Isn't Epstein really "The Billionaire Problem"

I'm sorry not to have been able to have typed up more of the original video but I ran out of time. I will do some more if I get a moment.

keepingquiet

I am so relieved to have very little money and less and less power...I have all the freedom I need thankyou.

I don't think it is so much the money that makes people psychotic but their ability to lie. This begins with what used to be called 'creative accounting'. I guess this is how Epstein wielded his power.

Lying is the most virulent epidemic on the planet. Once the process begins, it is practically impossible to stop.

Mountbatten Windsor has caught himself in this trap.
All he needs to do is stand up and tell the truth- but it seems he will avoid this option as long as he can, which may be forever.

We saw this play out yesterday with Maxwell's testimony- there is no advantage for these people in telling the truth.

One wonders whether these people lie to themselves in the first place - as so many of them seem to see the rest of us like we're a different species to them (well we know Epstein does basically).

He certainly sees himself as "special" and it's no wonder he married Fergie in the first place ("takes one to know one" and he recognised her as like mind).

I can't get away from the similarity to bipolar "highs" (mania/hypomania). Empathy can decrease to none. In the case of bipolar it's due to extreme self-absorption, high-speed thoughts, and increased impulsivity, which prioritise internal sensations over others' feelings.

The brain's focus shifts to intense euphoria or irritability, reducing the capacity for emotional processing and recognition of external cues. The lack of empathy can easily feel like deliberate cruelty, and the opinion of "self" is so very Trumpian - the biggest, the best, etc. It often causes increased, intense sexual desire known as hypersexuality, affecting up to 57% of patients and leading to impulsive, risky behavior. Other people an become pawns in their attempt to wield their assumed superiority.

If it gets out of hand people can be sectioned for their own sake and others ...
so why is Trump still free?

petra

It has long been known that up to 10% of bankers / financial services workers are psychopaths.

www.aru.ac.uk/news/psychopaths-prepared-to-spark-financial-crisis-for-profit#:~:text=Since%20I%20began%20researching%20corporate,people's%20money%2C%20has%20gained%20traction.

Yes, that's been my experience and why I keep well away from those sharks, having said that if you are going to be successful in business you are going to make hard decisions. Increasingly those decisions are made by women, it's not just men and your success depends on you making them

People need to face reality. Men like sex.....men want unattached sex......older men want sex with young girls. Those with money are prepared to pay for what they want and people like Epstein are willing to give them what they want. There is nothing new in all of this and I suspect, that if a member of the royal family were not involved, this case wouldn't be getting so much attention.

I believe many of the people (especially men) who gain extreme wealth or power are already flawed humans. In order to get where they are, they need to be totally self absorbed and ruthless, often destroying others and using underhand means to reach the top. So in essence they are already "monsters" but it doesn't become entirely evident until they have the money and sway to do exactly as they please.

MaizieD I rrespond to you regulalry, so I am sure I have responded to you at least once, but I do not want to bore people by constantly saying the same thing.

Sorry, you have never responded to the ideas set out in the Taxing Wealth document, You're not even doing it now.

I don't think you even understand what it is I am saying about taxing them to prevent the acquisition of excessive wealth. This is completely different from taxing it when they've already acquired it.

I wrote ....attempts to tax it (their wealth) back off them would encounter the many almost insuperable barriers they erect between their wealth and the taxman. Did you not read that bit before lecturing me on how wealth is so difficult to tax?

I'm sorry, MOnica because 90% of the time I respect much of what you write, but when it comes to economics you just don't seem to comprehend what I am saying. Perhaps the fault is mine in not making myself clear enough?

Taxing wealth.

Yes, you could tax wealth on the way up as long as you accept that it reduces the ability of a business to expand, to be profitable. A business would need to borrow more and increase its costs to resulting in lower profits and reduced taxation. The same could be achieved by increasing existing taxation rates or restricting allowances.

Business operates on a global platform unless a universal wealth tax was agree it would disadvantage countries that adopted it.

You haven't read the Taxing Wealth Report, either, David.

MaizieD

You haven't read the Taxing Wealth Report, either, David.

I have read Murphys tax report and my conclusion is that for idealogical reasons it could be done but wouldnt raise much extra tax and discourage enterprise.

DaisyAnneReturns

I can't get away from the similarity to bipolar "highs" (mania/hypomania). Empathy can decrease to none. In the case of bipolar it's due to extreme self-absorption, high-speed thoughts, and increased impulsivity, which prioritise internal sensations over others' feelings.

The brain's focus shifts to intense euphoria or irritability, reducing the capacity for emotional processing and recognition of external cues. The lack of empathy can easily feel like deliberate cruelty, and the opinion of "self" is so very Trumpian - the biggest, the best, etc. It often causes increased, intense sexual desire known as hypersexuality, affecting up to 57% of patients and leading to impulsive, risky behavior. Other people an become pawns in their attempt to wield their assumed superiority.

