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Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

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Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#351

Post by WalterBright »

gaius wrote: post #155
WalterBright wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet? Everybody with 2 or more computers tried to connect them together. Without the internet we'd have BIX, FidoNet, Compuserve, Prodigy, MCImail, RBBS, or any of innumerable other schemes to network computers. Jet engines? Governments refused to fund jet engine development until they were confronted with FLYING jet aircraft. This happened in both England and Germany. The US government ordered Lockheed to stop w…

Internet? Everybody with 2 or more computers tried to connect them together. Those computers developed from the code-breaking machinery in WW2 you mean?

The code breaking machinery was not the internet. Besides, the code breaking machinery relied on tubes (and later, transistors) both developed by the free market.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#352

Post by WalterBright »

tradersam wrote: post #242
gaius wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet? Everybody with 2 or more computers tried to connect them together. Those computers developed from the code-breaking machinery in WW2 you mean?

The thing is, in total war the military uses all resources—people, money, ideas. Without the World Wars, who knows how technology would've progresses on it's own—since we can't compare it's disingenuous to say it's only because of these wars.

But we know that many different networks were created. The idea we would not have a global network without the internet is false by inspection (FidoNet was global).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#353

Post by eli_gottlieb »

curious_fella1 wrote: post #350
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People already have a sense that things aren't fair. There's a reason why tax reform is polling so poorly. There's a reason why most of the country thinks taxes should be higher on the wealthy and corporations. They have a feeling that they are not seeing the rise of productivity in their own life, and they want justice. There's also just the sheer sense of stagnation. I get mildly enraged every time I look at Ameri…

> and still winds up doing harder things than Americans more easily Can you elaborate?

I was in the thread about "lessons from MIT", and thinking of a degree curriculum I looked at from the UK one day.

It basically expected that students (who were going to learn PL theory) start off with a higher level of math knowledge (right out of secondary school) than most American CS students have in sophomore year. AFAIK, their students don't suffer as much stress or depression as the cohort of Americans who've done "sophomore-level" math in high school.

But for another example, well, every other country seems to have an easier time running a working train system than America does, including those who are running top-of-the-line high-speed rail. Or, to take another, the French have one of the highest per-hour productivity rates on Earth, but take four to six weeks of vacation each year. Likewise, the Germans have one of the most productive economies on the planet, but work some of the shortest hours.

Again and again, we find a principle that efficient, productive, intelligently-arranged systems deliver greater results with less sturm und drang.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#354

Post by pas »

agumonkey wrote: post #274
noobermin wrote: post #79

Since there are no top level comments putting this out for probably obvious reasons, here is a supportive comment for the article. This is what people feel in their guts when they drive out on tattered roads and avoid going to the hospital even though they are sick, when they don't have a real increase in wages but are working longer hours. They have the sense that something isn't right, that there are two sets of ru…

Tiny note: it's been many decades of the same issue, people work, people share, things go weird, they get angry (and rightly so). let me blame the victims slightly (barely at all, it's mental exercise). Isn't the problem in the tax -> action function ? it's a big black box. That's always the case when people get angry about anything, it's because they have to deal with an unpredictable and costly black box. Solution:…

budgets are public, no? FOIA works pretty well, no?

people don't look, don't have time to understand it, and usually don't think, they just demand.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#355

Post by jdietrich »

T2_t2 wrote: post #337
noobermin wrote: post #79

Since there are no top level comments putting this out for probably obvious reasons, here is a supportive comment for the article. This is what people feel in their guts when they drive out on tattered roads and avoid going to the hospital even though they are sick, when they don't have a real increase in wages but are working longer hours. They have the sense that something isn't right, that there are two sets of ru…

Assuming SG is Singapore, that is a really specific example, because it is a tiny Island of 4 million people with a lot of very unique attributes - it is a major shipping and airport hub, as well as a financial hub in a notoriously corrupt region. The USA has similar areas - often much larger, usually with very similar outcomes. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per... and compare it to…

>Even when there is variance, UK with London, north and south of Spain and Italy, it is not quite so dramatic.

I'd argue otherwise. Greater London had a GVA per capita of £42,666 in 2013. Several counties had a GVA per capita of less than £19,000, with the least productive (Northumberland) having a GVA per capita of less than £15,000. Excluding Washington DC (which isn't technically a state), that's a significantly greater disparity than between the most and least productive US states.

