alephnerd

Yep. It's basically noblesse oblige. At that level and stage of life, the main driver is legacy building ("will I be in the history books").

If someone wanted to live hedonically, you don't need to be a billionaire - a $15-20M net worth would be more than enough.

Those who make the jump from VHNWI to UHNWI have a whole different mindset and viciousness.

JB's philanthropy tends to target Duke and Northwestern (his alma mater).

The push into Chicago was independent of Springfield. It was almost entirely private sector driven and Pritzker's PortCos also participated.

The Quantum Exchange being in South Side occured becuase it's tied to Argonne, Fermilab, and by extension UChicago.

Once you climb high enough the ladder everyone basically has the exact same interests, especially in cities like Chicago.

Something something 1871, ChicagoNEXT, Techstars Chicago, UChicago, Northwestern, UIUC, Purdue

It's the same way Penny (JB's sister and former Secretary of Commerce under Obama) and Ken donate oodles to Harvard because it is their undergrad alma mater (eg. Pritzker Commons, Pritzker Hall, Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences).

Also, Ken couldn't control Rauner given that Rauner was equally wealthy (he founded and chaired GTCR with Carl Thoma of Thoma Bravo fame).

Pritzker and Rauner is basically two sides of the same coin where both were essentially retired but in the same circles and decided to compete because of personal ambition.

That is up to the students and alums of these programs. And many do non-profit and humanitarian work as well.

The world is competitive. It is what it is.

To have the power to affect change you need power.

Ken played a role in bringing the UIUC CS program to Chicago which itself is a major feeder into Citadel. Citadel was one of the founding partners for City Scholars [0] along with DRW and Ocient.

[0] - https://cityscholars.grainger.illinois.edu/

Yes and?

You went to a school who's founder was a robber baron (Carnegie) who deployed the army to put down a strike [0] and who's other founder (Mellon) caused the Great Depression [1] and whose family funded Trump 2 [2].

Alternatively, be happy CMU has more capital to continue to build programs.

Edit: can't reply

> To be fair, the Trumper is a different Mellon

It's the same family and Timothy Mellon is a direct descendent and heir of Andrew Mellon's

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike

[1] - https://time.com/archive/6757394/the-cabinet-death-of-mellon...

[2] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9eed9g3vlyo

Doesn't matter. It was fake news that percolated right around the time the incident was reported.

That was fake news.

It was an Omani national co-pilot who stabbed his Indian-Emirati captain but was then overpowered by Israeli passengers along with South African and Kiwi backup pilots.

"Trapped capital" is not why Intel has doubled down on Ireland.

It's because whenever Intel asks for anything, the Taoiseach, IDA, and Invest Ireland will move mountains to do it.

Ireland is extremely business friendly because their leadership actually listens to industry.

HDI is a good metric for gauging living standards [0]

And slow moving execution and creation of relevant legislation is a hindrance for capex in high risk projects like those in the semiconductor segment.

The Draghi report was published 2 years ago, and remains largely unimplemented.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...

Most fabs build their own separate power grid.

And Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are also energy poor states that have been able to maintain capacity.

The energy excuse is true for some manufacturing processes like automotive in CEE which were pants that were built in the 1990s to 2000s and leveraged Russian ONG, but is a red herring for a lot of other manufacturing processes in Europe.

European states have a coordination problem as Draghi pointed out 2 years ago.

This was a major flaw that I and others brought up a couple years ago when the EU was consulting industry about making its own CHIPS Act.

While bleeding edge backend processes got the bulk of reporting, the major push for the American CHIPS Act was the rebuild packaging capacity in the US (Samsung is working on this in Texas).

This was also the same approach Taiwan, Malaysia, and China used to climb up the semiconductor value chain.

The EU also failed to tie design capacity together as well, as semiconductor design capacity is almost nonexistent in Europe.

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US all share comparable living standards to Western European states yet are able to maintain and expand semiconductor manufacturing.

