• Wharton finance professor sounds the alarm on soaring U.S. debt - YouTube
    Adding $1t every 100 days.
    Interest on the U.S. debt is really driving the growth at this point, says Maya MacGuineas - YouTube
    Steady march upward relative to the economy. Slows economic growth. Two parties can't compromise or work on the things they should be working on. Both say 'Not our problem at the moment.' Difficult to see how it connects to anyone's daily life.
    US public debt will be 100% of GDP in 2024?
    Worse because we wait to fix them. The changes are more difficult than if they had been done earlier.
    Where could the US cut spending? Defense? ‘Investing’? Health Care and Retirement (no candidate wants to talk about cutting Social Security)?
    Soon tax cuts will expire. Both parties want some amount of tax cuts extended, which will make the numbers even larger.
    Conversation might start the day after the election.
    Taxes will have to go up.

    The winner-take-all economics of the 21st Century. Every business we look at, you're gonna see one or two companies dominating. Advertising 20 or 30 years ago, 2 or 3% was a big share of the market. Today, 2 companies have most of the 60% of advertising which is done online. Aswath Damodaran

    At this moment, Jensen Huang is considered CEO of the greatest business ever.

    Apple In Talks to Build Google's AI Into iPhones - YouTube
    10 years of duopoly, why allow things to change? They made their search agreement in 2000. Google needed Apple more than vice versa since then, but now with an AI agreement Apple will need Google.
    Apple will leverage Google's Gemeni. Google's AI has looked bad, but not as unstable and unpredictable and new as OpenAI.
    This might mean Apple isn't as far along with its own AI as some thought. Why does it need Google?
    If Apple went with Microsoft or another company rather than Google, that would put them at odds with Google. Apple is more afraid of Google. Google does more things that can compete with Apple, and can take marketshare if they want to.
    Users don't care if Apple was first to anything. They care if the product works well.
    Apple needs AI tech, some say.
    This will be the biggest AI contract maybe, so Google will be ‘winning AI.’

    Homebuilder sentiment turns positive for the first time since July - YouTube
    People starting to get used to this 7% rate, if they can afford it.

    Apple is out of the low-margin, high competition industry of EVs.

    Indian as an EM has more transparency in the data than others. Combination of transparency in reporting and of fundamentals.

    5% Fed funds rate 'not restrictive' at this point, says Richard Bernstein's Michael Contopoulos - YouTube
    Home prices are going back up.
    Starting to talk about a hike.

    How Nintendo Avoided Massive Layoffs - YouTube
    He argues against ‘corporate America’ (different from capitalism). CEO took a 50% paycut. Sometimes the owner of small businesses take no income because they had to make payroll, that's a normal thing in small business. If you lay off people to keep making profits every period, no one wants to work for you, because you're not a leader.

    Bitcoin. Today asset class (crypto) is $2.5t, but if 3% of all assets end up in crypto, it will be $6t asset class.
    The tokenization of a lot of commercial assets. Storing digital assets or property. Tokenized economy could be $20t by 2030, which would be 10% of all the tradfi assets today.
    Halving probably priced in. Most of current move is the credibility lent by institutions and the allocation.
    ‘Bitcoin is the gold of the crypto market, Eth is the oil’.
    ‘Most of capital markets will be tokenized. Most of the record keeping, settlement payment, reconciliaiton, will be on blockchain, and the oft talked about instantaneous transfer of ownership will be instantaneous.’ Civil asset forfeiture, anyone? Freezing of bank accounts of labelled-by-government-‘terrorism’-supporting citizens/ 2-years-later proven-in-court law-abiding protesters', anyone?
    #humanrights

    Ali will probably be profitable for a while but will eventually be out-competed.

    Analyzing Economies: USA, China, Japan, Russia, India, Korea, & More - YouTube
    China, many places will block its stuff (like EVs) (not just through tariffs but actually just block). The countries (India) who want cheap Chinese stuff don't have a lot of money.

    China graduation level currently low.

    Japan's low fertility rate (bottomed out about same as Europe) is higher than anywhere else in eastern Asia.

    Japan permitting is relatively easy for making chips and other things. It took only 1.5 years to get up and running.

    IBM, which doesn't even know how to make chips, is making a chip in Japan now.

    Japan and Korea are now friends. Papered over historical things, small reparations, no truth and reconciliation. Young people like Japan, like Korea.

