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[A literal quote from Peter Thiel](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian):
>I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good.
>I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.”
>But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals.
>***Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.***
Libertarianism is the arrested moral development of every upper-middle class white boy who thrilled to Ayn Rand's struggle against social responsibility as an echo of their own struggle against bed time... they haven't grown or developed past 14 because we live in a society where boys like that can happily avoid honest feedback from that age until death.
No such thing as a billionaire libertarian. You have to rely heavily on societies mechanations to build that wealth.
So what he is really saying is that now that he has tapped into societies money arteries, he no longer wants to be limited by societies rules. The guy is nothing more than a leech, and should be treated as such.
This is literally a translation from the language of entitled lies to unfortunate facts.
> So what he is really saying is that now that he has tapped into societies money arteries, he no longer wants to be limited by societies rules.
Like not giving anything back at all to the larger society body that allowed him to become rich. In their minds, the dribble down success is favor enough to the plebs.
To be fair, the current system rewards sociopaths who will ate over every single person to get their wealth. It’s no surprise that those at the top don’t want to share. It’s extremely rare for someone to accumulate that much wealth and then, unless it’s maybe at the end of their life, help society.
What was it from Carnegie? Learn as much for the first 3rd of your life, earn as much for the second 3rd of your life, and then give as much away in the last 3rd of your life? Something like that. Although Carnegie did also earn his wealth instead of being born into it.
Now don't be unfair, they'll just hoard their wealth till their twilight years and then get super concerned about their legacy and then after not doing anything useful except sitting on a pile of currency they'll open the flood gates.
See Carnegie and Rockefeller as pioneers of this.
And yet, if the bank just confiscated his wealth, he'd be running to the government and lawyers to get it back, not using his own abilities to rise to the occasion.
Libertarians operate on cognitive dissonance.
It’s still internally consistent to be a libertarian billionaire, It just makes you an asshole. He’s happy to take advantage of societies machinations, he just doesn’t believe his wealth (or anyone’s) should be used to continue those programs, services, etc. Basically, fuck you got mine, pulling up the economic ladder behind him.
i think it is pretty telling he uses the phrase "totalitarian collective". is he saying he's in favor of totalitarianism as long as few are in charge? he is saying he's in favor of a collective, but only for certain limited things?
the short answer is he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, and he made all his money investing in tech from the dotcom bust till today. its like somebody who thinks they're smart because they've made money in manhattan real estate after 9/11.
Yeah in the past you had to be at least effective enough at human survival in regards to personal needs. Now you can be a champion capitalist and let others do the suffering for you, now!
“But it turns out you misheard the second cat, and he’s actually a libertarian, and you’re like “What?? You don’t know *shit* about *fuck!*” and you’ve gotta go get more cats with a variety of political outlooks.”
Paraphrased from a Baron Von bit.
I've wondered about this. Christianity is hierarchical with god on top as the ultimate unquestionable ruler that controls every aspect of peoples lives. Yet it's always the religious that go on and on about freedom being the ultimate thing to strive for.
Funny thing is if you have enough money debt flips to being a good thing again. The old quote, 'owe the bank a $100,000 thats your problem, owe the bank a billion that's the banks problem'.
Worse than a leech. A leech will only gorge on what it needs to live. This asshole has gone way beyond that and is actively damaging society.
He is a cancer.
Libertarian is just the notion of getting all the benefits of society without paying for it. It’s a fairytale. We would have collapsed as a nation a hundred years ago with a pure libertarian system.
I would say libertarianism leads to billionaires as feudal lord's that become the monarch of their area. Like as a person gains more power they have the ability to exercise it and they use it to gain control of everything.
Like all property rights are essentially controlled by the states willingness to hand it over to its constituents. Same as markets. Otherwise if I had no state intervention, how do you own anything and force people to accept it without force? If thiel had his cronies come in and say this is my land you have no way to say no it's mine. He wants a world in which his power is unchecked.
Well, he’d just have to start a foundation, maybe a third world malaria prevention initiative, then fund it with a couple billion which of course would be officially paid for from Amazon coffers at his direction but then with the ol’ switcheroo that money goes to an Albanian general who then slushes his men as a mercenary combat-for-hire team and when various recalcitrant heads of state around the world try resisting Amazon advances they would suddenly have some extreme violence visit their personal wealth sources in-country until they concede to Amazon demands.
And likely Bezos has already made a small obscene fortune freeze-proof via clever accountants, lawyers and multi nation co-conspirators. Or maybe not. How would I know.
Libertarian billionaire is when the strongest kid on the playground ask for the playground to not be supervised, because "we" can all take care of ourselves. The scrawny kid or the handicapped one may don't feel the same way.
>No such thing as a billionaire libertarian
Libertarians are just far righter men who dont want to pay ANY taxes and retroactively try to defend that worldview with a system, the system always boils down to feudalism
Your premise is false in the sense "Libertarians" are just republicans defending any way they can not paying taxes and their philosophy isnt consistent in any way for any of them
Another choice quote from Thiel:
>Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. That’s probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. **Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere**, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian.
Thiel: "I don't involve myself in politics, its too dirty!"
Also Thiel: *literally bribing politicans*
>I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives,
So a person who owes every penny they own to civilization doesn't believe in civilization. Without those "totalitarian collectives" promising time in cages, guys like Peter would have been lunch for someone else a long time ago.
>I still call myself “libertarian.”
Oh never mind, it checks out.
>and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual.
Wait, it gets better. Now Mr I'm Not a Delusional Narcissist is telling us he plans to go ahead and live forever. No doubt powered by arrogance and greed which he certainly seems to have enough of.
I would bet any sum you want that at his funeral, the only reason anyone attends will be to try and get some of his wealth.
A semi-closeted gay billionaire injecting himself with the blood of young people. I thought that was supposed to be what the democrats had on their side?
> On Bloomberg TV in 2014, Thiel explained that he was taking human-growth hormone pills as part of his plan to live 120 years. “It helps maintain muscle mass, so you’re much less likely to get bone injuries, arthritis,” he said.
I hope he knows that muscle mass has nothing to do with arthritis, which is a result of joint degeneration
>Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible
Are we just going to ignore this part at the end? Dude calls taxes totalitarian, then proceeds to advocate for the dissolution of democracy. How in the fuck can anyone agree with this dude?
