131–140 of 153 posts
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Not rob them blind, just rob them a tiny bit to make up for a generation's worth of extortion.
So rob American businesses blind, but say you didn’t, but if you did, they had it coming anyway because of an unsubstantiated flimsy moral justification that disregards the purchasing choices of the EU citizenry, businesses and governments?
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Except it's already possible to install a third-party app store or OS on Android devices. The process isn't trivial, but it's officially supported.
That's cool, but on a practical level, can I generate whatever the APK equivalent for iOS is and just give it to my friends with iPhones?
Isn't it strange how Washington makes laws in the EU? I wonder if these lobbyists get paid a lot.
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What you're seeing here is why the US has such a massive amount of leverage over the EU. The US has for some time fostered an environment where people build and grow businesses. I've started many myself, some totally for fun. And as it happens some of those US businesses have grown into massive corporations, and yes, some not so great ones too. I think the EU in general (not everyone of course) leans more in the real…
>I think the EU in general (not everyone of course) leans more in the realm of letting the government take care of everything. Your understanding of business in EU countries seems to be make-believe and personal fantasy.
You are far more likely to find a government regulation on a US business/product than you are to find any EU-based product used widely in the United States.
That is the main point I was making and it is true by any objective measure.
There is far more leverage with the country exporting goods/services globally then there is importing those things and then nanny-stating them into a form they think is better.
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Meh, you're right but the EU also makes laws in the US ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect ). In the end it's not about who makes the law but whether it's a good law. Ecodesign laws making US vacuum cleaners more economical is good. Trade pressures undermining EU privacy protections maybe not so good.
I like how out of all examples to pit up against eroding privacy protections was consumer vacuum stuff from ages ago.
What are we witnessesing is the beginning of the end of the post-WW2 rules-based international order. What's truly bizarre is that the US designed this order to benefit themselves and they're the ones destroying it now. NATO is a protection racket to outsource European security but really to sell arms to Europe and give the US effetive control over the European militaries. Over the years the control has grown ever-mo…
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The EU should abandon the stupid Commission structure and have a real Parliament that can actually draft legislation. The current one can just vote down legislation drafted by the Commission.
What they ought to do is have a process for passing EU-wide laws where they get introduced by a popularly elected legislature but to be enacted they also have to be approved by the majority of the legislatures of the member states. That gives you a good check on centralized power grabs because the member states have to approve anything that could usurp their role, but you can still pass things that make sense at that…
But being able to originate legislation in the directly elected legislature is important. Even the original U.S. constitutional design, which was quite anti-populist, made the directly elected House the main originator of legislation. (Either the House or Senate could do it, but only the House could introduce appropriations bills giving it primacy in the legislative process.)
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You are thinking too logically. In EU fuel is expensive because it’s heavily taxed AND there are a lot of fuel subsidies. Or to quote an old TV show: Hacker: One of your officials pays farmers to produce surplus food, while on the same floor, the next office is paying them to destroy the surpluses. Maurice: That is not true! Hacker: No? Maurice: He is not in the next office, not even on the same floor!
At least in France, the fuel 'subsidies' are not real subsidies, but tax exemption for different kind of people: farmers, truckers, fishermen and private nurses (I don't have a good translation, basically health workers who go directly to patients homes instead of working at a clinic or hospital). There was also a one time relief for people with fuel heating who earn less than 40k (I'm simplifying) in 2022 because of…
I am using Fossil Fuel Support dataset from OECD. Latest available year is 2024: Specifically for petroleum there were 5228 million euros in tax exemptions and 586 million euros in direct budgetary transfer. For all fossil fuels there were 5 656 million in tax exemptions and 2579 million in direct budgetary transfers. So real, direct subsidies definitely exist.
The European Commission and Council are becoming increasingly unpopular among my peers. Sentiment towards the Parliament is generally still positive. But it's clear that two thirds of the Trilogue essentially don't give a shit about European people, their rights, their freedoms or their wellbeing. Things like Age Verification and Chat Control are going to blow up in their faces. I don't get how blind these institutio…
The EU overall either will start acknowledging that there are problems and serious reforms are needed or history will repeat once again and we'll have another fallen empire situation. It's not just the age verification and chat control - the list crimes is much longer and doesn't revolve solely around IT sector. The recent Mercosur agreement that just showed how the heads of EU pissed over its own agricultural sector…
The EU has definitely done a lot of good over the years as well, but the system is beginning to lean away from democracy and towards a weirdly inscrutible authoritarianism.
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The EU overall either will start acknowledging that there are problems and serious reforms are needed or history will repeat once again and we'll have another fallen empire situation. It's not just the age verification and chat control - the list crimes is much longer and doesn't revolve solely around IT sector. The recent Mercosur agreement that just showed how the heads of EU pissed over its own agricultural sector…
Oh there are definitely fuckups beyond the IT sector. But I think the two examples I listed are particularly egregious. In part because the Chat Control proposal had explicit exemptions for politicians (who's watching the watchmen? no one, obviously!), and because the chilling effect widespread surveillance has. The EU has definitely done a lot of good over the years as well, but the system is beginning to lean away…
The question is if there's any chance for changes or EU falls apart much to the delight of its enemies. Because there are people in the continent who'd gladly revert back to political status-quo and alliances from the past and they do work to achieve their goals.