39 Comments

In short, nobody even vaguely familiar with the space that SBF occupied should be surprised at all about what happened.

---------

Wasn't shocked the first time at MtGox, either ;)

Expand full comment

Jeffrey Epstein. Bernie Madoff-like-a-criminal. Jon (MF Global) Corzine. And now...Scam Bankrupt Fraud. Al Gore. And the biggest scamstress of all: Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit Clinton and the Clinton Crime Family Global Initiative. One (of the many) things they have in common is their selective targeting of the Proggy Elites, who usually fall down over their own sandals in contributing to the scams perpetrated by these rogues, all while believing they are smarter than the rest of us.

Okay...not everyone that fell for their schemes is some belly-button-lint-eater political progressive, but the ones that complained the loudest about falling for their scams certainly were.

Expand full comment

Felonia Milhous Von Pantsuit Clinton. I like.

Kinda unfair to Tricky Dick, but funny.

Expand full comment

New Jersey man who had his prison sentence for running a massive Ponzi scheme commuted by Donald Trump on the final day of his presidency was charged Wednesday with orchestrating a similar scheme.

Eliyahu "Eli" Weinstein Weinstein and four accomplices are accused of overseeing a new Ponzi scheme that prosecutors say has defrauded 150 victims out of more than $35 million.

Expand full comment

Securities fraud is as old as securities (Venice, 1550). After the niagara of garbage that was sold in the Roaring Twenties, Congress passed a series of securities laws which established standards for securities sold to the public. Today, those laws are as effective as the marijuana laws. Both vendors and buyers happily walk around them using loopholes known to all. Crypto is the latest such unregulated snake-oil paradise. Everyone knows that he is buying hype and hopes that he can sell the hype before it goes to zero. Fun to watch and hard to feel any emotion about aside from schadenfreude. But I do object to the fact that there is a Bitcoin machine in my supermarket that allows people without much money to gamble it on this risky non-investment. That should be illegal.

Expand full comment

Don't you worry, State governments (that themselves operate lotteries which overwhelmingly target poorer people) will step in and shut down those Bitcoin vending machines. They just need to get CBDC up and running first.

Expand full comment

He will join the likes of Michael Milken who bankrupted many innocent elderly victims, own a mansion on Nantucket and be a shoe in for a coveted membership at Sanctity. Like Milken, he will go on to sponsor philanthropic adventures to offset his continuous stream of taxable income from his bought friends and politicians who benefited immensely from his fraud.

Expand full comment

David L. Bazelon also comes to mind. Same group.

Expand full comment

Why both of his parents have not been charged yet???

Expand full comment

Elective Autism (EA)

Expand full comment

Any honest customer should have been warned by the LOCATION. Sammy was operating from the BAHAMAS. The people who still chose to bet their money after seeing the one word BAHAMAS were not innocent suckers. They were Sammy's fellow criminals who wanted to put their money in an unregulated place.

Expand full comment

There's a great meme out there, somewhere of an image of Jeffrey Epstein telling SBF, "Don't worry. There are cameras in jail so nothing can happen."

Expand full comment

I believe that two of the engineers responsible for building the FTX platform deliberately left security exploits in the source code in order to facilitate a lot of the illegal money transfers. I hope they are being prosecuted.

Expand full comment

What is most striking is how this reveals classist law and classist application of law.

When it's a lot of money, when the thief is one of the lawmaking and/or owning social class - well, then it's very difficult to get an investigation going, and even more difficult to get to trial to say nothing of conviction and in any, case any conviction is rarely more than a short stint in a minimum security facility.

Contrast that to someone poor, down and out who is convicted of theft for a few thousand dollars.

Equality before the law, the SBF and similar cases proves it is just horseshit.

One law for the rich, to get them out of trouble and one law for the poor to keep them down.

Expand full comment

Don't have to be poor - just need the look of vulnerability in scoring points. Small Enough to Jail is a chilling documentary but luckily the little guy and gals win.

Expand full comment

Securities fraud is as old as securities (Venice, 1550). After the niagara of garbage that was sold in the Roaring Twenties, Congress passed a series of securities laws which established standards for securities sold to the public. Today, those laws are as effective as the marijuana laws. Both vendors and buyers happily walk around them using loopholes known to all. Crypto is the latest such unregulated snake-oil paradise. Everyone knows that he is buying hype and hopes that he can sell the hype before it goes to zero. Fun to watch and hard to feel any emotion about aside from schadenfreude. But I do object to the fact that there is a Bitcoin machine in my supermarket that allows people without much money to gamble it on this risky non-investment. That should be illegal.

Expand full comment

Welcome back Yuri.

Old Cold Warrior here.

We miss you now that you’re gone, can the rest come back?

Even East Germany misses you...

Expand full comment

Despite farcical CIA lies, KGB as strong as ever and fully capable to counter all American threats. Time for US ruling circles to realize Zelensky puppet government teeters as his mercenary army collapses. CIA has puppet with no army. Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea liberated; rest of Novorossiya will fall like ripe apple into RF hands.

Expand full comment

If the once vaunted Russian Army couldn't even hold Kherson--abandoning it ignominiously in October of last year--I doubt seriously that, after almost two years of fighting, the Russians will be able to liberate the rest of "Novorossiya". And FYI, neither the LPR nor the DPR are fully liberated, never mind the rest of Zaparodzhe, including its largest city Kharkov. Meanwhile; the Crimea comes under increasing, and ever more brazen, attack from the UAF. This war--er, "Special Military Operation"--is an unmitigated fiasco for the Russian armed forces.

Expand full comment

KGB knows better.

Expand full comment

Their spooks definitely know how to stifle opposition to this stupid war; er "Special Military Operation". The assassination of Prigozhin & Co. and arrest of Boris Kagarlitsky are the most glaring examples of this.

Expand full comment

🤣 but what about Germany!

The AfD misses you!

They just can’t say it

Expand full comment

Wretched souls. Am nauseated by their very existence and appalled by their acceptance in social circles.

Hope I live to see the Epstein criminals exposed. Would love to hear the chatter over cocktails at the clubs they have endeared themselves to.

Expand full comment

I just wonder how many folks got suckered into this scam due to Tom Brady's connection to it...he's the GOAT, after all! Or, maybe, "scapegoat"?

Expand full comment

SBF’s connections, web of activity and rapid rise and fall are reminiscent of Epstein.

Expand full comment

sbf's bedfellows:

massive donor to dems in USA elections...some GOP, but overwhelmingly dnc

ties to ukraine potential money laundering

funding of the together trial - which downplayed effectiveness of existing drugs to treat covid

an easily identifiable fraud, on a massive scale, resulting in the left of money from users to which dem elected officials benefited the most.

lets see what happens at sentencing. call me a cynic - i was surprised he was swiftly found guilty. will he get a heavier sentence than shkreli - for arguably a far greater crime with quantifiably greater damage? not holding my breath

Expand full comment

FTX was front-running its clients, and was lending itself client assets (this is normal in a prime brokerage agreement, but FTX apparently didn't have competently drafted agreements).

Which made me wonder just how did they screw this up? It's like going broke in a poker game in which the dealer can see the next card and bet using other players' money. How the hell did they do that?

Then it occurred to me that a poker game is the wrong analogy. Poker is at base, a zero sum game. For 2022, crypto was a negative sum game. Crypto markets were hemorrhaging value that year.

The other problem with that analogy is leverage.

Expand full comment