hvb2

For European governments that have their email and such running with Microsoft, it's quite the signal when individuals lose their email because the US doesn't like them. See international criminal court.

> we have an (ever growing) list of forbidden clauses that even when written and signed by consumer are null and void

I'm pretty sure that's true almost everywhere. Law beats contract. The real question is how strong the laws are. In the US not so much because of small government and stuff, especially in red states.

An out of county police officer, in general, can't conduct a traffic stop? There's a few exceptions but none of those seem to apply?

London is not a financial center?

Uh? By what metric?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Financial_Centres_Index

Just to be a pedant, 18.5 % in the US and same in Canada so 37%.

I wouldn't call that almost half, it used to be about half before the move (NY at 31.3, 19.7 in Canada).

For Europe the choices are, foreign actor A or foreign actor B.

I don't think the current US administration has shown themselves to be less hostile than China...

> If I pay $5000 for a chair I have reason to expect a lot from it. And more often than not, pricey furniture doesn't actually deliver sufficient quality to be able to defend the price.

That's not the point. A large chunk of the price is the name on it and the marketing/image you associate yourself with. I thin, as engineers, that's hard to relate to. But that is how it works.

The price is not a reflection of quality, it's an outcome of a process to pick a price just enough people are willing to pay.

> I imagine that their issue is reviewer bandwidth.

This feels to me as the real bottleneck in general. Maybe along with thinking through what to code/prompt.

I don't need more tokens or automated generation of PRs, I'm already at capacity for the care and understanding I want to have for code I own.

Not sure what you're referring to but in June they achieved criticality in a demo. While a good milestone that's not at all a functioning reactor connected to the grid. Let alone anything like a repeatable consistent production of said reactor.

Well so far I believe they've been buying us government bonds for example?

Also, haven't they been buying all kinds of stuff in Africa etcetera? Money doesn't have to flow from A to B and back to A. It might very well pass many more hops to complete the circle

> But China wants to make everything

As long as a typical Chinese person is happy with a standard of living that is far below what an American expects, China will be way cheaper on labor.

For most products, labor is a significant cost.

For a lot of consumers, price is more important then where it's made. Maybe not what they say they think is important but when they actually decide. As a result, China will make almost everything, along with the rest of south east Asia.

Basically, the lower price for products comes at the cost of exporting your own jobs. One is easy to reason about when making a purchase decision, the other is indirect and abstract. Which is why the former wins

Selling at a loss to capture market share, isn't that part of every SV startup? What makes it so bad in this case?

> but SMRs should be cheaper and easier to construct.

The word should is doing some real heavy lifting there. Especially given the subject.

I guess we'll know in 2030 when one should come online.

That's fine, but if I give you my IBAN and name on the account, you can only send money to me...

Well and commit actual fraud/identity they by forging my signature maybe... But we don't see that happen on a large scale because it just isn't feasible/worth it. We would see it otherwise as I'm sure there are plenty of datasets with those pieces of info to be bought..

I find it very interesting that on a site like this, someone advocates for payments with just a username/password.

This might work for you, but it's not a solution for less tech savvy/elderly people. These services are the easiest to scam people out of money on.

But no company cares about an occasional failed payment? That's part of doing business?

So they send a polite email informing you of it and you pay it a few days late?

No reasonable entity would charge late fees as that's a great way to anger otherwise perfect customers?

> because they don’t want to give their bank details

What's the problem with sharing your bank details? I don't consider those a secret at all. And if they were, chances are they've been compromised somewhere anyway.

> What is so bad about letting real customers decide which companies need funding?

Because human nature means you won't get paid when something is free. There's donate options but those are not a reliable source of money.

Unless your software is big enough that you can make money through support contracts, I don't see how you can keep the lights on while being paid

I think you have a point, however a change of status for example (so from temporary to permanent) can require you leaving the country.

Also, the first paragraph of the article says it too:

"Immigrant visa applicants with interviews scheduled at U.S. embassies and consulates have been notified by email that their appointments are being postponed."

Don't worry, supply is there. Because the US is actually increasing visa caps for some of these workers. Might also be because they work at the properties of a certain person.

Need to keep those wages down, it would be terrible for profitability if he had to hire Americans you know!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/06/12/trump-or...

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/us/politics/h2b-visas.htm...

