Not really. They used to have pretty good privacy agreements. I don’t know about now. They do supply agrigate information to pharmaceutical companies, but that has become a pretty fungible resource. The only big consumer of individual DNA information is law enforcement, and that’s more of an expense than an income flow, since reviewing warrants and providing responses costs money.

An important lesson in infosec is that the best way to reduce the cost of discovery and warrant compliance is to regularly delete any data you don’t need or aren’t legally required to retain. Companies like this don’t have that option. Data is both an asset and a liability.

After lawsuits from Trump and friends against government and media for “underestimating” his crowds, both tend to stay out of that game. Just another case of dysfunction in the US.

Democrats don’t fight that hard. Not against Republicans anyways.

When it’s an inexpensive product that nobody ever has a reason to buy twice yet remains an ongoing cost for the company? (They keep the data available for review and continue to update it with useful information as knowledge of genetic traits and lineages grows). That’s not a way to build an ongoing cash flow to cover expenses. Especially when all the people inclined to be interested have already purchased.

Shit, Oracle was down in the low $400B range in May. Apparently being evil pays well in the current administration.

A little searching finds only one company that really fits the bill. Costco has a market cap of $433B and had a reported $14.8B cash on hand as of May 11. That’s an interesting possibility that I wouldn’t have guessed. Costco is less evil than most big corporations, so that’s a little hopeful if I got it right.

Oracle comes close with a market cap of $583B. That’s indeed over $400B, but that would make the description a bit weird. In any case, Oracle makes more sense from a business angle. Unfortunately, they are near the top of the evil scale.

It’s not a great business model if you think about it. Customers pay a small fee once then never again.

Biden didn’t even fucking do yet.

Yet? I’m not sure how to argue with someone who thinks Biden is still president. It doesn’t seem worthwhile.

(definitely couldn’t be a negotiating tactic)?

No, it definitely wasn’t a “negotiation tactic”. It was meant to avoid negotiating without Biden’s adoring masses noticing that he did a 180. He caved to AIPAC, as he would continue to do throughout his term.

Why the hell would Iran go back to fulfilling it’s obligations under the agreement when the US was still ignoring it’s obligations? Why would it bother negotiating with a country that doesn’t honor negotiated agreements? Everyone in the foreign policy space knew exactly what it was.

Yes I know how you ended your comment,

Then why the fuck did you haul out “both sides”? Why are so many people desperate to throw everything into that frame?

Absolutely, I just don’t think it actually helps Democrats in the long run to pave over their often deep flaws. If we were harder on Democrats 30 years ago, we probably wouldn’t have Trump today.

Biden ran on getting back into the deal with Iran, then insisted that Iran must completely return to fulfilling their side of the deal before we would consider returning to ours.

Both sides are not the same but Biden shouldn’t be let off the hook for his sudden flip on this issue.

That is indeed a problem but, speaking strictly about competitiveness, it does have it’s advantages. For example, the US really needs more strategically important goods to be manufactured at home, but that is really hard to do if market conditions favor offshoring. China can just dictate the sourcing - even in the (so called) private sector.

Movies, fast food chains, clothing chains, etc. The American brand and lifestyle that goes with it. Not exactly the greatest cultural achievements of all time, but they brought in cash.

What makes the US the most powerful country in the world? It’s our cultural exports, our educational institutions, and our technology. We spent decades handing all our technology over to China, and undermining education. Now Trump has poisoned the American brand for at least a generation.

China is way ahead on building a science and technology culture, and promoting education. The dividends from those investments are already paying off, and they are going to start compounding.

A lot of Americans still think of China as the place to make cheap goods, but their manufacturing sector has benefited from decades of stolen expertise. It turns out there are benefits from having engineers and factory workers in the same location. Faster feedback means faster development. Now the US is falling behind.

So, if they showed up early, then a different group of voters would be disenfranchised. But I guess it would be their fault because they should have shown up even earlier. But if they showed up even earlier…

In the US police would probably fire back with real guns, or charge them with domestic terrorism. To be fair, we do have a lot of cunts in this country that would load the guns up with acid, piss, or American beer - but I repeat myself.

Geneva Illinois a Trump chud swerved onto a shoulder while accelerating to scare protesters.

We need the get there yes, but not all on “the day after”. This is also the reason I suggested Pritzker as the best so far. He doesn’t seem to be shying away from the needed rhetoric. My biggest concerns are that he is just being opportunistic, and that he is a billionaire. Then again, FDR was super wealthy too, and whomever it is needs to be at least a little psychotic - which at least suggests a billionaire.

There a glimmers of hope. I think the number of people who see how Democrats contributed to where we are now are starting to outnumber those that don’t. It’s starting to look like we might have an honest to God progressive as mayor of New York, and the establishment has got to hate that.

It’s still a real fight in front of us, but we are seeing the cracks start to form. What we really need now is a presidential candidate. Pritzker is the best I’ve seen so far, but I’d really like to do better.

The lines between corporate America, the American government, and organized crime are thin to non-existent.