> Honestly a big part of why I quit my last job was too many unproductive/unreliable coworkers.
Unproductive? Then you must really be exercised about the heirs who own the majority of stock, who can and often do siphon off the created wealth of those working and creating wealth, via dividend profit of expropriated surplus labor time.
Oh, I see no such complaint. Just some co-workers who are "unproductive".
Why is it only the heirs? Shouldn’t your issue be with all future stockholders beyond the original founders and venture capitalists? Although I assume you’d feel similar about the venture capitalists?
Don't forget that many workers end up with stock too, either via options, grants or other mechanisms. Or maybe they just buy the stock because they things going well at the company.
Have you seen the margins on businesses old enough to be owned by heirs? They're only "siphoning off" a few percent.
Edit: I misunderstood. I thought the complaint was that the heirs were taking a lot of created wealth from each worker. Not simply that they were wealthy.
Those heirs are the richest people in Europe, owning everything from VW and Porsche to BMW and a bunch of other household names. And those few percent are coming off from quite huge figures...
Yeah, the lack of new businesses is a big problem in Europe. Regulations and taxation kill them or drive them out of Europe.
But I was speaking from a US perspective (since I'm from the US and this story is about the US), and our biggest, most profitable businesses are mostly under fifty years old, not over.
It is not regulation nor taxes that make it hard for "tech" start ups in Europe. It is harder access to Venture Capital and smaller adressable markets, overall the European Market is huge, but harder to access due to language barriers.
Yeah those parents are all upper middle class. None of them are at all comparable to the owners of a company like VW, Tesla, or Amazon.
And none of them were "heirs who own the majority of stock" nor support your claim that "just because the companies change doesn't mean the owners do".
Edit to reply: You don't need to tell me about the social mobility of people living in poverty. I was born into a family of construction workers, and escaped poverty by learning to program. I know from experience that new businesses create opportunities to escape poverty, even if that isn't measured or sufficiently weighted by the index you cited.
Zuckerberg went to Phillips Exeter, a high school which costs at least $47,000 a year.
Zuckerberg bought Instagram from Kevin Systrom who went to Middlesex high school, which costs at least $55,000 a year.
At this point it becomes a parlor game of who is rich, and who is "upper middle class", which apparently means spending $55,000+ a year on your kid's high school.
OH 1000000% I mean can you even name a single business that has started in Berlin in the last 25 years? You cant. Because not a single business has started. Taxes have killed all brand new business ideas in the German tech start up scene.
If you have thousands working and creating wealth, and then a handful of heirs not working, and siphoning off expropriated surplus labor time of those who do work, then the heirs have a pretty good deal going for themselves. A couple percent of the created wealth of a few thousand workers just for one person? That adds up quick.
So what else in his age makes it not a small thing? That he cooperated with the American intelligence community back then? If he was some random teenager I guess it would be no random thing. However, his father was defense minister of this NATO country. Him spying on the student peace movement and relating details to his father and whoever his father had dealings with is the accusation. He certainly did a complete about face on the US military - or did he? Maybe this was his inclination from the beginning.
Incidentally NATO had a massive intelligence operation against the Norwegian student anti-NATO movement which was in the papers a few years ago.
I'm sure you had no clue the papers talked about his importance as a supposed anti-Vietnam activist years ago. I'm sure you had no idea his father was defense Minister of a NATO country. You're attempting to "discredit" the article by seeing a date, knowing none of these details, and deciding it discredits the article.
Worth noting that both the White House and the New York Times walked back inconsistent claims they made in the days after bin Laden's death. So the White House and Times were self-admittedly inconsistent about it. If Hersh is inconsistent it is in that light.
Hersh pokes holes in different points of the official narrative. Particularly the idea no one high up in the Pakistani government knew bin Laden was in the compound. Contradicting the White House, but very convincing to me and others.
However, to be fair to you, Hersh goes into a great deal of detail about the initial intelligence, the raid etc. Was any part of that wrong or inconsistent? It's hard to know. He didn't just make a few statements but went into a lot of detail. So there could theoretically be inconsistencies in Hersh's reporting about it too, since he covered so much ground. It is hard to know though. You just take what the White House said, what Hersh says, what the Pakistani press says and try to figure out what actually happened.
