The best thing said in the article is "Many people have been predicting a China crisis for a long time, and it has kept on not happening". Since China has a planned economy with a strong grip from the government, they could keep things going for a while. No planned economy has ever gotten so big
The state enterprise side of the economy is planned, but the private capitalist - sorry, communist with Chinese characteristics - sector accounts for 60% of GDP growth and half of fiscal revenue[0].
That strong grip does more harm than good IMHO. Just look at how appallingly badly they mismanaged their domestic stock markets over the last few years.
> The business model of giving free service until people are hooked, and then monetizing the service by selling data has been a big part of the problem.
The way this was phased made me realize that by offering a free service funded by VC money, it squeezes the competition forcing them to reduce quality or go out of business. The monopolistic behavior to eliminate competition then increasing prices is not something that I saw before in many tech companies.
> offering a free service funded by VC money, it squeezes the competition forcing them to reduce quality or go out of business.
This is very similar to the anti-competitive strategy of "dumping", where you sell something at a loss to undercut a competitor. Again, the primary thing being disrupted here is "laws".
And in EU we have government grants - free money for all kinds of tech-scams , created just for the purpose of consuming these funds. Of course destroying any legit businesses that suddenly have to compete against these state-funded parasites. Thanks, socialists
The capitalist has enough to do just taking care of his own business. But now he has to deal with all these who just took government money for nothing and can compete without any costs on their side. Even offer same service for free because govt pays for it - what kind of business could beat that?
And what kind of government strangles legit businesses and replaces them with state-funded zombies?
Being a capitalist is not defined as a love of obtaining capital. It's more than that: it includes a belief in markets and a dislike of government intervention, which can of course be intervention to prop up his competitors.
central Europe. Variety of funds to pick from, but there is national fund for R&D projects, financing private companies and cooperation between academy & business.
The main problem: goals. The goal is not to develop anything, instead both sides focus on getting rid of the money. The administration clerks make sure they spend all budget (to show they do a great job) and the beneficiaries make sure every penny is utilised and there is a paper for that.
And that's it, millions of EUR just to fund paperwork and fictional research. Plus a generous amount of corruption, but this is just a side effect of this fiction pyramid.
Yea, I was wondering the same thing. Best I can figure it out from context and google is that there is a silicon valley monoculture and the OP is pointing out that in addition to similar ideas they have similar speech patterns
OPM breach was one of the worst things to happen to national security recently. They weren't pointing any fingers for a while, but suspected the Chinese to have something to do with it. It looks like they are a lot more sure now.
OPM asks applicants very personal questions to see if they are being honest. The leak included information on government employee's that have clearance about infidelity, drug use, debt, and other sensitive topics for people working in very sensitive positions. Also more benign stuff like every place they have ever lived and people they had contact with while living in those places. That information could be used in a lot of ways.
It was such a massive breach and it was surprising how little press it got. The "Russians" hacking the election with flaky evidence has gotten magnitudes more of coverage.
And here is detailed information about current and present government employees, many in the intelligence agencies, tens of millions of people total probably. Including biometric data like fingerprints, deeply personal stuff like past transgressions, addictions, financial trouble, health information -- these are things that could be used to approach or entrap someone in a blackmail scheme. And comparatively it was barely a blip in the news.
CIA if I remember correctly was the only not affected. But it is not unheard of people moving between agencies so there is still risk there.
