Bernie Madoff has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#341

Post by LB232323 » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #30

Here's the one lesson I really want us to all learn from this: the only thing the rich fear is prison because prison robs them of time. Fines are just the cost of doing business. There are many other scandals: the whole subprime disaster, pollution from plants and the like where no one went to prison and people really should've.

The only reason this guy got charged is because he was a plain scam artist running everything out of his personal bank account.

Unfortunately, the highest levels of financial crime are tied to lawmakers and corruption of the highest authorities of white collar law enforcement.

It's usually outsiders and smaller operations that get caught. Corporations are in charge of a corporate oligarchy, which is the United States.

These entities are "too big to fail". They are so essential to the economy that the best you can hope for from the government is maybe a scapegoat going to a comfortable prison or a hefty fine.

TL;DR

Bringing down the largest corporations for crime is like trying to arrest the US president for war crimes.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#342

Post by Ekaros » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

sushisource wrote: post #281

backtoyoujim wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. -- “Bernie really was a successful businessman with quite original insights into the market, and he’s continued applying his business instincts in prison,” Fishman said. “At one point, he cornered the hot chocolate market. He bought up every package of Swiss Miss from the commissary and sold it for a profit in the prison yard. He monopolized hot chocolate! He made it so that, if you wanted any, you had to…

Assuming that's actually true, what an amazing picture it paints of him just being a complete fucking dick. It's not like the money he was making from that mattered at all... he did it just for shits and giggles. What an unbelievable asshole.

Also goes to prove that system was broken. It should not be possible for single individual to corner any market in prison. Either spendable money or amount of items sold per prisoner should be limited...

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#343

Post by bboylen » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #336

bboylen wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is going to invest cash into a business that has to stop operating for N months, while maintaining everyone on payroll?

Why would anyone invest anything in this scenario? Most companies in the world operate without any investment whatsoever.

As we saw with the covid market crash, a lot of companies (like airlines) don't keep a lot of cash on hand. If they had 0 revenue for several months but still had operating costs, I am assuming they would need a loan

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#344

Post by Ekaros » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

zymhan wrote: post #108

kiba wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this obsession with jailing people? Prison is pretty inhumane, especially in the context of a limited lifespan. Even if we're immortal, it's still inhumane. Moreover, how does making people go to prison fixes anything? It's just a way to assign punishment and blame people.

You can't just fine billionaires and expect that they'll reform.

Or maybe we could. Just make them go enough to negative without option of bankruptcy... Paying at couple billion back after selling all the holdings and property don't sound too unreasonable. We could even leave them some money to live like sum equal to minimum wage.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#345

Post by bboylen » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #340

bboylen wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is going to invest cash into a business that has to stop operating for N months, while maintaining everyone on payroll?

Perhaps one of the many professionals working in distressed debt or special situations? If you're not familiar, there are desks at Goldman, etc called "Special Situations" that focus on relatively niche investment opportunities. Investors just need the price to be right. Would likely be bad for the shareholders, but again, that's part of the punishment.

There could be a price that worked but I don't think there are many businesses that can go offline for several months and come back fine. I'm most familiar with the industry I work in, (O&G), where a day not operating is an incredible loss. Is shutting down the oil refineries and petrochemical complexes what is best for the country? I just struggle to see how this wouldn't just punish normal workers and furthermore just make the economy worse off as a whole

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#346

Post by ajcp » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

dougmany wrote: post #312

ajcp wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the (now deeply ingrained) confusion stems from a misconception surrounding the Citizens United vs. FEC ruling, where the majority opinion in part cited campaign finance restrictions as a violation of First Amendment rights. Since the Bill of Rights are protections of citizens rights, it has widely been misreported that this meant the SCOTUS ruling de jure recognized corporations to be citizens themselves. Th…

At the end of the day the corporation is still enjoying those rights. The majority chose to ignore the veil and freely pass along citizens rights the to association.

