This is a nice tagline, but I think it's much more benign than it sounds, and it's not exclusive to America.
It's just a legal convention to help think about how corporations fit into laws not explicitly written for them. For example, who can enter legal contracts and what are the repercussions if they are broken? Well contract law was thought of around people, but if you think of a corporation similarly, then the law still makes sense. Of course, they can and do specify restrictions that only apply to corporations or opt them out.
What I was really saying was that corporations should have to obey campaign spending limit laws that were explicitly designed to apply to them, to limit corruption.
"Corporations are people and money is speech" was just Stephen Colbert's in-character strawman summary of the Citizens United decision.
A better summary is that restrictions on money being spent on speech are effectively restrictions on speech, itself, and the freedom of speech is not limited to individuals.
Right. Citizens United used those two ridiculous arguments (spending is speech, corporations should have rights intended for individuals) to allow corporations to ignore corporate campaign contribution limits.
I didn't know Colbert coined "corporations are people" -- TIL.
The visible donations are just the tip of the iceberg. The hidden donations include lucrative cushy jobs for family members of politicians, insider stock tips, promises of corporate board positions for 'retired' politicians and bureaucrats, special low-rate home loans, and probably about a dozen other mechanisms.
Then, the Senator or House member will always take the donor's call, will introduce bills written by the donor's lawyer, will put pressure on regulatory agencies to do what the donor wants, etc. (not that the latter is really needed, as the regulators are typically going back and forth to jobs in the industry they're supposed to be regulating, via the revolving door).
It's a grossly corrupt system, but notice that corporate media (owned by the same people) chose not to put 'concern about government corruption' on their list of items to poll voters about prior to the midterms.
>It's a grossly corrupt system, but notice that corporate media (owned by the same people) chose not to put 'concern about government corruption' on their list of items to poll voters about prior to the midterms.
I find it difficult to view the things you describe as "grossly corrupt"
>Then, the Senator or House member will always take the donor's call
Ok, so what?
>will introduce bills written by the donor's lawyer
What exactly is supposed to be wrong with this?
>will put pressure on regulatory agencies to do what the donor wants, etc.
Not in any official role, as a politician they just happen to be a well respected person with influence. How would you even forbid this?
None of these seem to be examples of actual corruption, like buying votes.
> None of these seem to be examples of actual corruption, like buying votes.
Why buy votes when you can own the representative directly? Why should someone who donates massive amounts of money to a campaign have more sway over a representative than another constituent. On that note, maybe only those represented by a candidate should be allowed to contribute to that candidate's campaign.
> Why buy votes when you can own the representative directly?
Except it doesn't, the donors are just paying for someone to listen to them for a moment. US political donors get a far worse deal than someone paying bribes in an actually corrupt country would.
> Why should someone who donates massive amounts of money to a campaign have more sway over a representative than another constituent.
Similarly as any friend or acquaintance would have more sway over a representative than another constituent. That's how it works when you hire humans to decide things.
> donors are just paying for someone to listen to them for a moment
These donors aren't paying for a sympathetic ear. If the donors didn't get the outcome they wanted they wouldn't donate so much money. They are buying influence that benefits their causes and it's a corrupt practice. Representatives exist to represent their constituents not get rich pandering to other rich people.
> Similarly as any friend or acquaintance would have more sway over a representative than another constituent.
My friends don't pay me to give me their opinions.
What exactly is it that you are proposing the donors get in return? "influence"? How do you quantify that? Is it votes? If not votes, then what?
Buying "influence" is not corruption. Paying a representative or a senator to take specific actions in the course of their official duties would be. Giving money to a senator and then asking them to call the DHS to push your business partners visa through is strictly not corruption.
Anyone who'd call this "grossly corrupt" has never interacted with real corruption.
> In extreme capitalism, even the government is up for sale to the highest bidders.
I'm going to guess (with a great deal of certainty) that you've never spent time in a former or current socialist/communist country, because that is how things get done there with the implicit expectation of it being the precursor for how anything gets done.
I think that is one of the many overlaps all States have in common: the superficial means may differ but through largess and outright theft (and eventual consolidation) of a Nation's wealth amongst a minority with an effective monopoly on violence is the crux of how they all operate.
Condemning it entirely and finding a new ways to structure Society should be the aim, but since tribalism is so effective you have the plebs fighting amongst themselves about who's corrupt system steals from them the most legitimately.
> Condemning it entirely and finding a new way to structure Society should be the aim
Never gonna work. It was noted by Plato over 2000 years ago that in any system where the leaders can own property, they will use their political power for financial gain. And he has been proven right over and over again ever since. Plato even admits that his ideal system, where the leadership is not allowed to own property, is impossible.
> Never gonna work. It was noted by Plato over 2000 years ago that in any system where the leaders can own property, they will use their political power for financial gain. And he has been proven right over and over again ever since. Plato even admits that his ideal system, where the leadership is not allowed to own property, is impossible.
Funny, we have entirely different interpretations of the significance of the Republic; if there was any book that substantiated the need to move away from the Nation State model it was that! Any Society which sought to kill it's professed 'Philosopher King' due to it's own hubris is unfit to structure what we call Civilization--more so when that individual claims to 'know nothing' but exposes the vapid nature of it's rulers and it's Legal system to be a murderous farce.
The fact that Humans have repeated this cycle since Ancient Greece is testament of not just our collective folly in the West to learn from our predecessors but also underscores just how long the scale of these cycles are rather than what you purport, I'm afraid.
The Republic was actually what made me look further into Anarchism after repeated readings since I was in my early teens, and its what I advocate for those who are interested on the topic should begin to see how far it goes back.
With that said, I'm well aware Plato advocated for a plutocracy/oligarchy, but one need only look to the Kyklos [0] or anacyclosis to know that one is just the precursor to the other and I think I side with Aristole's assessment (though not his conclusion) more anyhow. The fact that we haven't broken this perverse cycle is testament of Humanity's inherit flaw and begs a much bigger question about the many paving our own road towards extinction for the benefit of the few; because as we've seen with COVID and now Russia's cataclysmic invasion in Ukrainian and the CCP's saber rattling with Taiwan they all seem intent more than anything to bring about the collective demise of Human civilization via Nuclear War in the backdrop of the damage that climate change has wrought upon the World--much of which all Nation states has enabled.
