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Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

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Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#251

Post by markbnj »

grondilu wrote: post #167
aylmao wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always disappointing to find people on the web who don't believe in basic human rights. Don't we all have the right to a basic level of livelihood? Why should the family I was born to determine wether I have clean water to drink or not, for example?

> Why should the family I was born to determine wether I have clean water to drink or not, for example? Because of this thing called reality. If the circumstances of your birth are unfortunate, that's sad, but it does not have to be other people's problem.

So here's the basic problem with your attitude: it proceeds from comprehending only your half of a fundamental equation. You feel no responsibility toward those less fortunate than yourself, but at the same time you expect them to feel a general responsibility to respect your property rights. Why should they? Because it's in the Bible or written in law books? In the wild there are no property rights, no individual freedoms. What keeps the poor from your door when they realize that the responsibility is one-sided?

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#252

Post by angersock »

loeg wrote: post #25
angersock wrote: post #23

So, what's the hivemind spin on Apple aggressively dodging taxes? How're we defending that again?

Come on. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

You didn't answer my question. Anything of the form "Apple is doing it for reasons" or "Apple is not doing it as documented at " is acceptable.

"but muh hackernews rules" is not an answer.

Also, it's a pretty specific tangent that coincides with the original submission about people hiding and hoarding wealth.

So, again, try answering the question instead of downvoting and invoking rules that (frankly) don't show what you think they show here.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#253

Post by grondilu »

andrepd wrote: post #211
grondilu wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather sum it as "live and let die"

I wonder, does the suffering of your fellow man mean nothing to you? Make you feel bad? How do you manage to feel such callous disregard for the agony of others? I'm really curious about how one can be so coldly and consciously cruel.

"suffering", "agony". It's not like we're talking about people being tortured.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#254

Post by anigbrowl »

mindcrime wrote: post #88
anigbrowl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, then rent is also theft.

Just answer the question: "how do we fund the things that are currently funded by taxation, which are actually necessary / desirable, without using violence or the threat of violence?" C'mon, we're hackers... we can do better than relying on violence and aggression. What happened to the idea that we could apply our intellects, reason, logic, and rational thinking, and improve on the old way of doing things? I mean, i…

Oh spare me your pseudo-moralism. If you don't think leaving people to starve to death or (insert obvious consequences of rampant inequality here) are a form of structural violence then you're just being a giant hypocrite. Private violence is a thing and you know it. Until you're willing to acknowledge that truth I'm not willing to waste any more time on your sophistry.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#255

Post by lbotos »

aslkdjaslkdj wrote: post #227
erentz wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair a lot were clamoring behind Bernie Sanders. But Hillary bent the DNC to do some fairly corrupt shit and so you got Trump. The democrats are still trapped by this neolib-technocrat-west-wing fantasy-land where the best person at debating wins regardless of the fact they don’t actually stand for anything.

What corrupt shit? What specific action did the DNC do that caused Bernie to lose?

This article is making it's rounds. It implies that Hillary had control of the DNC and "bailed it out": https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-b...

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#256

Post by vasilipupkin »

vonnik wrote: post #246
vasilipupkin wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have any evidence that buying an office building on wall street for 1 million in the 90s is a shady price that doesn't make sense? also, how in the world did you bring facebook into this conversation?

He bought it for 1/8th of the price it sold for two years earlier. During those two years, the US economy was on an upswing. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/07/business/40-wall-street-is... And the building looks like this: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-trump-40-wall-street... It's a shady price, and a shady building, because he now rents it out to crooks like himself. (See Bloomberg piece.) In the future, d…

your whataboutism is a classic kremlin maneuver. What about this and what about that ? The fact that I defended Facebook's handling of Russian ads in an unrelated online discussion has nothing to do with the fact that your specific argument about details of a specific deal is bullshit.

You said he bought it for 1 million and he bought it for 8. Apparently the same price as previous buyer paid ? So we can dispense with this line of reasoning ?

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#257

Post by will_pseudonym »

mtremsal wrote: post #129
VHRanger wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note that, in the US, worker __compensation__ has increased steadily. However, __wages__ have not. A lot of this has to do with employer provided health insurance and ballooning healthcare costs, which are fairly specific problems to the US. Housing and education costs have also increased much faster than overall worker compensation.

Couldn't you argue that an increase in compensation driven by 'ballooning healthcare costs' wouldn't actually improve the standard of living of workers? Comparing wages (rather than total compensation) to cost of living would seem more pertinent in this regard.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but new medications for difficult to treat diseases do raise the quality of life for those populations, despite being incredibly expensive. I'm certainly not saying they shouldn't be less expensive, mind you. :)

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#258

Post by grondilu »

kelnos wrote: post #193
grondilu wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to social unrest / revolutions that causes problems for rich people as well. Some problems for sure, but it's probably manageable. Poverty is not and should never be an excuse for crime. Rich people can build as many prisons as necessary.

How can you possibly believe that a society where a large percent of people are in prison is a healthy society?

If they committed crime, they should be in prison, regardless of how numerous they are.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#259

Post by fjsolwmv »

icelancer wrote: post #209
SubiculumCode wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea. You have resources talking about this in more detail?

Ethereum and the idea of smart contracts can be an initiative towards this end.

Ethereum doesn't control the rainforest. Pure information can't

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#260

Post by [deleted] »

aslkdjaslkdj wrote: post #227
erentz wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair a lot were clamoring behind Bernie Sanders. But Hillary bent the DNC to do some fairly corrupt shit and so you got Trump. The democrats are still trapped by this neolib-technocrat-west-wing fantasy-land where the best person at debating wins regardless of the fact they don’t actually stand for anything.

What corrupt shit? What specific action did the DNC do that caused Bernie to lose?

[deleted]
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