> his claim that the US never killed Osama bin Laden
You give a link but it is nowhere in that link. I watched an interview where Hersh talked about how the US killed bin Laden. Hersh has always said this.
Hersh did do reporting that countered parts of the US government story about bin Laden. Namely the idea no high Pakistani army/intelligence/government official knew where bin Laden was in Pakistan. As well as some other things.
The conspiracy theory is believing bin Laden sat in a big compound in Abbottabad with no one important in the Pakistani government knowing this. I guess the US government feels it needs to state this for some diplomatic reason, but it is ludicrous.
Seymour Hersh regarding the Osama bin Laden raid, in which the terrorist leader was killed in 2011: "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true".
Later on in 2013, he changed his claim, such that he admitted some of the story is true, that is, that the terrorist leader was killed, after he encountered pushback.
That quote doesn't say that the US didn't kill Bin Laden. You're implying that by adding an unnecessary parenthetical "in which the terrorist leader was killed in 2011."
There's nothing simpler and better for your case than typing the quote where he said the thing you say he said. Otherwise, you're actively spreading misinformation on social media, and intentionally using rhetorical games to obscure the lack of evidence you're offering to support it. That's conscious spreading of misinformation.
Let me make sure I understand what you're saying here. You're saying that I'm spreading misinformation when I stated that: Seymour Hersh, with respect to an article about the Osama bin Laden raid, said that not a single word in it was true. He then later went on to admit that indeed, some of those words were true, that Osama bin Laden was indeed killed.
Would you be willing to explain how a strictly historical truth, that is, a direct quote from the individual in question, is misinformation?
You took a completely literal reading of a one sentence quote from an interview as his full opinion on the matter, and ignored that he immediately said that one sentence was not an accurate representation of his entire view. The Guardian even corrected the initial interview adding his further clarification. That seems like misinformation to me.
The Guardian did not issue a correction about Hersh's words. There was nothing to correct about them: the quote from Hersh is accurate. The Guardian issued a footnote/amendment (in their words), and here it is from the Guardian that you're referring to, as context:
> This article was amended on 1 October 2013. The original text stated that Hersh sold a story about the My Lai massacre to the New York Times for $5,000 when in fact it was the Times of London. Hersh has pointed out that he was in no way suggesting that Osama bin Laden was not killed in Pakistan, as reported, upon the president's authority: he was saying that it was in the aftermath that the lying began. Finally, the interview took place in the month of July, 2013.
Note that from this footnote that Seymour Hersh does not admit that he misspoke. He claims that he never suggested that Osama bin Laden was not killed. This is plainly a straight lie, given his claim that the White House's statement did not contain one word that was true.
If he wants to state that he misspoke in this interview: fine, then he should do it. But to state that he didn't make this claim is itself misinformation.
Edit: You're accusing me of bad faith. Can you please explain how my argument is deceptive or a lie? If anything, Seymour Hersh has acted in bad faith in this ordeal, lying about his own statements. And people should be suspect of him for that.
>. Can you please explain how my argument is deceptive or a lie?
You condensed an entire book/section of a book that Hersh wrote into one sentence and then attacked it as if it were the argument he presented. It's not. It's something he said offhand in an interview about the book, and which he immediately clarified was not meant in the way people were taking it.
You're taking the worst possible interpretation of what he said and arguing he clearly meant that. Hence, not arguing in good faith.
That's not the definition of a bad faith argument. Here's a definition of bad faith according to Wikipedia: "Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another. ... Some examples of bad faith include: ... a prosecutor who argues a legal position that he knows to be false" Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith
I have not engaged in deception in the statements I've made in this thread a single time. However, it is important to point out that Seymour Hersh has indeed engaged in bad faith in his statements about Osama bin Laden, by refusing to acknowledge that he either originally misspoke, or he changed his claim about the White House's statement. In either case, he is being deceptive in his statements as I've demonstrated above, exactly what it means to argue in bad faith.