    Koreans work a lot, have very few kids. Korea reportedly has gender problems. Korea has a lot of debt. Koreans like to consume. Koreans might pump up immigration (Vietnamese).

    Taiwan is centered around small businesses, like Germany. Taiwan remains rich and poor. TSMC is not typical, but might be a bellweather.

    Vietnam copies China pretty well. Samsung phones are made there. Vietname is cheaper, less regulations sometimes than China (for Chinese companies), less ‘under the watchful eye’. Needs bigger businesses, which the government fears. Needs more college education.

    India incredible poverty was ended by rapid growth, massive transfers (to make people not so rural which was the problem). Get people food, get people houses. They got food and water. Now they're doing trains etc. Girls are still not going to school. Factory workers are all women.

    Pakistan is a mess. Poor but not fast growing, doesn't invest, consumes whatever it gets, borrows from IMF and defaults. Has nukes and tariffs. Low income. Military coups, power struggles, instable, two main provinces in constant revolt basically. High crime. Fertility high. Nazis. Trying not to be dragged into China alliance and China's conflicts globally. Pakistan started out richer. Focus a lot on competing (militariily) with India.

    Philippines leadership less wild. Less corrupt. Because recent leaders left.

    Aus is a masterclass in creating a nice society based on mining (bauxite and coal), supplimented by high end services, high minimum wage. Doing better than Canada, has institutions that we could copy, and are copying (Biden copied income based repayment of student loans). But international demand controls their economy, at risk of China reducing purchases.

    Russia is on a wartime footing, war economy. Everything shifting to war economy. Germany selling through third countries to Russia. China is buying Russian oil and selling Russia its stuff, but this is a business relationship. If price of oil goes down, China will drive a hard bargain. India buys military parts from Russia. Likes that Russia can protect them militarily from China.
    Interest rates and inflation high.
    Russia still import dependent.
    Russia's reserves running out, will run out this or next year. US no longer backing Ukraine like it was. Europeans are backing Ukraine. France, Poland (4% of GDP for military spending, drones).

    Poland is same size as Ukraine, but better tech.

    AI. Routine jobs will be out. Decision-making not, maybe.

    There will always be full employment because of relative costs. Erik Torenberg. Famous CEO is a good typist but hires a well-paid typist. They'll get paid very well to do these little tasks, because there'll be so much wealth. He thinks people will still be doing tasks even if AI does it better.
    AI could be worse. It could be malevolent.
    People already prefer AI doctor's bedside manner. AI girlfriends are already popular.

    The year of AI efficiency layoffs. Like 90s with internet.

    Routing the right task to the right model, which will be smaller than the total everything models used on ChatGPT right now. Small models on the device even.

    It's not even ‘liquidity,’ it's juts ‘money printing’, said Lynette Zang
    Inflation. It's just not the US dollar going away, it's the entire system, which has to reset into the new system.
    The banks are all insolvent right now, she said. All banks, because they're based on debt. Interest rates have pushed down market valuations of all that debt. Derivative bets against those debts. Debt at high levels. Fine unless forced to liquidate.
    Mnuchin came in and bought NYBC with private money.
    All this means everything, houses, clothes, can be tokenized and put on your phone.
    Risk transfer from many to the few, maintaining the system will be too expensive, market will crash. From Debt to Hyperinflation: More Banks to Collapse As System Implodes, 'They Need a Crisis' – Zang - YouTube

    2% inflation, people don't notice it. Not that the price stays the same, but that the public doesn't change its behaviour. But if it happens quickly, then they notice and they don't trust.

    After 70 years: German national team takes off adidas, puts on Nike | DW News - YouTube

    Microsoft did another aquahire of a whole AI team. Speculation that they have so much difficulty doing anything because of their monopoly they don't bother to buy the asset but rather just hire the people.
    Is this a new way to go around antitrust? Just buy a team or licence something.

