JUST IN: SBF escorted out of Bahamas courthouse in handcuffs.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) December 13, 2022
BREAKING: SEC charges former FTX CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors in his cryptocurrency platform. https://t.co/arZOXICTTE
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 13, 2022
To be honest, my first thought was that SBF was being given over to US custody as a protective measure, not least for the Bahamas — unpleasant as being questioned by federal authorities might prove, it’s nowhere near the risk of being ‘disappeared’ at the hands of people who’ve had their billions in money-laundered funds vanish. And having newsworthy individuals snatched by mysterious figures, not a good look for any tourist destination!
There’s a not totally unfair bias against ever being positive about these kind of things, but between regulation preventing the risk from crypto ponzis becoming systemic, & now people likely actually going to no shit jail for this, it does seem like lessons were learned from 2008
— William B. Fuckley (@opinonhaver) December 12, 2022
The “HAVE FUN STAYING POOR” retail morons lose their shirts, some crypto billionaires get murdered by organized crime for losing their money, and with a few exceptions (Ontario teacher’s pension) the rest of us don’t really have to worry that much about it.
— William B. Fuckley (@opinonhaver) December 12, 2022
https://t.co/GA9ii7ZCqi pic.twitter.com/hhk7X49STG
— EL BARTO ANTI-WORK (@ElBartoArmy) December 12, 2022
of course if he had totally cratered the value of crypto it would have been the most Long Term Ethical thing he ever actually did
— flglmn (@flglmn) December 10, 2022
Friday the 13th fell on a Tuesday this month…
from my conversation with @SBF_FTX earlier today:
"Are you worried you might be detained if you stepped foot into the US?"
SBF: "I don't believe I would be… at some point that's something I have to think harder about"welp pic.twitter.com/jVfQFg0vN2
— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) December 13, 2022
Look at what they took from us!
For all his supposed soul-searching, Sam Bankman-Fried planned to spend much of his time in front of Congress blaming others for the implosion of FTX, and the situation he now finds himself in. From @DavidJeans2 and me:https://t.co/swLXGnjpeP
— sarah emerson (@SarahNEmerson) December 13, 2022
Booger
Simple Banking Fraud?
Dadadadadadada
@Booger: Scam Bankrupt-Fraud.
WereBear
The perpetual motion machine of our time.
Scout211
Here’s the list of charges in addition to the SEC fraud charges: Link
Math Guy
Investing in crypto is betting on the future value of entropy. That is a losing bet.
Alison Rose
Okay, I’m gonna rewrite my own history: I was arrested at 14 for “unconventional shopping practices”. That sounds better.
scav
The cheerful guy yesterday seemed most surprised by the lack of documentation and not the unconventionality of the practices.
Nicole
“Wirefraud”? You know, I am again reminded that when you come down to it, most folk just aren’t very smart.
Urza
@Nicole: Most folks are only ethical when there’s actual enforcement of rules to.
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
RIP Angel
Great character actor, spanning “Kelly’s Heroes” to “Love, American Style” to “Death Wish” to “X-Files”.
Keithly
@Dadadadadadada: I’ll pray for him, bless his heart.
prostratedragon
Sometimes these’ll make a person smile: “Here’s That Rainy Day”
sanjeevs
Prince Accused of Plot in Germany Is Said to Have Visited Russian Diplomats – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
An actual coup investigation.
Clear signalling to the public that this was serious criminality. Setting the narrative instead of allowing the criminals to do it.
Homes searched and electronic devices seized and read within days. Mass arrests made and suspects held in custody.
Not sure about the significance of the plotters visiting the Russian consulate on Russia day though. Does that mean the German plotters are more owned than the GOP July 4 crew or less.
JGreen
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:
Just saw the M*A*S*H episode he was on the other day (for the 100th time probably–the reruns will never go away). He was a great example of what most actors are looking for–a regular chance to act, no matter what it was (TV, movies, etc.). He may never have been a superstar, but he always seemed to be working and that’s what you want in that business.
Parfigliano
Arrested? But didnt this grifter just tell us he didnt intend any fraud. Bad luck.
Seems his Law Prof parents may have hit a bad patch at Stanford too.
