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US labour watchdog halts Apple cases after group’s lawyer picked for top job

275 points by belter 2y ago

the_real_cher 2y ago
[flagged]
biglyburrito 2y ago
https://archive.md/ia9vA https://archive.md/ia9vA
bananapub 2y ago
the headline is perhaps unclear, so from the article: > The US labour watchdog froze two cases against Apple days after Donald Trump nominated an attorney who represents the tech group to be the agency’s top legal official. > Trump last week nominated Crystal Carey, a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, to be the NLRB’s general counsel. She is listed in the agency’s records as an attorney acting in Apple’s defence in both cases against the Silicon Valley tech group. the level of just complete capture of the regulatory state by random rich companies is amazing, even beyond trump's first time bullshit like "Appoint the CEO of Exxon to be Secretary of State"
- yapyap 2y ago
  Thank you for the clarification. Ugh, knowing you have a clearly malicious actor as top dog of the country -_- it can’t get more frustrating. Except for the fact that a big part of the country supports it as well. I do wonder if they even believe in him wholeheartedly or just put on an act cause they’re in too deep and don’t want to give the people who said they were making the wrong choice the “satisfaction” of admitting they were right.
  - pasc1878 2y ago
    It is no it an act it is "clean the swamp" that it is get rid of all the controls that the bureaucrats in Washington do. The reason a lot of them exist is to protect the public is probably lost on the public but fully understood by the ones doing it.
    - NickC25 2y ago
      Putting a bunch of foxes to guard the henhouse isn't cleaning the swamp. It's replacing the old swamp, which was nakedly self-interested, with a new swamp, which is also nakedly self-interested. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
- whycome 2y ago
  Cases of Apples
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  Increasingly it looks like there is a strata of the private-jet set that take care of one another, keep the rest of us under their thumb. I can't think this is going to end well for any of the parties.
  - noitpmeder 2y ago
    Who's going to stop them?
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      Sounds of guillotine being sharpened...
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- dralley 2y ago
  At this point I'm practically begging for corrupt-but-competent assholes over the total clowns that are actually running the show this administration. Steve Mnuchin (especially) and Rex Tillerson were two of the best appointments last time around. These guys have no redeeming value. And they're far more brazen about the corruption, too.
guerrilla 2y ago
The US has been corrupt for a long time with its revolving door but it's getting so blatant that frankly it's shocking. As a ruling class, you want to at least pretend to have some illusion of fairness. It's starting to looking some backwater Balkan nation or something.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  I've come to the conclusion though that I prefer that it is now out in the open. There's a better likelihood heads will eventually roll (as a figure of speech).
  - rchaud 2y ago
    I'd say you're half right. Heads do roll in authoritarian regimes.
  - deltaburnt 2y ago
    Pessimistically I think it's more out in the open because they think it won't catch up to them.
  - seivan 2y ago
    [dead]
- 9283409232 2y ago
  Why pretend any more? You go full mask off and half the country still cheers you. Trump could get on stage, say "there will be no more elections and I am now king" and half the country will be okay with it while the other half puts their hands in their pocket and feigns helplessness.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    His approval rating was 30% before the markets crashed. The only people supporting Trump are his cultists and the congressional Democrats.
resource_waste 2y ago
"Right is only a question among equals, for the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer as they must." We shouldnt expect companies to be Moral. We shouldn't expect the government to be Just. The sooner we realize how politics actually work, the smarter we can make personal decisions that comply with realities. There is no reason to waste time and effort. The only people who can topple Apple are going to be major players, not the multitude.
- cowpig 2y ago
  Couldn't disagree more. Our expectations tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Expect amoral companies and you get amoral companies. Expect an unjust government and you get an unjust government.
  - bigyabai 2y ago
    > Our expectations tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Separating an expected outcome from the factual evidence and artifacts of a situation is arguably why the justice system exists at all. Politics isn't Byrne's The Secret, you can't materialize good leadership by ignoring every issue and praying to a higher power.
    - yxwvut 2y ago
      He’s right though - indifference to corruption or malfeasance begets corruption and malfeasance. Holding your government and companies to a higher standard of behavior is both possible and necessary for a functional, durable nation. Sure, you can enforce corporate morality via regulation or governmental morality via the courts or ethics committees, but that completely ignores the concept of soft power. Laws can be broken faster than they can be enforced.
