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Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

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Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#291

Post by rayiner »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #248
rayiner wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, just because they caused the financial collapse doesn't mean they broke the law.

CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation) origination fraud is a crime. The GFC was not caused by law abiding activities. It was fraud, plain and simple. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/bank-america-pay-1665-billion... As part of the RMBS Working Group, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey conducted a FIRREA investigation into misrepresentations made by Merrill Lynch to investors in 72 RMBS throughout…

"Fraud" can be civil fraud, or criminal fraud. Criminal fraud is something like "they said they were going to sell me something, but just took my money instead." Civil fraud might be something like "they sold me 10-inch sandwiches as 12-inch sandwiches."

What you're describing in the paragraph above is even one step removed from the sandwiches. Knowing that "loans had material underwriting and compliance defects" doesn't prove that Merrill Lynch lied when it said "the borrowers ... were likely and able to repay their debts." It might lead to an inference to that effect, but it's not indisputable proof. Likewise, the fact that it "rarely reviewed the unsampled loans to ensure that the defects observed in the samples were not present throughout the remainder of the pools" might lead to an inference of negligence, but is not indisputable proof of fraud.

Everything described in that paragraph is classic civil fraud and negligence, not criminal fraud.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#292

Post by ctrl-j »

harryh wrote: post #200
ctrl-j wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you would argue that directly profiting from raising the price of a necessary life-saving medication is equivalent to making charitable donations to foreign countries? That seems to be a stretch to me...

What makes it a stretch? In both scenarios there is a tradeoff between personal gain and someone else's wellbeing.

It's a question of personal responsibility:

* I mug you, compared to being a bystander while you are mugged.

* I hit you with my car, compared to being a passenger in the car ahead of the one that hit you.

* I price-gouge you on a medication you need to live, compared to buying a laptop for my job instead of sending that money to buy food for someone half a world away.

Do you really not see the difference?

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#293

Post by nerfhammer »

jmcgough wrote: post #118
yodsanklai wrote: post #11

I used to watch some of his investment tutorials on youtube as well as other videos. For someone called the "most hated man in America", he actually seemed like a nice person. I also enjoyed his trollish sense of humor.

Used to watch them as well, really bright guy, entirely self taught. I TA'd organic chem and he might have had a deeper understanding than I do. He really needed to learn when to stop talking, and where to draw the line with his actions, sadly.

He's exceptionally intelligent and I think he also has one or more kinds of personality disorder

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#294

Post by hackermailman »

Didn't see in the article if he did a plea or actually went through a trial because in finance cases you're supposed to just plea using a hired 'prison consultant' as part of the deal so you get the white glove Madoff treatment where he's teaching economics to cons at a min security camp.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#295

Post by TheCoelacanth »

kolpa wrote: post #78
dgllghr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, I noticed that our system punished him for defrauding the wealthy and not for jacking up drug prices, which harms the average American.

He didn't even defraud the wealthy. He played fast and loose but he won for his investors.

No, he defrauded his investors and lost their money.

He later managed to come up with money from another source to pay them back, but that doesn't erase the fraud that he previously committed.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#296

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

harryh wrote: post #237
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think philosophically it has to do with being the agent that causes harm. If I never existed to give charitable donations, those people in Africa are not in a worse situation because I am not here. My existence, and my possible charity can only improve this situation. If Martin never existed, those poor people would possibly be much better off, getting a more fair price for their medication instead of paying the th…

If Martin never existed, those poor people would possibly be much better off Well maybe . One of the reasons that drugs get invented is because people are willing to buy the rights to manufacture and distribute them. If Shkreli, and other people like him, didn't exist the drug might not be there in the first place. But you ARE obligated not to make it worse. I can think of lots of places that people make my life wors…

Just because someone, business or person doesn't want to continue a relationship with you, doesn't mean they are doing you harm. Harm is not doing something you don't like.

Harm is purposely spilling nails and glass on the public road so that you can sell people more tires.

If you are trying to take the pure libertarian stance, that whatever the free market dictates is ok, I am actually fine with that. But you can't grant Patents to companies in that situation and give them special legal protection.