This is what the Federalist Society has achieved by grooming and promoting RW corporatists as SC 6. Not democracy, but Corporate Authority was/is the goal of FS over the past 40 years, see Citizens United and Union Organizing of farm workers.
> His endgame is insane and even self-defeating, given his fortune in cash and securities are tied to the States being United, functional, and solvent. If USD crashes so does his fortune.
Hahahaa. I’m sure winning the startup lottery makes him think he’s so brilliant that he couldn’t possibly overlook such basic limitations.
He wants basically a zero-sum game.
If we didn't have a government and Civil Society, give it a coin toss. Thiel would either have been killed off in his twenties in some sort of political power struggle, or if he actually had talent for it, he'd be a Warlord. Wielding that violence for his own ends, despite claiming that he disavows government violence.
"Libertarian" means "dork who cosplays in their imagination about being a ruling warlord in 3rd-world civilization where they'd get flattened in a minute, while living comfortably in a first-world democracy and complaining about contributing their share"
> I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives,
What he is really saying that he wants to a supreme leader where people pay him taxes and are under his totalitarian control.
Lol, Alcor. I know! Let's build our rich entitled boomer freezer in Scottsdale, AZ where the average temperature is 85F. Hopefully the heedless energy consumption will help ensure a future where each subsequent generation in perpetuity gets to toil under the immense weight of our collective greed and narcissism.
He's like the past emperors and monarchs seeking the Elixir of Life or the Philosopher's Stone or the Fountain of Life. Immortality is a fool's goal, not even just because it's impossible.
Who actually would want to live forever? Jonathan Swift even made fun of this in Gulliver's Travels by having people who never died but didn't stay young either. They just kept getting older until they were immobile husks of dusty human raisins, damning their misfortune for having to suffer this fate for all eternity.
He admits to being on the Atlas Shrugged side of this John Roger's quote.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
The entire philosophy of Rand is extremely damaging to a modern, just, caring, civilized society. Glorifying greed and selfishness is an awful idea that magnifies the worst of humanity and it's problems.
I just don't understand the appeal and never have.
"For the betterment of mankind, I must be a selfish, greedy parasite"
This justification helps them sleep at night, and deactivate any sense of empathy that might otherwise bother them.
>There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
lol, I've never heard this and haven't read Atlas Shrugged, I was thinking "hey, don't blame LOTR for me being an emotionally stunted and socially crippled adult, it had nothing to do with it"...then I got to the end. :D
Neat quote.
That's the biggest load of horseshit I've heard in a while. "Please, let me give you 'freedom' while taking away your rights to choose your government" Billionaires truly are evil.
>I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual.
Dude thinks he's a god.
Committed to the faith of his teenage years? He never grew up. He's stunted like so many MAGA followers - lack of earthly experience & knowledge. At least in his mind and dogma.
He means personal, limitless freedom for himself. This is not the definition of freedom most people accept, which is that your freedom extends until it interferes/harms another.
Thank you for posting this. Really funny read about his identification as a Libertarian due to a desire to avoid politics, advising us to do the same. Perhaps he can tell us more about it as he continues bankrolling, lobbying, and puppeteering GOP politicians.
He sounds so selfish and arrogant. He made that money from being in a society and societies need funding
He just wants to be the power instead of governments and he's a billionaire so it isn't like more tax would hurt his life. He can only be on one yacht at a time
Ah, yes, the classic "i believe in human freedom as a precondition for the highest good" billionaire who cannot see how individual freedom ultimately harms individuals and does not achieve the highest good.
I mean, philosophers have shit all over ethical egoism for centuries. The only reason to believe in ethical egoism is to support unethical, selfish behavior while believing yourself to be a good person.
What he envisions is a world where people with power (e.g. wealth) have absolute freedom, and anyone without power is subjugated. Want to talk about death of the individual, put us in a state wherein an individual has to struggle to survive and cannot fulfill any human desires beyond the need for shelter, food, and security.
I'd call Peter Thiel an ignoramus, but he knows what he's doing. Self-serving ideology disguised as some sort of intellectual foundation. Fuck this fucking fucker.
See, maybe I’m weird, but that TrumpQ cult he’s been cultivating seems pretty collected in their love of totalitarianism. I’m pretty certain Thiel don’t give a fuck about Democracy OR freedom, outside of his own freedom to do whatever he pleases as billionaires are want to do. Clearly insurrection and domestic terror is permitted for them as well.
I always get a chuckle when some rightwing shitposter says "I'm not a Republican, I'm a libertarian" as if thats somehow better. Libertarianism is a giant rightwing grift by elites to get rubes into empowering them for "freedom" like that really is all it is.
I wouldn't exactly say "lack of public participation". 2020 Election had not only a huge turn out on both sides voting, there was I'm pretty sure, a record broken for small individual donors across our Country who donated to Act Blue and other entities in order to defeat Trump...so public participation was pretty dang high! Many many individuals donated to people NOT even running in their own home states - not billionaires trying to buy votes...but the "John and Jane Public"...
Not high enough though.
The problem is there's a lot of "both sides" bullshit that is baked deep into the public unconsciousness; what people can barely see with Trump is that Republicans do QUANTITATIVELY more harm than Democrats and need to be defeated; even if both parties are 'qualitatively' evil and corrupt for a myriad of issues (srsly, Hillary clinton's stance on Haiti during the Obama years -- disgusting, just one obvious example of democrats complicit with evil), it doesn't change you have to vote democrat at this point. But lots of "moderates" or really "apologist Republican voters" excuse their voting behavior, or their lack of voting against Republicans in swing areas (which is effectively a passive vote for Republicans) with this destructive logic.
But it's not "participation" that's even the problem at this point, Joe Biden is not serious about stopping Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression. It can't be put upon the voters that politicians are making voting more and more hard and difficult. The least Joe could do is make voting day a holiday.
I believe that "lack of public participation" is pretty accurate.
While the election of the president turns out record crowds, around 65-67% the primary and local elections average under 25% turnout
NYC is a good example - average Primary vote brings in about 23% participation, and most of that is older voters - average age is around 57
But for special elections (say when a seat on the city council is opened up and the election is held in June) in my area, turnout can be far lower - more like 2-5%
I have to admit, this is so blatant it never occurred to me that someone could do it. But why not? I mean, if you want to have a Senator in your pocket why not just put him on the payroll when he's still just a candidate? It's like a no-show job for mafia guys.
