Companies don't actually exist, they are a legal "entity", but we insist on anthropomorphising them. If we do that, they would be sociopaths, greed without empathy or compassion. Apple doesn't "care", it doesn't even exist.

Your really trusting in the leadership and owners, but not all the owners because it's not a democracy; in reality only the largest stakeholders actually have a say. Leadership changes e.g. CEOs in most companies are there what 5-7 years. Apple has been an exception here, but they still answer to the same owners of most big companies i.e. "Institutional investors" = billionaire hedge funds i.e. BlackRock, Vanguard, and a some smaller ones. Those two seem to have large shares in most of these large companies. So you are basically trusting billionaires in the end. Hopefully, they are not completely bereft of humanity but it would be fair to say, they don't live in the same world as the rest of us.

I'm sure your right. My brain probably short circuited "free and fair"... to free...

The EU goal is to protect it's citizens. The U.S. doesn't care about it's citizens, only the Rich and Big corporate campaign donors. Otherwise we would be enforcing fraud laws, and pushing for standards like the EU.

Like the U.S. used to e.g. NEMA, Edison socket, bios. More and more companies are using proprietary standards, which destroys the free market and generates waste (at high consumer cost). One example modern UEFI implementations suck; especially if you actually want to use them.

U.S. citizens are less free, less happy, less stable than real democracies in Europe, and the trend continues downward. Our Healthcare cost/benefit wise is horrible and it's only getting worse every year. Just like the wealth gap. If your not in the 1%, it's getting harder and harder to maintain a decent lifestyle

It wasn't all for profit...

Remember he wanted dirt on Biden's son even if it needed to be made up i.e. falsified, in return or aid as well ;P

Can't say he's not well versed in extortion :o

I honestly think it would be best if we weren't solely in charge, as we basically were. As an example, WHO did a ranking of health care systems by country but only once, and never again. My guess is that it embarrassed the U.S. too much, but you can't fix what you don't acknowledge. I forget exactly when but thinking 2000-2010 i.e. one year in there..

Our presidents/agencies aren't perfect, even before the current one e.g. we know that there weren't weapons of mass destruction in Iran.

I was raised on America is the greatest country and it was never true, at least in the 'per capita' stuff. We had or have (I'm not sure if China has surpassed us yet) the greatest military force, but we weren't the best in any one area for the citizens. Our trajectory isn't upward either.

I'm guessing this is something we just won't agree on. Again if any facts are in dispute, please provide links to legitimate sources, so that I can re-evaluate. I'm thinking this is more opinion than fact based disagreement.

I said nothing about starting wars. They didn't meet the 2% of GDP contribution and didn't have the military force individually, to protect themselves or altogether when The Soviet Union was in power or now against China, if necessary. I'm confident I'm right on the 2% for most of European countries historically. If the facts are contrary, please provide links. I have read and do read, but my memory is not infallible. If there are multiple legitimate sources, I would have to re-evaluate.

Felony Fraud... it's gotten ridiculously common and LE does nothing. I learned a long time ago that people who switch price tags are charged with fraud (least where I am and ..no it wasn't personal experience). It's literally better if they steal it outright as a first offense is just a misdemeanor. I'm not trying to excuse the behavior but it makes me sick that we slap a felony on poor people for a fairly small first offense, but ignore companies and the executives that commit it daily.

From my understanding (I'm not a lawyer or an historian, so if someone has a better picture, I'm willing to learn) fraud is mainly meant to protect the populace(s) from a historical perspective. In the U.S. it's just become normal for Companies, executives, and the rich.

Seems like a lot of laws have been subverted or reversed from original intent to be used against the populous instead of protecting them.

Lobbiest seem to be the main cause of this reversal of intent. From what I read, the CAFE standard standard meant to make cars more efficient, led to us having the largest cars in the world, because of a loophole put in by lobbyist.

I'm not a fan of the current administration, but NATO along with Europe has long been dependent on the U.S. militarily for too long. America built an unparalleled military force and funded NATO well beyond the original 2%. While other countries failed to meet it.

The current direction of our country will harm more people across the globe in real democracies and countries that actually care about their citizens. The fact that we have become unreliable, and a potential threat has led other countries to do more. Both in terms of NATO and bolstering their own militaries.

If and when, we do reverse course and can re-establish trust and trade with other democracies, then we should be able to cut back military spending some and have a more co-operative defense. Unfortunately, that will take a long time (if it happens).

H1-B Killed American IT work. It was "specifically" never meant to replace American Workers with cheaper foreign labor, but that's EXACTLY what it does and has done for over 20 years, with the help of sketchy Indian Companies. The minimum pay of 60K was set in 1989, was meant to help prevent this. Before the trump era, multiple bipartisan attempts were made to raise that, but always got buried in subcommittee. It made IT bleeding edge in becoming the first professional 'gig' work with little to no benefits and stability. I would NEVER recommend anyone in collage now to go into IT, even if AI didn't exist.

TLDR:

The normal push back I get is that it's too late, to care. It's the same if I advocate privacy. If we don't care about our fellow citizens, then no one will. I'm not against immigrants, or foreign workers, in general, but this is a highly abused and fraudulent programs that companies use to lower pay/benefits and destroy workers rights. It really needs to be completely trashed; so new needed Visa(s) can be created. They need lock out these harmful/abusive/fraudulent foreign companies.

Obviously, they don't watch Fox/Faux NEWS ;P

Texas doesn't "charge", it discounts!!!

.

We give data centers 30 year locked in rates, much lower than any "household", then we pay them not to use electricity, if needed. It's all for the "common" good. So Texans won't see any darn charge ... on bills. That would be CORRUPT, darn it!

