The Outrageous Life & Suspicious Death Of Jeffrey Epstein

[Cochise]

Exactly.
It's a matter of perspective.
If you've been raised in a world where morality is what you define, where money isn't a goal but a reality, where you are surrounded by those who consider personal wealth to be a standard of value, then your morality is almost alien to many others.
Look around the globe, in economics, in politics - wealth equates with power. And power gives wealth. It's an almost inconceivable symbiosis. The bigger the amount, the more divorced from the majority. After all, the gaining of power and wealth is a goal to many ... how you use both depends on your own personality.
GM was born into wealth for wealth's sake. Her morality was dictated by those around her. In effect "we are rich so normal rules do not apply". Now, I for one, do not forgive her for her role in the whole sick affair. Guilty (in law) or not, she is a product of her social setting. Why should she consider herself doing wrong by providing poor children for her wealthy on/off boyfriend? He is rich and the poor are products, to use, abuse or discard. I honestly think she doesn't see - in herself - what she did wrong. If she expresses remorse, it is far from sincere; it's what her legal team told her to express.
Bottom line is there is a super-upper class. For right or wrong, they call the shots because they have shitloads of money, something that represents power in the international world. They've been born into obscene wealth and they look at those without it as ... not them. An alien species. They don't mean to be parasites but we've let them become such.

We - ordinary and 'not rich' - cannot know what it's like to inhabit the super-upper class world. Thus we can't understand the complete disconnect with 'our' world. We might - just might - understand a pervert who likes to have sex with small children. But we really can't understand a section of society who doesn't care about someones perversion ... because "they are one of us". To be brutal, we might accept someone who's a pervert but is rich for 'world domination'. We can't get our head around who is a pervert because they've been raised to see some people as objects ... and are rich.
In short - how can we, ordinary folk, communicate with those who were raised and indoctrinated with the idea that they are not ordinary.
They are elite so rules do not apply.

At the most successful period of my life I had some glimpses of that super-upper-class. I'm very glad I never became part of it. To get there requires more boot-licking and hypocrisy that I would ever have stomached. But at least part of my fall from Grace, as it were, was telling the truth to certain people who didn't want to hear it. At least I got out without being framed, which was the way a person in another very senior position who suffered the same problem - telling the truth to people who didn't want to hear it - was got out of the way.

I'd rather be broke and have a reasonably clear conscience.

 

[Analogue Boy]

It could have simply been another one of his blandishments.

Or a message that he’s washing his hands and not to expect any help from him.

 

[Cochise]

Bonus fact re Maxwell pere - he once lost £1.5 million in three minutes at the Ambassador Casino in London. He was playing three roulette wheels simultaneously. I mention this merely to give some idea of the scale of money these super-upper-class folk are dealing in.

I'd be seriously upset if I lost £150.

 

[Stormkhan]

Bonus fact re Maxwell pere - he once lost £1.5 million in three minutes at the Ambassador Casino in London. He was playing three roulette wheels simultaneously. I mention this merely to give some idea of the scale of money these super-upper-class folk are dealing in.

I'd be seriously upset if I lost £150.

And this is where perspective is needed. When you get a wealthy person who says "it's reasonable that I pay £80 for breakfast - but you pay for it!" you should question WHY!

 

[Analogue Boy]

Bonus fact re Maxwell pere - he once lost £1.5 million in three minutes at the Ambassador Casino in London. He was playing three roulette wheels simultaneously. I mention this merely to give some idea of the scale of money these super-upper-class folk are dealing in.

I'd be seriously upset if I lost £150.

I don’t think Maxwell was super-upper-class. Just another wide boy operating without any scruples at all.

 

[Analogue Boy]

And this is where perspective is needed. When you get a wealthy person who says "it's reasonable that I pay £80 for breakfast - but you pay for it!" you should question WHY!

That occurs to me every time I think of the costs of BBC’s Antiques Road Trip. My licence fee going on shitty tat, vintage car hire and overnight accommodation. All for a 50 quid profit for Children In Need.

 

[Cochise]

I don’t think Maxwell was super-upper-class. Just another wide boy operating without any scruples at all.

I thought that was part of the definition

 

[Analogue Boy]

 

[kamalktk]

The previously sealed documents have now been unsealed.

 

[uair01]

Look out because it's ZeroHedge

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1289043110710906885

Dozens of exhibits related to Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were unsealed Thursday evening, providing insight into allegations against the financier and his purported 'madam,' as well as other high-profile individuals, including Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz and several other people whose names one can only guess (and the internet has).



The documents, related to a 2015 civil defamation lawsuit against Maxwell by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, were ordered to be released on July 23 by US District Judge Loretta Preska - which also included flight logs from Epstein's private jets, as well as police reports from the multiple locations where Epstein maintained residences.

