The sarcasm was not directed at him, but at us, and our lack of ability to come up with an economic system that can properly evaluate what somebody is worth.
E.g. We have a legal system that decides when somebody is right or wrong, and it mostly matches with what people feel is right or wrong. Why can't we have a similar system that decides what somebody is worth?
I'm not sure you're right. Clearly you don't feel it's right, but it doesn't seem like you're necessarily in the majority here, at least not in a way that is actionable. People may complain, but it doesn't seem most people are actually doing something about this. (Or at least, looking e.g. at the last elections in the US, there isn't necessarily a majority that agrees with you.)
BTW, as to the broader point, I mostly disagree - I think our current systems is pretty good at figuring out how much value each person has created, and letting them capture a portion of it. (That's what the system does, not "decide how much someone is worth")
> I think our current systems is pretty good at figuring out how much value each person has created, and letting them capture a portion of it.
You are basically saying that Jeff Bezos has created more than 100x the value of, say, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Guido van Rossum, and Donald Knuth combined?
I think you forget how achieving near monopoly status is like gambling, and how much it depends on being first to market, and about convincing investors (for years Amazon has run on a loss, not sure how they do now).
"You are basically saying that Jeff Bezos has created more than 100x the value of, say, Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Guido van Rossum, and Donald Knuth combined?"
An interesting point. I think most of the above people have created a lot of value as well. It's hard to quantify, so I think it's possible that Amazon has created more value.
However, I think it's far more likely that, while they created lots of value, they haven't captured most of it back. Arguably, that's because they didn't try to, which is a totally reasonable decision for them to have made.
> However, I think it's far more likely that, while they created lots of value, they haven't captured most of it back. Arguably, that's because they didn't try to, which is a totally reasonable decision for them to have made.
Yes, because going for money takes effort. This means that people who have hoarded a lot of money and wealth have spent time on capturing money and less time on producing value. Now we can ask, do we want to reward that kind of behavior by giving these people money and thus power, and wouldn't we get (i.e., select) better leaders if we assigned rewards based on true value?
The way I see it, all those people are probably making good money($100k+ annually) and there is research that shows that above that point it's all gravy. In that sense the free market capitalism system works.
20 years later a child has some sort of disability and you are ready to kill yourself, even if the disability is not from radiation. Never mention cancers or even coughs--"it might be from radiation, I'm probably gonna die."
And that's if he's right, a big if, especially when dealing with lives.
I'm guessing that this extra-legal money is quite happily parked in legal low-tax economies earning interest.
I'm certain that even if they're losing 2% they are quite happy to have it out of China. This is not a Chinese farmer taking his money out of China, most likely you're talking about corrupt politicians that make $20 million with the stroke of a pen.
Pollution is probably a price that a country needs to pay in its early stages of modernization.
Militarily, China is checked by Vietnam, South Korea, Japan....and drum roll...INDIA. No large country like India wants a military monster next door, so India will have to get strong. Plus the counties in the South China sea have beef with China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Sea#Territorial_cl...
You make it sound like all these countries are eternal enemies, unlikely to ever cooperate when the future could actually look quite different.
Because I don't think it's an accident that the BRISC New Development Bank is located in China, it's also no accident that Putin has been very vocal about removing the US$ as the world reserve currency and establishing a "bipolar world order" to replace current de-facto US hegemony.
You make it sound like all these countries are eternal enemies, unlikely to ever cooperate when the future could actually look quite different.
When your large neighbor in that area, increases military spending every year why do think that is? To fight Belgium? They are ETERNAL neighbors and have eternal (well in our timescale) interests. See what Russia did in Ukraine? The same could happen to Mongolia, happened to Tibet and is happening in the South Sea where China is essentially planting their flag.
> When your large neighbor in that area, increases military spending every year why do think that is?
I wonder how often Canada or Mexico asked themselves that very same question?
> They are ETERNAL neighbors and have eternal (well in our timescale) interests.
These can still end up aligning, case in point: Not too long ago nobody would have thought it possible for the British and their former colonial settlers to exist in peace. These days they don't only just exist in peace, they are pretty much partners in crime.
The same applies to Europe: Nations that formerly despised each other for decades and centuries are now working for their common interests.
I don't see why similar couldn't be possible in Asia/Eastern Europe/Africa.
> See what Russia did in Ukraine?
Protect their interests from an, very obviously, staged "Western coup"? I really hate how that whole Ukraine situation is reduced to this narrative of "Look what Russia did to Ukraine!" like that whole situation just started with the "green men" appearing. The green men had been a reaction, not the action which started events.
> invading sovereign country and annexing part of it IS NOT protecting their interests.
Unless that sovereign country happens to be Iraq and you skip that whole "annexation" part in favor of just leveling the whole place.
Why is the US allowed to "protect their interests" on the other side of the world, but if Russia does the same, in a place that's literally their backyard, it's suddenly a crime?
Eastern Ukraine was of immense military relevance to Russia, it's where parts of their rockets used to be built, parts of their military hardware [0]. Crimea has been the home to the Black Sea Fleet for centuries, it's the most important port for the Russian marine.
Those are all facts people rather ignore in favor of this naive "Russia just goes around annexing countries for no reason whatsoever" narrative.
> Also “obviously staged western coup” IS NOT obvious.
