Third World USA

[Rod]

Taxes are evaded and sent to tax shelters like the Irish double dutch. Whats the difference?
http://www.academia.edu/9949152/Why..._Companies_Evade_Tax_in_Third_World_Countries
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...rch-ends-with-virginia-and-nyc-announcements/

 

[svart-hvitt]

Speech from 1961.

Feels so antiquated.

 

[RayDunzl]

First Televised U.S. Presidential Debate:

Contrast version moderne...

 

[Ron Texas]

I used to do international tax planning for a living. That link exaggerates things wildly. Nobody had a gun to their head when they gave concessions to Amazon. A new approach taxing gross receipts (turnover) is developing and it will fix a lot of these problems, at least in Europe. Many developing nations are so corrupt there is nothing you can do about it.

 

[Rod]

I used to do international tax planning for a living. That link exaggerates things wildly. Nobody had a gun to their head when they gave concessions to Amazon. A new approach taxing gross receipts (turnover) is developing and it will fix a lot of these problems, at least in Europe. Many developing nations are so corrupt there is nothing you can do about it.

I was reading this recently. https://www.investigaction.net/en/filming-in-the-most-depressing-city-on-earth-jakarta/

 

[JJB70]

I wouldn't call Jakarta the most depressing city on earth. Certainly it has issues, the traffic is a nightmare, there is a lot of poverty but that article is just a highly partisan rant.

 

[svart-hvitt]

I wouldn't call Jakarta the most depressing city on earth. Certainly it has issues, the traffic is a nightmare, there is a lot of poverty but that article is just a highly partisan rant.

The «highly partisan rant» is written by an esteemed journalist:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Vltchek

Have you done investigative work in Jakarta?

Are his photos lying?

Why would he single out Jakarta for his «highly partisan rant» when he knows so many of the dark corners of the world?

 

[JJB70]

I have spent an awful lot of time in Jakarta, including a lot of time in the areas many describe as slums. Esteemed journalist or not, that article is just a cheap hatchet job.

 

[svart-hvitt]

I have spent an awful lot of time in Jakarta, including a lot of time in the areas many describe as slums. Esteemed journalist or not, that article is just a cheap hatchet job.

I think he also writes about «you», Westerners going in and out, closing their eyes and/or being selective in what they see.

I think people are wired differently. As a tourist, coming home, I often have a different view on the state of the destination than other tourists. So I sometimes wonder if people choose to close their eyes. I think it reflects the complexities of our senses and brain.

One tourist destination that always made me wonder if people went their with their eyes open or closed is the USA. For some reason, there is a bit more focus now on things that were always (in the past few decades) visible in the USA.

 

[JJB70]

I spent quite a bit of time working there, I have extensive familial ties to Jakarta and many friends (including friends who are far from the higher echelons of society) and have watched Indonesia and Jakarta as an interested observer for over 20 years. Is it a perfect city? No. Which is one reason I find articles like this so disappointing, you could easily write a hard hitting factual story about the problems in Jakarta. Which makes running off an op-ed rant just feel like lazy journalism.

 

[svart-hvitt]

I spent quite a bit of time working there, I have extensive familial ties to Jakarta and many friends (including friends who are far from the higher echelons of society) and have watched Indonesia and Jakarta as an interested observer for over 20 years. Is it a perfect city? No. Which is one reason I find articles like this so disappointing, you could easily write a hard hitting factual story about the problems in Jakarta. Which makes running off an op-ed rant just feel like lazy journalism.

Well, the same notions have been made by many more who have ties to the USA, who have lived in the USA, who live in the USA, by Americans - on the state of the USA. It’s as if some people talk about the land of opportunity and glory while others point to the fact that incomes are flat for decades and new jobs are third-world jobs only. So we have one country - one state - and two widely differing views.

One journalist could come back from the USA to tell about the entrepreneurial spirit on the west coast and the nice student life of Boston, while another journalist could come back and tell about the depression in core America and indebted students that work at McDonald’s.

