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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

#91

Post by idiotsecant »

colechristensen wrote: post #87
dakiol wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be both good and bad. Like, it's not an impossibility.

Earning a tremendous amount of money and then amusing yourself by spending it on "charity" for the rest of your life doesn't make you a good person. It's just one more method of buying good feelings and trying to buy good will while being in control of large numbers of people. He wants to feel like he's doing good and using money to give him that feeling.

It's like you're allergic to subtlety. Yes, saving untold numbers of children from malaria is a good thing. You can do bad things and good things and while everyone else is arguing about morality, the thing that matters is the end effect. Did Bill Gate's time on earth result in a better world when he's gone or a worse one? I won't pretend to know enough about his life to answer that, but he has prevented a lot of really, really brutal suffering.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#92

Post by Larrikin »

decimalenough wrote: post #14
pixl97 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out Bill is just actually a piece of shit through and through

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".

Its like George Washington and the other founding fathers, didn't become a king voluntarily, helped create the country and modern democracy, but loved his slaves so much they could only be freed after he was dead. You can create good while actually still being a terrible person. Much of this era is people being upset about their fallen "heroes"

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#93

Post by jmyeet »

decimalenough wrote: post #14
pixl97 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out Bill is just actually a piece of shit through and through

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".

A lot of the so-called "charity" by wealthy individuals is anything but. It's placing assets in a tax-advantaged positions where some of the proceeds gets used for "charity" (whatever that means) but they still maintain control.

For example, the typical tax structure is to put assets into a foundation. That allows the assets to grow and earn income without being taxed. The only requirement is that 5% of the asset pool has to be used on the stated goal of the foundation. That might sound good but it also includes costs like "administration" so, say, having your family as employees. There are limits to this but it's still somewhat of a slush fund.

That charity can be used for political influence. A foundation can't donate to candidates or PACs but can instead, for example, fund a think tank from which policy is created or influenced. That think tank will employ people while their party is out of the White House and otherwise nurture people who will go into the administration when their party returns to power.

Also, a large foundation such as this wields influence just by its size, by choosing what to fund and where. It can exact generous conditions from governments. Those conditions can extend to companies the foundation's benefactors have an interest in.

All of this is about influence. Governments are accountable to their people. Outsized private foundations are accountable to no one.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#94

Post by colechristensen »

andrewflnr wrote: post #42
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've found that problem solving intelligence and language skills are not that strongly correlated. He clearly had some kind of skill to keep his operation running, even before you consider the more cynical explanations in the other replies.

He was an asset being managed by intelligence service officers, this is the only explanation.

A failing math teacher at a New York prep school leading to a job at Bear Stearns and then as a wealth manager for billionaires... let's say it doesn't add up unless there were other reasons than his own ambitions and organization skills.

Mossad or the Russians engineered his life.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#95

Post by analog31 »

nickstinemates wrote: post #86
analog31 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing that really baffles me. My kids went through K-12 when Common Core was a thing, and there was a huge backlash about it, so I decided to look it up and to see how it was being used in our school district. A few states published their Common Core guidelines. I looked at one state, and the curriculum goals looked no different than the things that I learned when I was a kid. It seemed completely ordinar…

The way they teach math is stupid

Math education has always been a failure, or a "crisis." The number of people who come out of school with any functional math ability has been fairly constant over the decades, and depends a lot on family background and economic class. I'm not even sure that differences across countries are all that significant when people reach adulthood.

Don't get me wrong. I was one of the successful ones, but I think math education is in need of reform. In fact I would reform it quite radically.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#96

Post by dnautics »

jcranmer wrote: post #83
wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof please, not a slogan. Like, actual facts.

I mean, do you have a counterexample? FWIW, Bill Gates is one of the people I would have pointed to as one of the less disreputable modern billionaires, and finding out that Melinda divorced him over his Epstein connections really soured my opinion of him.

john mackey, Definitely a bit ruthless but pretty good at maintaining integrity, only a little bit of an internet troll.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#98

Post by colechristensen »

idiotsecant wrote: post #91
colechristensen wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earning a tremendous amount of money and then amusing yourself by spending it on "charity" for the rest of your life doesn't make you a good person. It's just one more method of buying good feelings and trying to buy good will while being in control of large numbers of people. He wants to feel like he's doing good and using money to give him that feeling.

It's like you're allergic to subtlety. Yes, saving untold numbers of children from malaria is a good thing. You can do bad things and good things and while everyone else is arguing about morality, the thing that matters is the end effect. Did Bill Gate's time on earth result in a better world when he's gone or a worse one? I won't pretend to know enough about his life to answer that, but he has prevented a lot of rea…

Nope. I'm not weighing "good deeds" that amount to his entertainment against the aggressive selfish business destroying greed that got him the money to spend and everything else he's clearly done in his personal life, shrugging my shoulders, and saying "who knows! maybe him doing all this is all for the best"

I'd rather have better men had that money to spend and his victims both personal and business leave him penniless and alone at the end.

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#99

Post by wudu »

jcranmer wrote: post #83
wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof please, not a slogan. Like, actual facts.

I mean, do you have a counterexample? FWIW, Bill Gates is one of the people I would have pointed to as one of the less disreputable modern billionaires, and finding out that Melinda divorced him over his Epstein connections really soured my opinion of him.

Warren Buffett

Re: The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein

#100

Post by nearbuy »

saulpw wrote: post #78
decimalenough wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malaria deaths have fallen by 60% in the last 15 years, saving on the order of 12 million lives. Bill's foundation has donated around $4B to the cause. And yeah, it's got Melinda's name on it, but let's face it, virtually all the money is from Bill/Microsoft.

But much of the motivation for starting a foundation is from Melinda.

I think it's the opposite. Bill credited his parents for his philanthropic drive and Warren buffet as the person who first introduced him to the idea of giving everything away. He's been active and knowledgeable in his philanthropy and posts frequently about global health, poverty, aid, etc.

Melinda also, of course, did work for their joint foundation before she left. Since leaving, she shifted her philanthropic focus more to US women's health and reproductive rights.

Bill has committed to giving away nearly all his wealth (99%) over the next 19 years. Melinda is still committed to giving away over 50% of her wealth over her lifetime.

I don't see any evidence that Melinda was the primary driver for Bill's philanthropy.

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