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The Incredibly Stupid One

lowellmilkencenter.org

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Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#21

Post by refurb »

franzsmith wrote: post #9

How would the Vietnamese' face be at Paris Peace Conference? After knowing he gave all the information.

Not sure it mattered much in terms of the big picture.

The North had plenty of highly placed spies in the South. Both sides were running espionage operations throughout the war.

And the North had a “fighting while talking” strategy which meant if they made advances on the battlefield they exploited them during negotiations and when they took loses they just delayed until better opportunities arose.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#22

Post by dvt »

tedheath123 wrote: post #11

Irrelevant to the content of the article, but worth pointing out that this project is funded by the proceeds of crimes committed at Drexel Burnham in the 80s. Michael Milken and his brother Lowell undoubtedly do good through their philanthrophy, but the cynic in me suspects that it is primarily an attempt to rehabilate their image and is treated as a business expense. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do good for the wr…

I live in Santa Monica and often walk past the Lowell Milken Family Foundation (which is close to the posh downtown). I always kind of smile and think about the story of how the Milken Family completely reinvented itself. Michael Milken, for context, was paid the highest yearly salary in the history of the world (~250M in one of his highest years if I remember correctly). He served 2 years in prison, his fine was 600M and the guy is still a billionaire (he also got pardoned by Trump in 2020). He's a self-admitted crook and liar[1].

How many lives were destroyed (or at least harmed) by hustling junk bonds? Is that okay now that he is donating money to cancer research? Forbes and CNN certainly think so[2] (even in 2004, for that matter). William K. Black put it well: "the best way to rob a bank is to own one."

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220428215122/https://www.nytim...

[2] https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004...

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#24

Post by thriftwy »

_gabe_ wrote: post #17
thriftwy wrote: post #12

Quoted post unavailable.

> And half of the stuff we read further is probably just his legend, i.e. not true. Do you have any evidence of this, or are you just saying this? And what stuff are you saying is untrue? None of this sounded unbelievable to me. This man is someone who helped save the lives of several other soldiers who were being tortured at the time. If you're insinuating that his efforts are all fabricated based on no evidence, th…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#25

Post by vorpalhex »

dvt wrote: post #22
tedheath123 wrote: post #11

Irrelevant to the content of the article, but worth pointing out that this project is funded by the proceeds of crimes committed at Drexel Burnham in the 80s. Michael Milken and his brother Lowell undoubtedly do good through their philanthrophy, but the cynic in me suspects that it is primarily an attempt to rehabilate their image and is treated as a business expense. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do good for the wr…

I live in Santa Monica and often walk past the Lowell Milken Family Foundation (which is close to the posh downtown). I always kind of smile and think about the story of how the Milken Family completely reinvented itself. Michael Milken, for context, was paid the highest yearly salary in the history of the world (~250M in one of his highest years if I remember correctly). He served 2 years in prison, his fine was 600…

At some point punishment has to end and you move forward in life. The justice system would be a lot more fair if this was applied equally.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#26

Post by marcosdumay »

vorpalhex wrote: post #25
dvt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Santa Monica and often walk past the Lowell Milken Family Foundation (which is close to the posh downtown). I always kind of smile and think about the story of how the Milken Family completely reinvented itself. Michael Milken, for context, was paid the highest yearly salary in the history of the world (~250M in one of his highest years if I remember correctly). He served 2 years in prison, his fine was 600…

At some point punishment has to end and you move forward in life. The justice system would be a lot more fair if this was applied equally.

That point has to be further away than the gain a person got from the crime.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#27

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

myko wrote: post #15
tedheath123 wrote: post #11

Irrelevant to the content of the article, but worth pointing out that this project is funded by the proceeds of crimes committed at Drexel Burnham in the 80s. Michael Milken and his brother Lowell undoubtedly do good through their philanthrophy, but the cynic in me suspects that it is primarily an attempt to rehabilate their image and is treated as a business expense. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do good for the wr…

> Maybe it doesn't matter if you do good for the wrong reasons though. There was an interesting discussion around this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094798 (TikTok'er doing random acts of kindness for clout upset someone he used for his videos)

Intent is everything.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#29

Post by andrewclunn »

beachy wrote: post #5
DisjointedHunt wrote: post #4

A brave soldier, doing right by his country, which was led into fighting villagers half way around the world in incredibly tough scenarios by asshole politicians.

The Vietnam war (or the American war as I was corrected in a bar in Hanoi) was the epitome of unintended escalation. One of the early escalators was JFK, who was simultaneously extremely wary of escalation, and is not someone who most people think of as an asshole politician. Your point has some heft but it's a simplistic take.

What a bay-of-pigheaded comment.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#30

Post by vba616 »

dvt wrote: post #22
tedheath123 wrote: post #11

Irrelevant to the content of the article, but worth pointing out that this project is funded by the proceeds of crimes committed at Drexel Burnham in the 80s. Michael Milken and his brother Lowell undoubtedly do good through their philanthrophy, but the cynic in me suspects that it is primarily an attempt to rehabilate their image and is treated as a business expense. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do good for the wr…

I live in Santa Monica and often walk past the Lowell Milken Family Foundation (which is close to the posh downtown). I always kind of smile and think about the story of how the Milken Family completely reinvented itself. Michael Milken, for context, was paid the highest yearly salary in the history of the world (~250M in one of his highest years if I remember correctly). He served 2 years in prison, his fine was 600…

>How many lives were destroyed (or at least harmed) by hustling junk bonds?

I'm not familiar with the context of what Michael Milken did (although he's famous enough I know the name), but your (rhetorical?) question sounds very strange to me.

An omniscient and omnipotent being that knew the right amount of junk bonds to issue could probably answer how many lives were destroyed or harmed by creating the wrong amount.

But when a question like that is asked, you're asking human beings, not God, and it sounds rhetorical, which means that the answer is supposed to be obvious, I think.

If you were asking about milk with melamine in it, then I would understand what you meant. But junk bonds aren't inherently useless or defective.

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