Sorry, but not true.. China is notoriously brutal on criminals, graft, etc... (small time offenders are jailed.. and the larger the crime, the bigger the sentence, up to and include death).

And people of all walks give others (doctors, neighbors, friends, the boss (at work or elsewhere), etc.. ) as a form of good luck and a thank you.. the amounts are almost token amounts.. (too much creates an obligation and no one wants a "debt" of any sort over their head).. now of course this scales.. those at bottom are giving maybe 20 CNY.. while those at the top often give 1000-5000 CNY. not for any bribery purposes but because its a token sum.. (if you are worth billions, 5000 is a token... but if you are worth hundreds, then 20 is a token sum).. And the government watches this sort of exchange very carefully.. Very much like the IRS.. (you are allowed to give as a gift up to 10K USD to anyone a a gift.. (and many people do).. over that, it becomes "income" and thus taxed)

So lets not make a mountain out of literally nothing.

You are trying to apply a "cost" to something that to many has no cost..

Based on your logic, then Facebook, Google, and a whole host of "free" services that essentially sell "you" should be banned (which for the record, I'm not exactly opposed to) In short.. Free (in the court of law) has always meant monetary cost, not social impact cost. And I don''t think anyone wants to pull that thread.

The FTC ruling was more about deceptive advertising (ie: TV/Radio) which the FTC does oversee.. (ie: you can't advertise something on TV with one price only for you to show up and there is a bunch of mandatory hidden fees and surcharges the in essence makes the advertised price a lie.

The NYC ruling is about any form of price based marketing/advertising.. (which means contracts, paper/print (which real estate ads often are)).. basically if you are advertising a price, it had better be close to the actual mandatory price.. if you want the junk fees.. fine.. but disclose them up front so people are getting the REAL price rather than some fantasy price that doesn't exist for anyone.

The problem with that is now you have two lines to support on a relatively small market (they sold almost 60K cars globally and only about 5K in the US.. why would they spend more cost to try to enter a market that is trying to fight them... better to build up globally and then let the consumers make the demand rather than try to spend cycles on a brain dead version of their car (knowing that Telsa and others are already providing similar functionality which makes your value prop even less)

Not to mention, a purchase gives validation to Cheato's position... so basically by not purchasing anything, despite "approval".. it essentially does all three without saying anything.

As far as board placements are concerned, its essentially an "at will" situation based on the percentage of the board siding on a position.. Most board members typically focus on the financial gain for them.. Which is the real issue.. Altman wants OpenAI to grow.. and cares very little for HOW it grows.. what everyone is publically saying is "Open AI as a non-profit is good".. because investments in OpenAI are tax deductable.. thus having a tangible benefit, especially if that investment also nets them a technology gain. BUT it means board members get their money slower and over a longer period of time.. (board member compensation is scrutinized more than a for profit company.. a for profit company can say "we want Board member X to get 1B in compensation" (looking at you Mr. Tesla).. but a non-profit can't do that without the IRS and other groups stepping in and putting the brakes on that.. because they have to justify why 1-2 members are getting a winfall and others are not. (or that why any board member is getting that level of compensation relative to the mission statement of the company).

And what that means is then if the police catch you, there is a law they can use to stop you.. The police (legally) can't just stop you because they feel like it... there has to be some abiding law/reason.

Right now, at BEST they can stop you to tell you to slow down.. but can't "do" anything about the issue.

The problem I have is.. this is literally the SAME issue with other countries allowing the US to flood their market (like what cheato wants because it benefits the US). The SAME arguements Ford and others are making about China entering the US is the same arguement of why the US should be restricted from going into other places.. because its size and scale it can essentially (and has in many cases) wipe out entire domestic industries and cost millions of jobs and increase dependancy on the US.

This is if anything a classic case of "Do as I say, not as I do".

Its why I have said many times that companies need higher taxes... BUT adjust the tax "looholes" to what they were previously.. (previous incarnations of the corporate tax basis, companies were (via tax deductions) to invest in both R&D but also their people.. (ie: High CEO salaries were more heavily taxed but paying "average" workers more actually DECREASED their tax basis.. (in the 70's and 80's with essentially turning corporations into "people" it meant paying the worker less "saved" the company money (and of course H1B's are not considered employees from a tax basis, they are considered "leased services" from a tax basis (and leasing is highly advantagous to a company since "cost" is deductable.

