61–70 of 156 posts
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Tit for tat taxation or restrictions on businesses are not related at all to democracy.
> restrictions on businesses are not related at all to democracy. I guess we've dropped the whole "Global fair trade leads to a more free, peaceful and democratic world" argument that used to be so popular?
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Tit for tat taxation or restrictions on businesses are not related at all to democracy.
> restrictions on businesses are not related at all to democracy. I guess we've dropped the whole "Global fair trade leads to a more free, peaceful and democratic world" argument that used to be so popular?
China never has and never will offer a level playing field for non-Chinese companies. The US is finally starting to act in kind, and should continue to do so.
I thought we don't want to be like China? You aren't going to spread your form of "democracy" across the world by doing what the "oppressive" regimes are doing.
China never has and never will offer a level playing field for non-Chinese companies. The US is finally starting to act in kind, and should continue to do so.
We've had CIFUS for decades. The only change is now we say no to Japan teaching us to make better steel.
Blame Cleveland-Cliffs [0] - Nippon Steel's Brazilian-owed competitor in Ohio.
> Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF.N) which made a failed $7 billion bid for U.S. Steel in August 2023, participated in at least nine calls assuring investors that President Joe Biden would scuttle the Nippon Steel merger months before he did so on Friday, according to summaries of investor calls included in a Dec. 17 letter from lawyers for Nippon Steel (5401.T) and U.S. Steel to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) and confirmed to Reuters by two participants in the calls.
> “I can’t force U.S. Steel to sell to me, but I can work my magic to make a deal that I don’t agree with not to close," he told investors on a March 13 call hosted by JP Morgan, the letter quoted Goncalves as saying.
> While Goncalves made similar comments about the deal to analysts on three earnings calls this year, his private remarks made throughout 2024 about the deal process show the extent of his effort to cast doubt on Nippon's bid for U.S. Steel. His comments sometimes preceded drops in the U.S. Steel share price, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel told CFIUS.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/rival-ceo-spread-doubt...
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But you also don’t want to tolerant the intolerant, it’s thin line.
Debatable. > whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also (Jesus) > I do not like the word tolerance, but could not think of a better one. Tolerance implies a gratuitous assumption of the inferiority of other faiths to one (Gandhi)
Sometimes deterring punishment is the only thing that keeps people from abusing tolerance or freedom to destroy that tolerance and freedom, but it needs to stay a measure of last resort.
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I thought we don't want to be like China? You aren't going to spread your form of "democracy" across the world by doing what the "oppressive" regimes are doing.
Let them be insular. I don't think it should be anyone's mission to "spread democracy". If people want it, they need to fight for it for themselves.
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We've had CIFUS for decades. The only change is now we say no to Japan teaching us to make better steel.
> We've had CIFUS for decades. The only change is now we say no to Japan teaching us to make better steel. I'm curious what you mean by that. Most of what I know about steel is in relation to knives (and peripherally, swords, axes, and other tools). At least in that (admittedly small) niche, Japanese steel is good, but certainly not superior to US steel (although with the financial trouble that Crucible is having, pe…
US Steel mostly focuses on commodity steel.
Nippon Steel has a wider portfolio focusing on higher-end specialty steel.
Commodity steel producers like US Steel (they acquired the main steel company in my town) generally play on lower end of the market, and have not invested adequately in technology or modernization. They are not able to make specialty steel because they have not made those kinds of investments. Instead they have chosen to languish with low productivity practices, so they're being outcompeted by foreign companies who are now able to make the same quality of steel but cheaper. They used to laugh at foreign steel companies because of the trash steel they made, but they laughed a bit too long and didn't realize that foreign steel gradually got better year over year. I saw this hubris play out first hand in my town.
My town also has another steel maker, a specialty one. This one was smaller but chose to invest in automation and modern technology, and also on producing new types of high-value steel for specialty applications. They had a profit-sharing scheme and had loyal employees who did not reject automation or modernization, but instead had a growth mindset. They remain competitive today.
This is capitalism's creative destruction playing out, and companies like US Steel that refuse to adapt find themselves outcompeted by more productive players.
The Nippon Steel takeover, even if it had succeeded, might have been too late.
Akamai is also a CDN that [works for domain fronting][1], which is an amazingly reliable way to get around the Chinese Firewall via [Collateral Freedom][2]. Tor's meek used Azure for domain fronting. Akamai likely faced some pressure from the govt because of this. [1]: https://github.com/vysecurity/DomainFrontingLists/blob/maste... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom
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And yet he’s not blocking TikTok. It’s quite astonishing given: A) they’re a Chinese owned company B) China asymmetrically has never allowed US social media (amongst practically all major internet properties) C) We cap ownership of foreign owners of US media. TikTok IS TV for the young generation. But apparently he thinks it helped him win (would love to know if that was actually true, which is probably impossible to…
I thought he asked the court to pause the ban until he was in office. In the interest of trying to be neutral, perhaps he either: * Thinks he can help negotiate some sort of deal that keeps TikTok here fairly, or * Sees an opportunity to do a grift/accept some bribes from ByteDance/get some control over an effective propaganda engine.
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I thought we don't want to be like China? You aren't going to spread your form of "democracy" across the world by doing what the "oppressive" regimes are doing.
This has nothing to do with democracy, it's about trying to keep a level playing field. The US has been trying to open trade with China since the 70s, and until China stops doing this the US has to adjust trade policy to keep things fair. Free and open trade is a two way street, otherwise it's just charity to the bad faith actor.