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2 yr. ago

  • I appreciate the "all sides of the conversation" approach, but their gripe is with having to pay taxes on completely bonkers returns. That's not a surprise for anyone.

  • But they contributed everything and the public services that their taxes fund contributed nothing whatsoever, ever, never, not once. How dare communism reach into their pockets at their old age. They're just trying to do the right thing, don't you know?

  • Just give Orban a rank in the Swedish military. I hear that's how those little man syndrome wanna-be dictators like to be placated. Ensign Victor, reporting for düty.

  • He probably is through some back-ass-channel. These kinds of assholes always play all colors, all cards and have backup plans. He still wants to cling to his little riches even if the political winds change again. Gotta be able to show receipts when that happens.

    I'll never support a single Billionaire ever for any reason whatsoever. They're leeches and parasites to society, our species and planet.

  • Awesome, thanks for the pointers! I'll look into it.

  • I was so angry for so many months. But it got my head out of my ass about a whole bunch of things. Fuck culture wars. Fuck day to day drivel. Millions aren't a lot of money.

    We're in a class extinction war and we're constantly told to look down, always look down, never up. Look at the poor people stealing your taxes with food stamps! Look at the poor immigrants stealing your jobs (you don't want to do anyway)! Look at the other party being terrible about your needs! Look at your neighbor having more/less than you!

    Never ever look up. And if you do: Look how much philanthropy. Look at all the genius! Never look behind the curtain.

    Fuck them. Fuck every one of them, their media empires directing thought and speech and the politicians they buy.

  • How are you digitizing BluRays? I've not found a way yet due to the DRM on those fuckers.

  • This is modern alchemy trying to turn lead into gold. Just change the meaning of the magic words et voilá you make gold while the other party is robbed blind and can't do anything about it after the fact.

    And of course, it's totally legal and totally cool.

  • I really love how the whole GameStop thing is so derided around a lot of places, because haha, memestock idiots.

    They literally turned off the buy button until they could figure out a way of the mess they created - or at least postpone it. This event alone should have brought people into the streets calling for these assholes heads. Instead we got shitty media coverage, shitty politicking around the topic with clueless senators and almost no action taken whatsoever.

    GameStop revealed how utterly, utterly rigged the "free and fair" markets truly are. Sure we all realize that those with money and power will always be ahead of everything. But that was a full mask-off moment and - to a degree - still is. They had to show their cards and it's all fake and make belief, fully covered by unregulated entities that will never ever be held responsible. Not for the fucking mess they made in 2008, not for the fucking mess they kept making (rebranding MBS to CMBS and then getting fucked when COVID suddenly makes work from home a clearly solid model, crashing the CMBS nonsense, just like it was in 2008 with MBS nonsense)...

    Like, I get it. Haha GameStop idiots got burned. But people really do not see how hard that event ripped off their mask and nearly brought the whole fucking thing down to the point where they had to blatantly intervene to stop the bleeding. And it didn't even stop with the run a few years ago. Once the split was done, all GameStop shares simply fucking disappeared for several days for German holders, because the split was also done in a very, very suspicious manner.

    Think what you will of people invested in GameStop. No single stock has ever put how fucked the market structures truly are as much on display as this one has and continues to do.

    It's all fake bullshit and it's still the best way to try to get a leg up in a "legal" way. I truly hate all this shit so much.

  • Oh shit! I better go donate to the armed forces of Ukraine again.

    Fuck your propaganda.

  • Is he funding lobbyists to affect this kind of change? No.
    Is he employing top tier accountants to make sure he doesn't pay his fair share like the poors? Betcha.
    Does he funnel his wealth into charitable foundations that are a tax write off leading to him getting money rather than having to pay it, while it stays in an eco system he has full control over? Betcha.
    Is he buying expensive art, property, etc. to incur expenses that are tax write offs? Betcha.

    Since I'm not a Billionaire, I won't be able to tell you all the ways that cunt is 100% pushing for a status quo while putting out fluff pieces like these that make him look good while doing literally nothing to affect the change he supposedly wants.

    Wouldn't even be surprised if this was something to get out ahead of some revelations about tax evasion, so if you ever search up Bill Gates taxes, all you get is this curated nonsense of what a stand up good lad he is, trying oh so hard to pay his fair share. Why won't anyone take his money? Poor Bill. Must be hard not getting taxed and being utterly powerless to do anything about that. Shucks. Now he has to go another decade without ever coming close to paying his fair share.