Roger Moore
The key thing about cryptocurrency is that it was invented to avoid government regulation. It should come as absolutely zero surprise that crypto as a whole is infested with criminals. On the one hand, you have people who wanted to commit ordinary crimes and thought crypto would be a good way to hide their misdeeds. On the other hand, you have con men who saw the lack of regulation as a perfect opportunity to commit all the kinds of financial crime we’ve been trying to squeeze out of the system since the invention of modern banking in the early 18th Century. The only reason for anyone with any awareness to get involved is because they hoped to be the perpetrator rather than the victim.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Between Musk and Trump and this guy, I’m thinking rich people money isn’t like normal money. It’s partly just imaginary
Aussie Sheila
@sanjeevs:
Since the Russian invasion of UKR, I have often turned my mind to the links between Russia and German politicians and other right wing activists. While Russian interference in US elections is undeniable at this point, I suspect that the links between Russian revanchism and right wing European politics goes a lot further, deeper and to a far more dangerous level.
I firmly believe that Putin money and influence played a large part in the Brexit vote, which has managed to knock back UK medium terms gdp growth back by 4 percentage points. Not a bad effort for a few hundred thousand pounds worth of roubles.
Aussie Sheila
@Roger Moore:
Yes. And any Congress critter that has a record of being supportive of crypto etc; should be viewed with a great deal of suspicion.
WaterGirl
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch: Angel was a great character, and now I’m sad about Mozzie from White Collar all over again.
MattF
My guess is that most US regulators were OK with just waiting for crypto to fail. This meant that some fools would lose their shirts, and some con artists would get away with various misdeeds, but that’s life.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Looks like TPM has dropped another tranche of the Meadows text collection …
ETA: from the TPM story
Until these stories started dropping, I thought Dick Morris had gone to his reward
JPL
@sanjeevs: It appears that the village was okay with that.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I so want to see MTG’s texts.
scav
@Dorothy A. Winsor: See also TFG’s self-evaluated worth in different contexts.
JPL
@WaterGirl: Loved Mozzie.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Dick Morris reappeared briefly, before the mid-terms, predicting that the coming Red Wave would be a cataclysmic, ‘extinction-level’ event for Democrats. Haven’t seen any post-election commentary from him.
sanjeevs
@Aussie Sheila: Yeah Carole Cadwalladr did a lot of work on the Brexit Russia links before she was silenced by UK’s libel laws.
Russia seems to have penetrated both the right and left in Germany.
Jeffro
OT but had to share: Fro Jr just received his early decision college acceptance notice this evening! He’s in!
(me, I liked getting a letter in the mail back in the good ol bad ol days. But an e-notification works too!)
WHEW
trollhattan
Did the “smartest guy in the room” check extradition laws before picking Bahamas for his Billionaire Dude Lair and Criming HQ?
Just curious.
Scout211
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I loved that plan to spin the infamous call to Raffensperger as a Trump set-up to test Raffensperger to see if he would leak the call. Ha ha! I can see it now. The “I meant to do that!” defense. Yeah, that will fly.
schrodingers_cat
I have a question for the hive mind. What is your opinion about airfryers? And which one would you recommend.
Looking at Instant Pot’s vortex 5.7qt.
and
this 10 qt model
I already have a fairly decent Black and Decker toaster oven that I use almost everyday (for toast, toasting spices and reheating the stuff that doesn’t reheat well in a microwave
I am leaning towards the 5.9 qt model.
JPL
@Jeffro: Sweet.
Miki
Now & Then podcast has a great episode today – FTX, Con Men, & the Power of Grift.
Here – hold my watch.
sanjeevs
@Jeffro: Congratulations!
Aussie Sheila
@sanjeevs:
I suspect that the Russians have also penetrated deep into what passes for the left in the US. See the US Greens, the Grayzone f wits and various so called ‘lefty’ ytubers.
Dems need to watch carefully in the next President election for voter suppression/discouragement efforts from these sources imo.
Anoniminous
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Nah, he’s like a drug resistant case of gonorrhea: still a pain in the dong.
Roger Moore
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That’s exactly right. We talk about “net worth” all the time, but the richer you are the less well defined that is. I could probably sell all my stock and other negotiable commodities and convert it all into an amount of US currency small enough to carry on my person. Even then, the actual value of my house is somewhat speculative until I actually sell the place. The richer you are, the harder it is to do that kind of thing.
For a billionaire, it’s pretty much impossible. They can’t sell what they own without it changing the price drastically, and it’s hard for them to convert that much money into actual currency they could spend on stuff, or even into cash equivalents like a checking account. It’s even harder for someone like Musk or Trump, where the value of their business is tied closely to their personal brand, so selling has an even bigger effect on the value of the business.
BruceFromOhio
it’s always someone else. Always.
