Might also add: Often there is an altruistic pitch behind their fraud that . In WeWork's case, it was changing the way we live; In FTX case it was saving the planet; and so on and so on....
Bankman the altruist, give me a break, haha. corzine shot for the stars and stole his customer's money to cover the bets gone bad, as did bankman. We were chatting at dinner yesterday about theranos and ftx. My sister made the point that maybe liz got time due to stealing big from rich people. Taking from little guys might dial down the pressure to prosecute, as might be the case with ftx.
The points you make re: garland are true, sadly. Holder was evil if not in his tribe. What are the odds that bankman gets hanged? His youth, lack of slickness, and blatant faux generosity to dems with stolen funds not much edge. Family connections might wield an edge. Liz recently going to the joint definitely big negative edge there. Maybe so much of the crypto space being relatively new, the lawyers can spin that for some edge. The fact that corzine was let go, to this day, still might influence garland, so maybe some big upside edge there.
So I'm going with 30/70 odds that he gets any jail time. 50/50 that he gets charged with a crime.
Deceptive sales tactics tend to be similar in all industries and despite a cloaked veneer of supposed respectability, proclaiming to make donations to the greater good of Community State country continent and planet do not offset lack of due diligence and proper protocol and con men throughout history have always counted on getting the benefit of the doubt from putting forth a good Public image to enhance their ability to steal. As you've seen me proclaim many times in the past few weeks and months the majority of this could have been prevented by the application of three simple words:"adequate due diligence".
Any investment made prior to such is probably no better than betting red, black or green on a roulette wheel.
Jon Corzine getting a $5 million find to settle with the CTFC is nothing after destroying MF Global. And no jail time is a slap in the face. What he did was just as bad as Bernie Madoff and Madoff ended up in prison. Corzine is worth $350 million. I am still disgusted by his actions and the inappropriate action by Eric Holder and the US Government.
Not that anything Mr Carter wrote needs anything more added but I just thought this was so good that you might like it too. My original reference was from Instapundit, but the article is from the Washington Free Beacon, "What in the Actual F— Is Wrong With These People?" (link here, https://freebeacon.com/democrats/sam-bankman-fried-analysis/).
The following is the Instapundit quote.
You can’t make this up. Earlier this month, some dough-faced dork named Sam Bankman-Fried—an MIT grad and son of Stanford law professors—vaporized the GDP of a small country after successfully conning the entire world of so-called educated elites.
All of them. The freaks in Silicon Valley, the freaks on Wall Street, the freaks in Hollywood, and the freaks in Washington. Even (or especially) the journalists who are supposed to be holding everyone accountable. The smartest, most enlightened professional experts and self-appointed moral referees.
Bill Clinton. Tony Blair. The Democratic Party. Larry David. Tom Brady. Fortune magazine. Andrew Ross Sorkin. CNBC. The bald guy from Shark Tank. BlackRock, the $10 trillion investment firm where former Obama aides go to get rich and serve as “Global Head of Sustainable Investing.”
They all vouched for Bankrupt-Fraud and his blockchain stonk machine. Like they vouched for Elizabeth Holmes and her magic blood box. Like they vouched for Michael Avenatti and his bullshit litigation racket. The Lincoln Project. OZY Media. Stacey Abrams.
"I read with incredulity that Tiger Global pays Bain $100,000,000 per year to do due diligence for them!"...ridiculous, of course, but I've heard of a lot of major corporations that pay consultants large amounts of money to design *organization structures* for them, as well as strategies. (What exactly is the job of the CEO and the other senior executives in these companies)?
Although I've heard that Tiger makes investment decisions very rapidly...a day or two...which doesn't seem compatible with an outsourced DD process.
It seems to me that access to cheap easy money that you described goes beyond facilitating fraud. It also taints the whole financial world in such a way that normal people investors think it's easy to make money investing. The bull market that would not end continued from 2020 onward due to the wide-spread availability of cheap easy money. And rather than trying to determine how/when to get out or at least take some profits before the inevitable bear's arrival, normal people investors leave their money where it was and get pounded.
Note, I'm not looking down on normal people investors because this is sorta what happened to me. The details are somewhat more complicated and I'm doing fine, but cheap easy money lulls you to sleep.
Funny, I was always told that venture capital money was the most expensive form of capital. Turns out, when interest rates are 0%, VC money is cheap too.
Tiger pays Bain $100,000,000 so Tiger can sue Bain if the investment doesn't pan out. I agree there is no substitute for doing your own due diligence. Bain better be prepared to write a big check to Tiger for FTX.
when you are that big, small losses don't really affect the entire fund's performance. But, you also have to return the entire fund. The partners at Sequoia are betting on every other company in that fund vintage to cover the stupidity of the FTX investment. It's deflection rather than accepting personal responsibility.
Might also add: Often there is an altruistic pitch behind their fraud that . In WeWork's case, it was changing the way we live; In FTX case it was saving the planet; and so on and so on....