If it gets out of hand people can be sectioned for their own sake and others ...
so why is Trump still free?

Trump isn't mentally ill- this does a disservice for those who do have bi-polar or similar ilnesses.

He may have a personality disorder but that isn't the same thing.

He is a convicted felon, and should be serving time (or a massive fine) rather than being sectioned- I'm not sure this is an option in the US anyway.

He is free because the US is a corrupt state where the super-rich hold sway- nothing to do with mental illness.

David49

MaizieD

You haven't read the Taxing Wealth Report, either, David.

I have read Murphys tax report and my conclusion is that for idealogical reasons it could be done but wouldnt raise much extra tax and discourage enterprise.

David, the problem with MaizieD is that she supports an economic model that says that countries/central banks can print as much money as they like as all expenditure is essentially governed by money. My senior mind means I have forgotten what it is called, which is a nuisance, as I could do with a uick reision course.

I obtained a degree in economics, a long time ago, the old fashioned sort that believes that printing lots of money gets you nowhere except to hyper inflation. Hence her jibes at my lack of economic knowledge.

My problem with all these alternative systems is that they forget that they are used and abused by ordinary people, some honest, some dishonest and others, downright avaricious on an Epstein scale. Changes in economic systems comme through changes in society, not by just moving from a financial game of snakes and ladders to financial Ludo.

mum2three

People need to face reality. Men like sex.....men want unattached sex......older men want sex with young girls. Those with money are prepared to pay for what they want and people like Epstein are willing to give them what they want. There is nothing new in all of this and I suspect, that if a member of the royal family were not involved, this case wouldn't be getting so much attention.

Sad but true mum2three.
I think that it is the industrial scale of it that has shocked people. also that this was a conveyor-belt of young teenagers , many from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We don't know , but think it possible that pre-teens were involved.
If the US really released all the papers and video footage rather than a censored selection, more of the guilty would be exposed.
Someone cynically but I fear accurately has observed that Epstein's shoes will already have been filled .

mum2three

People need to face reality. Men like sex.....men want unattached sex......older men want sex with young girls. Those with money are prepared to pay for what they want and people like Epstein are willing to give them what they want. There is nothing new in all of this and I suspect, that if a member of the royal family were not involved, this case wouldn't be getting so much attention.

Yes, that is true, but it does not mean that they should be allowed to get away with it, nor that young vulnerable girls should not be protected from them.

I think the publicity it is getting would be the same whether AMW is involved or not because thanks to the 'MeToo' movement and the courage of girls who have reported exploitation, society is far more aware and sensitised to it. As women get more pwoer they will be more likely to satnd up and speak up - and they have been doing just that.

Once upon a time every woman feared being accused of witchcraft. Today most men fear beyond anything being described as apardophile, because if you are caught, that is almost literally the end of your life. Job gone, family gone, home gone, unemployable, unable to take part in any activity if people know what you were convicted of.

Yes, some men do it regardless, actually, mainly men who are not rich and famous and who are convinced they will not be caught. But nowadays, most will sooner or later, providing they do absolutely nothing online, no emails, no online grooming, nothing in writing, in other words as long as they avoid all the obvious means of communication, including the dark web because sooner or laater some one will catch up on you.

^ David, the problem with MaizieD is that she supports an economic model that says that countries/central banks can print as much money as they like as all expenditure is essentially governed by money. My senior mind means I have forgotten what it is called, which is a nuisance, as I could do with a uick reision course.^

That is a real distortion of what I am saying, MOnica. The amount of money a state can issue is constrained by the availability of resources on which it is to be spent. There would be no point in the state issuing money to finance construction, of roads or houses, for example if there were no materials available for use.

The utter obviousness of this makes your objection to it quite puzzling. Why shouldn’t a state finance what needs to be done? It did it easily post WW2 when it set up the NHS and nationalised industries.

I’m baffled by this ‘..central banks can print as much money as they like as all expenditure is essentially governed by money’ Certainly all expenditure requires money, or a money equivalent, such as long dated treasury bonds, but ‘governed by’? What does that mean?

I would have thought that your original economics degree/training would have been Keynesian based, but perhaps you caught the beginning of the Friedmanite capture of the anti state right wing tendency which triumphed with Reagan and Thatcher and which has brought us to where we are now with extremes if poverty and wealth taking us back to Dickensian times…

David49

MaizieD

You haven't read the Taxing Wealth Report, either, David.

I have read Murphys tax report and my conclusion is that for idealogical reasons it could be done but wouldnt raise much extra tax and discourage enterprise.

