US government takes $2 billion equity stake in nine quantum computing firms
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I'm looking for a 10 letter word that starts with "Co" and ends with "rruption". Anyone lend a hand?
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It could be there's ways to carefully invest government money in private industry- maybe that's the possible, and there's a conversation somewhere on how to do that in a fair, stable, and equitable way.
What we've got, on the other hand, is a series of actions designed to maximize the amount of profit gained from direct market manipulation on a national scale using the richest federal government on the planet.
Sure we can talk about making the quantum computing mechanisms less error-prone, and we can expand on the application space... But the real story here is one of international sovereign market manipulation and corruption.
What we've got, on the other hand, is a series of actions designed to maximize the amount of profit gained from direct market manipulation on a national scale using the richest federal government on the planet.
Sure we can talk about making the quantum computing mechanisms less error-prone, and we can expand on the application space... But the real story here is one of international sovereign market manipulation and corruption.
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I'd normally support the government taking equity stakes in an emerging technology, but this deal leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Leave it to this President to corrupt a good idea. Truly, the Sidam touch.
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CompleteAndUtterShamelessCorruption?
Nah, too many letters. You got me there - sorry
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I like how these are all "Will create thousands of jobs"
Quantum will of course be used for speeding up processing so less people need to do something.
Or AI.
Which is famous for providing thousands of jobs....
Quantum will of course be used for speeding up processing so less people need to do something.
Or AI.
Which is famous for providing thousands of jobs....
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'Member when the Republican party cried "socialism" at pretty much anything that resembled government influence outside of an essentially unconditional subsidy?
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Now they're totally fine with becoming major stakeholders in basically self-sufficient enterprises.
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Now they're totally fine with becoming major stakeholders in basically self-sufficient enterprises.
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I hope nobody tell them that inadvertently they have launched a jobs program for physicists and semi engineers.
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I'm beyond worried that there is no way to fix this country after this regime.
We are so far beyond anything even remotely normal or acceptable now.
We are so far beyond anything even remotely normal or acceptable now.
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Oh, by the way, Gray Man bad, Orange Man gooooood:
Former President Donald Trump recently took an unexpected stance against the CHIPS Act, a bipartisan initiative aimed at strengthening U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. During his address to Congress, Trump called the law a “horrible, horrible thing” and suggested repealing it, catching many lawmakers off guard. His remarks particularly surprised Republicans, who had previously been reassured of his administration’s support.
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Another day, another impeachable offense.
Well, I guess that's not fair.
Another hour, another impeachable offense.
Well, I guess that's not fair.
Another hour, another impeachable offense.
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I'm surprised IonQ was missed as well. They have been a roll in the stock market with all the capital investments.
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I was looking for a phrase that started with “Co” and ended with “ngressional Authorization”.
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I know this really wasn't your point, and not that I'm a fan of capitalism, but...
In a capitalist society, governments benefit from giving money to the private sector by taxing the resulting improved economy. There is no capacity for fairness when a government with a capitalist framework takes a stake in private companies. The whole point of a capitalist approach is that the government is a neutral player in any given industry. If a judge owns stock in a company, they're (theoretically) supposed to recuse themselves from cases involving that company. What, is the government going to recuse itself from regulating industries now?
Uggghh.
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Obama also caught a lot of flak from the GOP over Solyndra, although maybe China wouldn't be the world leader in solar panel production today if we'd done more of that instead of less. They certainly wouldn't have 85% market share by wattage, in any case.
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Every other day someone gets a $1B+ payout without any congressional oversight. It's impossible to tell if any of them are legitimate investments. The interest on our debt is becoming the predominant usage of our tax dollars.
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There’s a very innovation averse trend here in these threads lately. Quantum isn’t being built to replace people anymore than the spreadsheet, WYSIWYG, Internet, or any other computing improvement in the last 30 years. Real quantum computing could be amazing for drug design, transportation planning, and many other things. Having American companies lead this field would be good for the US.
However, enabling corruption by picking winners based on if a Trump family member or buddy is on the board is troubling.
