“American financial criminal and businessman. Shkreli is the co-founder of the hedge funds Elea Capital, MSMB Capital Management, and MSMB Healthcare, the co-founder and former CEO of pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, and the former CEO of start-up software company Gödel Systems, which he founded in August 2016” (Wikipedia).
It should at least be mentioned that Shkreli is a convicted fraudster.
Most of the sources he cites are also referred to in my article, which of his points do you find the strongest that are not already addressed here?
I cite and contextualise the news article in my post (see second half of sec. ‘Misrepresentation of evidence’)
Ebright is cited in Butler’s news post on Nature also referred to by Roko. The post is a brief summary of a debate on the usefulness of GoF research, and makes some other points, among which:
-Barich arguing that the project was funded because not so risky as to fall under the moratorium;
-”Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able to bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do so. In 2013, researchers reported this ability for the first time in a different coronavirus isolated from the same bat population.”
Natural coronaviruses were already able to bind to human receptors, that’s arguably why GoF research was conducted in the first place.
In light of this, I don’t think the news article is worth a significant update toward the lab-leak hypothesis: if anything, it shows that it was known since 2013 that coronaviruses could infect humans without host animals.
You can still write posts, it doesn’t look like brute-force manufactured consensus to me. Your original post got over 200 karma which seems pretty high for a censorship attempt (whether intentional or not).
An addendum to this: Marinetti embraced an early form of Italian fascism (‘sansepolcrino’) that already by 1925 had been in fact disavowed by fascist leaders and that was pretty much antithetical to fascism as most people intend it.
Here the 1919 Fascist Manifesto from Wikipedia, I am familiar with the original document and it’s correct. Not to be confused with the 1925 Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals.
Politically, the Manifesto calls for:
Universal suffrage with a lowered voting age to 18 years, and voting and electoral office eligibility for all ages 25 and up;
Proportional representation on a regional basis;
Voting for women;
Representation at government level of newly created national councils by economic sector;
The abolition of the Italian Senate (at the time, the Senate, as the upper house of parliament, was by process elected by the wealthier citizens, but were in reality direct appointments by the king. It has been described as a sort of extended council of the crown);
The formation of a national council of experts for labor, for industry, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made of professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a general commission with ministerial powers.
In labor and social policy, the Manifesto calls for:
The quick enactment of a law of the state that sanctions an eight-hour workday for all workers;
A minimum wage;
The participation of workers’ representatives in the functions of industry commissions;
To show the same confidence in the labor unions (that prove to be technically and morally worthy) as is given to industry executives or public servants;
Reorganization of the railways and the public transport sector;
Revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance;
Reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55.
In military affairs, the Manifesto advocates:
Creation of a short-service national militia with specifically defensive responsibilities;
Armaments factories are to be nationalized;
A peaceful but competitive foreign policy.
In finance, the Manifesto advocates:
A strong extraordinary tax on capital of a progressive nature, which takes the form of true partial expropriation of all wealth;
The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor;
Revision of all contracts for military provisions;
The revision of all military contracts and the seizure of 85 percent of the profits therein.
Hi!
I’m rated between 1500 and 1700 on lichess, I’d be happy to take part in the game in whatever role.
Hey, thanks a lot for bringing up the topic, I think it deserves more attention in general and I don’t get some of the objections raised in the comments.
I’m not sure I understood how investors would value the perpetuity/annuity.
What I mean is that the least they can expect is to receive the annuity for a minimum of 50 years (following the example), so they would probably go with a valuation of this sort so to already discount the case in which the state reneges on its pledge. When this happens (because of MPs or justices) there’s no one left to actually care about the law being passed, and no financial consequences for the state since investors had already discounted the possibility of reneging.
Another point is targeted default not affecting the credibility of a country, given the nature of the debt, but I won’t go into that since it has already been argued in the comments.
An issue I see is that policy makers are not that committed to reducing public debt, since it doesn’t affect them personally and can always kick the can down the road/pass the buck/blame it on past legislatures.
This very much depends on the nature of the reform and basic cost-benefits, but I believe that lack of incentive and the targeted default not being seen as catastrophic weaken the enforcement mechanism.
I think you should write a longer piece explaining more in detail your proposal in light of the comments, I’d personally be happy to read more on this.
The main problem I see here lies in implementing an institutional mechanism that ties future governments to bills passed decades before.
What I mean is that future governments are likely to be able to further delay/ignore past ‘bills for the future’ because a legislature is only bound to act without breaching the respective constitution (usually interpreted by a constitutional court), its bylaws (decided internally by MPs) and the law (written by MPs).
This implies that any law that does not enjoy constitutional ranking can be just as easily repealed by any future legislature using the same procedure that was used to pass the bill to the future.
I would also say that over decades I would expect most countries to experience changes that would likely stem the enacting of a past law (for instance, major constitutional reforms/more or less violent institution changes that expunge legal orders and create new once).
Note that I keep the wording vague because this issue applies to most existing countries.
Strongly upvoted, neat overview of the topic.
I especially like the academic format (e.g. with the sources clearly cited), as well as its conciseness and breadth.