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The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

bloomberg.com

71–80 of 111 posts

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#71

Interesting fact about this case: At first, the police made statements that there was no signs of forced entry and they were not seeking suspects. This led numerous media outlets to report it was a murder-suicide. After the family conducted a parallel private investigation which discovered contrary evidence, the police finally ruled it a double homicide. https://www.cp24.com/news/sherman-family-s-lawyer-offers-10m...

That's all in the original article.

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#72
post #2

Were these the people connected to the Clinton Foundation?

I don't think there's a place on Hacker News for this kind of crackpot conspiracy theorizing.

Now that there's been some time to see all the comment threads, there was nothing crackpot about the straightforward question about a Clinton connection.

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#73
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A billionaire has a lot to lose if he ever gets caught. Why risk even a small chance of spending the rest of your life in prison with the common criminals you detest so much? Unless the stakes are extremely high, it's better to forget about the few tens of millions you didn't make and just chill in your yacht. Meanwhile, the modern legal system offers a much better way to destroy your rivals, take their money, and pu…

A billionaire has as much to lose as almost anyone else. You don’t perceive wealth as “more to lose”.

A guy working for McDonalds and living in a small run down apartment in a bad neighborhood definitely has less to lose by going to prison then a billionaire.

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#74
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large companies and those who run them can be both ruthless and amoral. I think it’s a mistake to think the average person’s intuition would apply here.

This is it. If you tell a typical senior executive at a company that their actions will lead to the death of 10 million people, their primary concern will be if the company will still make money one the deal, then how they can hide their actions from regulators in order to maximize their return. You might think they would consider whether or not they'd be jailed, but that thought never crosses their mind.

I disagree. Very, very few people, CEOs included have that little disregard for human life. Most CEOs aren't that different from you or I.

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#75
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A billionaire has a lot to lose if he ever gets caught. Why risk even a small chance of spending the rest of your life in prison with the common criminals you detest so much? Unless the stakes are extremely high, it's better to forget about the few tens of millions you didn't make and just chill in your yacht. Meanwhile, the modern legal system offers a much better way to destroy your rivals, take their money, and pu…

A billionaire has as much to lose as almost anyone else. You don’t perceive wealth as “more to lose”.

Yes, they do. Poverty creates desperation. They also have less to gain. Most any billionaire likely understands that earning a few more billion will not change their life that much.

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Give me literally the orders you put in, with a timeline for the hit. Then explain the price points, liquid capital & risk stats you need to make a particular profit. This is basic stuff for actual short sell trades so I presume it is easy to produce in the “hit a CEO” fund space.

The problem is not the difficulty of the trade, the issue is that the SEC watches for people who profit off of unexpected events like this and unless you have a large track record of trading against companies it's going to put you right at the top of the suspect list. In your other comments you try to make it seem difficult but when you are in control of a hit at a specific time the risks can be heavily mitigated. Th…

Well that and you are scheduling a murder for hire at a specific time & also the price movements of a share price at a specific time.

While also managing the risk of either of those times being off even a little & not accounting for the risks of the criminality of the trade.

Let me make this easier for you. Pick a share price now. A range of share prices post news event. A % chance each of those prices happen given the outcome you know will happen and an optimal execution path. Show your work on the Greeks.

What does that look like for shorts? What happens when you add the risk pricing of “go to prison forever for being stupid” to the mix?

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#78
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if I had observed all of it, I would be implicated, wouldn't I? Most of the material comes second-hand. It's not hard to open up a biography of a powerful figure and dissect it.

It seems more likely that at certain times elites have found they have more in common with each other than the lower classes even across religious or ethnic boundaries. This was certainly true for at least part of the Middle Ages. As Saladin famously said to Guy of Lusignan, "kings do not kill kings." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_of_Lusignan

It's not just "elites" (or I'm not clear on what you mean by that). For example, if you're a cop around dirty cops it's not enough just to not be a snitch. If you are around dirty business they will force you to accept bribes so you are in on the mutually assured destruction.

See also gangs, etc.

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#79
post #21
post #11

I am kind of surprised billionaires and CEOs don't order each others' killings more often. I was doing homework one night and the building next door's top 2 floors were blown up because some banker had a hit placed on his head. So perhaps I have pretty low expectations on what powerful people without morals can do.

It is indeed surprising because the profit motive is there and it is not limited to just rival billionaires. Any random guy with enough capital can short the company stock and then place a hit on the CEO. I would expect stuff like that to happen super often but I don't think I have even heard of one real case like this.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-08-12/the-10...

Law number 5. not a hit on the CEO, but close. Those trades are hard to pull off. the SEC is looking for successful out of the money options trades.

Re: The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire

#80

I wonder if he had spent more money on security, drivers, personal assistants, etc., whether that would have protected them more from unsavory people in their lives and these extra staff might have given the police more leads in the case. And why wouldn’t they have invested in better security and monitoring of their home? Crazy.

The lack of a serious security system is the craziest part of all of this imho.

Not only were they extremely rich, but they splashed money all over the place in various charitable events and business dealings.

It seems almost irresponsible to at the very least place a security camera system that monitors the grounds of the home and offices where they spent the most of their time.

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