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And I’m sure if we checked we wouldn’t find that Trump and his family coincidentally invested in all of these companies before this announcement. Too bad they now made it illegal to check on them, so we’ll never know.
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It's often counterproductive to have nuance when those in power choose not to. Innovation is pretty much always a mixed bag of benefits and risks, and responsible folks try to magnify the benefits and reduce the risks. But when you have no faith in leaders' abilities to reduce the risks, those risks become the thing that needs to be focused on. Altering viruses in order to study and prepare for upcoming disasters is incredibly valuable. But if we expect the people doing the work to quickly release the viruses, you don't support the research until someone else is in charge.
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It entirely depends on how you frame it:
https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.e...pending-is-distributed-by-age-group-in-fy2025
vs.
https://www.pgpf.org/programs-and-projects/fiscal-policy/monthly-interest-tracker-national-debt/
And then Trump is wanting to raise DoD spending by 30% or $500 billion USD to $1,5 trillion USD...or said another way--that is the equivalent of increasing every worker's federal income tax $3,000USD annually. That last bit is why fans of increasing military spending--never frame it that way. Because no one would ever agree to it when posed like that.
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It is a damned if you do or don't scenario.
I, personally, find it disgusting handing out taxpayer money to for-profit private entities when we don't even have a healthcare system in the USA. Except--other countries ARE handing out that money to both public companies (see TSMC), and private ones (Samsung), oh and all the industry subsidies China does. And when the USA doesn't do it--those industries just vanish in the USA.
Think of it like a Europa Universalis game IRL. Feel free to be ideologically pure in how you play it--but you'll get absolutely crushed by any- and everyone else who is more "flexible".
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If it's not the slush fund or the ways trump/family companies always seem to be quietly involved in getting "grants" and the like from the Federal Government, then it's the DOJ (led by The Great Bloviator's personal criminal attorney) barring audits of trump/family tax returns "that were raised or could have been raised". The corruption is absolutely staggering.
"Trump-IRS settlement 'forever' bars audits into tax claims for Trump and his family" (Reuters)
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ReadandShare
Ars Centurion
1980s: A decrepit China began copying from capitalist America.
2020s: A desperate America began copying from communist China.
[Edit for spelling.]
2020s: A desperate America began copying from communist China.
[Edit for spelling.]
Last edited:
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As to your attempt to charge Biden with corruption, I call bullshit. And feel free to prove me wrong, because despite trumpian lickspittles James Comer and crew taking a long time and lots of government money to investigate Biden, they found that--hold on to your hat, now--his son had screwed up his taxes and owned an unlicensed firearm. I would say that Hunter Biden/President Joe Biden's actions are molehills compared to trump's Olympus Mons, but that's giving far too much weight to Biden's actions and nowhere near enough to trump's.
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Government ownership and control of the economy. Both Marx and Mussolini would approve.
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Boy, the line between communism and crony capitalism is ... just not there. The world is a wheel.
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I think you might need to gain a better understanding of both systems if you're comfortable stating that equivalency.
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No? Workers own the means of production? Dictatorship of the proletariat? Oh, eventually the state is supposed to wither away, but in the meantime...
Anyway, we can agree that Trump is a hellspawn who ought to be in prison. Remember in November, and vote Democrat for every office.
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You really misunderstand what is going on.
Government owning equity in a business isn't workers owning the means of productions or the "dictatorship of the proletariat". It actually has much more in common with Soviet style Statism, where politically-connected business owners are awarded loyalty kickbacks in the form of exclusive contracts and the people who benefit...aren't the workers of those companies, so much as the (loyal) managers of those companies.
And, of course, less dictatorially-loyal businesses, have the force of the government put against them.
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Except that in capitalism the capital owns the government so it is not a neutral party as can be seen by all politicians running their errands. Capitalism == corruption.
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Yeah but it doesn’t help poor or black people and that’s the only thing they had a problem with
I think they’re showing us who they really are now that they control all 3 branches of government and no one can stop them
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