There are two considerations.

For the American government and corporations, Chinese espionage is an obvious and real threat. NVidia doesn’t want China to steal their chip designs and the Pentagon doesn’t want China to steal military info.

For American private citizens, it isn’t really a threat. It’s actually preferable in a way, because you know they won’t disclose whatever they learn to the American government. You might even consider buying a fully “designed and made in China” device, which the NSA might not have a backdoor to.

This only makes it more concerning to the American government, because they lose control over their citizens.

It’s also by design.

The flaws are designed to be exploited by the rich and powerful.

Right, investment company.

In particular, they are Not a Bank.

If you just Google you will see JPM and Citi did quite badly under the low interest regime and bounced back after interest rates went up.

Citi had a more pronounced bump with Covid stimulus.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JPM/jpmorgan-chase/gross-profit

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/C/citigroup/gross-profit

They are still making nice profits, but Apple and Microsoft are at no risk of being overtaken by any bank any time soon.

If you want to call BlackRock a bank…

Then you’re gonna be right in your bubble, but it’s a pretty big leap. And you won’t find many people agreeing with you.

And no, banks are making profits again with rising interest rates. They were making way lower profits at low interest rates.

In terms of being disconnected from reality, I think you’re projecting.

The banking sector is not bigger than before.

The fact that smaller banks merge and consolidate does mean that some banks are bigger than before.

And that’s also what regulators want. They want a handful of big banks that they can more easily monitor and control.

But the power of the sector has greatly weakened.

The big money is now in tech and energy, not the financial sector.

Indeed. And we had a decade of extremely low interest rates that basically broke the power of banks.

The more important causes in 2024 are:

• Taxing the rich
• Climate change
• Protesting against war and genocide