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The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

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461–470 of 748 posts

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#461

Can we discus recovery? The Madoff trustee was able to recover something like 90% of the Madoff Ponzi. Alameda and FTX's real estate purchases have value, as do their VC investments, purchases of bank stock, etc. In other words, it's not all gone. My understanding is that even some of the political contributions can be clawed back. FTX's purchases of IOU's (i.e., crypto) that declined in value are not likely to be re…

The problem is opportunity cost. People invested in Madoff to grow their money. So if I invest $100 in Madoff and ten years later they say “we recovered $90, congrats,” yeah that’s better than nothing. But if I had put that into a legitimate investment, maybe I’d have $180. Other folks got money out of Madoff during his scam years, and the trustee says “I’m taking that money back to pay back others.” So much of crypt…

> Other folks got money out of Madoff during his scam years, and the trustee says “I’m taking that money back to pay back others.”

What’s the limit on that? Dollars or time? I would be beyond furious if I was expected to help make someone else whole.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does political corruption work? We would need to visit a party in Washington DC to be able to describe it precisely, but it probably can be summarized as “one hand washes the other.”

Very imaginative, but a little short on evidence.

You think there is no evidence that corruption exists? Or maybe you think it’s just “a few bad apples” problem?

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#465
post #430
post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely by then we'll have had a powerful enough pope to rename the months at least once.

SEPTember = 7 OCTOber = 8 NOVember = 9 DECember = 10 Fixed it! And do we need the name "JASON" (July to November) first letters? Seems unnecessary.

Easier to make the year begin in March.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#467
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most systems don't have a Y10k issue: year numbers are variable-width already. Forcing a fixed-width 5-digit representation is creating a Y100k issue.

Never made sense how any software would consider the year value as _two characters_ when an integer works far better. There's even a 0 epoch date for crying out loud.

I was under the impression it was a quirk in cobol.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#468
post #462

Here is SBF's full statement: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenehrlich/2022/12/13/exclus... Worth a read

Not really. He's a pathological liar. There's probably great incriminating evidence there (as in lies that can be exposed as lies for not a word of that person can be trusted) and it's good to see him whine that his accounts got blocked but it's not a good read.

The six counts of conspiracy are a great read though. I wonder who his co-conspirators are but in case they're in the Bahamas those implicated may not be sleeping that well: now they just saw that even the bahamian authorities bow to Uncle Sam.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#469

Is there going to be any reckoning for the VCs who poured money into this ridiculous business? I don’t see how you respect Sequoia’s judgement after this.

that is why VCs are diversified

I don’t mean a financial reckoning, I mean a reputational one. Why would you want to do business with such foolish people?

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#470
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most systems don't have a Y10k issue: year numbers are variable-width already. Forcing a fixed-width 5-digit representation is creating a Y100k issue.

Never made sense how any software would consider the year value as _two characters_ when an integer works far better. There's even a 0 epoch date for crying out loud.

I think this is a generational divide when computers were significantly more limited. If you look at older data formats, they are nearly all fixed width. Either due to punch cards, memory constraints, performance considerations, or just band wagoning, prematurely optimizing for date representation seems silly.
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