• 71 Posts
  • 19 Comments
Joined 2 months ago
Cake day: March 29th, 2025
  • dwazou@lemm.eetoNews@lemmy.world•Children die as USAID aid cuts snap a lifeline for the world’s most malnourished
    14·
    13 hours ago

    USAID spent $38.1 billion in fiscal year 2023. (1)

    Sounds like a lot of money, right? Well, actually no. It’s less than 1% of the US budget. In 2024, total federal spending was $6.8 trillion. (2).

    To give you a perspective:

    Since October 7th, the United States spent $17.9 billion dollars on military aid to Israel (3). Israel is a rich country with universal healthcare (4).

    US millionaires and billionaires evade more than $150 billion a year in taxes, according to the head of the IRS. (5). Gabriel Zucman, a highly respected economist (6) came to a similar conclusion. In a recent paper, Zucman found the richest americans evade taxes on 25% of their income (7)

    According to leaked tax returns, in 2016 and 2017, Donald Trump paid $750 in taxes. And he paid no income tax at all in 10 of the last 15 years. (8) (9).

    The US is not in financial trouble because of vaccines to kids in Africa. Period.

    Elon Musk claims USAID employees are thieves/scum. He keeps accusing them of fraud on his social media X. That’s another lie.

    In 2024, the Office of the Inspector General audited USAID at the request of Congress. The 70 page audit report found no evidence of fraud.

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoNews@lemmy.world•Bill Gates to give away $200 billion by 2045, accuses Musk of harming world's poor
    131·
    11 days ago

    Bill Gates is probably one of the best billionaires. But it is very important that we all remember how he ended up with $200 billion dollars. Predatory monopolistic behavior.

    Everyone should carefully read this 1999 article that I found in the archives of the New York Times.

    How Microsoft Sought Friends In Washington - Nov. 7, 1999

    Twenty months ago, Representative Billy Tauzin walked into the office of William H. Gates 3rd, chairman of Microsoft, bearing a 10 inch by 10 inch white box and a warning.

    Mr. Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana and the chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the telecommunications industry, placed the box on Mr. Gates’s desk. Inside was a lemon meringue pie, a reminder of another pie that had been thrown in Mr. Gates’s face several weeks earlier by a Microsoft critic. The message to Mr. Gates, the richest man on earth and the leader of the digital world, was blunt: You need to make friends in Washington.

    Mr. Gates apparently took Mr. Tauzin’s message to heart – with a vengeance. While Microsoft and its executives contributed a relatively modest $60,000 to Republican Party committees in 1997, those contributions shot up to $470,000 as part of the company’s overall political contribution of $1.3 million in 1998. The 1998 figure included donations to political candidates, with the bulk of the money going to Republicans. This year, the company’s contributions of nearly $600,000 have been more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission records.

    Mr. Gates and his top lieutenants have made dozens of trips to Washington, cultivating powerful figures in both parties and hiring some of the city’s priciest lobbyists. Microsoft has retained Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee; Vic Fazio, a former Democratic congressman from California; Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota; Tom Downey, a former Democratic congressman from New York and a close friend of Vice President Al Gore; Mark Fabiani, former special counsel to the Clinton White House; and Kerry Knott, former chief of staff to Representative Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader.

    Microsoft has also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to research groups, trade groups, polling operations, public relations concerns and grass-roots organizations. It has financed op-ed pieces and full-page newspaper advertisements, and mounted a lobbying effort against an increase in the Justice Department’s antitrust enforcement budget.

    In June, Mr. Gates met for lunch with the Republican leaders of the House in the small whip’s room off the House chamber. They discussed Microsoft’s public policy agenda, ranging from exports of encryption software to Internet privacy to antitrust actions, said several participants at the meeting. Mr. Knott, now a top official in Microsoft’s Washington office, attended the session.

    Eight days later, Mr. Armey introduced what he called his ‘‘e-Contract,’’ a list of Republican legislative initiatives that pointedly adopted Microsoft’s view of the role of government antitrust actions, like the one that now threatens to dismantle Microsoft.

    Microsoft has hired as two former heads of the Justice Department’s antitrust division and a dozen or more prominent academics and writers, who publish articles and give interviews advocating Microsoft’s position.