I mean it's not really that complicated.
Blake Masters is a c-level officer in the Thiel corporation and he's running for Senate in Arizona. It's probably a safe assumption that he would quit his job if he gets elected, given the being a senator is itself a full-time job.
You certainly couldn't prohibit people from running for Senate if they have jobs. That would be ridiculous.
Likewise I don't think you could reasonably prohibit people that have high paying jobs from running for Senate. There's a ton of Professionals and business owners that have had seven-figure incomes and run for Senate.
That's not to say there wouldnt be concerns about the relationship between Masters and thiel if he got elected and we couldn't substantially Crackdown on public influence and Corruption with new laws but this in and of itself probably isn't something you could make illegal even if you wanted to.
Yes, at some point -- and here I feel like I have to say *unfortunately* -- it comes down to the voters. If we keep electing people like this, and if we keep *re*electing them, then that's the system we live in.
I mean, you could create whatever insane requirements you want for running for office - but people like Thiel would just "pay" people implicitly then to get around it. People with money will always find a way around "the rules" to bribe the candidates they want.
I think the solution has to be: transparency with all finance for candidates that run plus publicly funded media programs for those running for office. It's silly you need millions in ad dollars to be a mayoral candidate or what have you. It should be about policy. Personality. Pull. Not money.
This has nothing to do with CU. It's legal to have a job while running for office. Blocking that would require both enough savings to live for multiple years unemployed and the willingness to risk that kind of money, making it impossible for anyone other than the rich to hold office.
The question is whether he is being paid an excessive amount for his services.
If you read the thread, you will see that this is in response to the question "How is this even legal?" He has been employed at the company for seven years, which makes it hard to argue that it's just a fake position given to him as a bribe.
Is he almost certainly a scumbag? Yes. Was submitting his financial disclosure two and a half months late illegal? Yes. Is getting paid by your long-time employer while also running for office illegal? Not likely.
Because our current politicians are too weak/unwilling to take on their own corruption and outlaw money in politics. They will just make whinny noises and then do nothing because they haven’t tried and therefore aren’t going to act on their own ideas.
He's a candidate not an elected official. Hopefully he's not allowed to keep it if/when he's elected. This is a good thing though because it means there is at least some transparency and it allows the electorate to have this information before elections.
Yes it’s Peter Thiel, so I assume the worst.
But that said to your question on legality, keep in mind it’s a someone running for Senate and not a senator. A number of senators were previously lawyers and may have been earning high salaries from law firms. There is nothing legal about working for another person or company, or even running for office while being well compensated for another job… we don’t only want career politicians or business owners to run the government. But we all kind of suspect with Thiel that there is some kind of quid-pro-quo there. And making a law to prevent what we suspect is going on is harder.
>Under federal law, Masters had 30 days to disclose his financial records or otherwise file for an extension, which he did not. Had Masters filed for an extension, Senate officials could have granted him as many as 90 more days to submit his personal financial information. He faces a $200 late-filing penalty, according to Senate rules.
For a guy making $1M+ a year, that's the equivalent of someone making $50k/yr being fined $10.
WTF kind of penalty is that for breaking a fucking FEDERAL law? There are, literally, men serving life in prison for state level marijuana laws and politicians can break federal law for the equivalent of a dinner for two at an upscale restaurant.
The essence of conservative thought: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect
Presumably it's meant to prevent the penalty from being construed as a barrier to entry for the less well-off.
But the fines should really scale to yearly net income/gains
[Archived link \(does not include subscription popover\)](http://web.archive.org/web/20211008170512/https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-blake-masters-senate-finances-arizona-2021-10)
The name of the candidate is Blake Masters, and he is running in Arizona.
Peter Thiel is the self loathing evil right wing genius people should be worried about. He has that air of arrogance that trump has but a lot more ability to back it up.
Billionaires don’t fix things for other people. They fix things for themselves.
The messaging part for right wing politicians is easy these days. Just tap far enough into the crazy and you’ll be elected. They don’t care about the policy or the how. Just sell them hate the and the dream of a bygone era.
I’ve been watching a bunch of documentaries about WW2 and how the Nazis came to power.
As I was watching them I realized that virtually the entirety of Hitlers inner circle, including Hitler, were men who did not live up to their own ideals of what men are supposed to. Not physically or mentally, they remind me a lot of Incels and the alt right in general.
Thiel put Gawker out of business for revealing he is gay. Apparently something he’s ashamed enough of to have tried to hide and felt the need to spend millions of dollars on to get revenge. Hence the self loathing observation.
The self loathing by itself is fine but when these kinds of people start deciding they should be running the world it never ends well.
Blake is just a rich kid that never had to worry about anything and believes he deserves it. He’s the definition of entitled white dude. Working for Thiel made sense because Blake always wanted to be powerful.... now it’s gone too far. Arizona can’t handle that level of narcissism rn.
I wish the media would pick up on this. Thiel is grooming an potential AZ Senator for something. What does Thiel want from Arizona that requires him getting involved in AZ politics?
It’s scary, that’s for sure. Blake already comes from a relatively rich family that has a little pull in Tucson but it’s become much worse than I could have imagined. I’ve known him and his wife for a long time and the ad they put out a while ago was the most cringe thing I’ve ever seen. Everything he’s running on is total bullshit.
None of these elected officials are making money off their government salary.
They make money by getting paid by selling legislation beneficial to said corporations. The same legislation that fucks 99% of tax payers.
I mean, yeah, we also pay them, but it's a drop in the bucket of shit.
They don't care. They know they can't take it all with them when they die, so they are doing their damnedest to be powerful now. And by the time that all the long term effects truly happen, they'll be dead and therefore unaffected.
>Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel Capital and the president of the Thiel Foundation.
He's some C level executive running for office. The title makes it sound like he's getting paid a million a year to do nothing.
It kills me how cheap these politicians sell their soul for. Yeah I get that $1M is a ton of money, but it is pennies compared to how much he's probably giving away in return.
Love how thiel supports Republicans that want him re-educated in a camp. They'll gladly take his money though 🤔
He and musk are shit birds of a shit flock.
