https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLpfbcXTeo8
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Yes, it didn't work. Butt that is nott my question.
Which was the best of the bunch?
Or are you agreeing with my assertion that the term "Stalinism" is a bankrupt apologist term and that there isn't a dime's worth of dfference between all communist governments?
I am seeking to find ~OUTT why people use the term "Stalinism" and what it means to them.
Is all communism Stalinism? If nott, give me an example of some communist government that is better that Stalinism. What's the other extreme from Stalinism in the spectrum of communist governments?
Past or present. Which was the best of the bunch?
Or are you agreeing with my assertion that the term "Stalinism" is a bankrupt apologist term and that there isn't a dime's worth of dfference between all communist governments?
Allow me to clarify: Marxism is as valid a theory as a mathematical theory that 1+1= 49.389228478478478478.
Why is anyone even paying lip service or attention to this absolutely ridiculous ideology that belongs in the long-forgotten dustbin of history?
How can universities justify hiring avowed Marxists as professors and nott, say, also have a Dept of Scientology Sciences or hire math professors who teach that 1+1= SQRT(49.389228478478478478)???
And please, Janice, do give me the example of the least objectionable government (past or present) that you deem Marxist.
I am ASSuming from your prior statements that the USSR under Stalin is the example of your most objectionable. If incorrect, then please correct this ASSumption on my part.
"But the idealized version of Marxism didn't mean everyone would "be alike". They'd pursue different interests, practice different trades or professions, and so on."
So we can all be radiologists and work from home? Cool.
A country full of radiologists.
Butt who will caddy for them? Who mows the fairways and picks up the trash from their empty beer cans?
Does that Marxism idea seem even REMOTELY plausible to you?
My theory is that drinking whiskey cures cancer.
Isn't it fun to construct nonsensical theories and then have people persist in believing them long after the nonsense is proven by repeated experiment?
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! We'll all choose to be rich cancer-free retirees.
"It appears the mom lives in a Brooklyn Apartment, and the Dad lives in a $429,000 New Jersey home. Did he buy them art or diamonds?
Judging by his character, he probably hates his parents and didn't give them a wooden nickel."
Or those are the only residences in their names. Maybe they both live in homes in the Hamptons owned by LLCs he controls.
Why pay inheritance/death taxes or be exposed to judgments against elderly parents when they back over the grocery boy in the parking lot as he is loading their groceries in the trunk?
I don't know about you, butt above a fairly low threshold, owning real estate in your own name or the name of relatives is risky - for MANY reasons, tax, inheritance, privacy, and others.
That is why 'god' invented the LLC and other S corps. LLPs are less preferable for various reasons.
Marty may be an ass to his parents, or maybe they really hang their fez and veil in the Hamptons or Montauk owned by one of his LLCs.
If he's as smart as some people credit him with being, he's stashed some cash into judgement-proof entities and vehicles.
Seconded. I agree with that position 100 percent. Indeed if the BOD lets the PPers now, post facto, withdraw from their investment, I would suggest that company shareholders and/or creditors file a shareholder derivative lawsuit.
Further, if the company files bankruptcy soon, any refunds to PPers could be voidable transfers and reversed by the bankruptcy court.
I am used to directors often being representatives of their respective venture funds, so when a financing round is done, an investment by a director (personally, which is rare) is done simultaneously with the closing for all the VC funds.
I have seen an outside director making a personal investment in a round (he bought $100,000 for himself), butt even he wired his funds into the same escrow to be released simultaneously at closing.
So, your experience is vaster than mine. Which is why I asked you about it, and you gave me a perfectly fine explanation that I understand and makes a lott of sense.
That's why I hang on DD - I learn a lott from folks like you.
I appreciate your answers and those of others. There is a lott of knowledge in this crew. I find ~OUTT more new shit here almost every week.
"we're not a very nice species, are we?"
I'm nott sure what "nice" means in this context, butt I'll agree with you on that statement for purposes of discussion and try to use the word in the context I think you meant it.
We may nott be a 'nice' species, and that very likely is why we are on top of the biological food chain and totally dominate the landforms of the world as the #1 predator.
