The half-spent gift cards fall under something called "escheatment." It's the doctrine that abandoned property belongs to the state. It is usually run at the state level in the US.
Nov 24, 2022·edited Nov 24, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander
Thank goodness for us all that Hunter Biden is working with his 'business partners' to create an online anonymous banking platform to 'help the unbanked'. So, don't worry everyone, Hunter and the boys are totally on it, and with impeccable timing I might add.
Nov 23, 2022·edited Nov 23, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander
FTX had so many subsidiaries to make it easier to conceal the truth from its customers and its investors. It's difficult to figure out what's happening to the whole if it's been separated into many small parts.
The subsidiaries, especially FTX Property, might've also been an attempt to keep some assets away from the creditors and government lawyers when the day of reckoning came. My guess is Bankman-Fried isn't as dumb as some want to believe.
Ugh, throwing money around to curry favor with people in power is not altruism. I wish they would stop repeating the canard that funneling money to democrats is altruistic. It buys into their bogus self-conception of being heroes fighting an existential battle against evil and saving the world for democracy. How self-absorbed and deluded can they be?
The big thread connecting all the leftists fads now is disconnection from reality, the substitution of make believe for the real world.
Replace biology with gender theory. Something that represents actual work and work product with pretend money.(Sorry libertarian crypto lovers it all comes from the same swamp)
Replace truth with words that sound good.
Replace actual military with just telling lies and hoping that works.(the brilliant contribution of the Biden admin to military science)
But reality is like a rubber band and when they distort it enough it will snap back and bite them.
"Mallbucks" are like the underlying commodity exchanged by FTX -- bitcoin, et al. They're both alternatives to the fiat currencies used by their governments. Currencies are useful so that we don't have to lead cattle wherever we go to trade for XBoxes or whatever goods we need. But bitcoin and other cryptos haven't really been used as currencies, only as speculation. So the FTX clients aren't merchants with real products and real cash flow, but speculators hoping for easy profits. Speculators are always ripe for scams, thinking they're too smart to be scammed. There's no reason for any sympathy for FTX's willing victims. They went to the School of Crypto to receive lessons from professor Sam, and they got it, good and hard. Maybe they'll learn to be more careful. Probably not.
Money always is an abstract concept that perfectly demonstrates humans' ability to create a reality out of thin air. Money only has the meaning we give it. So is it any surprise that some people have taken it once step further and created another agreed-upon reality on top of the other agreed-upon reality? And then abused the people who bought into that second reality? Of course, what we see here is when two separate realities collide, which has lessons for our current culture and society writ large. Everyone must abide by a single agreed-upon reality for this thing to all work.
Having said all that, I want to thank you. I have probably a half dozen articles in my "saved" folder trying to sort through what FTX is all about, but you have written a highly accessible accounting that makes the whole thing much easier to understand.
Any money or resource not in your immediate control is no longer yours. Sure, you expect to get it back almost always do so - with interest or ROI or similar, but until that money and whatever more money it was used to create is in your pocket, real or metaphorical, it's not yours.
Oh sure, laws and contracts and indemnity and all the rest of phariséean legalese that just grows from year to year like mold.
I like how my ancestors struck bargains and made deals and compacts: at the Ting, in public, before witnesses not related to or indebted to any of the ones making the deal. Meaning, pre-christian Iron Age Sweden had a more fair and transparent system for contract law, deals, et cetera than any modern nation today.
Makes one wonder, how would it look today if it worked like that? No secrecy - all contracts public.
I find it hard to feel sorry for all the ‘clever’ dummies who bought into the scam. But anyway, you describe Fiat money in essence - the other scam run by all Governments, the difference being when there isn’t enough ‘real money’ to back the funny-money in circulation being used to bribe-for-votes, they just debauch the currency by printing more and let inflation and loss of purchase power do the rest. Counterfeiting is a crime, unless the Government does it. In olden times any citizen caught debauching the currency had his ears and nose cut off. We should bring that back.
Found this today. Has some things I didn't know. Hope it informs, and doesn't waste your time:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/who-is-william-macaskill-the-oxford-philosopher-who-shaped-sam-bankman-fried-s-worldview/ar-AA14pSL7?
(I have found Coindesk to be informative.)
The half-spent gift cards fall under something called "escheatment." It's the doctrine that abandoned property belongs to the state. It is usually run at the state level in the US.
