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Who Are My Investors?

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Re: Who Are My Investors?

#221

Post by Lordarminius »

lordnacho wrote: post #110

I've come across this problem a few times when running a hedge fund. To what degree does one care where the money came from, aside from following AML rules? I get the feeling you only write articles like that if you have more people wanting to invest than you have capacity for. - A friend called, asking for a recommendation for a job he was applying for. And advice about whether it was worth taking. Turned out, it wa…

Since you been involved in the financial world and run a hedge fund, you'll agree with me that if you go high enough, all money is morally tainted. No one ever made a billion dollars by being a boy scout.

Re: Who Are My Investors?

#222

Post by Lordarminius »

ddeck wrote: post #189
howlgram wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>by killing opponents Gaddafi's rise to power was a bloodless Coup [1], from the little understanding that I have, he was beloved by many Libyans, you should question where these "militias" that took him down came from, his dying words were 'What did I do to you?' [2], and you should question for what reasons should he be considered "tyrannical". Should you look at Libya today, it is ran by territorial gangs, which i…

Although he was never tried, the sheer number of witnesses detailing his systematic rape of young girls, murder of opponents and starvation of civilians for example, lends a lot of credibility to him being very much tyrannical. A few summaries: "Victims and witnesses state in the documentary that Gadhafi would choose his targets on visits to schools or colleges, patting on the head those who caught his eye. His secur…

Haaretz, France24 and the Guardian are hardly unbiased sources. Frankly, these tales seem fantastic and made up to me, much like the stories about Kuwaiti babies being ripped from incubators and left to die on hospital floors. Remember those ?

Re: Who Are My Investors?

#223

Post by Nursie »

lordnacho wrote: post #110

I've come across this problem a few times when running a hedge fund. To what degree does one care where the money came from, aside from following AML rules? I get the feeling you only write articles like that if you have more people wanting to invest than you have capacity for. - A friend called, asking for a recommendation for a job he was applying for. And advice about whether it was worth taking. Turned out, it wa…

Have you read "Market Forces" by Richard Morgan?

Seems like you'd fit right in. Money, business, and taking care to skate just within the line of the law doesn't absolve you from being evil and effectively using your position to help make the world a much worse place.

Re: Who Are My Investors?

#224

Post by Applejinx »

roenxi wrote: post #179
readhn wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the same could be said about a lot of dictators. these guys make it so that there is no other option (by killing opponents) for the country.

Obviously a functional democratic society will stomp a dictatorial one on pretty much any axis you care to think of. Having acknowledged that central point, we can't just say "dictators are bad". We can say "democracy is better", but there are instances where democracy doesn't work. For a realpolitic example, great powers have a long history of quietly corrupting and overthrowing democracies where their interests con…

That depends on how you reckon things. It sounds like an extremely unwarranted axiom routinely disproven by normal world events.

I don't see the semi-functional United States outcompeting dictatorial slave labor economies. If your metric is how much value you can offer to huge multinational companies, it's plain that democratic societies are completely rejected and not even in the running.

'your investors' may very well demand completely inhuman behavior, because there's a cost to humanity, ethics and decency. If you insist on being decent and the flow of capital is completely frictionless it will all bypass you without a second thought. You will be actively choosing to not be the lowest-cost, highest-return option.

Re: Who Are My Investors?

#225

Post by Faark »

lordnacho wrote: post #217
npunt wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly - this isn't a minor inconvenience, it's a fundamental part of being in society. I appreciate OP's point about lack of clarity, because yes, the capitalist game has nothing to say about anything except following whatever you can get away with. But that narrow game is being played in a much broader context of society that exists because of a broader social contract and set of values which keeps everything…

> The reasonable answer to where you draw the line is: when something is no longer compatible with your value system. And if that's not clear, the issue is that you haven't yet spent enough time defining your values. That's the thing to talk about, research, consider, ask advice on, etc. People having a solid, well-tested personal value system is critical to society's function, because that informs how groups of peop…

There are no perfect value systems, yes. They are still great tools to prevent tragedy of the commons / prisoner dilemmas. And that's something we as a society must archive to thrive. An alternative is regulation, created by again some kind of value system like your utilitarians. I'd prefer not ending with a shitload of highly detailed regulation just because otherwise we'd fuck up the fabric society for personal gain. If there are effective alternatives in the first place...