As Murphy has an r economics degree, has run his own businesses and is a trained accountant I think his figures are probably OK. They don’t look low to me. What would you see as enough ‘extra tax’?

Did higher taxes on businesses ‘discourage enterprise’ in the pre Thatcher era? I don’t know. Can you help me on that?

Trump isn't mentally ill you are right keepingquiet, or st least dont believe he is manic. But then, I don't believe I said he was.

Mania is a medical condition.
Power-driven behavior enabled by wealth is usually a social-neuropsychological effect.

However,

Sorry, pressed the button by accudent. What they do have in common is:

Reduced behavioral constraint
Amplified reward sensitivity
Decreased correction signals
Increased self-confidence

In one case extremes lead to deprivation of liberty. In the other, where it should lead to deprivation of liberty, it doesn't. That was the point I was making.

M0nica

David49

MaizieD

You haven't read the Taxing Wealth Report, either, David.

I have read Murphys tax report and my conclusion is that for idealogical reasons it could be done but wouldnt raise much extra tax and discourage enterprise.

David, the problem with MaizieD is that she supports an economic model that says that countries/central banks can print as much money as they like as all expenditure is essentially governed by money. My senior mind means I have forgotten what it is called, which is a nuisance, as I could do with a uick reision course.

I obtained a degree in economics, a long time ago, the old fashioned sort that believes that printing lots of money gets you nowhere except to hyper inflation. Hence her jibes at my lack of economic knowledge.

My problem with all these alternative systems is that they forget that they are used and abused by ordinary people, some honest, some dishonest and others, downright avaricious on an Epstein scale. Changes in economic systems comme through changes in society, not by just moving from a financial game of snakes and ladders to financial Ludo.

I haven't got a degree in anything all I learned is that if you want 2+2 to equal 5 you have to be creative and work for it, for many decades the UK has not been creative, it has been selling off assets for short term gain. Borrowing more each year to fund social benefits to court votes, the value of sterling falling a the process.

There is only one state that makes Maizies economics work that is China, because there are no democratic elections the population cannot challenge government policy, proper economics can work, infrastructure can be upgraded and the wellbeing of the population improved.

Ultimately if western democracies continue to prioritize social spending over growth lifestyles will decline year by year until it equals China, we are already well on the way to equaling Korea.

I think that the majority of billionaires are probably pretty ruthless - paying employees less, using all sorts of underhand methods (both legal and illegal) to avoid paying taxes, and being generally unconcerned about anyone but themselves and their immediate families.

So, I don't think those tendencies arise when they become billionaires but are characteristics present in them from the outset.

I think most people, if they had such enormous - almost unimaginable - wealth - would want to do something really significant for individuals, organisations and countries who are struggling. There are several cases of "ordinary" people who have won just a few millions who immediately want to give back to society - helping their local areas, charities, etc, etc. Generally, they have no wish to keep amassing more and more wealth.

But being extremely rich is not just about what you can buy but how you can influence people, politicians and governments to do what you want. So I think it is mainly about the love of power.

The other problem is that there really are very few of these exceedingly rich individuals in any one country. So even if you took every penny they earned away from them, you would probably get more revenue by just adding one penny to standard income tax. Also much of what they own is capital assets, from which they earn an income. Take the assets away and they have no income or assets to tax.

But most of all, Billionaires do not base themselves in countries with punitive tax systems, so once you impose one, you uickly find that there is no one in the country rich enough to feel its 'benefits'

DaisyAnneReturns

Sorry, pressed the button by accudent. What they do have in common is:

Reduced behavioral constraint
Amplified reward sensitivity
Decreased correction signals
Increased self-confidence

In one case extremes lead to deprivation of liberty. In the other, where it should lead to deprivation of liberty, it doesn't. That was the point I was making.

The point I was making is that he should have been locked up for the various and proven crimes he has committed, and not because he has a mental disorder.

Patients with mental illness are rarely deprived of their liberty, as you say. The vast majority seek help and treatment voluntarily.

In very extreme cases, if someone is at serious risk to themselves or others then they may indeed be sectioned, not to deprive them of their liberty, but in their own interests, of protecting them and others from serious harm.

When sectioned they receive treatment for their conditions, and are not just locked up in prison cells until they have done their 'time.'

I know keepingquiet. I think I must have been unclear in my post because you seem to be attributing a very different argument to me, to the one I was trying to make.

MOnica.

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT TAXING BILLIONAIRES. So why do you keep going on about them?

I am talking about preventing them from becoming so wealthy in the first place.

DaisyAnneReturns

I know keepingquiet. I think I must have been unclear in my post because you seem to be attributing a very different argument to me, to the one I was trying to make.

I thought the argument you were making was that Trump ought to be sectioned. I apologise if I misunderstood.