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The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

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Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#491

Post by opo »

viscousviolin wrote: post #449
idiotsecant wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you get too excited about this just imagine the average line of people at the DMV or the Grocery store and now imagine that those people are in charge of the lives of hundreds of millions. If you think HOAs are bad, you aint seen nothing yet. The current system of oligarch patronage is bad, but at least it keeps the train mostly on the rails.

It's a potentially big problem for sure. It reminds me of stories I've heard about the public education system in some of the Scandinavian countries. From what I remember off the top of my head, Finland has a system where private educational facilities do not exist. Meaning that, if rich or otherwise elite people want their kids to receive a good education, they need to support the public education facilities their o…

>...From what I remember off the top of my head, Finland has a system where private educational facilities do not exist.

Not quite. Private education is not prohibited in Finland, but for-profit basic education is prohibited and private education is pretty rare.

https://www.aacrao.org/edge/emergent-news/private-education-...

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#492

Post by tekne »

breuleux wrote: post #348
Jensson wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The source of most of the corruption I see in the world today is wealth, and specifically wealthy people paying people off to get their own way This is so wrong, its not expensive to bribe politicians so higher taxes wouldn't stop this at all. The problem is that its possible to bribe politicians, meaning government has too much power, taxes would make that worse not better. And even more important most bribes does…

If the government doesn't have enough power, the wealthy won't need to bribe politicians to do their bidding. They will do their own bidding directly, and there will be nobody to stop them. It's like, if you want to sell your cyanide penis pills under big government, you need to bribe someone. If you want to sell them under small government, you just... you just sell them, that's what. There may be ways to design a g…

But suppose you have egalitarian nation N -- what stops the billionaire from non-egalitarian nation B from influencing your politicians? Especially if nation N is small and nation B is large.

Moreover -- why would low-level elites (think: entrepreneurs, small business owners, etc.) stay in nation N if it was more profitable to do business in nation B -- recall this is precisely the type of person that is often most mobile and internationalized.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#493

Post by nicoburns »

jMyles wrote: post #454
nicoburns wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you actually believe that if your taxes went up, power would be less concentrated, or that you or your countrymen would have more power? Absolutely. The source of most of the corruption I see in the world today is wealth, and specifically wealthy people paying people off to get their own way. If there was less wealth inequality there'd be much less scope for this. Note: I believe this would be the case even if t…

Is there a strong correlation between higher taxes and decreasing wealth inequality? The one part of your comment with which I certainly agree is: > Note: I believe this would be the case even if the money was literally burnt/disappeated rather than being given to the government (not that I suggest that's what we do). ...except, I am perhaps prepared to suggest actually implementing such a system, at least as an expe…

> Is there a strong correlation between higher taxes and decreasing wealth inequality?

A sufficiently strong progressive taxation regime would obviously have this effect, assuming you could actually enforce it. For example, if you taxed 99% of earnings above $10 million that would greatly reduce the wealth of the ultra-wealthy, even without taking into account how that money was redistributed.

That's obviously an extreme, and I'm not suggesting we do exactly that. But 80% tax rates were common as recently as the late 20th century, and coincidentally there were much lower rates of wealth inequality during this time.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#494

Post by opo »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #474
jMyles wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We really only practice it in one instance in modern democracy and that's jury duty, ...and even there, it's terribly corrupted. There are all kinds of bizarre ways that people are excluded from juries which bias the result. One commonly-cited example is that people who report moral objections to capital punishment are excluded from being empaneled on a federal jury, under the pretext that because capital punishmen…

I just say "I believe in jury nullification and will use that power if necessary". Easiest out from jury duty ever, and if the judge want's to be a bltch and force me on anyway, well, let's just say that if the law is immoral than the defendant is going to walk.

> I just say "I believe in jury nullification and will use that power if necessary".

Have you actually said that during voir dire, or is this a hypothetical?

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#496

Post by jMyles »

nicoburns wrote: post #493
jMyles wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a strong correlation between higher taxes and decreasing wealth inequality? The one part of your comment with which I certainly agree is: > Note: I believe this would be the case even if the money was literally burnt/disappeated rather than being given to the government (not that I suggest that's what we do). ...except, I am perhaps prepared to suggest actually implementing such a system, at least as an expe…

> Is there a strong correlation between higher taxes and decreasing wealth inequality? A sufficiently strong progressive taxation regime would obviously have this effect, assuming you could actually enforce it. For example, if you taxed 99% of earnings above $10 million that would greatly reduce the wealth of the ultra-wealthy, even without taking into account how that money was redistributed. That's obviously an ext…

Well I think we all understand the basic arithmetic; that's not what's in dispute.

The question is,

> even without taking into account how that money was redistributed.

...if you're taking money from people earning $11 million, and giving it instead of the military and prison industrial complexes, obviously you've concentrated, rather than diluting power.

I think there's a real question about how possible it is for a taxation regime to ever have a progressive effect inside the belly of empire.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#497

Post by vee-kay »

stef25 wrote: post #460
vee-kay wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Did you even read what you posted ? Talking about the 7 deaths: > Five were evidently unrelated to the vaccine: One girl drowned in a quarry; another died from a snake bite; two committed suicide by ingesting pesticides; and one died from complications of malaria. The causes of death for the other two girls were less certain: one possibly from pyrexia, or high fever, and a second from a suspected cerebral hemorrhage.…

[flagged]

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#498

Post by fromMars »

PlatoIsADisease wrote: post #408
throw9235837 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a “European” you are happy to simply fabricate an unsubstantiated conspiracy involving the Jews.

Only you are saying 'Jews'. The OP mentioned the Israeli secret service. These are not the same, even if the government of Israel deliberately conflates them. I think we need to start calling out this deliberate attempt from the Israeli government to correlate the two.

The OP also mentioned Epstein, a Jew, and then made the leap that he must have been associated with Mossad.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#499

Post by iwanttocomment »

tantalor wrote: post #470
iwanttocomment wrote: post #395

I was hoping the comments would be full of similar stories, in which a demon makes a half-hearted effort to pull you into his clutches, only to be naively blown off, then not thought of again until his true nature was revealed. Our story of this sort comes from when my partner interviewed at Theranos (!) long before the collapse or any public recognition, related the super-creepy interview process, and I was like "so…

What was creepy about the interview process?

Keeping in mind that I wasn't the interviewee and this happened over 15 years ago, there was apparently a combination of extreme secrecy about the organization and a massive disconnect between the largely military experience of the interviewers and the company's supposed product space. Partner left wondering "black ops or bullshit?"

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#500

Post by Teever »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #280
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…

A few years ago there was some news articles about “group chats that rule the world”, and for some reason people didn’t take it seriously enough. Closer to the top, it feels like it’s “everyone knows everyone” game. Playing against those groups just leads to a perma-loss, so you’re incentivized to partake. This is/was one of such groups.

Some people would love to play against those groups with the goal of not winning but costing their opponents dearly.

They never get the opportunity though because those groups are intentionally protected from those kinds of players.

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