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The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

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731–740 of 748 posts

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly FUD from a criminal defense firm trying to scare people into hiring them. Cops are not as bad as people think they are. Cops behaving badly (in the U.S.) is news because it is the exception and not the norm.

~30% of wrongful convictions is just rounding error, right? https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/detailli...

Read your own source. Because, by your logic, SBF being a con artist means that all programmers are con artists.

30% These convictions aren't the result of people talking to the police and then getting screwed over. The overwhelming majority of them are the result of cross-racial witness identifications.

To put it bluntly: most wrongful convictions are due to racism on the part of prosecution witnesses.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#732
post #718
post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bankruptcy law allows for the clawback of preferential transfers. Any transfers within 90 days of bankruptcy are assumed to be preferential. Or transfers for a longer time to insiders. And that's without fraud. With fraud they can go back farther. Like, Madoff's investors who got out in time had to turn over a lot of cash.

But this is nothing like the Madoff situation. So you're saying if I withdraw my rightful funds 80 days before a company goes bankrupt, and I use those funds to pay for consumable goods, and consume those goods, that those funds can be clawed back and I am now in debt? That doesn't sound right at all. I also just looked and a preferential transfer would be when the company that goes bankrupt deliberately pays off som…

Not only can it happen like that, it can happen like that even if there is no fraud. Paying off some customers you owe money to would be giving those creditors preference, I don't see how else you could interpret it.

Heck, FTX went out of its way to only allow Bahamian citizens to withdraw money at the end, imagining that would be the jury pool deciding their fate soon.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#733

Can we discus recovery? The Madoff trustee was able to recover something like 90% of the Madoff Ponzi. Alameda and FTX's real estate purchases have value, as do their VC investments, purchases of bank stock, etc. In other words, it's not all gone. My understanding is that even some of the political contributions can be clawed back. FTX's purchases of IOU's (i.e., crypto) that declined in value are not likely to be re…

The problem is opportunity cost. People invested in Madoff to grow their money. So if I invest $100 in Madoff and ten years later they say “we recovered $90, congrats,” yeah that’s better than nothing. But if I had put that into a legitimate investment, maybe I’d have $180. Other folks got money out of Madoff during his scam years, and the trustee says “I’m taking that money back to pay back others.” So much of crypt…

Did Tom Brady actually receive the payment?

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#734
post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last generation will have a lot more to worry about than who will take care of them in retirement.

That's exactly the point. The last generations will have done their jobs supporting their elder predecessors, but won't have anyone to come after them who will take care of them. Left holding the bag.

The last generation will be too busy trying to backpedal their way out of existential doom to take care of their elders. Assuming they make it out of the cradle at all.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not particularly. He had gained notoriety due to other behavior (raising drug prices to fund other drug research, his attitude during his Congressional testimony and media appearances, etc.), but it sounds like his fraud [or whatever he was specifically found guilty of] was very cut-and-dry against SEC and other relevant rules.

He certainly committed fraud, but it’s certainly unusual that he was prosecuted for it when nobody lost money. In fact, investors did well. It’s hard not to feel like this is not a thing that would have been investigated had he not been a totally raging asshole.

It’s not true that nobody lost money in spite of the fact that he made this claim in court and it is repeated frequently. The court found he reduced the gains from group A to pay off losses from group B. People in group A lost money that was rightfully theirs as a result of his actions.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> burned through billions If Alameda lost the billions, then who won the billions? Who was on the other side of those trades?

One blogger's estimate of their losses: >Voyager/BlockFi acquisition: 1.5b >LUNA exposure: 1b >KCG-style algo crash: 1b >FTT/SRM collateral maintenance: 2b >Venture capital: 2b >Real estate, branding, other frivolous spending: 2b >FTT drop from $22 to $4: 4b >Discretionary longs going bad: 2b >Total: 15.5 billion https://milkyeggs.com/?p=175

Reminds me of the famous quote by the footballer George Best “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#737
post #732
post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is nothing like the Madoff situation. So you're saying if I withdraw my rightful funds 80 days before a company goes bankrupt, and I use those funds to pay for consumable goods, and consume those goods, that those funds can be clawed back and I am now in debt? That doesn't sound right at all. I also just looked and a preferential transfer would be when the company that goes bankrupt deliberately pays off som…

Not only can it happen like that, it can happen like that even if there is no fraud. Paying off some customers you owe money to would be giving those creditors preference, I don't see how else you could interpret it. Heck, FTX went out of its way to only allow Bahamian citizens to withdraw money at the end, imagining that would be the jury pool deciding their fate soon.

[deleted]

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is opportunity cost. People invested in Madoff to grow their money. So if I invest $100 in Madoff and ten years later they say “we recovered $90, congrats,” yeah that’s better than nothing. But if I had put that into a legitimate investment, maybe I’d have $180. Other folks got money out of Madoff during his scam years, and the trustee says “I’m taking that money back to pay back others.” So much of crypt…

On this note I am curious if political organisations will be required to give back the donations he made. It seems the right thing if they were stolen funds. But being politicians I'm curious if it will be rules for thee and not for me.

We just had an election as well, which means most of that money would have been spent. How far can they chase it down? I can’t imagine random campaign staffers needing to pay back their wages.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hope is that some programmer dictator will instate a form of the discordian calender: - All 5 seasons are the same length - The days of the year always fall on the same week day, as the week is 5 days long - the year always starts with the first day of the week. - the leap day is not assigned a day Things I would change though: - start the year at winter solstice. - put the leap day at the end of the year. https:/…

Finally, we can get rid of Wednesday... Wendsday? Woesnday?.... that day in the middle of the week that no one can spell =P

In German Wednesday got that treatment in the middle age and was replaced by what would be midweek in English.

Re: The United States of America vs. Samuel Bankman-Fried Indictment [pdf]

#740
post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you have to be a real genius to make money buying the sp500.

I think it was obvious that we weren't talking about index investing.

Do you know what opportunity cost is? Or perhaps you missed that part of the post?
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