The reason that Apple/Amazon story disappeared was because it was fabricated by a reporter at Bloomberg. They pointed to a component on a board and claimed it was some magical spying chip that had...
The reason that Apple/Amazon story disappeared was because it was fabricated by a reporter at Bloomberg. They pointed to a component on a board and claimed it was some magical spying chip that had somehow gone unnoticed by server hardware specialists and whose traffic was undetectable by network admin. The graphic they had posted pointed to turned out to be one of these: https://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/hhm-series/13584 and even if you could build spying capabilities into it, was positioned on the wrong part of the board to be of any use in spying. Bloomberg financially hurt supermicro because of their careless reporting and to my knowledge never published a retraction. Their article was also extremely xenophobic characterizing the workers at super micro as un-american others because they were ethnically Chinese and would eat steamed buns.
And it's not just limited to big companies. I work for a small, specialized industrial company. Even we have had our designs stolen from the Chinese. No one has been able to figure out how, or...
And it's not just limited to big companies.
I work for a small, specialized industrial company. Even we have had our designs stolen from the Chinese. No one has been able to figure out how, or wants to do anything about it.
And here, in microcosm, we have the root of pretty much every problem with the US economy.
individual companies were making millions of dollars in China over the past decade and a half and didn't want to hurt short-term profits by coming forward. They demanded secrecy, even in the face of outright theft.
But now the impact of that secrecy is coming to light, they say. Companies are facing hundreds of millions of dollars in future losses from the theft, and U.S. officials say they are years behind trying to tackle the problem.
And here, in microcosm, we have the root of pretty much every problem with the US economy.
"great" is probably overstating it. firstly, none of these countries have really had economic growth to write home about (they're about on par with the US; also it's probably all going to collapse...
Capitalism is doing just fine for the Nordic countries. It's doing great for Germany. It's arguably doing great for Canada.
"great" is probably overstating it. firstly, none of these countries have really had economic growth to write home about (they're about on par with the US; also it's probably all going to collapse again with the next recession and basically reset everything). secondly, fundamental failings of capitalism like income inequality are still going up in pretty much the entirety of the west; even better off OECD countries with actual policies not aimed at fucking poor people like in america have seen their wealth ratios be skewed toward richer people significantly in the past 25 years.
thirdly, and most importantly though, even with the caveat i just mentioned, capitalism mostly works for the majority and if you aren't in the majority, you have an amazing tendency to get fucked by the free market. ask a black person in america, a first nations person in canada, or a migrant in germany or the nordic states how well the current economic order is working out for them and they're probably going to answer not well, because one consequence of putting profit first is that if a group doesn't present a return on investment, most people aren't going to invest in them to begin with--and within a capitalist system, there's just no way to get around that since it's profit driven.
that's not to say that nordic-model capitalism or social democracy wouldn't be a huge increase over american-style capitalism--it would be--but at a fundamental level, what causes the problems in the economy and fucks over people and all that is not going to change just because you go from american-style capitalism to nordic-model capitalism. all forms of capitalism are still prone to the shit in the OP and the comment that sparked this; all forms of capitalism still have increasing amounts of wealth inequality of varying degrees; and all forms of capitalism do, necessarily, have to put the profit before the people in the equation, no matter how much you try to mitigate or reform that out of it.
I have trouble understanding why higher ups in companies dont seem to care. It's as if they only look to the next quarter, rather than thinking about the implications in a year, or even five...
I have trouble understanding why higher ups in companies dont seem to care. It's as if they only look to the next quarter, rather than thinking about the implications in a year, or even five years, when cheaper, quality alternatives start coming out of china. Is there something I'm missing? I'll admit I don't know much about economics and world trade, but it just seems so short-sighted.
most of them do, and mostly it's symptomatic of the increasingly common capitalist desire for endless growth and endless profit over any form of long-term viability or sustainability. it's pretty...
It's as if they only look to the next quarter, rather than thinking about the implications in a year, or even five years, when cheaper, quality alternatives start coming out of china.
most of them do, and mostly it's symptomatic of the increasingly common capitalist desire for endless growth and endless profit over any form of long-term viability or sustainability. it's pretty much the backbone of most of the economy at this point, and indeed it is short-sighted--it's just that none of the people in positions of power give a fuck about how short-sighted it is, because the long term is about as meaningful as something which doesn't exist.
The reason that Apple/Amazon story disappeared was because it was fabricated by a reporter at Bloomberg. They pointed to a component on a board and claimed it was some magical spying chip that had somehow gone unnoticed by server hardware specialists and whose traffic was undetectable by network admin. The graphic they had posted pointed to turned out to be one of these: https://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/hhm-series/13584 and even if you could build spying capabilities into it, was positioned on the wrong part of the board to be of any use in spying. Bloomberg financially hurt supermicro because of their careless reporting and to my knowledge never published a retraction. Their article was also extremely xenophobic characterizing the workers at super micro as un-american others because they were ethnically Chinese and would eat steamed buns.
And it's not just limited to big companies.
I work for a small, specialized industrial company. Even we have had our designs stolen from the Chinese. No one has been able to figure out how, or wants to do anything about it.
I also recentlly heard a podcast about a guy's entire company being stolen. Such a crazy story. Not only did the chinese deny they were stealing his company, they tried claiming that HE was the one stealing from them.
And here, in microcosm, we have the root of pretty much every problem with the US economy.
*capitalism
"great" is probably overstating it. firstly, none of these countries have really had economic growth to write home about (they're about on par with the US; also it's probably all going to collapse again with the next recession and basically reset everything). secondly, fundamental failings of capitalism like income inequality are still going up in pretty much the entirety of the west; even better off OECD countries with actual policies not aimed at fucking poor people like in america have seen their wealth ratios be skewed toward richer people significantly in the past 25 years.
thirdly, and most importantly though, even with the caveat i just mentioned, capitalism mostly works for the majority and if you aren't in the majority, you have an amazing tendency to get fucked by the free market. ask a black person in america, a first nations person in canada, or a migrant in germany or the nordic states how well the current economic order is working out for them and they're probably going to answer not well, because one consequence of putting profit first is that if a group doesn't present a return on investment, most people aren't going to invest in them to begin with--and within a capitalist system, there's just no way to get around that since it's profit driven.
that's not to say that nordic-model capitalism or social democracy wouldn't be a huge increase over american-style capitalism--it would be--but at a fundamental level, what causes the problems in the economy and fucks over people and all that is not going to change just because you go from american-style capitalism to nordic-model capitalism. all forms of capitalism are still prone to the shit in the OP and the comment that sparked this; all forms of capitalism still have increasing amounts of wealth inequality of varying degrees; and all forms of capitalism do, necessarily, have to put the profit before the people in the equation, no matter how much you try to mitigate or reform that out of it.
I have trouble understanding why higher ups in companies dont seem to care. It's as if they only look to the next quarter, rather than thinking about the implications in a year, or even five years, when cheaper, quality alternatives start coming out of china. Is there something I'm missing? I'll admit I don't know much about economics and world trade, but it just seems so short-sighted.
most of them do, and mostly it's symptomatic of the increasingly common capitalist desire for endless growth and endless profit over any form of long-term viability or sustainability. it's pretty much the backbone of most of the economy at this point, and indeed it is short-sighted--it's just that none of the people in positions of power give a fuck about how short-sighted it is, because the long term is about as meaningful as something which doesn't exist.