For-profit is the delivery system, which should save taxpayer money. Systems where the institutions are directly administered by taxpayer funds and their attendant public employee unions also have political/financial incentives.
Either way - publicly-run or private contractor, if the government is a good steward of public funds, they'll monitor well to avoid waste and remove people who are trying to unjustly enrich themselves. And if the officials are incompetent or corrupt themselves, they'll fail to recognize when those things are happen, or participate themselves. I don't see a big difference in public vs. private unless I imagine a fantasy government run only by officials who are smart and highly ethical.
In an oligarch owned media ecosystem, with obvious corruption of the regulators (FCC, DOJ) to ensure proper use of the public radio spectrum and monopoly restrictions, having a non-partisan publicly funded independent media is vital to the health of democracy.
The US is not a "free society".
Which is why the BBC, ABC, CBC, etc exist in civilized societies.
I think it's worth putting a finer point on the dynamic that the US's real state-run media IS FOX, NBC, and their ilk. The main power structure in the US is the corporate conglomerates, whose owners/managers may compete with one another like players of a sporting team compete with each other, but are ultimately all playing against the People. So invoking "state run media" to talk about PBS/NPR/CPB taking a little public money and trying to produce a different angle of public good rings totally hollow. If you don't like what they end up producing, you can always not tune in! But by the time you're rejecting them on ideological grounds, you should have already rejected every other single station on the air apart from community access type channels.
Actually it is PBS that bears responsibility here. Very likely the decision by PBS to hire OSS was corrupt (OSS are just a reseller of Iron Mountain) and they made no other provision to backup the files a second way, like AWS Glacier.
> is PBS that bears responsibility here. Very likely the decision by PBS to hire OSS was corrupt
Don't blame corruption for what was most likely extremely strained budgets. Local public access TV stations like KETC (Nine PBS) tend to be severely understaffed and underpaid.
Realistically, they went with OSS because the quote for a local MSP was cheaper than the cost of hiring additional headcount (a $70k salary ends up costing roughly $100k for an employer).
(Source: occasionally dealt with these kinds of accounts back when I was an SE and later PM)
Edit: I'm right - they only have 1 IT/Software employee managing the entire organization which only has a budget of $30M after losing $1.8M in federal funding.
Oof, that is a horrible position to be in with so many dicks on HN. You'd assume SWEs would have sympathy for other SWEs.
Some HNers should have been taught better manners by their parents or should have at least internalized the lessons from Arthur as a kid [0].
If that employee sees this post - I want to say THANK YOU. It's a hard job.
I have - this is my throwaway account, and my primary account has been alive since a little after YC moved from Boston.
I hate HN and how it has gotten worse and worse as the years go by. There are a couple basic changes that the mod team could do to help alleviate the degradation but they aren't doing it.
> Very likely the decision by PBS to hire OSS was corrupt (OSS are just a reseller of Iron Mountain)
That's making a lot of assumptions. I host some of my backups on what is effectively a reseller of S3; was that decision corrupt?
But, yes, PBS does bear some responsibility here. If you leave your car in a parking lot overnight with the door open and the key in the ignition, the thief is still wrong for taking it, but there's a limit to how much indignity you can have.
Although you are correct, the statement is still arguably correct.l, even if only accidentally.
As the parent entity, the national PBS has a responsibility to guide and even mandate policies and provide best practice guidelines or even offer support and assistance in burden sharing arrangements.
PBS has long now had major structural challenges due to things like internal corruption and overbearing control by the well funded chapters without commensurate responsibility.
As with many such decentralized membership organizational structures, incentives can often be very misaligned between verticals and laterals.
Note, this wouldn't be PBS the national organization, this would be the local PBS affiliate who would have made this decision. The affiliates are extremely independent.
Krugman so badly wants this to be true. But handwaving away massive difference in IT innovation and in practical data like housing size and vastly greater American consumption does not make it true. Just 20% of European homes even have air conditioning. European industrial energy costs are more than 2x the U.S. Don't ignore the data. Europe is behind and falling behind at an ever-faster clip. And the strategic issues of continued vast unskilled migration into Europe and the need to re-arm in a post-NATO world are further economic burdens that will tip most of Europe into middle-income status.