Don't get me wrong, communism is much worst. But capitalism naturally decays into feudalism or fascism, democracy is an unstable state. You need political pressure from the people to keep a democracy, and if they are asleep or distracted by the media democracies naturally decay into this.
It's not like you either have capitalism and democracy or communism and autocracy, you have capitalism with feudalism/fascism/oligopoly or communism. You've got an unstable state of democracy with capitalism in the middle which can easily decay either left or right but can hardly correct back into the middle.
Funnily enough, many citizens of so called democracies which are actually no longer democracies think that just because they aren't communistic then they are democratic. Democracies allow politicians to change the law for their own elections. They allow them to consolidate power in other ways. They can be overtaken by the media.
Many countries have the potential to become democracies again without violence, but it requires an understanding and education of the population that is missing, and heavy propaganda blinds them.
> I find the US political donation system a weird mix: is it bribery or a protection racket or both!?
Definitely both, his text interview pretty much revealed to what extent he was willing to go to open the right doors, once in them he realized he had to keep the grift going and donations/contributions are how things get done in order to 'be liked' and make a 'reputation.'
I want to re-iterate, this has nothing to do with Bitcoin (FTX never had any exposure to it), and more to do with how an insider with political, VC and SV connections who used alt cryptocurrencies (specifically his own) to do EXACTLY what crooks from wall street have done (Lehman, MF Global). This guy had backing from Sequoia to Blackrock, and sat down with tons of politicians on panels and was on the cover of tons of media and was about to do a panel will Janet Yellen and Zelensky this month!
Again, he is an insider who had a lucrative trading background and pivoted to go out on his own pretending to be a woke Effective Alturist to VCs in order to grift retail who were incredibly short-sighted with promises of infinite yield farming with alts. Seqoiua 'loved' and ave him $250million while he played video games during his pitch: please help me understand how ANYONE who has been a founder and has had to bootstrap how could anyone get away with this if he weren't a connected insider? It's like the most satirical version of Silicon Valley come to Life.
If Elizabeth Holmes went down perhaps the pressure will be on to get him back to the US and prosecute him for financial malfeasance, but it seems the Bahamas intends to financially ruin him before that happens. I fear his connected parents have already started to make phone calls and call in favours in order to get him a pardon or at the very least a very short sentence in a white collar crime prison.
In short, Bitcoiners get multiple life sentences in a SuperMax for running websites, and I envision an insider like SBF (and his gf a Stanford grad who is responsible for losing customer funds who is seemingly out of the picture) who ran a ponzi scheme funded by VC money will likely get a light sentence if anything at all.
Yeah - I can't remember where I read it but the notion seems to be that corruption and bribery in China and US is actually quite comparable except that in the US, bribery in the form of political donation is legalized.
For companies such as FTX, or any in the Fortune 500 size, it the expenditure on political donation must have such outstanding ROI. For the scale of economic impact it has (tens of billions of dollars) I can't believe that influences can be bought for mere tens of millions of dollars.
I just happened to listen to this Freakonomics podcast yesterday. The bits on The Politics Industrial Complex were helpful. It puts into words what my gut has been telling me.
Given your question, give it a listen, it's worth your time.
This reminds me of the claims by organized crime syndicates that they were really just supporting the immigrant and minority communities in New York City who were being subjected to discrimination by the state. Robbin' The Hood.
Well it is true to some extent. Tammany Hall was notoriously corrupt but did lots of things for immigrants who would've otherwise had no help and arguably
was ethically net neutral.
>The real business of the club is service. Every time someone comes in with a problem, that someone's name, address and telephone number are written on a special five‐ by‐eight‐inch card. Unless the problem is too sensitive to be committed to paper, the inter viewer — who may be an elected official or just an active member of the club— jots down a brief description of it. I went through a stack of these cards, and the notes on them suggested the breadth of the view the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club takes of the functions of a political organization. Here are some of the problem descriptions:
>“Job reference … chiropractor bill … problem with daughter at school being harassed by other students … post office info.… draft info. … Canarsie baseball league … matrimonial problems — advised what to do … Medicaid problem … has not received 2 Regents scholarship checks … Criminal Court — referred to lawyer … personal problem with son—O.K. taken care of … fire inspector requires that a partition be removed—this seems rather hard on the per son and not really necessary —should talk to department … transfer from Louis Pink houses to Bayview and Glen wood … welfare assistance info. soc. sec. … wants to go to Bar Association against his lawyer—I told him to go fly a kite! … info re Peace Corps … works for city Dept. of Parks — lost his job — provisional … problem with ex wife … accepted by City College—wishes to go to Brooklyn. …”
Would be nice but this was much more about buying political influence in the hope of a bailout or avoiding regulation or prosecution.
They donated to Republicans too, though less. There are other crypto scam outfits that donate more to Republicans for what I am sure are the same reasons.
Most of the funds form FTX ‘crypto gamblers’ ended up in Sam’s pockets where he made dubious gambles with it. Not a lot more than pledges did actually materialized into donations. To me effective altruism is just a mantra to justify bad behaviors in the name of altruism.
>To me effective altruism is just a mantra to justify bad behaviors in the name of altruism.
What are the "bad behaviors" being justified here, and how do they relate to effective altruism? From wikipedia:
>Effective altruism (EA) is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis".[1][2] People who pursue the goals of effective altruism are labeled effective altruists.[3]
>Common practices of effective altruists include choosing careers based on the amount of good that the career achieves, donating to charities based on maximising impact, and earning to give. Popular cause priorities within EA include global health and development, animal welfare, and risks to the survival of humanity over the long-term future.
I'm not sure how any of that describes "using customer funds to prop up your affiliated crypto trading firm"
> I'm not sure how any of that describes "using customer funds to prop up your affiliated crypto trading firm"
Hedge Fund, it was Alameda where the customer deposits were backdoored to and it was a Female Standford grad in Mathematics (who claimed to only use elementary math while operating it) who was CEO of said hedgefund where all the funds were lost--I only say this because of the wide-spread condemnation of the tech industry to downplay the effect that Women have on tech, and are entirely silent when it's negative as in the case wit Alameda or Theranos.
