Comment by SilverElfin
3 months ago
Ask the railroad workers of BNSF about Buffet’s “integrity”. He’s responsible for them being rampantly abused. If you’re not familiar look up interviews with actual workers. They are asked to work insane hours and with little scheduling, and are unpaid when they’re waiting around. The (local) monopolization of the rail industry and constant lobbying against regulations by Buffet’s minions have let this continue to this day.
Let’s not forget Buffet also funded BYD significantly and is responsible for their growth, which basically is undermining his own country and European industry as well. Ultimately it’ll be responsible for putting masses of auto industry workers out of a job. I don’t see integrity as much as just basic private equity style capitalism.
> Let’s not forget Buffet also funded BYD significantly and is responsible for their growth,
What is this weird nationalism? Investing in a company from a foreign country does not make you a bad (or good) person. There is no moral duty to make your own country the most economically powerful one.
I don't like Chinese companies that much either, but if you look at the current US administration's stance on electric cars (and related topics like renewables, battery storage etc.), investing in BYD was actually a smart move...
> There is no moral duty to make your own country the most economically powerful one.
No? Then why do we ask people to give their lives to make it a safe one?
Safe isn't the same as economically powerful.
Look at Bhutan with their Gross National Happiness as an alternative.
Are you in America? No one in the Us military is giving up lives to keep citizens safe.
For other countries, it’s because the nation state is the current agreed upon divider for certain things like borders.
To moralize nationalism is weird and anti-humanity.
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That take says a lot about your perception of power.
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> Investing in a company from a foreign country does not make you a bad (or good) person. There is no moral duty to make your own country the most economically powerful one.
Maybe you don’t agree, but I think there is a moral duty to not make the literal enemies of the free world into a superpower. Do you think the Chinese government believes in basic human rights like free speech? No. Buffet could have invested in many other countries. He chose China because he doesn’t have the moral compass he pretends to have.
The BNSF people I’ve talked to have all told me about how much they’ve loved their jobs and what their jobs allowed them to do, including adopting children from Ukraine and get them out of a war zone. Maybe you should talk to more people.
The people to blame for the predicament of the US auto industry are the.. US auto industry.
Perhaps turning every vehicle into a luxury car and getting rid of affordable vehicles is not a good long term solution.
BYD is a fantastic investment, they are not undermining us, we are undermining ourselves and we need to stop being victims.
The people I know from BNSF will tell you that name stands for Better Not Start a Family.
I’ve worked with and known former engineers who left, took lower paying jobs in other industries and not one has ever said I miss it there.
Let’s not even get started on what that industry has evolved into with precision scheduled railroading and the dramatic increase in risk and real derailments that have followed.
> BYD is a fantastic investment, they are not undermining us
My point is that Buffet spent his fortune earned in America, on undermining America and its allies. He has effectively given a strategic boost to the CCP and its past and future abuses.
> including adopting children from Ukraine and get them out of a war zone. Maybe you should talk to more people.
Is this AI?
> Is this AI?
Is this the new ad hominem?
Is your reply AI?
Very few billionaires earn their fortune just "in America". Buffet definitely didn't.I live outside the US and pay thousands of dollars a year to American companies for goods and services, as do many of my friends. The insular separationist view of the global economy is daft and short-sighted.
Not all of us care about certain in-groups over others. Like caring about humanity as a whole.
Nothing wrong with any one investing in BYD or similar tech (vs any other investing). If anything, investing in non-“imperial core” companies seems to be a good thing to balance out unequal exchange and the global north and global south divide.
That is interesting, because the chinese do care about in-groups
Investing in BYD is propping up the CCP and their dystopian authoritarian regime. Your phrasing of “imperial core” is meaningless. But the CCP is literally authoritarian in its political system.