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[Reelya]

Pointing out where the US stands on the International Corruption Index is perfectly valid response to you claiming the US in not in the same area as the non-Scandinavian European countries on the International Corruption Index.

My point was (1) it's outright stated as the Corruption Perception Index, which is not the same thing as saying objectively corrupt. Personally renaming it the "International Corruption Index" and removing the word "perception" when trying to justify its use doesn't seem legit. Perceptions can be wrong or biased due to media coverage. For example, a media that's duplicit in corruption won't want to expose corruption, so the perception will remain low, since people just don't hear about it, despite the society clearly being more corrupt if you have a duplicitous media refusing to expose corruption.

(2) it doesn't differentiate high-level political corruption (big business etc) from everyday dealings of normal people with corrupt officials. One metric cannot cover both things meaningfully.

[Il Palazzo]

Pointing out where the US stands on the International Corruption Index is perfectly valid response to you claiming the US in not in the same area as the non-Scandinavian European countries on the International Corruption Index.

My point was (1) it's outright stated as the Corruption Perception Index, which is not the same thing as saying objectively corrupt. Personally renaming it the "International Corruption Index" and removing the word "perception" when trying to justify its use doesn't seem legit. Perceptions can be wrong or biased due to media coverage. For example, a media that's duplicit in corruption won't want to expose corruption, so the perception will remain low, since people just don't hear about it, despite the society clearly being more corrupt if you have a duplicitous media refusing to expose corruption.

(2) it doesn't differentiate high-level political corruption (big business etc) from everyday dealings of normal people with corrupt officials. One metric cannot cover both things meaningfully.

If you look at how and by whom the CPI is generated, it's clear that 'perception' is mostly just in the name. It may not be perfect whether in terms of objectivity or comprehensiveness, but it's certainly a better metric than some guy on the internet saying nuh-huh (that'd be you).

[Trekkin]

(2) it doesn't differentiate high-level political corruption (big business etc) from everyday dealings of normal people with corrupt officials. One metric cannot cover both things meaningfully.

And why not? I admit the CPI doesn't do a great job of it, but I see no reason why it should be impossible. If we think of corruption as the greed-driven divergence in outcomes between how the system is supposed to work on paper and how it actually works in practice, we could certainly sum all the monetary differences per capita (although it would double-count, that's trivially fixable) and generate a meaningful metric -- and we're very good at assigning a monetary value to absolutely everything.

[scriver]

Pretty sure if you look on the worldwide corruption status thingie you'll find the US more or less in the same area as non-Scandinavian Europe.

Not really.

Beats France, Ireland, Spain and Italy

[redwallzyl]

Hey, the badge says, "Cash Bribes Only!"

Why accept bribes when you can just take all their money?

[Trekkin]

Hey, the badge says, "Cash Bribes Only!"

Why accept bribes when you can just take all their money?

Bribes give people a reason to want the bribe-taker to stay in their position and do as they're paid. Theft just reduces what people have to lose.

[Zangi]

Hey, the badge says, "Cash Bribes Only!"

Why accept bribes when you can just take all their money?

See here.  Around these parts, we are just smart enough to take money from people that nobody cares about.  Criminals and people who are being a 'danger' to the public.

[Kagus]

I will probably always remember the time when I listened to my dad's coworker in India haggling with a policeman over how much he should bribe him.

[scriver]

I want to imagine the policeman humbly arguing "No no no, my good man, that is simply to much! I must ask for a lower bribe."

[Doomblade187]

I want to imagine the policeman humbly arguing "No no no, my good man, that is simply to much! I must ask for a lower bribe."

"500 Dollars would be suspicious, I'd have to split it."

[sluissa]

So, a follow-up on the stock buyback thing. Had someone much wiser in the subject explain it to me- it's effectively repayment on a loan. The company sells the shares directly in order to create cash equity to spend; they then spend their earnings recovering those stocks, to ensure that the net value of their company does not decrease. It just looks like 60% income because of how we track finances in this country; it's actually closer to breaking even. Sure, their shareholders ultimately profit, but it's the standard way that a company turns valuation to capital to income and back into valuation.

Certainly makes more sense than the alternative, at least.

That's the intended method of doing things, but as with almost anything, it can be used in shady ways to do shady things(Almost certainly the reason there was/is/are limitations on it to begin with). I think that's what the article was stressing, while trying to hide the fact that, hey, sometimes there's good reasons.

[Reelya]

Yup, it could be bad, which is why it was banned. And definitely true that there are two sides to the story.

But like I said before, after the "stock buyback" thing was legalized, the effect wasn't a spate of stock buybacks, it was to make companies far more willing to raise money by share issues in the first, knowing that they had the option to later buy them back. This made a lot of sense in the 1980s, since interest rates were much higher, making traditional loans more expensive.

And the spate of buybacks post-2008 is partly because of the extremely low interest rates making refinancing by means of loans more attractive. If you can borrow money and the interest on the loan is less than the inflation rate, you'd be a fool not to do it.

[misko27]

So Trump has been denouncing the Koch brothers in recent tweets, and the feud between the Trump and them has now expanded to include the RNC and the Koch political network. It's probably the largest example of the divide between Trump and traditional republicans (as opposed to the usual Republican divides). Notable because it (unlike most republican divides) has expanded beyond the realm of bad words and into the realm of concrete action: Koch's are withholding support in certain key races, while the RNC is telling donors not to work with the Kochs.

[Moddan]

My skills in 4D chess are rusty but what is this move against the bruiser brothers about?

[Loud Whispers]

My skills in 4D chess are rusty but what is this move against the bruiser brothers about?

In the memo, McDaniel notes that the RNC has long expressed concerns about the Koch network, which has developed its own data program for Republican candidates to use. The Koch data program rivaled the one that had been created by the RNC.
McDaniel also warns Republican candidates to steer clear of the Kochs. While some GOP contenders have chosen to use the Koch data program over the years, McDaniel argues that decision could come at a cost. If the Kochs decide to help Democrats going forward, she argues, that could include a future opponent.
“From the beginning, the RNC had concerns about any outside entity building a data operation to compete with ours because we knew they could potentially weaponize that data against Republicans if their business interests conflicted with electing Republicans,” McDaniel writes. “Sadly, our concerns were recently proven true.”

Seems like the Koch brothers were executing the Palinka strategy in 44D underwater reverse strip backgammon and trying to make the transition from influencer to master of the RNC. Internal elements of the RNC are taking advantage of Trump to eliminate the influence of the Koch brothers before it grows even more, as before Dolan the RNC kept choosing candidates who feared alienating their bank accounts. Dolan puts pride above strategy and so is happily waging war against the Republican Sorosoi, using asymmetric 5D bop twister to run a political campaign on his opponent's money