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IMO widespread grift seems to directly correlate with money printing and suppressed interest rates, which create a financialized economy that lives and breathes

IMO widespread grift seems to directly correlate with money printing and suppressed interest rates, which create a financialized economy that lives and breathes based on monthly Fed minutes. If you can make lots of money doing nothing, you can swindle lots of money doing nothing.

from-nibly 3y ago
This right here. Here's hoping for an economic crash that corrects this kind of stuff.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  It's not exactly the kind of grift the article is talking about, but grift is very common in the poorest countries where "free" money and low interest rates were never a thing because there's few other opportunities. Far from removing grift, I'd expect an economic crash to dramatically increase the amount of grift as everyone tries to extract whatever dollars they can. That also points to the uniting factor between the grift the article talks about and the traditional definition of the word: grifts are the strategies you use when other avenues of making money are difficult, say because your investors are demanding increasing returns from a saturated market.
  - username332211 3y ago
    I don't have statistics, but I strongly suspect monetary ...maneuvers are in fact more common in developing, rather than in developed economies. It a fairly common reason why developing countries stay "developing". As for making money becoming difficult, without monetary and interest rate manipulations it would be rare for capital to exist while the opportunities to employ profitably are reduced. Capital is supposed to be created trough the act of saving, and income is normally saved with the idea of funding larger consumption in the future (or maintaining the same consumption with less labor). That plan for future consumption is, in and of itself, an opportunity for profit to those that can satisfy it.
- JacobThreeThree 3y ago
  >an economic crash that corrects this kind of stuff This is exactly how Bernie Madoff was caught.
  - boeingUH60 3y ago
    And many crypto bros like SBF
- redavni 3y ago
  The real estate and banking industry with a host of grifters caused 2007-2008 crash....then we elected a direct representative of this group as president 10 years later. The problem is deeper than poor economic policy.

from-nibly 3y ago

This right here. Here's hoping for an economic crash that corrects this kind of stuff.

AlotOfReading 3y ago
It's not exactly the kind of grift the article is talking about, but grift is very common in the poorest countries where "free" money and low interest rates were never a thing because there's few other opportunities. Far from removing grift, I'd expect an economic crash to dramatically increase the amount of grift as everyone tries to extract whatever dollars they can. That also points to the uniting factor between the grift the article talks about and the traditional definition of the word: grifts are the strategies you use when other avenues of making money are difficult, say because your investors are demanding increasing returns from a saturated market.
- username332211 3y ago
  I don't have statistics, but I strongly suspect monetary ...maneuvers are in fact more common in developing, rather than in developed economies. It a fairly common reason why developing countries stay "developing". As for making money becoming difficult, without monetary and interest rate manipulations it would be rare for capital to exist while the opportunities to employ profitably are reduced. Capital is supposed to be created trough the act of saving, and income is normally saved with the idea of funding larger consumption in the future (or maintaining the same consumption with less labor). That plan for future consumption is, in and of itself, an opportunity for profit to those that can satisfy it.
JacobThreeThree 3y ago
>an economic crash that corrects this kind of stuff This is exactly how Bernie Madoff was caught.
- boeingUH60 3y ago
  And many crypto bros like SBF
redavni 3y ago
The real estate and banking industry with a host of grifters caused 2007-2008 crash....then we elected a direct representative of this group as president 10 years later. The problem is deeper than poor economic policy.