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Not if you turn it into a career, no. Then you should have signed up for an undercover investigator position, drawing a normal salary, instead of assuming your

Not if you turn it into a career, no. Then you should have signed up for an undercover investigator position, drawing a normal salary, instead of assuming your reporting will net you an income. Should whistleblowers be rewarded? Absolutely. Should that come from a pool allocated and managed by the SEC? Most certainly, because we want folks to be secure in their whistleblowing. Is it the American way to go "there's money here, I can probably take repeat-advantage of that"? You bet your star spangled butt it is. But is that last part also on you, and not anyone else? In most American fashion: boy howdy yes.

modeless 5y ago
> Then you should have signed up for an undercover investigator position Why though? Is this a moral judgement against whistleblowing as a profession, or something? I expect that offering whistleblower rewards is a much more scalable and effective way to discover frauds than employing a standing army of investigators.
- fastball 5y ago
  The problem here is that he leveraged himself and pursued a case which resulted in bankruptcy which makes it hard for the SEC to collect a fine that they can disburse part of to the whistleblower. Whistleblower rewards are great, but they must have limits, and he bumped into them here (while highly leveraging himself).
  - modeless 5y ago
    No, the problem here is that the whistleblower reward program is less effective than it should be because payouts are divorced from the effectiveness of the whistleblowing. If you set up a program that is supposed to reward a specific behavior, and then you don't actually reward that behavior, that is a problem. As I said, the leveraging he did is mainly a problem for the lender, who is now out $1m, not him.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > Why though? One reason being that then you have a strong financial incentive to "whistleblow" on things that are less clear-cut, making it likely that (a) you'll eventually harm innocent people in the process, and (b) you'll inject too much noise/unnecessary work into the system. As a rough analogy, imagine someone calling to report an impaired driver they encountered by pure happenstance, vs. someone who made it their personal full-time career to just go around on roads finding people he can report. I'm not sure if you see a difference but I certainly do.
  - viscanti 5y ago
    Was he harming innocent people? Was he injecting too much noise/unnecessary work into the system? I don't see how him doing it as more of a freelance thing rather than an undercover position guarantees a different outcome. It seems like we have to look at the actual outcome and we can't paint with such broad strokes about how one model or the other is better.
    - dataflow 5y ago
      > Was he harming innocent people? Was he injecting too much noise/unnecessary work into the system? It doesn't matter because we don't base societal incentives on 1 guy.
      - robertlagrant 5y ago
        What you're saying seems to be based on nothing.
        dataflow 5y ago
        Yeah, it's not like financial social incentives have any history of inflicting collateral damage or anything of that sort. I'm just imagining things.
  - darawk 5y ago
    > One reason being that then you have a strong financial incentive to "whistleblow" on things that are less clear-cut, making it likely that (a) you'll eventually harm innocent people in the process, and (b) you'll inject too much noise/unnecessary work into the system. It's not like a whistle blowing claim just results in enforcement action without investigation. The claim gets investigated by the relevant agency first, and then if and only if it is found to be justified is an enforcement action taken. That enforcement action can then be challenged in the courts, too, if the entity in question perceives the agency to be in the wrong. I don't think there's much risk of whistle blowers significantly harming innocent companies here.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  What's the point of whistleblowing? I thought it was to provide a framework for people who've come across shady behavior on the part of their employer in the execution of their day-to-day work. So, I guess it is more scalable because it is operating under the assumption that the whistleblowers were receiving their normal paycheck while "investigating." Certainly no negative moral judgement on people intentionally going for those bounties, fighting corruption is admirable. But the system is probably not calibrated to provide for their their day-to-day expenses or the cases where their investigations aren't successful. If it were, it would be equivalent to just employing that army of investigators (just, without any official organization, so it'd miss out on any benefits from legal authority or economies of scale).
- mcguire 5y ago
  No moral judgement, it's just risky. As he discovered, you may not get the big payout, for any number of reasons. If you expect to make a living at anything, you have to be prepared to manage the risks that go along with it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
pessimizer 5y ago
> we want folks to be secure in their whistleblowing People are not. I'd advise against it in almost all circumstances, unless you're 5 minutes from retiring anyway.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  and your retirement funds are not anyhow tied to the party you are blowing whistle against
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  And if you don't have any friends or family working in whatever field you are whistling against.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Or you can get a cut of the action.
- loonster 5y ago
  That is great advice. Even bringing up things internally is a financially dangerous thing to do.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- TheRealPomax 5y ago
  Yes, that was the point: we want them to be secure, but we don't offer that even though the SEC is a branch of government.
Supermancho 5y ago
> Not if you turn it into a career, no. > Then you should have signed up for an undercover investigator position, drawing a normal salary, instead of assuming your reporting will net you an income. That's your opinion. > It sounds like you're criticizing him here, but this is a good thing, It _is_ a good thing, even if it wasn't great for him. Lots of people do things that are ultimately less optimal than other paths. That being said, more scrutiny is better, regardless of the participation in specific programs that some people think is better suited.
homero 5y ago
I don't think the SEC even goes undercover by getting hired as an accountant or something. And second, he wouldn't get any large payouts he wanted.
- TheRealPomax 5y ago
  You use "wouldn't" to contrast it against some current situation in which he has an actual career that makes him the large payouts he wanted.
fragmede 5y ago
...why? Why is this any different than the spreadsheet-based version of being a bounty Hunter? Why, in involving stock trades/financial instruments, does it somehow become wrong for someone to specialize in a very niche skill, and then choose contract work instead of a salaried position? Is this a moral judgment about a particular person's greed? You might be misunderstanding US-style "capitalism" if you truly find that distasteful.

