The Off Topic Topic

[Valmy]

I think it should be possible to both acknowledge that billionaires often did a lot of useful things on the way to getting their billions, and that sustainability of democracy requires keeping their power in check.  The bashing of them as a class in our political dialogue is unseemly, and sets a lot of bad precedents.

I am happy to acknowledge that. But when I look too closely at these guys I don't any particularly useful things. I see some guys who got lucky trend chasing and it worked out for them and some of them have let their good fortune go to their heads and they really think they are goddamn geniuses who should tell us all what to do.

Several of these guys, who are more self aware, have directly said if they didn't do it somebody else would have.

So I am not going to kiss their asses out of some ideological obligation, like I am supposed to agree they did useful things for some vague principle that doing so is a positive good for society. I would like to be convinced and demonstrated that they, in fact, have done useful things that without them being there would not otherwise have been done.

This is totally separate from those seem like straight up corrupt malignant actors like Elon Musk who has stuffed boards with cronies, lied and misled the public over and over again, and bought off politicians.

[Valmy]

Valmy, stop repeating the lie.  Either you are too young to remember ordering from a catalog, or you're too old and your memory has faded.

It took a couple of weeks tops.  But more importantly, everybody's buying into the cultural norm of instant gratification.  Why is it a social good to be able to receive something the same day you order it?

I remember as a little kid in the 80s saving up my money and my Tech Points and ordering my mail order Transformers and it taking 6-8 weeks for delivery. But that was waaaay back then. By the 1990s rolled around it was, as you say, just taking a short time. The idea it was Amazon specifically that changed anything is ridiculous. Amazon won by being able to operate at a loss for decades and being the last man standing after the dot com collapse.

[garbon]

I think it should be possible to both acknowledge that billionaires often did a lot of useful things on the way to getting their billions, and that sustainability of democracy requires keeping their power in check.  The bashing of them as a class in our political dialogue is unseemly, and sets a lot of bad precedents.

I would love to set the precedent that it is unseemly to be worth a billion dollars.

[The Brain]

Sweden has much more USD billionaires per capita than the US. Sweden also has universal healthcare and tuition-free education etc etc. Maybe the most pressing problem in the US is not the fact that billionaires exist.

[garbon]

Sweden has much more USD billionaires per capita than the US. Sweden also has universal healthcare and tuition-free education etc etc. Maybe the most pressing problem in the US is not the fact that billionaires exist.

Counterpoint is that it might be hard to draw easy parallels between the US and a monoculture state with a population the size of a large city.

[Valmy]

Sweden has much more USD billionaires per capita than the US. Sweden also has universal healthcare and tuition-free education etc etc. Maybe the most pressing problem in the US is not the fact that billionaires exist.

Well there are billionaires and there are billionaires. When just a few guys control all major media outlets and have paid off both parties, it makes it hard to operate. Each of these guys are also supposedly worth more than the GDP of Pakistan.

But I would like to point out Sweden has high taxes and all their billionaires have not been shot in gulags or fled the country as we keep being told will happen the second we start taxing to cover our public costs.

[Sheilbh]

Sweden has much more USD billionaires per capita than the US. Sweden also has universal healthcare and tuition-free education etc etc. Maybe the most pressing problem in the US is not the fact that billionaires exist.

Yeah I agree. I don't think billionaires matter that much one way or the other. I think the country with the highest concentration of wealth is France (because of families like the Arnaults).

If anything I think it's a bit of a distraction from what European social democracies have which is not necessarily fewer billionaires, but broader more universal tax bases paying higher taxes for universal services.

[Valmy]

Sweden has much more USD billionaires per capita than the US. Sweden also has universal healthcare and tuition-free education etc etc. Maybe the most pressing problem in the US is not the fact that billionaires exist.

Yeah I agree. I don't think billionaires matter that much one way or the other. I think the country with the highest concentration of wealth is France (because of families like the Arnaults).

If anything I think it's a bit of a distraction from what European social democracies have which is not necessarily fewer billionaires, but broader more universal tax bases paying higher taxes for universal services.

The power the billionaires wield is the problem. I could see an America where they exist but they are just enjoying their super yachts and snorting coke off strippers assholes and are basically harmless. And I suspect most billionaires in the US are just that, relatively harmless people whose wealth only reflects the corruption in the system, not the cause of it. People who, if we raised their taxes to balance budgets and pay for needed social programs and infrastructure would shrug and pay it.

[crazy canuck]

Valmy, stop repeating the lie.  Either you are too young to remember ordering from a catalog, or you're too old and your memory has faded.