    Large-scale bitcoin miners are competing head on with AI companies for power: Marathon Digital CEO - YouTube
  • Invoking Emergencies Act against convoy protests was unreasonable, court rules - YouTube
    Infringed 'Charter rights’. 2B Freedom of Expression. 8 Search and Seizure. Didn't find any infringement on Movement.
    Finding was very different than the the ‘public inquiry’, the Merlo Commission which had found that what the government did was ok.
    At the time, there was a lot of talk about the ‘CSIS defintion of a naitonal threat.’ Justice Mosley said it doesn't matter if CSIS says that, although it might have weight and be considered. ... The seizing and freezing of bank accounts affected people beyond those they were trying to affect. ... Unreasonable invocation of the Emergencies Act.
    Judge said this is why it's important to have thes public interest litigants [CCLA] to bring these cases forward.
    #Canada #HumanRights
    The CCLA hadn't asked for costs or any remedy other than a declaration.
    ‘Canadian government’ expected to appeal.
    What happens when a court finds a democratic government violates the Constitution? Can a person who is a PM/President retain authority after they have publicly broken the law against many people and violated a whole nation? and how can they hope to afterwards talk about other people as criminals?
    Trudeau government has been saying that ‘economic harm’ can constitute ‘a national threat to Canada.’ Nope. ‘Gaslighting’ Court rules Trudeau's invocation of Emergencies Act was UNREASONABLE and UNCONSTITUTIONAL - YouTube
    Government lost on all measures, not just one. Everything they did, basically, was illegal (unconstitutional) (except perhaps againts Movement).
    The Trudeau Regime Just Got a Whole Lot Worse - YouTube

    FBI DEFIES Judge’s Order To Turn Over Seth Rich’s Laptop! - YouTube

    Supreme Court may reel in power of federal agencies in major case - YouTube
    Medicine, air quality. Who has power to decide? The government-created agencies or the courts, in deciding how to interpret laws? Fishing agency forces fishing boats to carry a government observer on their boat and to pay for it. Currently, courts defer to these types of agencies. ‘That’s where the government almost automatically wins. The government's argument just has to be within the realm of acceptibility, the realm of plausibility.' But the fishermen are saying the agency is overstepping. Lower judges are instructed they have to rule in the government's favor. 40-year precedent. Decision expected in June.
    Healthcare, things won't ‘move as smoothly.’
    #CivilRights
    We investigated the German farmer protests - YouTube

    Supreme Court Vacates Rulings Against Vaccine Mandates - YouTube


  • Days after US Congress made headlines for being set to ban TikTok on government devices.

     

  • Veil for women is the main focus, and what women can say. (Also anything that is Islamic/Sharia) like alcohol, mingling or men and women.

    Morality police really formed in early 1990s.

    Iranians also have been using apps to notify each other where the checkpoints are set up where they check for moral clothing use.

    Iranian protests (began in September, several hundred have died so far in multiple protest events) are still making headlines.

    Other countries have similar things. "Any country where you have strict codes of behavior enforced ... [Saudi Arabia although it has eased restrictions for women over recent years], Sudan, Malaysia. Enforcing public order sometimes.

     

  • Question: Wouldn't all Western countries leave the internet if it was created by another country?

    Map of countries that did internet blackouts to stop protesters et al from communicating



     

  • Control data collection on millions of users, and control information algo if they so chose.



  • This video gives an idea of how China is managing its cities during the pandemic April 2022 (2 years after the start, but after the latest Omicron strain, when China locked down Shanghai again). Lots of images.

    Lower immunity from natural infection - uniquely vulnerable. It was a source of national pride for Chinese that their case numbers had been so low, and they had so 'successfully' weathered the pandemic relative to other countries, although their strict lockdowns of cities caused economic and other problems (such as other health problems due to lack of diagnosis and treatment, access to medicine, etc, psychological problems from isolation, social issues from lack of socialization - it has been said (by Mill in the following terms) that the necessity of the mental wellbeing of people (on which all their other wellbeings depend) lies in freedoms) as well as extreme tracking and monitoring through electronic devices and registration. Some say the Chinese see the issue politically, as the Chinese system versus the West, so it may be less likely China would now permit opening the cities and having more infections, because of the images that would be shown to the world.
     

  • Feds are buying data about people from a company that gets it from several apps

    If you are an app developer, and you sell your app data to some company, it can be used this way.

    Some of these apps are for things like gay dating (Bro) and religious prayer and study (Muslim Pro, an app that notifies people 5 times per day it's time for them to pray) (Full Quran, an audio book of the Quran), as well as one where people upload their faces and do virtual makeup on it (Perfect365).