I guess what Andre Vltchek, the journalist, is trying to do, is to tell a story that nobody else tells. He argues that all press reports are positive, while he is presenting a different view. Backed up with photos.

So it’s understandable then, that some readers and viewers respond by saying this is «no true Jakarta»*.


*https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

 

[Rod]

Well I lived for over a year in one of the poorest area of the Philippines. If I just visited the tourist areas and not lived among the people of the Philippines I would not have any idea of there daily lives. While not exactly the same as Indonesia, its no picnic if your poor in the Philippines. Lots of similarities, but Indonesia sounds like the Philippines on steroids. Came back with a changed perspective.
Typhoon Haiyan hit that Island right after I left. Now the mountains around me are burning down. I wonder how it will become here as these events start taking a toll. I imagine like in the Philippines or Indonesia, you will survive on your own wits.

 

[JJB70]

Well, the same notions have been made by many more who have ties to the USA, who have lived in the USA, who live in the USA, by Americans - on the state of the USA. It’s as if some people talk about the land of opportunity and glory while others point to the fact that incomes are flat for decades and new jobs are third-world jobs only. So we have one country - one state - and two widely differing views.

One journalist could come back from the USA to tell about the entrepreneurial spirit on the west coast and the nice student life of Boston, while another journalist could come back and tell about the depression in core America and indebted students that work at McDonald’s.

I guess what Andre Vltchek, the journalist, is trying to do, is to tell a story that nobody else tells. He argues that all press reports are positive, while he is presenting a different view. Backed up with photos.

So it’s understandable then, that some readers and viewers respond by saying this is «no true Jakarta»*.


*https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Much of that I'd agree with, however do you honestly think that article is in any way insightful or balanced?

There is a deeply unpleasant sense of somebody visiting a place they've already decided they hate just so they can sneer at people they clearly look down upon. Does anybody really think people brush their teeth in water a kid has just dropped a turd into? That is basically just saying people are so stupid they brush their teeth in s**t. Nobody goes shopping in the malls? That'll be news to the shops. Supermarkets are empty? I obviously hallucinate a lot when I travel as I've yet to visit an empty one (including in the rat infested, filthy, diseased slums where the locals are all busy stealing and killing each other apparently). To claim there is no middle class is absurd, the middle class has expanded massively over the last 20 years. The poor are to be despised because they maintain a sort of happiness rather being like the good poor people of India who are sensible enough to be communists and start civil wars. Culture died in 1965, Jakarta is a monument to fascism (always a good sign of lazy journalism) and people are religious which means they are clearly stupid. The whole thing is just one long demented rant with deeply a unpleasant tone of supercilious sneering at the poor, at people who aren't poor (if they're not part of the stupid poor stealing etc etc then they're rich which means they're thugs and bandits), women are bimbos (call me a cynic, but I suspect the same writer who happily dismisses Indonesian women as bimbo's would react angrily to use of that word to describe other women). I could go on.

However, there is something in that article that just screams that the writer visited a country and completely failed to notice one of the salient aspects of Indonesian political life, given that he seems to consider himself blessed with special insights its a rather glaring and shocking omission. I'll leave it to people to figure out what that failure is, a clue is in the reference to Ahok.

As I say there are enough bad things in Jakarta that if a journalist can't write a hard hitting story about the city without resorting to this sort of disingenuous rubbish then they're not much of a journalist. If anybody visits anywhere and is so negative about it and fails to see anything positive then that say's more about them than it does the place they're visiting. The article is just partisan nonsense written for an echo chamber IMO.

 

[Jorj]

Nuance is becoming a lost art. Expertise is nearly dead. I fear for our future.

 

[svart-hvitt]

Much of that I'd agree with, however do you honestly think that article is in any way insightful or balanced?

