I haven’t commented on US politics much lately, primarily because there are others who do it far better. If you want excellent insight without being weighed down in detail, read what Richard Murphy in the UK has to say on, say, US tariffs, or the madness of austerity economics.
His blog Funding the Future has more than earned a place on my blogroll.
There is a lot to be said for succinct, common-sense writing.
I reflected on why I had so many blog posts trying to reveal the dark side of Big Tech over the years, going back to the end of the 2000s. Among many reasons, it was to wake people up.
People complain about the media “both-sidesing” politics when one side advances totally redundant and irrelevant arguments. Much of the 2000s’ and 2010s’ tech reporting was related to the same abandonment of a journalistic duty of care: that Big Tech was venerated and never questioned.
So when I pointed out their faults, some of you took issue with how I dared attack the wunderkinds. Or that I was being too negative.
Frankly, they deserved every word of criticism. And now what I advanced is mainstream.
I’ve asked this of those critics before on this blog: how did defending Big Tech work out for you?
Finally, another easy-to-grasp piece on the five rare minerals whose supply China controls, at Clean Technica. The opening paragraph:
In April 2025, while most of the world was clutching pearls over trade war tit-for-tat tariffs, China calmly walked over to the supply chain and yanked out a handful of critical bolts. The bolts are made of dysprosium, terbium, tungsten, indium and yttrium—the elements that don’t make headlines but without which your electric car doesn’t run, your fighter jet doesn’t fly, and your solar panels go from clean energy marvels to overpriced roofing tiles.
There go the US defence and clean-tech industries.
Hi-Res Images of Chemical Elements/Chemical Elements—a Virtual Museum (Jumk.de Webprojects)/Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
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