 

[kamalktk]

If I was the still unnamed even in unsealed documents "owner of a large hotel chain", and in France around the same time as Naomi' Campbell's birthday, I might be concerned.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1289025821362053120

 

[Vardoger]

It could have simply been another one of his blandishments.

Well, he obviously knew her well once, else he wouldn't have used those words.

 

[Stormkhan]

Thing is, it's all very sordid. But we have all known it goes on. In a distant way, we're all complicit.
Like the "Me Too" movement highlighted sexual abuse in the film industry, and everyone looked so damn surprised while for DECADES the phrase "the casting couch" was used with a smile and a wink, everyone is surprised this has gone on.
If you are a multimillionaire, you can pay people, you can buy people, to do anything you want. That's why these people want to be multimillionaires. It's a 'perk' of the position. Normal rules don't apply. If it goes to court then YOU have chums that you've got leverage on to get you off. The judge "just happens" to be given a perk by a friend of yours ... and so on.
The attainment of wealth as a life objective perpetuates this toxic attitude!
If you are poor, you are told to work to become rich. If you become rich then you are told you aren't rich enough to 'qualify'. When you qualify as ultra-rich then your concern doesn't focus on maintaining your wealth but maintaining the privilege that your wealth brings. It's like a financial "keeping up with the Jones" but detaching yourself from the less wealthy.
What I've never got my head around is ... why?
Money is the power behind the world and money can make your life easier but why put this value on money, play up to absolute wankers, if your life can exist without the "extras"?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Thing is, it's all very sordid. But we have all known it goes on. In a distant way, we're all complicit.
Like the "Me Too" movement highlighted sexual abuse in the film industry, and everyone looked so damn surprised while for DECADES the phrase "the casting couch" was used with a smile and a wink, everyone is surprised this has gone on.
If you are a multimillionaire, you can pay people, you can buy people, to do anything you want. That's why these people want to be multimillionaires. It's a 'perk' of the position. Normal rules don't apply. If it goes to court then YOU have chums that you've got leverage on to get you off. The judge "just happens" to be given a perk by a friend of yours ... and so on.
The attainment of wealth as a life objective perpetuates this toxic attitude!
If you are poor, you are told to work to become rich. If you become rich then you are told you aren't rich enough to 'qualify'. When you qualify as ultra-rich then your concern doesn't focus on maintaining your wealth but maintaining the privilege that your wealth brings. It's like a financial "keeping up with the Jones" but detaching yourself from the less wealthy.
What I've never got my head around is ... why?
Money is the power behind the world and money can make your life easier but why put this value on money, play up to absolute wankers, if your life can exist without the "extras"?

Psychopathology. These people have a mental illness. They believe they are superior, even to other ultra-rich people.

 

[Xanatic*]

Isn't being able to do what you want without repercussions reason enough?

 

[Sabresonic]

Thing is, it's all very sordid. But we have all known it goes on. In a distant way, we're all complicit.
Like the "Me Too" movement highlighted sexual abuse in the film industry, and everyone looked so damn surprised while for DECADES the phrase "the casting couch" was used with a smile and a wink, everyone is surprised this has gone on.
If you are a multimillionaire, you can pay people, you can buy people, to do anything you want. That's why these people want to be multimillionaires. It's a 'perk' of the position. Normal rules don't apply. If it goes to court then YOU have chums that you've got leverage on to get you off. The judge "just happens" to be given a perk by a friend of yours ... and so on.
The attainment of wealth as a life objective perpetuates this toxic attitude!
If you are poor, you are told to work to become rich. If you become rich then you are told you aren't rich enough to 'qualify'. When you qualify as ultra-rich then your concern doesn't focus on maintaining your wealth but maintaining the privilege that your wealth brings. It's like a financial "keeping up with the Jones" but detaching yourself from the less wealthy.
What I've never got my head around is ... why?
Money is the power behind the world and money can make your life easier but why put this value on money, play up to absolute wankers, if your life can exist without the "extras"?

Good post.

 

[madmath]

Psychopathology. These people have a mental illness. They believe they are superior, even to other ultra-rich people.

There are studies that show those who are ultra-rich will act in ways different to the "common" folk, believing they "deserve" what they have and more so. One example is a bowl of candies. When it is believed they are unobserved poor people will take one, but the very wealthy are more likely to take more than one. And it covers the whole political spectrum, left to right.
Epstein and his friends used people not just because they could, but because they believed they deserved it, they've "earned" the right to act outside the laws, and their wealth and privilege are entirely of their own making.

 

[Stormkhan]

[...] There are studies that show those who are ultra-rich will act in ways different to the "common" folk, believing they "deserve" what they have and more so. [...]

