So you have heard of DeepSeek - the new Chinese open source AI that caused the stock prices of US tech giants to plummet.

1 trillion US$ where "lost" in one day.

That is a million millions.

So there are 3 points that people do not talk about enough:

First: This is your money that you got back now!

Second: so called "Intelectual Property"

Third: Geopolitics

A lot has been said on the TikTok ban already but most commenters miss some important aspects, especially concerning the actual IT-security side. From the political side, it is clear that this is obvious that this not a move that is motivated by protecting the data of American citizens but is motivated by economic interests of the competing social-media platforms like X and Meta and even more by the fact that the US is now afraid that it can no longer manipulate its population in the same way that they where used to. Let us look at the details

Universal Basic Income from a Marxist Point of View

Many people on the Left see a Universal Basic Income (UBI) as an important tool for changing our society to the better but there is also a vocal minority that is opposed to the idea. Usually they have not looked into the idea very much but quickly found their verdict: UBI is "not revolutionary enough" and it is "just a band-aid" and maybe even a "neoliberal idea". And as it is built on "money" it can "not be anti-capitalist".

Usually the superficial arguments demonstrate not only a lack of knowledge about UBI but also some lack of Marxist understanding.

In the following I will not give a full overview of arguments for UBI but focus on refuting the errors in the left-wing critique mentioned above. Nonetheless here is a quick reminder of some of the advantages of UBI