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      > you can't materialize good leadership by ignoring every issue and praying to a higher power. Indeed. We must be vigilant to acquire and maintain our freedoms and good governance. People suffered and some died to build the parts worth saving now. Apathy isn't going to fix anything.
bigyabai 2y ago
Well, this is hilarious timing. The EU certainly isn't going to retract their case, so now Apple products will be divided into "the ones with consumer regulations" and "the ones without". I hope Americans still have the faith they used to regarding Apple. Looks like we'll be trusting their judgement quite a bit going forwards.
- jjulius 2y ago
  >I hope Americans still have the faith they used to regarding Apple. Looks like we'll be trusting their judgement quite a bit going forwards. With stuff like this, why should we extend them trust?
  - jachee 2y ago
    I’m 95% sure that was a tongue-in-cheek statement.
- latexr 2y ago
  > I hope Americans still have the faith they used to regarding Apple. I hope the opposite. Faith is exploitable and leads to complacency and accepting excuses. I hope Americans do not have faith in Apple and that will either make them work harder to earn and keep that trust, or that it’ll lead to the mask coming down. Having trust in someone covertly deceiving you looks like the worst possible outcome.
- imglorp 2y ago
  Faith what now? Yes, it's decent product but... It's a $3T company. It got there by extracting the maximum possible from customers, app developers, and labor. They are well known for exploiting offshore workers [1] many times over. They force customers to upgrade off working hardware. They force customers to buy multiple devices when one could do the job. There are monopoly complaints world over. Customers who are happy with this have Stockholm Syndrome. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-apple-accused-of-violating-labour-laws-as-employees-at-iphone-factory-found-working-100-hours-of-overtime-being-punished-for-not-meeting-targets-incl-co-comments/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-ap...
9283409232 2y ago
I did not expect this because of all the big tech companies, Apple has been the most antagonistic to Trump. I actually thought the FTC was going to come down hard on Apple this administration has a measure of revenge. Is Trump doing Apple a solid here hoping they return the favor?
- coldpie 2y ago
  I'm confused how you came to this conclusion. Tim Cook donated millions of dollars to Trump personally, and Republican policies are extremely pro-big-tech so it makes sense that they would support each other. Anti-worker policies like this are exactly what I would have expected from this admin.
  - righthand 2y ago
    I wouldn't call Republican policies pro-big-tech considering they are behind the Tiktok ban. The policies are more anti-regulation, which big-tech wants right now.
    - coldpie 2y ago
      > I wouldn't call Republican policies pro-big-tech considering they are behind the Tiktok ban. The government stepping in and eliminating one of (American) big tech's biggest competitors is an extremely pro-(American)-big-tech move. > The policies are more anti-regulation, which big-tech wants right now. Well, yeah. Exactly. They're all on the same team. They want fewer barriers in the way of their quest for more personal power.
      - righthand 2y ago
        My point is that Republicans have anti-big-tech policies as well, not that interests don’t align.
        coldpie 2y ago
        I can't really think of any? Like sure, there's not going to be 100% agreement on every possible thing, but by and large Republican policies mean more power for big companies, and less oversight and consumer and employee protections. This is probably the most big-tech-friendly political environment the country has ever seen.
duxup 2y ago
It feels like every pick of this administration is just someone who has a motivation for corruption.
- nine_zeros 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - danaris 2y ago
    I mean, genuinely, the problem here is not that Trump is a convicted criminal. There are many people who are "convicted felons" who are far more ethical, intelligent, and possessed of better leadership qualities than he is. In particular, a) anyone convicted of nonviolent drug offenses should not be considered suspect in anything like the same way, and b) more generally, if you base your determinations of people on what's legal, you put yourself at the mercy of whatever the current government decides is acceptable. This government should make very clear why that is not the best idea in the world. No; the problem with Trump is the specific types of laws he broke. He broke laws around honesty, fair dealing, obstruction of justice, and, of course, the integrity of elections and our democratic process. He is, very plainly, opposed to democracy and the rule of law, preferring to replace it with cronyism and nepotism. That's why he's bad for the country, not simply "because he's a convicted criminal."
    - duxup 2y ago