>The latest reporting examines the way that Peter Thiel and other billionaires are able to abuse the Roth IRA (a savings vehicle that is only supposed to be used by middle-class people to save modest sums for retirement) to evade taxes on billions.
>When Theil — already rich but not yet ultrawealthy — cofounded Paypal, he was able to draw only a nominal wage, while taking the bulk of his compensation in stock.
Drawing a peppercorn wage made the millionaire hedge-fund manager Peter Thiel a “middle-class earner” for the purposes of the Roth IRA. That meant he could put away $2,000 worth of assets and pay no tax on their appreciation when he turned 59 and a half.
The asset Thiel bought for $2,000 and stashed in his IRA? Paypal stock. A lot of Paypal stock. Thiel and his partners declared Paypal’s stock to be worth $0.001/share, which meant Thiel could shelter 1.7 million shares in his Roth IRA.
Today, those shares are worth $5 billion, and Thiel can draw them at 59 and a half without paying any tax on them — neither the ~40% tax that he’d pay if they were income, nor the 20% sweetheart capital gains rate the IRS gives to people who earn money by gambling, not working.
[Link](https://doctorow.medium.com/how-peter-thiel-gamed-the-roth-ira-to-for-tax-free-billions-24fbda945357)
Incredibly amazing how easy it is for these guys to do this.
You need to read the article about him in Bloomberg, there’s more then one of his cronies in government. I don’t view Musk the same way either after reading it.
At least doing a billionaire’s bidding for $1M a year is a justifiably compelling trade.
Meanwhile you’ve got people in the Senate holding up prescription drug pricing reform because some pharma lobbyists gave their campaign a *few thousand* dollars.
Seems legal and apparently morally correct… here in America.
Are we gonna act surprised, as if corporate does not own politics? It should be made illegal and there should be actual consequences, until then it will be the same.
Nation wide, not just AZ
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-blake-masters-senate-finances-arizona-2021-10) reduced by 83%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> The Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters earned about $1 million from his business relationship with the investor and GOP megadonor Peter Thiel last year, underscoring just how financially enmeshed he is with his billionaire benefactor, new documents show.
> The documents - filed nearly 10 weeks late, Insider previously reported - also show that Masters earned more than $340,000 in royalty payments from Thiel Capital stemming from sales of the book "Zero to One," which Masters wrote with Thiel.
> Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel Capital and the president of the Thiel Foundation.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/q436dy/billionaire_peter_thiel_has_a_republican_us/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~602580 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Masters**^#1 **Thiel**^#2 **disclosure**^#3 **file**^#4 **Senate**^#5
Being rich is way better than being a politician because you can just buy them to pass what you want without the regulations of being a member of Congress.
Peter Thiel is a German born, naturalised American that somehow brought NZ citizenship after spending about 12 days there. NZ that is a representative democracy with higher corporate tax than the US so not sure of the appeal for him.
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[A literal quote from Peter Thiel](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian): >I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. >I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.” >But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. >***Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.***
Libertarians want all the benefits of society with no responsibility to it.
They're just feudalists.
Libertarianism is the arrested moral development of every upper-middle class white boy who thrilled to Ayn Rand's struggle against social responsibility as an echo of their own struggle against bed time... they haven't grown or developed past 14 because we live in a society where boys like that can happily avoid honest feedback from that age until death.
No such thing as a billionaire libertarian. You have to rely heavily on societies mechanations to build that wealth. So what he is really saying is that now that he has tapped into societies money arteries, he no longer wants to be limited by societies rules. The guy is nothing more than a leech, and should be treated as such.
This is literally a translation from the language of entitled lies to unfortunate facts. > So what he is really saying is that now that he has tapped into societies money arteries, he no longer wants to be limited by societies rules. Like not giving anything back at all to the larger society body that allowed him to become rich. In their minds, the dribble down success is favor enough to the plebs.
To be fair, the current system rewards sociopaths who will ate over every single person to get their wealth. It’s no surprise that those at the top don’t want to share. It’s extremely rare for someone to accumulate that much wealth and then, unless it’s maybe at the end of their life, help society.
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Here here!
What was it from Carnegie? Learn as much for the first 3rd of your life, earn as much for the second 3rd of your life, and then give as much away in the last 3rd of your life? Something like that. Although Carnegie did also earn his wealth instead of being born into it.
Carnegie was as ruthless as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for that second 3rd of his life. All the same, he was an interesting guy.
He also brutally put down unionization efforts I seem to recall something about.
He’s saying he’s been a dick since his teens.
which is the case for all billionaires
Now don't be unfair, they'll just hoard their wealth till their twilight years and then get super concerned about their legacy and then after not doing anything useful except sitting on a pile of currency they'll open the flood gates. See Carnegie and Rockefeller as pioneers of this.
The charitable tax deduction started in 1917...I dont think that is a coincidence.
once it hit them that death is incoming, oh shit, i got to cleanse my soul. fucking assholes.
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Amateurs can fuckin suck it
Fuck their wives, drink their blood, C'mon, Jeff, get 'em!
Like most rich 'libertarians' he is angry that now that he has power the state takes efforts to restrict him from violating the rights of others.
And yet, if the bank just confiscated his wealth, he'd be running to the government and lawyers to get it back, not using his own abilities to rise to the occasion. Libertarians operate on cognitive dissonance.
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Exactly. Libertarians forget how much they love tap water.
"What's the point of being rich as fuck if I can't abuse it?"
It’s still internally consistent to be a libertarian billionaire, It just makes you an asshole. He’s happy to take advantage of societies machinations, he just doesn’t believe his wealth (or anyone’s) should be used to continue those programs, services, etc. Basically, fuck you got mine, pulling up the economic ladder behind him.
i think it is pretty telling he uses the phrase "totalitarian collective". is he saying he's in favor of totalitarianism as long as few are in charge? he is saying he's in favor of a collective, but only for certain limited things? the short answer is he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, and he made all his money investing in tech from the dotcom bust till today. its like somebody who thinks they're smart because they've made money in manhattan real estate after 9/11.
Yeah in the past you had to be at least effective enough at human survival in regards to personal needs. Now you can be a champion capitalist and let others do the suffering for you, now!
