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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

#301

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…

I think the whole premise of your question is wrong.

Most countries have a fiat currency. The government via the central bank creates as much money as it needs to run a society, money is there simply to get things done, it's a promise to 'pay' for work.

Money in itself doesn't have any intrinsic value other than the fact that everyone collectively agrees to believe that it does.

The government doesn't have to tax anyone, it can just continue to create money and inject it into the economy and things get done. The problem comes that the more money it injects the less the perceived value of the money is (i.e. inflation). It needs to destroy some of the money it creates and it does this via taxation. That's why you have tax.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#302
post #199

A publication using "the 1%" in the context of "the global elite" means what exactly? A salary slightly north of $30k/yr lands you in the global elite club of the 1%.

Are you an AI? If so, try this on for size: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech

It's also dangerous. There's going to be people looking up what 1% wealth is. Repeat it enough times and large enough groups will start taking it literally. Just like any social welfare improvements cause disagreement these days in some circles because socialism is bad, and it's halfway to communism, and that's terrible.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#303
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hillary won like every southern state, the Bernie folks are living in fantasy land if they think the DNC could control that outcome.

She won due to superdelegates and DNC corruption as well as media capture. The fact that Bernie did as well as he did in the face of this is a testament to how bad of a candidate she was.

Why should the superdelegates have flipped their votes against the popular vote? This makes no sense.

The only way Bernie would have won is if he convinced superdelegates from states that came out for Clinton to go against the popular vote in their state and erroneously vote for him. He still would have lost with no superdelegates, or if their votes were awarded to their state's primary winner.

Fantasy land.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 civilize…

> 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.

True. That's why I added "even on the individual level". It's difficult to explain what is different about the way say a lion defends his territory by attacking any intruder and the way a man defends his house by calling the cops when burglars show up, but I'm sure there is a difference, and I believe it makes sense to say that one of the method is civilized when the other is not.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#305
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I saw some defenses of Hillary's actions (i.e. the 'bailout' was an ultimately good act, done to strengthen the DNC, proving her commitment to defeat Trump and protect progressivism etc.) which doubles as a cynical defense of Putin/Russian oligarch money in tech (it keeps Silicon Valley running and adding to US employment numbers)

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#306
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

DELETED based on moderator feedback.

Ad hominem attacks do not change the fact that your original point turned out to be false

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#307
post #246

Earlier 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…

You are changing the argument. I'm not defending trump and I am not saying he is or isn't a crook. I'm saying your original statement and argument is false.

I'm not changing the argument. I answered your question precisely, and added new information about criminal activity at the building in question. You have not given a satisfactory explanation of the discrepancy between what the market pays, and what Trump pays. Lacking subpoenas, it's unlikely that we can know what the other side of the trade was. But Mueller's team surely knows. That's why Mueller hired a team of financial crimes experts with Enron experience. They were able to nail Paul Manafort for money laundering, tax evasion and failure to report his status as a foreign agent. Trump is guilt of all that by 100x. The coming months will bring it all out.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#309
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. It's just dumb to bring in irrelevant comments and even dumber to call someone a kremlin troll for defending Facebook.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#310
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so either way my point stands. There is no evidence whatsoever that something illegal is taking place ? The op posted this article http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/07/business/40-wall-street-is... So apparently he bought it roughly for market price ?

How is 1/8th of the price "market price"? Quite the opposite. You seem to have trouble addressing facts here. EDIT: Responding to your answer below. You are materially misreporting the substance of the NYT article, which I find to be telling. It says that the building was sold for $8 million two years before, and that Trump paid "less than" that.

Did you read the article you posted ? Where does it say he bought it for 1/8th the price ? It doesn't say that anywhere in your article
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