      I think when people mention Trump and felon and other character issues, rapist, and so on ... it's really a reference to all of them adding up to who he is. Less so a commentary on his list of problems.
      - skeeter2020 2y ago
        I agree. If you could somehow describe him to a 5-yr-old (without psychologically scaring them) they would accurately sum up the zeitgeist as "he's a bad person".
    - 2y ago
rchaud 2y ago
Apple CEO Tim Cook made a personal $1 million "donation" to the Trump inauguration in January 2025: > Cook, a proud Alabama native, believes the inauguration is a great American tradition, and is donating to the inauguration in the spirit of unity, the sources said. https://www.axios.com/2025/01/03/tim-cook-apple-donate-1-million-trump-inauguration https://www.axios.com/2025/01/03/tim-cook-apple-donate-1-mil...
- jedberg 2y ago
  He was in a tough spot. I’m sure he doesn’t support the admin, but also he knows Apple needs tariff relief, and paying a “donation” to Trump is a good way to do that. He basically paid $1M to try and save thousands of jobs at Apple (and of course increase Apple’s value)
  - gosub100 2y ago
    Now extend that logic to everyone else, make everyone else a hero.
  - fumar 2y ago
    So for the greater good support the current administration with donations? Is that right?
    - righthand 2y ago
      For the greater good of Apple, not the people. Donating to authoritarians doesn’t benefit customers it benefits Apple.
  - pornel 2y ago
    It's incredible that paying fealty to the president is talked about so casually, and framed as just a normal and necessary thing to do. This is something that should be expected in an absolute monarchy, not a democracy.
    - freedomben 2y ago
curtisszmania 2y ago
[dead]
croes 2y ago
Drain the swamp for sure. At which point does the ordinary MAGA hat realize Trump isn't working for them?
- cssinate 2y ago
  It's gotta be tough! When you've made that your entire personality, it's hard to drop it. You've made friends, and perhaps lost others, by being this person. To just admit "I was wrong" potentially means alienating all of their friends and family. I'd imagine it's why so many people are still so vehemently flat earthers.
  - netsharc 2y ago
    And admitting it would mean bursting the bubble of "I'm an intelligent person." (and even "a good person"). It's easier to construct a virtual reality where you're still the one with the clue and everyone else are just utter morons. Also, with everything being written down nowadays (on your social media), changing your opinion means inviting mockery of past comments being dug up to be flung at you. Then again, the idiots in power seem to have developed a thick skin for this. A little over a month ago: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/g-s1-50605/conspiracy-theories-politics-family-alternate-realities https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/g-s1-50605/conspiracy-theorie... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43194910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43194910
    - ziddoap 2y ago
      >"changing your opinion means inviting mockery of past comments being dug up to be flung at you." This has to be one of the most damaging things about social media, in my opinion. I never really understood why changing your mind about something as you get new information is looked down on and mocked, but it is.
      - freedomben 2y ago
        Seriously. I look at people who made big transitions in opinions with more respect than I do people who have never changed. What are the odds that you'll be correct with every opinion you form the first time? It's time people starting learning Socratic Wisdom again
nova22033 2y ago
> Morgan Lewis, which specialises in representing management in labour disputes, has also acted for Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Amazon in their challenges against the agency. Of course
reverendsteveii 2y ago
[flagged]
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  Classical liberal and conservative ideologies have danced around between two poles for hundreds of years: force is right (might makes right) and one's ability to assert dominance in market/politics determines whether one is good/right/just... or.... principles determine justice, and the limits to power are key and important, constitutions, institutions, etc are there to enforce that. Guess which pole is winning. Again. Predictably. If you listen to his strongest supporters and those in his administration, they speak openly of it: the President is Right because the president is a Winner. Losers don't get to define what is Right. The President "won" not just the election, but "as a businessman" and an entertainer. So he is Right. Elon is Right because Elon is richest. America is Right because America is Most Powerful. Everyone else is a leech, a cuck, a sub, a beta, whatever. You either get on side, or you're a loser. And wrong. It's pointless to argue with these people on abstract principles. American liberals are so caught off guard by this because they've been assured their whole life that constitutions and courts are the foundation of stability and that those guard rails protect society. They don't. They're pieces of paper.
  - banqjls 2y ago
    > Losers don't get to define what is Right I mean, is this wrong? This is the literal reason we have elections, so the losers can’t tell us what to do.
