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Bernie Madoff has died

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Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#191

Post by tralarpa »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #113
nemacol wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the % of income idea.

I like it simply because screwing the rich and middle as hard as the poors on trivial issues is gonna make it real clear real quick how excessive penalties for common civil offenses are and pretty soon thereafter the laws will change. HN has this fantasy of $10k speeding tickets. In reality it's gonna look like 100mph speed limits, $100 fines for you and $10 fines for your nanny.

> $100 fines

Where I live, that's what you pay when you drive 10mph too fast.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#192

Post by BTCOG »

cletus wrote: post #81
nemacol wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that a system of public service / community service requirements instead of fines would be better for common offenses? Without any real research I have often thought that instead of fines for parking violations, noise complaints, (other misdemeanors) etc - having someone spend time instead of money would make those sorts of punishments more equitable. There are issues - child care if a parent has to spen…

The criminal justice system already does this extensively. Often people are sentenced to community service. So I guess your question is really should this be extended to more low-level offenses like minor traffic violations? It's an interesting question. In Switzerland, for example, speeding above a certain level ceases to be a fixed fine and is instead a percentage of your income. I'm a fan of that. Fixed fines tend…

I'd much rather pay a $100 fine for whatever it is, than waste 2-4 hours of my time.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#193

Post by solveit »

MereInterest wrote: post #70
_ea1k wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that I see how it could be a ponzi scheme. Ultimately, everyone has as many bitcoins as they believe that they have. The only question is how valuable are those coins? That should always be a function of market demand.

Money goes in, with the promise that you will get more money out at the end. While this works in some cases (e.g. investing in a business that produces value), in this case the only other money in the system comes from other people buying into it. Therefore, I believe bitcoin to be equivalent to a ponzi scheme. Implicit in this is the assumption that bitcoin does not provide value in itself, which is another discussi…

> Money goes in, with the promise that you will get more money out at the end.

Who promises?

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#194

Post by shawnz »

hctaw wrote: post #182
shawnz wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no nonexistent enterprise in this case. Nobody is claiming that the returns of cryptocurrency speculators are coming from a business venture.

the nonexistent enterprise is the use of bitcoin as a medium of exchange

Bitcoin actually functions as a medium of exchange and that's not an enterprise anyway.

Is there an expectation that by buying Bitcoins, you are funding the growth of a business which creates profits by using your investment, and those profits are where your investment return is coming from? If that's not the case, then it isn't a Ponzi scheme.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#196

Post by finikytou »

bidirectional wrote: post #134
finikytou wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said it was ok. I said he is in jail because he stole the rich. If he stole the poor he'd be on the trading desk of some bank in wall street. Who is in jail today for the subprime crisis?

How exactly are sell-side trading desks stealing from the poor?

I meant Madoff would be free to do whatever he wants. But ill bite. Just look at all the robinhood millenials getting robbed by Citadel that literally has insider knowledge of all the robinhood transactions.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#197

Post by FooHentai »

soneca wrote: post #33

Madoff made his ponzi scheme last 17 years with a limited network. Imagine how long a ponzi scheme accessible by the whole world could last. Possibly forever (or at least longer than my lifetime). I am thinking about Bitcoin here.

S’funny, I was thinking about fractional reserve banking and post-2008 economic stimuli.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#198

Post by shawnz »

saalweachter wrote: post #185
minwcnt5 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold might be a better example then.

Eh, gold is probably more analogous to houses. The current price is largely a product of the speculation in the market, but at the same time ... a lot of people buy houses just because they want to live in them. So you have people buying houses at two, three times the price they'd be paying without the pure real estate investors speculating up the price, but at the same time, they're just buying them because they wan…

It doesn't matter if all the activity is 100% speculative, that is still not a Ponzi scheme. Maybe you might call it a bubble, but it isn't a Ponzi scheme.

In order for it to be a Ponzi scheme, speculators would have to believe they are actually investing in a business which uses their investment to generate profit, and not simply speculating against other investors. The investors must be misled about the actual source of their returns.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#199

Post by believeinskills »

seneca wrote: post #190
etripe wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't put Exxon in jail. If a corporation is a legal person with inalienable rights (as the SCOTUS seems to have decided on), but is intangible and immortal at the same time, what can you do? Any of the below: * freezing assets (=~ reclamation) * seizing accounts (=~ civil forfeiture) * suspend a business license (=~ locking them up) * introduce a revenue cap (=~ prison labour) * remove lobbyists (=~ losing vot…

> If a corporation is a legal person with inalienable rights (as the SCOTUS seems to have decided on) Please stop repeating this nonsense. Corporate Personhood is a legal idea, and does not mean a "corporation is a legal person". Without corporate personhood, you wouldn't be able to sue a company for wrongdoing if the guilty employee quit, or even enforce basic contracts. There are serious problems with corporations…

Want to elaborate?

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#200

Post by hackflip »

mannykannot wrote: post #186
john_moscow wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Joe Bigshot, former SVP at BigCo, was sentenced to 5 years in jail, and had to sell two of his nine houses to pay the $20M fine" is much better. Well, they sort of do that in Russia. So the CEO/founder of almost any sketchy company is a homeless person that signed the paperwork in exchange for some free vodka. Didn't particularly solve the problem. Corporate fines just need to be sufficient to make such "business" u…

The second paragraph of the post you are replying to seems to anticipate this response: "So, we need to both move more towards prison and start digging in to which actual people inside bad corporations were responsible for deciding to do wrongdoing." In the post-Enron world, however, executives have learned how to use incentives to motivate their minions to break the law without being explicitly told to do so. On the…

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"
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