Trump was one of the dirtiest candidates in history. How a rich oligarch billionaire got elected as a blue collar populist is one for the history books. These scandals will haunt him for the rest of his political career, as it's just so easy to dig up dirt on him. Almost every business deal in his past has been marred by some kind of controversy. The man is a walking scandal magnet.
Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
291–300 of 459 posts
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 fr…
> In the wild there are no property rights In the wild there is ownership (or possession), and animals defend it with brute force. Property rights regulate this and tend to enforce the concept of ownership in a civilized way. Without property rights, we'd be back to defending ownership with violence, even on the individual level. Few people want that, and I'm not one of them.
No, there is no "ownership" in the wild. Posession is not ownership. Ownership is a concept. Posession is a physical fact. Any connection between the two is based on ideas in your head.
By the way, we are not at risk of going back to defending ownership with violence, for the simple reason that we haven't left that situation. Property is defended with violence and the threat of violence every day in the most civilized of countries. That's what police and prisons are: violence.
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#293At this point in history I'd argue that nation states have never been weaker. The idea that 'Russia' is behind anything is somewhat erroneous: powerful mobsters/oligarchs who have been enriched by looting Russia and other nation states and float their money offshore are 'Russia' in this context. That money is laundered into the western world. The concept of a capitalist 'empire' that knows no nation state is often di…
You lost me when you fell back to racist conspiracy theories. What the hell do you think "Zionist" means?
'zionist' - far right wing offshore mobster hiding behind Judaism in this context
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's very shady looking into anyone's comment history and bring up other supposed dirt and use it like that. Smear tactic. Now you don't look so good either.
Disagree. There's nothing wrong with looking at somebody else's previous comments, nor anything wrong with pointing out to the reader that there might (rightly or wrongly) be something of interest there. Comments are public, and a user's comment history is public too.
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do you as a citizen strive to minimize your tax burden to the most extent it makes sense and is legal? The problem is that regular citizens do not have access to means of minimizing their taxes to the extent that the wealthy have. It's been shown over and over again that corporations and wealthy individuals can shrink their tax rates to be as low as 2%. Nobody else can get that low. That is the fundamental problem:…
I don’t disagree with you at all. I wholeheartedly agree. The point still stands though. If you or I as middle or lower class schmucks could lower our tax burdens to 2%, wouldn’t we as well? Or is it some arbitrary number where it’s like “ok I feel like I need to contribute to society now”. If the answer to the above is non-arbitrary, the fault lies with the people that invented such tax code in the first place.
> Or is it some arbitrary number where it’s like “ok I feel like I need to contribute to society now”
Some cultures do have such arbitrary numbers codified in their religions, as it happens - 10% for Muslims, 20% for some Christians, etc.
Secularly speaking, tax law in most countries is laid down with certain public thresholds, defined through open process by democratically-elected representatives, and everyone is supposed to abide by them; but the rich can afford armies of professionals poking and prodding these laws until they find loopholes, contradictions and secret hatches. Obviously the legislator should carry some of the burden for not explicitly forbidding these escamotages; but it's similarly obvious that this sort of activity has reached levels that, even where ostensibly legal, are patently immoral and against the spirit of the law, and that's not the legislator's fault.
In a lot of cases, these activities are not even legal, in fact; they are just not prosecuted because authorities lack manpower for enforcement. This is why public leaks often results in new charges being brought forward: because someone else did the job and the taxman can piggyback on that. Responsibility for illegal activities lies squarely with the people engaging in them.
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Right, even torture has some legal limits. One cannot deprive someone from sleep, food, or clean water for longer than certain reasonable periods during torture, poverty on the other hand has much less certainty.
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
Refusing to pay taxes is stealing?! I am afraid you have this backwards: taxes are simple robbery.
Taxes are the rent you pay to live in the society you live in.
Do I have a choice? If not, then I am robbed.
I don’t disagree with the idea of taxes, just with the way they are stolen from me and with most of the purposes they are used for.
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. :)
I agree with your point, but are you also implying that 'new medications for difficult to treat diseases' are a primary driver of 'ballooning healthcare costs'? I don't think healthcare costs are increasing as quickly in other developed countries while they do benefit from constant medical advances.
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's a tax cut for billionaires bought and paid for by the GOP donor class I am a small business owner setup as a LLC single member company and the new cap will be a positive for me. It will reduce my tax burden allowing me to buy more software from companies, hire, expand, increase advertising spending, etc. I am a very real case, and there are lots of other small business owners like me who are certainly not bill…
Interestingly this was the premise behind Brownback's tax plan in Kansas: Small businesses were being held back by their tax burden. They wanted to invest more capital in their businesses, to scale up and hire more people. They had untapped opportunities in the market that they could not pursue because they didn't have the money that they would have if their taxes were lower. Here's how that worked out: http://thehil…
> Small businesses were being held back by their tax burden.
It's never taxes on profits that holds small businesses back. It's all the annoying things you need to do to employ people[1]. Best thing the government could do for small businesses is provide healthcare and decent pensions for workers. Which would be two fewer things for a business owner to worry about. Having the state employment agency handle payroll would also really really help. (For a small business payroll is a big headache always)
[1] Also important is lack of access to capital and uneven income.
Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm
#300At this point in history I'd argue that nation states have never been weaker. The idea that 'Russia' is behind anything is somewhat erroneous: powerful mobsters/oligarchs who have been enriched by looting Russia and other nation states and float their money offshore are 'Russia' in this context. That money is laundered into the western world. The concept of a capitalist 'empire' that knows no nation state is often di…
You lost me when you fell back to racist conspiracy theories. What the hell do you think "Zionist" means?
Recommend Misha Glenny if you haven't read his work.
https://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-Unde...
https://youtu.be/r28674tI3uE < From 2008