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      Again, it comes down to how you define "Right" doesn't it? Clearly Christian theology and other strains of thought think otherwise... that there's an ethical/moral "rightness" which can be judged independent of what the powerful say. To be clear, I'm not arguing for that position. I just am pointing out in part why the Democrats and liberals are so pathetically unable to confront this situation. They thought they were part of a gentleman's club, and they could all take turns ruling according to a set of rules.
throw4847285 2y ago
> Society is saved just as often as the circle of its rulers contracts, as a more exclusive interest is maintained against a wider one. Every demand of the simplest bourgeois financial reform, of the most ordinary liberalism, of the most formal republicanism, of the most shallow democracy, is simultaneously castigated as an “attempt on society” and stigmatized as “socialism.” And finally the high priests of “religion and order” themselves are driven with kicks from their Pythian tripods, hauled out of their beds in the darkness of night, put in prison vans, thrown into dungeons or sent into exile; their temple is razed to the ground, their mouths are sealed, their pens broken, their law torn to pieces in the name of religion, of property, of the family, of order. Bourgeois fanatics for order are shot down on their balconies by mobs of drunken soldiers, their domestic sanctuaries profaned, their houses bombarded for amusement – in the name of property, of the family, of religion, and of order.
- d0mine 2y ago
  ^ The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Karl Marx
jp57 2y ago
A bit off-topic, but I find it weird that they use "group" to refer to Apple, instead of, say, "Company". Is this an FT thing? I kept thinking that they were talking about some larger group of Silicon Valley companies (i.e. "the Silicon Valley group"), but no, they just meant Apple.
- occamrazor 2y ago
  Apple group of companies, rather than a specific legal entity. A common distinction in financial journalism.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jp57 2y ago
    Pretty sure the labor disputes in question are with a specific legal entity, the US corporation, and not any of its subsidiaries.
- fulladder 2y ago
  Yeah, it's a Briticism. The FT is basically the Wall Street Journal of London, for those not familiar. I've been reading this paper for decades and they often use "group" for "company," "sack" instead of "fire," and many other delightfully English locutions.
  - teamonkey 2y ago
    In British English there are specific meanings. “Firing” is a general term for getting rid of staff. “Sacking” is getting rid of staff because they have done something wrong. “Group” can be used when talking about a large organisation as a whole, rather than a smaller component or subsidiary. So the FT is explicitly drawing attention to the argument that the people were fired because of something they did (attempting to unionise) and that that decision was made or sanctioned by Apple at the top level (not some regional CEO or middle manager).
jimnotgym 2y ago
Hypothetically, if the Trump regime comes to an end, this could be pretty bad for Apple, couldn't it?
throwaway5752 2y ago
Naked political corruption! Welcome to America in 2025. And Hacker News gestalt generally thinks politics is off topic - guess what happens to "disruptors" in a crony capitalistic system? Hacker News and YCombinator, more than anyone, should be at the vanguard of stopping this. It will set innovation back by a decade by the end of the current administration's term.
- rchaud 2y ago
  With tech and politics becoming more intermingled each day, it won't be long before we see articles like "[flagged]: The decline of Hacker News in the Era of Techno-Feudalism"
arunabha 2y ago
[flagged]
- mcv 2y ago
  Isn't Trump's treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, a Soros guy? I just learned that he apparently want to impose a new economic order on the world where every country basically becomes subservient to the US, but first they need crazy tariffs to make them all beg for access to the US market. I don't think it will work, and instead the global economy will move on without the US.
  - supportengineer 2y ago
    It's going to cause fracturing at every level. Countries will question their interdependence on each other. Then US states will reconsider their dependence on the federal government. The end result is a hyper-local world with only the minimum necessary trade between enclaves.
    - trhway 2y ago
      > The end result is a hyper-local world with only the minimum necessary trade between enclaves. It has been always unclear to me how Roman Empire turned into that multitude of feudal states and microstates. And i lived through USSR collapse, and that dissolution of great central power is still hard to get a mental hold on - you live in one paradigm and somehow you find yourself living in completely different one, whatever was truth and crime yesterday, today became crime and truth, and i'm having kind of deja vu these days here :)
    - fnordpiglet 2y ago
      A much more likely outcome is in the next election those who caused all the pain are denied power by those suffering the pain.
      - arcticbull 2y ago
        ... next election? Sorry but that's no longer a foregone conclusion.

