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Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

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341–350 of 383 posts

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, inflation worries have me concerned too. I am not sure what to do. I might look into one of the “total world” funds instead of just the US based ones like I usually do.

Beware the confusing naming! The big index is MSCI All World. Not to be confused with MSCI World, which is pretty much just the US, Europe and Japan. (You may be _slightly_ late. After years of not doing anything much, European markets are up about 10% YTD, Chinese even more, vs S&P500 4%. There's always a bubble, somewhere...)

Yeah FOMO in the stock world is a losing game, there's always a place that you could have invested earlier.

I was looking into the VT Vanguard fund. I already own a few shares of that, I could always buy more.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#342
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...and he's helping Argentina's economy, and that cannot be further from the truth sadly. Tell me you don't live in Argentina without telling me you live in Argentina.

How are comments like this ("Tell me X without telling me X") helpful? This is such a low-effort reply; at least briefly explain why you disagree with OP.

Why am I being judged by a low effort reply when even OP didn't care to tell us in detail why "Milei helping the economy is far from the truth". Such stupidity should only be answered with another low effort statement. It doesn't care where you are in the political spectrum, objectively Milei is annihilating inflation, we have primary superavit, lowered state expenses among other fantastic things he did for our country and we are doing great, a lot more is needed but we have 3 more years ahead. Saying he's not helping the economy can only be justified by not living here and having no fucking idea how we are doing. I live here, so I can tell you we are doing FAR better than a year ago.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#343

This is a variant of a pig butchering scam. Pig butchering scams are a dime a dozen and screw over many who get so deep in the game they can't stop. Cryptocurrency 'pig butchering' scam wrecks Kansas bank, sends ex-CEO to prison for 24 years The massive embezzlement led to the collapse and FDIC takeover of Heartland Tri-State, one of only five U.S. banks that failed in 2023. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-…

Wild story. This is more perverse than rugpulls (i.e., $libra).

I'd blame the bank staff just as much as the CEO. No controls, signing off on wire transfers above material thresholds...I assume that Board and bank officers will get reamed for gross negligence and willful misconduct. Those can pierce liability caps and insurance.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#344
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The interviewer doesn't need to impose their world view on the guest, or the audience -- it's OK to let the audience make up their own minds. What if the guest lies or omits crucial facts? How is the audience supposed to know that? Fact checking is the very basis of responsible journalism.

What if I go to a dinner party and someone lies or omits crucial facts? I guess take it for what it is -- it's a conversation recorded on YouTube ... maybe don't be fooled by the suit and the mics. Anyone can buy those, there is no certification AFAIK :-) (I'd also say that 95% of journalism you see on TV is not much different than a conversation recorded on YouTube, i.e. they don't do fact checking themselves.)

The dinner party isn't broadcast to millions of people. With a great audience comes great responsibility. "Just let people talk" doesn't cut it. Of course, there is also lots of bad journalism in traditional media.

> maybe don't be fooled by the suit and the mics. Anyone can buy those, there is no certification AFAIK :-)

:)

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#345
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is the window to buy was 2-3 hours: you had to be ready to trade, and watching either charts or being on a discord or actively checking X and with cash in an account. People lost money but I doubt there was much collateral damage

Though I agree that the damage will be limited I don't think it would be very concentrated on people paying attention. Considering notifications get pushed and heavy use of large group chats is common in south America does not take much for it to be promoted to laypeople by the more active followers of Javier. Older people particularly at risk given the excessive trust they give to people In position of power, knowle…

Older people have their USDs in hard cash and will wait hours at the bank each month to withdraw their pension in cash (i.e. not even use the ATM).

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#346
post #69

Just to clarify, here are some important differences compared to the Trump case: 1. Milei did not sell this as a memecoin at all, unlike Trump, he sold it as a "financial instrument to help finance small Argentinan enterprises". 2. Trump tweeted about $TRUMP BEFORE stepping into office, Milei is already the president of Argentina. This constitutes an obvious ethical violation, and possibly a legal one as well. 3. 80%…

Whatever the stupidity around this memecoin, it's hard to argue he isn't doing something to help the argentinian economy. It turns out it doesn't take much to appear to be an economic genius - just stop spending money the government doesn't have and get rid of onerous market regulations (eg. rent controls). I'm in support of social spending to support those in need, but it's clear Argentina was moving ever-further aw…

Argentina has an economy that is strongly indexed on USD due to hyperinflation of the Peso and parallel exchanges everywhere ("cambio negro").

