You previously brought up El Salvador’s murder rate as though that has anything to do with or diminishes their Bitcoin experiment.
It is really odd until you reveal below that you have a pretty clear bias against Bitcoin because you personally worked on some traditional payment processing software.
> Google added flights, but Booking Holdings (aka Priceline) continued to grow each year to 15B in revenue for 2019. (Huge drop for 2020 obviously.)
But did advertising on Google become more expensive for competitors once Google entered the market (e.g. did Google Flights also bid on Google Ads) and were those additional costs passed along to customers?
So while your example shows a competitor survived, it over looks the many start ups that did not, it overlooks the increased advertising costs, it over looks the increased cost to consumers and the chilling effect on potential new startups that might have been able to enter the market.
We do not even need to question any of this because before Google acquired the startup which became Google Flights the acquisition was reviewed and only approved under very strict Chinese firewalls between Google flights and Google search…but those restrictions only sought to restrict Google flight’s complete takeover of the market and ignored how it is being used to increase ad costs to the remaining market competitors.
The same has been seen with Google shopping, where Google essentially acquired a startup, it flopped, then Google positioned itself ahead of organic results and began systematically burying competition in the Google results. The fact you can’t name any of the travel or shopping startups that had thriving businesses that fell once Google entered the market is more telling of how Google has dominated the market rather than evidence Google hasn’t actually put anyone out of business.
> Suppose that Fauci had known for a fact in May 2020 that SARS-COV-2 originated in that lab. How would that have changed the advice he (attempted to) offer regarding public health and safety?
If he had known the virus was being researched and escaped the lab, certainly his recommendation should have included requests for any and all research and records related to the virus research. As such records have been very pertinent to public health guidelines and guidance, if not potentially toward treatments and future vaccines.
Also there is the very real financial and legal component if that were the case. On a much smaller scale it would be on par with destroying video evidence of a slip and fall, denying it ever existed, then when caught claiming it’s immaterial to the medical treatment of the injured…that’s still fraud and at minimum a clear attempt to escape legal and financial liability.
Trillions were not distributed to the populace, trillions were distributed to businesses and the Fed to leverage even further to prop up the stock market. The “populace” got billions.
The printing isn’t really the problem either, it’s a symptom of policies from both parties for 50-60 years resulting in a nation that functions purely on debt from individual households, small businesses, publicly traded businesses, to the government itself.
Before the pandemic the majority of households couldn’t cover a $400 emergency. But the truth is businesses and governments were in the same position, and even in “the greatest economy the world has ever seen” the majority of them live the equivalent of paycheck to paycheck just servicing their debts.
Look I’m as jaded as the rest, like everyone. I’ve seen mass manipulation to promote bullshit wars. I graduated in 2008 and I am still told to shut up and say thank you to the banks for paying back taxpayer loans with interest that bailed them out of their own fraud and let them consolidate the market. I saw the CDC initially lie about masks to allegedly preserve supplies for healthcare providers. I saw the government take trillions in future taxes and mostly give it to businesses and for the FED to leverage into even more money to prop up the stock market (hey, all time highs again mid pandemic).
Still, for all the BS lawyers get, much of it deserving, for every lawyer behind the brokers/investors/funds there are others representing the victims. These are the types of lawsuits that include egos so big that sometimes discovery of emails/communications and the prospects of sitting for depositions result in a resolution, and even change.
It’s funny you mention the army of lawyers, because many of these cases have been consolidated and one 1 Zoom hearing were 141 lawyers…they represented the plaintiffs.
You seem to be sarcastic but in fact yes the Robinhood/GameStop BS resulted in both a congressional probe and it skipped the FBI and went straight to the prosecutors at the Department of Justice.
Except it doesn’t mean nothing because there are a bunch of lawsuits against Robinhood, because the law provides a remedy for the bullshit they pulled.
It’s the same company that attempted to keep its customers Bitcoin cash when Bitcoin forked right? Then only backed down after consumer backlash? Same company that tipped off its employees to buy Bitcoin cash to pump it before it was listed and then it was dumped on day 1?
Except Crypto isn’t regulated like stocks, so what your likely seeing is the exchange themselves shutting off service to lock in their customers while the exchange liquidates its positions.
Location isn’t the legal standard…it would essentially be like saying customers can watch all Studio A movies at Theater A and then watch all Studio B movies at Theater B.
Sure it’s more convenient online, competition being 1 click away, but antitrust still applies to online content creators/distribution businesses.
So it’s more important to ask if you wanted to watch Netflix created content can you watch it outside Netflix? It’s not a simple yes or no, black/white kind of analysis though. You also have to look at the whole of the industry and when you do you will begin to see how the sausage is made and the antitrust nastiness.
