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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

#51

Post by sobkas »

com2kid wrote: post #40
sobkas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The kind of piece of shit who donates basically his entire fortune to charity? So he is no longer a billionaire? And donating to what charity, The Gates Foundation? The one that he controls? The one that he uses to push his ideological stances and repeatedly fails to help anyone? Just look how successful his work on improving education system in America was. What a sacrifice it was for him...

They've admitted the US education work was a mistake. They are hardly alone in making that mistake, improving education in the US is hard. Their work to clean water and cure diseases has saved millions of lives. They know what they are good at and they've decided to double down on that.

>They've admitted the US education work was a mistake. They are hardly alone in making that mistake, improving education in the US is hard.

It's only hard if you don't want to help anyone and your only goal is to push charter schools(by any other name) by any means necessary.

>Their work to clean water and cure diseases has saved millions of lives. They know what they are good at and they've decided to double down on that.

They helped so many people by not allowing them getting covid vaccine or by fighting generics? Also their "good" deeds weren't without negative consequences that could be avoided if someone actually listened to people they were "helping".

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#52

Post by [deleted] »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #46
mikepurvis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of Michael Shellenberger's central theses is, I think, that the government's ability to invest in "extras" like overseas aid, science, the environment, space exploration, etc is directly a function of how large and healthy the middle class is because that's where the political capital to do these things really comes from . Basically the post-WWII period was a golden age for all of the above because the middle cla…

I mean literally taxing the literally rich. Most population by "taxing the rich" mean those earning >90k EUR/USD on employment contract. They see the real rich maybe few times in life from a distance on a yacht in Caribbean or Mediterranean but don't connect the dots.

[deleted]

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#53

Post by sobkas »

Insanity wrote: post #29
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean his philanthropy work that influences where public money goes, into companies like Monsanto and Cargill which his foundation profits from?

They work in healthcare, education, gender equality initiatives, green energy.. I’m not a fan of MSFT but there are worse uses of the money he made from the company. I think it’s a bit unfair to categorize all of his contributions to charity as “not charitable”.

His "charitable" contributions are only in place to charity wash his awful actions in the past and now. And it worked, everyone thinks of Saint Bill and his supposed good deeds while forgetting what he actually did or doing right now.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#54

Post by pfdietz »

mikepurvis wrote: post #38
lifestyleguru wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd prefer if rich simply paid their taxes and contributions instead of spending money on fighting poor children in Africa.

One of Michael Shellenberger's central theses is, I think, that the government's ability to invest in "extras" like overseas aid, science, the environment, space exploration, etc is directly a function of how large and healthy the middle class is because that's where the political capital to do these things really comes from . Basically the post-WWII period was a golden age for all of the above because the middle cla…

The same Michael Shellenberger who assured us PV cells are made with rare earth elements?

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#55

Post by ddq »

lebca wrote: post #18
EFreethought wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When he was alive a lot of people said Epstein was really smart. But I have read some of his emails, and all of the ones I have seen are full of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization errors. I would not gotten out of sixth grade if I wrote like that.

I used to know someone wealthy whose continued wealth relied on working with local and state governments. This person's public correspondence in lawsuits and with local government officials was purposefully littered with spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization errors. When I asked them about it, their response was that it was on purpose so that they seemed less smart and thus less threatening, with the hop…

In addition, it broadcasts that the sender is too busy with all their important work to spend time refining and proofreading, that you're getting their raw, unfiltered thoughts directly from them, not through an assistant, and that their time is more valuable than yours so the burden is on you to parse their stream of consciousness jumble for precious nuggets of their exclusive wisdom. The semiotics make sense, plus it's just easier and faster.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#56

Post by mikepurvis »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #46
mikepurvis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of Michael Shellenberger's central theses is, I think, that the government's ability to invest in "extras" like overseas aid, science, the environment, space exploration, etc is directly a function of how large and healthy the middle class is because that's where the political capital to do these things really comes from . Basically the post-WWII period was a golden age for all of the above because the middle cla…

I mean literally taxing the literally rich. Most population by "taxing the rich" mean those earning >90k EUR/USD on employment contract. They see the real rich maybe few times in life from a distance on a yacht in Caribbean or Mediterranean but don't connect the dots.

I don't have a magic answer for how to get people on board, but I can say that I make a lot more than that number, and my taxes (in Canada) are way too low.

I think some of it is the psychology that government is incompetent and will just waste the money anyway ("let Bill keep his money and build toilets in Africa himself, at least he'll get it done"), and the best way to fight that is probably what Carney is trying to do right now: kick off a bunch of ambitious programmes to build new things like pipelines, rail, airport expansions, etc on an accelerated timeline. Perhaps if people see visible progress they'll be more open to saying yeah okay, I'm all right with paying more to live in a country where we get stuff done.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#57

Post by lifestyleguru »

mikepurvis wrote: post #56
lifestyleguru wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean literally taxing the literally rich. Most population by "taxing the rich" mean those earning >90k EUR/USD on employment contract. They see the real rich maybe few times in life from a distance on a yacht in Caribbean or Mediterranean but don't connect the dots.

I don't have a magic answer for how to get people on board, but I can say that I make a lot more than that number, and my taxes (in Canada) are way too low. I think some of it is the psychology that government is incompetent and will just waste the money anyway ("let Bill keep his money and build toilets in Africa himself, at least he'll get it done"), and the best way to fight that is probably what Carney is trying…

If government is so ineffective and incompetent then stop charging people in the lower band of salaries 35%-45% from their monthly payslips as well.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#58

Post by sobkas »

jmcgough wrote: post #48
_whiteCaps_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean his philanthropy work that influences where public money goes, into companies like Monsanto and Cargill which his foundation profits from?

I don't think a healthy society has anything close to our level of wealth concentration, but even if he's made mistakes, he's saved many millions of lives. Compare that to Elon Musk, who uses his Musk Foundation as a tax shelter, only spending from it for a private school for his children.

And how many people would have been saved if he didn't forcibly extracted that money from society to begin with?

Because it's almost impossible to not help someone if he just throw wads of money at random. What important is how many people weren't saved because he decided to be a middle man in all of it?

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#59

Post by mikepurvis »

pfdietz wrote: post #54
mikepurvis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of Michael Shellenberger's central theses is, I think, that the government's ability to invest in "extras" like overseas aid, science, the environment, space exploration, etc is directly a function of how large and healthy the middle class is because that's where the political capital to do these things really comes from . Basically the post-WWII period was a golden age for all of the above because the middle cla…

The same Michael Shellenberger who assured us PV cells are made with rare earth elements?

I think you're referring to this piece: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23...

Yes, I don't love that he puts out hits like that on solar and wind in his effort to promote nuclear as a sole solution, but I still find his larger arguments around the dynamics of environmentalism as a movement persuasive.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#60

Post by MengerSponge »

saalweachter wrote: post #43
decimalenough wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Listen, billionaires just have to do three things to be beloved: 1. Donate 5-10% of their fortune to random unobjectionable charities. 2. Don't abuse children. 3. Stay off Twitter. It's not a high bar, we don't need to give a silver medal to those that fall short.

This was enough for Carnegie, and the fact that they're not pursuing similar public works simply illustrates that while they may want to be loved, they don't care if they're loved or not.

Because they don't want to be beloved, they want to turn people into dinosaurs. (to adapt the Spiderman quote)

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