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The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

scottaaronson.blog

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Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#161

Post by myrmidon »

whatever1 wrote: post #150

Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.

I do agree with this. If you followed this approach consistently, you would need back pressure against individual and company wealth growth.

This could be quite good for competition, but would probably hurt sectors a lot that have high fixed costs/barriers of entry and need to compete with (foreign) unlimited-size companies.

I do think that this could fix or at least vastly improve some really difficult problems: The whole judiciary is IMO blatantly unjust right now, because higher wealth can basically buy you better outcomes, democratic representation is flawed because wealth/donations buy you access to politicians (or allows you to enter politics yourself) and even national public opinion on anything is essentially for sale to a degree via profit-driven media.

Such wealth-gap limiting could be possibly achieved by progressive taxation that rises logarithmically with revenue for companies and individual wealth (giving a strong incentive to split up wealth, and no leeway via declaring zero profits): Think 1% of revenue under 1M, 2% under 10M, ...

I'm very curious how a nation that made strong efforts in that direction would fare.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#162

Post by cumshitpiss »

tirant wrote: post #153
whatever1 wrote: post #150

Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.

Fully agree on the root cause, but not on the solution. We should strive for extremely limited power by our public representatives, so their corruption impact is reduced to a minimum. But not only limited power, but also limited budget access, as an extension to limit that power. And that actually means reduced taxation. But at the same time, the budget for justice system needs to increase. It should be most probably…

[dead]

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#164

Post by navigate8310 »

KoftaBob wrote: post #152
stein1946 wrote: post #138

While I understand that once one attains those short of connections, certain intelligence agencies will reach out offering lucrative opportunities for your co-operation. Disgusting nature aside, I can't help but be amazed as to how someone can be so well connected. What sort of skills did Epstein have that managed to have so many people on speed dial? How do you get in a position to correspond with presidents, royals…

[flagged]

What triggered Mossad to toss their best informant?

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#165

Post by pintxo »

tirant wrote: post #153
whatever1 wrote: post #150

Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.

Fully agree on the root cause, but not on the solution. We should strive for extremely limited power by our public representatives, so their corruption impact is reduced to a minimum. But not only limited power, but also limited budget access, as an extension to limit that power. And that actually means reduced taxation. But at the same time, the budget for justice system needs to increase. It should be most probably…

> But at the same time, the budget for justice system needs to increase. It should be most probably the strongest branch of the government. Delayed justice is one of the most common ways of injustice.

The judical branch should very much NOT be a part of the government itself, but a fully separate branch.

> Corruption within private companies is irrelevant, as the main ones to suffer from it are usually shareholders.

As we have seen in the past, we have the same, if not worse, power imbalances in private companies as in the public sector. I would therefore not call it irrelevant, but agree that the Justice system can help here if appropriatly staffed.

> Monopolies are not always a negative outcome on a free market if the company in Monopoly situation reaches that position by offering better products within the law. However they can be specially dangerous when they're artificially created by the Government (e.g. allocation of a common resource to a specific company --> corruption almost always follows).

Do you have a single example for a company who did not over time monetized its monopoly power to the detriment of the customer?

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#166

Post by a-french-anon »

whatever1 wrote: post #150

Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.

> end of story.

Is it? Here's another version I like even more that unsettles democracy dogmatics: power attracts the corrupt.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#167

Post by actionfromafar »

a-french-anon wrote: post #166
whatever1 wrote: post #150

Power corrupts, end of story. Democracy (limited terms), taxation and anti-monopoly regulation are examples that show a path to cure the disease. Nobody should be trusted with too much power for too long.

> end of story. Is it? Here's another version I like even more that unsettles democracy dogmatics: power attracts the corrupt.

Shouldn't it unsettle King dogmatics just as much?

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#168

Post by lifestyleguru »

rob74 wrote: post #157
lifestyleguru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brain farts are more cohesive, yet I'm never drunk enough while writing them down to use spaces before punctuation or after a bracket.

Maybe this style indicates that drugs other than alcohol were involved?

Put away that pill Jeffray . It's NOT aspirin ,, Donnie took it.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#169

Post by actionfromafar »

sgentle wrote: post #147
soperj wrote: post #6

> If only Bill Gates and Larry Summers had had my mom to go to for advice, they could’ve saved themselves a lot of grief. Doubt it would have changed anything for Bill. There's a pattern there and this is just a piece of that pattern.

A curiously frivolous way to frame the decision to get involved with a notorious sex trafficker. Nothing to do with values, integrity or culpability, just some boys missing their mommies.

Wait - I thought it was a Democratic hoax and that only Epstein was the bad guy? Is Trump wrong?

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#170

Post by owebmaster »

decimalenough wrote: post #14
pixl97 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out Bill is just actually a piece of shit through and through

The kind of piece of shit who donates basically his entire fortune to charity? And actual charity at that, not Ellison style "Larry Ellison Research Foundation for Prolonging the Life of Larry Ellison and Getting Some Tax Breaks Along the Way".

No, decimalenough, "donating" his money doesn't change what he did, doesn't even make it slightly better.
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