BoycottUnitedStates

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/45188771

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64972423

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64896115

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/44630732

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30113153

Investors are selling off bonds from the U.S. government, as part of a trade known as "Sell America."

The United States government has had to pay more to borrow in the global debt markets. On Wednesday, the Treasury department found that there was tepid demand for an auction for $20 billion worth of bonds, and ended up paying a slightly higher interest rate (or yield) than expected.

This has spooked markets. Yields on 30-year U.S. Treasuries have spiked above 5% this week — an unusual, and unsettling, surge in the price that the U.S. government pays on its long-term debt. An increase in bond yields is particularly damaging to the economy because it jacks up the interest rates on many things that consumers pay, such as on mortgages and other loans.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30095737

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30041404

Elon Musk’s shouting match with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent might have been the final nail in the coffin for the tech billionaire’s four-month stint in the White House, but it came after months of bubbling frustration at Musk’s “chain-saw” approach to dismantling the federal government.

Musk and Bessent exploded at each other in April when Musk attempted to force through his pick to lead the IRS—Gary Shapley—behind Bessent’s back. (Musk eventually lost this battle—Shapley lasted less than 72 hours before Bessent tapped Michael Faulkender to replace him.)

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” a typically mild-mannered Bessent was heard shouting after Musk as they charged down the halls of the West Wing.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30468725

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29963701

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64450059

In 2012, Palantir quietly embedded itself into the daily operations of the New Orleans Police Department. There were no public announcements. No contracts made available to the city council. Instead, the surveillance company partnered with a local nonprofit to sidestep oversight, gaining access to years of arrest records, licenses, addresses, and phone numbers all to build a shadowy predictive policing program.

Palantir’s software mapped webs of human relationships, assigned residents algorithmic “risk scores,” and helped police generate “target lists” all without public knowledge. “We very much like to not be publicly known,” a Palantir engineer wrote in an internal email later obtained by The Verge.

After years spent quietly powering surveillance systems for police departments and federal agencies, the company has rebranded itself as a frontier AI firm, selling machine learning platforms designed for military dominance and geopolitical control.

"AI is not a toy. It is a weapon,” said CEO Alex Karp. “It will be used to kill people.”

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/38297520

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29893411

It's like they can't help being assholes.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30348232

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64331850

In this Opinion video, Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, all professors at Yale and experts in authoritarianism, explain why America is especially vulnerable to a democratic backsliding — and why they are leaving the United States to take up positions at the University of Toronto.

In communities like this one there sometimes are comments by Americans who understand and agree with the other people here. In this video, a professor (who has spent two decades writing about the history of authoritarianism in Central and Eastern Europe!) says "the lesson of 1933 is that you want to get out sooner than later".

I am sharing this for the Americans who have the means to go, but are doubting whether they should stay or not. Nobody can make that decision for them, but I think the opinion of the three Yale university professors says a lot.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/30565757

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30292698

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/44565357

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29839642

In a statement published Thursday, the company acknowledged public and internal concerns about whether Microsoft Azure and AI products had been used “to target civilians or cause harm” in Gaza.

The statement follows months of pressure from Microsoft employees and rights groups, demanding transparency over its relationship with the Israeli military.

The company said it does not have visibility into how customers use Microsoft products on private servers or devices, and that cloud operations for IMOD are supported “through contracts with cloud providers other than Microsoft.”

That's illegal in most European countries.

That's illegal in most European countries.