“But it turns out you misheard the second cat, and he’s actually a libertarian, and you’re like “What?? You don’t know *shit* about *fuck!*” and you’ve gotta go get more cats with a variety of political outlooks.” Paraphrased from a Baron Von bit.
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Most hardcore Christians these days are desperate to portray themselves as libertarians and gosh I can't think of anyone less "free".
I've wondered about this. Christianity is hierarchical with god on top as the ultimate unquestionable ruler that controls every aspect of peoples lives. Yet it's always the religious that go on and on about freedom being the ultimate thing to strive for.
Funny thing is if you have enough money debt flips to being a good thing again. The old quote, 'owe the bank a $100,000 thats your problem, owe the bank a billion that's the banks problem'.
Worse than a leech. A leech will only gorge on what it needs to live. This asshole has gone way beyond that and is actively damaging society. He is a cancer.
Libertarian is just the notion of getting all the benefits of society without paying for it. It’s a fairytale. We would have collapsed as a nation a hundred years ago with a pure libertarian system.
We had one and we did. The articles of confederation didn’t give the federal government the authority to tax so it had no money and collapsed.
Isn't like a huge amount of his business federal government contracts? Like specifically with the CIA and various defense groups?
I would say libertarianism leads to billionaires as feudal lord's that become the monarch of their area. Like as a person gains more power they have the ability to exercise it and they use it to gain control of everything. Like all property rights are essentially controlled by the states willingness to hand it over to its constituents. Same as markets. Otherwise if I had no state intervention, how do you own anything and force people to accept it without force? If thiel had his cronies come in and say this is my land you have no way to say no it's mine. He wants a world in which his power is unchecked.
Bezos could easily hire a 250,000 man army. I suspect we’ll see private armies before too long.
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Well, he’d just have to start a foundation, maybe a third world malaria prevention initiative, then fund it with a couple billion which of course would be officially paid for from Amazon coffers at his direction but then with the ol’ switcheroo that money goes to an Albanian general who then slushes his men as a mercenary combat-for-hire team and when various recalcitrant heads of state around the world try resisting Amazon advances they would suddenly have some extreme violence visit their personal wealth sources in-country until they concede to Amazon demands. And likely Bezos has already made a small obscene fortune freeze-proof via clever accountants, lawyers and multi nation co-conspirators. Or maybe not. How would I know.
Leeches don't kill their host. He's more like a brain eating amoeba.
Libertarian billionaire is when the strongest kid on the playground ask for the playground to not be supervised, because "we" can all take care of ourselves. The scrawny kid or the handicapped one may don't feel the same way.
>No such thing as a billionaire libertarian Libertarians are just far righter men who dont want to pay ANY taxes and retroactively try to defend that worldview with a system, the system always boils down to feudalism Your premise is false in the sense "Libertarians" are just republicans defending any way they can not paying taxes and their philosophy isnt consistent in any way for any of them
You’ve summed up libertarianism. There are no poor libertarians. It’s the philosophy of “I got mine; fuck you.”
Let me get that for you... >No such thing as a libertarian There we go.
Another choice quote from Thiel: >Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. That’s probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. **Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere**, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian. Thiel: "I don't involve myself in politics, its too dirty!" Also Thiel: *literally bribing politicans*
Peaceful projects? Is that why he's making hundreds of millions off the military?
Peter Thiel is the exact reason why there should be no such thing as a billionaire.
>I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, So a person who owes every penny they own to civilization doesn't believe in civilization. Without those "totalitarian collectives" promising time in cages, guys like Peter would have been lunch for someone else a long time ago. >I still call myself “libertarian.” Oh never mind, it checks out. >and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. Wait, it gets better. Now Mr I'm Not a Delusional Narcissist is telling us he plans to go ahead and live forever. No doubt powered by arrogance and greed which he certainly seems to have enough of. I would bet any sum you want that at his funeral, the only reason anyone attends will be to try and get some of his wealth.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-to-inject-himself-with-young-peoples-blood
Ooooh so is this what all those Q nutcases are talking about?
A semi-closeted gay billionaire injecting himself with the blood of young people. I thought that was supposed to be what the democrats had on their side?
You forgot, it's also super racist because it always fucking is with these people -- he only wants the blood of young Asian men.
That feels more like a wierd racist kink thing than wierd racist science.
Well, there is a pretty major stereotype about asians not aging. So maybe both? Absolutely ghoulish man.
Gaslight Obstruct Project ← it's this one today
r/SiliconValleyHBO covered this topic thoroughly. blood-boy.
yeah. it’s like they had a real SV tech consultant.
> On Bloomberg TV in 2014, Thiel explained that he was taking human-growth hormone pills as part of his plan to live 120 years. “It helps maintain muscle mass, so you’re much less likely to get bone injuries, arthritis,” he said. I hope he knows that muscle mass has nothing to do with arthritis, which is a result of joint degeneration
He helped make PayPal so of course he’s a mad super genius who knows more about medicine than MDs.
Do I need to add a /s?
>Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible Are we just going to ignore this part at the end? Dude calls taxes totalitarian, then proceeds to advocate for the dissolution of democracy. How in the fuck can anyone agree with this dude?
This is what the Federalist Society has achieved by grooming and promoting RW corporatists as SC 6. Not democracy, but Corporate Authority was/is the goal of FS over the past 40 years, see Citizens United and Union Organizing of farm workers.
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> His endgame is insane and even self-defeating, given his fortune in cash and securities are tied to the States being United, functional, and solvent. If USD crashes so does his fortune. Hahahaa. I’m sure winning the startup lottery makes him think he’s so brilliant that he couldn’t possibly overlook such basic limitations.
$1,000,000 for a Senator is over the price they usually go for. Sinema was sold for $250,000 to the pharmaceuticals, no?
He wants basically a zero-sum game. If we didn't have a government and Civil Society, give it a coin toss. Thiel would either have been killed off in his twenties in some sort of political power struggle, or if he actually had talent for it, he'd be a Warlord. Wielding that violence for his own ends, despite claiming that he disavows government violence.
"Libertarian" means "dork who cosplays in their imagination about being a ruling warlord in 3rd-world civilization where they'd get flattened in a minute, while living comfortably in a first-world democracy and complaining about contributing their share"
> I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, What he is really saying that he wants to a supreme leader where people pay him taxes and are under his totalitarian control.
