7 ms·

My favorite part is when the Ukrainian officials start their own version of the plot instead of prosecuting. Something to be said about intellectual honesty.

F3Life 8y ago
This was quite frankly astonishing. Given that so much of our pensions and wealth are tied up in the markets, it's astonishing to hear that every Tom, Dick and Pavel is massively invested in destabilising the whole thing. And these are only the guys who got caught! What about the ones who aren't.
- jstanley 8y ago
  Insider trading doesn't "destabilise the whole thing", it actually makes the market converge on correct prices more quickly. Some people just don't like it because they don't think it's fair.
  - VBprogrammer 8y ago
    Can you elaborate on what you'd consider fair? Or do you think it would be acceptable to allow trading on inside information in the current system? The only fair system I can imagine (fairer than the status quo by my estimation) would be complete transparency updated on a continual basis. But I can imagine it would be difficult to keep that up while making productive business relationships.
    - yellowstuff 8y ago
      Is it "fair" that quant hedge funds have hundreds of PhDs developing algorithms to trade the markets efficiently, or that fundamental hedge funds spend millions on research? While there are a few restrictions around insiders trading, it is very much not the case that fairness in the sense of everyone having equal access to all information is or should be the goal of financial regulation. Matt Levine has written about this many times, here's one: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-06/supreme-court-leaves-insider-trading-law-alone https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-06/supreme-c...
      - frockington 8y ago
        I think its fair for people who spend time getting a PhD and refining algorithms to have an edge. What is the argument for why it is not fair?
        yellowstuff 8y ago
        My point is that in the markets, like in sports, a "fair contest" does not mean that both parties are equally likely to be successful. "Fairness" means that the rules were followed. Right now a PhD with a model is allowed to use his information advantage if he's trading against someone less informed, but an insider to the company is not. It may be the case that insider trading laws as they currently exist are good and help financial markets work better, but if that's true it's not because no one with an information advantage should be allowed to trade.
  - jliptzin 8y ago
    For this reason I believe insider trading should be legal. It's already widespread and difficult/impossible to police. Keeping it illegal gives retail investors a false sense of security when in reality this is how the vast majority of hedge funds/sophisticated market players are making their money.
  - elbasti 8y ago
    Insider trading isn't illegal because it's unfair to retail investors--it's illegal because it's unfair to _existing shareholders_ , which is a much more defensible position. Imagine you're an executive with inside information that you think will make the stock go up. So you buy some stock (from an existing shareholder, obviously), and then the stock goes up. That shareholder rightly will feel stiffed. Conversely if you sell stock and it goes down, the person you sold it to--now a shareholder to whom you have a fiduciary responsibility--is left holding the bag.
    - jstanley 8y ago
      But the person on the other side of the trade would have been on the other side of the trade regardless! The fact that it's an insider rather than an outsider that they're trading with doesn't make any difference to whether they win or lose.
rdtsc 8y ago
Not surprised a bit. Usually the reason crime is flourishing in those parts is because there is protection from withing the judicial and executive branches of the government. The police and judges are often part of, if not the ones running many of the crime rings. There is also the part where the Ukrainians then went on to blackmail Ieremenko, threatened to extradite him and asked him for a bribe. He paid up. Of course the go-between guy doubled the blackmail price (think big, right?), got his 50% share then forwarded the rest to the intel agency. And then Ieremenko realizes he couldn't be extradited anyway because Ukraine doesn't do that with its citizens! The article then says "the pair fell out when Ieremenko discovered he had been duped". I am surprised they hadn't had a boating accident of some sort, or fell on a knife, backwards a few times.
- ffmegpeg 8y ago
  > in those parts Not an Ukranian, but boy, does that horse look high!
  - onetimemanytime 8y ago
    new account defending the "honor" of Ukraine as a corruption free country. Waste of time, people on HN are likely smarter than 95% of the world population. Did you pay Paul Manafort all the money owed? He really needs it now...
    - askl56 8y ago
      He's not defending the honour of Ukraine or making a political statement about Manafort. He's asserting that the US has more corruption in local police and justice departments than the average American would like to believe.
      - rdtsc 8y ago
        > He's asserting that the US has more corruption in local police and justice departments than the average American would like to believe. He isn't asserting anything though, just throwing one-liners about horses around. Asserting would mean making an actual argument.
kimjongmin 8y ago
Why prosecute when you can make money too?
onetimemanytime 8y ago
Duh! Sergei Ivanovich, we know what you're doing. But because we know your father (or 4th degree uncle) let's just split it and we'll just forget it. Russia is successful against CIA because the Russian mafia does its dirty work...go kill /threaten /maim these 5 people and you have a "get out of jail free card" on x,y, and z that you did.
- baybal2 8y ago
  >Russia is successful against CIA because the Russian mafia does its dirty work...go kill /threaten /maim these 5 people and you have a "get out of jail free card" on x,y, and z that you did. Nothing sound more ultimately true about the whole situation that this.
- rasz 8y ago
  Current Russian mafia is former KGB.
  - qaq 8y ago
    Current Russian mafia is FSB