And now you're making your rebuttal hinge on the exact definition of a term I never used.
You aren't arguing in good faith. You aren't trying to be fair, open, and honest. Like your repeated claim that Hersh saying he in no way was suggesting that bin Laden was not killed in Pakistan is him refusing to acknowledge he misspoke. Or your constant ignoring of anything Hersh has said on the matter besides the one sentence you object to. Neither of those things are fair, or honest about his argument.
Okay, so if I'm understanding you right, and correct me if I'm wrong, you are claiming that your definition of "bad faith" differs from Wikipedia's definition. Is that correct? Would you be willing to offer a definition of what you mean by "not in good faith"?
Maybe you aren't being intentionally deceptive, I can't say. But as I pointed out you are not being fair and honest about Hersh's argument, which is more nuanced than the one sentence.
This is a misrepresentation of my argument. I'm not addressing Hersh's other argument about the other specifics of the Osama bin Laden raid, and therefore fairness or dishonesty to that part of his argument is not relevant. I'm addressing his quote, the quote in which he claimed that all words in the White House report/statement were lies. He denied that he made this claim; he didn't say he misspoke or that he's amending his original statement. To say that I'm being unfair or dishonest about Hersh's argument by misrepresenting my argument is itself unfair and/or dishonest.
As for the reason why Hersh did this, I cannot say, a person's intention is a black box. But this kind of behavior amounts to some amount of dishonesty. It's not much more complicated than that.
> Hersh has pointed out that he was in no way suggesting that Osama bin Laden was not killed in Pakistan, as reported, upon the president's authority: he was saying that it was in the aftermath that the lying began
Is saying he misspoke. His words were interpreted in a way he did not intend them to be.
Addressing only the quote itself is unfair, as again that does not represent his actual argument.
Saying an amendment isn't a correction seems silly.
When your entire argument is "this one sentence when taken literally with no context can be considered crazy," I don't think you're arguing in good faith.
In an interview with the Guardian he said, as you quote
"Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true".
You take this statement he made and translate it to "his claim that the US never killed Osama bin Laden". The original quote you print is much clearer. I certainly don't translate his quote to what you translated it to.
Speaking of changed claims, both the White House and New York Times walked back claims they made in 2011 about bin Laden. So Hersh's claim of "a lie" and "not true", if you want to call it that, is true by their own admissions.
Incidentally the disputed issues are did anyone high up in the Pakistani government know bin Laden was there, how did the US learn he was there (connected to the first point), was the firefight killing bin Laden a kind of John Wayne/Audie Murphy production or was it more pedestrian etc.
If it's not pedantic that Hersh telling the interviewer "not one word of it is true" was hyperbole, when at least one word of the White House story was true, then you have a point on that statement. But it still does not automatically translate as you said. The original statement is more clearly what he said.
I don't have a problem with people who change their claims, and willingly admit that their claims have changed. This is what I'd expect from decent humans and respectable journalists.
I do have a problem with people who change their claims and then deny that they changed their claims, like Seymour Hersh did, with respect to Osama bin Laden and stating that not a single word from the White House was true. That's disingenuous and it makes his credibility questionable, especially if he's going to rely on anonymous sources for his claims.
To address your claim that perhaps he was being hyperbolic in his statement: fine, but at least admit to that. He hasn't. He denied that he said it in the first place, which is a lie.
Someone was killed, but he may not have been ObL. This seems far-fetched, until one realizes that the entire war against Afghanistan was justified on the idea of capturing ObL, who is documented to have left Afghanistan less than a month into the war, which lasted another twenty years. Nothing makes sense, about any of this.
This is a frustratingly common technique that I've seen from those who have strong political affiliations.
It's much easier to make a strong claim, and to repeat it, than it is to read through articles and debunk those claims. Frequently, as soon as you've done it, there are several more of these strong claims made, and the discussion becomes impossible.
I think it's rooted in the desire to "win".
I know I get a little excited when I see a comment I've made get upvoted.
I think about it when I'm writing and I've found it affects what I write and my phrasing.
