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Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

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Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#91

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

dredmorbius wrote: post #90
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK why this got downvoted. State spending and economic growth are inversely proportional. The bigger the government, the less economic growth there is.

Citation / data requested. This is a bald assertion and there are a tremendous amount of confounding factors. Globally, the fastest growing GDPs are associated with some of the weakest economies (Lybia, in 2018, for what it's worth). GDP growth is highly dependent on present GDP/capita (e.g., average income) levels. If you're starting high, you'll have little growth. Within a given country, given fiscal stimulus duri…

Stable, high per-capita, and fast growing GDP countries with low gov spending: Switzerland, Singapore, USA.

Stable, high per-capita, and slowly growing GDP countries with high gov spending: most other first world countries

Just google "impact of government spending on economic growth", you'll get lots of hits.

Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#92

Post by gddvhy »

wayoutthere wrote: post #33
bilekas wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But with this mentality corruption will just go unchallenged. Its a huge risk, but the rewards for removing such a big chunk of corruption is huge. So I guess you're right, it is more of a mindset thing.

It's no different than a peasant (or even a lesser lord) challenging a king in the feudal era. You spoke out against the king, you lost your head. Billionaires are our kings. Jeff Bezos' wealth is 3 times the GDP of North Kora, which has a standing army of over a million people. They are more wealthy than a number of independent states. Do you think he couldn't fund and equip 100,000 mercenaries if his monopoly were…

When Kim Chen Ir's wife gets half of the NK army via divorce, I'll believe that JB is comparable to NK.

Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#93

Post by jariel »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #70
c72a7fd0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ NOTE: It takes hours and days to communicate here because people do not like my opinions -- so "Hacker News" (lol) throttles me so I cannot really respond to you or anyone in reasonable time. ] Lol. No you do not like paying taxes; that's your Stockholm syndrome or sunk cost fallacy (variant of it) talking. It's not free; it's crazy expensive and goes to a lot of crazy and/or evil b.s. you have no interest in or co…

IDK why this got downvoted. State spending and economic growth are inversely proportional. The bigger the government, the less economic growth there is.

Actually this is definitely false, in a very provable way.

This is the formula for the GDP:

GDP = C + I + G + (Ex - Im)

Consumption + Investment + Gov. Spending + (Exports - Imports)

Every dollar spent by the government is a dollar added to the GDP, which is the primary measure of economic growth.

Just because the government does something, does not mean it's bad or good. Generally, governments create a lot of value, and the surpluses not measured in GDP can be immense.

Consider if the government didn't build any roads - everything was toll-based - it'd be a mess, and a huge strategic drag on the GDP.

Because there's not 'market oriented' way to measure what government does (well, no easy way). what we do is just count 'a dollar spend = a dollar GDP'. In the private side we measure Consumption.

So what this means is that if the government borrows and spends billions on 'whatever' - the economy literally grows by the dollar amount they spent. Assuming that 'whatever' is value creating in some way, it can be a good thing which is why Keynesian theory types suggest that the government should indeed do that during economic downturns in the private sector.

Obviously, the big problem is that it's really hard to 'value' what the government does, but it's not black magic either. There are ways to do it, it's just hard.

Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#94

Post by nickik »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #70
c72a7fd0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ NOTE: It takes hours and days to communicate here because people do not like my opinions -- so "Hacker News" (lol) throttles me so I cannot really respond to you or anyone in reasonable time. ] Lol. No you do not like paying taxes; that's your Stockholm syndrome or sunk cost fallacy (variant of it) talking. It's not free; it's crazy expensive and goes to a lot of crazy and/or evil b.s. you have no interest in or co…

IDK why this got downvoted. State spending and economic growth are inversely proportional. The bigger the government, the less economic growth there is.

I'm a libertarian but this is simply not true. There is a clear connection between overall economic freedom and economic growth. However stats like Denmark can have a big state, but still have a fair amount of economic freedom.

Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#96

Post by andreigheorghe »

jessaustin wrote: post #88
andreigheorghe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to a telegram that remained buried until now in the cache of 250,000 diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks in 2010 care to try that argument again, taking into account how time works?

That's the point; WL have never had any bias. They just publish genuine documents. They don't care whose ox is gored. The ridiculous conspiracy theorizing on display for the last three years says nothing about WL and everything about USA.

Nice work moving the goalposts :)

If, being aware of everything that's happening around us, you still choose to represent reality as "ridiculous conspiracy theorizing", then you're either in a cult, or a dedicated troll, neither of which I'm interested in wasting my time debating.

Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#97

Post by chmod775 »

mola wrote: post #80
Fnoord wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mind you, calling someone a hero cost you next to nothing in utility so I think the choice is a no brainier. People who express their homosexuality in Russia face repercussions. Someone who opposes racism such as black face in The Netherlands gets repercussions. Someone who leaks a video of war crimes faces repercussions. Expressing your support for these people likely has repercussions as well. They might not be o…

I was assuming OP is not from Russia where stakes of corruption are higher and the price for heroism is death.

If there wasn't a risk of a high price to be paid by the heroic individual, it wouldn't be very heroic.

Also a friendly reminder that, for instance, Edward Snowden is hiding in Russia of all places from a possible death penalty.

Capital punishment for an ultimataly selfless act, motivated by his moral code and love for a country that very much would like to see him gone for good.

Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#98

Post by hliyan »

tialaramex wrote: post #79
hliyan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. - The Categorical imperative (Kant). Basically, it's the next level of "do unto others". To determine whether your action is right or wrong, ask yourself what would happen to society if every person performed that action as a matter of habit.

Even this is a little unsophisticated for the same reason as the Golden Rule. The problem is that other people aren't just mirror versions of you. In small children "theory of mind" develops, the child supposes that perhaps this experience they're having, whatever that is, is also an experience the other people who look like them are having. And this theory works well, you can make useful predictions with it. Because…

That's a good point. I wonder whether the answer is that CI applies to actions _taken_, not _avoided_. I could be wrong though. This requires further thought.

Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#99

Post by jessaustin »

andreigheorghe wrote: post #96
jessaustin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point; WL have never had any bias. They just publish genuine documents. They don't care whose ox is gored. The ridiculous conspiracy theorizing on display for the last three years says nothing about WL and everything about USA.

Nice work moving the goalposts :) If, being aware of everything that's happening around us, you still choose to represent reality as "ridiculous conspiracy theorizing", then you're either in a cult, or a dedicated troll, neither of which I'm interested in wasting my time debating.

Russia have been accused of various things, few of which seem credible and none of which have been associated with any evidence available to the public. Even so, they haven't even been accused of anything besides excessive communication. That's 1A. No one has to be silent if they're talking about an election. If this democracy can't handle $4700 in AdWords spend [0], it ain't really a democracy.

[0] https://9to5google.com/2018/12/11/numbers-sundar-pichais-tes...

Re: Russian whistleblower was assassinated after uncovering $200B scandal (2018)

#100

Post by andreigheorghe »

jessaustin wrote: post #99
andreigheorghe wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice work moving the goalposts :) If, being aware of everything that's happening around us, you still choose to represent reality as "ridiculous conspiracy theorizing", then you're either in a cult, or a dedicated troll, neither of which I'm interested in wasting my time debating.

Russia have been accused of various things, few of which seem credible and none of which have been associated with any evidence available to the public. Even so, they haven't even been accused of anything besides excessive communication. That's 1A. No one has to be silent if they're talking about an election. If this democracy can't handle $4700 in AdWords spend [0], it ain't really a democracy. [0] https://9to5googl…

You're lying and gaslighting.

> The Mueller report contains new information about how the Russian government hacked documents and emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-clinton-arizona-ha...

> The Russian military intelligence unit known by its initials GRU targeted U.S. state election offices as well as U.S. makers of voting machines, according to Mueller’s report.

https://www.rollcall.com/news/whitehouse/barrs-conclusion-no...

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