The issue is with policymaking - coordination between the EU, national, and local governments is weak so high capex projects become risky.

Edit: can't reply

> Your first 3 countries are also incredibly poor comparisons for living standards as they have horrendous work/life balance.

Their hours worked are comparable to most Western European states as well now [0]. Germany is unique in Europe based on hours worked, and is why German industry is pushing to bring back the 40 hour work week.

[0] - https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/hours-worked.html

The bigger worry that CISOs have told me is the Reg S-P amendments.

Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam also have high student visa family rates in Australia. It's not just an India problem.

And a decade ago it used to be Chinese until China started a trade war with Australia [0][1].

[0] - https://theconversation.com/students-in-china-heed-their-gov...

[1] - https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/chinese-students-wil...

At least abroad, an Australian degree that isn't from a UNSW or Sydney tier uni isn't well regarded anyhow.

Like (eg.) RMIT or CQU doesn't open any doors in Vietnam, India, or Indonesia, but all their advertising (which often includes calling out immigration) essentially devalues the reputation of Australia's education system in those countries.

It's the same thing in Canada and the UK.

FYI PhD students are exempted from this regulation, though in all honesty Australia should just shut down degree mill and cash cow programs to nip the problem in the bud.

For example, a Masters in Project Management [0] or Information Technology [1] from CQUni that ends up costing AUD 80k-100k in tuition, fees, and living costs isn't opening any doors professionally in the old country nor in Australia.

But they won't.

Same goes for Canada and the UK.

[0] - https://www.cqu.edu.au/courses/cv84/master-of-project-manage...

[1] - https://www.cqu.edu.au/courses/cc54/master-of-information-te...

> The most interesting thing in the article to me is that there was a dual library/bookstore...

At least in California, libraries often have a community run used bookstore whose proceeds are used to help the library run community programming.

When I was a kid in the 1990s and 2000s, libraries were already de facto community centers as well in the Bay, LA, and BC.

Primarily researchers directly and actively associated with the Ash Center who are researching institutional reform and stability [0] or those associated with the Carnegie Democracy, Conflict, and Governance program [1].

[0] - https://ash.harvard.edu/issues/instutitional-reforms/

[1] - https://carnegieendowment.org/programs/democracy-conflict-an...

Barbara Walter's model (which is what Armitage is leveraging) is deeply flawed and not the norm in most studies into autocracies and state instability.

And to add on to that, Armitage himself has been a provocateur for "soft secession" (which is basically an attempt at trying to instigate a nullification crisis 2.0).

> Why redacted still

Because a number of the people associated with this are still alive on all sides.

1998-2001 was only 25-28 years ago, so a lot of sources are still alive or active sources as we speak, and in a number of cases now decisionmakers in theirs early-mid 60s.

It's the same way how a KGB liaison officer in 1989 Dresden ended up invading Ukraine 25 years later.

> Interesting to read but … why bother?

It still has academic value, and plenty of information to be garnered.

Pakistan and Iran fought a skirmish in December 2024 [0] that was quickly deescalated, but Pakistan is increasingly misaligned with the IRGC as it's working closer with Iran's political leadership [1].

I don't expect a war to happen, but Iran will double down support for Afghanistan as well as lay the red carpet for India to continue operating in the country.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Iran%E2%80%93Pakistan_cro...

[1] - https://quwa.org/pakistan-defence-news/pakistan-iran-mediati...

1. Waivers, state owned enterprises, shell corporations, barter trades, and using their own currencies for transactions

2. I agree. I'm just being prosaic as to why European states are in the pickle they are today.

3. They are closely entwined via logistics, but Cyprus would be an even closer Israel-Cyprus ties. The reality is, the Saudi-Turkiye-Kuwait-Pakistan alliance is a direct reaction to the Israel-Greece-Cyprus-UAE-India cooperation or the now signed Israel-Greece-Cyprus trilateral.