We will see the BRAND NEW "Ultra TB" drives soon. Like the UHD ... it'll "Lower" the cost.

On a completely different different note.....What's the difference between Marketing and Fraud?

I was in IT for nearly 20 years. Indian headhunter companies are a huge problem. Both Republican and Democratic organizations have found significant fraud issues with them. There are a few "advantages", as a company might see them.

One lower pay, which may or may not play a role at that level. Two, it's much more difficult and dangerous for them to switch jobs before they at least get a green card (which if memory serves can be from 5 (very low) to 10 years in the making) They can be easily deported (refused visa renewal) during that time. So they basically can't and won't complain about long hours or calls 24/7. Of course, they normally start as contract which means zero benefits from the company then they might be hired after 5-7 years; and only then start accumulating time to exceed that standard two weeks PTO. The last one, I can think of offhand, is that also because of fear of losing their visa, they are often "yes" men/people. As, in can we do X in two weeks. If it doesn't materialize tends to be finger pointing to people or foreseeable factors. If it does get "completed", it's often buggy but, again Execs get their buy in and can point fingers down, if not satisfactory.

H1-B was "specifically" not meant to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor, but that it's exactly what it has done for many, many years. There was a minimum pay set in 1989 of 60K, which has never been raised (Bi-Partisan attempts were made but those were buried in subcommittee never to receive a vote). H1-B has indirectly subsidized businesses paying for it by displacing american workers through giving away citizenship. It's that simple. If you've only had one IT job, and/or aren't in the industry, you may not know but I've both been replaced when an Indian firm took over all IT in a company and I've worked for one of the headhunter companies. I've seen fraud, the breaking of security laws (federal), more than once. People that ignore the issues with H1-B don't seem care about American's losing jobs and/or careers, benefits, job stability. If someone claims to support diversity, H1-B overrides any and all American's; so you can forget about Black, Latino, Women, in IT.

To clarify, I'm not Immigrant, but H1-B went from something to subsidize American companies with "Highly Skilled" workers that we didn't have in the U.S. to a replace American's and lower benefits. It has made IT the lead in professional gig-work. Also, I don't claim to know about any other field. I don't know if there are Indian headhunter companies in other industries that companies contract with.

Lastly, if you are young, I would advise against IT as a carrier. Unless/Until those Indian headhunter companies are no longer a factor, it's a sure way to low pay, low benefits, and long hours, calls and text when your off work (vacation and middle of the night included), and almost zero job stability

I both agree and disagree. Usually, those that complain about the "government" are the ones that put those in charge who are dismantling it and making it worse for non-billionaires. I blame one party most, but the other party isn't blameless. The government is another legal entity that doesn't exist outside of that context just like a corporation. You can't trust it or blame it, only the people who run it and/or it's structure/rules and how they adapt or don't. Corporations are more ephemeral than government as they change beyond recognition and still exist, in a comparatively short amount of time.

Our government was designed with checks and balances, but they obviously don't function anymore, because they weren't designed with "ends justifies the means" in mind. They were based on the some assumptions officers of the government having some base line morals . They couldn't imagine the amount money, from mega-corps in mind. Money wins elections in the modern age. 2010 Citizen's United Supreme court decision was the death nail to what was left of our democracy. See the democracy index where we are conservatively listed as a flawed democracy.

Megacorps run by executives and billionaire's through hedge funds run our government and both parties. Republican's used to believe in a free market, but now, profit by any means seems to be the rule. The Democratic party used to be the labor party, but not anymore. Neither side cares or is representative of the populous of our country. I've acquainted myself with some early economic theory. None of it was designed with international megacorps in mind. From many international indexes from Happiness, Wealth, Health and more, Nordic countries do best, but both sides argue that we are too diverse to follow their model, no one has yet to explain why that is to me, except to say that we couldn't "agree" to follow those models.

From my understanding the nordic models are mostly social democracies. They treat their citizens as integral parts of their society, were both sides are willing to let American's "fall through the cracks" while they implement their priorities. America doesn't believe in human rights for it's populace anymore. I don't believe the communist ideal. I do believe it has never been implemented in the way Marx envisioned but I do believe in the "workers unite" philosophy. We should support good international organizations like the UN, WHO and others without strong-arming them with the threat of funds. WHO once rated each countries health care but stopped. I can guess why.

I'm sorry this is pessimistic but I believe, at least the neither side cares about American's is very true. Everything is binary, for or against. There is no middle ground, no open discussion. Democracy dies in darkness and that's where we are. Whether it be the Supreme Courts shadow docket or Bill's shoved into sub-committee never to see an open vote. There is no discussion or argument, just hard disagreements. I don't know how biased news used to be before donald, but it's become very biased, on both sides. I believe one side is worse, but instead of becoming better the other side bought into selling their side too, rather than staying unbiased i.e. they made liberal elitism true, and liberal news bias true. Whether it was somewhat true before donald or not.

I watched a Ted talk years ago on how refined sugar acted like a poison to us. I've worked on my personal war against refined sugar since then. I remember High Fructose Corn syrup was supposed to be really bad, but I don't remember why exactly. This makes it much worse but it was already bad. I still have a friend who is morbid

We really need to rein in both the suger and corn lobby. Suger is way too prevalent today. I was happy to see the "added suger" to the ingredients list but companies lie on that too. I'm sure it's a loophole like if it's an integral part of ... b.s. Hopefully, it will backfire on those companies, with others, as it does with me. We need to stop all corn subsidies and really all farm subsidies. Farms are large corps, mainly now and most corn goes to feed or stuff like chips and corn syrup. It's been a huge boondoggle for a long time now.