I think this is an unintended consequence of self-moderated discussions - it seems to devolve into a zero-sum game.
If he denied the US killed bin Laden he would be unreliable. He never denied the US killed bin Laden. You saying he said that is what is unreliable.
He said that some of the White House and Pentagon assertions about bin Laden, which the New York Times did not question in the days after (but did question, to some extent, later on) were not accurate. Particularly that no one high up in the Pakistani Army, government or intelligence knew Bin Laden was in Abbottabad. Hersh asserted that was incorrect, as were some other things.
The alleged "compound" of bin Laden was located less than a mile from PMA Kakul [0]. So there was at least one odd thing about this event: would we expect that the world's most wanted terrorist could live across the street from USMA West Point for five years, without the government knowing?
The "mainstream" "establishment" position on the death of Osama Bin Laden is that Bin Laden was living in the middle of Abbottabad, which is the Pakistani equivalent of the town of West Point, and no high level Pakistani Army official knew he was there, and no high level Pakistani government official knew he was there.
It is a completely absurd story. The "truthers" are the people who believe that story. The White House gave a lot of information about bin Laden's death, as well as the Pentagon, and the government had to walk back some of their story shortly after. The New York Times reported the government statements as fact, although later another section of the paper printed some of the questions about the mainstream narrative. This caused an internal Times squabble, some of the "memoes" of which were subsequently leaked.
If you want a better account of what happened, read the Pakistani press.
The ISI worked with the US and bin Laden hand in glove in the 1980s. The idea no one high up on Pakistani intelligence, government or military knew he was there is absurd. Yet you call this "truther".
> a advocate of the Syrian rebel chemical weapon conspiracy
Chemical weapons were released in Douma. The rebels and government blamed each other. If the "conspiracy" as you call it that the rebels released it were true, it would tend to have been a mishandling of them - a mistake. Hersh reported on the attack, including information pointing to the rebels controlling it. I have no idea who had control of the weapons - it could have been the government as you imply. I don't have a problem with Hersh reporting on the information he had on that.
> The idea that workers there are somehow this abused underclass is ridiculous
The heirs who own the majority of most of the FAANG stock created none of the wealth, did none of the work. These rich kids of Instagram never worked, never will - nor did their parents, nor did their parents.
So your argument is the workers creating the wealth should fork over the amount of surplus labor value to these heirs, that is being expropriated.
What about these parasitical heirs you are arguing for? The ones who live off the dividend check wealth created by those who work? "I can't even begin to comprehend your POV". If the worker creating wealth keeping it is an entitled attitude, what is the attitude of these parasitical heirs who do not work?
> Isn’t income equality (government interventions in some aspects aside) a mere reflection of people’s contribution to a economy and their ability to negotiate? So, are you assuming/applying everyone more or less has the same contribution or do you want everyone to be paid the same irrespective?
Sure, the heirs from Rich Kids of Instagram are living off their rentier expropriation as a "reflection of people’s contribution to a economy", while the people doing the work and creating the wealth are contributing less to the economy, in your view.
The fruits of the economy are swallowed up by these parasitic heirs expropriating surplus labor time from those who work and create wealth, but your view is parasitism is somehow the greater contribution to the economy.
So you are mainly talking about passive income inequality?
I was talking about income that is earned.
Well, what do you want me to say: the country I live in we have a high tax on inheritance, capital gains etc.
But to me personally: I am grown up enough to not care how many Porsches my neighbor has. How does this matter? There are resources that cover basic needs such as health, living, education and food. But in Europe you get all that for free irrespective whether you work or not. Health coverage is as good for an unemployed family not speaking the language as it is for two full time working parents. As is schooling as is university.
> But to me personally: I am grown up enough to not care how many Porsches my neighbor has. How does this matter?
When something I made is sold at a company, used raw materials are rebought, but then left over is the wealth I created. A portion goes to me in wages, a portion is mailed off in dividend checks to the heir who is expropriating my surplus time. It matters because the heir is expropriating surplus labor time from me, and all the wealth I create in this time. That is why it matters.
