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Why would they give the money to you as a retail investor? They keep it. There’s a group of like 2000 people or so and they all change jobs every couple years

by CPLX 3y ago

Why would they give the money to you as a retail investor? They keep it. There’s a group of like 2000 people or so and they all change jobs every couple years and split the profits and buy houses in Maclean. It’s distributed via consulting deals, retainer agreements, acquisitions, and so on.

FredPret 3y ago
This is conspiratorial thinking which rarely coincides with clear thinking. You’re describing an incredibly dangerous and unstable game on their part. All it would take is one activist shareholder to blow that whole thing apart.
- CPLX 3y ago
  I grew up in the DC suburbs. I literally know these people, played with their kids when I was a kid. Like I'm really sure. It's not super complicated. This is basically how the country is run and to some extent has always been run.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Government contract fraud of this kind on the order of couple of million up to a couple of hundred million here and there is terrible and people should go to prison. It’s enough money to an enormous amount for an individual - ie, your DC friends could buy half a dozen really nice mansions or something. This is kind of corruption should never be tolerated, but neither should it be mythologized and feared.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      What the hell are you talking about? Like you don't understand that if you're a senior executive at a massive defense contractor you can hire former generals who just signed off on your bid to lucrative consulting agreements, you can put politicians on your board of directors (ie Nikki Haley @ Boeing) and employ their children's PR firms and "strategy consultancies" and so on. It's not fraud in the legal sense, it's just disgusting and I agree it shouldn't happen. But it's all right out in the open and how the system works. I'm not really asking if you agree, I'm describing something I have seen first hand.
      - FredPret 3y ago
        First of all calm down please. I’m trying to have a factual and calm conversation. Second of all OK nice and where is all that money going? Sure, generals as directors, politicians making killer stock investments. But I don’t see these trillions in the form of corporate profits, or missing tax money. The money is almost entirely accounted for (ie audited) and the numbers are reasonable. The US pissed away a ton of money in the middle east, but that money is hardly missing - we know where it went.
        CPLX 3y ago
        > The US pissed away a ton of money in the middle east, but that money is hardly missing - we know where it went. lmfao https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1
  - rqtwteye 3y ago
    I lived in northern VA for a while and have met these people too. The non profit sector there is a similar insider circle.
- MikePlacid 3y ago
  >All it would take is one activist shareholder to blow that whole thing apart. The following fascinating story about stealing money from Pacific fleet operations mentions 27 (twenty seven) whistleblowers whose reports were ignored: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/navy-repeatedly-dismissed-evidence-that-fat-leonard-was-cheating-the-7th-fleet/2016/12/27/0afb2738-c5ab-11e6-85b5-76616a33048d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/navy-repeatedl...
- ak_111 3y ago
  It really is not conspiratorial thinking to say there is a huge amount of waste in the defence industry. We are talking tons of cash which absolutely nobody knows where it went. The Pentagon has failed 6 straight audits. If you ever worked in corporate finance you know how epically dysfunctional financially a corporation must be to fail a single audit. It has approx 4 trillion in assets. If only 5 -10 % of this is due to some kind of direct or indirect corruption we are talking about hundreds of billion in "waste". https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-audit-sixth-year-row-2023-11-16/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-audit-sixth-...
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Waste - of course. Systematically making a huge (remember, we’re talking big enough to cause the downfall of the States) and then hiding the profits from retail investors? Different story. Imagine the political windfall someone like Gary Gensler (SEC chair) or a Democrat could get from exposing that? The whole notion is very unstable.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      Is this some kind of joke? Do you really think it's strange or unusual to suggest that there's a conflict of interest between professional manager and shareholders, and that the managers routinely rig things for their own personal benefit? We're both talking about the same country, the United States right? Have you ever heard of Jack Welch?
    - ak_111 3y ago
      It is indeed very unstable. This is exactly why Eisenhower (who was one of the most hawkish presidents) used his farewell address to warn the public about the growing malign influence of the military-industrial complex (when he coined the term) and which you somehow want to characterise as conspiratorial thinking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_addres...
      - FredPret 3y ago

by CPLX 3y ago

FredPret 3y ago

This is conspiratorial thinking which rarely coincides with clear thinking. You’re describing an incredibly dangerous and unstable game on their part. All it would take is one activist shareholder to blow that whole thing apart.

