I wonder if this is because he is incorporated in the Bahamas. May be in the US it would have taken for ever or may be never. Bahamas probably had a reputation to uphold and so arrested him. I mean, moved fast and arrested him.
SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
501–510 of 886 posts
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, they don't have my consent. I'm forced to use banks because the government won't protect me from criminals if I shove cash under my mattresses. The banks don't offer an "opt-out" option when you register. Real consent means you offer "yes" and "no" and the other party says yes. It's effectively forced upon me.
Are you dense? Do you know how money works? Do you know capitalization methods modern banking has been using for nearly 2500 years?
Modern banking is not 2500 years old...more like 500 years old.
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like others said, it's not about communication, but trust. If you stack the payoff matrix severely enough, there's nothing the prisoners can strategize, and you can literally keep the prisoners in the same room, and it will still work. Consider the payoff matrix in this example, somewhat analogous to the case we're describing: - Both defect -> both go to prison for life - One defects, one cooperates -> the cooperatin…
> Both cooperate -> both go free for a moment, spend some months or maybe even a few years living in fear, then with 95% chance go to prison for life. That's because the whole deal is about saving work for the Feds, but they will put in that work if needed, and come back with bullet-proof case. This isn't necessarily the case. The Feds convict on 95% of the cases they decide to prosecute. Which means that they decide…
That's a generic case. Parent is describing a specific case in which prisoners determine they have a 95% chance they will be convicted. Given such a case, parent's argument follows logically. How many cases the Fed prosecutes or convicts is irrelevant to the scenario.
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#504[deleted]
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
The NYT profiling him as a well-meaning genius who was so focused on fixing climate change and education that he just overlooked a few things at his company, gosh darn it.
I've seen a few people say that was a puff piece. I thought it made him look bad and covered the accusations of fraud. What are folks looking for? A headline directly calling him a villain? Ha, After typing this I went to double checked my memory of the article. They literally refer to him as a villain in the first paragraph. Even my hyperbole can't stand up.
Always put yourself in 'the other guys' shoes. Imagine you are an editor and, for the sake of argument, you have a singular goal: Make somebody who is decidedly unpopular, almost certainly a criminal, and just stole or otherwise cost millions of people billions of dollars, seem like 'not such a bad guy.' And since you're a smart speaker, your target demographic is not the people who would actively defend him or passively defer to positive messaging, because obviously they already think he's not such a bad guy, but the people who would actively condemn him.
By contrast imagine your motivation is to remain impartial, to say nothing of critical given your long-standing antagonism of billionaires and crypto, and here you have a billionaire player in crypto. Would you do things like press him on the discovered backdoors, where exactly the money went, illegalities of misappropriation, etc? Or would you simply take hand-waving deflectionary non-answers at face value, let alone publish them? Would you invite him to come speak alongside world leaders at an event you are hosting?
I think this might be the confusion between the two parties in this discussion. When people say 'puff piece', they don't just mean that they're engaged in mindless cheer-leading, but rather that they're taking a turd and instead of reporting on a turd, they're reporting on a diamond in the process of being made, while remaining aware of what the reader is going to see when they look at that 'diamond in the making.'
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember a lot of people strongly believed that SBF would never get in trouble because he was a Democratic donor, and that this was all part of some vast corruption scandal. It turns out not everything is a conspiracy.
The new conspiracy is that SBF was arrested to prevent him from spilling the beans on something during his PR tour. It doesn't make any sense, but the conspiracy people are experts at mental gymnastics.
There was a lot of cover for him, some of it definitely bought, and there is some level of “not fucked up so bad” that that influence would’ve worked.
It’s a conspiracy to think influence doesn’t peddle.
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure SBF has plenty of dirt on her as well, and he'll start talking much sooner than anticipated. She will go to jail, definitely.
Depends how much they needed her cooperation, which will determine how much of a deal she got, if any. If they wanted her cooperation, but didn't absolutely need it, they may have struck a cooperation deal in which she still sees some prison time, but a lot less than she would have after a full prosecution. My gut says that because he was so sloppy in implicating himself, that DOJ may not have strictly needed her, an…
IANAL so please correct me but here’s how I understand it: there are three levels of cooperation.
The informal one is basically just telling (some of) the truth during interrogation and agreeing to testify, where her lawyer gets to enter “she cooperated” as evidence during sentencing, but she might still get off scott free, or a judge might ignore the cooperation entirely if she’s found guilty. If SBF pleas guilty anyway, this cooperation is pretty much useless but carries the most credibility.
She can cooperate as part of a guilty plea [1] in which case the prosecutor provides the judge with a sentencing recommendation. The judge can still sentence her within the guidelines at his discretion, though usually the plea deal is on a smaller set of charges than the indictment so its a net win regardless and brings double jeopardy into play since it counts as a conviction.
The last kind is total immunity which sounds nice in theory but is more dangerous for both sides. She’d have to spill all of the beans on everything within the bounds of her immunity which will be broad. If she is ever caught in a lie or a deliberate omission, the immunity deal flies out the window and everything she said as part of the deal can be used against her at trial. Waiving one’s 5th amendment rights is usually a stipulation of immunity agreements - total honesty or guaranteed prison time.
It remains to be seen how much she is cooperating.
Edit: [1] turns out the DoJ has several different types of plea agreements and even a handy guide: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/basic-gu...
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm... does that mean she gets away scot-free? Not sure that's fair, she seems very complicit.
93% of prisoners are men[1], so it's pretty common that women do not face justice. [1] https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_gende...
Would need to have more information before coming to such a conclusion, such as the proportion of crimes committed by men vs women, the types of crimes committed by men vs women, etc.
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hm... does that mean she gets away scot-free? Not sure that's fair, she seems very complicit.
I haven’t seen any evidence Alameda itself committed any crime, only that they were terrible traders and lost many billions on margin through FTX, who gave them special treatment for collateral. SBF then tried to bail them out with FTX customer funds since he owned both. I think Ellison will get off scot free since she only controlled Alameda, and not entirely. Her crimes are probably minor and worth forgiving for he…
Didn't she admit that only she, SBF and the cofounder were aware that the funds were taken from costumers to fund their illiquid investiments?
Many news outlets reported this. She participated on the crime
Re: SBF Arrested by Bahamian Authorities
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
The HN commenters in question were universally saying that he made up the donations to Republicans to cover up his more extensive connections to Democrats.
I'm sorry, but pretty sure they are public record.
I haven't been able to locate any public record of them. I think you may be confusing the donations that the #2 in charge made to republicans.