Tag Archives: economics

A TikTok Partnership

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Oracle Corp has become the frontrunner in the race to do a deal with the People’s Republic of China company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, for an acquisition of that app. That status seems solidified by ByteDance having submitted a proposal to the US government that lays out the terms of a deal in which Oracle would become the junior partner in a TikTok-Oracle(-ByteDance?)…alliance.

Recall that President Donald Trump has required that ByteDance divest itself of TikTok as a condition of TikTok’s being allowed to continue operating in the United States. Trump’s objection to TikTok is centered on the app’s scooping up of a vast range of personal and personally identifying data and the subsequent transmittal of those data to back to ByteDance inside the PRC.

Recall further that three years ago the PRC passed a law requiring every single company based or operating inside the PRC to cooperate with every single request for information that the PRC’s intelligence community might have.  That would include the personal and personally identifying data that TikTok vacuums up on each of its users, including the 100 million American users.

Critical aspects of this proposed “partnership” include these two:

  • the ByteDance proposal will involve expanding TikTok’s US offices to become the global headquarters
  • hav[e] Oracle certify the security of the app’s data….

The first is an insult to our intelligence, intended as it is solely to distract from the security problem.

The second is insufficient to the point of irrelevancy. Under the PRC law, to repeat, every PRC domiciled or headquartered company must comply with every information request from the PRC’s intelligence community. It matters not a whit how “secure” TikTok’s data might be; so long as a PRC company owns even a smidge of TikTok, that company will be bound by law to submit any and all TikTok data—those personal and personally identifiable data, for instance—to the PRC’s intelligence agency when asked, and TikTok will be bound to submit those data to that company for passing along.

And that should be a deal breaker.

Nice Try, Thank You for Playing

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The Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan collection of House Representatives, has produced an idea for getting help to those Americans who’ve been hit the hardest, economically, by the present Wuhan Virus situation. Aside from its trillion-and-a-half dollar price tag—a bill that American citizens will have to pay in taxes or in debt—which is future taxes—there are a couple of sound components.

The idea, though, contains one terrible component—and that one represents a full third of the total cost of this thing.

$500.3 billion in state and local aid, which includes $130 billion for documented coronavirus state and local expenses through 2021, $120.3 billion for documented local budget shortfalls and $250 billion for proven state government shortfalls. [Emphasis added]

That should be a deal breaker. American taxpayers shouldn’t be responsible for bailing out any State or locality other than their own.

Full stop.

Open New York City for Operation

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Open New York City for Operation

The city currently is closed down by order of Da Mare Bill de Blasio (I know, different city. Same guy, though, functionally), and that’s causing a lot of damage, and not just economic.

More than 160 business leaders, including executives at Citigroup Inc, Mastercard Inc, and Nasdaq Inc, have signed a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio warning of New York City’s deteriorating condition in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and growing anxiety over public safety, cleanliness, and other quality-of-life issues.

De Blasio’s response? No. Gimme money first.

Let’s be clear: to restore city services and save jobs, we need long term borrowing and a federal stimulus—we need these leaders to join the fight to move the city forward[.]

Here’s a stimulus: open the city—withdraw the restrictions—and watch the sharp and prolonged economic growth provide a ton of stimulus.

And watch the malaise that being closed down and cooped up is causing the residents of the city fade as they’re able to go back to work, go back to shopping, go back to socializing. Able to go back to earning money for their bills—the lack of which is another source of serious angst—and spending some of it on entertainment, another angst reducer.

Maybe It’s Time

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On two fronts. First is the Eu’s nakedly bad faith and extortionist attempt to interfere in Great Britain’s internal affairs.

The European Union on Thursday demanded that the United Kingdom immediately rewrite a new Brexit bill that would change parts of a divorce agreement it signed with the EU last year—threatening legal action if the outgoing member does not comply.
European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic met with UK Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove for crisis talks after the UK government proposed a new Internal Market Bill, which would allow ministers to “disapply” certain rules related to Northern Ireland agreed to in last year’s Withdrawal Agreement.

And Sefcovic’s ultimatum:

…withdraw these measures from the draft Bill in the shortest time possible and in any case by the end of the month….

The European Union has no beef with the Brits over their domestic bill until an actual violation of “international law” actually occurs. Sefvovic knows that full well. His threat is a naked attempt at intimidation and an example of the way the EU will treat all nations with the effrontery to seek to leave the EU, or even merely to object EU governance.

The other front is this: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA)

[last] Wednesday warned the UK there would be “no chance” of a US-UK free trade deal if the UK undermined the Good Friday Agreement.

This is an arrogant and unconscionable intrusion by the Speaker into the Executive Branch’s Constitutional sphere: foreign policy. Pelosi also willfully ignores the additional Constitutional fact that the House has no say setting treaties of any sort: ratification of an international agreement into a treaty is the sole province of the Senate.

It’s time for Great Britain to stop wasting time and resources on trying to deal with the EU and to simply close out the “talks.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government should spend the remaining months until 2021 setting their nation up for the no-deal separation that the EU is forcing as the EU’s offered alternative of surrender.

Equal Protection

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Recall that California, earlier this year, enacted a law requiring gig employers to reclassify those folks from contractors to formal employees—with all of the employee expenses that entails: half the payroll taxes due, retirement benefits, health benefits, paid time off, etc, etc, etc.

In response, a number of companies who’ve centered their business models on gig employees, have sued and have been fighting to force the law—AB-5—onto this fall’s ballot for the actual citizens to decide.

Related to the law and the hoo-raw surrounding it, are some additional consequences illustrated by this:

[M]agicians, freelance journalists, and interpreters have found themselves losing work: many small businesses say such measures would be too costly to implement, and have instead opted to cut back on their use of independent workers.

The Left doesn’t care, though, about this collateral damage [emphasis added]:

The ride-sharing and delivery companies’ legal and political push against AB-5 is “such a frustrating example of the way you can buy your way into a regulatory environment that suits you,” said Veena Dubal, a professor who studies employment law at University of California, Hastings, and has been a vocal critic of the companies. “They have been defying the order since Jan. 1. Meanwhile, a yoga studio doesn’t have that luxury.”

Sadly, this is a typical Leftist attitude. The well-off don’t deserve access to the means of legal defense or pushback because they’re well-off and others aren’t. The Left has not a syllable of a move to help those not-well-off gain the same access.

Dubal’s outcome would be one of no one having access. Which would cede everything to Government, where the Left thinks it all belongs, anyway.