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Sticking to your principles too much when the opposition is perfectly willing to do whatever it takes may lead to you dying on your hill.

mc32 5y ago
They are not doing whatever it takes. They are following the laws we have enacted. The only one doing whatever it takes is this person who seems to think taking justice into your own hands is an acceptable thing to do. I'm not saying we should not close loopholes. I'm all for that, but I'm not for willy nilly leaking illicitly obtained private documents that do not describe illegal behavior nor anything we didn't already know.
- zentiggr 5y ago
  The flaw here is that they're not following the laws that we the people have enacted. They're following the laws that they themselves have lobbied for and bought the legislators to pass for them. If you only condone taking legal courses of action, how would you go about opposing those billions and the leverage over the legislative process that brings? It's all well and good to take a moral high ground and say no one should ever break laws, but when the laws are exploitative and the legislators are beyond real influence, what other recourse is there?
  - ericd 5y ago
    Do you have evidence of them buying laws that allow them to not pay taxes until a capital gain is recognized? Because that’s the crux of this whole article, that they’re paying a small percentage of their “wealth gained”. As far as I’m aware, capital gains have never been taxed on eg company stock in the US before a sale triggers it, so it can hardly be considered the work of this group. It gets substantially murkier, too, when you consider that much of the nominal valuation gains on their assets might be attributable to the dollar being essentially devalued vs hard assets.
- akomtu 5y ago
  One correction: they (the rich) are following the laws they have enacted. An average Joe can't bribe senators (sorry, I meant donate to their campaign), talk to them privately and get the desired law enacted.

mc32 5y ago

They are not doing whatever it takes. They are following the laws we have enacted. The only one doing whatever it takes is this person who seems to think taking justice into your own hands is an acceptable thing to do. I'm not saying we should not close loopholes. I'm all for that, but I'm not for willy nilly leaking illicitly obtained private documents that do not describe illegal behavior nor anything we didn't already know.

zentiggr 5y ago
The flaw here is that they're not following the laws that we the people have enacted. They're following the laws that they themselves have lobbied for and bought the legislators to pass for them. If you only condone taking legal courses of action, how would you go about opposing those billions and the leverage over the legislative process that brings? It's all well and good to take a moral high ground and say no one should ever break laws, but when the laws are exploitative and the legislators are beyond real influence, what other recourse is there?
- ericd 5y ago
  Do you have evidence of them buying laws that allow them to not pay taxes until a capital gain is recognized? Because that’s the crux of this whole article, that they’re paying a small percentage of their “wealth gained”. As far as I’m aware, capital gains have never been taxed on eg company stock in the US before a sale triggers it, so it can hardly be considered the work of this group. It gets substantially murkier, too, when you consider that much of the nominal valuation gains on their assets might be attributable to the dollar being essentially devalued vs hard assets.
akomtu 5y ago
One correction: they (the rich) are following the laws they have enacted. An average Joe can't bribe senators (sorry, I meant donate to their campaign), talk to them privately and get the desired law enacted.