275 points by belter 2y ago

the_real_cher 2y ago

[flagged]

biglyburrito 2y ago

https://archive.md/ia9vA https://archive.md/ia9vA

bananapub 2y ago

the headline is perhaps unclear, so from the article: > The US labour watchdog froze two cases against Apple days after Donald Trump nominated an attorney who represents the tech group to be the agency’s top legal official. > Trump last week nominated Crystal Carey, a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, to be the NLRB’s general counsel. She is listed in the agency’s records as an attorney acting in Apple’s defence in both cases against the Silicon Valley tech group. the level of just complete capture of the regulatory state by random rich companies is amazing, even beyond trump's first time bullshit like "Appoint the CEO of Exxon to be Secretary of State"

yapyap 2y ago
Thank you for the clarification. Ugh, knowing you have a clearly malicious actor as top dog of the country -_- it can’t get more frustrating. Except for the fact that a big part of the country supports it as well. I do wonder if they even believe in him wholeheartedly or just put on an act cause they’re in too deep and don’t want to give the people who said they were making the wrong choice the “satisfaction” of admitting they were right.
- pasc1878 2y ago
  It is no it an act it is "clean the swamp" that it is get rid of all the controls that the bureaucrats in Washington do. The reason a lot of them exist is to protect the public is probably lost on the public but fully understood by the ones doing it.
  - NickC25 2y ago
    Putting a bunch of foxes to guard the henhouse isn't cleaning the swamp. It's replacing the old swamp, which was nakedly self-interested, with a new swamp, which is also nakedly self-interested. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
whycome 2y ago
Cases of Apples
JKCalhoun 2y ago
Increasingly it looks like there is a strata of the private-jet set that take care of one another, keep the rest of us under their thumb. I can't think this is going to end well for any of the parties.
- noitpmeder 2y ago
  Who's going to stop them?
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    Sounds of guillotine being sharpened...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
dralley 2y ago
At this point I'm practically begging for corrupt-but-competent assholes over the total clowns that are actually running the show this administration. Steve Mnuchin (especially) and Rex Tillerson were two of the best appointments last time around. These guys have no redeeming value. And they're far more brazen about the corruption, too.

guerrilla 2y ago

The US has been corrupt for a long time with its revolving door but it's getting so blatant that frankly it's shocking. As a ruling class, you want to at least pretend to have some illusion of fairness. It's starting to looking some backwater Balkan nation or something.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
I've come to the conclusion though that I prefer that it is now out in the open. There's a better likelihood heads will eventually roll (as a figure of speech).
- rchaud 2y ago
  I'd say you're half right. Heads do roll in authoritarian regimes.
- deltaburnt 2y ago
  Pessimistically I think it's more out in the open because they think it won't catch up to them.
- seivan 2y ago
  [dead]
9283409232 2y ago
Why pretend any more? You go full mask off and half the country still cheers you. Trump could get on stage, say "there will be no more elections and I am now king" and half the country will be okay with it while the other half puts their hands in their pocket and feigns helplessness.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  His approval rating was 30% before the markets crashed. The only people supporting Trump are his cultists and the congressional Democrats.

resource_waste 2y ago

"Right is only a question among equals, for the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer as they must." We shouldnt expect companies to be Moral. We shouldn't expect the government to be Just. The sooner we realize how politics actually work, the smarter we can make personal decisions that comply with realities. There is no reason to waste time and effort. The only people who can topple Apple are going to be major players, not the multitude.

cowpig 2y ago
Couldn't disagree more. Our expectations tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Expect amoral companies and you get amoral companies. Expect an unjust government and you get an unjust government.
- bigyabai 2y ago
  > Our expectations tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Separating an expected outcome from the factual evidence and artifacts of a situation is arguably why the justice system exists at all. Politics isn't Byrne's The Secret, you can't materialize good leadership by ignoring every issue and praying to a higher power.
  - yxwvut 2y ago
    He’s right though - indifference to corruption or malfeasance begets corruption and malfeasance. Holding your government and companies to a higher standard of behavior is both possible and necessary for a functional, durable nation. Sure, you can enforce corporate morality via regulation or governmental morality via the courts or ethics committees, but that completely ignores the concept of soft power. Laws can be broken faster than they can be enforced.
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    > you can't materialize good leadership by ignoring every issue and praying to a higher power. Indeed. We must be vigilant to acquire and maintain our freedoms and good governance. People suffered and some died to build the parts worth saving now. Apathy isn't going to fix anything.

