Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

paulkrugman.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 367 posts

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#301

Post by mrguyorama »

troyvit wrote: post #179
an0malous wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Trump supporters, including Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Dave Smith, voted for him because of his anti-war stance during campaigning. I’m not defending their poor judgement of an infamous con artist (I didn’t vote for Trump) but we should ask ourselves how democracy can function if candidates can just make things up during campaigns and do the complete opposite when they’re elected. We should also ask ours…

> but we should ask ourselves how democracy can function if candidates can just make things up during campaigns and do the complete opposite when they’re elected. Education. Actually teaching people how to think critically about what they see and hear needs to start as soon as they get a phone in their hand, if not sooner. That education in critical thinking needs to come from family, school, social clubs and religio…

Time and time again, I keep finding that the people insisting schools teach "Critical thinking" were the exact people who didn't pay attention in English class when that was taught.

Like when people used to say that "Schools should teach useful things like balancing a checkbook or paying your taxes". Which is funny, because the skills required to do those two things are addition, subtraction, and reading.

Americans don't learn because Americans are adamant that they shouldn't have to pay attention to learn, that school is a liberal scam, that broad willful ignorance is not something to be ashamed of, that they have more important things to care about.

Families who value education have always gotten a good education in the USA, and that isn't about choosing a private school either. It's about the person needing an education getting personally invested in gaining that education.

Meanwhile Bush Jr gave us an educational regime where schools cannot at all hold back someone who really needs to be held back. So the curriculum needed to be dumbed down to accommodate people.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#302

Post by mrguyorama »

vkou wrote: post #171
an0malous wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Trump supporters, including Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Dave Smith, voted for him because of his anti-war stance during campaigning. I’m not defending their poor judgement of an infamous con artist (I didn’t vote for Trump) but we should ask ourselves how democracy can function if candidates can just make things up during campaigns and do the complete opposite when they’re elected. We should also ask ours…

> A lot of Trump supporters, including Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Dave Smith, voted for him because of his anti-war stance during campaigning. That was just their nice-sounding excuse for voting for him. It's not like they are going to go out and say that they like him because of his jingoistic machismo authoritarian 'strong'-man bullshit. They'll performatively grumble for a bit, but are all ready to vote for th…

Well the simple reason they voted for him is that they are all extremely rich capital owners who wanted his tax cuts. That's the same reason that farm megacorps voted for him even though he destroyed tens of billions of farm revenue with his stupidity in trade wars.

Rich people would rather the country burn than pay 1% more in taxes. It's purely ideological too, as they regularly spend tons to save a little in taxes.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#303

Post by mrguyorama »

jnwatson wrote: post #168
stevenwoo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole retail theft epidemic (and the ensuing Union Pacific cargo theft ) was a corporate scam perpetrated by local news and law enforcement PR departments.

It wasn't at all. There's still a serious problem with shoplifting. Wal-mart would not be removing self-checkout if this were just a PR campaign. At my local CVS, they just started locking up the bulk candy. You don't take the the sales hit and the expense of those locking cabinets unless you have a real shrinkage problem.

>Wal-mart would not be removing self-checkout if this were just a PR campaign

They absolutely would.

Shrink has not gone up

The National Retail Federation, which publishes those numbers yearly, has stopped publishing those numbers to hide that fact.

There are real shoplifting problems but they are extremely local. Your local police department needs to stand up and do their fucking jobs to identify and take down the organized crime perpetuating it.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#304

Post by ericmay »

mrtesthah wrote: post #283
trimethylpurine wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article seems irrelevant. It cites a publication dated March of '25 that must be compiled from information preceding that by a few months. The US didn't go to war in or around that time period.

The US did in fact bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025.

Doesn't March come before June?

