alvvayson @ alvvayson @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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2 yr. ago

Liberal world, not progressive world.

And TBH, that's what they campaigned on.

Drain the swamp and all that.

It really is on their voters that can't distinguish fact from fiction.

Fair enough, maybe I was too harsh.

Thanks for doing the research.

Or he just doesn't really love her and maybe he already has his sights set on some new lady.

I wouldn't even rule out that he or a close family member might have been the one to call ICE.

"Unless their home countries sign defense pacts", which I kinda expect the UK and Turkey to sign.

Really nice, I'm loving it!

I can't wait until we can have a more independent EU IT landscape.

Browsing a bit, I see the Netherlands will also contribute in the future. And they also have Visio as an alternative to Zoom/Teams.

I read that Ubuntu is trying to solve this with the Snap Store.

But to be honest, I'm just not the target demographic for that.

I honestly think if the EU had continued with rolling out Mandrake and SuSe to public sector employees 20 years ago, Linux would be dominant today. Microsoft lobbied hard to stop it.

And I think the way forward will be to have a handful of big customers making the switch. Either China or the EU will probably drive this.

Maybe Huawei might sell MacBook alternatives based on Linux. Or the EU might revisit that old SuSe/Mandrake strategy.

I agree, except that I wouldn't classify Israel as a top intelligence power.

Their dependence on the USA is immense.

For European purposes, Egypt (Suez) and Turkey (both Bosporus and the land link to Asia) are the most important regional allies. Both or very populous and could become a new source of cheaper labour, now that Eastern EU countries are becoming more expensive.

Iran, Iraq and the Gulf countries are important as long as we can't have Russian and/or American fossil fuels. But even then, Turkey and Egypt are the broker between us and them.

What you say isn't false, but totally irrelevant to the point I am making. To the point that it is either naive or purposefully misleading.

Congratulations for understanding the basics of how mutual funds work.

But you are not in a position to discuss how the EU can get better in control of our own capital assets.

We definitely can compete. But we don't really compete.

We have always given the US first pickings in exchange for the security umbrella.

Things like the Plaza and Louvre accords and supporting dollar supremacy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the obvious examples. But there are many, many smaller examples, such as not fully enforcing our tax codes on American multinationals.

If we would actually compete, we would be significantly richer and more powerful.

P.s. when comparing major economies, PPP makes more sense, because Americans paying $6 for a beer when we pay €3 doesn't actually make them any richer in any real sense.

And the EU+UK is about 10% larger than the US.

China is 39T, EU+UK is 33T, US is 30T.

Lol, you are not part of the American institutional investor class. You invest through an American fund.

Those are not the same thing.

But even granting you this fantasy, it would still be in Europe's best interest that European retail investors invest through European funds instead of American ones.

No, you are attacking a straw man.

Of course it's not black and white, but the overall balance is much more towards American capital than European capital.

Even for a company like Unilever, American institutional investors hold a much larger share than European investors hold in Mondelez.

That's the point I was making.

This is part of a more systemic issue.

In general, American capital has been buying up European assets for the past 20 years at a large scale.

Because of the way we (EU) prioritize workers, society and customers and they (US) prioritize shareholders and capital, their companies are always in a better position to take over our companies.

We need to protect our European companies in the same way China and Japan protect their companies.

I agree, which is why I advocate for reform, not abolishment.

Perhaps AI companies should pay a 15% surcharge on their services and that money goes directly into the arts.

It just so happens that in AI it's about copyright and with margarine (and most other technologies) it's about patents.

But the point is the same. Technological development is held back by law in both cases.

If all IP laws were reformed 50 years ago, we would probably have the technology from 2050, today.

Sam Altman is a grifter, but on this topic he is right.

The reality is, that IP laws in their current form hamper innovation and technological development. Stephan Kinsella has written on this topic for the past 25 years or so and has argued to reform the system.

Here in the Netherlands, we know that it's true. Philips became a great company because they could produce lightbulbs here, which were patented in the UK. We also had a booming margarine business, because we weren't respecting British and French patents and that business laid the foundation for what became Unilever.

And now China is using those exact same tactics to build up their industry. And it gives them a huge competitive advantage.

A good reform would be to revert back to the way copyright and patent law were originally developed, with much shorter terms and requiring a significant fee for a one time extension.

The current terms, lobbied by Disney, are way too restrictive.

People really don't understand what Musk and Trump are doing.

The future is BRICS, the West is in decline. They are selling out the West in exchange for assets in China, Russia and, primarily, Saudi-Arabia.

When this cluster fuck is over, they will be extremely rich. Possibly even trillionaires.

Ah ok, I wasn't aware of that

Yes, but they don't design or manufacture their own chips.

A full-European solution just doesn't exist today, but I think an Exynos chip from Samsung is the best compromise.

Licensed from ARM (UK), designed and fabbed by Samsung (South Korea) with equipment from ASML (EU).

We will have to see.

Apple can charge $400 more, but if Samsung doesn't, then they will lose market share.

And the EU is still one of the worlds three biggest markets.

So I am not really concerned.

And worst case, I switch to a Fairphone, which might not be bleeding edge, but it is still a better phone than my previous gen flagship Samsung or the flagship iPhone that came before it.

I see it as just running 2 years behind.