> I don’t think it would have hurt much to put some advanced warning out there. Let people plan for it.

As with a lot of things this administration does, this is where the cruel part comes in. That would be the sensible thing to do, it's just a choice not to.

> I don’t think anyone would be surprised if some random South East Asian country did this same thing and nobody would bat an eye. It to be expected that other countries can have wavering policies, it’s when the US does it that people cry about the humanity of it.

Because those countries would typically do it with a warning period of some sort, the fallout won't be as much.

In general these countries typically don't do this because the legal immigration system is how they pick and choose who to allow in, as the US does. So typically this would be to their advantage.

Also, the US is the country that used to call themselves "leader of the free world and all that". So maybe they should hold themselves to high standards?

> Also, I don’t think you can challenge a blanket policy.

There isn't a policy here that has been changed. It's the executive branch stopping some function it was tasked with. We've seen in the past that they've tried such things many times for the courts to then come in and say that the law says they should do XYZ and so they're forced to resume their work. DOGE stopped a bunch of things that the courts later reinstated, including rehiring the people they fired. Thankfully the executive branch isn't completely unchecked, yet.

> Exactly why this should be less of a surprise to those that know how things work and that they may actually get locked out

So you would suggest that people cancel their lease, pack up their stuff, don't sign their kids up for school and all? Just on the off chance that this hits right when they're abroad? I think that's just arguing around the issue created here.

That is not what's happening here.

They're not making decisions. No one is being denied as a result of this.

Also, there are many cases in which a visa can expire and you're still allowed to be in the US and even work. As long as the reason why you got one is still there (there's a legal term for this but IANAL). It's just that when you leave you cannot come back without getting a new one.

I would genuinely like to understand how you square this with the current president being known to leverage a lot of low/unskilled temporary workers visas.

If these weren't issued he would need to hire Americans?

Sources: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2026-01-30/the-trump...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/06/12/trump-or...

> Enforcing the rule doesn’t become less legitimate just because someone has invested more in breaking it.

Nobody broke any rules here. These are the people folowwing the rules for the legal immigration system.

You just want to break the law as it stands today and not have an immigration system at all. That's a view you can hold and just as valid as any other. Just stop talking about people breaking rules, that's not what this is about, this has nothing to do with illegal immigration.

> You can try again later.

Can they? Because one of the questions on these questionnaires is almost always 'have you had a prior request being denied'.

> But they’re not advising when that may be happening. To me, that tells you everything you need to know.

These are life altering decisions for people that might have put decades into doing their best for the US. This is not about what to have for dinner.

This causes a LOT of uncertainty and chaos for no real reason. If they're so convinced it should all be denied, then issue those denials so they can be challenged.

I don't think you understand anything about an immigration process.

All these cases are meticulously documented. So not making a decision is not at all the same as a 'no'.

A 'no' you can challenge, a pause not so much. They probably cannot and don't want to actually deny all those applications as they'll be in hot water really quick. So this is just the childish, not wanting to really own it, way of trying to achieve the same result.

> I feel like I’ve said it a few times but - Yes, exactly. The country wants you to leave and then get’s to decide if you can come back. That’s how it’s designed. On purpose.

That is how it's designed, and that's fine.

But make a decision... They're pausing the decision making for an indefinite amount of time. That's not how it was designed, but it sure does look like that's on purpose.

I meant that I agreed that visas are a right.

> I am a citizen, so this isn't a good faith comparison.

Oh, you still are. You'll get your passport, we just can't tell you when. That's what's happening here. These people aren't being denied, they're told to wait for an indefinite amount of time.

But basically you're saying that you think this is outrageous if it were you, got it.

No, people are following the rules and politely asking for a renewal in a different country.

The issue here is that they're not being denied, the government is basically refusing to make a decision for an indefinite amount of time.

I'm assuming most normal cases will get their visas eventually, the question is when. In the meantime the applicant can pay rent in the US, find some place to live abroad and maybe continue working from overseas? All so the state department can retrain a few people?

> The terms were clear, visas are a privilege and not a right or automatic entitlement.

They are. Yet can you tell me why you would need to pause all processing in order to retrain your people? Surely they do training all the time without pausing processing.

Your passport is a right too, you wouldn't mind if they paused that request with no indication of when they might resume? And that's including when you're abroad and lost yours. If that happens to you, you'll happily hold the same position?