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The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

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Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#221

Post by abandonliberty »

mcherm wrote: post #216
saycheese wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "moral wrongs result in people being locked up behind bars and their liberty taken away from them" Imagine what the world would be like if this was true.

That's pretty much what we do. The difficulty lies in determining what counts as a moral wrong. Some societies have left this in the hands of the judge (or feudal lord). Most modern societies require legislatures to write down the wrongs and have judges enforce them as written. In this fellow's case, society decided that it was NOT a moral wrong. Many people (including the judge) may feel that what this person did (s…

A small but important distinction:

The justice system enforces the will of those who empower it. This has likely never been truly democratic. Not long ago it excluded blacks and women. Bias continues today evidenced by incarceration vs crime rates.

This is very distinct from implementing democratic justice.

Like any organization the justice system is fighting to stay alive - subject to selective pressures and evolution.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#222

Post by nurettin »

So how did the bank screw up like this? They deal with so much money, you and your grandchildren could make a living from the rent they pay for a single branch office. Yet they are unable to purchase the skill set and competence to stop giving people unbalanced credit or stop international fraud at scale.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#223

Post by scotty79 »

raesene6 wrote: post #199
Someone wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Have no money to pay it back" applies to many companies (including many banks) that borrowed money and to many house owners, too. Would you conclude they have no intention of paying it back, too? Many companies also spend money they lent on frivolous stuff (end of year parties, football tables, etc) that doesn't obviously contribute to the bottom line, so buying some booze and spending some money on strippers, in it…

well in the UK when you want to take out a loan, the bank is legally obliged to look at your ability to repay and not loan you the money if you don't appear to have the ability to repay. Home owners have collatoral, business have business plans, those are assessed by banks for ability to repay. If this guy had actually said to the bank "hey I want to borrow $2 million, I have no income and no collatoral" do you think…

But he effectively asked, can I borrow for my next mortgage payment and the bank said "sure". And then he asked for more money and more. He didn't take 2 million $ loan. Just many smaller ones. Which all have been approved by the bank. Just not by any human at the bank.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#224

Post by scotty79 »

pktgen wrote: post #160
Someone wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Have no money to pay it back" applies to many companies (including many banks) that borrowed money and to many house owners, too. Would you conclude they have no intention of paying it back, too? Many companies also spend money they lent on frivolous stuff (end of year parties, football tables, etc) that doesn't obviously contribute to the bottom line, so buying some booze and spending some money on strippers, in it…

> "Have no money to pay it back" applies to many companies (including many banks) that borrowed money and to many house owners, too. Would you conclude they have no intention of paying it back, too? The question isn't whether the loan was paid back, it's whether there was an intent to pay it back at the time the loan was taken out. Many of those homeowners foolishly believed their house would appreciate at 20% per ye…

Maybe he foolishly believed that his life will be worth enough to pay back what he borrowed on some reasonable payment plan.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#225

Post by yomly »

mywittyname wrote: post #169
yomly wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep this is my takeaway from the story. I will not be sad when AI automates away the majority of the legal industry. Really really terrifying that one's access to justice is dependent on their access to finances. Luckily this guy was smart enough to actually represent himself - credit to him for that!

> I will not be sad when AI automates away the majority of the legal industry. It won't. Companies will just sell their specially-crafted AIs to law firms and governments for a lot of money. These AIs are currently used for identifying judges likely to be sympathetic toward your cause.

AI ought to lead to a disruption of the industry.

Currently, the legal industry has managed to entrench itself using technicality which makes it difficult to replicate and leads to very expensive fees. When a software solution comes along - in principle it will be able to scale and therefore charge substantially lower fees while still earning competitive margin as compared to a traditional law firm. This will lead to a democratisation of access to justice.

Think Amazon for retail, Netflix for TV or Spotify for music. (Maybe ignore the part about profits for now...)

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#226

Post by scott_karana »

lucidrains wrote: post #185

Stories like these make me a disbeliever of basic income.

Hah, fair!

Admittedly, there is also some different psychology at play: this guy knew it was a temporary windfall, and wouldn't last.