What Milei is doing: he's giving up on Argentinian Peso and adopting the USD as de-facto currency.

This is a political move, giving up national sovereignty in exchange of getting Argentina closer to the USA and away from Latin America. It's no coincidence Trump and Elon Musk are praising the Argentinian president.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but Argentina wasn't doing ING what an MMT theorist would advocate for (which is balancing government spending with available productive capacity). This is evident because they had an out of control inflation rate.

Argentina's economy has been a shit show for a while. And of course outright killing the economy and everybody's standard of living in the process means you're doing something , but it's not what I'd consider helping the economy.

Of course, the first order effect of less spending is not usually good, particulary for those receiving the money.

However, Argentina has runaway second order effects like inflation that must be dealt with, and we know that the only real way to deal with that is to depress the money supply. They will have to deal with the pain in order to repair the rest of the economy; it'll suck initially, but it'll improve outcomes everywhere else, and that should outweigh the effects of reduced government spending before too long.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#348

Let's see it another way: there's absolutely no way that in the 2-3 hours the post was up a person not familiar with the gamblecoin ecosystem could purchase $LIBRA, let alone pour thousands of dollars in. The people who lost money are all professional memecoin gamblers, and the ones who pocketed in are obviously connected to the project leaders. Cyptobros want to have unlimited freedom to trade whatever they want wit…

> For all the outrage, I yet have to see a single person in Argentina produce a TXHASH that proves they put money on the project.

Normally people here (arg) don't follow politicians they don't like on X. It's probable that most argentines that put in any money were his own followers. Among those, there were very well known influencers that actually did complain about the whole issue saying they lost money but they later deleted their posts (Fran Fijap, for example). I agree that a very sizeable portion of people that "invested" seem to be foreigners, though.

Milei's governmental structure is a very vertical one, they even expect para-official influencers to not criticize anything the government does.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#349
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty bad, but smart people do stupid things all the time. Hopefully he learns from this mistake. And as pointed out, it does not automatically make all his prior decisions bad - we can actually analyse them each on their individual merit.

>>smart people do stupid things all the time That may explain it but it does NOT excuse it or the consequences. Smart people are also supposed to consider the consequences of their actions a bit more deeply than dumb people, and leaders are supposed to surround themselves with even smarter and more broadly experienced advisers to alert them to potential stupid actions and so moderate their actions to avoid harming ot…

> Milei should face whatever consequences apply in his country to any person loudly promoting a fraud with a large platform. But he probably will not, Such a lack of consequences should be recognized as a wrong, not merely dismissed with a shrug.

It will probably be dismissed.

The judiciary in Argentina is largely at the beck and call of Milei's political godfather, former president Mauricio Macri, who uses them to put pressure on his political enemies (largely kirchnerismo), and also makes them quietly drop most lawsuits against him or his allies.

Now, to be clear, it's Macri (not Milei) who has the courts in his pocket, and lately they have a strained relationship, because Macri wants better positions in government for his cadres, while Milei is instead poaching them for his own party. So it's very likely this whole mess will be just a way for Macri to remind Milei who's who, and get a few favors, after which the whole thing will go away.

I'd love to be wrong about this, and for Milei to face the music, but I don't think I'm wrong.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpret "government should stop spending money they don't have" metaphorically as standing in for "don't spend so much money (especially in economically unproductive ways) that it devalues money and misallocates resources so much that it slows down economic growth". I think simplistic statements "government should not spend money it doesn't have" or "government should stop spending so much money" are all just the…

> I think simplistic statements "government should not spend money it doesn't have" or "government should stop spending so much money" are all just the normal average person's way of trying to phrase this fundamental economic truth that anyone with a working brain can intuit. There Is Always a Well-Known Solution to Every Human Problem—Neat, Plausible, and Wrong > It's also obvious to anyone, that just like eating to…

Technically there are a few different ways you can potentially eat yourself to death.

Also I'd say the balanced budget "extreme" is more directly analogous to maintaining a balance of calories in versus out, not starvation.

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