What I object to is our society, and others, playing up to this assumed 'difference'.
Our politicians, who hold power over everyone's day-to-day existence, have not all got there by merit. Fair play - some do. They've worked hard, 'bucked the system', got their job by themselves. But there y'go - they've 'bucked the system'.
It's human nature to judge by immediate visual signals. So if someone has a more expensive suit than you, sounds posh and you've been told they are 'right' then we tend to be subservient. But on further analysis, it all falls apart.
You are expected to accept value from others.
Frankly, I wouldn't recognise an 'expensive' suit from ... er ... a business suit. We're told it's an 'expensive' suit.
I come from a working class background but went to a multicultural (and expensive) private boarding school where my own accent (to my family) became posh but (to others) still had the sahf London twang. If I concentrate I can easily put on a 'posh accent' and my interest in the English language makes it really easy to use 'the right phrases' to appeal to different demographics. I own a shop and interact with many folks ... you'd be amazed how useful this is! Bottom line, though, is that a public school accent indicates intelligence and being in the upper classes.
Finally, the Old Boys Network never went away.
The UK class system never went away.
If you are told "Hello, I employ you in the firm that my father owns, and I am telling you that this chap is great!", you tend not to disagree. In theory you can but you do understand that you can be sacked. (Don't get me started on employment laws!)
The sum is that you get a rich berk (who may in himself be a nice guy) be sent to Eton (a given) then University to study political economics and philosophy (always good to teach you how to argue unprovable assertions) to become a politician for his Dad's party ('cause who d'you think paid for his breeding?) and get to be Health Secretary just because you voted for Brexit when all your chums did?

And we find it hard to understand the concept of meritocracy?
You'd rather employ someone on the grounds that he speaks posh, smells nice and his Dad says he should tell you what to do?

 

[PeteS]

There are studies that show those who are ultra-rich will act in ways different to the "common" folk, believing they "deserve" what they have and more so. One example is a bowl of candies. When it is believed they are unobserved poor people will take one, but the very wealthy are more likely to take more than one. And it covers the whole political spectrum, left to right.
Epstein and his friends used people not just because they could, but because they believed they deserved it, they've "earned" the right to act outside the laws, and their wealth and privilege are entirely of their own making.

It's about time the reverence shown to the rich and famous came to an end. Sadly these characters are seen as some sort of role model to some people, despite the revelations that continue to emerge about their characters.
And giving knighthoods to people who invent ludicrously expensive hoovers, people who can peddle their bicycle faster than their mates, those who can work out how to eliminate enemies better than others and all their ilk should be abolished.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

It's about time the reverence shown to the rich and famous came to an end. Sadly these characters are seen as some sort of role model to some people, despite the revelations that continue to emerge about their characters.
And giving knighthoods to people who invent ludicrously expensive hoovers, people who can peddle their bicycle faster than their mates, those who can work out how to eliminate enemies better than others and all their ilk should be abolished.

Not sure I agree with all those points.
Plenty of sportsmen and women, inventors, entrepreneurs etc. have benefited society in very positive ways and I don't begrudge them getting some recognition.

 

[Yithian]

Not sure I agree with all those points.
Plenty of sportsmen and women, inventors, entrepreneurs etc. have benefited society in very positive ways and I don't begrudge them getting some recognition.

We could definitely be more fussy.

Famous for five minutes doesn't cut it.

 

[escargot]

*trying REALLY hard not to mention the latest round of honours*

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I don't begrudge Sir Ian Botham being made a lord.
You know I'm a huge cricket fan and he was always my greatest hero of God's own game.

 

[ramonmercado]

*trying REALLY hard not to mention the latest round of honours*

I know, we were both passed over again, gutted.

 

[Mythopoeika]

And giving knighthoods to people who invent ludicrously expensive hoovers, people who can peddle their bicycle faster than their mates, those who can work out how to eliminate enemies better than others and all their ilk should be abolished.

I think we all need something to aspire to, to make us strive for excellence.
That said, honours are now being handed out like Smarties, to a few people who don't deserve it (this is in the eye of the beholder).

 

[Sabresonic]

I think we all need something to aspire to, to make us strive for excellence.
That said, honours are now being handed out like Smarties, to a few people who don't deserve it (this is in the eye of the beholder).

Remember that brat Beckham not getting the list but slagging Katherine Jenkins for getting one.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Remember that brat Beckham not getting the list but slagging Katherine Jenkins for getting one.

I don't remember that. Katharine who?

 

[Sabresonic]

I don't remember that. Katharine who?

Welsh lass, nice singer easy on the eye.

 

[PeteS]

*trying REALLY hard not to mention the latest round of honours*

Go on - you know you want to.