The US has outsourced its industry over decades. Now, suddenly, this is the fault of its trading partners?

Interesting times. The US may still have enough power to pull this kind of blackmail off. Or, perhaps, not... Time will tell.

Did McKinsey ever have an edge?

Ok, that's mean. But the two aspects I have seen are (1) expensive reports full of platitudes and questionable advice, and (2) consultants hired by managers so that the managers have someone else to blame for bad news.

Both functions can eadily be replaced by AI.

Well, no. The AI data centers have to buy their electricity just like anyone else. Maybe they get a better price per kwh, because they buy so much.

However, increasing electricity costs will encourage the power companies to build more power plants. The biggest problem here is government intervention and over-regulation: for the kind of power these data centers need, you really want modular nuclear reactors. Dozens or hundreds of reactors of the same design, because that's what would make them economical. Sadly, that's just not possible in the current regulatory environment.

To be clear: I have nothing against the data centers, or the energy requirements. Energy is civilization, and every major civilizational step has been enabled by a step-increase in available power: muscle power, horses and oxen, water wheels, steam, oil, and most recently nuclear. Renewables are not even relevant: they may replace fossil fuels, but come nowhere near the power density of nuclear.

This. Why is it ok to have video games that let you pretend to commit one crime, but not another. Hey, what about books - man, do you know what you can read? This is just really weird Puritanism, even more so when it comes to anime, which is obviously fantasy.

The MasterCard/Visa cartel power is sufficient that they could refuse to play censor. And you can't tell me that they have actual ethics, not given the usurious games they play. So...why?

Local effects, great. But doing this on a large scale? H2O is a much stronger global warming gas than CO2. You do *not* want to muck around with this on a global scale.

Like the carter who stuck to horses in the face of automobiles? Or people who refused to use those newfangled computers?

You do you.

I don't mind the idea of 24/7. I object yo the speed of trading and the short-term thinking it encourages. The big traders aren't "investing", instead they are playing some sort fcweird casino-like game. Only, they made the game, so the odds actually are in their favor.

How about a tax on transactions: any stock held long-term (say, over a year) is tax free. Graduate down to transactions where the stock is held less than - say - one hour are taxed at 100% of their value.

...the UN has.

Most of Tuvalu's islands are increasing in size. As are most such islands.

Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Warsaw, Prague, Minsk, Zurich - all cool. You're the exception.

In Europe the numbers "include both direct heatstroke deaths and excess mortality due to exacerbated chronic conditions." Which means that the numbers are pretty unreliable, and likely not comparable to the US.

Sure, the climate alarmists predicted a massively hot summer. Problem is: this is the heat wave that wasn't. Sure, June was warm, but not unusually so. May was cool. July is very cool, with frequent showers.

Yet we still get to read about the heatwave? Must be in some other Europe, because it isn't in this one. High today, where I live, is 20.5, with light showers predicted for this evening, and every evening this week.

Capitalism is the best possible system, because it allows people to profit from their own work. However, excesses must be effectively regulated by the government: monopolies broken up, collusion punished, etc. Currently, most governments are failing at this task.

If you are jst lookinv for infi, and the summary is useful, you don't need to go any farther. Personally, if I am only looking for info, I go directly to an AI.

Google gets to re-invent itself. Or fail.

I've worked with a lot of small businesses. Two stories.

I was at a new customer site, installing software on their server and setting things up. They had a sweet setup with an automatic tape backup. Thing is, they were supposed to swap out the tape (and take it offsite), but no one had done so in ages. The current tape - broken. So there had been no backup in over a year.

In another case, they had an IT savvy employee who handled everything for them as an extra duty. When he left, no one picked up the tasks. They had a server crash a year later. The only thing that saved them was the accountant, who insisted on printing everything out. Shelves and shelves of paper - customer orders, transactions, everything - all got reentered by hand. They now have an external IT company managing their systems.