modeless 5y ago

> Then you should have signed up for an undercover investigator position Why though? Is this a moral judgement against whistleblowing as a profession, or something? I expect that offering whistleblower rewards is a much more scalable and effective way to discover frauds than employing a standing army of investigators.

fastball 5y ago
The problem here is that he leveraged himself and pursued a case which resulted in bankruptcy which makes it hard for the SEC to collect a fine that they can disburse part of to the whistleblower. Whistleblower rewards are great, but they must have limits, and he bumped into them here (while highly leveraging himself).
- modeless 5y ago
  No, the problem here is that the whistleblower reward program is less effective than it should be because payouts are divorced from the effectiveness of the whistleblowing. If you set up a program that is supposed to reward a specific behavior, and then you don't actually reward that behavior, that is a problem. As I said, the leveraging he did is mainly a problem for the lender, who is now out $1m, not him.
dataflow 5y ago
> Why though? One reason being that then you have a strong financial incentive to "whistleblow" on things that are less clear-cut, making it likely that (a) you'll eventually harm innocent people in the process, and (b) you'll inject too much noise/unnecessary work into the system. As a rough analogy, imagine someone calling to report an impaired driver they encountered by pure happenstance, vs. someone who made it their personal full-time career to just go around on roads finding people he can report. I'm not sure if you see a difference but I certainly do.
- viscanti 5y ago
  Was he harming innocent people? Was he injecting too much noise/unnecessary work into the system? I don't see how him doing it as more of a freelance thing rather than an undercover position guarantees a different outcome. It seems like we have to look at the actual outcome and we can't paint with such broad strokes about how one model or the other is better.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    > Was he harming innocent people? Was he injecting too much noise/unnecessary work into the system? It doesn't matter because we don't base societal incentives on 1 guy.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      What you're saying seems to be based on nothing.
      - dataflow 5y ago
        Yeah, it's not like financial social incentives have any history of inflicting collateral damage or anything of that sort. I'm just imagining things.
- darawk 5y ago
  > One reason being that then you have a strong financial incentive to "whistleblow" on things that are less clear-cut, making it likely that (a) you'll eventually harm innocent people in the process, and (b) you'll inject too much noise/unnecessary work into the system. It's not like a whistle blowing claim just results in enforcement action without investigation. The claim gets investigated by the relevant agency first, and then if and only if it is found to be justified is an enforcement action taken. That enforcement action can then be challenged in the courts, too, if the entity in question perceives the agency to be in the wrong. I don't think there's much risk of whistle blowers significantly harming innocent companies here.
bee_rider 5y ago
What's the point of whistleblowing? I thought it was to provide a framework for people who've come across shady behavior on the part of their employer in the execution of their day-to-day work. So, I guess it is more scalable because it is operating under the assumption that the whistleblowers were receiving their normal paycheck while "investigating." Certainly no negative moral judgement on people intentionally going for those bounties, fighting corruption is admirable. But the system is probably not calibrated to provide for their their day-to-day expenses or the cases where their investigations aren't successful. If it were, it would be equivalent to just employing that army of investigators (just, without any official organization, so it'd miss out on any benefits from legal authority or economies of scale).
mcguire 5y ago
No moral judgement, it's just risky. As he discovered, you may not get the big payout, for any number of reasons. If you expect to make a living at anything, you have to be prepared to manage the risks that go along with it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

pessimizer 5y ago

> we want folks to be secure in their whistleblowing People are not. I'd advise against it in almost all circumstances, unless you're 5 minutes from retiring anyway.

saiya-jin 5y ago
and your retirement funds are not anyhow tied to the party you are blowing whistle against
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
And if you don't have any friends or family working in whatever field you are whistling against.
mcguire 5y ago
Or you can get a cut of the action.
loonster 5y ago
That is great advice. Even bringing up things internally is a financially dangerous thing to do.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TheRealPomax 5y ago
Yes, that was the point: we want them to be secure, but we don't offer that even though the SEC is a branch of government.

Supermancho 5y ago

> Not if you turn it into a career, no. > Then you should have signed up for an undercover investigator position, drawing a normal salary, instead of assuming your reporting will net you an income. That's your opinion. > It sounds like you're criticizing him here, but this is a good thing, It _is_ a good thing, even if it wasn't great for him. Lots of people do things that are ultimately less optimal than other paths. That being said, more scrutiny is better, regardless of the participation in specific programs that some people think is better suited.

homero 5y ago

I don't think the SEC even goes undercover by getting hired as an accountant or something. And second, he wouldn't get any large payouts he wanted.

TheRealPomax 5y ago
You use "wouldn't" to contrast it against some current situation in which he has an actual career that makes him the large payouts he wanted.

fragmede 5y ago

...why? Why is this any different than the spreadsheet-based version of being a bounty Hunter? Why, in involving stock trades/financial instruments, does it somehow become wrong for someone to specialize in a very niche skill, and then choose contract work instead of a salaried position? Is this a moral judgment about a particular person's greed? You might be misunderstanding US-style "capitalism" if you truly find that distasteful.