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Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

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Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#61

Post by [deleted] »

Inconel wrote: post #57
hueving wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then change the tax laws. It's silly to suggest that they should pay more to the government than is legally required. Actual tax evasion comes with pretty serious penalties, so people with loads of money tend to be pretty prudent when ensuring what they are doing with their taxes is legal.

I agree that changing tax law would be the best remedy but I'm not entirely sure if tax "avoidance" on a massive scale doesn't have some ethical considerations. When the people engaging in said avoidance have an outsized influence on the way tax laws are set up and interpreted relative to working/middle class citizens, I can certainly understand why some might attach an ethical consideration to such schemes. Just to…

[deleted]

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#62

Post by andrelaszlo »

zorked wrote: post #29

This discussion if quickly being flooded with right-wing extremists. If you make a claim, please, provide a reputable source. If you see a claim being made without a source, do something for the intellectual health of this community and downvote.

I just noticed a pattern in a few comments. Does it have a name? It would be useful as a shorthand to point out this behavior in "discussions". If not, maybe "reference flooding" is a good way to describe it?

These comments make a claim, then link to a paper that seems related to it. Sometimes the only thing in common is the title of the paper. Not sure if it's in good faith and these people have trouble understanding what they read, or a strategy intended to convince people who don't have the time to read the paper that they have science on their side. It also puts a heavy burden on an honest participant in the discussion, since their intellectual bandwidth will be flooded by semi-relevant papers.

This only works if the reference is vague enough. Like the title of a paper without a quote or even page number, or "just Google X".[1]

1: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3980010/pdf/nihm...

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#63

Post by vixen99 »

zorked wrote: post #29

This discussion if quickly being flooded with right-wing extremists. If you make a claim, please, provide a reputable source. If you see a claim being made without a source, do something for the intellectual health of this community and downvote.

Please apply your request to your own claim by being precise regarding what constitutes a right-wing extremist - an emotive phrase and clearly intended as such.

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#64

Post by Ralfp »

zorked wrote: post #29

This discussion if quickly being flooded with right-wing extremists. If you make a claim, please, provide a reputable source. If you see a claim being made without a source, do something for the intellectual health of this community and downvote.

I fail to see how three comments by two authors about rape rates going up are sign of discussion quickly being flooded by right-wing extremists.

If you really wish for intellectual health of community, please strive to cultivate it yourself by avoiding the attempts at pre-emptively silencing your opponents by labeling them.

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#65

Post by Inconel »

oneloop wrote: post #24
Inconel wrote: post #8

At the risk of sounding overly cynical, while it's great that Mr. Soros is donating this money to a worthy cause, I wonder if, as long as he's feeling charitable, he might also be willing to stop domiciling his investment vehicles in jurisdictions known for supporting tax evasion/avoidance. Perhaps with the increased tax revenue, governments could afford to better shoulder the costs of adequately integrating migrants…

Maybe he believes that he can use the same money more effectively for causes that he cares more about. My point is that there's nothing inconsistent in being charitable whilst trying to minimise the amount of tax you pay.

I'm certain you are correct in that this is what he believes. I too believe that I can perhaps use my taxes more effectively for the causes that I care about rather than handing them over to the US Treasury. Of course, seeing as I don't have ownership over a slew of offshore shell corporations spanning multiple Caribbean nations and an army of legal experts at my disposal, I don't really get to make that choice.

On some level I agree with you though that there's nothing inconsistent about minimizing one's taxes and being charitable. At the same time, I'm having a hard time accepting this as an absolute truth. If the tax avoidance is a result of what some might see as a "corruption" of the democratic process, even if not necessarily illegal, I can understand why this might be considered ethically ambiguous.

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#66

Post by summarite »

malinens wrote: post #37
redsummer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a Syrian immigrant attempt to sexually assault a women with my own eyes. You should stay in your ivory tower if you want to be able to maintain your delusions.

Soros is main sponsor of many very liberal pro-immigration NGOs in Eastern Europe

[citation needed]

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#67

Post by Meekro »

redsummer wrote: post #14

Soros is directly responsible for massive increases in rape in Germany and Sweden, as well as encouraging terrorism in the west with his compulsive promotion of immigration of unsuitable people. It's noticeable that he does not promote Syrian immigration to Israel, which is next door and has taken in zero refugees, and instead uses all of his resources to force Western countries to accept thousands of young unaccompa…

Claim: There has been a recent upswing in Islamist terrorism in Europe that coincidences with the migrant situation.

Citations:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in...

- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33288542

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Germany

Those sources provide timelines that show massive increases in 2015-2016. The details of some of those attacks would turn your stomach, too -- like the guy in Nice, France who drove a truck through a celebrating crowd while shouting "Allahu Akbar!"

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#68

Post by puranjay »

Have no knowledge of Mr. Soros' policies or public stance on issues, but I ask: why is there even a need for a separate fund for migrants?

From what I know, investors are driven by profit, not be ethnicity. If a business has potential to turn a profit, I don't think any VC would want to turn away.

At least that's how things work for some of my Indian friends in the Valley. No one has ever denied them investment because they were immigrants.

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#69

Post by summarite »

gragas wrote: post #35
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Soros is directly responsible for massive increases in rape No, he isn't. Your entire post is inflammatory, and makes unsubstantiated and lurid claims that contribute nothing to a debate about a deep and difficult international problem.

He's saying that Soros directly supports policy that forces countries to accept migrants. Historically, alongside massive inflows of migrants there have been tremendous rises in violent crime and sexual assault in Northern European countries. As a prime example, take a look at related data for Sweden. www.nsfk.org/Portals/0/nordicstats_1950-2000.pdf

Sweden changed its statistical method quite a bit (eg counting each 'act' within a rape separately), that, together with much more awareness of sexual violence and a campaign and social changes encouraging victims and witnesses to report things had a huge effect on the statistics. Wikipedia has a decent-ish summary of the changes. Sweden doesn't collect data on perpetrator background or similar, so literally all of the articles in (primarily Anglophone) right wing media claiming statistics on that are simply made up. That being said, I'd not be surprised if numbers went up with an increase young single men, but the data simply does not exist to prove either way. The natural tendency is to guess the correct interpretation and read it onto the data, but it simply is not there.

Re: Why I’m Investing $500M in Migrants

#70

Post by phs318u »

On a slight tangent here...

I've always thought one of the biggest problems with globalisation as a concept is the absence of free movement of people.

What I mean by that is the ability of people anywhere to move anywhere else, to work, consume, pay tax, and otherwise take part in civic life, for as long as they wish.

We have free movement of capital and free movement of goods. However the limitation on movement of labour has turned some parts of the planet into labour ghettos, creating forced economic gradients that benefit a few. While this has been the case for some time, the free movement of information has informed even the most ignorant that this need not be the case.

The so-called "economic" migration sweeping the world is the inevitable result of this state of affairs. Its not just information that wants to be free.

I find it hard to see how one could be a true believer in the power for good of the free market, without including free movement of labour.

If you follow the thought experiment of what such free movement would look like, you could imagine the end state being an effective equalisation across most of the globe. The net effect would also be an acceleration of cultural equalisation (religious extremists notwithstanding).

Of course, the journey from here to there would be interesting!

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