521–530 of 843 posts
Cantor Fitzgerald, formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and is now run by his son, went to various companies that were affected by tariffs and bought the rights to their potential tariff refunds for 20% of the value on the expectation that it'd be struck down by the courts. Now they stand to make huge returns of 3 to 5x for being correct on that bet, while, of course, consumers get nothing. Now if this i…
Side topic, but this number puts into how crazy it was for trump[0] to go on tariff war against enemies and friends alike. All the propaganda and extortionist language about how all countries will pay up to USA. Astronomical tariffs in some cases, trade wars and dramas, alienate all allies and from all of this they got only $130B ? $7T of spending, $1.77T in deficit[1] and they planned to fix this hole with $100B?! M…
Maybe I don't understand as I'm an outsider, but as per my recent comment on this topic [0], I fail to see the logic of how "other countries" pay the US when the tariffs are paid by the importer and not the other country which is exporting. I do acknowledge that import taxes can in theory help local industries, especially if the other countries are subsidizing exported goods. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…
It's paying more for something just to keep it domestically available for purposes of national security.
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A lot. If you remember all the tariff announcements in the first months of 2025, the stock market tanked and it was an easy buy. The market then reasonably quickly realized many of these tariffs weren't going to persist. The payoff was fast, and the reason you didn't see a massive uptick in the market when the ruling came out was because it was already priced in at that point. Just because something isn't obvious to…
To buy after a market dip requires roughly zero specific conviction or insight regarding this supreme court ruling and its consequences.
In this case X was the tariffs. You are out of your depth.
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The executive class are out to get as much as they can as quickly as they can while the music plays, then retire to whatever luxury boltholt they can prepare. It's FIRE with private islands, and without even a figleaf of noblesse oblige any more.
>The executive class are out to get as much as they can [...] This is just hollow populist anti-elite rhetoric. Who do you think sold them the tariff refunds? They're not buying them from granny who didn't know any better. They bought it from other executives who knew, or at least ought to know what was at stake.
The judge said the repayment process should be straightforward and grew impatient when a Justice Department lawyer said the government hadn’t yet formalized its position on refunding the tariffs, which President Trump imposed by citing a decades-old law. “Your position is clear,” the judge said. “The Supreme Court told you what your position is.”
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Because this hypothetical memo was paid for by our tax dollars, not your own private money! That means it belongs to the American people, not individuals for their private gain. Using it for your own gain would be theft from the American public. In this hypothetical case, of course. There is no evidence that such a memo exists. But if it did...
> That means it belongs to the American people, not individuals for their private gain. This is a strong case that there ought not to be any such thing as a secret opinion or confidential advice from the White House OLC - and I agree with that opinion if that's what you're saying. But it doesn't transform the information contained therein to nonpublic. I'm not saying this whole thing wasn't a total scumbag move - it…
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Think about how to actually pull this trade off. It isn't pushing a button on your trading app. Competitors cant enter this competition easily.
I thought his son just had a brain?
The people harmed here were the US public and they are just going to continue to be harmed. The right answer is people go to jail. Until people start going to jail, being disbarred, etc, this will keep happening. This isn't a remedy. This is continuing the cycle.
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He presumably did not have access to the court's opinion before it was released, but he did have access to internal White House legal opinions before the tariffs were announced ("Mr. President this is illegal and very likely to be overturned by the courts"), and he obviously had access to the entire federal legal team during the court cases. I can't prove that there was any White House advisory memo before the tariff…
White House legal opinions aren't any better than other legal opinions. Opinions are not "information".
Why not?
(Hint: it creates a perverse incentive to see your side lose the legal argument for your own personal gain.)
And in this case, it's the actual secretary doing it. Who has significant influence on the outcome of the case (largely in the negative - nothing he can do can make the government more likely to win it, but stuff he did has the capacity to make the government more likely to lose it.)
Cantor Fitzgerald, formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and is now run by his son, went to various companies that were affected by tariffs and bought the rights to their potential tariff refunds for 20% of the value on the expectation that it'd be struck down by the courts. Now they stand to make huge returns of 3 to 5x for being correct on that bet, while, of course, consumers get nothing. Now if this i…
This is wrong. It's not insider trading. Lutnick didn't have inside information. His son just had a brain. Anyone who read the case knew which way the court was going, it was the least surprising decision ever. Perhaps the only surprising thing is that the court ever heard it.
One might argue it should fall under a different technical label, but whatever label one uses (A) it stinks of corruption and (B) it's only the tip of the iceberg.
People entrusted with government authority to do work for the public shouldn't be personally profiting from how they decide to wield that authority. Imagine a policeman that arrests people while placing bets about how long that person will be jailed, what they'll be charged with, or whether they'll be convicted.
The objection that "it's unfair, they know something other bettors don't" occurs first not because it's the biggest issue, but because it's easier to prove.
The bigger problem is making improper decisions with their work-powers in order to personally profit, a trust and separation which they've already destroyed by placing the bets in the first place.