The UK has seen a huge rise in populism in recent years, I think overwhelmingly because of this stark inequality. Just as in the US, people from less prosperous areas feel marginalised and ignored.

America has Trump, we have Brexit - a decision by the electorate that has shocked the political establishment to the core. Few commentators saw it coming, the overwhelming majority of educated people think that it's a terrible idea, but it still happened. In both cases, the most reasonable interpretation is that a large part of the electorate have rejected the status quo outright, regardless of what the experts might say and regardless of the consequences.

I think that something needs to be done urgently about inequality, or things are going to get ugly. Too many people have lost all faith in the establishment. Too many people feel that they have nothing left to lose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ceremonial_counties_in...

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#356

Post by troupe »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #220
vonnik wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Vasili - I don't think you understand. He bought an office building on Wall Street in the mid-1990s for $1 million. That's a price so low that it's shady. As usual with Trump, he buys real estate at prices that don't make sense unless you assume there's another half to the trade. Then he borrows money against the building's supposed increase in value and uses that debt as income without an income tax. His deals ar…

do you have any evidence that buying an office building on wall street for 1 million in the 90s is a shady price that doesn't make sense? also, how in the world did you bring facebook into this conversation?

Bloomberg claims Trump bought the right to lease the building for the next 60 years or so. Trump does not own the property at 40 Wall Street. He is paying something like $1.5 million per year in rent. He bought the rights to lease the building from someone who previously bought those rights for the mostly empty building for $8 million but were having trouble getting tenants. It isn't clear if Trump bought all of the same rights or if they retained some.

The people who previously had the rights to lease out the building paid $8 million, but along with that came the responsibility of paying rent to the landowner. If they hadn't been able to make progress in two years, it doesn't seem outlandish that they would be willing to sell for much less than they paid. Their big expense wasn't going to be the cost of the rights to lease the tower, but the actual cost of leasing the tower (or maybe it is better to say the land the tower sits on) over time.

Further, they may have retained some rights that they found valuable so I wouldn't assume that what they bought for $8 million was the same thing Trump says he bought for $1 million.

So was the deal "shady"? Not from any information presented in this thread nor from anything that is readily available from a quick search. It could be of course, but the actual facts that are available don't appear to support such a claim.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#357

Post by baki »

The Trump foundation sold 20% of US uranium assets and earned 145 million dollar on it. The Russians passed it on to the very peaceful Iranians, who are don't building nuclear warheads and ballistic missles. Trum ordered a fake damning dossier on Hillary Clinton from the Russians... etc... etc... etc

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#358

Post by jgome »

killjoywashere wrote: post #83
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human rights abuses have NEVER been a red line for US cooperation with a foreign government. Ask yourself who benefits from perpetuating this unique goal post for Russia to maintain McCarthy era paranoia?

> Human rights abuses have NEVER been a red line Yes they have been and are. See the Magnitsky Act (2012) and Jackson–Vanik amendment (1974) specifically.

Nice joke.

Re: Paradise Papers: New leak from offshore finance firm

#360

Post by r3bl »

paranoia101 wrote: post #200
xexers wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true that about 99% of people listed in the panama papers got off scott free... There were still some serious consequences for some... and those consequences might just be enough to deter.

"about 99% of people listed in the panama papers got off scott free"... ...and the journalist who triggered the investigation got killed! Global elites, fuck yeah! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb...

Some insights from a person who has worked for two years for an investigative journalism organization (that was a part of both Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, but I left my position months before Paradise Papers):

If someone's gonna kill an investigative journalist, he's not gonna do that while she's reporting on the story. That would be too dumb and raise way too many eyebrows. Instead, the attacker will usually let it cool down and wait, months (or possibly years) after the piece was published. Only when the thing is in the far past will he attack. Plus, the observation and preparation of the attack doesn't happen in a day[0].

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that, whoever was behind the attack, was either a) stupid or b) a person that she reported on a relatively long time ago.

[0] For a case in point, take a look at how precise was the action in which a Belarus journalist was killed in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liSa5OFCkf4&feature=youtu.be... (the entire video is 49 minutes long, but the relevant part is about two minutes long and it starts where the link leads to)

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