land and subsidies to automakers in exchange for production and tax-revenue commitments, multiplying overcapacity across the country.

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