Tag: Subsidies

How to DOGE USAID: The Wall Street Consensus under Trump

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

How to DOGE USAID: The Wall Street Consensus under Trump

We often hear that the new Trump administration inaugurates the age of technofeudalism. Just look at Elon Musk, pontificating about so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) democracy from the Oval Office while undemocratically occupying the US Treasury payment system. But is the administration simply using bullying as a mode of power, as Adam Tooze recently diagnosed it, destroying institutions without measure or plan?

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AI going DeepSeek

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Most readers will know the news by now. DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, released an AI model called R1 that is comparable in ability to the best models from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, but was trained at a radically lower cost and using less than state-of-the art GPU chips. DeepSeek also made public enough of the details of the model that others can run it on their own computers without charge.

AI going DeepSeek

Previously:

Interview with Deepseek Founder: We’re Done Following. It’s Time to Lead

PhilHealth’s Fund Crisis: Illegal Transfers, Congressional Decisions, and Leadership Failures 🇵🇭

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Universal Health Care (UHC) Act of 2019, a landmark legislation for equitable healthcare access, places PhilHealth at the forefront of its implementation. However, recent controversies—ranging from the unlawful transfer of funds to the National Treasury to Congress denying PhilHealth a budget for 2025—have exposed systemic failures and raised serious questions about accountability and leadership.

PhilHealth’s Fund Crisis: Illegal Transfers, Congressional Decisions, and Leadership Failures

The racial and class question

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The racial and class question

Virtually forgotten due to the discourse of Ukrainian unity and the general lack of interest in analyzing the nuances of events, the racial and class question is going virtually unnoticed in this war. If the Donbass conflict had a proletarian aspect that the press mocked in the first weeks of the DPR due to those Soviet-looking press conferences of workers and academics, in the current context, there have not even been any such comments. Presented as a war of national liberation, no aspect other than nationalism has deserved much mention in the Western press or in academia. Volodymyr Ishchenko and Ilya Matveev, who have sought to study the class aspect in the outbreak of the conflict, are the rare exception. To Ischenko’s surprise, RFE/RL published an article last September that dealt, albeit in generalities and without great depth, with the increase in inequality that war implies, an aspect that is, on the other hand, perfectly evident. “As the war drags on, the gaps in Ukrainian society are widening,” the American media headlines.

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This China Sanction Will Ground USAF’s F-35

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

When the trade war just started, Trump equated de-Sinicization with de-risking. However, the China’s latest sanction against US military companies will prove that after de-Sinicization, the only thing left for the US Air Force will be risk.

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Moving forward, we may observe further changes in the reliability of F-35s delivered after October 2020. However, as long as the Pentagon doesn’t replace the ejection seats with American-made ones, at least U.S. pilots should still be able to survive.

This China Sanction Will Ground USAF’s F-35

Previously:

America’s war machine needs Chinese magnets. So we’re going to make our own, and nobody knows how

UAW Stellantis workers protest in the streets from coast to coast

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

WASHINGTON—Back in the days when Stellantis was Chrysler, there was a sense of camaraderie on the shop floor, veteran Auto Workers say. Not anymore. Not under Stellantis. All they perceive now is corporate greed, satisfying investors, and filling honchos’ pockets with workers’ dollars.

UAW Stellantis workers protest in the streets from coast to coast

02-2024: The UAW Strike Saved Their Shuttered Plant, But the Fight Is Just Beginning

Eight months ago, the idling of the Belvidere Assembly Plant had local United Auto Workers questioning their next steps.

2023: Stellantis commits nearly $5B to Belvidere with new UAW contract

The revival of the Stellantis plant is a stunning reversal of fortunes for Belvidere, Ill. But workers say they won’t rest until they see the concrete being poured.

2022: All Biden’s Green Job Losers

Climate industrial policy is costing 1,350 workers their jobs at a Stellantis plant in Illinois.