What an insane take. I guess Bernie Madoff should have been free, too. In fact, why jail anyone ever for economic crimes? After all, “it’s just money.”
The most revealing detail is the PR plan. It shows the machinery behind the public persona: legal strategy, media appearances, ideological repositioning, and "radical honesty" all treated as narrative management. It matters because it helps people see how public reality gets shaped, not just reported.
We must always remember that the rich + elites do not care how we are. They do not care if we're fed, they do not care if we get adequate medical care, or find love or start families.
The only thing the rich cares about is what we think of them, they will spend 100s of millions to make sure people positively of them.
Yeah, I forgot all those poor people that own social media companies, news outlets, and transnational corporations; truly the shapers of society are the meek and not billionaires, man I was fooled hard.
My take away was that he actually made everyone a boat load of money.
It appeared as though it was his lack of rigor and discipline (keeping books properly) which did him in, not dishonesty.
In the end, I had the impression there was a witch hunt for cons when the crypto market dipped.
Is that not how it was? I didn’t follow too closely and I’m not a fan or anything. It only seemed like he was an idealist born of privilege on cloud nine without appropriate formal training in finance.
> It appeared as though it was his lack of rigor and discipline (keeping books properly) which did him in, not dishonesty
"Gosh, how was I supposed to know it was wrong to lie and secretly 'borrow' other people's money without permission for my own gambles at the casino over and over!? I was going to put it back eventually, when I finally won enough back. It's society's fault for not ensuring I was properly educated in these extremely fine points of post-graduate human behavior."
I can't imagine accepting that from, say, a random manager of a gas-station convenience store, let alone someone with Bankman-Fried's wealth and advantages in life and a full-time job in fancy finance.
I'm sure Bankman-Fried also make a ton of "technical" breaches... But mostly in the same way a bank-robber also has an improperly licensed firearm and a double-parked getaway vehicle with old license-plates. They are not so much "mistakes" at that point as details of how the Big Crime was committed.
> he actually made everyone a boat load of money.
Like Bernie Madoff did? No, lots and lots of people lost money, and—in order to disguise it for a while—he ensured a much smaller number of people got some of the dwindling pile.
That is not at all how it was and this is strangely similar to the (also untrue) astroturf narrative that got repeated about Martin Shkreli after he got imprisoned for fraud.
FTX users lost money to Alameda by Alameda being able to trade without collateral. He literally stole money from users of his exchange by allowing this.
It absolutely is not lack of rigor and discipline - He was dishonest about it.
Isn't it the opposite? He gambled with other people's money and lost big. This is criminal because he won, he kept everything, if he failed, everyone else loses.
We really have no evidence that if he accidentally had a few extra billion he wouldn't have done the right thing and reported his crimes so he could divide the proceeds with people he illegally borrowed money from, though clearly not immediately first he would need to wait for it to come back from loans to his associates where he would have had to augment the bellow market interest rates with money he saved from his childhood allowance.
>essentially no realistic avenues left to avoid his 25-year prison sentence
Couldn't he bribe the Trumps?
There's always grift in the grift economy
[flagged]
Locking people up for stealing millions is pretty standard and a lot of normal people support it.
Would you like people to steal your money / property without punishment?
What an insane take. I guess Bernie Madoff should have been free, too. In fact, why jail anyone ever for economic crimes? After all, “it’s just money.”
The most revealing detail is the PR plan. It shows the machinery behind the public persona: legal strategy, media appearances, ideological repositioning, and "radical honesty" all treated as narrative management. It matters because it helps people see how public reality gets shaped, not just reported.
We must always remember that the rich + elites do not care how we are. They do not care if we're fed, they do not care if we get adequate medical care, or find love or start families.
The only thing the rich cares about is what we think of them, they will spend 100s of millions to make sure people positively of them.
It is absolutely sociopathic behavior.
A lot of poor people (many sociopaths as well) on social media also behave that way by forging a fake image about themselves.
Yeah, I forgot all those poor people that own social media companies, news outlets, and transnational corporations; truly the shapers of society are the meek and not billionaires, man I was fooled hard.
The point is that rich or poor, people spend time/money on faking their image.
Yeah but only one is destroying democracy and embracing fascism.
My take away was that he actually made everyone a boat load of money.
It appeared as though it was his lack of rigor and discipline (keeping books properly) which did him in, not dishonesty.
In the end, I had the impression there was a witch hunt for cons when the crypto market dipped.
Is that not how it was? I didn’t follow too closely and I’m not a fan or anything. It only seemed like he was an idealist born of privilege on cloud nine without appropriate formal training in finance.
Oh no, he's found HN! :p
> It appeared as though it was his lack of rigor and discipline (keeping books properly) which did him in, not dishonesty
"Gosh, how was I supposed to know it was wrong to lie and secretly 'borrow' other people's money without permission for my own gambles at the casino over and over!? I was going to put it back eventually, when I finally won enough back. It's society's fault for not ensuring I was properly educated in these extremely fine points of post-graduate human behavior."
I can't imagine accepting that from, say, a random manager of a gas-station convenience store, let alone someone with Bankman-Fried's wealth and advantages in life and a full-time job in fancy finance.
I'm sure Bankman-Fried also make a ton of "technical" breaches... But mostly in the same way a bank-robber also has an improperly licensed firearm and a double-parked getaway vehicle with old license-plates. They are not so much "mistakes" at that point as details of how the Big Crime was committed.
> he actually made everyone a boat load of money.
Like Bernie Madoff did? No, lots and lots of people lost money, and—in order to disguise it for a while—he ensured a much smaller number of people got some of the dwindling pile.
Don't forget he also had parents who were experts in law. If there is anyone who knows the illegality of what he was doing, it's definitely him.
Not just “experts”. Legal ETHICS professors at Stanford.
That is not at all how it was and this is strangely similar to the (also untrue) astroturf narrative that got repeated about Martin Shkreli after he got imprisoned for fraud.
FTX users lost money to Alameda by Alameda being able to trade without collateral. He literally stole money from users of his exchange by allowing this.
It absolutely is not lack of rigor and discipline - He was dishonest about it.
> It absolutely is not lack of rigor and discipline - He was dishonest about it.
In a way, it's weaponised lack of rigour and discipline, which is the absolute easiest form of dishonesty to justify to yourself.
Isn't it the opposite? He gambled with other people's money and lost big. This is criminal because he won, he kept everything, if he failed, everyone else loses.
We really have no evidence that if he accidentally had a few extra billion he wouldn't have done the right thing and reported his crimes so he could divide the proceeds with people he illegally borrowed money from, though clearly not immediately first he would need to wait for it to come back from loans to his associates where he would have had to augment the bellow market interest rates with money he saved from his childhood allowance.
> My take away was that he actually made everyone a boat load of money.
What point are you trying to make? Should he not be prosecuted for fraud as long as a lot of people benefited, is that what you're suggesting?