4 ms·

Same reason we bailed out the auto industry: nvidia and co now comprise 1/4 of our goddamned economy, and are thusly wearing a C4 vest in the middle of our mone

Same reason we bailed out the auto industry: nvidia and co now comprise 1/4 of our goddamned economy, and are thusly wearing a C4 vest in the middle of our money system and threatening to blow it to bits if we don't pay up. The most rational economic system strikes again. The rich get richer. Everyone else gets fucked. Socialism for corporations, capitalism for the workers. Edit: upon further thought, this has less in common with the bailout of the auto industry, and far more in common with the 2008 housing crash, and subsequent bailouts which went to the bankers, of course, while workers lost their homes in droves. The meat of my point remains unchanged though. I just sometimes forget which once-in-a-lifetime economic collapse is which, side effect of being alive right now.

miltonlost 1y ago
At least auto industry produced tangible things of value (even though america's car culture is itself a problem). AI firms can't even point to that
dwa3592 1y ago
"Socialism for corporations, capitalism for the workers." ../n this was in my mind but couldn't phrase it. thank you
ungovernableCat 1y ago
Yep. An American is free to pay $80k for a Tesla while the rest of the world buys a BYD for $25k An American is free to pay $100 for Insulin while the rest of the world pays $20. So too will an American pay for OpenAI while they start blocking foreign competitors from the market "for security reasons" the more the government gets entangled into the scheme.
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  There’s a difference between Americans paying $80K and getting an overpriced car in return and paying a ton of money to OpenAI and getting nothing in return.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    People say this, but I disagree. It's all one big slippery slope of zero value - the more a company can charge you for fewer features, the more they profit. The parent is correct to identify that a lack of free market controls are what's destroying us here. You wouldn't have to pay out the nose like this if the fed didn't build and enforce monopolies for fun. But now we're here, after 20 years of Google's AdSense monopoly and Apple's App Store monopoly, throwing stones at OpenAI for ruining the fun. Feels like we deserve this, everyone ignored the warning signs and pushed us way up the corporate escalation ladder.
  - gizajob 1y ago
    What do you mean, nothing? They have an app that they can ask to read wikipedia for them and turn it into bullet points.
- mvdtnz 1y ago
  What if Americans started voting in their own interests.
  - karmakurtisaani 1y ago
    Either that or hating the minorities, so... yeah.
  - Yizahi 1y ago
    First, Americans need voting fixed. How can anyone vote for reasonable alternative in the archaic first past the post system, where a slight majority takes all the votes of every voter? It prevents any new small party to grow into bigger party by actually working as a minority in the Senate/Congress.
lokar 1y ago
The stock market is not the economy
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- quantified 1y ago
  You are right. It is a lot of your retirement funding, though. There is a lot of debt involved here too. Crash the companies, enough stakeholders get burnt, money gets sucked out of everything else.
  - Yeul 1y ago
    How many Americans even have money for retirement? It reminds me of 1990s Russia were the smart people didn't get caught up in capitalism casino and just kept tending their vegetable garden like they had done for centuries. To quote Bob Dylan "If you ain't got nothing you got nothing to lose"
    - lokar 1y ago
      About half of Americans have zero retirement savings
      - bdangubic 1y ago
        this while factually correct probably requires age distribution. I did not have a penny saved for retirement until I hit mid-to-late-30's. I am 50 now and can retire comfortably today
        lokar 1y ago
        The median for ages 45-54 is 115,000, for 55-64 185,000
      - quantified 1y ago
        Virtually no one under the age of 18 has any. So that's a lot of Americans. Should they have any?
cindyllm 1y ago
[dead]
frotaur 1y ago
Genuine question : When companies are bailed out by the taxpayer, why can't we then give ownership of the company to the taxpayer? Effectively 'buying' the company to save it, instead of just gifting it money for it to survive. Is there a reason not to make the taxpayer (or government) the main shareholder after the bailout?
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  > Genuine question : When companies are bailed out by the taxpayer, why can't we then give ownership of the company to the taxpayer? tHaT'S sOcIAlIsM Though ironically for the first time ever, the people shouting that would actually be correct. Kind of. If you mean in a broad "is this possible" sense though, sure, absolutely. Entities owned in part or in whole by the state are not uncommon, but anytime such things are proposed in the US, the right loses it's fucking mind. Edit: hit the comment rate wall. > I see! But still, I don't get in what sense it is more socialist that just having people actually buy the company to save it (instead of just saving it 'for free'). If anything it makes it more capitalist if the taxpayers invest in the bailout, instead of just giving it away! Because socialism isn't an economic system in American politics, it's a scary word that the Russians and CHYNA are. It's also completely interoperable with communism because our conservative party here has long since abandoned anything resembling reality, and even when they were here with us, they didn't know the difference between the two. Doing it this way is capitalist because it's American. Doing it the other way is evil because it's socialist/communist, like the Russians/Chinese/North Koreans do with the lot of this rhetoric absolutely drowning in racism and nationalism. Mind you, all those countries have issues, absolutely. I'm just saying a conservative with a gun to their head couldn't actually explain those issues, they're just evil because they're not American. [ insert eagle screech here ] Honestly the best distillation is: It's Freedom when private citizens run things, and it's Communism when the government does. The fact that the government sometimes has to give rich private citizens a shit ton of money to keep things afloat is not reflected upon. If you try and analyze it through a lens of what these words actually mean, yeah it makes no goddamn sense at all.
  - frotaur 1y ago
    But not really right? It could happen in the market, company A chooses to bailout company B by buying it and investing money to keep it afloat. Except company A in this case is the government. No? Why is it that when it is the government doing this action, it has to gift the money instead of potentially profiting from it? Edit : just saw the edit. I see! But still, I don't get in what sense it is more socialist, instead of just saving the companing 'for free', people actually buy (forcefully invest?) in the company to save it. If anything it makes it more capitalist if the taxpayers invest in the bailout, instead of just giving it away!

