Good job. Since big tech are purportedly concerned about a tangle of disparate legislation, perhaps liaise with others to get your bill transposed into the legislation of other U.S. States, the U.K. The EU, Canada, Australia etc. I’m sure China would be interested also. I can get U.K. contact 4u

I think we will just have to disagree on that one

Easier said than done. Economists have said for a while that China should boost domestic consumption. But the CCP already know this. Problem is the population's propensity to save, which is not going to change without comprehensive state safety net that is not feasible. Property crash not help.

And a better half-way house is to give private actors the means of production and make decisions re capital allocation... BUT ... to regulate, wisely, and in the public good. I think we should be looking to the Chinese model for ideas. Not perfect, but then neither is Western democracy at the mo.

Well, progressive taxes help regulate inequality; but regressive ones do the opposite. Not sure that they are a useful tool to regulate inflation - in theory they can (by suppressing demand) but in practice the lever used is interest rates. But economic orthodoxy does change.

that they can only sell their products because there are consumers with sufficient wealth because of their state education etc etc.

...Of course, it would have been impossible for any of them to have amassed their fortunes without a workforce educated through taxation, able to get to work because of roads built from tax money....

..is a theme that has come up more than once: the idea that these titans of industry pay far too much tax, since they do not use public services, unemployment or housing benefit, public education, our National Health Service...

I agree. But it is not just them. Here in the UK, there is a TV program called "Dragon's Den" in which a panel of successful business people get to be condescending about aspiring entrepreneurs. Among the stream of arrogant, self-congratulatory sputum that we are supposed to be entertained by...

Yes, collectively we produce (construed widely, so including mining, harvesting etc) what we consume. That is the case everywhere and always. Including stuff where the proximate producer is one of the tech bros' companies

We have come a long way from citizens producing what the consume. That can work (eg the communists in pre- revolutionary Russia), but most would regard it as a backwards step. Maybe they would be wrong?

Depends what side of the Capital / Labour divide you are on. Although I suppose these days we should think in terms of Capital / Labour / Consumer. But then it still depends.

But if you don't have that experience, it seems quite plausible.
Similarly, flat earth. You can only believe it if you have no understanding of how the scientific community operates.
Speculate that it is true with all conspiracy theories?

(esp when you consider that the sole purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate the superiority of the US system over that of the USSR). If you know how government works and how decisions are made, faking it is just inconceivable.

I know that it was not faked I have been around the block enough to know how impossible faking it would be without the fact leaking out; and how damaging the leak would be to those in a position to order the faking

Without this constraint on their imaginations, they are free to believe all sorts of interesting things. Eg consider the 1969 moon landing.

But I think that ship has sailed (at least in western democracies). With unregulated social media now fully entrenched, we are too far into the disinformation age. And politics is becoming more and more populist. Not sure how we get out of this hole.

And government advisers would find it easier to resist pressure to change politically inconvenient advice (they would not be defending their view, but rather objectively reporting what the view of others is).

So the Media could avoid the error of broadcasting 2 opposing views and thinking that they have done a good job in achieving 'balance' when in fact, on of those views is fringe, the other mainstream. (BBC did that for years with climate change.)