The 'nice' species didn't make Darwin's cut. They aren't here, we are. Now the Great Asteroid or Whatever Dinosaur Extinction shirley hepped us make it to #1, and the alligators (also a 'not nice' species) made the cut (so far). "Nice" doesn't seem to work very well in most circumstances in our known universe.
Everybody has to eat. Even grasshoppers, butterflies, and the friendly cricket - vegetarians all - have to eat and there is a limited supply of food - so they compete with each other and among themselves for the resources. Every species does. Bacteria and fungi do. Hence penicillin. Plants try to poison animals that want to eat them, or like the Venus Fly Trap, bite back.
Biology is what it is. Be "nice" and you'll be gone.
This is why Marxism, as either a psychological theory, economic theory, or social theory is IMO totally ridiculous. Marx was nott a biologist, and he wasn't even very thoughtful with the knowledge that he had access to. Marxism is as artificial and contrary to the laws of nature and the human mind as almost anything I can envision. It cannot be useful as a psychology theory, because the human mind is nott organized in any way compatible with Marxist tenets. My contention is further that the human mind is incapable of being "programmed" to comport with Marxism. (We can gett into that specifically later, if you wish.)
To me, folks who retain a belief that Marxism is anything butt a different flavor of Scientology or religion are fooling themselves and in deep denial of biology and, in fact, physical reality.
Which is why I am amazed that people, some of whom are well-read and 'educated', cling to the belief that Marxism is somehow useful as anything butt a failed and dustbinned crackpot theory that has been repeated disproven in experiment and is, upon deeper gedanken experimentation, is inherently fatally flawed and doomed to failure in any attempted implementation in humans.
At MOST, Marxism is useful as a negative example.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/uimage/uploads/2015/7/20/nfpkefeynman_333.jpg
Thanks, that explains it. Makes sense to use checks in that circumstance for convenience.
When you come back, please give me your favorite real world implementation of communism on a scale larger than say the Jamestown colony (which was nott communism, because they had private property and private ownership of production - among other evil capitalist warts).
So, pick a country or something like the Paris Commune and tell me which one is least objectionable - or even least "Stalinist" as you understand that term.
I am trying to elicit how you draw distinctions such that "Stalinism" is somehow distinguishable from any other implementation of communism/Marxism.
I think "Stalinism" is an apologist term used by those who somehow fancy that communism should nott be stained by the real world examples of its implementation and that somehow those are all outliers which do nott undermine the belief that communism is actually viable or even desirable.
Personally, I think that even the idealized version of communism/Marxism is abhorrent, even if it did "work" as an economic or political system. It would be a very, very gray and uninteresting world with everything equal, even, arguendo, if that could be accomplished in an ideal instantiation.
I'm curious after reading your suggestion that the PPs were purchased by check for that amount of money.
In my experiences, PP closings have involved wire transfers, nott cheques/check/Czechs (well no Czechs other than me).
Butt I'm no CFO, and you have a lott more experience than me in the financial arena, so I do not doubt you a bit.
In your experience, is it mostly individuals who pay for PPs by check or do institutional investors sometimes use checks as well?
Certainly there is no need for wires, butt often on financing rounds the wires from the various investors are coordinated to the same day so nobody can back ~OUTT of a financing in case, well, in case the next day the FBI arrests the CEO or sumpin. All investors in a round jump off the same cliff together, Sundance and Butch-style.
May I have an answer to this question though?
Can you cite your most favored actual implementation of communism or Marxism in the world (you may include the Paris Commune if you wish).
Since you've used the term "super-Stalinist", you must have opinions on which implementations of communism are less objectionable to you than others.
Which has been the best real-world implementation of communism in your opinion?
It nott only doesn't work as an economic theory, it also fails as a social theory.
Sociobiology trumps wild idealisms. We are all biological animals and we evolved in a competitive process to survive and reproduce. We cannot choose to nott be who we are.
Every one of us is the descendant of rapists, murderers, despots, warriors, and pillagers. Every one of us.
One cannot train a shark or lion to be an ant or a bee.
I think that as a matter of FACT one cannot implement communism or 'Marxism' without the enforcement of the state to suppress individualism and free thought. All must believe exactly the same on every issue or a dispute will arise and a totalitarian state will need to decide which side of the dispute is defined as "the common will" or "the common good".
