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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30433 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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Author, journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin plans to interview SBF on Nov. 30th

https://twitter.com/andrewrsorkin/status/1595517635441090565

SBF confirms

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1595512579417378837

Even though SBF limited his replies to only people he follows, he is still getting trashed in his comments. Others are livid as well.

Does SBF deserve a platform despite being presumably a major fugitive? Is this ethical on the part of Sorkin?

Why is SBF still free or at least not in trouble?

Regarding the second item, I am guessing the feds are still in the evidence gathering stage. The feds cannot just issue an arrest unless they have enough evidence to build a case that with a near 100% certainty will lead to a conviction or a plea. Kenneth Lay of Enron for example was indicted in June 2004, nearly 3 years after Enron's bankruptcy.

Does seem early to arrest. Madoff basically admitted to it.

So he’s going to be spending 60 years in jail. I don’t care if he gets to enjoy an interview. But I have two interests

  1. It’s going to be entertaining and I value my own enjoyment

  2. Anything he says can be used against him.

Now my bullshit detector is turned on. When does a son of law school professors violate core rights less to self incriminating?

When does a son of law school professors violate core rights less to self incriminating?

(1) When he is firmly convinced his father, amongst others, gave him bad advice (his father was amongst those who he consulted before agreeing to resign)

(From the Vox article): But he also insisted that much of the trouble could have been avoided if FTX had not declared bankruptcy, which has largely taken financial matters out of his control. ... “The people in charge of [the company] are trying to burn it all to the ground out of shame,” he told me.

Bankman-Fried argues he should instead have kept trying to raise more money, and insisted that if he’d just done that, “withdrawals would be opening up in a month with customers fully whole.”

(From the bankruptcy filing): 44. At the same time, negotiations were being held between certain senior individuals of the FTX Group and Mr. Bankman-Fried concerning the resignation of Mr. Bankman-Fried and the commencement of these Chapter 11 Cases. Mr. Bankman-Fried consulted with numerous lawyers, including lawyers at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, other legal counsel and his father, Professor Joseph Bankman of Stanford Law School. A document effecting a relinquishment of control was prepared and comments from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s team incorporated. At approximately 4:30 a.m. EST on Friday, November 11, 2022, after further consultation with his legal counsel, Mr. Bankman-Fried ultimately agreed to resign, resulting in my appointment as the Debtors’ CEO. I was delegated all corporate powers and authority under applicable law, including the power to appoint independent directors and commence these Chapter 11 Cases on an emergency basis.

(2) When he is firmly convinced he did nothing wrong and this is his chance to explain that

(Vox article): Bankman-Fried has maintained that FTX has never invested the deposits of crypto account holders on the exchange. I pressed him on that point via Twitter, and while he continued to insist that FTX did not directly use account money in this way, he said that Alameda — which he also owns — had borrowed far more money from FTX’s balance sheet for investments than he had realized, which ultimately left FTX vulnerable to the crypto equivalent of a bank run.

Why didn’t Bankman-Fried realize what was happening until it was too late? “Sometimes life creeps up on you,” he said.

One theory is that the seeds of FTX’s downfall were sown earlier this year, when Alameda reportedly took huge losses after the crypto company Terra’s LUNA stablecoin collapsed. Bankman-Fried said he didn’t realize the extent of the problem because of “messy accounting” — albeit messy accounting to the tune of billions of dollars.

(3) When he has his head so far up his own arse as 'SBF' does

I’m going with (3). Though I would think his parents are as deep into crypto that they would give him good advice.

I guess there is

(4) they all know he’s f$cked. So best play is act like your just a true believer tech enthusiast and legitimately believed the coin you printed yesterday is worth $40 billion. Hence you never stole customer funds but put them in a U.S. treasury like security. Theranos chick got what 10 years? Madoff got 150. So play the tech guy fake it to you make it game and hope it gets bought instead of the Madoff I just stole your money game.

I give these people a lot of respect for being smart. And aware. So dumb pumper doesn’t work for me.

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