onfocus

The United States imports a wide variety of items that cannot be produced in large enough quantities to satiate domestic demand. Basic foodstuffs such as coffee, bananas, avocados, cocoa and much more do not grow in U.S. climates. And there are no domestic replacements for wild-caught Chilean sea bass or yellowfin tuna.

Countering MAGA beliefs with logic isn't going to move any numbers, but it is good to make the rational case that Trump's economic plan would tank the economy. He's not good at business or economics. That’s a mythology that was created to sell garbage. Plus he's surrounded people who are out to prove the government doesn't work.

To create A.I. businesses, experts predicted, $1 trillion would be spent on data centers, utilities and applications. Mr. Covello thought those costs made it impossible for the industry to inexpensively solve real-world problems, which is what internet companies did decades ago.

As a member of Goldman’s working group on A.I., he reviewed a service that used generative A.I. to automatically update analysts’ spreadsheets with companies’ financial results. He said it saved his analysts about 20 minutes of time per company but cost six times as much money.

I think this is exactly it. AI is too expensive in terms of energy use and is highly subsidized by venture capital at the moment. The minute that money dries up there won't be enough of a payoff to justify the expense.

“What’s good for workers is good for business, and as California’s fast food industry continues booming every single month our workers are finally getting the pay they deserve,” Newsom said in a written statement. “Despite those who pedaled lies about how this would doom the industry, California’s economy and workers are again proving them wrong.”

Interesting, restaurants didn't go out of business after minimum wage went from $15.50 to $20.

But the analysis discovered one major change: The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.

Huge if true.

I'm joking. Wealth inequality makes this so obviously true it doesn't need to be said.

Harris said he pleaded with the company for several years to address the flaw in the product, a ProPublica investigation has found. But at every turn, Microsoft dismissed his warnings, telling him they would work on a long-term alternative — leaving cloud services around the globe vulnerable to attack in the meantime.

Public corporations that value shareholders more than customers were a mistake and definitely shouldn’t be handling national security. This whole series of events is frustrating because it was preventable.

Ben continues in his thread, "[The moderator crackdown is] just a reminder that anything you post on any of these platforms can and will be used for profit. It's just a matter of time until all your messages on Discord, Twitter etc. are scraped, fed into a model and sold back to you."

These user conflicts highlight the way site owners extract monetary value from the community in ways that aren’t shared back. Now some 3rd party will be making money from their time and energy. So disappointing to see companies being bad stewards of good impulses like the desire to pitch in and help share knowledge.

“It’s been an amazing year for the world’s richest people, with more billionaires around the world than ever before,” said Chase Peterson-Withorn, Forbes’ wealth editor. “A record-breaking 14 centibillionaires [$100bn] have 12-figure fortunes. Even during times of financial uncertainty for many, the super-rich continue to thrive.”

slow clap.

“Some firms seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further hike prices to increase their profits, and profits remain elevated even as supply chain pressures have eased,” the report read.

Some firms deserve our scorn and ridicule, I say. It would be nice if the government could reign in the profiteering but I'm not holding my breath. Burn your large grocer loyalty cards I guess.

Putting a 25% tax on 750 people to benefit the 330 million other members of the American public? Maybe you can see why it's not a radical idea when middle-class people are already paying higher rates themselves. To be clear, those affected by the rate increase would continue to be billionaires—it's just that their fortunes would grow past a billion at a slightly slower pace.

Escape velocity is a great way to think about when enough is enough for any one human to have. Society doesn't see much benefit from allocating so many resources to a small number of individuals. The standard argument is job creators! but that's a joke in a world where record profits lead to mass layoffs.

“I don’t really see any good that can come from Reddit going public,” Dan M. told me. “Not to sound dramatic but it kinda feels like the final nail in Reddit’s coffin after years of degrading quality.”

Same, they treat their volunteer moderators like expendable cogs and all of their revenue depends on them. Add the new pressure of shareholders to the situation and it seems like a recipe for meh. Feels like someone’s cash out before the end.

Update (3/9): LOL

All of the major tech companies conducting another wave of layoffs this year are sitting atop mountains of cash and are wildly profitable, so the job-shedding is far from a matter of necessity or survival.

Short term stock boost is more important than people. Thanks, job creators!

“Costs have come down substantially, and while corporations were quick to pass on their increased costs to consumers, they are surprisingly less quick to pass on their savings to consumers,” Liz Pancotti, a Groundwork strategic advisor and paper co-author, told the Guardian.

ah, just the natural cycle of high prices at the supermarket due to [checks notes] record profits.