I don't buy into this critique at all... I live in two cities in Europe. I like our size of houses. I like not needing to own a car. I like that in both of the cities I live in there are 8 supermarkets within ten minutes walk. I like that I never have to think about healthcare costs. I've never felt the need for air conditioning. And when I see Americans' lives, they seem full of crappy stuff that I have no need for, food that's positively unhealthy. Not to mention guns, etc, etc.
I think it's valid to question whether and how GDP translates into happiness, but America (as a whole) does just have .. more and bigger.
We will eventually start cottoning on to air conditioning as people realize it's a bidirectional solution that can warm you in the winter. The need is genuinely less than the US as Europe is both further north (New York is the same latitude as Lisbon) and currently benefiting from the Atlantic evening out the temperature.
I don't have AC so by the above measurement I'm poor. But I have a heat pump which circulates chilled water through the floors. So which way should we compare now?
District heating only works if the whole district is built at once with it in mind, it's not really viable to retrofit. And the compact cores were often built before the industrial era.
Air conditioning is not needed in most of Europe, no idea why that would be a measurement of economic advancement.
Krugman presented arguments with data, it'd be nice to see your data that counters Krugman's argument, not a whole different set of measurements that you are defining as the basis of comparison. It's just a strawman with makeup.
There is really no similary between the most populous areas of Europe and, say, Columbus or Chicago or .... The summers in eastern America are savage and inhuman; the winters, by contrast, are ... savage and inhuman.
People complain about the weather in England, but in fact there are palm and eucalyptus growing in Oxford, though it's bad taste and you might lose one in a bad winter. It never gets hot and never gets cold.
I realized after living in UK and Germany that the religious fanatics who founded USA must really have been oppressed to put up with it.
I am using the adjusted numbers. Official are 2k and scientist adjusted are around 12k. WHO's estimate for Europe is 175k. I do find all the European justification here to show a lot about what Europeans actually think of their own citizens. The numbers make us look bad and so the numbers must be wrong because we can never look bad in this way is such a modern American leadership way of looking at it.
Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Benelux, the Nordics, Baltics, most of Central Europe don't have a need for AC. It might make life more comfortable during some days of heatwaves but it's definitely not a need to survive.
Southern Europe has experienced more scorching heat the past 1-2 decades and AC is going to become a necessity given the trend of climate warming but it's not Arizona.
Also I think people aren't aware that the USA doesn't use the same methodology to count heat-related deaths, a heart attack from someone working out in the fields on 35C+ weather is not counted as heat-related, Scientific American published an article about it back in 2024[0].
> It might make life more comfortable during some days of heatwaves but it's definitely not a need to survive.
Well I don't know , I lived 4 years in the Netherlands in one of those apartments that have huge windows on every room. During the summer some days got closed to 37-38c and the sun sets at what , 11PM ? I was pretty scared our newborn might die - I put a fan right on her of course but I'm not sure this setup is OK at all.
No. Even now, in the longest days of the year, the sun sets at 10pm, and we're not even into the hottest days of the year for another month or two as the days continue to get shorter again.
The numbers you cite are from last year, which was unusual historically as records, not the norm. The sunset in the hottest month will be 9pm, and those highs of >30C are experienced for less than one week. I think you're missing the point of the parent posters where it's over 25C in the large parts of the US for 3-4 months of the year.
A need is a necessity, is AC a necessity or a comfort? It's only a need if without it your life would be so insufferable that you cannot live normally, otherwise it's not a need but a comfort.
Many things aren't needed, survival doesn't mean biological survival so you don't need to bring up "a smartphone isn't a need" since without one a life in modern society becomes quite insufferable (banking access, government access, etc.).
It's the reality: it doesn't get hot in the summer and it doesn't get cold in the winter. The climate is 'maritime' and moderated by the immense influence of the Atlantic/Mediterranean/Baltic. On the east coast of USA you might expect the same, but the wind is from the west and thus to some extent reproduces the savage 'continental' weather of the interior. The main body of Americans live in extremely hostile weather environments.
Europe is not a country or a single place. In central Spain, where 40 ºC is more likely, you'll find more air conditioning than in the UK, where people think that 25 ºC is hot.
So you are saying AC is a need in the Netherlands for the odd week of heatwaves in a year?
Installing thousands to millions of AC compressors, piping, having the grid ready for the spike in consumption when all these ACs turn on, etc. is a necessity that needs to happen because The Hague is reaching 30C for 3 days in the next week?
Interesting how little lives are worth to Europeans given how many die due to heat each year. To beat America in indifference to one's own people is an actual achievement.