bigyabai 2y ago

Well, this is hilarious timing. The EU certainly isn't going to retract their case, so now Apple products will be divided into "the ones with consumer regulations" and "the ones without". I hope Americans still have the faith they used to regarding Apple. Looks like we'll be trusting their judgement quite a bit going forwards.

jjulius 2y ago
>I hope Americans still have the faith they used to regarding Apple. Looks like we'll be trusting their judgement quite a bit going forwards. With stuff like this, why should we extend them trust?
- jachee 2y ago
  I’m 95% sure that was a tongue-in-cheek statement.
latexr 2y ago
> I hope Americans still have the faith they used to regarding Apple. I hope the opposite. Faith is exploitable and leads to complacency and accepting excuses. I hope Americans do not have faith in Apple and that will either make them work harder to earn and keep that trust, or that it’ll lead to the mask coming down. Having trust in someone covertly deceiving you looks like the worst possible outcome.
imglorp 2y ago
Faith what now? Yes, it's decent product but... It's a $3T company. It got there by extracting the maximum possible from customers, app developers, and labor. They are well known for exploiting offshore workers [1] many times over. They force customers to upgrade off working hardware. They force customers to buy multiple devices when one could do the job. There are monopoly complaints world over. Customers who are happy with this have Stockholm Syndrome. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-apple-accused-of-violating-labour-laws-as-employees-at-iphone-factory-found-working-100-hours-of-overtime-being-punished-for-not-meeting-targets-incl-co-comments/ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-ap...

9283409232 2y ago

I did not expect this because of all the big tech companies, Apple has been the most antagonistic to Trump. I actually thought the FTC was going to come down hard on Apple this administration has a measure of revenge. Is Trump doing Apple a solid here hoping they return the favor?

coldpie 2y ago
I'm confused how you came to this conclusion. Tim Cook donated millions of dollars to Trump personally, and Republican policies are extremely pro-big-tech so it makes sense that they would support each other. Anti-worker policies like this are exactly what I would have expected from this admin.
- righthand 2y ago
  I wouldn't call Republican policies pro-big-tech considering they are behind the Tiktok ban. The policies are more anti-regulation, which big-tech wants right now.
  - coldpie 2y ago
    > I wouldn't call Republican policies pro-big-tech considering they are behind the Tiktok ban. The government stepping in and eliminating one of (American) big tech's biggest competitors is an extremely pro-(American)-big-tech move. > The policies are more anti-regulation, which big-tech wants right now. Well, yeah. Exactly. They're all on the same team. They want fewer barriers in the way of their quest for more personal power.
    - righthand 2y ago
      My point is that Republicans have anti-big-tech policies as well, not that interests don’t align.
      - coldpie 2y ago
        I can't really think of any? Like sure, there's not going to be 100% agreement on every possible thing, but by and large Republican policies mean more power for big companies, and less oversight and consumer and employee protections. This is probably the most big-tech-friendly political environment the country has ever seen.

duxup 2y ago

It feels like every pick of this administration is just someone who has a motivation for corruption.

nine_zeros 2y ago
[flagged]
- danaris 2y ago
  I mean, genuinely, the problem here is not that Trump is a convicted criminal. There are many people who are "convicted felons" who are far more ethical, intelligent, and possessed of better leadership qualities than he is. In particular, a) anyone convicted of nonviolent drug offenses should not be considered suspect in anything like the same way, and b) more generally, if you base your determinations of people on what's legal, you put yourself at the mercy of whatever the current government decides is acceptable. This government should make very clear why that is not the best idea in the world. No; the problem with Trump is the specific types of laws he broke. He broke laws around honesty, fair dealing, obstruction of justice, and, of course, the integrity of elections and our democratic process. He is, very plainly, opposed to democracy and the rule of law, preferring to replace it with cronyism and nepotism. That's why he's bad for the country, not simply "because he's a convicted criminal."
  - duxup 2y ago
    I think when people mention Trump and felon and other character issues, rapist, and so on ... it's really a reference to all of them adding up to who he is. Less so a commentary on his list of problems.
    - skeeter2020 2y ago
      I agree. If you could somehow describe him to a 5-yr-old (without psychologically scaring them) they would accurately sum up the zeitgeist as "he's a bad person".
  - 2y ago

