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I remember working for a sketchy start-up right out of college. They were doing telecom stuff when the carriers were de-regulated in the early aughts. Even now,

I remember working for a sketchy start-up right out of college. They were doing telecom stuff when the carriers were de-regulated in the early aughts. Even now, they were tied up with some fintech companies and some shady investors. I was a combo developer/csr/account management person at any given time depending on what was going on. They would rarely put stuff in writing. I was always told to do stuff. Never in email, never in memo's or any other written form. It was always, "We're going need you to scrub some files from xyz database." or "I need to rewrite this contract and add these additional sections which weren't on the original document." If I needed details, they would put them on a sticky note. I remember they had someone come around and take these notes off of people's desk when the task was completed. I remember at Christmas one of my uncle's was a stock broker and a big knocker at some financial company. He was asking what I did and where I worked. He started asking more questions and told me I needed to be very careful - what the startup was doing was either really illegal or they were operating in a very gray area. Neither of them will end well for anybody and if the SEC thinks I'm involved in any way of covering up what they were doing? Then I'm in deep shit. I quit about three weeks later. A year or so after that, the economy collapsed. I found out they were automating robo-signatures for real estate and mortgage companies. They were changing clients contracts from fixed APR's to 3 year ARM's and a bunch of other highly illegal shit. The company went under and despite several local news reports about it, nothing happened. Pretty sure they just got lost in the myriad of other companies going under, people losing everything and the economy collapsing. It was a good experience for me to understand and see red flags when something doesn't feel right.

stevofolife 4y ago
What a great anecdote. I'm sad to say this - but most capitalism operates like this more or less, and capitalism runs the world. There is not enough integrity.
- majormajor 4y ago
  A lack of integrity isn't necessarily a problem of capitalism, but it does mean that it needs active regulation. Otherwise the collection of capital and resulting accumulation of power will be abused. A knock on more controlled economies and such is that people will abuse the power that such systems give them... so we shouldn't let them get that power organically either.
  - stevofolife 4y ago
    100% agree. At least lack of integrity will never prevail. Active regulation with fairness is increasingly more important.
    - gregw2 4y ago
      …active well-funded regulation… …since a common anti-regulatory strategy is to strangle the funding…
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    It needs less regulation (regimentation) and more enforcement of basic laws like the prohibition on fraud. Regulation is just another forum that can be corrupted.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  Its privatized power, trying to break out the containement vessel that is a democratic society. Once it succedds it continues to build little autocratic empires in the host, similar to tumors. The whole libertarian ideolog is just that, the secretions of tumors, trying to convince the host, that this is friendly, normal and actually a net positive growth to the creature being devoured. Of course the anti-bodies, aka taxes have to be supressed, otherwise the defenses kick and and a normal society returns.
- cowl 4y ago
  What does capitalism have to do with this? This is a plain morality issue and human nature that does not have anything to do with the form of the economy. The same behaviour and even worse was in plain display in every communist society.
  - stevofolife 4y ago
    It does. The essential feature of capitalism is the motive to make a "profit". I'm explicitly saying capitalism is focused on "profit". Since you brought up communism, it has a different ideology which is not centered on "profit". Does that make sense? PS: Also I do not intend to debate capitalism vs. communism, I'm trying to convey the idea of "a society driven by profit".
    - cowl 4y ago
      And my point was that "profit" is not the culprit here, and that is why I took communism as example. People will do questionable or illegal things for variuos selfish reasons. Profit being just one of them, but the people that would do those things for profit would do the same things for other non so tangible advancement of the self ego. So the problem is not that the society is driven by profit but because there is a conflict of self vs society.
bboygravity 4y ago
I kind of lolled at the part where you thought you where at risk of the SEC going after you. Just a reminder that Madoff ran a ponzi for more than !15 years! to the tune of 20 billion USD and the only ones to go after him where his sons who turned him in to the FBI. Note: the SEC was NOT involved in going after him (they did the opposite: they looked away). The SEC is a marketing agency that exists to provide a false image of "fair markets". It's not actually a regulatory agency.
- mike_d 4y ago
  His sons did not "turn him in." They were complicit and eventually contacted authorities when their father revealed that the firm was completely bankrupt. While the sons were never formally charged, they were suspected of involvement. One killed himself and the other died of cancer before the investigation was wrapped up. Close to two dozen people were eventually charged, many went to jail, and JP Morgan paid $2.6 billion to settle their involvement.
  - letsdothisagain 4y ago
    And that $2.6 billion is behind bars to this day. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time!
  - cturner 4y ago
    His sons did turn him in - your own comment says as much. The public evidence suggests they turned him in as soon as they learnt of it. The case has not been made that the sons were complicit, they should be presumed innocence. That other people were jailed, or that they are now dead - all that is irrelevant to the sons' guilt. Neither son was even charged.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  Madoff was also chairman of the NASDAQ for a hot minute there heh.
  - detourdog 4y ago
pjc50 4y ago
> I found out they were automating robo-signatures for real estate and mortgage companies. There's a lot of unfocused "somebody must hang for this, but we don't know who" anger energy around what happened in 2008. Most of which wasn't criminal at the time or even after, merely poor business decisions. But robo-signing? This was overt fraud, perpetuated against ordinary members of the public, and everyone involved in it should have gone to jail.