There is a deeply unpleasant sense of somebody visiting a place they've already decided they hate just so they can sneer at people they clearly look down upon. Does anybody really think people brush their teeth in water a kid has just dropped a turd into? That is basically just saying people are so stupid they brush their teeth in s**t. Nobody goes shopping in the malls? That'll be news to the shops. Supermarkets are empty? I obviously hallucinate a lot when I travel as I've yet to visit an empty one (including in the rat infested, filthy, diseased slums where the locals are all busy stealing and killing each other apparently). To claim there is no middle class is absurd, the middle class has expanded massively over the last 20 years. The poor are to be despised because they maintain a sort of happiness rather being like the good poor people of India who are sensible enough to be communists and start civil wars. Culture died in 1965, Jakarta is a monument to fascism (always a good sign of lazy journalism) and people are religious which means they are clearly stupid. The whole thing is just one long demented rant with deeply a unpleasant tone of supercilious sneering at the poor, at people who aren't poor (if they're not part of the stupid poor stealing etc etc then they're rich which means they're thugs and bandits), women are bimbos (call me a cynic, but I suspect the same writer who happily dismisses Indonesian women as bimbo's would react angrily to use of that word to describe other women). I could go on.

However, there is something in that article that just screams that the writer visited a country and completely failed to notice one of the salient aspects of Indonesian political life, given that he seems to consider himself blessed with special insights its a rather glaring and shocking omission. I'll leave it to people to figure out what that failure is, a clue is in the reference to Ahok.

As I say there are enough bad things in Jakarta that if a journalist can't write a hard hitting story about the city without resorting to this sort of disingenuous rubbish then they're not much of a journalist. If anybody visits anywhere and is so negative about it and fails to see anything positive then that say's more about them than it does the place they're visiting. The article is just partisan nonsense written for an echo chamber IMO.

You are reacting like these people on Vltchek’s Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1059797493834280960

Vltchek has lived in Indonesia, in the region and elsewhere. He has written a book on Indonesia:

https://www.amazon.com/Indonesia-Archipelago-Fear-Andre-Vltchek/dp/0745331998

And he has written a book based on interviews with Indonesian freedom fighter Pramoedya Ananta Toer:

https://www.amazon.com/Exile-Conversations-Pramoedya-Ananta-Toer/dp/1931859280

About Pram: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pramoedya_Ananta_Toer

This Vltchek Twitter message goes to you @JJB70 as well:

«Then your greatest writer of all times, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and your best President ever, Gus Our, were 'spreading false information', too. Listen to them on my film "Terlena - Breaking of a Nation". Pram wrote his last, conclusive book (Exile) with me, not with you!».

In other words, Vltchek is knowledgeable.

If we go 50 years back in time, I guess a lot of Soviet people would attack a foreign journalist describing the communist miracle. So there is nothing new under the sun when those who are closest to a problem don’t quite get it.

 

[JJB70]

In this I don’t think it is a question of getting it or not getting it. The article includes statements which are demonstrably untrue, and the highly emotive and pejorative tone and phrasing would be deeply unpleasant regardless of whether or not I agreed with the article. Some of it is really rather xenophobic and most of it is deeply patronising of Indonesian people, tell me honestly, do you think it is in any way commendable to categorise a nation of over 200 million people into rich gangsters and thugs, bimbo’s and the stupid and religious poor? I can’t imagine most would be sanguine about making such a gross generalisation. Which makes it rather ironic he accuses Indonesian’s of being racist. I’m sure there are plenty of racist Indonesian people, no different to any other country in the world, but I also think if this guy has been strutting around Indonesian dismissing all and sundry as thugs, gangsters, bimbo’s, the stupid poor etc then I think the fact he hasn’t been well received is much more indicative of local people being able to assess character pretty well than racism. The whole fascism angle is also a bit odd and it strikes me as little more than the traditional attitude of many on the left to promote a binary view of the world in which people are either good communists or bad fascists (boo!!!), it’s not helpful and not accurate.