It took a couple of weeks tops.  But more importantly, everybody's buying into the cultural norm of instant gratification.  Why is it a social good to be able to receive something the same day you order it?

I remember as a little kid in the 80s saving up my money and my Tech Points and ordering my mail order Transformers and it taking 6-8 weeks for delivery. But that was waaaay back then. By the 1990s rolled around it was, as you say, just taking a short time. The idea it was Amazon specifically that changed anything is ridiculous. Amazon won by being able to operate at a loss for decades and being the last man standing after the dot com collapse.

I suspect your childhood memory was based on the fact that time moves at a slower pace for children and you really really really wanted that thing that you ordered and so it seemed like a couple of months passed when in fact, it was only a couple of weeks.

Same for HVC.

Fact is, the mail order business in the 70s 80s and even 90s was highly competitive.  Companies would've gone out of business if it took more than a couple of weeks to get something to their customers.  And why did it take a couple of weeks? That's just how slow the post office operated. It had nothing to do with the mail order companies themselves.  It was not until the parcel delivery industry was revolutionized by Fed Ex.


The other thing that might be confusing things is the way in which the order was placed.  You could place an order with a mail order company by telephone.  If you did that, then the delay would be in the mail service package delivery, and the time it took to process your telephone order.  That was generally in the range of a couple of weeks. If somebody sent their order by mail, then you have to factor in the time it took for the mail to get to the mail order company. That could add in another couple of weeks depending on the speed of the mail service at the time you sent in your order.

The billionaires of the modern age that DGuller wants us to give credit to by and large were simply in the right place at the right time when the Internet happened.  And by and large many of them have made life worse and more expensive.

I'm not sure. I'm in the mood to give them thanks.  I prefer the way the world was in the golden age when Monopoly's were rare, governments regulated the conduct of commercial actors to enhance the public interest and public safety, and the distribution of wealth and society was not obscenely skewed.

My fear is that although there are sufficient numbers of us were still alive who remember those times, most memory now is based on what people can get from a Google search, and those memories are limited to when the age of wealth accumulation in the hands of the view began.

History is being erased, or perhaps it's more accurate to say is being written by those who benefit most from the narrative being told on social media.  Surprise surprise, those who controlled social media control the narrative.  But in the name of free speech the US government will not regulate the sphere and will oppose all the attempts to regulate by other governments.  Thankfully, most western democracies are being beginning to learn to ignore the American government.

[The Brain]

Sweden has much more USD billionaires per capita than the US. Sweden also has universal healthcare and tuition-free education etc etc. Maybe the most pressing problem in the US is not the fact that billionaires exist.

Counterpoint is that it might be hard to draw easy parallels between the US and a monoculture state with a population the size of a large city.

Monoculture? Sweden has a bigger percentage of foreign-born inhabitants than the US.

[Sheilbh]

Monoculture? Sweden has a bigger percentage of foreign-born inhabitants than the US.

As do several European countries including the UK and the Netherlands, indeed several have a higher foreign-born share of the population than any period in American history (even the peak in the 1920s).

[The Brain]

But I would like to point out Sweden has high taxes and all their billionaires have not been shot in gulags or fled the country as we keep being told will happen the second we start taxing to cover our public costs.

I'm not a tax expert, but my impression is that Sweden has generally focussed on taxing working people, while not hitting capitalist types too hard (since they tend to relocate if you do). And Sweden got rid of estate tax 20 years ago for instance. Even at the height of Social Democrat Sweden in the 20th century there was always a functioning relationship with capitalists.

[viper37]

South Korean judge who handed Kim Keon-hee 4-year term found dead days after verdict

Shin Jong-oh, who was found with severe injuries on the ground near the Seoul High Court, had a suicide note in his pocket, police say


A South Korean appellate court judge who presided over a high-profile case involving former first lady Kim Keon-hee was found dead early Wednesday morning, police said.

Shin Jong-oh, who had overturned a lower court's not guilty verdict and imposed a harsher sentence on Kim, was discovered with severe injuries in a flower bed near the Seoul High Court building in Seocho district, southern Seoul.


He was pronounced dead upon arrival at a nearby hospital.


Police suspect the 55-year-old died after falling from the building.
"It is true that an apparent suicide note was found in his pocket," an officer at Seocho Police Station told This Week in Asia. The note reportedly included phrases such as "I am sorry" and "I am leaving of my own accord".

[HisMajestyBOB]

I am leaving of my own accord

[HVC]

Police suspect the 55-year-old died after falling from the building.

That's some chief Wiggum level police work right there