Developers will militate against anything that they perceive to make their life difficult, eg anything that stops them blindly running ‘npm get’ and running arbitary code off the internet.
Well yeah, we had to fix some LLM that broke things at a client; we asked why they didn't sandbox it or whatever and the devs said they tried to use nsjail; could not get their software to work with it, gave up and just let it rip without any constraints because the project had to go live.
Craig Fuller - the CEO of Freightwave - has been indicating that their freight data clearly suggests the US economy is in much worse shape than official reporting.
Consider the possibility that the people who make these decisions aren't actually all that smart and are easily manipulated by marketing and the sycophants/impostors they surround themselves with.
Who are you in this scenario though? Are you ManusAI getting bought for a giant pile of money? Are you a vendor that supplies Meta for their VR hardware that's getting paid in money? Are you an employee at Meta getting paid in money and Meta shares to build the Metaverse? Are you a shareholder of Meta who's stock is up? Like, sure, we can sit back and laugh at no legs, but Meta spent money they had on a thing they wanted to do. Sure, it didn't pan out, like that time I tried to pick up scuba diving, but when you have that much money, you can afford to try things that don't work. What's better, to try and fail, or never try because someone might make fun of you? If I just sold a company for half a billion, you could call me all the names you want, I wouldn't be able to hear you over the engines of my private fighter jet.
I understand what they are arguing, but they are just lobbing insinuations at the crowd. I (perhaps wrongly) assumed they had specific insight into the people and relationships inside the transaction that could be shared.
This $9B figure is not a serious number; it’s a narrative. The concrete allegations released so far peg the criminal impact closer to $250 million which, let’s be honest, is bad enough.
As a Minnesotan, I’m appalled by the scale of these thefts, but glad they are actively investigating and charging these people for their crimes. If we had an honest and right minded political/justice system, we would be seeking to uncover and prosecute fraud through the nation.
It says right in the first para, "could be" $9B. They obviously have no real idea. It sounds like the audit turned up a large amount of spending that can't be positively accounted for. Similar to the multiple trillions missing in all recent DoD audits. We really don't know how much has truly been "stolen" versus just not being properly recorded.
I know so many honest citizens who could have benefitted from a tiny fraction of that money.
But it's been under investigation for 4.5 years as I understand, and the theoretical numbers thrown by politicians (hype/lies) are increasingly confusing. So what's the hope for any correction?
I don’t hear many people in Minnesota trying to pretend the existence of these crimes is a hoax, fake news, etc. - so the hope is that we take our prosecutorial responsibilities seriously. Perhaps, so seriously that we set an expectation for the investigation and criminal prosecution of fraud and corruption vertically as well.
To my understanding, the total spending is around $18B, so the allegation that 50% of all spending is fraudulent requires quite the sniff test. Additionally, large multi-billion dollar fraud causes are usually associated with large organizations (like a hospital or insurance system) which is not the case here.
Could it be $9B+? Stick enough vague qualifying words around your presentation of the probable truth then yea, sure - at least $9B in spending could be fraudulent.
It’s not 50% of all Medicaid spending. Minnesota spends about 18B a year (federal + state) on Medicaid). This is an alleged 9b of fraud over 7 years in specific services, so about a billion a year. An organization Minnesota knew was likely fraudulent at the time was still able to steal 250m in a year during COVID so a billion a year doesn’t seem too far fetched.
That would make it a more compelling argument, yes. However, the known ~$250M fraud was stolen over several years (rather than a single year’s take), so it’s not clear what could account for the remaining $8.75B.
“ The first archetype, Euro premiums, has an average labor cost of $2,232 per vehicle and includes premium brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, and Audi. This group is characterized by high production costs, complex design and advanced manufacturing processes, and strong labor unions.
Within the category, German manufacturers face among the highest labor costs of $3,307 due to stringent regulations and high wage rates.
The second archetype, electric vehicle-only manufacturers, includes startups as well as more established players like Tesla, which do not operate under organized labor contracts. Their average labor costs range from $1,502 to $13,291, and they face high per vehicle production costs due to low manufacturing volumes. EV-only manufacturers also have been heavily reliant on government subsidies, which are now being cut back by the new administration.
The third archetype, mainstream model manufacturers, has an average labor cost of $880 per vehicle and includes traditional high-volume automakers from various countries. Japanese manufacturers enjoy lower labor costs per vehicle, with an average of $769, compared with manufacturers in the United States, where the average is $1,341 — a labor cost per vehicle that reflects recent historic union gains.
The fourth archetype, Chinese car manufacturers, has an average labor cost of $585 per vehicle, characterized by low wages and high efficiency. The group maintains the lowest overall conversion costs in the industry by leveraging its newer factories, efficient supply chains, and high production volumes” - https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2025/apr/...
If you shovel the curb on your street “up stream” from the plowing direction, it provides a place for the plow stream to go and significantly reduces the amount of soon-to-be rock hard snow you’ll have to clear from your driveway.
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