rchaud 2y ago

Apple CEO Tim Cook made a personal $1 million "donation" to the Trump inauguration in January 2025: > Cook, a proud Alabama native, believes the inauguration is a great American tradition, and is donating to the inauguration in the spirit of unity, the sources said. https://www.axios.com/2025/01/03/tim-cook-apple-donate-1-million-trump-inauguration https://www.axios.com/2025/01/03/tim-cook-apple-donate-1-mil...

jedberg 2y ago
He was in a tough spot. I’m sure he doesn’t support the admin, but also he knows Apple needs tariff relief, and paying a “donation” to Trump is a good way to do that. He basically paid $1M to try and save thousands of jobs at Apple (and of course increase Apple’s value)
- gosub100 2y ago
  Now extend that logic to everyone else, make everyone else a hero.
- fumar 2y ago
  So for the greater good support the current administration with donations? Is that right?
  - righthand 2y ago
    For the greater good of Apple, not the people. Donating to authoritarians doesn’t benefit customers it benefits Apple.
- pornel 2y ago
  It's incredible that paying fealty to the president is talked about so casually, and framed as just a normal and necessary thing to do. This is something that should be expected in an absolute monarchy, not a democracy.
  - freedomben 2y ago

curtisszmania 2y ago

[dead]

croes 2y ago

Drain the swamp for sure. At which point does the ordinary MAGA hat realize Trump isn't working for them?

cssinate 2y ago
It's gotta be tough! When you've made that your entire personality, it's hard to drop it. You've made friends, and perhaps lost others, by being this person. To just admit "I was wrong" potentially means alienating all of their friends and family. I'd imagine it's why so many people are still so vehemently flat earthers.
- netsharc 2y ago
  And admitting it would mean bursting the bubble of "I'm an intelligent person." (and even "a good person"). It's easier to construct a virtual reality where you're still the one with the clue and everyone else are just utter morons. Also, with everything being written down nowadays (on your social media), changing your opinion means inviting mockery of past comments being dug up to be flung at you. Then again, the idiots in power seem to have developed a thick skin for this. A little over a month ago: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/g-s1-50605/conspiracy-theories-politics-family-alternate-realities https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/g-s1-50605/conspiracy-theorie... / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43194910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43194910
  - ziddoap 2y ago
    >"changing your opinion means inviting mockery of past comments being dug up to be flung at you." This has to be one of the most damaging things about social media, in my opinion. I never really understood why changing your mind about something as you get new information is looked down on and mocked, but it is.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      Seriously. I look at people who made big transitions in opinions with more respect than I do people who have never changed. What are the odds that you'll be correct with every opinion you form the first time? It's time people starting learning Socratic Wisdom again

nova22033 2y ago

> Morgan Lewis, which specialises in representing management in labour disputes, has also acted for Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Amazon in their challenges against the agency. Of course

reverendsteveii 2y ago

[flagged]

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
Classical liberal and conservative ideologies have danced around between two poles for hundreds of years: force is right (might makes right) and one's ability to assert dominance in market/politics determines whether one is good/right/just... or.... principles determine justice, and the limits to power are key and important, constitutions, institutions, etc are there to enforce that. Guess which pole is winning. Again. Predictably. If you listen to his strongest supporters and those in his administration, they speak openly of it: the President is Right because the president is a Winner. Losers don't get to define what is Right. The President "won" not just the election, but "as a businessman" and an entertainer. So he is Right. Elon is Right because Elon is richest. America is Right because America is Most Powerful. Everyone else is a leech, a cuck, a sub, a beta, whatever. You either get on side, or you're a loser. And wrong. It's pointless to argue with these people on abstract principles. American liberals are so caught off guard by this because they've been assured their whole life that constitutions and courts are the foundation of stability and that those guard rails protect society. They don't. They're pieces of paper.
- banqjls 2y ago
  > Losers don't get to define what is Right I mean, is this wrong? This is the literal reason we have elections, so the losers can’t tell us what to do.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    Again, it comes down to how you define "Right" doesn't it? Clearly Christian theology and other strains of thought think otherwise... that there's an ethical/moral "rightness" which can be judged independent of what the powerful say. To be clear, I'm not arguing for that position. I just am pointing out in part why the Democrats and liberals are so pathetically unable to confront this situation. They thought they were part of a gentleman's club, and they could all take turns ruling according to a set of rules.