    Among them are Charles Rule, director of the Justice Department’s antitrust division in the Bush administration, and Paul Rothstein, a professor of law at Georgetown University and frequent network and cable-television commentator.

    Another Microsoft move on Capitol Hill drew criticism for heavy-handedness. Its lobbying to trim the antitrust division’s budget brought a flurry of editorial condemnation. The Washington Post said Microsoft’s actions were ‘‘a comical caricature’’ of a company trying to bully its way through Washington.‘’

    One Justice Department official said, ‘‘Even the mob doesn’t try to whack a prosecutor during a trial.’’

    https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/07/us/us-versus-microsoft-the-strategy-how-microsoft-sought-friends-in-washington.html

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoTechnology@lemmy.world•Apple Watch Shipments’ Continuous DeclineEnglish
    7·
    11 days ago

    As much as I dislike Windows and smartphones the current nature of the world is that that are all necessities for most people.

    I was told Linux is incredibly difficult to use, Windows is so much safer/better.

    Honestly, I used to believe this, until I installed Linux. Well, I was just lied to. I very easily installed everything that I need. My Linux distro works just fine. I can even play my favorite games. To this day, I haven’t moved back to Windows. The Microsoft empire is based on aggressive lobbying and advertising, not on superior product quality.

    Billionaire-owned multinational corporations spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on advertising. They have entire teams that study consumer psychology. The goal of advertising is to undermine human rationality.

    If humans were purely rational, why would they waste billions on advertising ?

    They would just say “here are our products. Here are our prices. Buy them if you want to”.

    Smartphones are also the easiest way to access your banking services with plenty of banks offering online banking now.

    I don’t need to access my banking services 24/7. I have cash and a debit card that does the job. If I need to see my bank account, I just use my computer.

    What you need and what you think you need are not the same things.

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoTechnology@lemmy.world•Apple Watch Shipments’ Continuous DeclineEnglish
    117·
    11 days ago

    Wonderful news. That means less electronic junk to recycle, much less pollution.

    I’m actually quiet happy to own a dumbphone and no smartwatch. Having a powerful Linux laptop is great, but I came to the conclusion humans need low-tech for their mental health. Not having tech around me helps me focus, go on nice walks, write what’s on my mind and read books. I just feel happier.

    If you aren’t careful, the things you own can end up owning you.

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoTechnology@lemmy.world•(Faulty) Tech Utopias provide a convenient justification for ignoring the real problems of todayEnglish
    19·
    22 days ago

    San Francisco is the city with the most tech engineers and software developers. It’s the US city with the most tech entrepreneurs. The roads are full of robot cars. You see people walking around with tech glasses and weird devices. You could throw a rock in the street and it will probably land on some tech guy.

    It’s a complete disaster. Homeless people everywhere. Families unable to see a doctor or a dentist. Desperate men in the streets, injecting themselves with drugs. Luxury private schools where smartphones are banned and professors give tips to get into Stanford. Poor public schools for ordinary kids.

    What kind of Utopia is this? This is not utopia. It’s a nightmare.

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoTechnology@lemmy.world•Lenovo Cuts the Windows Tax and offers Cheaper Laptops with Linux Pre-installedEnglish
    462·
    23 days ago

    Microsoft essentially created a private sales tax on every computer sold in the world. This is how Bill Gates became extraordinary wealthy.

    The US should have won that anti-trust case. If you want to understand how Gates saved Microsoft, read this 1998 investigation that I found in newspaper archives :

    HOW MICROSOFT SOUGHT TO GAIN ALLIES AND INFLUENCE IN WASHINGTON

    WASHINGTON – Twenty months ago, Rep. Billy Tauzin walked into the office of Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, bearing a 10-inch-by-10-inch white box and a warning.

    Tauzin, R-La., the chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the telecommunications industry, placed the box on Gates’ desk. Inside was a lemon meringue pie, a reminder of another pie that had been thrown in Gates’ face several weeks earlier by a Microsoft critic.

    The message to Gates, the richest man on earth and the leader of the digital world, was blunt: You need to make friends in Washington.

    At the time of Tauzin’s visit in early 1998, the Justice Department was contemplating filing its antitrust suit against Microsoft.

