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House overwhelmingly votes to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner doesn't sell

fortune.com

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Re: House overwhelmingly votes to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner doesn't sell

#11

Post by hakfoo »

I'm curious what message investor/startup types take out of this.

I bought some Baidu shares (like $500 worth) many years ago and I never heard the end of it from people saying "don't invest in the PRC, they'll nationalize it and leave you holding the bag."

The US is basically doing that exact thing to ByteDance's investors: Forcing a sale guarantees a fire-sale price and investors taking a haircut.

Why would any foreign business want to make a major play in the US after this? Congress might say they're only doing this to rattle sabres with Evil Communist China, but will they find an excuse if the next hot startup comes from, say, Brazil? The Netherlands? Canada?

Re: House overwhelmingly votes to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner doesn't sell

#12

Post by hakfoo »

anon291 wrote: post #3

> The answer to CCP-style propaganda is not CCP-style oppression. Let us slow down before we blunder down this very steep and slippery slope. There can be no 'free market' when you're dealing with communists. It's like claiming we should have factories using wage labor competing with slave labor out of 'fairness'. It's not a fair playing field when one side of the equation is more than a firm, but rather an entire go…

The right answer is media savvy.

We need to be raising our kids to have an appropriate amount of distrust of all media, to understand where it's coming from, who backs it, and what their motivations are. Then they can consume it responsibly. Hell, we probably all need a refresher course in it.

Trying to regulate single platforms, like TikTok, just drives both the audience and the disinformation elsewhere. A better trained audience will be able to rebuff garbage no matter which app happens to host it.

I'm sort of disappointed this is not common-sense stuff, although I could see the risk that a savvier audience is less susceptible to advertising.

> In order to access the American market, there should be a requirement that firms are not government controlled.

You can uninstall the CBC app from my phone over my cold, dead fingers.

Re: House overwhelmingly votes to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner doesn't sell

#13

Post by Acebulf »

hakfoo wrote: post #11

I'm curious what message investor/startup types take out of this. I bought some Baidu shares (like $500 worth) many years ago and I never heard the end of it from people saying "don't invest in the PRC, they'll nationalize it and leave you holding the bag." The US is basically doing that exact thing to ByteDance's investors: Forcing a sale guarantees a fire-sale price and investors taking a haircut. Why would any for…

The USA does shit like this all the time. It destroyed Bombardier on Boeing's behalf a few years ago.

Re: House overwhelmingly votes to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner doesn't sell

#14

Post by anon291 »

earthling8118 wrote: post #9
anon291 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers are getting a fine deal. The competing producers (or potential producers) are not. Given that, in the united states, its not just consumers who vote, since all citizens have a right to start and own a business, the American government must represent the interests of both American consumers AND (potential) producers. > TikTok isn't a mysterious product. People know what they're getting and what they're givin…

Communism isn't the problem here and it'd do you well to build an argument that isn't backed by that at every turn.

It absolutely is. Free markets depend on all forms being legally equal. Government owned firms are not since they have special privileges. In communism, all firms are government owned / controlled at some level. Ergo, no communist firm can engage in a free market.

Re: House overwhelmingly votes to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner doesn't sell

#15

Post by anon291 »

hellojesus wrote: post #7
anon291 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers are getting a fine deal. The competing producers (or potential producers) are not. Given that, in the united states, its not just consumers who vote, since all citizens have a right to start and own a business, the American government must represent the interests of both American consumers AND (potential) producers. > TikTok isn't a mysterious product. People know what they're getting and what they're givin…

> Since I cannot vote out the communists, I can simply choose to not engage. You're not simply not engaging. You're also trying to prevent others from engaging, where the justification is that you want to prevent others from engaging because of uneven competitive costs. The extension of that principle is that we should ban anyone from Iceland because they have nearly free electricity and so it's unfair that they can…

> The extension of that principle is that we should ban anyone from Iceland because they have nearly free electricity and so it's unfair that they can run data centers cheaper that US based ones. Or any country with welfare that enables them to hire for cheaper, since that is a direct gov subsidy.

Electricity... No because that's a market commodity (presumably). Gov subsidy? Yes we should impose a tariff on that. Same with slave labor or other non market inputs.

Either way, substantially different than government owned.

> You're also trying to prevent others from engaging, where the justification is that you want to prevent others from engaging because of uneven competitive costs.

Well... Yeah. Others cannot engage with the CCP as legal equals in the United States or anywhere else. Allowing them to do so creates unfair, non free markets.

Re: House overwhelmingly votes to ban TikTok if its Chinese owner doesn't sell

#16

Post by hellojesus »

anon291 wrote: post #14
earthling8118 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism isn't the problem here and it'd do you well to build an argument that isn't backed by that at every turn.

It absolutely is. Free markets depend on all forms being legally equal. Government owned firms are not since they have special privileges. In communism, all firms are government owned / controlled at some level. Ergo, no communist firm can engage in a free market.

Free markets are markets in which parties are allowed to voluntarily trade without government interfere.

Communist-supported companies do not violate free market definitions. After all, people still get to decide whether they will trade with them.

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