Just so it's clear, I'm not a misogynist I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of the woke mob(s) that SBF played n order to get where he was when it comes to hypocrisy and outright refusal to acknowledge it's prejudices because she doesn't seem to be getting any coverage in this crime at all! SBF is a crook and he deserves all of the scrutiny so far, but so is she and it should be noted as such!
Edit because HN sucks at post liimts:
> Is this a distinction worth making? I'm not even sure whether "hedge fund" is even the correct term here. Wikipedia describes it as a "quantitative trading firm" and so does bloomberg.
Very much so, yes: one was an exchange (that took in customer deposits for the purpose of them to buy/sell on said platform) the other was a separate trading operation which was used to (among other things listed below) front-run tokens with said deposits on behalf if it's owners with said exchange based on the activity of it's user base--it's like not seeing the difference between Robinhood and Citadel in that debacle. It just so happens that FTX and Alameda were founded and owned by the same person, SBF.
So, yes their are critical and fundamental differences that should be acknowledged to comprehend what and how this occurred. The Court Ruling is worth a read.
Furthermore, the use of quantitative analysis to trade doesn't detract from the aforementioned so I'm not sure why you cited that at all other than to prove you can look up a wikipedia entry.
But ultimately, no... it isn't the same thing at all; here is the court ruling to prove it [0], and note the following:
> -8-4892-0827-0654 v.2C.The Alameda Silo22.The parent company and primary operating company in the Alameda Silo is Alameda Research LLC, which is organized in the State of Delaware. Before the Petition Date (as defined below), the Alameda Silo operated quantitative trading funds specializing in crypto assets. Strategies included arbitrage, market making, yield farming and trading volatility. The Alameda Silo also offered over-the-counter trading services, and made and managed other debt and equity investments.
>> In short, the Alameda Silo was a “crypto hedge fund” with a diversified business trading and speculating in digital assets and related loans and securities for the account of its owners, Messrs. Bankman-Fried (90%) and Wang (10%).
>> I'm not sure how any of that describes "using customer funds to prop up your affiliated crypto trading firm"
>Hedge Fund
Is this a distinction worth making? I'm not even sure whether "hedge fund" is even the correct term here. Wikipedia describes it as a "quantitative trading firm" and so does bloomberg.
A fair summary (based on information from Open Secrets) would be that the vast preponderance of contributions were to Democratic and/or progressive candidates or funds ($36,846,356), plus relatively insignificant ($240,200) contributions to Republicans who were (in one way or another) anti-Trump.
"Solidly Democrat/Liberal"
Rank 6
Contributor FTX.US, Washington, DC
Total Contributions $39,884,256
Total Hard Money $1,047,256
Total Outside Money $38,837,000
To Democrats $36,846,356
To Republicans $240,200
"In addition, Bankman-Fried wired maximum individual donations to Boozman and incumbent Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Hoeven of North Dakota and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska throughout the election cycle."
Collins, Burr, Cassidy, and Murkowski are strongly aligned against Trump.
Boozman received his contribution(s) during his primary against Jake Bequette, a strongly pro-Trump Republican.
Hoeven likewise during his primary race against Rick Becker, another strongly pro-Trump Republican.
"Stabenow noted that she is working with her Republican counterpart on the committee, Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark), and regulators to finalize the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA) bill in preparation for a committee vote. DCCPA gives power to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to regulate the trading of digital commodities. This bill was backed by Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of the crypto exchange FTX."
Your post did not contest no donations going to progressive or left-wing causes. That is the primary problematic part.
FTX as far as the public is aware is 2/3 Dem 1/3 Repub donations. You only brought up SBF. I was talking about FTX as a whole. Sibling comment notes this as well.
> “Bankman-Fried pledged to spend upwards of $1 billion”
Crazy on how little attention gets placed on Citizens United when this comes up. It seems like Americans would prefer the status quo of the political machine.
My gut feeling is that media (and other) figures are still figuring out how to deal with the cognitive dissonance between their self-perceived intelligence and the fact that the whole crypto-space is a gigantic freaking scam — which has been quite evident to many for years.
This seems very widely reported in the media, it was the feature story in The Economist this week and had multiple articles in it. Didn't a lot of other new revelations on this come out of reporting by Financial Times and Vox as well?
I was responding to the citizens united statement, not the article. Citizens United literally means money talks. The only alternative is publicly funded campaigns. Which is fine by me. But people will game that system. Might as well make it legal.
No, it was about whether Congress has the power to regulate independent political spending, specifically within the BCRA’s prescribed 30 and 60 day pre-election windows. Per Citizens United, it does not.
To most readers, wiki’s page about it appears to not paint the same picture you’re describing.
Here’s the initial synopsis:
“It was argued in 2009 and decided in 2010. The court held 5-4 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.”
Corporations and other associations shouldn’t be allowed to donate any money for political ads or political causes. My initial question was if the Citizens United case limits donations. It does by giving unlimited political spending power to most legal entities.
Ah my bad. I meant partisan political causes. I don’t know enough about this to give you a distinction. I can point to the policy. I’d like Citizens United overturned.
> Corporations like the Sierra Club? Why not?
For partisan causes I don’t think society has space for money to be that powerful. The establishment Dem and Repub parties, politicians, and outside money coming in shouldn’t be able to buy votes and mindshare via ads and marketing that cost tons of money through/with entities.
Not really. Citizens United was about limits on "soft money". Basically it removed any restrictions on spending by PACs on behalf of a candidate as long as the spending isn't explicitly coordinated with the candidate. Personal vs corporate spending is not really relevant.
This is incorrect. Citizens United found that the BCRA's ban on corporate independent expenditures was unconstitutional. PACs were not affected by this decision.
Super PACs — which I assume you're thinking of — would only become a thing later in the SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission decision.
SBF has always had the right to spend millions on politics. FTX has not (well, it wouldn't have had it if it existed between 2004 and 2010.)
Citizens United was the right decision. Banning political campaigning by private entities just gives more power to entrenched political parties. And it's fundamentally unfair that I can't start a PAC and campaign my political goals, but the RNC and the DNC are given a free hand. Also, why can't a billionaire start a PAC and run campaign adds, but he can start a TV network and run propaganda? So, ban that too, you say. But that violates freedom of the press, which I assume you don't want to get rid of.
