Thank you for defining the limits of your imagination for us. I believe that your imagination as currently configured might not be sufficient for this reality. I prescribe a dose of going outside and living more, then coming back when you have more experience, patience, or curiosity.
To the guy who wrote this:
mirror check!
Why did Constantinople get the works?
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I do believe thatâs none of your business, no matter how byzantine your questioning.
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Since the world runs on rule of law (in the sense that violation of such law can have consequences) and not on rule of morality, Skepticâs qualification is completely apropos. Your, mine, and Skepticâs morality are immaterial if we are talking about who has escaped punishment. There is no punishment for violating moral strictures (at least in this world), only for violating legal ones (sometimes).
Want to bring laws into closer alignment with your morality? Start trying to persuading voters rather than pretending that laws arenât important.
[Postscript: If you are already doing so, good for you!]
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We disagree on this.
The friends I have had for 35 years agree with me, and I hope they do for another 35 at least.
Sociopaths canât say that. I think thatâs a fitting punishment.
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Good point. In my limited experience, Iâve rarely (never?) met someone I considered unethical who I thought was particularly happy.
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I canât believe all the ignorant comments about financial markets and institutions going on here. The âbankstersâ mentioned by some are fictitious characters of your own invention. There are some people in the banking industry that are dishonest or unethical, as there are in any industry, but they are not more prevalent than in other industries, nor do they do more harm. In fact, since banking relies on trust more than many other industries, it has more than the usual number of ethical and honest people in it. They are not robbing you. If you are poor, it is because you have not earned much money or because you have invested/spent it poorly. The end.
On the other hand, the scam artists mentioned in this story are indeed serious criminals and certainly bad people. I canât believe anyone here is trying to defend them. One of the major reasons some economies flourish while others flounder is the rule of law and overall honesty, which facilitates many transactions that are necessary for economic well-being. In countries where corruption is commonplace, financial markets and institutions cannot flourish and the economy suffers. Everyone who perpetrates a crime like this harms the investors (in this case, in a hedge fund) and also the entire market, making people seeking legitimate loans have a more difficult time.
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A+++, would LOL again.
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Unless you were actually fucked over by a bank, for example:
I know that this article is about an isolated incident, but I guess it means that all the ethical and honest people were on vacation that week.
Or else, like humans in many industries, they were more interested in ass-covering and their own bonuses than anything else. Ethics and honesty are difficult to actualize when your income depends on being otherwise. Thatâs why regulation is important, so we donât have to simply trust in the ethics and honesty of people who have the ability to wreak havoc on peopleâs lives.
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Yeah, youâre still doing it wrong.
You ask other people for their money, as you already have your dadâs money
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âSometimes people ask me what I do for a living. I solve crimes.â
Oh dear God. From the story, you couldnât even put 2 + 2 together when the phone was disconnected, but now youâre Batman. Irrelevant though as this story is obviously completely fabricated. I also donât get the âtwistâ at the end where you claim the con-man was identified and heâs royalty. If this really happened, there is no way the authorities wouldnât have investigated. And if the con-man was really royalty, wouldnât this be considered as something that news organizations would be covering ruthlessly?
People have invested money poorly? Hmm. I wonder if banks have had anything to do with that. I mean, itâs not like supposedly-neutral ratings institutions like Moodyâs have an interest in providing good ratings to the banks that pay their fees, is it (and thatâs leaving aside for the fact that many of the new and exotic synthetic securities that sparked the recession were hugely complex and quite frankly understandable mainly by the highly-paid talent inside the banks that created them)? And Iâm sure banks would never internally trash-talk the securities theyâve under-written while simultaneously flogging them to investors as stable, high-grade investments, right? And hey, itâs not like banks (accurately, as it turns out) relied on being too big to fail and the implicit guarantee of government bailout should the shit ever hit the fan. No, banks are just as ethical as any other industry⌠provided that the sole purpose of that industry is to make as much money as possible in the short term, safe in the knowledge that the government will ensure that they will not fail as a truly capitalistic enterprise would be allowed to.
Yup. Because banks really want to help legitimate investors. And we know that, because when the Fed opened up the discount window and allowed big banks to borrow at below-market rates, of course the banks immediately passed on this credit access to companies seeking low-risk, viable loans. Oh, waitâŚ
Yeah, this hedge fund dude was exactly the sort of honest, ethical guys we need. In return for $10 million all he was asking for was $25 million in shares of a well-known company as security, 15% interest, an up-front fee of an additional $600,000, and 25% of the upside of the $25 million in stock over the next 10 years. Itâs such an honest and ethical offer that even the author was shocked by the last term, which he had never seen before despite it being such an honest and ethical term.
