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Elon’s Out

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111–120 of 767 posts

Re: Elon’s Out

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I want more” You’re welcome.

I met an almost billionaire once; I mentioned how a million dollars would cover me for the rest of my life and she followed with a 10 minute speech on how money is horrible and she can't sleep at night for their concern. I was moved but I confessed I'd still want that million dollars to fall out of the sky. It didn't feel like she "wanted more".

How did you meet her? Were you at a zen meditation retreat after retiring from remunerative employment?

On a semi-related note, one of the most predictive factors of stress in any primate societies is inequality, but one of the more surprising factors is that stress increases for everyone, even those at the top of the heap.

Re: Elon’s Out

#112
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh the government doesn't need more money to conduct frivolous and corrupt spending with. However it might be interesting to explore an option that required people who own a stake in a company that has grown beyond a certain size to be required to siphon off some of those shares to employees over time in a way where it was not conducted on the open market and would not affect share price. I also question whether cor…

I don't think we should avoid something just because there are more problems. We should fix those other problems as well. The primary issue is that there is a single extremist party, not unlike those found in the Middle East, that is hell bent on undermining America for want of power. By systematically undermining education, public health and services, infrastructure, treating government projects as jobs programs, et…

IMO, neither party excels on educational topics and both 100% treat government projects as jobs programs.

Re: Elon’s Out

#113
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's ironic as much as it is either not paying attention or not being honest with the situation. One party being extreme does not make the other party the good party. It just means that one party is extreme, which is a fact. The Democrats are not a paragon of a political party. They are as inefficient, middle of the road moderate, corrupt, etc. as any political party. But the Republicans, or at least a p…

I just do not agree that one party is more extreme than the other, sorry. I also don't believe you are being honest with yourself over the situation either. It's clear you have dug your heels into a particular set of beliefs and have no interest in discussing real solutions (instead just want to play the blame game). Frankly it is just not interesting discussion.

That can be your opinion, but I think it stands in disagreement with several events and facts of the Republican party. There are oodles of articles and books addressing the growing extremism of the Republican party, so I don't think it's even a controversial opinion. By just saying "oh, they're just another political party with different beliefs" is enabling their extremism. Any rational discussion with a Republican, at least those that I know, which includes family members, can often not be had. I understand that there are actual conservative political beliefs, but from what I can tell, they are not the ones driving the power dynamic of the Republican party. The discussions I have had quickly turn weird because it quickly becomes a case of religion, sexism, racism, or something else deep down affecting their political beliefs, which mainly consist of wanting everyone else to be like them and to do what they want (how they want).

A certain Republican sect literally tried to overturn the presidential election, threatening to hang the vice president, killed a capital cop, ransacked the capital, and only one Republican had the guts to vote against the president. Then that same party will decry people marching for human rights and supports violence against those groups. The Republicans are the same party that supposedly stand for small government but are hell bent on telling people what they can do with their own bodies and forcing religion to be taught in public schools. Republicans' reaction to mass shootings is more guns, while they are the ones that block any investigation into why these are happening or preventing people that should not be buying guns from buying guns. I happened to drive across the country during COVID. You could tell the Republican states from the amount of masks being warn. The Republicans blocked a third supreme court nomination by a two-term president in Obama that was 10 months ahead of the presidential election, meanwhile they rushed a third supreme court appointee by a one-term president just two months before an election, throwing out every reason they used to block Obama's nomination. These are all extreme positions that don't have analogs in the Democratic party.

> have no interest in discussing real solutions

Mind pointing that out? In fact, I've elaborated quite a decent amount. I'm not sure what you've brought to the discussion other than just stating disagreement and making bad faith statements. You are free to contribute or elaborate on what you mean by the Republican party not being extreme.

The solutions I believe that could help things are: increasing tax on the wealthy, limiting the amount of political donations including to interest groups and think tanks (i.e., get private money out of politics and government), abiding by separation of church and state, and increasing primary and secondary education.

Re: Elon’s Out

#114
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I continue to be super concerned about this. I do not understand how the U.S. government does not view these billionaires as serious ideological threats to democracy, the court system, national security, etc. Makes one realize just how bought out Congress is. Once a person has wealth over, say, $500 million, then there should be a 100% tax.

According to the Laffer curve it should probably be 70% or so to maximize government income, but yes. If you tax them 100% they'll just stop working or bail to another country, and then you collect zero tax revenue from them. At 70% most of them will just suck it up and pay. (I realize France is a counterpoint here, but I'd argue it was a half-assed attempt, and they have neighboring French-speaking tax havens that h…

Thank you for the reference to the Laffer curve.

Re: Elon’s Out

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally there’s not even a hint that Musk is above the law yet you’re calling it a cyberpunk future

>According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Stewart avoided a loss of $45,673 by selling all 3,928 shares of her ImClone Systems stock on December 27, 2001, after receiving material, nonpublic information from Peter Bacanovic, her broker at Merrill Lynch. The day following her sale, the stock value fell 16%.[49] Martha Stewart went to jail for 5 months for a meager case of insider trading. Musk m…

> Martha Stewart went to jail for 5 months for a meager case of insider trading.

I believe she went to prison for lying to investigators. The insider trading they couldn’t make stick. So in the end, maybe the cases aren’t so different?

Re: Elon’s Out

#116
post #44
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those things that could genuinely cause problem for the entire US (corporate) legal system. There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

This is a cyberpunk future. I'm overall a fan of Musk, but this is too far. There simply must be rule of law for the United States to remain a dynamic society.

What a legacy opinion. We are all about destroying everything here

Re: Elon’s Out

#117
post #82
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those things that could genuinely cause problem for the entire US (corporate) legal system. There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

[flagged]

Mainstream media is too woke! It's all a conspiracy

Re: Elon’s Out

#118
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In very direct, real terms, assets are power. They represent resources to do things. The problem here isn't that wealth is power, it will always be power. The issue is that a single person has been allowed to accumulate too much.

It would mitigate the problem if institutions could be strengthened by design to be less sensitive to corruption or special treatment. There are lots of successful examples - constitutions, voting, term limits, separate judiciary, non-political commuters, etc The big problem I see in the design of egalitarian systems, is explicitly addressing the need for continuous response to new forms of centralization. I don’t kn…

This is a forum for white guys trying to become more powerful, and who hate government or any limits on their actions

Re: Elon’s Out

#119
post #27

I found this part most interesting. Public awareness of the Delaware Court of Chancery is about to skyrocket during this court battle. The fact that Musk is working in such bad faith here — that he seems so unconcerned with law and the contract he signed — cuts both ways. On the one hand, it will certainly annoy a Delaware chancellor; Delaware likes to think of itself as a stable place for corporate deals, with predi…

This is one of those things that could genuinely cause problem for the entire US (corporate) legal system. There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

It's wild to me that people think that Elon might actually face legal consequences for this.

The Delaware court isn't some magical place run by elves. It's a court in the US. You know what's a lot cheaper than $34 billion dollars, or heck even $1 billion dollars? $200k for 3-4 judges.

The Supreme Court just changed the law of the land based on a right-wing political campaign. You think a billionare, let alone the richest billionare is going to be subject to any serious consequences? It's absurd to even entertain this.

Re: Elon’s Out

#120
post #94
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not how it works when you simply owe money (usually, modulo things like probation violations and child support, but lets ignore that for now). We don't have debtors prisons). They can seize his money though, garnish his wages (lol in this specific case though), etc.

I’m being loose with words but I do mean that he should see punishment. Not necessarily jail.

He should see jailtime for the market manipulation. We'll see what happens. This isn't even a thing the SEC is known to be pursuing presently, so don't hold your breath.
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