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FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

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Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#141

Post by ok123456 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #128
ok123456 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just 'The Morning Call.' It came from the top from the elite, international, consensus making publications like The New York Times and the Washington Post. These are the papers of record that have the resources to still do real journalism. We're harangued by them how 'democracy dies in darkness' every time we click one of their links, and yet they chose to give all these guileless grifters flattering covera…

Doesn't Fox News make tons of money? Do you think they could capitalize on this failure of what you describe as the papers of record and start doing investigative journalism into financial and tech businesses?

Fox News is primarily a cable news network that republishes some of their work as articles. Television isn't really a medium that lends itself to long form investigative journalism.

Why would they bother with it when what they're doing is way more profitable? They also have a reputation for being the partisan press. They'd have to completely rebrand to get into a less lucrative area.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#142

Post by pjc50 »

brookst wrote: post #87
AlexandrB wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With every crypto collapse there seems to be an associated failure by the media to do any real digging. The same thing happened with Theranos where, with a few exceptions, the media fawned over Elizabeth Holmes. It's hard to tell if the media has gotten worse at their jobs or they've always been this bad and I'm just getting older. There are plenty of earlier scams and bubbles (Enron, dot-com bubble) that slipped und…

“The media” is mostly just a bunch of 20-40 year olds with liberal arts bachelors degrees, trying to make ends meet and feed their families. Serious investigative reporters with the smarts and experience to dive deep were always the exception, maybe a handful in the world at any given time. So IMO, “they’ve always been this bad” is the answer, but it’s not entirely fair. Kind of like saying the cooks at McDonald’s ha…

> Serious investigative reporters with the smarts and experience to dive deep were always the exception, maybe a handful in the world at any given time.

Correct answer.

People dramatically underestimate the extent to which reporters are stenographers: they go to relevant people, get quotes, write some background around the quotes (which itself is derived from previous statements), and hit publish.

Almost every business article you see is push-driven. The business being covered will issue a press release and it gets rewritten into articles.

The press are pretty good at attribution: if the NYT says that "Bob said X", you can be pretty sure that an NYT reporter heard Bob say X. That doesn't tell you anything about whether X is true or not.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#143

Post by headsoup »

zozbot234 wrote: post #52
themgt wrote: post #48

It's incredible that SBF was being touted by Sequoia, WEF, Fortune, chumming it up with Clinton and Blair in the Bahamas, getting meetings and kid glove treatment with the SEC, relatively glowing profile as a "do-gooder" by the NYT. All while FTX had a Chief Regulatory Officer who was basically a career white-collar criminal. It beggars belief that anyone who dug half an inch into this story wouldn't have seen 90,000…

Wait, wasn't the NYT supposed to take a very critical look at everything in "tech", as a matter of editorial policy? Why were they giving such a glowing (no pun intended!) endorsement of crypto, of all things? Something doesn't add up here.

The dollars add up, every time.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#144

Post by user3939382 »

themgt wrote: post #48

It's incredible that SBF was being touted by Sequoia, WEF, Fortune, chumming it up with Clinton and Blair in the Bahamas, getting meetings and kid glove treatment with the SEC, relatively glowing profile as a "do-gooder" by the NYT. All while FTX had a Chief Regulatory Officer who was basically a career white-collar criminal. It beggars belief that anyone who dug half an inch into this story wouldn't have seen 90,000…

To say this as gently as I can, do you really think people like Blair or the Clintons are the good guys?

HSBC teaches us that the US govt happily approves of financial crime as long as it's large and they get their cut: https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...

Madoff's mistake was probably not sharing with the right people, and that the optics were a bridge too far.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#145

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #128
ok123456 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just 'The Morning Call.' It came from the top from the elite, international, consensus making publications like The New York Times and the Washington Post. These are the papers of record that have the resources to still do real journalism. We're harangued by them how 'democracy dies in darkness' every time we click one of their links, and yet they chose to give all these guileless grifters flattering covera…

Doesn't Fox News make tons of money? Do you think they could capitalize on this failure of what you describe as the papers of record and start doing investigative journalism into financial and tech businesses?

No post body was provided.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#146

Post by pjc50 »

lzooz wrote: post #111
themgt wrote: post #48

It's incredible that SBF was being touted by Sequoia, WEF, Fortune, chumming it up with Clinton and Blair in the Bahamas, getting meetings and kid glove treatment with the SEC, relatively glowing profile as a "do-gooder" by the NYT. All while FTX had a Chief Regulatory Officer who was basically a career white-collar criminal. It beggars belief that anyone who dug half an inch into this story wouldn't have seen 90,000…

Sam Bankman-Fried donated $40M to the Democratic Party, making him the second-biggest donor of the party.

Like most political donors, he gave to both sides. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2022/11/11/checks--...

" The $69 million spent by Bankman-Fried and his deputies on the 2022 midterms likely would’ve done little to plug FTX’s reported financial hole, but it couldn’t have hurt. Bankman-Fried told Forbes last month that “in the end, I care about policy more than politics,” adding that “my giving has been bipartisan, and my goal is to help support great policy makers.”

    Bankman-Fried has supported Republicans during this cycle, primarily through his $2 million contribution to the blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused GMI super PAC. But the bulk of his giving, including $27 million to the Protect Our Future super PAC and $6 million to the House Majority super PAC, has gone to support Democrats. Bankman-Fried told Forbes last month that “much of this was for primaries, rather than D vs R general elections” ($33 million of his contributions were made during the first four months of 2022.) "

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#147

Post by headsoup »

Marazan wrote: post #136
settrans wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you're not being facetious, Sam was the single second largest donor to the Democratic Party.

To Democratic Primary races. To get the pro-crypto candidate over.

What a lovely democratic process it is, candidates weighing up which industry interest has done the best job at wooing them. SBF is another reminder of how far down the list of priorities integrity actually sits (not that he succeeded here, but that he's in good company in the approach).

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#149

Post by loceng »

rideontime wrote: post #131
loceng wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And quite interesting that most of the FTX team/founders are reported to now be in Hong Kong - arguably knowing they have the protection of China?

Source?

Sorry, I looked through a lot of articles and I don't recall which one it was; they're reported to be both in the Bahamas and Hong Kong, the Bahamas authorities also having said a claim that SBF made about them directing him to do certain actions weren't true.

Certainly there will be a lot of noise to shuffle through over the next few days, weeks.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#150

Post by throwaway290 »

factsarelolz wrote: post #127
mberning wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you confident it won’t go to $5? I’m not.

I would be very confident I could sell before it hits $5.

What if you're asleep when it falls?
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