It's always WHO DECIDES.
Unless the world is made up of clones who are all exactly the same and all want the same job, the same apple, and the same house and can get it (i.e., they are all living in Bill Gate's house on Lake Washington simultaneously).
"I'd say that communism, as an economic and political theory, isn't necessarily totalitarian.
As I expected. And I completely disagree with that contention.
Can you cite your most favored actual implementation of communism or Marxism in the world (you may include the Paris Commune if you wish).
"Albania was still super-Stalinist"
Since we're now on weekend time on the DD board, I'd like to raise a small kwestshun directed to you regarding the term "Stalinist".
I know this is a common term, and Trots and Maoists etc. bandy about such terms (which I consider apoligisms for communism in general). I also have read a lott about Joe.
The question is this: How does "Stalinism" differ from communism under any other regime?
What is the principal difference(s), for example, between Stalinism, Maoism, Khruschevism, Castroism, Honeckerism, Jaruzelskiism, Kimism, or any other existing or past communist government example?
From my perspective, these are all the same, and differ only slightly in degree of totalitarianism and international adventurism.
Butt since you and I are (I think) towards opposite ends of the statist-individualist spectrum, I'd like to hear how you see these distinctions in the implementations of communism that the world has seen. To me, the semantics of the term "Stalinism" is used to imply that Stalin was an outlier in the implementation of communism and thus should nott be seen as typical of communism, and with that distinction I disagree.
(I have a pretty good background on Iosef from having read - and owning- numerous biographies and historical sources on him and his role in the USSR governance at various times.)
Feel free to follow up later tonight or this weekend if you'd like to think about this a bit before composing a reply.
End note: Gorby tried to salvage communism by turning down the temperature of its inherent repression of the individual and he found that experiment blew up in his face and that without Stalinism/Maoism/Kimism/Castroism/Honeckerism statist repression, there could be no communism. So let's exclude Gorbachevism, which is IMO nott a form of communism as his attempts to make a softer version of communism totally failed and disintegrated the state, thereby he did nott in fact implement communism.
Ulan Baator is pretty harsh punishment for an exile.
If it were not for the heat and the high risk of either a nuclear war in the region or Islamic craziness running amok on the Arabian Peninsula, I'd rather pick Dubai or another of the Emirates.
Given the risks just mentioned, Marty S., if he has funds stashed already in a safe, seizure-proof venue and a second passport, should consider Astana, Kazakhstan. It's a VERY modern city, well run, safe, inexpensive, and lots of ex-pats there already. No extradition to the USA for financial crimes (nor any crimes, AFAIK). Good business opportunities for Marty to restart his career in commerce. Weather sucks in winter, butt you can't have everything when you're an international fugitive fleeing the long arm of the grasping USA and a likely motivated State Dept that will try and extradite you at all costs of diplomatic capital because of the high profile political aspects of your prosecution.
Astana today is like Austin, TX in 1980 or Santa Clara/Sunnyvale, CA 1965. It's gonna be HUGE in 20-40 years - economically speaking. IMO it's the best bet worldwide for launching your career outside the developed world, especially if you are in infrastructure (construction, rail, air freight, telecom, IT, pipelines, metals and materials, nuclear power). They have good private schools (American/UK/French) for your kids, very good food options (their produce quality matches what you'll find in any Western European country), and the people actually LIKE Americans and Brits there.
Just bring a down jacket, wool watchcap, and gloves for the winter. Leave the vodka at home, there will be plenty provided to you there, even if you don't want it.
"They are not run by the same group."
WronGGG.
"Turing Pharmaceuticals Close to Replacing Martin Shkreli as CEO"
I'm pretty sure Adam Carter is available.
Good catch on that. I did nott know that the Belushi bros were Albanian.
All I know is that the Albanian language(s) is/are nutso and getting translations of the same input text from three different translators will produce three wildly different translations.
Wildly different as exemplified by:
Translation 1: John went to walk his dog and a mud puddle.
Translation 2: John's dog drowned in a pool of a dark-colored beverage.
Translation 3: John's dog submerged him in Lake Coffee and they found a dead body there.