I agree, it was too broad an interpretation, since corporations already have a legal representation and are an economic entity, not a civil society association through which citizens relate to or exercise their political will.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#347

Post by smolder » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #316

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…

I think this may create asymmetries between risk/reward for those (real) people making the decisions. Think about it with a sports analogy. If I cheat and take performance enhancing drugs, there’s huge potential upside: I can drastically increase my salary. If the consequence was spread to the team rather than concentrated on the individual it encourages the individual to take that risk. Maybe the team would be force…

If workers had to worry about the ethics of their employer getting the whole company in trouble, that would be a good thing in the sense of drying up the labor pool for dubiously run companies. On the other hand, the Justice Dept doesn't always land on the side of justice, so smaller companies could end up victims of abuse of the court system in the name of competitive advantage.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#348

Post by Ekaros » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #276

tim333 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really a good definition, dragged up by the Google bot without a link to the source. It says "Definitions from Oxford Languages" but I'm having a job finding where that was from. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... was kind of similar and has " a plan for making money that involves encouraging people to invest by offering them a high rate of interest and using their money to pay…

I'll admit, Ponzi schemes could be considered centralized by definition. It might be more accurate to describe it as a pyramid scheme -- because investors become a part of the scheme, actively seeking more investors from whom they hope to recoup their investment -- or a pump-and-dump, focusing on the market component. Re: Bitcoin as a digital payments, my complaint there would be that Bitcoin is not structured to ret…

I don't think Bitcoin is any type of scheme. It's just a typical bubble. As a new asset class. Nothing special or schemis about it.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#349

Post by bidirectional » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

finikytou wrote: post #334

finikytou wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure. they dont get access to all robinhood transactions. their trading algorithms do the work. if you know a few ms in advance the trades you can literaly make money out of it. and this should be clearly advertised when getting into robinhood. Your argument that it is to help retail traders to enter for cheap into trading is fallacious. It is exactly like saying getting into real estate nowadays is a no brainer due…

You re right. they do the trades for robinhood users. What do you think they do between the time they receive the order and execute it? don't forget that the default trade on robinhood has no limit to it. you buying market value. now try doing that on millions of users just like madoff did playing with the cents.

They make their cents (or less) on the bid-ask spread, as do all market makers. They do this while also improving the execution of the trade for the end user. Some of that spread goes back to Robin Hood via PFOF. Citadel allows people to buy stocks for less than they would normally, this is an irrefutable fact.

What do you think they're doing in that time? Please be specific because I have no idea what part of this mutually beneficial, standard operating procedure is meant to be a criminal conspiracy. The people losing out are institutional investors who cannot access the same execution quality as a retail investor, because they trade in greater volume and are more likely to be behind a market move.

Re: Bernie Madoff has died

#350

Post by vidarh » Wed, Apr 14, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

bobthechef wrote: post #254

vidarh wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Norway, a "life" sentence used to be 21 years, with parole possible after 14. Now there is a stricter option that in theory can end up being actual life, but it requires extension by 5 years at a time after evaluation to determine if the prisoner is still an active threat to society, and it's rarely used. US sentencing has always seemed absolutely crazy to me, to the point where if I through some magic found mysel…

I see, so Breivik can go kill a bunch of children and hang out in "prison" with his XBox and hope to leave on parole? And that's normal for you? I mean, if you think that isn't an insult to the victims, their families, etc.; if you don't think that's absolutely crazy, and I don't know what to tell you, man. Heck, if killing someone, let alone that many people, isn't so bad, why do we care about any other crime as muc…

> I see, so Breivik can go kill a bunch of children and hang out in "prison" with his XBox and hope to leave on parole? And that's normal for you?

Breivik is unlikely to get out because he is likely to continue to be deemed a threat on every re-evaluation. But if he demonstrates that he is reforming and is no longer likely to be a threat, then yes, that is not just normal to me but desirable.

It is a system that works given that re-offending rates in Norway are low.

I'd consider it an absolute insult to victims of violent crime to focus on things like retribution over policies shown to actually reduce the rates of future crime.

Valuing the perpetuation of violence for the sake of retribution over reducing the number of victims seems to me the height of barbaric and immoral behaviour.

But even without any benefits to re-offending rates I'd still consider it barbaric to threat prisoners badly for retributive purposes. Free will is a fiction, and so when we are punishing people for anything other than the practical purposes of keeping society safe we are no better than those we assign blame for crimes, we just tell ourselves we are.