F3Life 8y ago

This was quite frankly astonishing. Given that so much of our pensions and wealth are tied up in the markets, it's astonishing to hear that every Tom, Dick and Pavel is massively invested in destabilising the whole thing. And these are only the guys who got caught! What about the ones who aren't.

jstanley 8y ago
Insider trading doesn't "destabilise the whole thing", it actually makes the market converge on correct prices more quickly. Some people just don't like it because they don't think it's fair.
- VBprogrammer 8y ago
  Can you elaborate on what you'd consider fair? Or do you think it would be acceptable to allow trading on inside information in the current system? The only fair system I can imagine (fairer than the status quo by my estimation) would be complete transparency updated on a continual basis. But I can imagine it would be difficult to keep that up while making productive business relationships.
  - yellowstuff 8y ago
    Is it "fair" that quant hedge funds have hundreds of PhDs developing algorithms to trade the markets efficiently, or that fundamental hedge funds spend millions on research? While there are a few restrictions around insiders trading, it is very much not the case that fairness in the sense of everyone having equal access to all information is or should be the goal of financial regulation. Matt Levine has written about this many times, here's one: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-06/supreme-court-leaves-insider-trading-law-alone https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-06/supreme-c...
    - frockington 8y ago
      I think its fair for people who spend time getting a PhD and refining algorithms to have an edge. What is the argument for why it is not fair?
      - yellowstuff 8y ago
        My point is that in the markets, like in sports, a "fair contest" does not mean that both parties are equally likely to be successful. "Fairness" means that the rules were followed. Right now a PhD with a model is allowed to use his information advantage if he's trading against someone less informed, but an insider to the company is not. It may be the case that insider trading laws as they currently exist are good and help financial markets work better, but if that's true it's not because no one with an information advantage should be allowed to trade.
- jliptzin 8y ago
  For this reason I believe insider trading should be legal. It's already widespread and difficult/impossible to police. Keeping it illegal gives retail investors a false sense of security when in reality this is how the vast majority of hedge funds/sophisticated market players are making their money.
- elbasti 8y ago
  Insider trading isn't illegal because it's unfair to retail investors--it's illegal because it's unfair to _existing shareholders_ , which is a much more defensible position. Imagine you're an executive with inside information that you think will make the stock go up. So you buy some stock (from an existing shareholder, obviously), and then the stock goes up. That shareholder rightly will feel stiffed. Conversely if you sell stock and it goes down, the person you sold it to--now a shareholder to whom you have a fiduciary responsibility--is left holding the bag.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    But the person on the other side of the trade would have been on the other side of the trade regardless! The fact that it's an insider rather than an outsider that they're trading with doesn't make any difference to whether they win or lose.

rdtsc 8y ago

Not surprised a bit. Usually the reason crime is flourishing in those parts is because there is protection from withing the judicial and executive branches of the government. The police and judges are often part of, if not the ones running many of the crime rings. There is also the part where the Ukrainians then went on to blackmail Ieremenko, threatened to extradite him and asked him for a bribe. He paid up. Of course the go-between guy doubled the blackmail price (think big, right?), got his 50% share then forwarded the rest to the intel agency. And then Ieremenko realizes he couldn't be extradited anyway because Ukraine doesn't do that with its citizens! The article then says "the pair fell out when Ieremenko discovered he had been duped". I am surprised they hadn't had a boating accident of some sort, or fell on a knife, backwards a few times.

ffmegpeg 8y ago
> in those parts Not an Ukranian, but boy, does that horse look high!
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  new account defending the "honor" of Ukraine as a corruption free country. Waste of time, people on HN are likely smarter than 95% of the world population. Did you pay Paul Manafort all the money owed? He really needs it now...
  - askl56 8y ago
    He's not defending the honour of Ukraine or making a political statement about Manafort. He's asserting that the US has more corruption in local police and justice departments than the average American would like to believe.
    - rdtsc 8y ago
      > He's asserting that the US has more corruption in local police and justice departments than the average American would like to believe. He isn't asserting anything though, just throwing one-liners about horses around. Asserting would mean making an actual argument.

kimjongmin 8y ago

Why prosecute when you can make money too?

onetimemanytime 8y ago

Duh! Sergei Ivanovich, we know what you're doing. But because we know your father (or 4th degree uncle) let's just split it and we'll just forget it. Russia is successful against CIA because the Russian mafia does its dirty work...go kill /threaten /maim these 5 people and you have a "get out of jail free card" on x,y, and z that you did.

baybal2 8y ago
>Russia is successful against CIA because the Russian mafia does its dirty work...go kill /threaten /maim these 5 people and you have a "get out of jail free card" on x,y, and z that you did. Nothing sound more ultimately true about the whole situation that this.
rasz 8y ago
Current Russian mafia is former KGB.
- qaq 8y ago
  Current Russian mafia is FSB