[HN Gopher] The Incredibly Stupid One ___________________________________________________________________ The Incredibly Stupid One Author : simonebrunozzi Score : 146 points Date : 2022-07-15 17:08 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.lowellmilkencenter.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.lowellmilkencenter.org) | thriftwy wrote: | [deleted] | _gabe_ wrote: | > And half of the stuff we read further is probably just his | legend, i.e. not true. | | Do you have any evidence of this, or are you just saying this? | And what stuff are you saying is untrue? None of this sounded | unbelievable to me. This man is someone who helped save the | lives of several other soldiers who were being tortured at the | time. If you're insinuating that his efforts are all fabricated | based on no evidence, then it just seems like a weird thing to | insinuate imo. | | And here's something from 2005 with all the same details[0]. | Everything else I've found seems to tell the same story, so I'm | not sure why they would all be wrong (unless you're trying to | say this is all some weird conspiracy or propaganda, which | doesn't seem likely). | | [0]: | https://web.archive.org/web/20050825035929/http://www.usni.o... | thriftwy wrote: | gwbas1c wrote: | For TLDR: | | >Rather than give up information to his captors, Douglas | pretended to be an illiterate fool. | | > Using the nursery rhyme "Old McDonald Had a Farm" as a mnemonic | device, he memorized over 250 prisoners' names. | | > His global impact came when he confronted the Vietnamese at the | Paris Peace Talks in 1970. The information Douglas provided, | including the locations and horrible conditions of the prison | camps, as well as the torture practices used by the Vietnamese | registeredcorn wrote: | It would be worth including the final line | | >Exposing the Vietnamese this way led them to keep POWs alive | until the war was over, saving hundreds of prisoners. | [deleted] | Stratoscope wrote: | Somehow this reminds me of Jeremiah Denton, a POW in that same | war who was interviewed on TV to explain that the prisoners were | being treated humanely. As he gave the verbal answers his captors | expected, he blinked his eyes in Morse Code: -- | -- -- -- * -- * -- * * -- * -- * * T O | R T U R E | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rufnWLVQcKg | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton | silentsea90 wrote: | This is movie script material right here. | franzsmith wrote: | How would the Vietnamese' face be at Paris Peace Conference? | After knowing he gave all the information. | refurb wrote: | Not sure it mattered much in terms of the big picture. | | The North had plenty of highly placed spies in the South. Both | sides were running espionage operations throughout the war. | | And the North had a "fighting while talking" strategy which | meant if they made advances on the battlefield they exploited | them during negotiations and when they took loses they just | delayed until better opportunities arose. | smegsicle wrote: | https://web.archive.org/web/20220715174007/https://www.lowel... | tedheath123 wrote: | Irrelevant to the content of the article, but worth pointing out | that this project is funded by the proceeds of crimes committed | at Drexel Burnham in the 80s. Michael Milken and his brother | Lowell undoubtedly do good through their philanthrophy, but the | cynic in me suspects that it is primarily an attempt to | rehabilate their image and is treated as a business expense. | Maybe it doesn't matter if you do good for the wrong reasons | though. | HoraceSchemer wrote: | I'm not religious, but a particular legend has stuck with me: | | > A philanthropist once came to Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi | to complain that he felt he was giving charity without | sincerity. "Without sincerity? Nonsense!" replied the Rebbe. | "There is plenty of sincerity. Perhaps you are not sincere in | giving charity, but the poor are very sincere in receiving your | charity. Even if you don't mean it, they do!" | | [source](https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1885183 | /jewis...) | dvt wrote: | I live in Santa Monica and often walk past the Lowell Milken | Family Foundation (which is close to the posh downtown). I | always kind of smile and think about the story of how the | Milken Family completely reinvented itself. Michael Milken, for | context, was paid the highest yearly salary in the history of | the world (~250M in one of his highest years if I remember | correctly). He served 2 years in prison, his fine was 600M and | the guy is still a billionaire (he also got pardoned by Trump | in 2020). He's a self-admitted crook and liar[1]. | | How many lives were destroyed (or at least harmed) by hustling | junk bonds? Is that okay now that he is donating money to | cancer research? Forbes and CNN certainly think so[2] (even in | _2004_ , for that matter). William K. Black put it well: "the | best way to rob a bank is to own one." | | [1] | https://web.archive.org/web/20220428215122/https://www.nytim... | | [2] | https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004... | phonon wrote: | > How many lives were destroyed (or at least harmed) by | hustling junk bonds? | | Zero? What evidence do you have otherwise? None of his crimes | were related to the issuance of high yield bonds. It's not | like penny stocks being pushed from a boiler room...he helped | create a market for higher risk, higher yield bonds. | Historically, they have done pretty well in a portfolio. | vba616 wrote: | >How many lives were destroyed (or at least harmed) by | hustling junk bonds? | | I'm not familiar with the context of what Michael Milken did | (although he's famous enough I know the name), but your | (rhetorical?) question sounds very strange to me. | | An omniscient and omnipotent being that knew the right amount | of junk bonds to issue could probably answer how many lives | were destroyed or harmed by creating the wrong amount. | | But when a question like that is asked, you're asking human | beings, not God, and it sounds rhetorical, which means that | the answer is supposed to be obvious, I think. | | If you were asking about milk with melamine in it, then I | would understand what you meant. But junk bonds aren't | inherently useless or defective. | dvt wrote: | > and it sounds rhetorical | | It's rhetorical: the answer is, given how much money he | made, a _lot_. | | > But