• 110 Posts
  • 38 Comments
Joined 1 month ago
Cake day: March 29th, 2025
  • dwazou@lemm.eeOPtoUnited Kingdom@feddit.uk•An article that every British citizen should readEnglish
    20·
    4 days ago

    Society moved so far to the right that the simple idea water should be publically owned is now considered socialism.

    The FT is still a pretty-right wing newspaper. They simply can’t afford to offend their CEO readers. However, I doubt the average FT journalist is neoliberal.

    They are all unionized:

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/aug/15/financial-times-boss-returns-pay-rise-after-staff-backlash

    Philosopher Noam Chomsky says he likes to read the FT.

    They once interviewed him.

    "My impression in general is that the business press is more open, more free, often more critical, less constrained by external power and external influences” he tells beyondbrics.

    “I guess that’s also true for the reporting in the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek, although the range of opinion that appears is different. So, for example, in the Wall Street Journal – and there are exceptions – but overwhelmingly the coverage is constricted and very reactionary, and the Financial Times has a much broader range, more terse, and I find it more instructive.”

    The business press has a different incentive to get the facts right, Chomsky says, which is why the Financial Times is his regular read. ''Those who Adam Smith called ‘the masters of the universe’ have to understand the universe. They have to have a tolerably realistic understanding of the world that they are managing and controlling. That’s true of political elites as well, but the business world particularly. Also, the business press essentially trust their audience. They don’t have to impose propagandistic illusions to keep the rabble under control.”

    https://www.ft.com/content/bcdefd38-3beb-3506-b24c-82285ac87f6c

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoEurope@feddit.org•British workers among saddest and most disengaged in EuropeEnglish
    244·
    3 days ago

    This is the logical outcome of two things.

    1. Their silly campaign finance rules. British campaign finance laws are literally the worst in the Western world, only after the United States. It’s just embarassing.

    2. Their First-Past-The-Post voting system. It is a voting system that is designed to create a 2-party duopoly on power.

    Show me the incentives of any political system. I will show you the outcome.

    Look the recent British elections. Keir Starmer won 65% of seats in Parliament with only 35% of votes. It’s his country now. He can do whatever he wants for 5 years. Greens, SNP or Reform received millions of votes. They get very few seats.

    Under the Danish voting system, here is what would happen in Britain.

    The Reform Party would tell Starmer : “You don’t have a majority Keir. We can allow you to form a government. But in exchange, we want to reduce immigration. And we want a law banning cousin marriage. Do we have a deal ?”

    The Green Party would tell Starmer : “You don’t have a majority Keir. We can allow you to form a government. But in exchange, we want to nationalize water companies. And we a law banning all gambling ads. Do we have a deal?”

    This is how it works in Denmark. I feel the overall result is just better.

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoEurope@feddit.org•British workers among saddest and most disengaged in EuropeEnglish
    56·
    4 days ago

    This is not surprising at all.

    I was recently reading an article in the French newspaper Le Monde.

    In Britain, corporations are increasingly using a special system called zero-hour contracts.

    These contracts are designed to offer maximum flexibility for business owners, in order to reduce his risks. The employee is guaranteed nothing and must always be available.

    « They send my hours on Sunday, but nothing is sure. Sometimes, they cancel the same day » says Yana Petticrew, a young Glasgow Scottish worker who has been on zero-hour contracts for nearly 10 years. « Life is hard. I can’t even plan a meeting with my friends next week, because my boss could call me at any time » Yana says. She can’t refuse, or her boss will get rid of her.

    Labor unions say workers on zero hour contracts earn on average less than those who are not. In 2010, 168 000 british workers were on zero hour contracts. In 2024, 1.1 million british workers were on zero hour contracts.

    https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2025/04/14/au-royaume-uni-une-epidemie-d-emplois-sans-travail-garanti_6595843_3234.html

    Here is another things that stuns me. I learned that in Britain, employees have no boardroom representation. In France, all companies publically listed on the stock market are legally required to have union representatives on the board of directors.

    For instance LVMH :

    https://www.lvmh.com/en/our-group/governance

    Why can’t british employee have board representatives?!

    The UK system is rotten. Brits need to fight for change. They deserve so much better.

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoTechnology@lemmy.world•(Faulty) Tech Utopias provide a convenient justification for ignoring the real problems of todayEnglish
    19·
    3 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·
    4 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.

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoUnited Kingdom@feddit.uk•Water bosses face two years in prison if they cover up sewage spillsEnglish
    5·
    5 days ago

    I hope the wonderful British people will not accept these lies.

    These people have a monopoly over your water. They have been ROBBING YOU for decades to buy yachts and luxury cars. And you know the worst thing? They are using the money they robbed from you to fund Water UK, a lobbying organization giving money to political parties and pressuring MPs.

    Anything short of nationalization is a scam

    Anything short of nationalization is a scam

    Anything short of nationalization is a scam

    You are dealing with lawless criminals wearing suits. Sending nice letters isn’t going to be enough.

  • dwazou@lemm.eetoCanada@lemmy.ca•McGill closes DEI office, replaces racialized staff
    1516·
    5 days ago

    This obsession about race is something I will never understand about anglosphere culture.

    Britain, Canada and the United States have really gone off the rail.

    In French culture, it is considered completely obscene to ask people about their race. In fact, that’s illegal. Employers and universities can be criminally prosecuted if they start gathering data about skin color. The only question universities ask you is the profession of your parents.