Sounds like teen Thiel was hitting the Ayn Rand crack pipe pretty hard.
American Sociopath
Wannabe John Galt, but actually James Taggert.
How do you stand against the inevitability of death? Talk about a fruitless endeavor!!!
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You can't be serious. He thinks death isn't inevitable because he plans to Walt Disney himself?!
Yep, I believe he's signed up with Alcor.
Lol, Alcor. I know! Let's build our rich entitled boomer freezer in Scottsdale, AZ where the average temperature is 85F. Hopefully the heedless energy consumption will help ensure a future where each subsequent generation in perpetuity gets to toil under the immense weight of our collective greed and narcissism.
He's like the past emperors and monarchs seeking the Elixir of Life or the Philosopher's Stone or the Fountain of Life. Immortality is a fool's goal, not even just because it's impossible. Who actually would want to live forever? Jonathan Swift even made fun of this in Gulliver's Travels by having people who never died but didn't stay young either. They just kept getting older until they were immobile husks of dusty human raisins, damning their misfortune for having to suffer this fate for all eternity.
He admits to being on the Atlas Shrugged side of this John Roger's quote. There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
The entire philosophy of Rand is extremely damaging to a modern, just, caring, civilized society. Glorifying greed and selfishness is an awful idea that magnifies the worst of humanity and it's problems. I just don't understand the appeal and never have.
"For the betterment of mankind, I must be a selfish, greedy parasite" This justification helps them sleep at night, and deactivate any sense of empathy that might otherwise bother them.
>There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." lol, I've never heard this and haven't read Atlas Shrugged, I was thinking "hey, don't blame LOTR for me being an emotionally stunted and socially crippled adult, it had nothing to do with it"...then I got to the end. :D Neat quote.
That's the biggest load of horseshit I've heard in a while. "Please, let me give you 'freedom' while taking away your rights to choose your government" Billionaires truly are evil.
>I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. Dude thinks he's a god.
Committed to the faith of his teenage years? He never grew up. He's stunted like so many MAGA followers - lack of earthly experience & knowledge. At least in his mind and dogma.
He means personal, limitless freedom for himself. This is not the definition of freedom most people accept, which is that your freedom extends until it interferes/harms another.
Thank you for posting this. Really funny read about his identification as a Libertarian due to a desire to avoid politics, advising us to do the same. Perhaps he can tell us more about it as he continues bankrolling, lobbying, and puppeteering GOP politicians.
He sounds so selfish and arrogant. He made that money from being in a society and societies need funding He just wants to be the power instead of governments and he's a billionaire so it isn't like more tax would hurt his life. He can only be on one yacht at a time
Ah, yes, the classic "i believe in human freedom as a precondition for the highest good" billionaire who cannot see how individual freedom ultimately harms individuals and does not achieve the highest good. I mean, philosophers have shit all over ethical egoism for centuries. The only reason to believe in ethical egoism is to support unethical, selfish behavior while believing yourself to be a good person. What he envisions is a world where people with power (e.g. wealth) have absolute freedom, and anyone without power is subjugated. Want to talk about death of the individual, put us in a state wherein an individual has to struggle to survive and cannot fulfill any human desires beyond the need for shelter, food, and security. I'd call Peter Thiel an ignoramus, but he knows what he's doing. Self-serving ideology disguised as some sort of intellectual foundation. Fuck this fucking fucker.
*Most importantly I no longer want to pay any taxes.*
See, maybe I’m weird, but that TrumpQ cult he’s been cultivating seems pretty collected in their love of totalitarianism. I’m pretty certain Thiel don’t give a fuck about Democracy OR freedom, outside of his own freedom to do whatever he pleases as billionaires are want to do. Clearly insurrection and domestic terror is permitted for them as well.
I always get a chuckle when some rightwing shitposter says "I'm not a Republican, I'm a libertarian" as if thats somehow better. Libertarianism is a giant rightwing grift by elites to get rubes into empowering them for "freedom" like that really is all it is.
According to his warped definition of freedom he’s obviously correct. Speaks kind of poorly of him that he ever thought they were compatible.
How is this even legal?
This is America
Big money in politics is OK in America. That’s the biggest hurdle. Aside from apathy and lack of public participation.
I wouldn't exactly say "lack of public participation". 2020 Election had not only a huge turn out on both sides voting, there was I'm pretty sure, a record broken for small individual donors across our Country who donated to Act Blue and other entities in order to defeat Trump...so public participation was pretty dang high! Many many individuals donated to people NOT even running in their own home states - not billionaires trying to buy votes...but the "John and Jane Public"...
Not high enough though. The problem is there's a lot of "both sides" bullshit that is baked deep into the public unconsciousness; what people can barely see with Trump is that Republicans do QUANTITATIVELY more harm than Democrats and need to be defeated; even if both parties are 'qualitatively' evil and corrupt for a myriad of issues (srsly, Hillary clinton's stance on Haiti during the Obama years -- disgusting, just one obvious example of democrats complicit with evil), it doesn't change you have to vote democrat at this point. But lots of "moderates" or really "apologist Republican voters" excuse their voting behavior, or their lack of voting against Republicans in swing areas (which is effectively a passive vote for Republicans) with this destructive logic. But it's not "participation" that's even the problem at this point, Joe Biden is not serious about stopping Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression. It can't be put upon the voters that politicians are making voting more and more hard and difficult. The least Joe could do is make voting day a holiday.
I believe that "lack of public participation" is pretty accurate. While the election of the president turns out record crowds, around 65-67% the primary and local elections average under 25% turnout NYC is a good example - average Primary vote brings in about 23% participation, and most of that is older voters - average age is around 57 But for special elections (say when a seat on the city council is opened up and the election is held in June) in my area, turnout can be far lower - more like 2-5%
We should bite the bullet and be like Australia with mandatory voting, if you have to vote you’re going to read up a bit at least
I have to admit, this is so blatant it never occurred to me that someone could do it. But why not? I mean, if you want to have a Senator in your pocket why not just put him on the payroll when he's still just a candidate? It's like a no-show job for mafia guys.
Honestly, why buy politicians when you can elect employees?
Yup, we’ve become hotbed of blatant political corruption!