The issue was 1990s-2000s Germany argued it was in Europe's best interest to integrate Russia into the European fabric, but 1990s-2000s France+UK+Italy argued it was in Europe's best interest to integrate the Mediterranean into the European fabric.

When the UK left the EU and France+Italy were in the midst of their economic doldrums due to the Eurozone crisis, this left the hard power states within the EU comparatively weakened.

But the collapse of Minsk II and the ongoing war in the Middle East led to a cascading crisis for a unified Europe.

> Will this bring oil prices down in Europe ... This will not help Asia

This hurts Europe more than Asia.

The UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, and others are similarly opposed to the Houthis having conducted airstrikes on the Houthis (eg. 2025) as well as helping target them directly or indirectly.

And a large portion of global shipping is owned by Greek conglomerates - a country that is a close ally of Israel.

Most GCC states also have some form of defense agreement with the UK or France. If those turn out to be meaningless, it reduces their incentive to cut preferential deals with European states.

Additionally, this further enhances Turkiye and Pakistan's hand, as Saudi Arabia has signed defense pacts with both and Pakistan has threatened action against Iran yesterday if further incidents threaten Saudi Arabia. If they were able to dislodge the Houthis without direct European intervention, then it is a massive black stain on the EU's power projection capacity and it's claim that it should be treated as a great power. It also gives Turkiye additional leverage against the EU.

Finally, the Houthis struck the East-West Pipeline [0]. Much of the KSA's oil is in Eastern Saudi Arabia around Dhahran. Most large Asian states like China, India, Japan, and South Korea have continued operations in Iran that allowed them continued passage. European states lack access to GCC oil as a result of Perim island being controlled by the Houthis.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemens-houthis-rea...

I am an AI booster and have visibility into a number of these models, and this is ridiculous.

They underestimate AI's existing impact on some job markers and overestimate it's impact in such short a timeframe.

CAPS LOCK DOES NOTHING TO HELP YOUR ARGUMENT. IT IS THE FORUM EQUIVALENT OF YELLING

> It's on Paramount+

That's the issue. Paramount+ only has roughly 59 million subscribers in the US.

Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and Hulu/Disney+ remain the big 4 nationally [0].

Additionally, you don't see the same degree of memes, zeitgeist, and discourse for South Park that you would see a decade ago, let alone 2 decades ago (remember ginger kids - it got so bad that multiple kids committed suicide due to bullying arising from kids misinterpreting the episode. Or ManBearPig turning into an epithet for climate change denialism for over a decade until the writing staff retconned it).

This isn't to say it's a bad show. It's just older, and Paramount+ distribution is difficult to access for the 18-34 demographic, amongst whom Family Guy and American Dad remained the two dominant streamed adult cartoons in 2025 [1] despite there also being a South Park season last year.

Frankly, South Park mismanaged the COVID transition - they basically took an almost 5 year hiatus which dropped viewership in a now very competitive adult animated market.

[0] - https://flixpatrol.com/streaming-services/subscribers/united...

[1] - https://www.cartoonbrew.com/streaming/nielsen-end-of-year-st...

Subsidizing unionized EV and Battery manufacturing jobs in deep red states [0], expanding tax credits and subsidizes for the bottom 50% of Americans [1], expanding Medicaid access [2], and other tangible pocketbook benefits showed that a portion of American voters do not care about their pocketbook, and would rather vote based on culture war topics.

And you aren't even American based on your very obvious commonwealth spelling. Butt out of our political commentary.

[0] - https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/08/16/georgia-ev...

[1] - https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/biden-low-inc...

[2] - https://ballotpedia.org/Medicaid_work_requirements_during_th...

Much of the culture war crap that helped justify Tea Party and proto-alt right commentary started out from 2000s and early 2010s South Park.

The "Bernie bro" to MAGA pipeline is very real, as was the "I wanna make sexist or racist jokes" to Alt-Right pipeline.

Anyhow, it doesn't matter what Matt Stone and Trey Parker do now. South Park is boomer media and not easily accessible on modern streaming.