Say you want to create a movie/show you contact film company A, Director B, actor C. Turns out you can’t hire any of them because they have contracts with Netflix. New content creators can no longer compete or even enter the market to compete and new distributors will not have any content to distribute so they won’t be able to compete or enter the market.
Even if it results in more/cheaper content, which may or may not be something to brag about, ultimately a competition is harmed and lack of competition is what harms the consumer.
For a little background on the movie industry and antitrust law, the Hollywood studios once upon owned everything from the way movies were produced, distributed and exhibited.
The monopoly held by the studios was effectively broken up following WWII. Yes, there were multiple studios competing but individually they were engaging in antitrust behavior.
This acquisition is essentially a waiving of the white flag and passing the torch. It will be allowed because big tech/Hollywood own politicians.
However, and I think to your point, it is impossible to reconcile that Netflix is engaging in the same behavior (producing, distributing and exhibiting) as the Hollywood studios when the courts broke up the industry to allow fair competition.
The mmm.pages post yesterday was really refreshing positive, until a comment floating to the top ranted about geocities style/gifs being schizophrenic, nostalgia being toxic, and real creativity = having the same cookie cutter modern web design as everyone else (now that’s irony).
But based on your comment, you either: a) were inspired by the post itself and decided to have a little fun roasting this comment; or b) need to take a vacation.
By considering employers spend billions of dollars a year lobbying to keep the power imbalances.
Think about the efforts Amazon and Walmart go to keep their employees from unionizing.
Consider how Uber misclassified workers as contractors to avoid providing legal benefits.
Or how every year before the pandemic there was push back on not just raising minimum wage laws but efforts to completely repeal them.
This goes back in history to unsafe working environments, overtime, health insurance, workers comp, etc…
Stock markets are at record highs, companies have record profits, economic inequality is at all time highs…yet businesses continue to push the narrative they pay to much to workers and the would rather strip all Americans of benefits, who really need them, just so they can fill a handful of jobs at below market rates and below living wages.
The $100MM is the benefit. So they are giving back some of the benefit they already received. Yeah they call it waste when they have to give back but the true waste is the policies that allowed the $100MM in light of the overall inequality.
People who make $100MM are no smarter than those that don’t, I mean Einstein didn’t make that type of money right? It’s not merit either, it’s simply money...under our system money makes money, concentration of capital doesn’t benefit everyone it benefits the person with the capital.
Consider wealth management itself, you want to diversify your investments, you would never put 90% of your wealth into .1% of the assets you own. The rich know and live by this rule, well that same rule applies to society, you don’t want .1% controlling 90% of the wealth so investment is determined by .1% of the population. You want the wealth diversified and in the hands of many so no single person controls investment.
For better or worse the only way that type of inequality happens is as a direct result of the policies of the country they live in, thus they should be grateful and thankful for living in a country that not only allows but promotes that type of concentration of wealth.
In exchange for the benefit of living in such a country that promotes such wealth inequality, they should pay a 90% tax rate to reflect the wealth inequality itself. They will bitch and moan of course, but they will still be far richer and better off than everyone else, and everyone else will be better off not living in a country with such high inequality and a country with tremendous national resources, as opposed to a country that is $28T in debt further decreasing the quality of life of those without the personal wealth to not need public services.
Facebook has violated their own privacy policy many times, faced legal penalties and settled with the FCC for their violations, then violated their settlement agreements with additional data breaches.
He isn’t more sensitized to privacy issues, so much as he can afford to spend the time and money required to protect himself...most people, like the majority of his users responsible for him having that kind of wealth, don’t have the luxury.
Victims, whether or not they are educated, or even if they are stupid as they have been called, are still victims. You are exercising crazy mental gymnastics to victim blame, it’s exactly what people do when a girl is rapped and they say she should have dressed to provocatively.
It’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard...to not protect someone because they should have been smarter than to act upon a desire selfish desire to make money, well no shit that’s why fraud and cons work, because almost everyone acts on the desire to make money. It’s why people have jobs and work, that doesn’t give employers a green light to defraud employees.
Should all those old people who fall for scams down to the Nigerian price email scams not be protected because they are stupid and acted selfishly?
Let’s say a casino rigged a deck of cards or rigged a slot machine and falsely advertised the odds of winning to the public, would victims not be entitled to protection because they are stupid and acted in a greedy way to get rich?
Why shouldn’t the victims of Elon, all the Twitter bots , and those behind them, that are pumping and dumping Doge be protect besides calling them stupid and greedy? What is it is shown millions of the victims are actually just kids that idolize musk? Are they still just stupid and greedy and thus deserve to be scammed?
It is really odd until you reveal below that you have a pretty clear bias against Bitcoin because you personally worked on some traditional payment processing software.