Translation 4 (after you resubmit it to Translator 1 with the three discrepant translations and ask them to clarify): There was a dog named John that liked to water ski on the wide part of the river.
"Obama is not going to be body surfing tomorrow when he wakes up."
That is unfortunate, I was hoping we'd see his body floating in the surf, Omaha Beach-style.
Oh well, there goes that dream of my father. @riptides #undertow #givejoeaturn
I seriously doubt that any of the SS would swim ~OUTT to save him - if they even noticed he was struggling if they glanced upp from vaping their mackerel.
"Seems to me that the Wu Tang album was obtained by the proceeds of the crime so the FBI should grab that in any event"
There is no asset seizure order in effect to authorize that.
However, after he's convicted and/or loses the SEC civil suit, the asset forfeiture order may allow them to seize and auction that album. :)
"“I’m the most successful Albanian to ever walk the face of this Earth…"
Wow, talk about damning yourself with faint praise ...
I'm pretty sure it's still legal to smoke mackerel.
Butt vaping it is the new trend.
Man, the SEC employees are really trying to hit their 'exceeds' goals for 2015 to jack upp their bonuses. Quite the flurry of high-profile PRs in the last week or so.
"It was obvious meant to be a little humorous...
Surely, that's the problem. It shows a degree of personal animus to Shkreli on the part of the FBI and can only be used to further (in a small way) his claim that the Feds are ~OUTT to gett him and humiliate him for reasons other than simply an impartial review of the applicable laws and evidence.
Really stupid thing to tweet.
Consider if the Baltimore PD tweeted: "Did they expect the van driver to have his head on a swivel when Freddie Gray was in the back?" @BaltimorePD #neckbracesmatter
"Shkreli is going to have plenty of opportunities at his future residence to earn a living for a buck. Well, at least for a quarter."
Corrected: Shkreli is going to have plenty of opportunities at his future residence to earn a living for a box of mackerel pouches. Well, at least for a mackerel pouch.
Most BOP facilities use pouches now instead of cans with sharp edges - old pic
That FBI tweet mentioning the Wu Tang Clan album strikes me as inappropriate.
Butt then again Obama, as sitting President, has gone on ESPN live to make his NCAA BB tournament bracket picks.
What's next? The IRS tweeting "Wow, can't believe Don King spent so much on hookers for business entertainment expenses!" @auditteamIRS
That tweet is unprofessional for a government agency that needs to be impartial and serious about its yob.
I'll wait for the Bureau of Prisons to tweet "Didn't find a smartphone during Foley's cavity search - THIS TIME!!!" @BOP @CI-Taft #hisass
You posted Doc 7 twice - the same document - relates only to Shkreli and nott to Greebel re: bail and conditions of release.
"nanosux didn't own the rights to the trademark 'future of television"
Nobody - NOBODY - can answer that question. NTEK had a registration for that mark, butt that is nott definitive proof of owning a valid, enforceable mark. it only provides a presumption which means a defendant has the burden to show the mark is nott legally enforceable or is owned by a different party in fact through use or field overlap.
You've asked a very fact-dependent and situation-dependent question that cannot be answered without a specific case of NTEK attempting to sue a particular third party based on a claim of a trademark for 'the future of television' during that period prior to abandoning the registration of that mark 12 months ago.
"Maybe his lawyer could get the venue changed to Albania?"
Oh gosh no - Albania is a mess. Crazy language issues, the government ran a pyramid/Ponzi banking scam that destroyed the miniscule wealth of most of the citizens (so they will nott be too kind to a Ponzi-schemer), and it's legal system is a mess. Plus there are no good local counsel there. Mostly Muslim. Worse, there is nothing to do for fun in Tirane.
Much better to choose Croatia as a venue. Beautiful country, decent cities, nightlife, some quality hotels and restaurants. I'd pick Croatia over Albania every single time.
I learned a trick from a mentor and I've also seen it in use by many others. Here it is: when you draft a commercial contract and need to include a provision for international arbitration, select a place you'd like to spend 6-25 weeks. My mentor always chose Paris. For sure, one of those contracts had an international dispute and he wound up getting to spend about two months (split over about 9 months) in Paris for the IARC arbitration. Another contract between a Japanese company a US-domiciled company specified Honolulu as the location for an arbitration if there was a dispute in a certain set of topics (e.g., IP) - sure enough, there was a dispute and he gott to hang in Hawaii for it. He also got to hang in Hong Kong for another matter.