I watched the indictment presser, what struck me is that it’s an indictment on taking the money and doing bad things. Nowhere is there an indictment of cryptocurrency itself. If you didn’t know what FTX was, you could’ve been watching an oil exec, a manufacturer or a retailer taking the money and doing bad things. Crypto was not in the indictment.
Splitting Image
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:
I’ve been watching some of the first-season episodes of The Rockford Files recently. Margolin was excellent in them. That show in general has held up very well.
Splitting Image
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Would heaven even take him? Oh wait, I see what you mean.
Barbara
@sanjeevs: This article . . .
They had an NDA. So while the German State isn’t “real” apparently it was real enough to enforce an NDA. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I mean, how do you enforce an NDA about your plot to overthrow the state? “Well, your honor, I have been irreparably harmed because the secrecy of my plot was key to making it work.”
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It’s between imaginary and actual cash.
With effort (and sometimes a bit/lot of actual money) it can be converted into some form of actual money that those outside the imaginary money business will accept. It’s how SFB II is worth supposedly $251billion yet has to take out a sizable loan to spend $44billion. We all say it’s money but few will take it even as collateral unless the amount of imaginary money is enough to make up for the cost to convert it to actual money. Which is somewhat of an explanation of why it cost him $44billion rather than the $22billion original asking price. All that and the fact that he thinks a lot more of himself than many others do.
MattF
@Barbara: “We’re enemies of the state and if you tell anyone, we’ll sue you.”
Barbara
@MattF: And ask the judge just to ignore that his name appeared on a hit list of officials first to be taken out.
Actually, they agreed that “enforcement” would be by assassination. There also apparently “were ongoing disputes among leading conspirators over cabinet positions in the shadow government they aspired to set up, the lawmakers said.” I mean, I think I can laugh at this one.
Ohio Mom
I tried reading the NYT article on SBF’s parents but I couldn’t make myself care enough to finish it. They seem to be example number one of “they should have known better.”
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Unfortunately it seems the smartest guy in the room forgot about the rest of planet.
Barbara
@Ohio Mom: From what I understand, they have made a lot of money from his enterprise and at least some of it has been invested in property in Caribbean locations.
Barbara
@trollhattan: My understanding is that the U.S. has applied a fair amount of pressure to get Caribbean nations to give up some of their non-extradition practices. It’s much harder to pull of a Robert Vesco style escape these days, or so I have been led to believe.
Steeplejack
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:
Stuart Margolin has a small but solid role in Arbitrage (2012) as a lawyer advising MotU Richard Gere. Tight movie—solid script and direction, A-list cast. Worth checking out; currently streaming on HBO Max and DirecTV.
Good scene with Margolin here.
KrackenJack
@Barbara: That’s hysterical. “Consciousness of Guilt” anyone? Insert <taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy.gif>.
The various flavors of Sovereign Citizens spend a huge amount of time constructing legal proofs that the state is illegitimate and arguing that in court. I guess if some court agrees, the Executive and Legislative branches will just vanish in a puff of judicial logic.
p.a.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Someone write this in blood and send it to the 6 SCOTUS fascists, there’s a case in the pipeline claiming state legislatures can nullify elections. Put the fear of dog in those scumbags.
p.a.
@schrodingers_cat: America’s Test Kitchen’s reviews are good sources.
Citizen_X
Would it be in bad taste if I set gruesome police pics of the murder scenes to the piano part from Layla, and would that stop me anyway?
schrodingers_cat
@p.a.: Thanks. I have looked at those and Consumer Reports as well. Was looking for some testimonials from Jackals. One of the models I have narrowed down on was the ATK recommendation.
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
@MattF:
lowtechcyclist
@Citizen_X:
No, of course not. Which makes the first question moot.
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
@Steeplejack:
Thanks for the tip/link
gene108
@Math Guy:
Being a crypto exchange wasn’t the biggest problem with FTX. It’s the ridiculous amount of self-dealing that went on that’d tank any business in any more established industry that caused its demise.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
We’ve got an Ultrean (sounds like the name of an alien race from a 1960s SF novel, doesn’t it) which we’re happy with. We use it for air-frying stuff like tater tots and chicken nuggets, neither of which I normally like, but they actually taste good coming out of the air fryer.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, surprised to hear he’s still in the league.
Ohio Mom
@Barbara: Yes and they are attorneys! I expect attorneys to be both skeptical and connoisseurs of worst case scenarios. That is how they protect their clients, by considering everything that could go wrong before it can and structuring things to prevent harm.
Whether by greed or narcissism or self-entitlement or naïveté or some combination — the parents walked right into this. They should have known better.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@schrodingers_cat: Here’s mine
Works pretty well.
