The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money • Hacker News Board

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#121

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 1:21 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #118

jessaustin wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firms will be happy to buy a product wholesale that they cannot in turn distribute to consumers? What are they, farm-aid charities? Let's try to remain focused on the plausible.

Who said anything about them being happy? But that has absolutely nothing to do with whether they are forced to buy gallons they don't want or RIDs they don't want.

Now you're talking about maintaining two sets of books, and somehow regularly disposing of vast amounts of some unknown substance that isn't fit for use in automobiles. That sort of scheme won't even get started before it falls apart, because it relies on the silent cooperation of dozens of people throughout the organization. TFA describes schemes that lasted for years, because they depended on the actions of only one or two people. You assume that liquid matter is as easy to store and transport as ephemeral ID numbers, but it really isn't.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#122

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #121

Dylan16807 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about them being happy? But that has absolutely nothing to do with whether they are forced to buy gallons they don't want or RIDs they don't want.

Now you're talking about maintaining two sets of books, and somehow regularly disposing of vast amounts of some unknown substance that isn't fit for use in automobiles. That sort of scheme won't even get started before it falls apart, because it relies on the silent cooperation of dozens of people throughout the organization. TFA describes schemes that lasted for years, because they depended on the actions of only on…

You make it sound like anyone at the oil company cares what they're buying. They want to tick a box. As long as they buy something that has the legal weight of biodiesel, and isn't expensive to get rid of, they're happy. One set of books, no distributed conspiracy.

Or they could never even bother to ship the gallons. That's not a 'scheme' of any sort at the oil company, it's just the business focusing on the part where it makes a profit and dealing with the regulation of buying biodiesel in the most minimal way possible.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#123

Post by timecube » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 9:40 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55

evan_ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it's fungible, so you don't need to track specific gallons. The point isn't to track the specific molecules that represent one specific gallon, the point is to just track that a gallon was made and sold. Nothing was made, nothing was sold, but he fraudulently tracked a creation and sale by creating the RIN.

How is this so difficult to imagine being games? I "sell" you 10,000 barrels of fuel. Then I give you back 99% of your money. Rinse and repeat, you've generated lots of RINs with little capacity for anyone to catch you downstream. Contrast this with a carbon tax, where in order to legally generate revenue one must pay the tax.

RINs aren't generated when biodiesel is sold, they're generated when biodiesel is produced.

Re: The Fake Factory That Pumped Out Real Money

#124

Post by edkennedy » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

aaron695 wrote: post #93

shard972 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to find a follow up to the iron sulfate story but couldn't find one, would be interesting to hear what happened.

Evidence seems like it worked. Much as people didn't want it to. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/haida-gwaii-o...

The theory behind it is sound, the issue is with sustainability. Changing the ecosystem that much when you have no idea how sustainable the growth is or how it will affect the ecosystem as a whole is risky.