Almost nobody objects to picking a neutral forum country at the stage of drafting and signing contracts. Only very experienced CFOs in multinationals with a LOT of international litigation experience ever object to an arbitration venue in a draft contract - because they may have the experiences of having to pay hotel and travel expense costs for prior arbitrations (frankly, I've never had anyone object to the choice of venue for arbitration in a draft contract during review). As long as you don't pick a red thumb locale like St. Moritz or Ibiza, nobody ever picks up on that stuff - and the legal counsel representing the other side(s) know this game too and they may, at most, counter back with "I've played all the good golf courses in Oahu, Shajandr-san, would it be OK to change the venue to Kahului, as I've nott played the courses on Maui."
Other variants are that for international arbitration or litigation, parties usually agree to choice-of-law provisions for the dispute to be resolved by, and the contract to be governed by, either UK or US law (or Canadian or Aussie) which have a long established body of English common law applicable to contract interpretation. So, jurisdictions that have a basis in English common law are favored, which is why Hong Kong, Ireland, Singapore, etc. are good choices for venues.
In my mentor's case, he chose Paris as the locale, butt US law governed the contract, so the IARC arbitrators were US lawyers and everyone gott to hang in Paris while the clients footed the bill. The reason for Paris is that the two contracting parties were a US corp and a UK corp and it made sense to have a neutral forum - the compromise was that US law would govern butt the location would have to be in Europe convenient for the UK company lawyers to attend, so Paris became the location during drafting.
They should have picked Biarritz.
Just some tips for how to make life a little more fun if you have to be away from home for long periods - pick a nice place for the dispute resolution.
I've had to spend a period of 10 weeks in Chicago over a nasty winter on an arbitration. The folks who drafted that contract did so because Ilinois was a neutral forum, Illinois contract law is well-developed, and the AAA is located in Chicago (on Michigan Ave in the Illinois center complex) which was halfway between the parties' HQs (California and New Jersey).
Lesson: always pick a place that doesn't have Siberian-level winters as a possibility!!!
A servicemark is a trademark. It just means a trademark for a service rather than for a good. A housemark is a trademark like "Nanotech Entertainment" which is a mark that is used for many services and/or good that are produced and/or marketed by the same entity (or 'house').
Here's an example:
"Merck" and Merck & Co. a housemark of Merck & Co. The "Merck Manual" is a trademark for the good of a medical manual produced and sold by Merck. "Zocor" is a trademark of Merck for that good sold in commerce and is also called a brandname. The generic name for that drug is "simvastatin" and cannot be trademarked by anyone as it is an approved USAN/INN generic name. If Merck also provided a service (let's say they did drug dispensing as a mail order pharmacy to consumers for a fee and called it "MyOnlinePharmacy"), that would be a servicemark.
On a bottle of Zocor, the name "Zocor" is a trademarked brandname, the name "Merck & Co." on the bottle is a trademarked brandname, and if they sold all kinds of drugs in an online pharmacy called "MyOnlinePharmacy" that would be a trademarked servicemark.
All three (housemarks, brandnames, and servicemarks) are trademarks and they are called trademarks and registered. A registration in th PTO does NOT create a trademark, is only is a presumptive claim to own it that provides a rebuttable presumption to the registrant if they sue someone in a US court for trademark misappropriation, trademark misuse, trademark dilution, to oppose the registration of the mark for another company or person for use in a different field of use, etc.
In any case, "the future of television" for the field of distributing media content was registered by NTEK butt it's now DEAD, having been abandoned a year ago.
Hope that helps.
LOL!
"Someone is accumulating a huge position"
Yeah, that person is DAVID RUSSELL FOLEY, Bureau of Prisons inmate No. 13141-111, and that position is in CASH.
HTH.
Ummm, NO. Trademarks are not copyrights, they are trademarks. The USPTO has nothing to do with the issue of copyrights.
