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Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

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Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#291

Post by Apocryphon »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #242
dna_polymerase wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Herbalife still is a 'real' business. Ackman would like you to think otherwise but it still is. The whole thing might be a point against short sellers.

Another famous short seller, John Hempton, responded to Ackman's short with a very public investment case for going long Herbalife (he argues it's a kind of social club with supplement sales attached as dues). Short sellers definitely don't bat anything close to 1.000 though.

Sounds like regulators have found Herbalife to be fraudulent after all, even if it hasn't affect it's stock price too much.

https://dealbreaker.com/2020/05/herbalife-fined-for-china-br...

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#292

Post by barry-cotter »

ncmncm wrote: post #234
dathinab wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Berlin Airport Sadly (luckily?) this wasn't corruption but plain out retarded levels of incompetence...

Sustained gross incompetence is usually a mask for corruption. Without the corruption, normal corrective mechanisms that minimize products of incompetence elsewhere are allowed to operate.

Sustained gross incompetence is the norm when it comes to megaprojects like Berlin Airport. Late and very over budget is the norm for projects originally budgeted to cost over $1 billion. You don’t need bribes or backhanders.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#293

Post by imtringued »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

This is just conventional lobbying. It's pretty bad when the lobbyists come from a company with a monopoly like an ISP but every other company is still at risk of being boycotted.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#294

Post by marton78 »

petre wrote: post #250
qayxc wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that gross incompetence is not a crime. You can't arrest someone on account of them being an idiot. It's the responsibility of the other party members and especially the opposition to demand him being removed from office. Funnily enough the Green Party demanded exactly that, but then again that's the same party that wants general speed limits... So yeah, of course any party that wants to get reelected…

> You can't arrest someone on account of them being an idiot. No but you can sure fire them, in the private sector at least. The 21 km/h above the speed limit would probably not make the auto industry very happy. What good is a Porsche if one needs to drive slowly?

Yes. Driving on the autobahn without speed limit is our 2nd amendment.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#295

Post by phyalow »

dang wrote: post #229

The Wirecard stack so far: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23668365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23662704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23638624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23598824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23573386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23438323 This, from April 2019, reads interestingly now: https://news.ycombinato…

Indeed, after my comment on that last links thread, I took out a sizeable short against Softbank, which paid fairly well. Masayoshi San's reality distortion field has since pulled a second (or third even) act against investors, perhaps time to double down.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#296

Post by freeflight »

FabHK wrote: post #273
freeflight wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, it's not like Russia or the CCP and you're not in danger of being suicided if you uncover some high level dirt Gustl Mollath [0] would probably disagree with that notion, just like the death of Jürgen Möllemann [1] left more questions unanswered than a proper investigation of him would very likely have answered. Similar situation with Wolfgang Hüllen during the CDU donations scandal. Similarly the NSU process…

Mollath wasn’t killed: he was falsely imprisoned and received EUR 670k compensation for that. Mölleman‘s death was suicide (the accomplished parachuter jumped out of a plane less than half an hour after his parliamentary immunity was revoked, opened the main chute, cut it, and didn’t open the reserve, (and the automatic reserve deployment was disabled)). Seriously, it’s not Russia.

> Mollath wasn’t killed: he was falsely imprisoned

He wasn't imprisoned, they sent him to the asylum for 8 years because claiming German banks could do criminal things is just such crazy of a thing to do.

Which has quite some similarities to what happened to Hessian tax investigators [0] that were too successful for their own good: Using psychiatric assessments to discredit people who blow the whistle on corruption.

In that context it's quite cynical how nearly every high-profile suicide in Russia is framed as some kind of political hit-job ordered straight by the government, while in other countries people are looking for any reason to deny the existence of foul play.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steuerfahnder-Aff%C3%A4re

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#297

Post by HPsquared »

gumby wrote: post #105
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…

Germany is notable for its lack of “retail” or low level corruption (cops don’t take bribes, you can get a building permit by following the rules, etc). One of the best in the world. But at the highest levels the opposite prevails, up there with France or even the US. Not Kleptocracy by any means, but bad by OECD standards. Because it’s so institutionalized it doesn’t really appear in those “corruption index” reports…

I suppose corruption at higher levels has greater incentives and is harder to eliminate than low-level corruption (perhaps). I wonder if there are any books on the subject - general principles of how corruption develops and decays.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#298

Post by HPsquared »

oh_sigh wrote: post #216
chki wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bribery isn't "hard to prove" but instead there are no credible bribery accusations at all. Missmanagement in massive infrastructure projects are a much more reasonable explanation. It also makes a lot of sense because the actors are often state government officials that have never overseen a comparable project. Planning an airport or a new flagship concert hall is difficult. I agree that there were serious mistakes…

Why would the management of a massive project be given to a group that has no experience with such a massive project?

Any number of reasons. Maybe they had the lowest bid?

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#299

Post by oblio »

amiga_500 wrote: post #281
oblio wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Romania. You don't know how good you have it. The low level corruption is the thing that eats away at your soul and poisons your day to day life. High level corruption? Awful, but we have that too. But having to bribe the nurse so that your grandma gets painkillers (or toilet paper!) in the hospital? Having to bribe the police officer to get your driver's license? Having to bribe the lady at the counter work…

They have it so good because they complain about stuff that is trivial relative to countries like Romania. It's a constant battle and to be satisfied is to give up.

Yeah, right. Survivor bias in action. Romania didn't choose to do a lot of the things it did. It didn't choose to be a Communist state for 45 years, for example. History matters.

And if you think Romanians are somehow content:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932019_Romanian_p...

They were in the news everywhere, from Deutsch Welle to the New York Times.

I find your comment dismissive of those down the ladder, maybe I'm misinterpreting it. It also seems unaware of history or recent news.

Re: Germany’s top financial supervisor dismissed a decade of warnings about Wirecard

#300

Post by rasz »

formerly_proven wrote: post #171
s9w wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not what happened at all.

That's true and you are getting downvoted incorrectly. At first the interior minister wanted to move him to another equally well-paid position, but due to political backlash and also Maasen insisting there is a "radical left cabal" against him inside the government was retired early, which is still very much a golden parachute, but also the intended way for the government to remove political officials from office.

Retired to join law firm he was fighting while heading BfV. Clearly no conflict of interest there.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-ex-spy-chief-maassen-to-join-la...

I hope the revolving door didnt hit him in the ass.

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