    “I told him he was being demonized,” Tauzin said in an interview. “I said he had to win the antitrust case in court, but there was also the court of public opinion.”

    Gates apparently took Tauzin’s message to heart – with a vengeance. While Microsoft and its executives contributed a relatively modest $60,000 to Republican Party committees in 1997, the company’s contributions in 1998 shot up to $470,000 as part of its overall political contribution of $1.3 million. The 1998 figure included donations to political candidates, with the bulk of the money going to Republicans.

    This year, the company’s contributions of nearly $600,000 have been more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission records.

    Microsoft’s lobbying, focused on swaying Congress and creating a generally friendlier climate in Washington, has had little if any effect on the current antitrust litigation in U.S. District Court, where the company was dealt a major setback on Friday by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s initial findings that it had used monopoly power to stifle competition.

    Rather, the lobbying campaign is a long-term strategic push intended to alter the political terrain where future power struggles will be fought.

    Campaign donations were just one element of Microsoft’s multimillion-dollar effort to win allies in Washington. The company also poured millions of dollars into an aggressive public relations and political offensive, hiring an armada of well-connected lobbyists and underwriting the work of research groups, academics and consultants who have made arguments sympathetic to Microsoft’s defense in the antitrust case.

    The company’s lobbying budget nearly doubled in 1998 from the previous year, to $3.74 million, according to the company’s lobbying disclosure reports, and is on pace this year to significantly surpass that figure.

    Gates and his top lieutenants have made dozens of trips to Washington, cultivating powerful figures in both parties and hiring some of the city’s priciest lobbyists.

    Microsoft has retained Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee; Vic Fazio, a former Democratic congressman from California; Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota; Tom Downey, a former Democratic congressman from New York and a close friend of Vice President Al Gore; Mark Fabiani, former special counsel to the Clinton White House; and Kerry Knott, former chief of staff to Rep. Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader.

    Microsoft has also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to research groups, trade groups, polling operations, public relations concerns and grass-roots organizations. It has financed op-ed pieces and full-page newspaper advertisements, and mounted a lobbying effort against an increase in the Justice Department’s antitrust enforcement budget.

    In June, Bill Gates met for lunch with the Republican leaders of the House in the small whip’s room off the House chamber. They discussed Microsoft’s public policy agenda, ranging from exports of encryption software to Internet privacy to antitrust actions, said several participants at the meeting. Knott, now a top official in Microsoft’s Washington office, attended the session.

    Eight days later, Armey introduced what he called his “e-Contract,” a list of Republican legislative initiatives that pointedly adopted Microsoft’s view of the role of government antitrust actions, like the one that now threatens to dismantle Microsoft.

    “When federal agencies use heavy-handed tactics to target specific companies,” the Republican document states in language that echoes Microsoft’s own, “the real message they send to the market place is this: You could be next.”

    Armey’s aides insist that the release of the document was just a coincidence and that Republicans had long opposed aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws. Microsoft officials also denied that they had influenced Armey’s priorities or his language. The package of Republican proposals is still before Congress.

    Another Microsoft move on Capitol Hill drew criticism for heavy-handedness.

    It is lobbying to trim the antitrust division’s budget brought a flurry of editorial condemnation. The Washington Post said Microsoft’s actions were “a comical caricature” of a company trying to bully its way through Washington."

    One Justice Department official said, “Even the mob doesn’t try to whack a prosecutor during a trial.”

    https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/11/biztech/articles/07strategy.html

    The reason why Apple displaced Microsoft as the richest company in the world? Billionaire Tim Cook is using tactics that are even more predatory. If you make any purchase with an app, Apple takes a 30% cut. And if the app makers refuse, Apple murders their business by kicking them out of the App store.

    They banned the videogame Fortnite because the developers tried to resist:

    https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/apple-lied-breaks-its-promise-to-allow-fortnite-back-on-ios-under-its-rules

    https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-terminates-developer-account-fortnite-maker-epic-games-says-2024-03-06/

    These tech billionaires are economic tyrants. They want to use technology in order to enslave consumers and workers. They want customers to have no choice. They want their suppliers to be powerless. They want workers to have a limited number of huge employers. Their dream is absolute power over the market.

    Fuck economic tyrants.

    Only idiots kiss their ass.