More importantly, the NTEK trademark registration is ABANDONED and DEAD. Therefore there was and is no license nor assignment to anyone, as there is nothing to license. It was ABANDONED and DEAD for a year now.
Sheeesh!
All this negative media coverage is going to make jury selection a very difficult process. At least with Martha Stewart, there were still a lott of people who had some positive views towards her.
Shkreli is deeply hated and widely-known by an overwhelming majority of potential jurors already.
They will impanel a jury, butt it will be an interesting voir dire and jury selection and juror bias will be an issue in his inevitable appeal of a guilty verdict.
Dude needs to call John Keker.
"The SEC really tends to warm up to you after you call them stupid to their face."
The SEC would nott warm upp to him even if he did a 30 minute network TV prime time paid ad proclaiming the wonderfulness of the SEC and that they are the best thing since sliced sourdough bread.
OTOH, by getting the statement that the SEC has misunderstood the accounting in his case, he is conditioning the audience, which contains his future juror pool, to the idea that the SEC and DOJ have made errors and that the charges against him are unjust and a reaction to his drug pricing controversy.
I don't do criminal law, butt you see similar proclamations of innocence and prosecutorial error and bias by defendants or their lawyers to media sources that will publicize it quite frequently. It appears to be a useful tactic in some criminal law situations where there is a wide audience of potential jurors and the prosecution's 'story' has already been presented to the audience by the news media.
It is very unlikely to work in his case, and it may nott be at the prompting of his attorney, butt it's nott uncommon to see. He and his lawyer pretty much already know that this is the line of argument they are going to have to pursue, so why nott putt hat line in the sand now and publicize it to plant that idea in the minds of potential jurors?
Plus because of the politics of his case, there's nothing he can do to make the SEC and DOJ anything other than fully determined to bring him down and show him no quarter. Nothing he can do would buy him goodwill with the decisionmakers at those agencies.
NTEK abandonded that trademark filing a YEAR AGO - it's been dead since then.
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date December 31, 2014
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:1qkom2.2.1
Aaaand it's G-O-N-E!!!
OOPS - WHOOPS!!!
Oh my, he's such a cute young fellow with that boyish look, feminine build, and soft skin that the older guys in prison just love.
He's gonna be popular in DaHole. Lots of 'strong friends'. A 10+ year sentence gets him into a Medium, where the real fun is at.
After a few months, he'll be loose enough to keister one (or several) of the newer 8" screen smartphones like the Asus FonePad8 (aka "Anus 8") - a valuable skill to have in prison. He should be able to make a decent prison income of mackerel pouches from renting ~OUTT his smartphone hiding space to others.
Back in the old days, prison smartphones were fairly compact (BTW, it appears that a hip replacement on the viewer's lefthand-side hip will soon be in order)
He'd better call Saul ... errr ... John Keker.
The patents covering Dataprim expired decades ago. The only leverage he had with the existing drug was that there was no other licensed producer of it that was an appoved manufacturer with an FDA license for the manufacture of the drug as a generic.
This was bound to be resolved, as once the cost to set up production and obtain an FDA license for it made it feasible for other manufacturers (like all kinds of generic makers here and in India) to produce and market Dataprim as an FDA-licensed generic.
He just realized that in the interim period, there would be zero competition and he could charge whatever he wanted.
There are a LOT of generic drugs that are simply uneconomical to manufacture at the prices paid - you may recall there are and have been a number of shortages of old, generic cancer drugs recently. That is because the cost of manufacture (principally the costs of FDA licensure for process (and facilities) and maintaining licensure) and the huge growth in product liability lawsuits (notice all the lawfirm ads on TV trolling for any user who thinks they can tie their medical problem to every drug and medical device under the sun) make it an uneconomical business for many generic drugs. The price caps for Part D Medicare and Medicare/Medicaid users contributes to the problem, since there is no incentive to create or expand aproduction capacity for a drug that is nott going to make munny, net of all-in production/distribution costs and product liability lawsuits.
So the 'authorities' have created a niche for guys like Marty to buy the entire current production capacity of a drug which has no good substitutes and then milk it until one or more other generic manufacturers decides to make an investment in licensure and production capacity because the price has gone up and it now makes sense to try and make it profitably.