miltonlost 1y ago

At least auto industry produced tangible things of value (even though america's car culture is itself a problem). AI firms can't even point to that

dwa3592 1y ago

"Socialism for corporations, capitalism for the workers." ../n this was in my mind but couldn't phrase it. thank you

ungovernableCat 1y ago

Yep. An American is free to pay $80k for a Tesla while the rest of the world buys a BYD for $25k An American is free to pay $100 for Insulin while the rest of the world pays $20. So too will an American pay for OpenAI while they start blocking foreign competitors from the market "for security reasons" the more the government gets entangled into the scheme.

darth_avocado 1y ago
There’s a difference between Americans paying $80K and getting an overpriced car in return and paying a ton of money to OpenAI and getting nothing in return.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  People say this, but I disagree. It's all one big slippery slope of zero value - the more a company can charge you for fewer features, the more they profit. The parent is correct to identify that a lack of free market controls are what's destroying us here. You wouldn't have to pay out the nose like this if the fed didn't build and enforce monopolies for fun. But now we're here, after 20 years of Google's AdSense monopoly and Apple's App Store monopoly, throwing stones at OpenAI for ruining the fun. Feels like we deserve this, everyone ignored the warning signs and pushed us way up the corporate escalation ladder.
- gizajob 1y ago
  What do you mean, nothing? They have an app that they can ask to read wikipedia for them and turn it into bullet points.
mvdtnz 1y ago
What if Americans started voting in their own interests.
- karmakurtisaani 1y ago
  Either that or hating the minorities, so... yeah.
- Yizahi 1y ago
  First, Americans need voting fixed. How can anyone vote for reasonable alternative in the archaic first past the post system, where a slight majority takes all the votes of every voter? It prevents any new small party to grow into bigger party by actually working as a minority in the Senate/Congress.

lokar 1y ago

The stock market is not the economy

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
quantified 1y ago
You are right. It is a lot of your retirement funding, though. There is a lot of debt involved here too. Crash the companies, enough stakeholders get burnt, money gets sucked out of everything else.
- Yeul 1y ago
  How many Americans even have money for retirement? It reminds me of 1990s Russia were the smart people didn't get caught up in capitalism casino and just kept tending their vegetable garden like they had done for centuries. To quote Bob Dylan "If you ain't got nothing you got nothing to lose"
  - lokar 1y ago
    About half of Americans have zero retirement savings
    - bdangubic 1y ago
      this while factually correct probably requires age distribution. I did not have a penny saved for retirement until I hit mid-to-late-30's. I am 50 now and can retire comfortably today
      - lokar 1y ago
        The median for ages 45-54 is 115,000, for 55-64 185,000
    - quantified 1y ago
      Virtually no one under the age of 18 has any. So that's a lot of Americans. Should they have any?

cindyllm 1y ago

[dead]

frotaur 1y ago

Genuine question : When companies are bailed out by the taxpayer, why can't we then give ownership of the company to the taxpayer? Effectively 'buying' the company to save it, instead of just gifting it money for it to survive. Is there a reason not to make the taxpayer (or government) the main shareholder after the bailout?

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
> Genuine question : When companies are bailed out by the taxpayer, why can't we then give ownership of the company to the taxpayer? tHaT'S sOcIAlIsM Though ironically for the first time ever, the people shouting that would actually be correct. Kind of. If you mean in a broad "is this possible" sense though, sure, absolutely. Entities owned in part or in whole by the state are not uncommon, but anytime such things are proposed in the US, the right loses it's fucking mind. Edit: hit the comment rate wall. > I see! But still, I don't get in what sense it is more socialist that just having people actually buy the company to save it (instead of just saving it 'for free'). If anything it makes it more capitalist if the taxpayers invest in the bailout, instead of just giving it away! Because socialism isn't an economic system in American politics, it's a scary word that the Russians and CHYNA are. It's also completely interoperable with communism because our conservative party here has long since abandoned anything resembling reality, and even when they were here with us, they didn't know the difference between the two. Doing it this way is capitalist because it's American. Doing it the other way is evil because it's socialist/communist, like the Russians/Chinese/North Koreans do with the lot of this rhetoric absolutely drowning in racism and nationalism. Mind you, all those countries have issues, absolutely. I'm just saying a conservative with a gun to their head couldn't actually explain those issues, they're just evil because they're not American. [ insert eagle screech here ] Honestly the best distillation is: It's Freedom when private citizens run things, and it's Communism when the government does. The fact that the government sometimes has to give rich private citizens a shit ton of money to keep things afloat is not reflected upon. If you try and analyze it through a lens of what these words actually mean, yeah it makes no goddamn sense at all.
- frotaur 1y ago
  But not really right? It could happen in the market, company A chooses to bailout company B by buying it and investing money to keep it afloat. Except company A in this case is the government. No? Why is it that when it is the government doing this action, it has to gift the money instead of potentially profiting from it? Edit : just saw the edit. I see! But still, I don't get in what sense it is more socialist, instead of just saving the companing 'for free', people actually buy (forcefully invest?) in the company to save it. If anything it makes it more capitalist if the taxpayers invest in the bailout, instead of just giving it away!