Everybody must be allowed to campaign, because the alternative is having politicians decide who can and who can't, and they will never do this in a way that doesn't entrench their own power.
It will be a galvanizing event to see how he is punished for scamming billions of dollars from regular joes. Especially after Elizabeth Holmes got 11 year for scamming on a significantly smaller scale.
The court case had nothing to do with medical claims or what she did to people or her bad tests - she was convicted of one count of conspiracy and three counts of wire fraud. 100% about financial fraud.
Holmes and Balwani were indicted for crimes both for medical claims and claims to investors
It's just that they were convicted only on the financial charges.
Also, I think it's vert likely the medical fraud made the priority of this case significantly higher. It's the kind of thing that makes people mad and prosecutors pay attention.
Financial fraud has some of the stiffest punishments that there are. Every single charge generally carries up to 20+ years. Madoff, for instance, ended up getting 150 years.
Of course Madoff ripped of the elites of society while SBF ripped off commoners and gave to the elites, something like a reverse Robin Hood. Real surprise the Sheriff of Nottingham doesn't seem quite so interested in his misdeeds in our tale.
I believe Madoff was sentenced so long to set an example. He was going to die in prison or be incredibly old when he would have got out regardless. His brother is out of prison now. Were any other people in their orbit sent to prison?
We have people in prison for life for 3rd time marijuana charges. We are still putting people in prison for long periods of time for repeat non-violent offenses. Imprisoned populations are disproportionately of certain demographics. Many see all of this as a sign of classism and racism.
Nearly every story before this on HN was "he gave to republicans too!" yet the numbers you show is that he gave less than 1% to republics, and >99% of it to Democrats. I guess anyone who wants to be considered bi-partisan can just throw a few dollars at the other party now
It looks like the Republican's that he gave to were moderate Republicans like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins and so likely part of the same overall strategy. Moderates are outliers in the party as they aren't afraid not to vote along strict party lines.
If you look at the infographic on the WSJ article though I think it's much more telling of FTX's bi-partisan influence:
SBF gave $35.9 million to liberal groups
Ryan Salame gave $21.6 million Conservative groups
What matters is the sheer scale of the fraud and the fact that it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US. I mean they announced a ticketmaster anti-trust investigation due to the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, but $10B in fraud isn't enough to elicit a more notable and vocal response?
I'm sure it will be pursued but where is the outcry?
"some" include the Democratic National Committee[1]. This type of action sure reinforces feelings that politics in America is gravely corrupt and some sort of reset is needed.
As others have pointed out, the FTX team donated to politicians of both parties in a very calculated way. There's a great diagram in this article that shows how the money flowed [1].
But as gross as all this is (and I think our political system's legalization of bribery is extremely gross) I tend to think that political cynics are also being insufficiently cynical about the current dynamics:
If the FTX donors were a potential future source of funds, I have no doubt that there might be some political soft-touching going on. But that's not the case. SBF et al. are never going to be a significant source of political donations in the future. (Even if they somehow manage to recover some personal wealth, they're all politically radioactive.) There's no percentage for any politician to do them political favors at this point, and a huge amount of political downside. I think what you're seeing in the Bahamas right now is mostly to be expected: a whole bunch of agencies competing to figure out who will get jurisdiction and access to any remaining funds. This requires forensic acounting and some cooperation from the principles. SBF et al. being in jail (as opposed to being free but closely watched) will just make this early process much harder.
As I mentioned in another comment, the House Financial Services Committee -- currently chaired by Maxine Walters (D) -- has already announced hearings.
I don't mean this as an attack, but I find it's useful to occasionally examine my own bubble.
It's likely a very complicated case, so I would imagine it will take some time. It took what, 2-3 years to bring the case against Elizabeth Holmes over Theranos?
I’m aware that probes have started, but with very little fanfare or pomp behind them.
Perhaps people prefer that approach, but to me this is a situation that calls for vocal messaging from the top.
The fraud is public for all to see and pretty much indisputable. It’s far worse than Bernie Madoffs scheme ever was
Evidence needs to be gathered before any formal prosecution sure, but would like to see more of a verbal acknowledgement of the clear wrongdoing from regulators
Do they typically do that? My understanding (and I am very much NAL) is that the standard practice is to only officially discuss ongoing investigations if they are ready to file charges which honestly seems like a good practice. And honestly I would be pretty surprised if there aren't any criminal charges coming out of this whole fiasco.
From a certain viewpoint, I think the "little fanfare" is a good thing. I certainly prefer it from grand-standing declarations that somebody will end up in jail before any investigation has been performed. Yes, it seems like a pretty straight-forward case. But still.
I'd prefer it more if this standard of restrained would be applied everywhere. It clearly isn't, and that is a problem. Not only, but certainly also, because it makes one wonder if the restrained is motivated by CYA.
Dude it is plainly obvious that the government isn’t making a big stink of it because a ton of people in the government benefited from FTX’s political donations, and a real investigation will expose that. That is why the donations are important.
I keep hearing this, and I understand the sentiment: people are angry, and hurt.
But we missed the opportunity to proactively regulate. We can’t get this back. Governments absolutely should not shoot first and ask questions later. The wheels of justice should be slow and exact. The alternative is much worse.
What optics? It's about all the tools of police that we keep being told are essential to their work and that have very little barrier to entry. Phone surveillance, subpoenas, raid offices and homes. Of course if you never do any of these things, you will never find the evidence for serious charges. Just for once try prosecuting a white-collar fraud like it's another minor drug dealer.
Is extradition from Bahamas to US achievable? I would assume SBF core team is in process of moving to countries that would deny US extradition requests.
The two aren't mutually exclusive, for the exact reason you mentioned.
That is, the donations are why no one wants to do the right thing. Maybe it's fear? Maybe it would mean The Politics Industrial Complex would be acknowledging its dirty little secret?
Oh...and suddenly...look at that...what perfect timing...Let's go get Ticketmaster.
You've got all the right dots, just need a bit of a remix on understanding how to connect them.
There is a connection between the Chief of Trading at the
FTX trading company and the actual Org over-seeing
FTX via the licenses that FTX and its Trading company held.
Rumor is that there was a look-away rather than investigate order involved.
And that involves the SEC and another agency.
Given the demand to regulate from both political parties this is not
going away.
