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This story went viral A prediction market user made $436k betting on Maduro's downfall.
In the comments, one thing I have observed is the willingness of people to defend insider trading. Here is the highest-upvoted comment on Hackr News:
"Using insider information is how you are supposed to win these. Otherwise it's just random gambling. This is not the stock market. There are no public reporting rules for the weather, song lyrics, what Kim Kardashian eats tomorrow."
Does this sound insane to anyone else? Why isn't everyone doing this, if they aren't already? Just create a market about things you know in advance, using proxies and crypto mixers to hide your identity and money trail if needed. An Nvidia employee could make a prediction market about an upcoming chip, or an Apple employee about an upcoming iPhone. More specifically, shill accounts would create markets pretending to be an outsider, and the employee and his accomplices would place the correct bets leading up to the deadline. Wash trades by accomplices could be placed to create hype and volume to lure unsuspecting traders.
My comments of course were downvoted. They always are. I could make a comment along the lines of the "Pizza tastes great" and I would be downvoted by every pizza hater on that site and no upvotes by everyone else who enjoys pizza, as is the counterintuitive nature of online voting patterns. Writing good comments is an art in and of itself.
I’ve always thought every government worker with a security clearance should be allowed to insider trade as a way to make up for their lower salaries than in the private sector.
but they get huge pensions, stable employment, top tier healthcare packages and other perks
The old pension system which only boomers have was fairly generous (though still not "huge"), but the current one gives you at most 33% of your highest annual salary after 30 years of service, and requires around a
6%4.4% contribution.Have you been paying attention to Trump's second term?
Feds get access to Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Kaiser and a bunch of other health plans, but generally not "top tier" ones (or if they take the top tier it's very expensive). The government pays an employer contribution but it's not like feds are getting free or executive-level health care.
Nothing that isn't pretty standard (and often better) in private industry.
the DOGE layoffs were single year outlier of otherwise stable employment and good job prospects . 90% of the reduction was voluntary and only 10% through formal termination
To add to what @Amadan said:
Anecdotal, but people I know at state level agencies are seeing an influx of applications from federal level employees for essentially the first time in history.
Historically, state level work is minor league and federal level is The Show. AUSAs are overqualified to be local ADAs, are better paid, went to better schools, have better exit opportunities into private practice. An ADA aspires to work for the US Attorney, rarely the reverse.
Now, local DAs are reporting a good number of well qualified AUSA's applying for jobs at the county DA. That is water flowing uphill. Ditto state environmental departments, attorneys general, parks departments, etc.
Barroom speculation and rumor is that these AUSAs are concerned about job security, worried about being forced to participate in political prosecutions for reasons both cynical (I might face consequences when the worm turns) or ideological (I'm not going to sign my name to false indictments), and are frustrated with incompetent appointees in charge.
But assistant prosecutors in particular are generally pretty right wing and very law and order, so it's particularly notable that they're trying to get out.
This kind of talent shift is both a notable sign of something going on in the bureaucracy, and a long term power shift between state and federal agencies.
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This is only partially true.
The goal was to disrupt federal employment as something people think of as stable and secure. The administration knew that they had to do something damaging enough that the next administration can't just undo it in the new president's first month in office. This has certainly been accomplished. Many of the "voluntary" reductions were because of the fear of imminent layoffs and the administration making it clear that those who didn't take the deal would be facing involuntary termination.
The assumption that federal employment is stable and secure (let alone a "sinecure") is no longer valid.
The deal feds used to implicitly be offered was lower pay and benefits in exchange for stability- layoffs were very rare and of course being terminated is difficult (though not as difficult as some people think). Now they get lower pay and benefits, and the current administration has made it very clear they want to get rid of as many of them as possible and will do what they can to accomplish this. They may or may not be successful, but the intention was to go right for the feds who had the attitude last time that they could just wait Trump out.
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