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#305

Post by TheGRS »

Someone1234 wrote: post #235
pjc50 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the UK, the Prime Minister or the Home Office cannot ring up any of the enforcement agencies and tell them to drop a corruption case - the law is supposed to apply to everyone. I would not rely on that. The Attorney General can withdraw prosecutions, and is a government minister (although not technically in the Cabinet). Parliament can do anything , it just usually doesn't. This includes retroactive legislation…

Yep; I think the above comment took the wrong lessons. What actually happened in the US is that "common norms and expectations" were thrown out the window, so instead of the question being "What is traditionally done?" it became "What can legally be done?" And, as it turns out, when you're only constrained by the letter of the law the executive branch is insanely powerful. UK politics, more than most younger countrie…

People in the US have been bemoaning the ceding of power of Congress to the Executive branch for a long time. I think what's happening now is validating that rights laws are all subject to the whims of the people in power. There is nothing keeping Congress from reasserting their power and getting a grip over things, but they won't for the political risks involved. Heads would roll, nobody wants to be one of them.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#306

Post by Galanwe »

atmavatar wrote: post #282
apexalpha wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if anything in the executive branch of the US still works properly. Isn't the FBI already raiding the homes of political opponents for intimidation? The famed US constitution with all its 'checks and balances' they would never shut up about turned out to be papier mâché and completely trampled by the first person that tried.

> The famed US constitution with all its 'checks and balances' they would never shut up about turned out to be papier mâché and completely trampled by the first person that tried. If we're being completely honest, the checks and balances in the constitution ended within the first decade. They were only designed to work in the case that the three branches of government were truly separate and adversarial with one anot…

I dont think the problem is parties by themselves. I think it's more the fact that the US system cannot accomodate more than 2 parties.

Plenty of other democracies have parties, including cross government branches.

What makes the US unique, and fragile, is that no party other than democrats and republicans can realistically exist.

It over emphasizes partisanship above anything (including honesty, morality) because career politicians in one party just have nowhere to go if they are dissident.

You can see that in plain sight currently, with republicans being in the total incapacity of contradicting their party line on anything, even the most obvious of lies.

In most other democracies, dissidents would have just created a new party and moved on, that wouldnt be "carrier ending" for them.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#307

Post by charcircuit »

skinfaxi wrote: post #61
charcircuit wrote: post #3

>paying what in retrospect will have been an excessive price This can be said about any negative price movement. You still get the same amount of oil you agreed to regardless of if the price goes up or down afterwards.

Yes but it is being said about a manipulated movement, not any negative price movement.

If a store sells a TV for $500 and they know they are going to run a sale the next day. The next day the customer may feel like they missed the sale, but the TV was still worth >$500 to him else he would not have bought it in the first place.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#308

Post by tardedmeme »

zzrrt wrote: post #218
bobthepanda wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonvoters would win the Electoral College if that was a thing.

Hot take: if <80% of eligible voters show up, nobody wins and the same politicians stay in office for another year, even if term limits would normally apply.

That means the politicians currently in power only need 20% to stay in power, instead of 50%.

It should be mandatory voting like in Australia instead. You don't cast a ballot, you get fined, and voting day is a mandatory national holiday. If you really don't want to cast a ballot, you cast a blank or invalid one.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#309

Post by selectodude »

pphysch wrote: post #297
selectodude wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think we need to be providing proof that the sky is blue at this point but here you go. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/oct/31/tucker-carlson...

The article doesn't even include the words "ideologue" or "extreme" or make a similar claim. Very weird and defensive response.

It really isn’t. The fact that it seems like people can’t use descriptive adjectives on HN is always so bizarre to me.

Re: Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense

#310

Post by cosmicgadget »

cbdevidal wrote: post #149
marcosdumay wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, more specifically, by 2020 he was sending military boats to attack Iranian targets and trying to force Russia to respond. He only stopped because of COVID.

If it were that obvious we would have specifically heard it it predicted. Maybe someone did but I didn’t hear it, and I listen to politics daily. Expressing a desire to take Greenland but not actually doing so was a move out of his book Art of the Deal.

You knew airstrikes and Maduro ops were on the table from his first term (e.g. Soleimani).

You knew his idea of negotiating vehicle lease terms starts with "I will burn this dealership to the ground if I don't get my way!" (Art of the Deal).

What did you think was going to happen when he actually encountered serious people?

Post reply on HN