> ...both Apple and Google are capricious and inconsistent with their application of their rules...
this got me thinking. how is that handled by a democratic system of government? with an independent judiciary, of course. we need an independent, third party App Court! we need a powerful organization that can referee and literally force Google and Apple to put an app back in their stores.
This kind of story makes me favor a blend of the policy proposals of Andrew Yang and Elizabeth Warren. We recognize that the current automated economy has hurt the little person (Yang), but, at the same time, recognize that a few super large corporations have created this situation (Warren).
So, I propose that all US residents receive $1000 a month directly from Google.
> The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to look at how badly a company can treat its customers and still get away with it.
+100 This has been my feeling ever since I first started using the android SDK. Google put the developer very low on the priority list, but, at the same time, the end user is also very low on the list.
The only people high on the list appear to be Google shareholders and the Google employees who work on android.
I think this is a valid criticism of stock android phones -- even ones sold directly by Google. But it's a slightly different criticism than the main crapware criticism here because FB is really a 3rd party.
I really do agree with your criticism though. People worry about FB's privacy issues, but then totally overlook all of Google's builtin privacy issues.
OTOH, given US law enforcement's low efficiency what are the chances of being caught? and what if it's merely corporate espionage?
finally, the US is an open society with strong personal freedom guarantees builtin. what if the perpetrator has ties to a foreign country and simply leaves the US after they've installed the vulnerabilities?
> That left the decision about where to build commercial systems resting largely on where capacity was greatest and cheapest ... “You can have less supply than you want and guarantee it’s secure, or you can have the supply you need, but there will be risk. Every organization has accepted the second proposition.”
Once the critical mass of electronics manufacturing moved outside the US and manufacturers outsourced the bulk of work, there was no longer any alternative.
Economists say this is ok or even really good for global welfare.
But do any economic models accurately account for this type of economic damage, this type of cost to government, consumers, companies like Supermicro, Apple, Amazon, etc?
> we also hacked all of their internal communications too
my take on the article was that US counterintelligence sort of cobbled together some hacked phone communications with some info from human agents working in or around or near Chinese factories. to say that "we own them" maybe goes too far?
> remember we're assuming everything is compromised
I think Bloomberg (and all related) web servers displaying the article are compromised and they're leaving out critical facts the point the finger elsewhere.
at first I had the same thought. but i have to question how securely the same manufacturing could be done in a US plant.
the US employee base has its fair share of desperate, ethically challenged individuals. and plenty of incentives to make a quick buck could be offered here too. idk.
Also consider that dividend income from the stock market gets taxed each year before it can be reinvested. So, it does not compound as rapidly as the untaxed "yearly dividend" (aka price appreciation) of the house.
OTOH, as you say, the easy mobility associated with renting can be quite valuable to some workers. It's like, "what opportunities and profits am I foregoing by being tethered to a house here in this job market?" etc.
I think it's all very complicated and situation-dependent, as you point out. We need to predict the housing market, interest rates, the job market for our particular specialty, changes in tax laws etc in order to make an optimal decision. We're all forced into the role of economic forecaster just to make the most fundamental decisions about life.
Yeah. It's market-specific, to be sure. Homes in the Western US markets, especially California, have risen at a quick pace, in part because of zoning laws which prevent cheap expansion of the overall housing inventory.
Another important reason homeownership pays off well for many is that the investment is leveraged.
Also, in the US, entities like Fannie Mae combined with tax deductions amount to a government subsidy for home buyers. You can borrow $400K to buy a house at a very attractive interest rate and, on top of that, claim a tax deduction for the interest payments. But what rate will you get if you want to borrow $400K to place a leveraged bet on the price of gold or oil or Apple stock?
this got me thinking. how is that handled by a democratic system of government? with an independent judiciary, of course. we need an independent, third party App Court! we need a powerful organization that can referee and literally force Google and Apple to put an app back in their stores.