In short, fixing the problem will take time because it took decades to break it. Companies of course will fight it because its going to hurt CEO bottom lines.

That's what I've been saying... The second he was elected.. its a strong indication that society has reached its breakdown point.. (in terms of intelligence and hate).. Blaming the devil for being evil just stupid.. Its really the fault of the cultists/voters..

The problem is AWS is still a US company.. so even if the Data RESIDES in europe... they still have to deal with the fact that a US based company is stll subject to the whims of the dictatorial demands of the US goverment (especially THIS administration).. Personally every company (at least every non-US company) should divest themselves of any US resources... It would bolster Europe's own economy, and no longer subject to the foolishness that is the US government. (the days of abiding by agreements and laws seem to be over within the US, so why would you trust any US cloud provider.. I don't care where the Data actually sits, its who has (or can gain) control over it that matters.

But see that's the thing.. its not "cheap junk".. (a popular misconception).. its simply direct to consumer.

Look.. you buy a 100 pot from say Bed Bath and Beyond (yes I know they are dead... don't worry about it)..
But the actual cost to manufacture said pot is closer to 10 dollars.. then the distributer adds on their cut, then the freight forwarder adds their cut, then the reseller adds on their cut (plus logistics and inventory costs).. so at each step of the way, everyone is adding on 10-20% on top of THEIR last cost..).. and its not like the 10 dollars it costs to make is profit.. if it costs 10 to make, then its really 22 out the door from the manufacturer.

VS..

You van buy it direct (or as close to direct) from the manufacturer or their preferred reseller for 30 dollars (maybe 40 after shipping and taxes).. you have saved 50%..for the SAME pot. Everything you buy has at LEAST 3-4 hands involved to get it front of you.. (sometimes up to 6 depending on origin.. and even if a reseller is acting as OEM (to rebadge product X into product Y under their name).

So despite what a lot people want you think.. its not "cheap junk" its the same stuff you buy every day just with less middlemen... And the modern SMB market thrives on this because it allows for more resellers to drop ship from the manufacturer or distributer without neeeding to hold inventory. (reducing waste on warehouses by multiple resellers/distributers and allows for more regionalized sales/marketing/support, thus creating more jobs)..

All this "closing of holes" does is benefit large retailers because they can afford to hold inventory and because they alread have other products they sell.. adding more doesn't increase jobs.. and as there are LESS options for acquiring products, the 100 dollar pot can easily become 120 or 130 since.... you need the pot and its not like you have other options to get it cheaper. And while price colluding is considered "illegal" in many markets (not all).. PROVING it is more difficult when your data is limited to a few retailers that are accused of such an action. The reason they can't do that right now is with more SMB's selling the same things (or similar things).. they can't collude as much because the others act a price check.. (ie: Hey, I won't buy that 180 pot because I can get it cheaper from cheapyjoe.com for 65.. so I have to sell mine at 70 and market my option with other incentives or lean on my size to justify the other 5 dollars..

Ultimately its going to kill the SMB and midtier markets.. because most SMB's these days do drop shipments (they do order processing for larger companies, who then drop ship an item directly so they don't have to take on the cost of inventory locally).. large enterprises (looking at you Amazon) can affort to order in bulk (even with tariffs).. but for the SMB space.. it essentially eliminates them.. they they won't be price competative with the larger companies that use their size to leverage volume discounts.

So yeah... great for the 1%.. for everyone else its a kick in the crotch.

It didn't "redirect" it.. it was always there.. but the "noise floor" has shifted.. Europe, UK, and US had these rules in place.. so by closing the door on 1 place, the noise looks more obvious on the other two.. (no one is buying "extra" stuff).

Latin makes sense because its the root language of much of the western world... and a lot of english words are directly pulled from Latin.. So while an indepth knowledge of it doesn't really matter.. certainly an understanding is useful because it helps to understand the language as a whole.