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

paulkrugman.substack.com

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

#331

Post by zzrrt »

tardedmeme wrote: post #308
zzrrt wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

True. I'd support national holiday for it in US. Also the fine I would support, but it might require a constitutional amendment (seems unlikely these days).

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

#332

Post by quickthrowman »

jstanley wrote: post #162
smallmancontrov wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tax. I don't know if you specifically are one of the "taxation is theft" types, but it's absolutely wild how many of these are totally cool with the tax if it's funding insider trading payouts but not if it's paying for poor person healthcare or whatever.

In the absence of the insider trader selling you oil futures on the basis of his insider knowledge, what would you do? You'd buy oil futures at broadly the same price from someone else (maybe a worse price! Because the presence of the insider selling is already driving the price down). So how exactly do you lose? The only people who lose out are those whose limit orders don't get filled because the insider outbid the…

If market makers figure out that a handful of market participants are being fed inside information, they’ll widen the bid/ask, leading to increased transaction costs for everyone.

It also discourages speculators from entering trades if they suspect they’ll be run over by insiders trading on non-public information.

Fewer market participants leads to worse price discovery.

It’s probably bad.

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

#333

Post by GetTheFacts »

gruez wrote: post #109
smallmancontrov wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so you were just trying to force the "set aside corruption" framing. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

>Ah, so you were just trying to force the "set aside corruption" framing. Again, if you read the TFA, the entire thesis is that the insider trading is extra bad beyond corruption. The corruption itself only gets a passing mention.

>Again, if you read the TFA, the entire thesis is that the insider trading is extra bad beyond corruption. The corruption itself only gets a passing mention.

I did and that's not at all what TFA argues. It argues that it's the corruption that's the problem, which is exacerbated by the lack of legal enforcement by the current administration -- mostly because many in that administration are either actively involved in said corruption, or happy to cover it up/pooh pooh it.

I suppose you might think that some folks who haven't read TFA might buy your analysis, even though it's pretty much the opposite of what Krugman argues.

You go, girlfriend!

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

#334

Post by danans »

trollbridge wrote: post #328
danans wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> t’s a myth that petty shoplifting is something done by poor people. The people doing it are usually part of organised crime (that is not “hyperlocal”) and generally are doing better than actual poor people There is not such a strong distinction. Organized crime groups often use poor people who have few alternatives as the pawns of their theft and fencing operations. People with other better options don't usually ta…

I would say that many people with better options take up sophisticated crime as a vocation. Obviously poor and rich people choose vocations a little differently. There is not overall any sign that poor people, as a whole, have increased criminality; other factors like culture are far stronger. Punishing crime and preventing it (like shoplifting) helps poor people, too. Poor people do not benefit from stores closing,…

> There is not overall any sign that poor people, as a whole, have increased criminality; other factors like culture are far stronger.

"Criminality" is too broad a characterization. It covers both assault and petty theft. I never said the poor are more criminal as a group than any other group.

People in poverty are more likely to commit petty theft out of need. Similarly, people who are very wealthy are more likely to commit large scale tax evasion out of greed. Both are financial crimes, but they are not committed equally by both groups.

> Punishing crime and preventing it (like shoplifting) helps poor people, too.

Yes, and so does giving people in poverty a step up out of life circumstances that make them more likely to commit petty crimes (like shoplifting).

Similarly, punishing large scale financial crimes by the wealthy (something that has basically stopped of late) would benefit everyone, from the poor to the wealthy. In fact, punishment may be the only disincentive for financial crimes by the wealthy, since they don't want for anything else.

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

#335

Post by ericmay »

therobots927 wrote: post #315
ericmay wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe if Iran had a nuke Israel would cut back on sexual torture of detainees and indiscriminate bombing of vast swaths of densely populated land. Aside from the fact that Iran and its proxies do this, you have to remember that Israel very likely has nukes and so if Iran gets a nuke what exactly are they going to do with it in the scenario you described? Nuke Tel Aviv? Israel would just nuke them back. > And maybe…

I was not implying that Iran would or should use nuclear weapons. Only acquire them. For the same reason I think it’s a good thing the USSR acquired nuclear weapons. Mutually assured destruction has proven to be incredibly effective at preventing the use of nuclear weapons, and preventing hot war (not proxy wars though). I think if Iran acquired nuclear weapons the region would stabilize. Israel would be forced to st…

[flagged]

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

#337

Post by mjcarden »

tardedmeme wrote: post #308
zzrrt wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, in Australia we have compulsory voting, but no national holiday. Polling day is on a Saturday, so most people can get to their local polling booth pretty easily. And since COVID, pre-poll postal votes have become even more popular and the Australian Electoral Commission has a really secure and streamlined process for these, proved over decades.

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

#338

Post by zuzululu »

breppp wrote: post #291
zuzululu wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really seeing the connection there. You buy low and sell high.

In the context of war profiteering this is a long used racist trope, intentionally misquoted

how are we supposed to read your mind ????

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

#339

Post by fireant »

imglorp wrote: post #150

What if the whole point of the war was planned to generate trading opportunities? Every crazy tweet or announcement another cash out. It's like every time you see a poorly run business and you think, how can they stay open? The answer is it's usually a laundering operation, a tax shelter, and who knows what else. The message to us poors is, nothing these people do is as it appears; there's always a bunch of stacked,…

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. If you look at effects of geopolitical events and who profits and loses, rather than stated intentions. This global oil crisis, the Ukraine crisis, tariffs ect. It's the equivalent of the "the purpose of the system is what it does".

Oil crisis: Trumps friends profit on insider info, US oil industry (also his friends) profits, Russia profits because they are another big oil producer, USD dominance is harmed (also helps Russia), everyone else in the world eats the costs

Ukraine: Russia bleeds, Ukraine bleeds, arms industry profits, politicians in general get something to grandstand on in front of the voters. Personally I believe that this conflict has been artificially prolonged just to amplify the effects

Tariffs: US public eats the costs, Trump profits politically by appearing strong, Trumps friends profit on insider info

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

#340

Post by scrivna »

ruilov wrote: post #59

I'd like to see the base rate. Ie were there similar bets at similar times when Trump did not make an announcement

Look at Adobe stock 10 minutes before the Claude Design announcement came out… the volume spike there is out of the ordinary and I find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence, someone knew something. The level of blatant insider trading at the moment is pretty wild
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