throw4847285 2y ago

> Society is saved just as often as the circle of its rulers contracts, as a more exclusive interest is maintained against a wider one. Every demand of the simplest bourgeois financial reform, of the most ordinary liberalism, of the most formal republicanism, of the most shallow democracy, is simultaneously castigated as an “attempt on society” and stigmatized as “socialism.” And finally the high priests of “religion and order” themselves are driven with kicks from their Pythian tripods, hauled out of their beds in the darkness of night, put in prison vans, thrown into dungeons or sent into exile; their temple is razed to the ground, their mouths are sealed, their pens broken, their law torn to pieces in the name of religion, of property, of the family, of order. Bourgeois fanatics for order are shot down on their balconies by mobs of drunken soldiers, their domestic sanctuaries profaned, their houses bombarded for amusement – in the name of property, of the family, of religion, and of order.

d0mine 2y ago
^ The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Karl Marx

jp57 2y ago

A bit off-topic, but I find it weird that they use "group" to refer to Apple, instead of, say, "Company". Is this an FT thing? I kept thinking that they were talking about some larger group of Silicon Valley companies (i.e. "the Silicon Valley group"), but no, they just meant Apple.

occamrazor 2y ago
Apple group of companies, rather than a specific legal entity. A common distinction in financial journalism.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jp57 2y ago
  Pretty sure the labor disputes in question are with a specific legal entity, the US corporation, and not any of its subsidiaries.
fulladder 2y ago
Yeah, it's a Briticism. The FT is basically the Wall Street Journal of London, for those not familiar. I've been reading this paper for decades and they often use "group" for "company," "sack" instead of "fire," and many other delightfully English locutions.
- teamonkey 2y ago
  In British English there are specific meanings. “Firing” is a general term for getting rid of staff. “Sacking” is getting rid of staff because they have done something wrong. “Group” can be used when talking about a large organisation as a whole, rather than a smaller component or subsidiary. So the FT is explicitly drawing attention to the argument that the people were fired because of something they did (attempting to unionise) and that that decision was made or sanctioned by Apple at the top level (not some regional CEO or middle manager).

jimnotgym 2y ago

Hypothetically, if the Trump regime comes to an end, this could be pretty bad for Apple, couldn't it?

throwaway5752 2y ago

Naked political corruption! Welcome to America in 2025. And Hacker News gestalt generally thinks politics is off topic - guess what happens to "disruptors" in a crony capitalistic system? Hacker News and YCombinator, more than anyone, should be at the vanguard of stopping this. It will set innovation back by a decade by the end of the current administration's term.

rchaud 2y ago
With tech and politics becoming more intermingled each day, it won't be long before we see articles like "[flagged]: The decline of Hacker News in the Era of Techno-Feudalism"

arunabha 2y ago

[flagged]

mcv 2y ago
Isn't Trump's treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, a Soros guy? I just learned that he apparently want to impose a new economic order on the world where every country basically becomes subservient to the US, but first they need crazy tariffs to make them all beg for access to the US market. I don't think it will work, and instead the global economy will move on without the US.
- supportengineer 2y ago
  It's going to cause fracturing at every level. Countries will question their interdependence on each other. Then US states will reconsider their dependence on the federal government. The end result is a hyper-local world with only the minimum necessary trade between enclaves.
  - trhway 2y ago
    > The end result is a hyper-local world with only the minimum necessary trade between enclaves. It has been always unclear to me how Roman Empire turned into that multitude of feudal states and microstates. And i lived through USSR collapse, and that dissolution of great central power is still hard to get a mental hold on - you live in one paradigm and somehow you find yourself living in completely different one, whatever was truth and crime yesterday, today became crime and truth, and i'm having kind of deja vu these days here :)
  - fnordpiglet 2y ago
    A much more likely outcome is in the next election those who caused all the pain are denied power by those suffering the pain.
    - arcticbull 2y ago
      ... next election? Sorry but that's no longer a foregone conclusion.