    Oh, also garbage takes like these, where he publicly opposed new tax plans - but it's fine, it was all cute and the audience laughed and he payed soooo much, sooo many taxes. https://youtu.be/dXxP4SWwS0

  • "I'm surprised the thing me and my ilk have been actively working against hasn't magically happened despite our massive efforts to the opposite effect."

    Bet you Bill thinks these kinds of publicity stunts will exclude him from being eaten, when we go to eat the rich.

  • On youtube barely, on twitch for sure. Generally you would have more income streams like a patreon and some such. Maybe even merch. If you're doing it all solo, you can easily earn 4-5k per month with these numbers and that's often better than many full time jobs.

  • No, this is actually huge for NATO and comparatively a big show of strength. NATO isn't a monolithic military like the US or Russian military. NATO is an alliance spanning the globe and nations from all over the world are participating. The amount of logistics required to pull it off is tremendous and that alone shows what they can do.

    If we compare that to the largest "maneuver" Russia held in recent memory, that was the shoring up of their invasion forces in 2018 along the Ukranian border, disguised as a maneuver.

    While meat wave tactics will eventually wear down even the staunchest defender, Russia is just as stuck in Ukraine as Ukraine is trying to push out Russia. Ukraine is a single country, not part of an alliance like NATO. While they receive a lot of aid, a lot is still being withheld (think certain long range missile systems, aircraft, etc.). Numbers don't matter all that much against superior logistics and the ability to raze the enemies logistics to the ground.

    Remember how columns of supply trucks got obliterated in the first days of the invasion? Russia tried to go for Blitzkrieg but failed hard. If your supply lines are cut, you're done. Doesn't matter how many soldiers you got. Once they are starved of ammunition and food, your army stops being effective at being an army. They can barely keep an army supplied that sits right at their own border, while suffering relatively few strikes at any of their infrastructure within their own borders.

    NATO demonstrating that they can coordinate such large numbers and keep supply going, should sufficiently scare the ever living crap out of most opposing military analysts, because that's how you win wars.

  • The second they're publicly traded layoffs will simply be part of the cycle regardless of stock performance. C-Level must be seen to do SOMETHING to generate profits, or at least try. Regulators suck hard at following up on anything, but you gotta play by the book to keep them from sniffing around.

    I'm also fully expecting this to be a case of butchering the pig. Huffman and the other cunts in charge will sell of their shares, make millions and run it into the ground. Much less scrutiny if a publicly traded company evaporates due to bad stock performance than when a private company suddenly disintegrates and the C-Level runs away with all the cash. Blame it on the STONK crowd and you're literally golden.

    I'm sure they'll try and make as much money on the way out as possible, but tinfoil: This is the start of the end with a certain degree of intent by those in charge of that fucking company.

  • I love that capitalism is more concerned about setting precedent here than saving lives, yet nonsense like civil forfeiture in the US leads to millions stolen from regular people each year. It's always only about whose bottom line is affected. Can't make a case for seizing foreign assets and redistributing them. That would mean everyone can do it and after all, it's a large club of very white gentlemen who have backroom agreements on this kind of stuff. If they do this with Russian assets, what's gonna stop China from doing the same with US assets!? How could we ever keep up with international trade and investments and tax evasion schemes, if we allow such horrible treatment of the most vulnerable billionaires of our society?

    Shit's fucked.

  • They will short the fuck out of it. There is literally no way this company can make money without making the product so much worse they will really start bleeding the users they need for revenue. It will explode on launch week and crash two or three weeks later.

  • My dude there are people out there thinking they're in a relationship with Johnny fucking Depp because some Nigerian scammer sent them five badly photoshopped pictures. Step out of your bubble, maybe. This shit isn't easy to spot for the vaaaaaast majority of people and why would this lie with the victim to sort of clear their name or hope that idiots realize it's fake?

    Especially with and around teenagers who can barely think further than their next meal?

    Good lord.

  • You're correct, Australia played a big role in it, and the EU was passing regulation around 2015 on that issue as well. So they got slapped around in Australia and changed it up before getting slapped around in the EU.

  • Their refund policy is due to getting slapped around in EU courts, not because valve is benevolent or anything. I do like steam a lot, but it is a near monopoly which acts as DRM to a degree. They did and would abuse that power unless regulated.