Thursday 24th April 2025
Re: Thursday 24th April 2025
Morning !
On those well-protected tech-bros --
" In theory, the act contains bazooka-level enforcement: fines can reach up to 10% of a company’s global turnover, or 20% for repeat offences. In this first test, however, the EU decided to dole out a round of fines so wimpy that it might as well have done nothing at all.
Instead of a maximum $39bn (£29bn) fine, Apple will pay $570m (£430m); instead of $16bn (£12bn), Meta will pay $228m (£172m). Let me break down the sheer insignificance of two fines that sound large but aren’t. Apple, with a $3tn market cap, brought in $391bn in revenue in 2024. Meta’s revenue was $164.5bn and it made a $62.4bn profit. In effect, the EU knocked 46 hours off of Apple’s year of profit, and shortened Meta’s year by 28 hours.
Fines this pathetic become simply part of the cost of doing business. They risk failing to deter tech companies from abusing their power in the future, just as they have done in the past. In the last two years alone, Meta was hit with an €800m fine and a €1.2bn fine, and Apple was handed a €1.8bn antitrust fine.
There’s another, deeper, political consequence. Voters are fed up with the impunity that follows wealth. In 2008, Wall Street banks crashed the global economy with a mixture of irresponsible and criminal behaviour; taxpayers picked up the tab for bailing them out, and only a handful of executives went to jail. The result was a widespread loss of faith in institutions and representative government, and the growth of far-right, populist movements. ***
The EU might think that by soft-pedalling, it is protecting Europeans from the potential economic impact of angering the Trump administration by handing down deterrent-level fines to his allies, but that’s wrong. In the long run, Europeans will benefit far more from a competitive economy that opens the door for the continent’s own tech companies to emerge and thrive, rather than one governed by monopolistic big tech from the US. "
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ease-trump
*** In the Eighties thousands were prosecuted for the US Savings and Loans scandal, and several went to jail.
Explaining that difference will take time, and I'm off now ...
On those well-protected tech-bros --
" In theory, the act contains bazooka-level enforcement: fines can reach up to 10% of a company’s global turnover, or 20% for repeat offences. In this first test, however, the EU decided to dole out a round of fines so wimpy that it might as well have done nothing at all.
Instead of a maximum $39bn (£29bn) fine, Apple will pay $570m (£430m); instead of $16bn (£12bn), Meta will pay $228m (£172m). Let me break down the sheer insignificance of two fines that sound large but aren’t. Apple, with a $3tn market cap, brought in $391bn in revenue in 2024. Meta’s revenue was $164.5bn and it made a $62.4bn profit. In effect, the EU knocked 46 hours off of Apple’s year of profit, and shortened Meta’s year by 28 hours.
Fines this pathetic become simply part of the cost of doing business. They risk failing to deter tech companies from abusing their power in the future, just as they have done in the past. In the last two years alone, Meta was hit with an €800m fine and a €1.2bn fine, and Apple was handed a €1.8bn antitrust fine.
There’s another, deeper, political consequence. Voters are fed up with the impunity that follows wealth. In 2008, Wall Street banks crashed the global economy with a mixture of irresponsible and criminal behaviour; taxpayers picked up the tab for bailing them out, and only a handful of executives went to jail. The result was a widespread loss of faith in institutions and representative government, and the growth of far-right, populist movements. ***
The EU might think that by soft-pedalling, it is protecting Europeans from the potential economic impact of angering the Trump administration by handing down deterrent-level fines to his allies, but that’s wrong. In the long run, Europeans will benefit far more from a competitive economy that opens the door for the continent’s own tech companies to emerge and thrive, rather than one governed by monopolistic big tech from the US. "
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ease-trump
*** In the Eighties thousands were prosecuted for the US Savings and Loans scandal, and several went to jail.
Explaining that difference will take time, and I'm off now ...
Re: Thursday 24th April 2025
Spain also is showing some spine , in this case over arms for Israel, nuance being a lefty part of the Coalition insisting --
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... ter-outcry
It was a nice quiet day in the provincial hospital, such a change from the huge Regional Uni one, and I can drive the 20 minutes instead of being obliged to have a vastly expensive medical-taxi. ***.
I even had company for a while, He was being bled for too much iron in his blood while I was receiving red cells !
***FREE taxi , of course
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... ter-outcry
It was a nice quiet day in the provincial hospital, such a change from the huge Regional Uni one, and I can drive the 20 minutes instead of being obliged to have a vastly expensive medical-taxi. ***.
I even had company for a while, He was being bled for too much iron in his blood while I was receiving red cells !
***FREE taxi , of course