Re: Who Are My Investors?

#226

Post by Applejinx »

rocqua wrote: post #200
afro88 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the same thing as saying we shouldn't buy Saudi oil. If the only result is that you buy some other oil and the people who would have bought that oil buy the Saudi oil, nothing meaningful has changed. I think this touches on another thing I've struggled for clarity on lately. How many degrees of separation do you need before you're willing to take investment from someone linked to something you find morally rep…

There isn't a clear line, and there probably cannot be one. First of all, more than just 'degree of separation' matters. You also need to know what fraction comes from bad sources. If it is 3 fronts stacked, you are still essentially dealing with the bad source. I see 2 options: 1) Flip it. At what standard do I eliminate e.g. 20% of all funding. Or more generally, plot repugnancy against the percentage of funding so…

Many journalists (and news outlets) are currently fired and not working in the sense you mean, because Facebook made a compelling (and fraudulent) case that millenials only watched videos. Across the industry, news outlets got rid of journalists to repurpose investment in video production.

Re: Who Are My Investors?

#227

Post by barrkel »

lordnacho wrote: post #217
npunt wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly - this isn't a minor inconvenience, it's a fundamental part of being in society. I appreciate OP's point about lack of clarity, because yes, the capitalist game has nothing to say about anything except following whatever you can get away with. But that narrow game is being played in a much broader context of society that exists because of a broader social contract and set of values which keeps everything…

> The reasonable answer to where you draw the line is: when something is no longer compatible with your value system. And if that's not clear, the issue is that you haven't yet spent enough time defining your values. That's the thing to talk about, research, consider, ask advice on, etc. People having a solid, well-tested personal value system is critical to society's function, because that informs how groups of peop…

That's a universal argument against having any morals. I wholly reject your apparent position. It is simply venal, wholly convenient for your own self-enrichment, damn the consequences - it's pretty much evil personified. You're a cog in a machine that runs on human suffering, and you're actively denying your culpability.

Yes indeed, we only find out where our line is when we consider problems in isolation. But just because you can only find out where the line is by poking out some other line and finding out where the two cross over, is no excuse not to define a line. It is absolutely not right.

Re: Who Are My Investors?

#228

Post by chrisbennet »

cocacola1 wrote: post #163
lordnacho wrote: post #110

I've come across this problem a few times when running a hedge fund. To what degree does one care where the money came from, aside from following AML rules? I get the feeling you only write articles like that if you have more people wanting to invest than you have capacity for. - A friend called, asking for a recommendation for a job he was applying for. And advice about whether it was worth taking. Turned out, it wa…

I can understand why people would take blood money or seedy money (so long as it's legal from their end). I just don't understand why they can't admit to themselves that it's a little evil and go about their business like they'd do anyways. Nothing changes except you feel a little bad about yourself, probably, and the rest of us don't have to hear as many excuses.

I agree. I try to see the best in people so when I hear someone making excuses for doing something wrong [“piracy is not stealing’] I can take some comfort in knowing that they still have that little voice in their heads that tells them rught from wrong - even if they don’t listen to it.

Re: Who Are My Investors?

#230

Post by dforrestwilson »

lordnacho wrote: post #211
dforrestwilson wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but this is a pathetic cop out. Just because the financial system is global, it does not mean you have to launder money for drug dealers or other people with shady morals. “The business needed the investment” is just code for you desiring an X-figure paycheck. The other corollary of this - should we really be surprised that an anti-globalist like Trump is in power with lax attitudes such as the above?

In your rush to condemnation, you've missed that I specifically mentioned that we followed anti money-laundering laws. Also none of the people we worked with had been convicted for drug dealing.

You are clearly uncomfortable with your own choices in the original post. It's laundering. Legal or not the choices you made were unethical.

“We believe there should be a huge area between everything you should do and everything you can do without getting into legal trouble. I don’t think you should come anywhere near that line.” -Charlie Munger

Your choices, your life, don't expect me to celebrate or make excuses for it.

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