I guess "Fuck the EU Nuland" handing out cookies was just some emotional gesture with no relevance, same with all those other US/EU officials showing up on Euromaidan and pumping up the crowd. Just like pumping billions of $ in the country and sponsoring "Yats our man" trough NATO/NED and even the DoT [1], feel free to look up the other organizations on that list, there's a certain "theme" to them.
It's also not like this has never happened before, it actually has [2] but this time the result did stick, that's why Russia was pressured into acting.
where I defended US actions in Iraq? I did not. All this whataboutism distracts from main point - Russia invaded Ukraine, sovereign country, and that's a fact, regardless of how you turn that event for your convenience.
I understand benefits for Russia to annex Crimea and so on, but still it's a crime and legitimacy of this action is not questionable.
You can replace Iraq with any other sovereign country the US meddled in to "protect their national interests", there's a long list of those from which you can choose.
I don't consider it "whataboutism" to point out double standards. If it's legit for the US to meddle in other sovereign countries, to protect their "national interests" on the other end of the world, then the same behavior should be legit for everybody else because I do not subscribe to the concept of "American exceptionalism".
> I understand benefits for Russia to annex Crimea and so on, but still it's a crime and legitimacy of this action is not questionable.
I guess then it's a good thing nothing was annexed but people rather voted for independence, just like the people of Ukraine voted in "free and open elections" and everything went according to the Ukrainian constitution.
A narrative can be such a handy device, good thing it ain't reserved for exceptionalists, just like using unmarked PMC's for tasks where official soldiers would lead to international legal troubles with the ICC, which the US doesn't even acknowledge (so much about international "crimes" and "legitimacy of actions").
Let's leave it at that, it's obvious we won't be agreeing on much and at this point, the discussion has become rather OT, have a nice evening.
> When your large neighbor in that area, increases military spending every year why do think that is?
Clam down, there're many ways for China to expand it's influence other than war. Plus, India and China both have nuclear weapons, meaning death trigger for everyone on earth, you don't want to touch that.
Tibet on the other hand is a very long, complex and different story (and South China Sea is whole another different one), I don't think they belongs to the same topic.
I can pretty much tell you that, in China, nobody think of India or Vietnam etc as enemy. Instead, they're the MARKET we can sell our product to. Which, guess what, that's what everybody do now, rather than thinking about war all days.
>>India and China both have nuclear weapons, meaning death trigger for everyone on earth, you don't want to touch that.
Yet they--and USA, Russia, France, UK etc--also have millions of soldiers and spend gazillions a year on conventional military stuff. Usually try to outdo each other.
>>Tibet on the other hand is a very long, complex and different story
Complex it is, but it's now 100% part of China, regardless of whatever.
>>in China, nobody think of India or Vietnam etc as enemy
If your neighbor had gun, you properly want it too. Specially when he don't like your dog and you don't like hes garden. But it's not meaning you two will actually going to kill each other, the gun here is just a counter weight.
The current relation model between nations made nobody fully trust each others. So nobody wants to drop their military, unless everybody do it at same time (Which is impossible).
It's sad that we still had to maintain that amount of military power and feed them with tax payer's money. If we use those money else where, we properly typing on mars now.
But it's the world we live in now, there is no other choose but get use to it.
One day in the future, we may reach a higher level of globe society that could maintain itself without any military force. And, that's why everybody should keep pushing the society go forward.
But until we reached that point, everybody will continue upgrading their military, and rely on it to ensure their own safety.
>>However, doesn't someone who commits treason give up their rights as a citizen?
Even if true, only after a court /jury decides. "Trump" can't say, "You committed treason, you have no rights," he can accuse you of treason and take you to court.
As unfair & objectionable as those things might be, quite a lot of companies seem to manage to pay their execs excessive salaries, provide golden parachutes, and pay out dividends without requiring government bailout.
All car manufacturers except Ford were bailed out, and Ford is about as unionised as anybody else.
Not to mention the bank bailouts, and I don't remember banks being known for their exceptionally strong labour organisation.
The bailouts were the reaction to an exogenous shock, the recession, and have not much to say about labour politics. In fact unions have the ability to collectively negotiate wage stalls, like in Germany in the early 2000s or Scandinavia in the 80s. Which is a positive in recessions to maintain employment and liquidity.
However this hardly makes it ok to continue this sort of behaviour, the top boys manage to wrangle huge bonuses, yet when a group of workers asks for 5% per year, they're a bunch of monsters.
I believe it as probable. Say "Submarine found in x waters 145m deep." if this isn't standard, and signals an improvement in current tech, Russia and China will wonder why and start to piece things out.
The problem is that sub designers go to great lengths to make them invisible while underwater. So if it's disabled and can't tell where it is, that's a problem, (or feature since it's stealthy.)
You vastly, vastly underestimate how hard it is to do what you just said. Consider the inverse square law, then consider how hard it is to illuminate things underwater at a depth where there is little to no ambient light. Consider the limitations of sonar and other technologies at extreme distances.
Then extrapolate that in three dimensions across a major light trafficked area.
I get that militaries keep high-tech stuff secret, but what you are proposing is more akin to magic or teleportation than anything reasonable.
My thesis was that it's possible not to use the most advanced stuff to find them. Sure sucks that Argentinians died, but it would suck more if 1000 US sailors died and we lost the next war.
He did save people a lot of money, but then he did also cause many stores to go kaput. So, how do you judge?