Then you have either negotiated your share in value creation poorly or your skills are easily sourced.
Irrespective of that you are assuming happiness is just associated to absolute monetary wealth - which I disagree with. If basic resources and needs are catered for and the rest is spent on luxury goods or extravagant lifestyles - how would I care? If you want to still play that game, just travel and ask yourself what a person living in India/Bangladesh/Laos would say about your first world problems. Being born into a wealthy society is the most important differentiator for wealth - and I assume you are totally ok with the luck you had there!?
Vanishingly few people are arguing for complete equality of outcome. As long as everyone[1] has a reasonable quality of life and inequality isn't so great that the wealthy can flout the rules that apply to everyone else, then I don't think that most people, even on the left, would have a problem. However, that's not what America currently has.
[1] I'm using "everyone" metaphorically here. No system is going to have literally no one who falls through the cracks.
> Julian Assange is possibly a criminal. He certainly intervened in the 2016 election, allegedly with Russian help, to damage the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
One of the main things Assange revealed, which has not been disputed, is how Clinton intervened in the 2016 Democratic primary election, to damage the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, using any means possible to stop the grassroots pressure from below felt in both major parties. Strange how the revelation of the inside truth of this election intervention is itself called election intervention.
It was also called election intervention to post about Hunter Biden's laptop. Twitter banned any links to the New York Post article about it. When I first saw the article, I was thinking "Republicans trying to make a big deal out of nothing" which was probably right, but really the reaction on the other side made it a big deal.
As a downvoted comment below hints, Bernie Sanders had only briefly declared himself a Democrat by 2016. He had caucused with the Democrats since his election to the Senate, but did not belong to the party.
> Deciding that one's life is all about luck is a miserable way to live. It means one has no agency, no choice, no way to make one's life better. Because it's all luck, that means there is no point in trying. The outcome of this is self-fulfilling - misery.
Regardless of the effects of luck, I should point out how far from scientific observation this is. One can examine the evidence of, as this article says, luck, in society. Or, one can talk about magical thinking, and if one doesn't believe some received hegemony it will lead to misery. It sounds close to Christian fundamentalism - believe in the received divine word of the Bible or suffer eternally.
The evidence based scientific method has less value in observing human society than in observing the orbit of planets and such, for a variety of reasons. The picture gotten from social science is less clear than from natural science. It is better than the alternative though.
If one observed society, and the class structure of society, and the forces of production and relations of production - and the changes to the forces of production and resulting changes to relations of production - one would have an evidence based observation of
society. Including the luck of being born into one class or the other.
We can look at Mark Zuckerberg, who went to the Phillips Exeter high school (current yearly tuition - $47000 a year and up). His company bought Instagram for $1 billion, founded by Kevin Systrom who went to Middlesex high school (current yearly tuition - $55000 a year and up). We can then look at people who did not pay $47000 for their freshman year in high school (or its mid 1990s equivalent).
> None of my friends believes their lives are all about luck. They all believe they have agency, and are constantly taking responsibility for their lives and acting accordingly.
I'm sure Zuckerberg and Systrom believe they have agency - I believe they have agency. I'm sure when Bill Gates and Paul Allen left the Lakeside prep school they had agency.
These are in fact people who were upper middle class and actually went out and worked. Plenty of heirs inherit their billions, live as "rich kids of Instagram" as shall their kids.
Or you can take the advice if this poster - forget evidence in the world and engage in magical thinking or face misery.
In fact my experience is the opposite in my cohort. We see luck of birth and class structure as bearing on relations if production. My friends are fun to be around in a manner smarmy, entitled trust fund kids are not fun to be around.
I suggest reading a biography of Steve Jobs. Not a trust fund baby. Audited a couple classes in college only. Lower middle class parents. Started in a garage. Sold his Volkswagon to finance Apple. Outdid all of the ones you mentioned.
Unproductive? Then you must really be exercised about the heirs who own the majority of stock, who can and often do siphon off the created wealth of those working and creating wealth, via dividend profit of expropriated surplus labor time.
Oh, I see no such complaint. Just some co-workers who are "unproductive".