junk bonds aren't inherently useless or defective | | This seems a bit disingenuous, as they have, by definition, | a very high risk of defaulting. He also manipulated | stocks[1], which, again, is _technically_ a victimless | crime (but is it really?). | | [1] https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-08-09/s70809-4614.pdf | vba616 wrote: | >This seems a bit disingenuous, as they have, by | definition, a very high risk of defaulting | | I'm aware junk bonds have a relatively high expected risk | of default and I'm not being disingenuous. | | Please assume that I'm sincere, as it's required by the | HN guidelines, and also, I am. | | I didn't say anything is a victimless crime or say | victimless crimes are ok (or acts that have victims are | always wrong). So let's not go on that tangent for now. | Or talk about details about Milken, which are beyond the | scope of my previous comment. | | So: I infer you think high risk loans are bad, like | poisoned milk. I don't have a problem with that concept, | really. But there must be a threshold, right? And I have | never heard of anyone seriously putting that threshold | precisely at the word "junk". As far as I know, "junk" is | a term of art, that is opposed to "investment grade". | dvt wrote: | Okay, maybe we're just speaking past each other. My point | is pretty simple, and you're right that I should not have | brought up victimless crimes, etc. | | I'm just trying to say: here's some rich guy that did bad | stuff, went to jail, and received the equivalent of a | slap on the wrist, essentially rebranded his image, and | is now back at the adults' table as a philanthropist, | even though his wealth is funded by his past | illegal/unethical endeavors. And to make things more | bizarre, everyone is totally playing along. Isn't that | kind of funny? | RobRivera wrote: | manipulation of stock is far from a victimless crime | [deleted] | vorpalhex wrote: | At some point punishment has to end and you move forward in | life. The justice system would be a lot more fair if this was | applied equally. | tasty_freeze wrote: | > At some point punishment has to end and you move forward | in life. The justice system would be a lot more fair if | this was applied equally. | | I completely agree, but if I am reading your statement | right, our conclusions are 180 degrees apart. It seems you | are saying it is unfair that some people are forgiven and | others aren't and that Milken is getting unjustly punished. | | My take is there are hundreds of thousands (if not | millions) of people who served more than 2 years for petty | offenses, things like selling dime bags of weed. Their | convictions follow them for life and make future gainful | employment extremely difficult. Yet a highly educated, | white collar guy can steal hundreds of millions and serve | two years in a luxury prison, and then coast the rest of | his life on his ill-gotten gains. That is no justice at | all, and I don't feel the least bit sorry for hoping that | Milken's reputation never recovers. | marcosdumay wrote: | That point has to be further away than the gain a person | got from the crime. | myko wrote: | > Maybe it doesn't matter if you do good for the wrong reasons | though. | | There was an interesting discussion around this yesterday: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094798 (TikTok'er doing | random acts of kindness for clout upset someone he used for his | videos) | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Intent is everything. | [deleted] | DisjointedHunt wrote: | A brave soldier, doing right by his country, which was led into | fighting villagers half way around the world in incredibly tough | scenarios by asshole politicians. | abraae wrote: | The Vietnam war (or the American war as I was corrected in a | bar in Hanoi) was the epitome of unintended escalation. One of | the early escalators was JFK, who was simultaneously extremely | wary of escalation, and is not someone who most people think of | as an asshole politician. Your point has some heft but it's a | simplistic take. | refurb wrote: | As a history nerd I've read a ton of books on the Vietnam war | and pretty much this. | | There is a great book on LBJ's decision to escalate - I can't | remember the title, but it's 300 pages long and only covers a | few months in '65 when the decision to escalate was made. | | People like to think the decision was made in a vacuum but it | was influenced by everything going on at the time and | geopolitical risk going forward. | | LBJ made a decision (there were members of the inner circle | who wanted to pull out) based on what he knew at the time. It | turned out to be the wrong one. | tasty_freeze wrote: | The Errol Morris documentary "The Fog Of War" about Robert | McNamara is amazing. Even though McNamara was in his 80s when | it was filmed, his mind was still razor sharp. McNamara was | highly self-reflective and was not someone to whitewash | history, even his own. | | The documentary covers various phases of McNamara's career, | including his contribution to the Tokyo firebombing raids in | WWII, and a short bit about his work at Ford Motor Company | between the wars, but the Vietnam war part was the biggest | section. | abraae wrote: | It's amazing how brutally honest McNamara was about his own | failings in bringing an MBA type approach to a foreign war. | andrewclunn wrote: | What a bay-of-pigheaded comment. | adamrezich wrote: | isn't it also a bit of a simplistic take to think that | American Presidents truly have the "Commander-in-Chief" power | w.r.t. war decisions that they have on paper? | abraae wrote: | From memory JFK was the prime mover in decisions on the | number of Americans on the ground, their roles and even | their uniforms. | chasil wrote: | I have often wondered if, had the Watergate break-in not been | discovered or reported, South Vietnam might yet exist, and if | they would rival South Korea in their technological | accomplishments. | lern_too_spel wrote: | South Vietnam never had a functioning government. | pdonis wrote: | You should also include high ranking military officers, many | with political ambitions, who put their own aggrandizement or | telling their civilian superiors what they wanted to hear ahead | of their military duties. I recommend H. R. McMaster's book | _Dereliction of Duty_ , which goes into this in great detail. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-15 23:00 UTC)