Exellent (part one) expose, more in depth than this one:
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3748655-ftx-the-enron-case-on-steroids-fueled-by-woke-capitalism/
Bonus: I have no time to give my thoughts. :-o
Edit: (But isn't it ironic that ever since The Hill got rid of its Leftist-hijacked, high school ad hominem comment section, its journalism has vastly improved. Another case in point: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3750121-the-great-american-homewashing-is-happening-under-our-noses/)
Thank goodness for us all that Hunter Biden is working with his 'business partners' to create an online anonymous banking platform to 'help the unbanked'. So, don't worry everyone, Hunter and the boys are totally on it, and with impeccable timing I might add.
FTX had so many subsidiaries to make it easier to conceal the truth from its customers and its investors. It's difficult to figure out what's happening to the whole if it's been separated into many small parts.
The subsidiaries, especially FTX Property, might've also been an attempt to keep some assets away from the creditors and government lawyers when the day of reckoning came. My guess is Bankman-Fried isn't as dumb as some want to believe.
Ugh, throwing money around to curry favor with people in power is not altruism. I wish they would stop repeating the canard that funneling money to democrats is altruistic. It buys into their bogus self-conception of being heroes fighting an existential battle against evil and saving the world for democracy. How self-absorbed and deluded can they be?
The big thread connecting all the leftists fads now is disconnection from reality, the substitution of make believe for the real world.
Replace biology with gender theory. Something that represents actual work and work product with pretend money.(Sorry libertarian crypto lovers it all comes from the same swamp)
Replace truth with words that sound good.
Replace actual military with just telling lies and hoping that works.(the brilliant contribution of the Biden admin to military science)
But reality is like a rubber band and when they distort it enough it will snap back and bite them.
"Mallbucks" are like the underlying commodity exchanged by FTX -- bitcoin, et al. They're both alternatives to the fiat currencies used by their governments. Currencies are useful so that we don't have to lead cattle wherever we go to trade for XBoxes or whatever goods we need. But bitcoin and other cryptos haven't really been used as currencies, only as speculation. So the FTX clients aren't merchants with real products and real cash flow, but speculators hoping for easy profits. Speculators are always ripe for scams, thinking they're too smart to be scammed. There's no reason for any sympathy for FTX's willing victims. They went to the School of Crypto to receive lessons from professor Sam, and they got it, good and hard. Maybe they'll learn to be more careful. Probably not.
Money always is an abstract concept that perfectly demonstrates humans' ability to create a reality out of thin air. Money only has the meaning we give it. So is it any surprise that some people have taken it once step further and created another agreed-upon reality on top of the other agreed-upon reality? And then abused the people who bought into that second reality? Of course, what we see here is when two separate realities collide, which has lessons for our current culture and society writ large. Everyone must abide by a single agreed-upon reality for this thing to all work.
Having said all that, I want to thank you. I have probably a half dozen articles in my "saved" folder trying to sort through what FTX is all about, but you have written a highly accessible accounting that makes the whole thing much easier to understand.
It is astonishing how easy it is to scam people. Were I an unethical sort, I would be a billionaire today.
This really drew me in. Good job! Looking forward to part 2.
So what you're saying is that I should invest in mall bucks?
Sounds like Econ 101 to me, honestly.
Any money or resource not in your immediate control is no longer yours. Sure, you expect to get it back almost always do so - with interest or ROI or similar, but until that money and whatever more money it was used to create is in your pocket, real or metaphorical, it's not yours.
Oh sure, laws and contracts and indemnity and all the rest of phariséean legalese that just grows from year to year like mold.
I like how my ancestors struck bargains and made deals and compacts: at the Ting, in public, before witnesses not related to or indebted to any of the ones making the deal. Meaning, pre-christian Iron Age Sweden had a more fair and transparent system for contract law, deals, et cetera than any modern nation today.
Makes one wonder, how would it look today if it worked like that? No secrecy - all contracts public.
I find it hard to feel sorry for all the ‘clever’ dummies who bought into the scam. But anyway, you describe Fiat money in essence - the other scam run by all Governments, the difference being when there isn’t enough ‘real money’ to back the funny-money in circulation being used to bribe-for-votes, they just debauch the currency by printing more and let inflation and loss of purchase power do the rest. Counterfeiting is a crime, unless the Government does it. In olden times any citizen caught debauching the currency had his ears and nose cut off. We should bring that back.
good stuff. crypto is just the tip of the iceberg. it gets way uglier https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/a-grand-unified-theory-of-the-ftx
https://milkyeggs.com/?p=175
"Plus ça change .... "