My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
It's also not true in a relevant way. In the abstract, on its own, sure. If a presidential candidate argued for less military spending during an election campaign they would be painted as weak , and trying to weaken American increasingly dangerous world. Probably conspiracy theories about them being a foreign agent. And they would either lose outright or at least pay a significant political price.
I disagree but it is interesting to note that your conception of corruption essentially doesn't make the distinction between extractive and quid-pro-quo.
Extractive corruption is where one party uses authority to essentially shake down someone else. A cop pulls you over for a spurious reason and demands $200 in cash to make it all go away on the spot, or you can fight it and maybe win in court after significant inconvenience, cost, or just be met with immediate violence. In any case, in this case there is a perpetrator and a victim and the victim gets nothing out of it other than getting screwed.
In quid-pro-quo type corruption, both parties benefit to some degree. So for example if you're applying for a permit at a local government office and you need it done fast, you slip them $50 to bump it to the top of the queue. They get paid, you get your permit faster .
China's anti-corruption efforts famously dealt very harshly with extractive corruption while allowing a certain degree if quid-pro-quo corruption on the basis that 1) you cannot fully eliminate corruption so you have to prioritize and 2) quid-pro-quo corruption actually meets a market demand that isn't being met within the official system, as you noted. So long as the clerk continues to eventually process permits for people who don't pay the $50 bribe , there is a certain like of logic that says that you might as well let that clerk keep doing this since not everyone needs permits fast.
This form of "allowed" corruption itself requires monitoring and regulation, though as it can easily turn extractive and such practices essentially require that the clerk have some reasonable fear of going too far.
Those shares are also generally for sale for a high enough price. Given the immense current value of the brand, when Gabe dies vultures of every variety will start circling. If they offer employees 2x their share price to sell, enough of them will do it to lose control to investors that just want to enshittify everything and milk it's brand for every last penny as they drive it into the ground.
He's acting exactly like a current established Democrat leader. He is proudly saying he doesn't take money from PACs, except AIPAC is the exception and if you ask why you're antisemitic. He cares about keeping the democratic unconditionally and uncritically 100 perfect behind Israel as his main policy goal, far more than any domestic concern. In that he has tons of company and is doing his job just fine.
More and more products that were previously targeted at what was the middle class are now targeting solely the top 10% of income earners. It's pretty tragic, and corrosive to the long term health of society.
There is a theory that the recent pipeline MOU , given all the caveats and requirements on the part of Alberta (including finding private funding and first Nations consultations) is a strategic play to shut Danielle Smith up for a while. I think Carney would actually support the pipeline under the terms laid out in the MOU, but it's just a long shot that Alberta can get their end of it done that it seems likely that neutralizing her and the pissy Alberta separatist movement might have been the primary goal .
So what? What is he afraid of? Just say it's AI. Whatever Putin's leverage was it evaporated the moment Trump won his second term. Trump just doesn't want to tank the week of chaos and embarrassment that it would cause because he's incredibly weak.
It's generally useful to think of these things in more nuanced terms than right or wrong. If/when they are unified, it will be a refinement.
https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html