The other thing which reveals the guy is either seriously ignorant of Indonesia or peddling an agenda is that he makes no reference to the elephant in the elephant in the room of Indonesian society and politics, without an understanding of which it is impossible to try and make sense of the 1965 genocide, the melt down following the late 90’s Asian financial crash etc. Either he is oblivious to it or he is trying to promote a simplistic ideologically based impression of a very complex set of relationships. The schism in parts of Indonesian society has nothing to do with political ideology. One of the defining characteristics of a cult or sect is that if reality doesn’t fit an ideology people try to alter reality rather than accepting their ideology is wrong, it seems clear to me that this article was written by somebody who lives in a bubble whereby reality is altered to fit ideology.

 

[svart-hvitt]

In this I don’t think it is a question of getting it or not getting it. The article includes statements which are demonstrably untrue, and the highly emotive and pejorative tone and phrasing would be deeply unpleasant regardless of whether or not I agreed with the article. Some of it is really rather xenophobic and most of it is deeply patronising of Indonesian people, tell me honestly, do you think it is in any way commendable to categorise a nation of over 200 million people into rich gangsters and thugs, bimbo’s and the stupid and religious poor? I can’t imagine most would be sanguine about making such a gross generalisation. Which makes it rather ironic he accuses Indonesian’s of being racist. I’m sure there are plenty of racist Indonesian people, no different to any other country in the world, but I also think if this guy has been strutting around Indonesian dismissing all and sundry as thugs, gangsters, bimbo’s, the stupid poor etc then I think the fact he hasn’t been well received is much more indicative of local people being able to assess character pretty well than racism. The whole fascism angle is also a bit odd and it strikes me as little more than the traditional attitude of many on the left to promote a binary view of the world in which people are either good communists or bad fascists (boo!!!), it’s not helpful and not accurate.

The other thing which reveals the guy is either seriously ignorant of Indonesia or peddling an agenda is that he makes no reference to the elephant in the elephant in the room of Indonesian society and politics, without an understanding of which it is impossible to try and make sense of the 1965 genocide, the melt down following the late 90’s Asian financial crash etc. Either he is oblivious to it or he is trying to promote a simplistic ideologically based impression of a very complex set of relationships. The schism in parts of Indonesian society has nothing to do with political ideology. One of the defining characteristics of a cult or sect is that if reality doesn’t fit an ideology people try to alter reality rather than accepting their ideology is wrong, it seems clear to me that this article was written by somebody who lives in a bubble whereby reality is altered to fit ideology.

An outsider’s view is often painful.

Still, it is part of scientific method to have an outside view; for good reasons.

 

[JJB70]

When did the scientific method come to include fabrication and cheap ethnic stereotyping?

 

[svart-hvitt]

When did the scientific method come to include fabrication and cheap ethnic stereotyping?

«Fabrication» and «ethnic stereotyping». That are the same accusations Vltchek would hold against the Indonesian regime and their supporters in the West. So you accusing him of foul play would make for a good discussion betweeen you and Vltchek

BTW, I searched on the net for «Vltchek» and «fabrication» and didn’t find anything of substance.

Since this is an audio forum, one last question: How many concert halls are there in Jakarta, a city of 12 million?

 

[Jorj]

«Fabrication» and «ethnic stereotyping». That are the same accusations Vltchek would hold against the Indonesian regime and their supporters in the West. So you accusing him of foul play would make for a good discussion betweeen you and Vltchek

BTW, I searched on the net for «Vltchek» and «fabrication» and didn’t find anything of substance.

Since this is an audio forum, one last question: How many concert halls are there in Jakarta, a city of 12 million?

All rhetoric aside, that article really is a rant, IMO. I've never been to Jakarta, but have spent time in Phnom Penh. You could easily make all the same gross characterizations and caricaturizations about it, and you would be just as wrong as Vltchek. Despite the broken streets, corruption, garbage and poverty, there is also life, re-emerging culture (no thanks to the Khmer Rouge) and a lot to love.

And since this is an audio forum, let us all recall that highly respected audio journalist, Michael Fremer, before we broadly assert that respect and popularity equates to the accuracy and quality of reporting. The internet does lead to a certain suspension of introspection and civility, and I've found that this forum seems to be one that defies the trend, and I hope we can keep it that way.