The question above was asked in Robert Reich’s blog yesterday. The answer? Easy: ROI. An economic study showed that every dollar spent bribing politicians retuned an obscene return on that investment (ROI) in the form of tax advantages, business merger advantages, government regulation “adjustments,” etc. My memory is of $16 being returned on each $1 invested, but that is just from memory.
You’d have to be some kind of idiot to not invest in what pays off better than any other investment.
I remember when laws were passed to make selling an item below its cost to the business selling it was illegal. (Is it still?) This was called predatory pricing or dumping, dumping usually referred to foreign goods being sold, where predatory pricing was used when domestic goods were being sold. The idea was a firm sells products at less than cost of manufacture or purchase in order to drive out competitors and/or to increase market share, then prices are jacked up.
American history is littered with such practices, one prominent implementor of such practices in our history was John D. Rockefeller, widely considered the primary “robber baron” of the oil industry, having founded and led the Standard Oil Company in 1870 to create a massive monopoly. Through ruthless tactics, vertical integration, and secret railroad deals, he controlled over 90% of US refineries by the 1880s. Rockefeller’s company controlled nearly all oil refining and pipelines by the 1880s, often referred to as “The Octopus.” (Standard Oil was ordered to dissolve by the Supreme Court in 1911 due to antitrust violations.)
Rockefeller was known to build service stations right near existing service stations of competitors, undercut their prices for gas and oil and then when those stations went belly up, bought them for cents on the dollar and converted them to Standard Oil stations.
The first major attempt to regulate such actions was the Sherman Antitrust Act, but applying it to large companies was and is difficult. The Clayton Act was also passed with the aim of promote fair competition and prevent unfair business practices that could harm customers.
So, why am I bringing this up now? Good question, I am glad you asked.
A rude awakening is about to dawn on early adopters of AI instruments. Wowed by these tools, at how they seem to make a company’s workers more productive and efficient as more work gets done for the same money or the same work gets done for less, the actual cost is going to be applied soon. AI companies have been selling their services for free or very low cost and have been losing money hand over fist as they “develop their markets.” We are talking billion dollar losses across the nation as a whole. They cannot keep doing that and stay in business.
You have probably heard of the energy costs, and “data centers” being built to create that industry. So far, those costs were being paid by venture capitalists, who expect a return on their money. The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI was on track to lose approximately $5 billion in 2024 against $3.7 billion in revenue — with annualized costs running close to $9 billion including computing and staff.
But all the news “that is fit to print” apparent doesn’t extend to stories like these: “In early 2024, a mid-sized legal firm in Chicago laid off eleven paralegals. The partners were proud of the decision. They’d run the numbers carefully. AI was handling document review faster and more accurately than the paralegals had. The math was undeniable. Nine months later, the firm’s AI costs had tripled, the paralegals had found other jobs, and the two senior partners who remained were doing document review themselves at two in the morning — because they could no longer afford the AI or the staff to replace it.” (Source: “Prepare for the End of Cheap AI” by Victor Mong, 2/26/2026 on Medium.com)
AI costs aren’t regulated (or even monitored) and if you have laid off employees (the only way to pay for AI) and changed procedures to utilize the AI, and trained your workers to do their jobs using that AI, you could find yourself, like the law firm above in a world of hurt.
Oh, but competition will save us, right? Those companies can just switch to a different AI, one that is cheaper. The point is that none of them can afford to be cheaper and they are all different enough that switching would be difficult. (How many of you would welcome a completely different platform to post things like this on? Or want to do your taxes using a completely different software package? Or.…)
Welcome to the Brave New World where AI hype and predatory pricing are delivering you into an unknown world <theme from The Twilight Zone plays>.
Postscript For the mathematically challenged: if AI cuts your operating costs in half for some aspect of your business (after the implementation costs, etc.) and you are smiling, if AI costs triple (as they did above), you are now paying 50% more than you were under your old system and the odds of those costs going down are slim to none.
The slow roll of the Epstein files keep them in the news. Most recently, missing FBI interview reports were released. This is an excerpt.