But still the core thing is transparency and how the block-chain really does not provide that at all as it's just a transaction book and does not enforce any relationships beyond the transactions.
> it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US
I don't think you'd be able to tell yet, for a real investigation.
You've got to realize, the Taylor Swift stuff is "for the cameras". An investigation and prosecution around something as convoluted as the FTX collapse will take years of real work.
I also think there won't be a lot of heat around the FTX collapse because it was widely assumed to be a scam... a case of people playing with matches getting burned. (I think that's unfair in many, many cases, and uncompassionate, but nevertheless will affect the priority of prosecuting this.)
FWIW, the Justice Department investigation into Live Nation / Ticket Master was ongoing before the events of this last week. Personally I was heartened by this fact.
I think there is quite a bit of outcry about FTX, it's in every newspaper. The SEC is investigating and I'm sure many other investigations are being spun up. I can't imagine this will be let go lightly.
I think it's being pursued aggressively in the US. WSJ reports that the Manhattan US Attorney's office is investigating[1]. The US and the Bahamas are discussing extradition[2]. The House Financial Services Committee is having at least one hearing[3].
And unsurprisingly there's already at least one class action lawsuit.
I was trying to contextualize how big of scale that number is. And I was reading the NYTimes piece on ATT/TW/WB.
"That amounts to a loss of about $47 billion for AT&T shareholders, based on AT&T’s $109 billion valuation of the deal at the time it was announced."
AT&T lost its shareholders $47 billion in 4 years. Obviously you need to divide both numbers by stakeholders, but even still. IT is really hard to just fathom how much $10B, $15B $47B is. At these scales, numbers just mean different things.
The anti-trust investigation was not due to the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco. This is a misconception and I think it's the result of the media reconnecting the dots. What's new is that some states Attorneys General have looking into Ticketmaster. The DOJ actually began looking into Ticket Master/Live Nation's practices months before the Swift fiasco:
>"Members of the antitrust division’s staff at the Justice Department have in recent months contacted music venues and players in the ticket market, asking about Live Nation’s practices and the wider dynamics of the industry, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is sensitive."[1]
And in many ways this is a continuation of their anti-trust probe that began in 2018/2019. [2]
>"What matters is the sheer scale of the fraud and the fact that it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US."
Do you not believe there might be a relationship between these two things? Both parties in a two party system were on the receiving end of these donations. There's likely a lot of people on both side's of the aisle that don't want to talk about this. I think those same people want this framed as a regulatory failing instead of large scale fraud. I think the details and extent of all this are still coming to light however and that this story is likely not going away.
His brother also used to work on Capitol Hill, then "worked for Democratic Party-aligned consulting firm Civis Analytics" before founding a lobbying group whose principal funder was SBF.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 180 ms ] threadBut according to the US supreme court, money is speech so it doesn't matter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlPQkd_AA6c
It's just a legal convention to help think about how corporations fit into laws not explicitly written for them. For example, who can enter legal contracts and what are the repercussions if they are broken? Well contract law was thought of around people, but if you think of a corporation similarly, then the law still makes sense. Of course, they can and do specify restrictions that only apply to corporations or opt them out.
A better summary is that restrictions on money being spent on speech are effectively restrictions on speech, itself, and the freedom of speech is not limited to individuals.
I didn't know Colbert coined "corporations are people" -- TIL.
And https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-...
Then, the Senator or House member will always take the donor's call, will introduce bills written by the donor's lawyer, will put pressure on regulatory agencies to do what the donor wants, etc. (not that the latter is really needed, as the regulators are typically going back and forth to jobs in the industry they're supposed to be regulating, via the revolving door).
It's a grossly corrupt system, but notice that corporate media (owned by the same people) chose not to put 'concern about government corruption' on their list of items to poll voters about prior to the midterms.
I find it difficult to view the things you describe as "grossly corrupt"
>Then, the Senator or House member will always take the donor's call
Ok, so what?
>will introduce bills written by the donor's lawyer
What exactly is supposed to be wrong with this?
>will put pressure on regulatory agencies to do what the donor wants, etc.
Not in any official role, as a politician they just happen to be a well respected person with influence. How would you even forbid this?
None of these seem to be examples of actual corruption, like buying votes.
Why buy votes when you can own the representative directly? Why should someone who donates massive amounts of money to a campaign have more sway over a representative than another constituent. On that note, maybe only those represented by a candidate should be allowed to contribute to that candidate's campaign.
Except it doesn't, the donors are just paying for someone to listen to them for a moment. US political donors get a far worse deal than someone paying bribes in an actually corrupt country would.
> Why should someone who donates massive amounts of money to a campaign have more sway over a representative than another constituent.
Similarly as any friend or acquaintance would have more sway over a representative than another constituent. That's how it works when you hire humans to decide things.
These donors aren't paying for a sympathetic ear. If the donors didn't get the outcome they wanted they wouldn't donate so much money. They are buying influence that benefits their causes and it's a corrupt practice. Representatives exist to represent their constituents not get rich pandering to other rich people.
> Similarly as any friend or acquaintance would have more sway over a representative than another constituent.
My friends don't pay me to give me their opinions.
Buying "influence" is not corruption. Paying a representative or a senator to take specific actions in the course of their official duties would be. Giving money to a senator and then asking them to call the DHS to push your business partners visa through is strictly not corruption.
Anyone who'd call this "grossly corrupt" has never interacted with real corruption.
Hard disagree. I don't think we will come together on this one.
I'm going to guess (with a great deal of certainty) that you've never spent time in a former or current socialist/communist country, because that is how things get done there with the implicit expectation of it being the precursor for how anything gets done.
I think that is one of the many overlaps all States have in common: the superficial means may differ but through largess and outright theft (and eventual consolidation) of a Nation's wealth amongst a minority with an effective monopoly on violence is the crux of how they all operate.
Condemning it entirely and finding a new ways to structure Society should be the aim, but since tribalism is so effective you have the plebs fighting amongst themselves about who's corrupt system steals from them the most legitimately.
Never gonna work. It was noted by Plato over 2000 years ago that in any system where the leaders can own property, they will use their political power for financial gain. And he has been proven right over and over again ever since. Plato even admits that his ideal system, where the leadership is not allowed to own property, is impossible.
