261–270 of 331 posts
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> Too bad it doesn’t say how he actually got found out. Hm? It does: > In 1993, with the red flags mounting up, the city authorities hired private investigators to observe Kara, which finally caught him in the act.
That's fairly vague though. What red flags? How were they novel?
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I should have written "There really is no need for the charade of FDIC insured banks now that electronic databases are very solid technology." I am not seeing the necessity of the federal government backstop to these businesses.
> I should have written "There really is no need for the charade of FDIC insured banks now that electronic databases are very solid technology." What does this have anything to do with maturity transformation? Are you simply trying to say that we don't need banks to do maturity transformation, and they should stick to handling transactions?
Money is electronic, the government can handle electronic money accounts directly, and skip paying businesses for no reason.
Banks or whatever other financial businesses can continue to sell maturity transformation services, without FDIC insurance.
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That's actually pretty common criminal activity in banking, where an employee will take money from accounts of clients and "gamble" it on high-return short term investments. Obviously I won't be naming Banks here but what usually happens is: 1) If they succeed in their investment they put the money back and walk out rich. Their venture can be detected during an audit some time later but if there's no money missing th…
I worked in finance and I am not aware of jurisdictions that mandate 2 weeks time off. Can you mention one? I am aware of some recommendations but I have worked up to board level, and never see this being more than an excuse to not miss the next golf tournament.
While individuals could ask for their vacation time to just be paid out, a lot of employers don’t like that because they budgeted to pay you 100% of your salary per year, not 104% or 106% (ie: paying you for both 52 weeks of work plus whatever weeks of holiday per 52 weeks).
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I don't know about Edmonton/Alberta, but provincial and municipal transit in British Columbia and Vancouver (which is a separate entity but likely still benefits from provincial resources) are subsidized with taxpayer money. Fare collection supposedly makes up a minority of the funding for Vancouver's transit system. Also, with 68 fare machines in the city in 1978, how many repairmen do you really need?
Heh, every Toronto subway station is manned, you can imagine what that does to costs. Often multiple entrances = multiple booth staff. Going to unmanned and paying someone a premium to rapidly respond and fix machines 24/7 would be a massive cost reduction.
Is this the infamous magnet-bandit? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salim_Kara
He got away too easy if you ask me. You will need to spend a miminm of 2 years in jail for owning not stealing 500 cannabis plants
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1 in 3 U.S. Homebuyers Are Paying All Cash, the Highest Share in Nearly a Decade Just over one-third (34.1%) of U.S. home purchases in September were made in cash, up from 29.5% a year earlier and the highest share in nearly a decade. That’s according to a new report from Redfin (redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231108812516/en/1-i...
AFAIK "Paying All Cash" doesn't necessarily mean the buyer has $1M (or whatever the purchase price of the house) saved up. It just means their offer isn't contingent on them securing a mortgage, and they have the money secured somehow (probably through a preexisting loan). https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/all-cash-offer-upfront-...
Then arrange the mortgage later, possibly after some capital-value improving… improvements.
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Coins don't seem to be their target, as very few seem to be magnetic.
Hm, true. But I sometimes see people walking along beaches doing this kind of thing. Though they're probably hoping for rings (gold, silver, diamond, ...) rather than coins, which would make it much more lucrative as well.
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American coin mechanisms in vending machines and arcade games have magnets to filter out Canadian quarters.
I thought all coin mechanisms use magnets to differentiate coins, no? A coin drops at a known speed and the right coin will get pulled by the right amount by a magnet or get rejected.
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I noticed that too. $38k in 1981 in Edmonton was firmly middle class. Plenty of homes cost less than $100k. Rent was in the $100-300 per month range for a nice 2 bedroom. Dude just got greedy. If he had skimmed $600 per week instead of $3000, he would have doubled his take home pay and likely never would have been caught. It would have amounted to almost $100k every 3 years which is a tidy sum back then.
> Dude just got greedy. It seems to me that once a person builds an illegal habit, it demonstrates they: (a) probably have a higher risk tolerance than most people and/or an inaccurate understanding of the empirical risk level and/or (b) they have, perhaps only temporarily, found a self-interestedly-rational aspect of law/society to exploit. Once one's behavior crosses into that realm, "dude just got greedy" seems to…
Bernie Madoff might be close to an example; his scheme kept going for an _amazingly_ long time, and he made some effort at times to reduce inflow to keep it somewhat under control. There was probably a world in which it only came out after he died; as it was he was kind of unlucky with the timing.
Of course, there might be plenty of optimally greedy criminals out there, and you’ll never know; more or less by definition they do not get caught.