Bankman the altruist, give me a break, haha. corzine shot for the stars and stole his customer's money to cover the bets gone bad, as did bankman. We were chatting at dinner yesterday about theranos and ftx. My sister made the point that maybe liz got time due to stealing big from rich people. Taking from little guys might dial down the pressure to prosecute, as might be the case with ftx.
The points you make re: garland are true, sadly. Holder was evil if not in his tribe. What are the odds that bankman gets hanged? His youth, lack of slickness, and blatant faux generosity to dems with stolen funds not much edge. Family connections might wield an edge. Liz recently going to the joint definitely big negative edge there. Maybe so much of the crypto space being relatively new, the lawyers can spin that for some edge. The fact that corzine was let go, to this day, still might influence garland, so maybe some big upside edge there.
So I'm going with 30/70 odds that he gets any jail time. 50/50 that he gets charged with a crime.
Great post as always!
Deceptive sales tactics tend to be similar in all industries and despite a cloaked veneer of supposed respectability, proclaiming to make donations to the greater good of Community State country continent and planet do not offset lack of due diligence and proper protocol and con men throughout history have always counted on getting the benefit of the doubt from putting forth a good Public image to enhance their ability to steal. As you've seen me proclaim many times in the past few weeks and months the majority of this could have been prevented by the application of three simple words:"adequate due diligence".
Any investment made prior to such is probably no better than betting red, black or green on a roulette wheel.
Jon Corzine getting a $5 million find to settle with the CTFC is nothing after destroying MF Global. And no jail time is a slap in the face. What he did was just as bad as Bernie Madoff and Madoff ended up in prison. Corzine is worth $350 million. I am still disgusted by his actions and the inappropriate action by Eric Holder and the US Government.
The 5 million dollar fine was a slap in the face to all of humanity!
Not that anything Mr Carter wrote needs anything more added but I just thought this was so good that you might like it too. My original reference was from Instapundit, but the article is from the Washington Free Beacon, "What in the Actual F— Is Wrong With These People?" (link here, https://freebeacon.com/democrats/sam-bankman-fried-analysis/).
The following is the Instapundit quote.
You can’t make this up. Earlier this month, some dough-faced dork named Sam Bankman-Fried—an MIT grad and son of Stanford law professors—vaporized the GDP of a small country after successfully conning the entire world of so-called educated elites.
All of them. The freaks in Silicon Valley, the freaks on Wall Street, the freaks in Hollywood, and the freaks in Washington. Even (or especially) the journalists who are supposed to be holding everyone accountable. The smartest, most enlightened professional experts and self-appointed moral referees.
Bill Clinton. Tony Blair. The Democratic Party. Larry David. Tom Brady. Fortune magazine. Andrew Ross Sorkin. CNBC. The bald guy from Shark Tank. BlackRock, the $10 trillion investment firm where former Obama aides go to get rich and serve as “Global Head of Sustainable Investing.”
They all vouched for Bankrupt-Fraud and his blockchain stonk machine. Like they vouched for Elizabeth Holmes and her magic blood box. Like they vouched for Michael Avenatti and his bullshit litigation racket. The Lincoln Project. OZY Media. Stacey Abrams.
"I read with incredulity that Tiger Global pays Bain $100,000,000 per year to do due diligence for them!"...ridiculous, of course, but I've heard of a lot of major corporations that pay consultants large amounts of money to design *organization structures* for them, as well as strategies. (What exactly is the job of the CEO and the other senior executives in these companies)?
Although I've heard that Tiger makes investment decisions very rapidly...a day or two...which doesn't seem compatible with an outsourced DD process.
Read that too about Tiger and thought it was stupid.
It seems to me that access to cheap easy money that you described goes beyond facilitating fraud. It also taints the whole financial world in such a way that normal people investors think it's easy to make money investing. The bull market that would not end continued from 2020 onward due to the wide-spread availability of cheap easy money. And rather than trying to determine how/when to get out or at least take some profits before the inevitable bear's arrival, normal people investors leave their money where it was and get pounded.
Note, I'm not looking down on normal people investors because this is sorta what happened to me. The details are somewhat more complicated and I'm doing fine, but cheap easy money lulls you to sleep.
Funny, I was always told that venture capital money was the most expensive form of capital. Turns out, when interest rates are 0%, VC money is cheap too.
Tiger pays Bain $100,000,000 so Tiger can sue Bain if the investment doesn't pan out. I agree there is no substitute for doing your own due diligence. Bain better be prepared to write a big check to Tiger for FTX.
It's disgusting to a person that always engaged in their own diligence....
Of course, Sequoia's wasn't much better!
Did you read Sequoia’s letter explaining how their FTX investment was a nothing burger? What a joke.
when you are that big, small losses don't really affect the entire fund's performance. But, you also have to return the entire fund. The partners at Sequoia are betting on every other company in that fund vintage to cover the stupidity of the FTX investment. It's deflection rather than accepting personal responsibility.