Funny, we have entirely different interpretations of the significance of the Republic; if there was any book that substantiated the need to move away from the Nation State model it was that! Any Society which sought to kill it's professed 'Philosopher King' due to it's own hubris is unfit to structure what we call Civilization--more so when that individual claims to 'know nothing' but exposes the vapid nature of it's rulers and it's Legal system to be a murderous farce.
The fact that Humans have repeated this cycle since Ancient Greece is testament of not just our collective folly in the West to learn from our predecessors but also underscores just how long the scale of these cycles are rather than what you purport, I'm afraid.
The Republic was actually what made me look further into Anarchism after repeated readings since I was in my early teens, and its what I advocate for those who are interested on the topic should begin to see how far it goes back.
With that said, I'm well aware Plato advocated for a plutocracy/oligarchy, but one need only look to the Kyklos [0] or anacyclosis to know that one is just the precursor to the other and I think I side with Aristole's assessment (though not his conclusion) more anyhow. The fact that we haven't broken this perverse cycle is testament of Humanity's inherit flaw and begs a much bigger question about the many paving our own road towards extinction for the benefit of the few; because as we've seen with COVID and now Russia's cataclysmic invasion in Ukrainian and the CCP's saber rattling with Taiwan they all seem intent more than anything to bring about the collective demise of Human civilization via Nuclear War in the backdrop of the damage that climate change has wrought upon the World--much of which all Nation states has enabled.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyklos
It's not like you either have capitalism and democracy or communism and autocracy, you have capitalism with feudalism/fascism/oligopoly or communism. You've got an unstable state of democracy with capitalism in the middle which can easily decay either left or right but can hardly correct back into the middle.
Funnily enough, many citizens of so called democracies which are actually no longer democracies think that just because they aren't communistic then they are democratic. Democracies allow politicians to change the law for their own elections. They allow them to consolidate power in other ways. They can be overtaken by the media.
Many countries have the potential to become democracies again without violence, but it requires an understanding and education of the population that is missing, and heavy propaganda blinds them.
Sometimes the bribes were as trivial as a packet of wurst.
Definitely both, his text interview pretty much revealed to what extent he was willing to go to open the right doors, once in them he realized he had to keep the grift going and donations/contributions are how things get done in order to 'be liked' and make a 'reputation.'
I want to re-iterate, this has nothing to do with Bitcoin (FTX never had any exposure to it), and more to do with how an insider with political, VC and SV connections who used alt cryptocurrencies (specifically his own) to do EXACTLY what crooks from wall street have done (Lehman, MF Global). This guy had backing from Sequoia to Blackrock, and sat down with tons of politicians on panels and was on the cover of tons of media and was about to do a panel will Janet Yellen and Zelensky this month!
Again, he is an insider who had a lucrative trading background and pivoted to go out on his own pretending to be a woke Effective Alturist to VCs in order to grift retail who were incredibly short-sighted with promises of infinite yield farming with alts. Seqoiua 'loved' and ave him $250million while he played video games during his pitch: please help me understand how ANYONE who has been a founder and has had to bootstrap how could anyone get away with this if he weren't a connected insider? It's like the most satirical version of Silicon Valley come to Life.
If Elizabeth Holmes went down perhaps the pressure will be on to get him back to the US and prosecute him for financial malfeasance, but it seems the Bahamas intends to financially ruin him before that happens. I fear his connected parents have already started to make phone calls and call in favours in order to get him a pardon or at the very least a very short sentence in a white collar crime prison.
In short, Bitcoiners get multiple life sentences in a SuperMax for running websites, and I envision an insider like SBF (and his gf a Stanford grad who is responsible for losing customer funds who is seemingly out of the picture) who ran a ponzi scheme funded by VC money will likely get a light sentence if anything at all.
For companies such as FTX, or any in the Fortune 500 size, it the expenditure on political donation must have such outstanding ROI. For the scale of economic impact it has (tens of billions of dollars) I can't believe that influences can be bought for mere tens of millions of dollars.
Given your question, give it a listen, it's worth your time.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/im-your-biggest-fan/
https://www.npr.org/2014/03/05/286218423/the-case-for-tamman...
A more recent example of Meade Esposito (1972):
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/10/archives/-hi-boss-said-th...
>The real business of the club is service. Every time someone comes in with a problem, that someone's name, address and telephone number are written on a special five‐ by‐eight‐inch card. Unless the problem is too sensitive to be committed to paper, the inter viewer — who may be an elected official or just an active member of the club— jots down a brief description of it. I went through a stack of these cards, and the notes on them suggested the breadth of the view the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club takes of the functions of a political organization. Here are some of the problem descriptions:
>“Job reference … chiropractor bill … problem with daughter at school being harassed by other students … post office info.… draft info. … Canarsie baseball league … matrimonial problems — advised what to do … Medicaid problem … has not received 2 Regents scholarship checks … Criminal Court — referred to lawyer … personal problem with son—O.K. taken care of … fire inspector requires that a partition be removed—this seems rather hard on the per son and not really necessary —should talk to department … transfer from Louis Pink houses to Bayview and Glen wood … welfare assistance info. soc. sec. … wants to go to Bar Association against his lawyer—I told him to go fly a kite! … info re Peace Corps … works for city Dept. of Parks — lost his job — provisional … problem with ex wife … accepted by City College—wishes to go to Brooklyn. …”
They donated to Republicans too, though less. There are other crypto scam outfits that donate more to Republicans for what I am sure are the same reasons.
What are the "bad behaviors" being justified here, and how do they relate to effective altruism? From wikipedia:
>Effective altruism (EA) is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis".[1][2] People who pursue the goals of effective altruism are labeled effective altruists.[3]
>Common practices of effective altruists include choosing careers based on the amount of good that the career achieves, donating to charities based on maximising impact, and earning to give. Popular cause priorities within EA include global health and development, animal welfare, and risks to the survival of humanity over the long-term future.
I'm not sure how any of that describes "using customer funds to prop up your affiliated crypto trading firm"
Hedge Fund, it was Alameda where the customer deposits were backdoored to and it was a Female Standford grad in Mathematics (who claimed to only use elementary math while operating it) who was CEO of said hedgefund where all the funds were lost--I only say this because of the wide-spread condemnation of the tech industry to downplay the effect that Women have on tech, and are entirely silent when it's negative as in the case wit Alameda or Theranos.
