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Saipan claims ComputerLand founder owes taxes

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Saipan claims ComputerLand founder owes taxes

#11

Post by raganwald »

bugsy wrote: post #6
gjm11 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted purely for "Keep downvoting this, monkeys!". HN would be better off without that sort of nonsense.

That's part of the edit after an extremely useful post with insight into the reality started getting downvoted because it didn't conform with the political or whatever beliefs of the downvoters. HN would be better without the pathetic reactionary losers who use downvoting to promote their political beliefs.

HN would be better without Ad Hominem Abuse such as calling people “monkeys” or “pathetic reactionary losers.” I don’t normally respond AND downvote, but these words have earned an exception.

Re: Saipan claims ComputerLand founder owes taxes

#13

Post by rhizome »

krschultz wrote: post #9
bugsy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's part of the edit after an extremely useful post with insight into the reality started getting downvoted because it didn't conform with the political or whatever beliefs of the downvoters. HN would be better without the pathetic reactionary losers who use downvoting to promote their political beliefs.

I imagine the downvotes have a lot more to do with the way you wrote and not what you wrote.

Well, elevating form over content is a hallmark of the superficial. Formalism dictates that the way something is said is more important than the meaning of the words.

Re: Saipan claims ComputerLand founder owes taxes

#14

Post by arctangent »

gjm11 wrote: post #4
bugsy wrote: post #2

I remember ComputerLand stores. Sounds like he was a hard working guy who earned his success. Saipan is one of the most corrupt backwards places on earth. As a US trust territory, for many years they had slave plantations that produced clothing for chinese companies which was labelled "Made in USA". Many workers were kept under brutal conditions, raped, beaten and killed. The Saipanese are mostly incredibly lazy and…

Downvoted purely for "Keep downvoting this, monkeys!". HN would be better off without that sort of nonsense.

I didn't downvote but I do agree with you. It's much better IMHO if you take the downvotes on the chin and leave it to someone else to point out (as a reply) that the downvotes were not deserved.

Re: Saipan claims ComputerLand founder owes taxes

#17

Post by ansy »

raganwald wrote: post #11
bugsy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's part of the edit after an extremely useful post with insight into the reality started getting downvoted because it didn't conform with the political or whatever beliefs of the downvoters. HN would be better without the pathetic reactionary losers who use downvoting to promote their political beliefs.

HN would be better without Ad Hominem Abuse such as calling people “monkeys” or “pathetic reactionary losers.” I don’t normally respond AND downvote, but these words have earned an exception.

In fact abusive language is against the HN guidelines[1] under "In Comments":

Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Saipan claims ComputerLand founder owes taxes

#18

Post by aasarava »

bugsy wrote: post #6
gjm11 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted purely for "Keep downvoting this, monkeys!". HN would be better off without that sort of nonsense.

That's part of the edit after an extremely useful post with insight into the reality started getting downvoted because it didn't conform with the political or whatever beliefs of the downvoters. HN would be better without the pathetic reactionary losers who use downvoting to promote their political beliefs.

Bugsy, I don't doubt that a lot of really horrific stuff has gone down in Saipan, owing in large part to the US's willingness not to enact labor laws there until just recently. But can you see how your method of saying this out overshadows the point your trying to make?

If someone were to walk up and say "Mexicans are lazy," most of us would consider that person racist. Nevermind that "lazy" is a culturally relative term, but you go way beyond that when you describe the Saipanese as "the worst fundamentalist christian ignorant half retarded hillbilly sex fiend town straight out of the movie Deliverance...", and you only hedge that toward the end by saying your comments apply to the people in power.

You getting downvoted has nothing to do with people trying to promote political beliefs. (Most of us didn't have any opinion on Saipan until now.) It's about maintaining the otherwise typically high quality of discussion on HN.

Want to point out that Saipan's lack of labor laws led to terribly exploitative behavior up into this decade? Please do. Want to share your personal frustration in dealing with Saipan's corruption? Sure, I'm interested. But please leave the abusive ranting for someplace else.

Re: Saipan claims ComputerLand founder owes taxes

#19

Post by gruseom »

nl wrote: post #16

A devotee of est, a faddish self-empowerment regimen of that era What is est ? Google and Wikipedia seem quite unhelpful. Edit: found it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training

Est was big in the 70s and attracted a lot of celebrities. For example, there's a video on Youtube of John Denver guest-hosting the Tonight Show and interviewing Werner Erhard. His teachings were a mixture of Eastern religion, 60s ideas about psychotherapy (e.g. Gestalt and encounter groups), and the early 20th century American self-help movement that used to be called New Thought and that gave rise to such writers as Napoleon Hill. Est was controversial because its groups had a confrontational style that some people found reminiscent of a cult, and because Erhard got unapologetically rich from it. Eventually he was attacked by mainstream media. In one famous case, 60 Minutes did a hatchet job on him and were later forced to retract all of it.

It might be an ok approximation to describe Erhard as the Eckhart Tolle of the 1970s. But Erhard was more aggressive and perhaps less delicate about making money. He eventually sold Est to a group that became the personal development outfit known as Landmark, which is still going and subject to the same criticisms.

Re: Saipan claims ComputerLand founder owes taxes

#20

Post by Steko »

I also remember ComputerLand stores. Sounds like he was a hard working guy who earned his success... who then decided to use it to become a tax cheat for the rest of his life.

Regardless of what you think about the Northern Marianas, this guy doesn't deserve anyone's pity, he's been a tax cheat for well over 2 decades.

And no I don't "believe the CEO's story that he was never served", that's horseshit. He left Saipan for a reason, to continue to dodge taxes any way he could.

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