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Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

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Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#41
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billions of dollars just turned out not to be there. I'm going to throw out a challenge to the idea that the "little man" was the loser here on the basis that little men do not have billions of dollars to lose. Someone bigger than little lost here. If every man, woman and child in Germany chipped in $1,000 that still isn't a billion dollars.

It'd be around 80 billion dollars, actually

I think he confused the us billion (10⁹) with the german billion (10¹²) ;)

Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#43
Invisibilia just released a great podcast about trust, based on the experience of a trader who was harassed by Wirecard. The trader, who was shorting Wirecard, was subject to surveillance, and a constant stream of phishing attacks.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/02/868001948/trust-fall

Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#44

    Trade on shares in the
    company was suspended
What does this mean? Is a certain stock exchange not executing trades anymore? Are all exchanges worldwide in sync not executing trades? If so, how is the sync achieved?

If it only was suspended at the Frankfurt stock exchange which is mentioned in the article, it would be interesting to see how it is doing at other exchanges.

Google is still showing realtime Frankfurt prices. Currently at a market cap of about €350M.

And what is the reason behind that? Is it guaranteed that shares of a company that files for insolvency are worth 0? And therefore the exchanges want to save uninformed investors from buying them?

Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#45
post #22
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am really unsure if it's something "Germans" need to learn. It is probably something that could happen everywhere...

One weird thing I have noticed is that in the UK the phrase “The Germans” is often used instead of “Germany” (where it’s grammatically valid, of course) for some reason. It’s really noticeable if you watch British TV coverage of the World Cup or European Championships. Don’t know if the OP is British or living there, but it’s possible that this is what’s happening and they don’t mean “all Germans ...” and just mean “…

I think UK English carries the intent that Germany is a physical place - an abstract legal notion. While The Germans are the people who live in this place. The place and notion can't really learn anything, while the people who live there could learn something.

Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can just hope the Germans learn lessons from this. N'ah! When it comes to big banks, big industry, big infra projects, German state institutions are super corrupt, it makes Wall Street and the City of London look like saints.

Comparatively, that's unlikely to be true. €1.9bn is pocket money compared to Wall St's and the City's more creative frauds. The UK is currently dealing with a government minister who was involved in questionable planning oversight for a single development scheme worth £1bn - and that's barely even a footnote in the news here.

By 'barely even a footnote', you must mean front page news on most newspapers today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-53173316

Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#47

The entire story is shameful. I can just hope the Germans learn lessons from this.

Another aspect is that the financial auditor responsibility. I am not sure if the financial auditor criminally complicit but I think we are going to figure it out soon.

Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#48
post #43

Invisibilia just released a great podcast about trust, based on the experience of a trader who was harassed by Wirecard. The trader, who was shorting Wirecard, was subject to surveillance, and a constant stream of phishing attacks. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/02/868001948/trust-fall

Well, the first half of it was a podcast about that trader. Then it abruptly shifts into ... I don't know what. A general talk about trust or something.

It left me confused and unsatisfied.

Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can just hope the Germans learn lessons from this. N'ah! When it comes to big banks, big industry, big infra projects, German state institutions are super corrupt, it makes Wall Street and the City of London look like saints.

German here. Big infra projects here rarely fail due to corruption. The way, way bigger issue is that in the last 30 years public service funding was drastically cut which meant that the oversight competence over projects was no longer in house. Overworked officials rubber-stamp utter bullshit because they have neither the knowledge nor the time to properly audit plans. Not just architectural or technical (hello BER…

The trouble is that lack of public tender means cosy deals, national champions and less of a free market.

If some costs aren't being priced in, then procedures should be changed to price them appropriately. I'm not sure the answer is to permit cosy deals between politicians and their patron companies, or depriving citizens of the services of best providers in the market.

Re: Wirecard files for insolvency after financial hole laid bare

#50
This is painful but it's a step in right direction. They have to serve ongoing processes for a couple of more weeks/months. All subsidiaries that can be sold will probably be sold to pay creditors. Hopefully all toxic parts will be removed and a few healthy ones will stay, in one way or another.
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