I am unaware of the US situation, but there are vast differences in housing quality across Europe. Compare the Netherlands, even bad parts of the countryside, to the Greek or Romanian countryside. WTF! And where you'd need air conditioning (Southern Italy, Sicily, Southern Greece) you won't find air conditioning, outside of some very rich enclaves (like parts of Malta, a small part of Sicily, some Greek and Adriatic Islands). And there's 1 reason for that: they can't afford it.
And if we're being entirely honest ... most large European cities I've seen certainly could benefit from having half thrown down and rebuilt. As well as essentially all of the smaller ones.
And as for one of Paul Krugman's comment "Americans, however, have more stuff, that is, material goods: Our houses and cars, in particular, are much bigger. Europeans, on the other hand, have more time ..."
That's not because Europeans don't want big houses, don't want infinite stuff. In very large parts of Europe they can't afford it. And they certainly want more and longer jobs. They just can't find jobs that pay enough to justify giving up free time. But would they work, say, 44 hours per week for a 15-20% raise? (because it's 15-20% more compared to a 38 hour week) I know people that wouldn't, but I also know people that would love such an opportunity.
> That's not because Europeans don't want big houses, don't want infinite stuff. In very large parts of Europe they can't afford it.
But this is true of the USA as well, large parts of it people cannot afford a big house, a bigger car, and they have fewer options of smaller dwellings, smaller cars to choose from when they cannot afford the biggest, most expensive options.
Wanting infinite stuff is definitely much less prevalent in Europe than in the USA, the materialistic culture is very different (and it differs even more between countries in Europe).
> I am unaware of the US situation, but there are vast differences in housing quality across Europe. Compare the Netherlands, even bad parts of the countryside, to the Greek or Romanian countryside. WTF!
Compare the housing quality in rich coastal cities of the USA vs the Appalachia, WTF!
I love spectating this criticism of Europe on X. I'm European, but live in NZ and just landed in Netherlands a week ago. While I'm generally very supportive of EU, it is indeed noticeable:
1. iOS asked me to select a default browser, but it wasn't working thus none of the links open for a while.
2. Cookie banners are holy-sheeet. I do see them while in NZ, but holy heck this is next level. They are huge and everywhere.
3. Gemini AI (and its cousin AI summaries in YouTube) is not available. Grok on my mates Tesla - not available (I think it's been out over a year on US).
4. It wasn't even a hot day, but no cooling in Amsterdam trams is insanity.
5. Some shops don't accept foreign cards. Also cards not accepted in red light district at all lol.
Bottle caps haven't bothered me, tiny housing is understandable and biking to places was nice. Workers everywhere seem unhappy and don't seem to be eager to work, but thats likely just local nuance.
Because oftentimes towns and cities were not build from the ground up in a completely new continent, and most of all, are made of bricks or cement, not wood.
> Just 20% of European homes even have air conditioning.
And half of the percentage of obese population so draw your conclusions.
Such a weird way of thinking, we achieved so many technological breakthroughs that can benefit everyone, why should anyone fall behind? Worldwide we see the opposite i.e. the world is converging more and more. And even so I don’t care, you may consume twice or thrice as much as me if you like! I don’t think most people even want to compete with the US on purchase power equality anymore, life’s pretty good here and it keeps getting better, consumption in itself isn’t an end goal. Almost all countries here are happier and healthier than the US and people spend much less time working and more time enjoying themselves.
This comment probably won't go down well but your point irked me.
> And the strategic issues of continued vast unskilled migration into Europe
If only there wasn't a global power invading countries for oil reserves over the years and causing mass migration and destabilising those places?
Also have you considered 100% of the EU doesn't NEED air conditioning?
Come back when you have a minimum wage and universal healthcare. Your IT comment forgets the fact that the US allows tech companies to do whatever they like all in the pursuit of "progress" when infact you're in a situation now that your personal privacy is a memory of a dream.
I will just note that there was quite a lot of European participation in the bombing of Libya, as well as the Iraq war. European policy towards North Africa has basically been "hopefully they'll drown before they cross the Mediterranean" rather than pro-stability.
The EU and NATO didn't not initialize those wars. We supported the US after they made false claims for WMDs. And now when Ukraine needs some more support, they're AWOL all of a sudden. Because their "democracy" runs on the whims of a TV show personality who didn't even win more than 50% of the vote.