VOR
@schrodingers_cat: I have a Breville SmartOven with convection which also works as an air fryer. I don’t do a lot of air frying, but I have successfully fried home-made french fries in it. It works very well as just plain oven and is large enough to handle sizable dishes, not just frozen pizza. Mine is a few years old, but the current version is Consumer Reports top rated toaster oven. Not cheap – around $400.
gene108
@BruceFromOhio:
FTX didn’t go belly up because it was a crypto exchange. It was a poorly run business. It was stupid Enron. Instead of using shell companies to mask his self-dealing, Blankman-Fried used FTX as collateral to borrow money for another business he owned right out in the open. He didn’t come close to even try to keep the two businesses as distinct legal entities. Then there’s the company money blown by Sam and top FTX executives on luxury homes in the Bahamas, ostensibly to have housing to move the work there.
I know almost everyone on Balloon-Juice hates crypto, I don’t much care for it, but FTX was just an unbelievably poorly run business. An oil company, retailer, or any other traditional business that did what FTX did would go belly up sooner or later and the management and ownership would be facing criminal liability.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: I have a small air fryer that my husband bought on impulse. It does some things really well, and it’s easier to clean than the toaster oven. But the air fryer itself isn’t terribly complicated, so I am not sure how they differ. If you plan to use it for just daily cooking for your own household, it might not have to be so big. Things I really like in the air fryer are eggplant, tofu, “fried” potatoes, hamburgers, chicken drumsticks, and roasted squash.
schrodingers_cat
@VOR: Thanks for the suggestion. My current Black and Decker convection toaster oven works pretty well. When it is time to replace it I will go for the Breville. But for now I am leaning towards the 6 qt Instant Vortex that was the ATK recommendation.
@BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️: Thanks for sharing.
@Barbara: Thanks. I am leaning towards a small to mid-sized one.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
America’s Test Kitchen recommends the Instant Vortex Plus Air Fryer Oven (six-quart). I think that’s the model you’re looking at.
The Wirecutter recommends the Philips Premium TurboStar, with the Cosori Air Fryer as a budget pick.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
I have a friend who got an air fryer as a gift from her family. She was initially skeptical but now loves it. America’s Test Kitchen has a couple of very good air-fryer books, according to her.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Oops, didn’t see this when I answered your previous. In my experience, I’ve never gone wrong with an ATK recommendation. Even when I don’t take their recommendation, they provide good info that helps with my decision.
I will reiterate that my skeptical friend really likes her air fryer now and uses it a lot.
Steeplejack
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:
It made an impression on me because when I saw that movie (in the theater) I was like, “Wait, is that—?” I knew that his career continued after Rockford, but I thought it was all TV stuff. I was surprised to see him in an A-list Hollywood movie, and he did a great job.
jonas
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Unlike the Twitter Files, this shit is real! Not sure yet if it exposes any serious legal jeopardy, but damn, it sure has exposed the fact that a lot of Republican politicians, staffers, and consultants were straight up bugfuck insane. These are not normal people. I mean, Hunter Biden is the goddamn Dalai Lama compared to these cooks.
jonas
@schrodingers_cat:
We have a Ninja airfryer and are really happy with it. The only drawback is it’s one of those appliances you have to find storage space for and then haul out and make counterspace for when you need to fry something. But it does a great job on just about everything we’ve tried from french fries to fish sticks to calamari to roast cauliflower. It’s nice not to have to heat up the whole oven to make some roast cauliflower.
jonas
@gene108:
Shorter SBF: “Hey free money! Let’s dive into it and play like it was Uncle Scrooge’s money bin!”
Except in, like, real life, it’s actually OPM and you can’t really do that. *Womp womp
zeecube
@Jeffro: great news.
Steeplejack
@Jeffro:
Good news for Fro Jr. 🎉🥂 Where’s he going?
trnc
@Roger Moore:
Yup. Required financial statements of many of our congress peeps show a net worth between “X million and XX million.” Having so much money you don’t even need to know that you’re within $50 million is way up on my list of anger triggers for tax cuts for the wealthy.
Paul in KY
@Alison Rose: Me too. I decided to remove the ‘paying for the merchandise’ from my business plan.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: My wife loves air fryers. There are about a million different brands on the market right now.
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: Mr. President, the Ultrean ambassador has arrived from Kwazor V. He/she says it is urgent that you meet to discuss inter-planetary beach freakouts.
Paul in KY
@Steeplejack: We have the Cosori one. It does fine, though you have to cook the bacon longer than the machine has programmed, if you like yours crispy.