     

  • Arsenal Consulting

     
  • Video of police hauling off old woman due to vaccine mandate

    ... in Australia. It's the image of it. (I haven't watched it.)

    But an example of what happens when not everyone quietly does what the government says or avoids things, but instead goes about their civilian life which causes a confrontation.

  • Justices denying anti-vaccine mandate cases

    "Mass General is Massachusetts's largest private employer with about 80,000 employees. Their vaccine mandate went into effect on November 5th. Non-compliant employees were subsequently fired. Several of them filed a lawsuit to prevent the vaccine mandate from taking effect.

    "Barrett declined the vaccine case from Indiana University and Breyer declined this one from Massachusetts. Six of the nine judges turned down a similar case from Maine. It's not looking hopeful for the anti-vaccine mandate crowd."

    This caused some commenters to say they think the Supreme Court has become part of the DeepState.

    But others have noted that this is a purely business decision, and working for a company is at-will in most jobs (a company can mandate you have to wear blue on mondays).

    Others noted that because the vaccines (mRNA) are still experimental (one of the biggest concerns of people not wanting to get or mandate them), forcing people to get them violates the Nuremburg Code (if people later die those who participated even in small ways in forcing people to undergo the procedure liable for deaths).

    #Pandemic #CivilRights #HumanRights

    Nuremberg Code — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum  
  • Palestinian activists hacked with Pegasus

    "It's a strong feeling to have your privacy violated," said one man. "Even the simplest of things. My wife couldn't sleep for three days after finding out, being extremely worried. Our privacy was violated as a family. Our children, their pictures. Our conversations with family and friends."

    Pegasus is sold to govts around the world by NSO (Israeli company), under license from Israel's MOD.

    Pegasus is supposed to be blocked from use on Israeli and Palestinian phones.

    NSO commented "We cannot confirm or deny the identity of our government customers. ... NSO Group does not operate the products itself. The company licenses approved government agencies to do so."

    Last month, 3 days after the investigation into suspected phone hacking began, Israel designated all 6 organizations as terror groups, accusing them of funneling money to the PLF and other things.

    Then the Israeli army gave itself the power to shut down offices, confiscate money, and make arrests.

    Last week, the US blacklisted NSO.

     
  • Protonmail logged IP of French activist upon order by Swiss authorities

    ... his alleged crime was truancy. He was a member of Youth for Climate Action in Paris, and they were using Protonmail to schedule and organize an event where they would skip school to go and protest, reported Mental Outlaw on YT. The youths were going to protest governments and corporations they believed were causing climate change.

    Have you ever skipped school?

    Protonmail does not have any userside/clientside encryption. Tor or mixnet would have put something between the user and Protonmail.

    Mental Outlaw pointed out that although Protonmail may not comply with a request from an outside state (France, US, whoever), they could just go through Switzerland.

    Protonmail updated it's privacy policy to more accurately reflect what they do.

     
  • India up in arms over film

    'Padmavati,' a Bollywood film based on poem about a probably fictional Hindu queen called ani Padmini, who chose to self immolate rather than submit to a Muslim king.

    No one has seen the film yet, but there are threats and bounties for violence against the director and actors, and lawsuits to ban the film in the Supreme Court.

    Among the things they take issue on (it is the Hindu's taking offense, not Muslims, despite the Muslim king being 'portrayed as barbaric') is the romance between the Hindu queen and Muslim king.


     
  • France now has an 'office of secularism'

    #France #Prejudice #HumanRights
  • France dismissed an imam for sermon

    ... reportedly, it had something to do with something Imam Mmadi Ahamada said about the wives of Mohammad, which the French interior minister said was 'contrary to the values of the republic' ('against gender equality').

    Minister Gerald Darmanin asked the Loire governor's office to dismiss the imam and ensure his residence permit is not renewed.

    He's now had 2 imam's fired it seems.


  • Assange case witness says he lied to US officials to get immunity

    Many have commented that the mainstream media have been quiet about this revelation.

    Assange has been in a UK prison since April 2019 since Equador gave him up (removed their protection of him in their embassy in London). Extradition to the US for trial was recently denied, but not on the merits on the case, but rather on humanitarian grounds.

    The Icelander, who back in the early Wikileaks days had been a volunteer, had been convicted of forgery, fraud and some 'sex crimes,' and is, according to Assange's legal representatives, a dubious source.

     

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