Just so it's clear, I'm not a misogynist I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of the woke mob(s) that SBF played n order to get where he was when it comes to hypocrisy and outright refusal to acknowledge it's prejudices because she doesn't seem to be getting any coverage in this crime at all! SBF is a crook and he deserves all of the scrutiny so far, but so is she and it should be noted as such!
Edit because HN sucks at post liimts:
> Is this a distinction worth making? I'm not even sure whether "hedge fund" is even the correct term here. Wikipedia describes it as a "quantitative trading firm" and so does bloomberg.
Very much so, yes: one was an exchange (that took in customer deposits for the purpose of them to buy/sell on said platform) the other was a separate trading operation which was used to (among other things listed below) front-run tokens with said deposits on behalf if it's owners with said exchange based on the activity of it's user base--it's like not seeing the difference between Robinhood and Citadel in that debacle. It just so happens that FTX and Alameda were founded and owned by the same person, SBF.
So, yes their are critical and fundamental differences that should be acknowledged to comprehend what and how this occurred. The Court Ruling is worth a read.
Furthermore, the use of quantitative analysis to trade doesn't detract from the aforementioned so I'm not sure why you cited that at all other than to prove you can look up a wikipedia entry.
But ultimately, no... it isn't the same thing at all; here is the court ruling to prove it [0], and note the following:
> -8-4892-0827-0654 v.2C.The Alameda Silo22.The parent company and primary operating company in the Alameda Silo is Alameda Research LLC, which is organized in the State of Delaware. Before the Petition Date (as defined below), the Alameda Silo operated quantitative trading funds specializing in crypto assets. Strategies included arbitrage, market making, yield farming and trading volatility. The Alameda Silo also offered over-the-counter trading services, and made and managed other debt and equity investments.
>> In short, the Alameda Silo was a “crypto hedge fund” with a diversified business trading and speculating in digital assets and related loans and securities for the account of its owners, Messrs. Bankman-Fried (90%) and Wang (10%).
0: https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/33/188450/042020648...
>Hedge Fund
Is this a distinction worth making? I'm not even sure whether "hedge fund" is even the correct term here. Wikipedia describes it as a "quantitative trading firm" and so does bloomberg.
https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/ftz-crypto-bankman-fried-de...
"Last spring, Bankman-Fried pledged to spend upwards of $1 billion on the 2024 election, particularly if Donald Trump were to run."
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donor...
Sam Bankman-Fried
The Republicans recipients:https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/ftx-founder-sam-bankman...
"In addition, Bankman-Fried wired maximum individual donations to Boozman and incumbent Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Hoeven of North Dakota and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska throughout the election cycle."
Collins, Burr, Cassidy, and Murkowski are strongly aligned against Trump.
Boozman received his contribution(s) during his primary against Jake Bequette, a strongly pro-Trump Republican.
Hoeven likewise during his primary race against Rick Becker, another strongly pro-Trump Republican.
Also Boozman:
https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/22/11/296766...
"Stabenow noted that she is working with her Republican counterpart on the committee, Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark), and regulators to finalize the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA) bill in preparation for a committee vote. DCCPA gives power to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to regulate the trading of digital commodities. This bill was backed by Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of the crypto exchange FTX."
The weren't about altruism or progressive causes, they were playing both sides to embezzle 10x the amount they donated.
The "pledge" was just talk.
FTX as far as the public is aware is 2/3 Dem 1/3 Repub donations. You only brought up SBF. I was talking about FTX as a whole. Sibling comment notes this as well.
> “Bankman-Fried pledged to spend upwards of $1 billion”
A pledge doesn’t mean anything.
They knew it, and their plan was to hope the public signs on in a big way. They did not.
It's also being investigated by the SEC and DoJ.
To most readers, wiki’s page about it appears to not paint the same picture you’re describing.
Here’s the initial synopsis: “It was argued in 2009 and decided in 2010. The court held 5-4 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, including nonprofit corporations, labor unions, and other associations.”
Corporations and other associations shouldn’t be allowed to donate any money for political ads or political causes. My initial question was if the Citizens United case limits donations. It does by giving unlimited political spending power to most legal entities.
Corporations and other associations shouldn’t be allowed to donate any money for political ads or political causes.
Corporations like the Sierra Club? Why not?
> Corporations like the Sierra Club? Why not?
For partisan causes I don’t think society has space for money to be that powerful. The establishment Dem and Repub parties, politicians, and outside money coming in shouldn’t be able to buy votes and mindshare via ads and marketing that cost tons of money through/with entities.
Super PACs — which I assume you're thinking of — would only become a thing later in the SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission decision.
SBF has always had the right to spend millions on politics. FTX has not (well, it wouldn't have had it if it existed between 2004 and 2010.)
Everybody must be allowed to campaign, because the alternative is having politicians decide who can and who can't, and they will never do this in a way that doesn't entrench their own power.
No one did that.
> And it's fundamentally unfair that I can't start a PAC and campaign my political goals, but the RNC and the DNC are given a free hand.
They aren't. Donations to them are limited, too. https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/making-di...
#2 donor to Democrats, only behind George Soros. Donated $35.7 million to democrats, $240k to republicans.
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donor...
It will be a galvanizing event to see how he is punished for scamming billions of dollars from regular joes. Especially after Elizabeth Holmes got 11 year for scamming on a significantly smaller scale.
Holmes and Balwani were indicted for crimes both for medical claims and claims to investors
It's just that they were convicted only on the financial charges.
Also, I think it's vert likely the medical fraud made the priority of this case significantly higher. It's the kind of thing that makes people mad and prosecutors pay attention.
Of course Madoff ripped of the elites of society while SBF ripped off commoners and gave to the elites, something like a reverse Robin Hood. Real surprise the Sheriff of Nottingham doesn't seem quite so interested in his misdeeds in our tale.
We have people in prison for life for 3rd time marijuana charges. We are still putting people in prison for long periods of time for repeat non-violent offenses. Imprisoned populations are disproportionately of certain demographics. Many see all of this as a sign of classism and racism.
If you look at the infographic on the WSJ article though I think it's much more telling of FTX's bi-partisan influence:
SBF gave $35.9 million to liberal groups
Ryan Salame gave $21.6 million Conservative groups
Both of those are large numbers.