Even if he was dumb enough to blow his basic income, and end up on the streets for the rest of the year, he probably wouldn't make the same mistake twice ;)

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#227

Post by raesene6 »

scotty79 wrote: post #223
raesene6 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well in the UK when you want to take out a loan, the bank is legally obliged to look at your ability to repay and not loan you the money if you don't appear to have the ability to repay. Home owners have collatoral, business have business plans, those are assessed by banks for ability to repay. If this guy had actually said to the bank "hey I want to borrow $2 million, I have no income and no collatoral" do you think…

But he effectively asked, can I borrow for my next mortgage payment and the bank said "sure". And then he asked for more money and more. He didn't take 2 million $ loan. Just many smaller ones. Which all have been approved by the bank. Just not by any human at the bank.

And you don't think that's a sophistry? Let's be honest he knew full well the bank, if actually asked, would not have approved his borrowing, any reasonable person would.

He took advantage of a mistake made by an automated system from the bank, there was no human going "gee the guy with no income wants another $1000 to add to his massive overdraft, sure why not".

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#228

Post by croon »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #88
mikeash wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, what an asshole. He "was just unlucky"? No, there was not a single piece of bad luck for him in this whole affair. Something strange happened to him, but it was easy to handle without screwing anything up: just tell the bank they messed up, or even just ignore it. Deciding to start spending the money like crazy was not bad luck, it was bad judgment. The bank was clearly in the wrong as well. They shouldn't…

> No, there was not a single piece of bad luck for him in this whole affair. Something strange happened to him, but it was easy to handle without screwing anything up: just tell the bank they messed up, or even just ignore it. Deciding to start spending the money like crazy was not bad luck, it was bad judgment. There's another way to look at it: The "bad judgment" is only bad if you view the standard as "tell[ing] t…

> There's another way to look at it: The "bad judgment" is only bad if you view the standard as "tell[ing] the bank they messed up". If the standard is to blow all the money on strippers and cocaine, then the bad luck in this situation was that he was presented with the anomaly in the first place.

You're equating the standards as either "telling the back they messed up" or "blow the money on strippers and cocaine", but then suggesting the bad luck is only true when one of those standards happen...

This logic doesn't even check out. And even if it did, both would assume your actions are only predicated on factors outside of your control, which I think OP is referring to isn't the case.

You are presented with a beneficial situation. You can make decisions that have various potential consequences. These are easily guessed in rudimentary detail.

"Bad luck" only enters the equation if you have no choice of what to do.

If your position is of the philosophy that there is no free will, then your argument would be better held by just stating that, instead of making up scenarios that aren't compatible.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#229

Post by johnward »

brianwawok wrote: post #152
johnward wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things like this are why it takes me 3 months and numerous trips to the bank to get a home equity loan. I also need to provide proof of what I was going to do with the money. On the plus side I got to witness the loan agent having to use a typewriter in 2016.

I got a HELOC in the US in 1 trip to the bank and about 30 minutes. Was so easy. No typewriter either.

Maybe it was just my credit union then. It seemed excessive. It wasn't more than a car loan which I can do in about an hour.

Re: The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars

#230

Post by scotty79 »

raesene6 wrote: post #227
scotty79 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he effectively asked, can I borrow for my next mortgage payment and the bank said "sure". And then he asked for more money and more. He didn't take 2 million $ loan. Just many smaller ones. Which all have been approved by the bank. Just not by any human at the bank.

And you don't think that's a sophistry? Let's be honest he knew full well the bank, if actually asked, would not have approved his borrowing, any reasonable person would. He took advantage of a mistake made by an automated system from the bank, there was no human going "gee the guy with no income wants another $1000 to add to his massive overdraft, sure why not".

I can understand that many people don't give that much thought to money, banks, how they work, what they do and what they don't do. People go to bank to get a house. Then just make transfers for the amounts that bank tells them.

I can see how a guy could just overdraw his account and wait for the bank to tell him to pay some of it back. Maybe he thougt that when the bank will request some money back he can always sell cars or celebriy memorabilia and make the ends meet.

He didn't cocieve a plan to buy a helicopter or luxury yaht. He was just living little bit above his means for a while.

Fraud is a bit strong name when you are just doing someting noone forbid you to do.

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