71–80 of 202 posts
Should the world seize the assets of Silicon Valley billionaires over the US invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and other actions in MENA? Probably.
Also Afghanistan wouldn’t wouldn’t have been invaded if they handed over the Osama.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> just OK to seize private property of individuals Yes, it's a war. Deal with it If they have a problem they can take it up with their boss. > to this is getting pretty fucking scary I believe there are kids in Ukraine who are legitimately scared. Getting your megayacht confiscated is just a first world problem.
>Yes, it's a war. Deal with it The countries doing the seizing aren't at war with Russia and seem adamant about currently not being at war.
We're trying really hard to toe the line in order not to start a third world war. But we are at war. We're sending aid and weapons every day by the megatons to Ukraine.
Ukrainians are fighting on our behalf, so that nuclear escalation does not happen. But as far as Russia is concerned, we are at war, and in fact Putin himself said that the various sanctions and such are "acts of war", even if he hasn't acted on it (yet).
Without questioning if seizing the property of Russian billionaires is justified or not, if you believe in equity, the property of American billionaires should also be seized by the other countries for the nearly 200 000 civilian deaths in Iraq (which is much worse, but the US-led war lasted longer). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira...
What a fantastic idea, billionaires are a symptom of our unequal society. We could have a ceiling of say 50 million quid and you get to say you won capitalism, and everyone throws you a bug party.
Progressive taxation should be uncapped, when you pass some threshold of "this is more than you need in the lifetimes of you, your partner, your next-of-kin to all live a life of unparalleled luxury" then it should escalate up to 99%, and if you pass some really obscene threshold equivalent to a small country's GDP then let it go to 100%.
Wealth taxation should be effective. No individual needs to own land area equivalent to a city, or housing and art assets of a disproportionate nature.
And on the flipside... income taxation can be lowered if we're more effectively taxing wealth and the obscene earnings. Instead we could encourage far more social mobility and the growing of a far larger middle-class. Tax low earners and those without wealth nothing at all, and tax the middle-class only a little.
This opinion won't resonate on HN, but modern society has become so effective at extracting money from people and enriching a few, and rent-seeking as a business model so prevalent that it does feel we're at risk of putting future generations in a serfdom role that had taken hundreds of years to get out of.
This is all distinct from what's happening in Ukraine and with sanctions, this is just an opinion about what's happening in the World at large.
So now it's just OK to seize private property of individuals without any even pretend due process? Of course these individuals have links to their government, you think you can find some rich Americans who aren't somehow linked to their government? And now we have american media platforms saying 'yeah, it's fine to call for death to Russians'. Our response to this is getting pretty fucking scary. We need to start dia…
Just in case there's misunderstanding about what "seize" means...
Are governments actually taking ownership possession (nationalizing) of Russian yachts or are they removing the assets from the owner's control?
In other words, does "seize" mean:
(1) civil forfeiture like USA police confiscating cash without due process ?
or
(2) freezing an asset like impounding/towing a car away and the owner can eventually get the car back later (e.g. after Russia stops the war) ?
The various reports I've read makes it seem like UK is treating Russian yachts as (2).
In contrast... with the fleets of airplanes leased from Europe sitting in Russian territory, it looks like Russia does literally want to take ownership of them in retaliation to sanctions.
Without questioning if seizing the property of Russian billionaires is justified or not, if you believe in equity, the property of American billionaires should also be seized by the other countries for the nearly 200 000 civilian deaths in Iraq (which is much worse, but the US-led war lasted longer). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira...
Putting aside the confiscation question, it’s morally obtuse to liken Iraqi civilian deaths, the top cause of which per that link was execution after capture by insurgent & other non-US-aligned forces, with Ukrainian deaths from indiscriminate Russian shelling of civilian neighborhoods.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you expect? The Russians are a pretty comfy enemy. From Call of Duty over Mission Impossible, we are familiar to the evil Russian, hence, those reactions are so satisfying to too many people, unfortunately. I have Ukranian/Russian roots. My girl, born in Germany, was just pushed by classmates and called nasty words just last week in school. This reminds me of the racism against Asian people when Covid appeare…
Pretty much. San Francisco fired the SF Symphony Director because... he's from Russia . Amazing how quickly our base, tribal instincts kick in when an "enemy" appears. All pretense to "peace" and "restraint" and "avoid foreign wars" goes out the window really damn quick . If you're the kind of person who looks back and thinks "man, how could America be so stupid to get involved in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq"? Wel…
This isn't a thing that happened.
Looks like a pretty good portion of HN would support that even now.
No, it doesn't. "It's okay to freeze the assets of the oligarch collective currently invading a friendly nation" is quite far away from "let's round up Russians and put them into camps" and your comparison is ridiculous.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
so we force productive people to retire early? How do you expect to have Google, Microsoft, Apple Tesla, SpaceX? if their founders were to retire once they have 50m
People can continue to be productive without meaninglessly adding more digits to their network. Or maybe others would be highly productive if the current people retire.
Why is seizing property without due process okay when we do it? Is it the same reason that dissenting opinions can’t be heard because they’re dangerous propaganda?
This is due process, per the laws of the countries their yachts are in.
In the USA this is specifically banned by the Constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you expect? The Russians are a pretty comfy enemy. From Call of Duty over Mission Impossible, we are familiar to the evil Russian, hence, those reactions are so satisfying to too many people, unfortunately. I have Ukranian/Russian roots. My girl, born in Germany, was just pushed by classmates and called nasty words just last week in school. This reminds me of the racism against Asian people when Covid appeare…
Pretty much. San Francisco fired the SF Symphony Director because... he's from Russia . Amazing how quickly our base, tribal instincts kick in when an "enemy" appears. All pretense to "peace" and "restraint" and "avoid foreign wars" goes out the window really damn quick . If you're the kind of person who looks back and thinks "man, how could America be so stupid to get involved in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq"? Wel…
Who would this be? A casual googling shows an individual from Finland has been the director since 2020. What am I missing here?
Without questioning if seizing the property of Russian billionaires is justified or not, if you believe in equity, the property of American billionaires should also be seized by the other countries for the nearly 200 000 civilian deaths in Iraq (which is much worse, but the US-led war lasted longer). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira...
Putting aside the confiscation question, it’s morally obtuse to liken Iraqi civilian deaths, the top cause of which per that link was execution after capture by insurgent & other non-US-aligned forces, with Ukrainian deaths from indiscriminate Russian shelling of civilian neighborhoods.