What matters is the sheer scale of the fraud and the fact that it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US. I mean they announced a ticketmaster anti-trust investigation due to the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, but $10B in fraud isn't enough to elicit a more notable and vocal response?
I'm sure it will be pursued but where is the outcry?
The DoJ and AG do seem focused on particularly bias driven matters though
Edit: funny the negative response this comment elicits. Everybody in their own bubble these days
Isn't the house still controlled by Democrats with the new congress starting in Jan?
And for the record, I agree with you. But if it’s just a “gut feeling” it’s not an argument I can put forward.
That's why the co-CEO donated millions to them.
Millions to the Senate and House leadership funds; that's not going to lost-cause races.
[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2022/dem...
But as gross as all this is (and I think our political system's legalization of bribery is extremely gross) I tend to think that political cynics are also being insufficiently cynical about the current dynamics:
If the FTX donors were a potential future source of funds, I have no doubt that there might be some political soft-touching going on. But that's not the case. SBF et al. are never going to be a significant source of political donations in the future. (Even if they somehow manage to recover some personal wealth, they're all politically radioactive.) There's no percentage for any politician to do them political favors at this point, and a huge amount of political downside. I think what you're seeing in the Bahamas right now is mostly to be expected: a whole bunch of agencies competing to figure out who will get jurisdiction and access to any remaining funds. This requires forensic acounting and some cooperation from the principles. SBF et al. being in jail (as opposed to being free but closely watched) will just make this early process much harder.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/428c7800-c72d-4c59-9940-4376fea6e...
I don't mean this as an attack, but I find it's useful to occasionally examine my own bubble.
https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/159372959492171367...
I'm trying to find the original source for this but I can't. Matt Stoller is literally The Anti-Trust Guy on Twitter though.
Also, the U.S. is currently engaged with the Bahamas in a jurisdictional battle for SBF's seized funds:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/bahamas-regulator-says-it...
Has fraud ever been more obvious and clear cut than in this case?
It's likely a very complicated case, so I would imagine it will take some time. It took what, 2-3 years to bring the case against Elizabeth Holmes over Theranos?
Perhaps people prefer that approach, but to me this is a situation that calls for vocal messaging from the top.
The fraud is public for all to see and pretty much indisputable. It’s far worse than Bernie Madoffs scheme ever was
Evidence needs to be gathered before any formal prosecution sure, but would like to see more of a verbal acknowledgement of the clear wrongdoing from regulators
I'd prefer it more if this standard of restrained would be applied everywhere. It clearly isn't, and that is a problem. Not only, but certainly also, because it makes one wonder if the restrained is motivated by CYA.
But we missed the opportunity to proactively regulate. We can’t get this back. Governments absolutely should not shoot first and ask questions later. The wheels of justice should be slow and exact. The alternative is much worse.
So you just care about the optics?
And that the US government will investigate all Centralized exchanges to the extent possible, regardless if it’s within their jurisdiction.
And that Tether will be audited.
Or we can silently pursue the case for 3 years and allow many new forms of fraud to flourish in the crypto space.
A quiet pursuit is somewhat comparable to an implicit endorsement in my mind
That is, the donations are why no one wants to do the right thing. Maybe it's fear? Maybe it would mean The Politics Industrial Complex would be acknowledging its dirty little secret?
Oh...and suddenly...look at that...what perfect timing...Let's go get Ticketmaster.
You've got all the right dots, just need a bit of a remix on understanding how to connect them.
There is a connection between the Chief of Trading at the FTX trading company and the actual Org over-seeing FTX via the licenses that FTX and its Trading company held.
Rumor is that there was a look-away rather than investigate order involved.
And that involves the SEC and another agency.
Given the demand to regulate from both political parties this is not going away.
But still the core thing is transparency and how the block-chain really does not provide that at all as it's just a transaction book and does not enforce any relationships beyond the transactions.
He seems to have donated massively to media and political parties, and they appear to not so easily forget who has been their good friend.
I don't think you'd be able to tell yet, for a real investigation.
You've got to realize, the Taylor Swift stuff is "for the cameras". An investigation and prosecution around something as convoluted as the FTX collapse will take years of real work.
I also think there won't be a lot of heat around the FTX collapse because it was widely assumed to be a scam... a case of people playing with matches getting burned. (I think that's unfair in many, many cases, and uncompassionate, but nevertheless will affect the priority of prosecuting this.)
I think there is quite a bit of outcry about FTX, it's in every newspaper. The SEC is investigating and I'm sure many other investigations are being spun up. I can't imagine this will be let go lightly.
And unsurprisingly there's already at least one class action lawsuit.
They're connected
"That amounts to a loss of about $47 billion for AT&T shareholders, based on AT&T’s $109 billion valuation of the deal at the time it was announced."
AT&T lost its shareholders $47 billion in 4 years. Obviously you need to divide both numbers by stakeholders, but even still. IT is really hard to just fathom how much $10B, $15B $47B is. At these scales, numbers just mean different things.
then
> it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US.
?
what would you think if you found out that Joe Biden operated a scam to fund his campain for example ? because the outcome is the same
>"Members of the antitrust division’s staff at the Justice Department have in recent months contacted music venues and players in the ticket market, asking about Live Nation’s practices and the wider dynamics of the industry, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is sensitive."[1]
And in many ways this is a continuation of their anti-trust probe that began in 2018/2019. [2]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/technology/live-nation-ti...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ti...
>"What matters is the sheer scale of the fraud and the fact that it doesn't seem to be getting pursued aggressively by the US."
Do you not believe there might be a relationship between these two things? Both parties in a two party system were on the receiving end of these donations. There's likely a lot of people on both side's of the aisle that don't want to talk about this. I think those same people want this framed as a regulatory failing instead of large scale fraud. I think the details and extent of all this are still coming to light however and that this story is likely not going away.
This is a good article about Mind the Gap, the Super PAC she leads: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/6/21046631/mind-the-gap-si...
His brother also used to work on Capitol Hill, then "worked for Democratic Party-aligned consulting firm Civis Analytics" before founding a lobbying group whose principal funder was SBF.
https://www.counterpunch.org/author/gbbnknfrd2211/ https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/guarding-against-p...
Could this be code for: he is likely not going to jail?