When the public grants you a legal monopoly and special protection, whether it is through a patent, or your local power company, they are only required to act responsibly and not take advantage of that protection.

I actually think the most just punishment for Shkreli's actions would have been to open source all the medications he abused. So any person or business with the tools to combine the chemicals would be allowed to do so, and sell them for whatever price they wanted.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#297

Post by CobrastanJorji »

c3534l wrote: post #233

This whole thing seems like the justice system struggling to punish someone for doing something that wasn't illegal, finding something else to pin him with (and he was guilty of it, sure), then basing sentencing on that other crime, but using this new charge as a smokescreen. This whole thing reeks of corruption, but the kind of corruption where the people abusing their authority think they're the good guys.

Usually I withhold accusations like "reeks of corruption" for people who did not definitely commit a serious felony and then antagonize the system about to sentence me.

Did the fact that he was universally hated by the whole country make his sentence for his crimes worse? It's entirely possible. Does that mean the judge was corrupt? No, that's not what that word means.

What should you learn? If you're ever convicted of a serious crime, apologize profusely, then shut up, and maybe don't offer a bounty of a presidential candidate's hair.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#298

Post by jonathanjaeger »

thewizardofaus wrote: post #220
se30b wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He really screwed himself over while he was on bail. He probably could have gotten off with what his attorneys wanted (around a year) if he just shut up until after the sentencing was over. But he kept trolling on livestream and twitter and acting like it was a given that he would get off easy. Obviously he was joking around with the Clinton "threat" but he should not have given prosecutors anything to use against hi…

Shkreli taught me lots. If it wasn't for shkreli's advice and guidance my stock portfolio would be a mere fraction of what it is today.

Wow, it really is a treasure trove. I'm interested in biotech and could definitely use this kind of primer. Are you investing in biotech or are you just speaking in general?

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#299

Post by daxorid »

danso wrote: post #267
stale2002 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you are saying is that he had his sentance increased because he hurt a judge's feelings? That's basically what this comes down to. Imagine if jay walking was punishable by death but it was only ever enforced against people who mocked Trump. Inconsistent enforcement just allows the people in power to go after their political oponents for the "real" crime of hurting their feelings.

> That's basically what this comes down to. The judge didn't create the law regarding securities fraud, nor did she instigate the charges of fraud, nor did she even have a voice when it came to deciding to convict (it was a jury trial). So how does this all boil down to a judge's feelings being hurt? All crimes will be inconsistently enforced until we've built a policing apparatus that operates like the equivalent of…

> So how does this all boil down to a judge's feelings being hurt?

The way I read the parent is that this conviction would almost certainly not merit seven years in a typical non-Shkreli case.

But the judge handed down seven years, not because of his crime, but because of his attitude. The OP even suggested as much, suggesting if he had just "kissed the ring", the sentence would have been substantially less.

I read the parent's outrage as being that justice isn't blind - it metes out sentences based on the feelings of a judge toward a defendant's attitude. The crime itself only matters insofar as judges must abide by minimum and maximum sentencing guidelines. Within those guidelines, how you feel about a defendant is fair game.

edit: I would also add that, for those of us with less than stellar social skills, it's easy for social incompetence to be misinterpreted by other people as being an asshole. For us, this aspect of the justice system is at least mildly worrying.

Re: Martin Shkreli has been sentenced to seven years in prison

#300

Post by [deleted] »

birken wrote: post #149
bhouston wrote: post #5

He was so obnoxious that I guess it is easy to be happy about that, but he was so small time in the grand scheme of things. But nearly no bankers responsible for the 2008 financial crisis ever went to jail: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/how-wal...

Like it or hate it, this is what the SEC does. You think Martha Stewart deserved jail time for making 50k in an insider trading scheme she didn't really care about? The SEC finds very public cases and then brings the hammer down in order to act a deterrent. Martin Shkreli broke the law, something he didn't have to do. It isn't like it was mob justice and some hugely biased jury convicted him of all the crimes he was…

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