CPLX 3y ago
I grew up in the DC suburbs. I literally know these people, played with their kids when I was a kid. Like I'm really sure. It's not super complicated. This is basically how the country is run and to some extent has always been run.
- FredPret 3y ago
  Government contract fraud of this kind on the order of couple of million up to a couple of hundred million here and there is terrible and people should go to prison. It’s enough money to an enormous amount for an individual - ie, your DC friends could buy half a dozen really nice mansions or something. This is kind of corruption should never be tolerated, but neither should it be mythologized and feared.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    What the hell are you talking about? Like you don't understand that if you're a senior executive at a massive defense contractor you can hire former generals who just signed off on your bid to lucrative consulting agreements, you can put politicians on your board of directors (ie Nikki Haley @ Boeing) and employ their children's PR firms and "strategy consultancies" and so on. It's not fraud in the legal sense, it's just disgusting and I agree it shouldn't happen. But it's all right out in the open and how the system works. I'm not really asking if you agree, I'm describing something I have seen first hand.
    - FredPret 3y ago
      First of all calm down please. I’m trying to have a factual and calm conversation. Second of all OK nice and where is all that money going? Sure, generals as directors, politicians making killer stock investments. But I don’t see these trillions in the form of corporate profits, or missing tax money. The money is almost entirely accounted for (ie audited) and the numbers are reasonable. The US pissed away a ton of money in the middle east, but that money is hardly missing - we know where it went.
      - CPLX 3y ago
        > The US pissed away a ton of money in the middle east, but that money is hardly missing - we know where it went. lmfao https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  I lived in northern VA for a while and have met these people too. The non profit sector there is a similar insider circle.
MikePlacid 3y ago
>All it would take is one activist shareholder to blow that whole thing apart. The following fascinating story about stealing money from Pacific fleet operations mentions 27 (twenty seven) whistleblowers whose reports were ignored: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/navy-repeatedly-dismissed-evidence-that-fat-leonard-was-cheating-the-7th-fleet/2016/12/27/0afb2738-c5ab-11e6-85b5-76616a33048d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/navy-repeatedl...
ak_111 3y ago
It really is not conspiratorial thinking to say there is a huge amount of waste in the defence industry. We are talking tons of cash which absolutely nobody knows where it went. The Pentagon has failed 6 straight audits. If you ever worked in corporate finance you know how epically dysfunctional financially a corporation must be to fail a single audit. It has approx 4 trillion in assets. If only 5 -10 % of this is due to some kind of direct or indirect corruption we are talking about hundreds of billion in "waste". https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-audit-sixth-year-row-2023-11-16/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-audit-sixth-...
- FredPret 3y ago
  Waste - of course. Systematically making a huge (remember, we’re talking big enough to cause the downfall of the States) and then hiding the profits from retail investors? Different story. Imagine the political windfall someone like Gary Gensler (SEC chair) or a Democrat could get from exposing that? The whole notion is very unstable.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Is this some kind of joke? Do you really think it's strange or unusual to suggest that there's a conflict of interest between professional manager and shareholders, and that the managers routinely rig things for their own personal benefit? We're both talking about the same country, the United States right? Have you ever heard of Jack Welch?
  - ak_111 3y ago
    It is indeed very unstable. This is exactly why Eisenhower (who was one of the most hawkish presidents) used his farewell address to warn the public about the growing malign influence of the military-industrial complex (when he coined the term) and which you somehow want to characterise as conspiratorial thinking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_addres...
    - FredPret 3y ago