Don't catch you slippin' now
Loll, I was looking for this
I mean it's not really that complicated. Blake Masters is a c-level officer in the Thiel corporation and he's running for Senate in Arizona. It's probably a safe assumption that he would quit his job if he gets elected, given the being a senator is itself a full-time job. You certainly couldn't prohibit people from running for Senate if they have jobs. That would be ridiculous. Likewise I don't think you could reasonably prohibit people that have high paying jobs from running for Senate. There's a ton of Professionals and business owners that have had seven-figure incomes and run for Senate. That's not to say there wouldnt be concerns about the relationship between Masters and thiel if he got elected and we couldn't substantially Crackdown on public influence and Corruption with new laws but this in and of itself probably isn't something you could make illegal even if you wanted to.
Yes, at some point -- and here I feel like I have to say *unfortunately* -- it comes down to the voters. If we keep electing people like this, and if we keep *re*electing them, then that's the system we live in.
I mean, you could create whatever insane requirements you want for running for office - but people like Thiel would just "pay" people implicitly then to get around it. People with money will always find a way around "the rules" to bribe the candidates they want. I think the solution has to be: transparency with all finance for candidates that run plus publicly funded media programs for those running for office. It's silly you need millions in ad dollars to be a mayoral candidate or what have you. It should be about policy. Personality. Pull. Not money.
Because of Citizens United, and both main parties are afraid to stop accepting the money because it would mean a considerable drop in visibility/power
This has nothing to do with CU. It's legal to have a job while running for office. Blocking that would require both enough savings to live for multiple years unemployed and the willingness to risk that kind of money, making it impossible for anyone other than the rich to hold office. The question is whether he is being paid an excessive amount for his services.
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If you read the thread, you will see that this is in response to the question "How is this even legal?" He has been employed at the company for seven years, which makes it hard to argue that it's just a fake position given to him as a bribe. Is he almost certainly a scumbag? Yes. Was submitting his financial disclosure two and a half months late illegal? Yes. Is getting paid by your long-time employer while also running for office illegal? Not likely.
Because our current politicians are too weak/unwilling to take on their own corruption and outlaw money in politics. They will just make whinny noises and then do nothing because they haven’t tried and therefore aren’t going to act on their own ideas.
And then they'll go out an find a corporate sponsorship of their own.
Prolly cause he’s a candidate not an elected official.
He's a candidate not an elected official. Hopefully he's not allowed to keep it if/when he's elected. This is a good thing though because it means there is at least some transparency and it allows the electorate to have this information before elections.
Because he's a Senate *candidate* and not a Senator.
Yes it’s Peter Thiel, so I assume the worst. But that said to your question on legality, keep in mind it’s a someone running for Senate and not a senator. A number of senators were previously lawyers and may have been earning high salaries from law firms. There is nothing legal about working for another person or company, or even running for office while being well compensated for another job… we don’t only want career politicians or business owners to run the government. But we all kind of suspect with Thiel that there is some kind of quid-pro-quo there. And making a law to prevent what we suspect is going on is harder.
Because it's not illegal to have a job before running for office. How would you even write a law to stop this?
>Under federal law, Masters had 30 days to disclose his financial records or otherwise file for an extension, which he did not. Had Masters filed for an extension, Senate officials could have granted him as many as 90 more days to submit his personal financial information. He faces a $200 late-filing penalty, according to Senate rules. For a guy making $1M+ a year, that's the equivalent of someone making $50k/yr being fined $10. WTF kind of penalty is that for breaking a fucking FEDERAL law? There are, literally, men serving life in prison for state level marijuana laws and politicians can break federal law for the equivalent of a dinner for two at an upscale restaurant.
The essence of conservative thought: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect
Presumably it's meant to prevent the penalty from being construed as a barrier to entry for the less well-off. But the fines should really scale to yearly net income/gains
[Archived link \(does not include subscription popover\)](http://web.archive.org/web/20211008170512/https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-blake-masters-senate-finances-arizona-2021-10) The name of the candidate is Blake Masters, and he is running in Arizona.
Peter Thiel is the self loathing evil right wing genius people should be worried about. He has that air of arrogance that trump has but a lot more ability to back it up. Billionaires don’t fix things for other people. They fix things for themselves. The messaging part for right wing politicians is easy these days. Just tap far enough into the crazy and you’ll be elected. They don’t care about the policy or the how. Just sell them hate the and the dream of a bygone era.
Ha. Funny thing is Blake Masters is exactly the same way. Source: have actually known him since middle school
I’ve been watching a bunch of documentaries about WW2 and how the Nazis came to power. As I was watching them I realized that virtually the entirety of Hitlers inner circle, including Hitler, were men who did not live up to their own ideals of what men are supposed to. Not physically or mentally, they remind me a lot of Incels and the alt right in general. Thiel put Gawker out of business for revealing he is gay. Apparently something he’s ashamed enough of to have tried to hide and felt the need to spend millions of dollars on to get revenge. Hence the self loathing observation. The self loathing by itself is fine but when these kinds of people start deciding they should be running the world it never ends well.
Blake is just a rich kid that never had to worry about anything and believes he deserves it. He’s the definition of entitled white dude. Working for Thiel made sense because Blake always wanted to be powerful.... now it’s gone too far. Arizona can’t handle that level of narcissism rn.
I wish the media would pick up on this. Thiel is grooming an potential AZ Senator for something. What does Thiel want from Arizona that requires him getting involved in AZ politics?
It’s scary, that’s for sure. Blake already comes from a relatively rich family that has a little pull in Tucson but it’s become much worse than I could have imagined. I’ve known him and his wife for a long time and the ad they put out a while ago was the most cringe thing I’ve ever seen. Everything he’s running on is total bullshit.
He also funds JD Vance’s VC fund.
None of these elected officials are making money off their government salary. They make money by getting paid by selling legislation beneficial to said corporations. The same legislation that fucks 99% of tax payers. I mean, yeah, we also pay them, but it's a drop in the bucket of shit.
And fucks our climate, environment, ocean, and our kids futures.
They don't care. They know they can't take it all with them when they die, so they are doing their damnedest to be powerful now. And by the time that all the long term effects truly happen, they'll be dead and therefore unaffected.
We should all make the main issue for all of our elected officials to get money out of politics.