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You made an account to make a point about ignorant comments, and then made a grossly ignorant generalisation?
Somehow I get the feeling youâre a banker.
They are not robbing you.
Their business is to hold peopleâs money - for a fee - and then pool the held money to make investments. Itâs not robbery, but they certainly arenât providing a particularly productive service for anyone but themselves. Once upon a time banks were a necessary evil. Now theyâre an increasingly unnecessary evil. Your fawning adoration of them is just as bad as the pitchforky wall st hate.
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Well, creating the account was free, so why not? And no, Iâm not a banker. However, I do know many bankers, of both the commercial and investment variety, and I will take a randomly selected one of them any day over a randomly selected person from one of many other professions. By virtue of my familiarity with these markets and individuals I do end up developing kind of a peeve about people who use them as scapegoats for problems caused primarily by governments or others outside of the financial industry. Itâs a witchhunt driven by ignorance about the financial industry.
You are wrong about banks, of course, and about their importance in the economy. They are beyond absolutely critical to the economy and a well-functioning financial system is one of the most important determinants of a wealthy country. You may not be aware of the percentage of jobs that depend on companies borrowing money from banks, or having investment banks underwrite securities, or one of countless other crucial services banks and investment banks provide. And thatâs not even considering the benefits on the retail (i.e., consumer) side, both as lenders and account managers. Without them, the economy would not slow down, it would stop completely and most of us would starve almost immediately.
Actually I feel it beneath me to try and explain it to you. Anyone who thinks banks are increasingly unnecessary orâby natureâare evil is unlikely to respond either to evidence or reason. I suppose that you take the fact that eating too much makes you fat as evidence that grocery stores are evil and unnecessary?
I appreciate your optimism, but do not share it. My country sends people who have fled violence or death in their homelands to a shitty detention centre in a laughing stock of a country, where the refugees are not safe and our government washes its hands of its responsibility and duty of care. This is in direct contradiction of our legal obligations under the UNHCR. My own government doesnât care about the laws they signed up to. Furthermore I think my countrymen (well, at least a depressingly large proportion) are gullible fools with the memory of a goldfish. You cannot reason with a goldfish.
I feel like I am doing so, but only insofar as I am a brutal argumentative asshole who doesnât mind offending peopleâs political sensitivities. Flinging shit at them is pretty much the only way I have to stay sane. Iâve considered several times since their election moving to another country or just checking out of mainstream life and growing fields of weed. Thatâs how depressing a reality weâve got here.
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Close enough⌠How did I guess? Iâll just ignore what youâve got to say because youâre merely here to cheerlead for them.
You are wrong about banks, of course
Because some nobody floater bobbing in the toilet bowl says so. I actually said âNow theyâre an increasingly unnecessary evilâ. Nice straw man though⌠keep those up and youâll be super popular here.
Actually I feel it beneath me to try and explain it to you.
Wow.
evidence or reason.
Iâm seeing none of that from you.
You know whatâs funny is that I hadnât made any of the âdeath to fund managersâ comments and also found them to be mostly misdirected ranting. Then you come along⌠inject a level of reasoning into your reply before bending over, spreading your cheeks and waving the financial industryâs cock in for landing. I heart bankers is just as ignorant as I hate bankers. Thatâs the extent of my commentary.
I suppose that you take the fact that eating too much makes you fat as evidence that grocery stores are evil and unnecessary?
I suppose this is your first day on the internet, or you usually hang out somewhere where people are too stupid to recognise straw man fallacies. How about you go back there? I imagine I speak for many regulars when I say: You actually arenât welcome here.
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I think those terms were reasonable for African royalty insisting on getting a loan immediately and who is unwilling to go to a regular lender. Itâs one heck of a risk for the hedge fund to take. By the way, hedge fund managers are not bankers. Not even close. They are a bit shadier, on average. So on that we see eye to eye a little.
The point is that I am not ignorant on the subject, while most people here, including yourself apparently, are. Easy to pretend âthose guysâ are causing all your problems if you donât know them or the industry in which they work. I didnât particularly look at you when talking about stupid people using banks as a scapegoat. Not until you started doing it.
Iâm very sympathetic to overall concern for âthe way things are going,â even in the financial industry. However, I can also see that the main problems are rooted in the actions of government bodies (including the folks in DC, the Fed, HUD, and agencies like Fannie Mae) as well as systematic problems in the way we have things set up (mortgage originators having no skin in the game, for example). Well, and overall financial ignorance. Thatâs a major problem too.
Fair enough, though considering most of the original problems were caused by government interventionâtrying to push for everyone to be able to own their own home whether they can afford it or notâIâd personally opt for less government before more.