Note that the victim, called a “bitch” and “little girl” by the Pedo-in-Chief, King Pedophile, Spaced Invade Her Trump (Moscow’s Asset Governing America (MAGA)) has her pronouns redacted elsewhere. For example <blank>, bit the shit out of it.” Presumably what got redacted was “She” or possibly the initials of the complainant. Then “TRUMP struck <blank> and said words to the effect of, “get this little bitch the hell out of here.”
So, since the subject of the interview has outed herself, why were these things redacted? Instead of “She” could it possibly been “He”? That would certainly be something TRUMP would not want to be on record.
Note also that the all caps “TRUMP” is an indicator that he is the principal focus of the investigation, not just some incidental bystander.
And really, “<blank>, bit the shit out of it.” If you fill in the blank with her initials or “She” or “He” why is that comma there? I guess they don’t teach syntax at the FBI.
Allow me to make a case that China is an economic competitor of ours, but not an enemy.
Leaders in this country throw around the term enemy far too often, even to the resurrection of the term “enemy of the state,” a phrase I thought dead but turned out to be a zombie.
The Trump administration, possibly only the Orange Shitler, have declared China to be our enemy. (How dare they out compete us, it’s un-American!)
Recently China, in a state of preternatural calm indicated that China doesn’t need to lift a finger to destroy America, indicating that their strategy is “when one’s opponents are busy destroying themselves, don’t interrupt them.” (I don’t know who said that first.)
Instead of competing with China our government is planning on going to war with China, a war that we will not win, probably because China won’t come out to play. Time is on their side. The Leaning Tower of Treason, Captain Grabby Hands, The Fluorescent Führer, our president is wandering as if in a daze around the world firing munitions we are not replacing and soon we will be out of bullets. (Maybe we can ask North Korea to help restock us.) China is busy building a modern navy, and modern armaments, but isn’t engaged in constant military strife that drains its resources. The fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper comes to mind. They are also developing AIs that do not cost an arm and a leg, maybe that is because they don’t worship at the feet of the God Profit.
Instead of going around the world bullying other countries, China is trading development projects for access to “strategic materials.” This is a net positive for China, providing jobs for its population, income for its corporations, and good will in Africa and South America and elsewhere in Asia.
Gosh, do you think their leaders aren’t demented psychopaths? Is that their edge?
Our Vice-president Mr. Vance stated recently that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon” even though the U.S. has neither responsibility nor authorization to enforce the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty signed by both Iran and the U.S.
Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that U.S. troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes.
So, now we are letting other country’s determine our foreign policy? WTF?
Apparently exerting diplomatic pressure on our “ally” Israel to not do such a foolish thing didn’t sound like enough of a “deal” to the Ayatollah Covfefe.
These clowns need to start wearing honest clown costumes so we can tell that they are not being serious.
Uncommon Sense 
Trump Not Smart Enough to Be Br’er Rabbit
Tags: corruption, hypocrisy, politics, Republicans, tax the rich
As reported in The Guardian: “… at his more than hour-long pre-cabinet press conference on Thursday morning, Trump denied that the US was ensnared. He reiterated that the military campaign was well ahead of schedule. The Iranians know they have a disaster on their hands, he said, adding that ‘they were begging to negotiate, not me’. He said: ‘If they don’t negotiate, we are their worst nightmare. I am the opposite of being desperate’.”
He’s lying.
When Trump re-named the Department of Defense,
illegally of course, as the Department of War,
he wasn’t kidding.
This Briar Patch was not one that Trump asked to be thrown into when cornered. He jumped in himself! (Br’er Rabbit never would have!)
When Trump renamed the Department of Defense, illegally of course, as the Department of War, he wasn’t kidding. I do notice that those edits of those titles (especially Secretary of War) are not being used much now, because Trump is insisting that this is not a war he has started.
The tools Trump is used to using: lying, suing, ignoring, etc. are not working. The whole world is watching (and learning how to defeat the U.S. in future engagements), and calling out Trump’s lies (see above), and he cannot ignore what is happening because it is of no consequence when it is clear his war is affecting Republicans’s chances in the midterm elections coming this fall. Trump thought he had captured a golden idol, only to find out that he had a tar baby on his hands.