> If only there wasn't a global power invading countries for oil reserves over the years and causing mass migration and destabilising those places?
Do you think that's the only reason for 'mass migration'?
Consider that in the last 20 years internet access is *globally ubiquitous* because of cheap mobile phones.
That in turn means that people in the poorest parts of Africa that 20 years ago had no idea whatsoever about how 'rich' Europe is in comparison, in 2026 not only can see what they don't have, but can communicate with those than can help them make that journey by land and sea.
War and envy (for want of a better word) are the two reasons.
> War and envy (for want of a better word) are the two reasons.
Envy will bring more skilled workers and you'd be surprised how many people don't want to leave their homeland. Regardless of the grass being greener. Infact it's those specific reasons why there is an integration problem, because they moved without choice so fairly don't feel obligated to integrate.
Piketty is just a marxist flailing around, backfilling data to fit his belief that communism is the solution for every problem. He's been spectacularly wrong in his predictions so far, for example he said Milei would be "devastating" for Argentina and the opposite is the case.
I'm pretty sure no Marxist considers Piketty a fellow Marxist, he's much closer to social democracy and Keynes. Piketty advocates for market economy and a global capital tax, Marxists on the other hand advocate for the violent overthrowing of capitalism and collective ownership of the means of production. Can you spot the difference?
> A visit to the Soviet Union in 1991 was enough to make him a firm "believe[r] in capitalism, private property and the market"
Ok, that's what he says, but what does he want? Does he want to eliminate social classes (communism)? Eliminate private ownership of the means of production (socialism)?
> His 2013 book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, relies on economic data going back 250 years to show that an ever-rising concentration of wealth is not self-correcting. To address this problem, he proposes redistribution through a progressive global tax on wealth.
No, looks like he just wants taxes. Case closed: this is instance #54367 of an economic conservative pretending that it's marxism to tax a penny from a billionaire. And you call yourself "pirate"? Sigh.
If we are going to start discounting economists based on failure to correctly predict things like - interest rates - then you’re going to be chopping the entire mainstream field. If any economist was ever beholden to making accurate predictions, the field would currently be vacant.
I'm a man, and I've been using Uber since it launched. Most rides are fine, but there are enough weirdos on the platform that 220 incidents per day that are serious enough to report seems reasonable to me, even if you don't consider that they operate internationally.
I once had a driver pick me up in downtown Seattle, and it turned out to be that he was driving for Uber as a tactic for his entrepreneurial venture developing antimicrobial and hydrophobic coating. He claimed to have applied it to the fishing boat from Deadliest Catch. He was specifically circling downtown to try to pick up someone who could get the ear of someone in Amazon's grocery division that he could pitch to (which I was not). At a red light in a nightmarish seven-way intersection, he took out a square of cheesecloth that had apparently had the coating applied, and attempted to demonstrate its effectiveness by pouring water onto it. It worked, and the water got all over his passenger seat and center console instead while the light turned green and cars behind us honked.
A few months later, Uber tried to match me with that same driver, and I cancelled it and walked instead. I have to imagine that if a guy with that level of high-preparation social ineptitude can stick around in their system, that the number of people making offhand inappropriate moves or remarks must be reasonably high.
Because adversary was not capable/willing to disable satellites. russia or China will Kessler syndrom the orbit if their EW cant shut it down conventionally.
I think a small level of it is fine. It’s like sports teams. You can be a Giants fan and I can be a Yankees fan, and we’ll bicker & make fun of each other for supporting a different team. But we can still work together & be civil when it comes to lots of other stuff.
I disagree here. Local/regional chauvinism is funny and de-dramatize nationalism while being a very good point to start discussions. Seeing the Gwenn ah Du flag in the US or in other foreign country is basically a "come talk to me" call.
There are different sorts of regional chauvinism though: a distinction can be drawn between English flags erected in random US states by people who want to talk about their ancestors in the 1750s, English flags flown alongside the local coat of arms on tourist sites all over the UK, English flags hanging from English homes by all over England because of excitement for an upcoming football tournament and English flags surreptitiously hung on council property by far-right thugs who attack council staff tasked with removing them, on the basis of internet memes about needing more flags to show those immigrants who's boss. England has all of the above, but that last one has dominated flag erections recently.
As for Banksy who incidentally also likes making surreptitious additions to other people's property, he's never exactly been subtle about which school of politics he doesn't like