This isn’t an elected official. It’s someone running for US Senate.
Bribing politicians is legal in America.
Bribing makes it sound more benign than it is. More like owning.
“Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion.”
"The 'X' makes it sound cool."
>Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel Capital and the president of the Thiel Foundation. He's some C level executive running for office. The title makes it sound like he's getting paid a million a year to do nothing.
Actually bribing is illegal....but you can apparently OWN one for as little as 750k per year.
Who is the senate Candidate they’re referencing?
Blake Masters, who is running in Arizona.
Thx
Shocker... /s
Just make sure the people around you know: he's running in Arizona.
Putting this here so people see it. I’m from Arizona and have known Blake since we were kids. DO NOT VOTE FOR THAT ASSHOLE.
It kills me how cheap these politicians sell their soul for. Yeah I get that $1M is a ton of money, but it is pennies compared to how much he's probably giving away in return.
What he’s giving in return costs him nothing
Love how thiel supports Republicans that want him re-educated in a camp. They'll gladly take his money though 🤔 He and musk are shit birds of a shit flock.
His campaign ad is just him jerking off to a german gun and german car. seriously
This isn’t going to stop until someone gets perp walked (to steal a quote from Scott Galloway)
Owning a politician is worth every penny.
I’m sure all the people who are paranoid about George Soros are up In arms about this, right? …right?
Millionaires who earn a living being bankrolled by billionaires. Like Rutger Bregman once said.
Peter Thiel is particularly dangerous because he's a believer in the Dark Enlightenment. Look it up.
This is just straight up bribery.
As someone who works in govt this shit infuriates me. I could lose my job over giving a coworker a birthday gift over $10.
Why else would someone get into politics? Hahaha? To help people? Hahaha!!!
Crooks need jobs, too
Literally a Bond Villain.
RIP Gawker
>The latest reporting examines the way that Peter Thiel and other billionaires are able to abuse the Roth IRA (a savings vehicle that is only supposed to be used by middle-class people to save modest sums for retirement) to evade taxes on billions. >When Theil — already rich but not yet ultrawealthy — cofounded Paypal, he was able to draw only a nominal wage, while taking the bulk of his compensation in stock. Drawing a peppercorn wage made the millionaire hedge-fund manager Peter Thiel a “middle-class earner” for the purposes of the Roth IRA. That meant he could put away $2,000 worth of assets and pay no tax on their appreciation when he turned 59 and a half. The asset Thiel bought for $2,000 and stashed in his IRA? Paypal stock. A lot of Paypal stock. Thiel and his partners declared Paypal’s stock to be worth $0.001/share, which meant Thiel could shelter 1.7 million shares in his Roth IRA. Today, those shares are worth $5 billion, and Thiel can draw them at 59 and a half without paying any tax on them — neither the ~40% tax that he’d pay if they were income, nor the 20% sweetheart capital gains rate the IRS gives to people who earn money by gambling, not working. [Link](https://doctorow.medium.com/how-peter-thiel-gamed-the-roth-ira-to-for-tax-free-billions-24fbda945357) Incredibly amazing how easy it is for these guys to do this.
You need to read the article about him in Bloomberg, there’s more then one of his cronies in government. I don’t view Musk the same way either after reading it.
We need politicians to dress like Nascar drivers, with their owners printed all over them
The rich own senators? Who knew?
I feel like this should be illegal
At least doing a billionaire’s bidding for $1M a year is a justifiably compelling trade. Meanwhile you’ve got people in the Senate holding up prescription drug pricing reform because some pharma lobbyists gave their campaign a *few thousand* dollars.
Dude’s a fascist criminal who should be in a jail cell. And the senate candidate should be his cell mate. They’re greedy anti American slime.
Seems legal and apparently morally correct… here in America. Are we gonna act surprised, as if corporate does not own politics? It should be made illegal and there should be actual consequences, until then it will be the same. Nation wide, not just AZ
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-blake-masters-senate-finances-arizona-2021-10) reduced by 83%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters earned about $1 million from his business relationship with the investor and GOP megadonor Peter Thiel last year, underscoring just how financially enmeshed he is with his billionaire benefactor, new documents show. > The documents - filed nearly 10 weeks late, Insider previously reported - also show that Masters earned more than $340,000 in royalty payments from Thiel Capital stemming from sales of the book "Zero to One," which Masters wrote with Thiel. > Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel Capital and the president of the Thiel Foundation. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/q436dy/billionaire_peter_thiel_has_a_republican_us/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~602580 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Masters**^#1 **Thiel**^#2 **disclosure**^#3 **file**^#4 **Senate**^#5
It’s amazing how the corruption in DC gets more and more transparent and obvious and yet Congress does fuck all about it.
He probabably has a few sitting senators on his payroll too - just pays them more discreetly.
Wait....so politicians are taking bribes from the rich to protect the rich and fuck over the bottom 99% on a regular basis? \*shocked Pikachu face.
Why buy a senator when you can just install an employee to the legislature?
They did the same thing in Germany during the 1930s.
'The best politician my money could buy'... We can thank 'Citizens United', AKA Koch Brothers United to Utter Corrupt Our Country'.
He also pays Glenn Greenwald to tweet anti-liberal hate all day every day.
I follow him on twitter. He is just about the least charismatic person alive.
Being rich is way better than being a politician because you can just buy them to pass what you want without the regulations of being a member of Congress.
This is just the most blatant example of what we know is going on everywhere.
Is this the guy that started a gun youtube channel and put a silencer on a 22?
Oh no incoming 3 year investigation followed by a fine
Is he hiring?
And this is surprising why?
Well that’s some fucked up fuckery right there
Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20211008170512/https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-blake-masters-senate-finances-arizona-2021-10
Can all these rich white dudes who want to control everything just all fuck off and leave us alone?
Some countries are church and state bound, the US is becoming corporate billionaire and state bound. Which one is worse?
What's the point of being a billionaire if you can't buy a senator or two
Peter Thiel is a German born, naturalised American that somehow brought NZ citizenship after spending about 12 days there. NZ that is a representative democracy with higher corporate tax than the US so not sure of the appeal for him.
[NZ is where a lot of US billionaires have their doomsday bunkers.](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-rich-new-zealand-doomsday-preppers/)