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What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

kentlaw.edu

11–20 of 182 posts

Re: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

#12

> Lebed professes that he did nothing wrong – he did nothing different from Wall Street analysts. He states that he learned how people react to the stock market and acted on that knowledge. So you trick people by lying to them, and it's ok because you take their money indirectly via the stock market. And because some analysts also do this (often suffering legal consequences), then it's definitely not wrong? Shameful.…

[flagged]

Re: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

#13

> Lebed professes that he did nothing wrong – he did nothing different from Wall Street analysts. He states that he learned how people react to the stock market and acted on that knowledge. So you trick people by lying to them, and it's ok because you take their money indirectly via the stock market. And because some analysts also do this (often suffering legal consequences), then it's definitely not wrong? Shameful.…

The entire trading industry is a zero-sum game bro. For someone to win someone else has to lose. As is the advertising industry and surveillance capitalism industry that powers the “free web”. (Only at the edges is new value created. Most of it exists to have large institutionals take money from the small newbs, you’re the fish at the poker table.)

And more broadly, capitalism exploits people.

This is like blaming Andrew Tate for exploiting women but throwing up your hands when Amazon Nike and Apple were running sweatshops and warehouses at scale, exploiting people in general.

Technology just made it easier to extract the rents (eg tax the uber drivers and passengers to pay the shareholder class of Uber).

And generative AI just automates that further. Thanks for all your creativity, judgment and input, humans. You can be fired now thanks!

Hey, if you look at the man behind the curtain, you’ll see all your favorite stuff needs it to even function. For example for Sam Altman’s ventures we have:

Kenya’s cheap brains: https://time.com/6247678/openai-chatgpt-kenya-workers/

Kenya’s cheap eyeballs: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66383325.amp

Don’t shoot the messenger

Re: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

#14
post #2

How is this any different than meme stocks on WallStreetBets?

The difference is merely the essential part of meme stocks that make them meme stocks and not just a pump-and-dump scheme executed by some guy. Other than that, though, totally the same thing.

Re: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

#16
post #7
post #2

How is this any different than meme stocks on WallStreetBets?

This was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Also the article mentions these were thinly-traded stocks. I assume the argument would be that today this sort of thing is happening because it's Tuesday. i.e. it's normalized and if you get burned, it's almost someone's civic responsibility to part you from your money.

Scammers who think it's their "civic responsibility" to dupe their fellow man with intentional fraud should think two or three times before committing to that logic.

If they want to value someone's worth to the human team based on their gullibility to professional liars, it's not reaching very far for other like-minded logicians to value the scammers' worth based on their ability to navigate any other man-made stressor, like their ability to dodge a bullet.

Re: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

#17
post #13

> Lebed professes that he did nothing wrong – he did nothing different from Wall Street analysts. He states that he learned how people react to the stock market and acted on that knowledge. So you trick people by lying to them, and it's ok because you take their money indirectly via the stock market. And because some analysts also do this (often suffering legal consequences), then it's definitely not wrong? Shameful.…

The entire trading industry is a zero-sum game bro. For someone to win someone else has to lose. As is the advertising industry and surveillance capitalism industry that powers the “free web”. (Only at the edges is new value created. Most of it exists to have large institutionals take money from the small newbs, you’re the fish at the poker table.) And more broadly, capitalism exploits people. This is like blaming An…

I concur - we as a society have agreed implicitly (since I think around the 1980s) that it’s everyone for themselves so take whatever the hell you can for yourself, consequences be damned. If you’re lucky, you’ll be dead before the world burns and society devolves into chaos.

Re: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

#18
post #14
post #2

How is this any different than meme stocks on WallStreetBets?

The difference is merely the essential part of meme stocks that make them meme stocks and not just a pump-and-dump scheme executed by some guy. Other than that, though, totally the same thing.

I'm betting that large players manipulate the market through "meme stocks" just like advertisers astroturf reddit.

Re: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

#19
post #17
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire trading industry is a zero-sum game bro. For someone to win someone else has to lose. As is the advertising industry and surveillance capitalism industry that powers the “free web”. (Only at the edges is new value created. Most of it exists to have large institutionals take money from the small newbs, you’re the fish at the poker table.) And more broadly, capitalism exploits people. This is like blaming An…

I concur - we as a society have agreed implicitly (since I think around the 1980s) that it’s everyone for themselves so take whatever the hell you can for yourself, consequences be damned. If you’re lucky, you’ll be dead before the world burns and society devolves into chaos.

In the immortal words of Booker T: “don’t hate the playa, hate the game”

Re: What Happens When a Fifteen Year Old Pumps and Dumps with a Net Profit of $800k? (2002)

#20
Michael Lewis wrote about this story in his book “Next”. Also in the New York Times magazine. The articles and book have some pretty interesting discussion and opinion about this case.

https://www.umass.edu/cyber/readings/marcusarnold.htm

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