stevofolife 4y ago

What a great anecdote. I'm sad to say this - but most capitalism operates like this more or less, and capitalism runs the world. There is not enough integrity.

majormajor 4y ago
A lack of integrity isn't necessarily a problem of capitalism, but it does mean that it needs active regulation. Otherwise the collection of capital and resulting accumulation of power will be abused. A knock on more controlled economies and such is that people will abuse the power that such systems give them... so we shouldn't let them get that power organically either.
- stevofolife 4y ago
  100% agree. At least lack of integrity will never prevail. Active regulation with fairness is increasingly more important.
  - gregw2 4y ago
    …active well-funded regulation… …since a common anti-regulatory strategy is to strangle the funding…
- ETH_start 4y ago
  It needs less regulation (regimentation) and more enforcement of basic laws like the prohibition on fraud. Regulation is just another forum that can be corrupted.
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Its privatized power, trying to break out the containement vessel that is a democratic society. Once it succedds it continues to build little autocratic empires in the host, similar to tumors. The whole libertarian ideolog is just that, the secretions of tumors, trying to convince the host, that this is friendly, normal and actually a net positive growth to the creature being devoured. Of course the anti-bodies, aka taxes have to be supressed, otherwise the defenses kick and and a normal society returns.
cowl 4y ago
What does capitalism have to do with this? This is a plain morality issue and human nature that does not have anything to do with the form of the economy. The same behaviour and even worse was in plain display in every communist society.
- stevofolife 4y ago
  It does. The essential feature of capitalism is the motive to make a "profit". I'm explicitly saying capitalism is focused on "profit". Since you brought up communism, it has a different ideology which is not centered on "profit". Does that make sense? PS: Also I do not intend to debate capitalism vs. communism, I'm trying to convey the idea of "a society driven by profit".
  - cowl 4y ago
    And my point was that "profit" is not the culprit here, and that is why I took communism as example. People will do questionable or illegal things for variuos selfish reasons. Profit being just one of them, but the people that would do those things for profit would do the same things for other non so tangible advancement of the self ego. So the problem is not that the society is driven by profit but because there is a conflict of self vs society.

bboygravity 4y ago

I kind of lolled at the part where you thought you where at risk of the SEC going after you. Just a reminder that Madoff ran a ponzi for more than !15 years! to the tune of 20 billion USD and the only ones to go after him where his sons who turned him in to the FBI. Note: the SEC was NOT involved in going after him (they did the opposite: they looked away). The SEC is a marketing agency that exists to provide a false image of "fair markets". It's not actually a regulatory agency.

mike_d 4y ago
His sons did not "turn him in." They were complicit and eventually contacted authorities when their father revealed that the firm was completely bankrupt. While the sons were never formally charged, they were suspected of involvement. One killed himself and the other died of cancer before the investigation was wrapped up. Close to two dozen people were eventually charged, many went to jail, and JP Morgan paid $2.6 billion to settle their involvement.
- letsdothisagain 4y ago
  And that $2.6 billion is behind bars to this day. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time!
- cturner 4y ago
  His sons did turn him in - your own comment says as much. The public evidence suggests they turned him in as soon as they learnt of it. The case has not been made that the sons were complicit, they should be presumed innocence. That other people were jailed, or that they are now dead - all that is irrelevant to the sons' guilt. Neither son was even charged.
arcticbull 4y ago
Madoff was also chairman of the NASDAQ for a hot minute there heh.
- detourdog 4y ago

pjc50 4y ago

> I found out they were automating robo-signatures for real estate and mortgage companies. There's a lot of unfocused "somebody must hang for this, but we don't know who" anger energy around what happened in 2008. Most of which wasn't criminal at the time or even after, merely poor business decisions. But robo-signing? This was overt fraud, perpetuated against ordinary members of the public, and everyone involved in it should have gone to jail.