8 ms·

I'm growing pessimistic that this kind of activity + the egregious presidential-level crypto scams will never see justice. What's the path for that, really?

quink 7mo ago
Getting rid of the delusion of American exceptionalism in how politics is conducted. In other words, do something about the two party system, or the pardon power or any number of things, the possibilities are endless. But doing anything about it would require admitting that the USA is something other than perfect, so it’ll never happen. Too bad really. At least the USA is only 4% of the world’s population so the world economy will just find other financial hubs and currencies, no big loss.
- quink 7mo ago
  lol, others are saying elections to solve economic concerns. If that solves it why do you keep re-electing Republicans given this context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_presidential_party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_p... sure the next election might fix it temporarily but the one after that will just just tank the economy again. Or overturn insider trading bans or issue pardons, the possibilities for chaos are endless and — fun fact - investors abhor regulatory uncertainty.
  - tmountain 7mo ago
    Why do we? You say this as if the country is a single organism and in lock step with the current administration. I have never voted for a republican in my life and never will, but now, somehow, all 350 million Americans just fit into one big bucket?
    - quink 7mo ago
      Because at this point all the people in all the other countries do not care who you voted for, especially not after he caused an insurrection and a Democratic Party administration didn't do anything to prosecute that. At this point all the people outside the US just want to know what you're going to be doing about this insanity.
      - tmountain 7mo ago
        Didn’t vote for him. Doing whatever we can to get out of the situation. The United States is not a single organism. It’d be like blaming the French for Victor Orban because both countries are in Europe. Sorry for being born somewhere and sorry for the bad weather lately.
atemerev 7mo ago
Elections.
mrtesthah 7mo ago
Elections and a collectively demonstrated will for justice.
- komali2 7mo ago
  Elections elected Trump twice, so what other strategy should Americans try next? Americans have been a democracy for 200 years and have no healthcare, no public transit, a crippling drug and homeless problem, a crippling gun violence problem... The list goes on. Democracy doesn't seem to be having the desired affect there. Why should that suddenly change? Where's this hope coming from?
  - mrtesthah 7mo ago
    Most of this intransigence is due to corruption, starting with a billionaire cabal’s influence over the supreme court. Citizens United has all but granted the power to decide elections to super PACs, and therefore to the billionaire donor class. Unfortunately with 90% of broadcast television soon to be owned by a single family, overturning this corrupt power may be even more difficult. I think it’s time for society as a whole to reconsider the social contract legitimizing the wealth of these oligarchs.
- altacc 7mo ago
  Elections are already being used for collectively applying "justice", just not the type that stops corruption. Instead it's right wing mob "justice" against the woke and immigrants and all the liberal tears are the prize the braying mob that voted for autocracy wants and they're happy to accept corruption as long as they don't think it affects them. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all types we've tried.
  - tmountain 7mo ago
    The framers of the constitution acknowledged the flaws and vulnerabilities of democracy and cited education as a prevention mechanism for an ill informed population voting against their own best interest. It’s no coincidence that public education has been under constant assault from the right since Reagan.
miltonlost 7mo ago
[flagged]
ElevenLathe 7mo ago
Organize, organize, organize. With some luck, we can have trials for the crimes of the past few decades and purge our government of hostile actors.
- gosub100 7mo ago
  We particularly need a momentary repeal of double jeopardy to get justice for Epsteins victims. I don't care what the implications are, or the precedent. What he did was unprecedented. Retry gelane on rape and espionage, invalidate the non prosecution agreement for the 25 co conspirators, and convict Jeffrey in absentia in case he ever turns up.
IncreasePosts 7mo ago
Zero when the president has the power to issue blanket pardons to his family and inner circle. Hell, he might even extend it fully to ICE. There's precedent too since the previous president pardoned his son for all crimes committed over a period of time.
- skizm 7mo ago
  I think the bigger precedent is that he has already blanket pardoned all J6ers.
  - tehwebguy 7mo ago
    That and the Christmas Day Proclamation
- deaux 7mo ago
  None of that matters. The only thing matters is whether there's enough will. There isn't.
- nozzlegear 7mo ago
  The president can't issue pardons for state convictions, so: prosecute offenders at the state level for state crimes.
  - IncreasePosts 7mo ago
    Well, then we'll just have a situation where texas and Florida are safe havens for these people, and the governor will refuse to extradite them to New York or whatever to face trial
    - nozzlegear 7mo ago
      But is that better or worse than the current situation where they're not prosecuted at all?
    - MSFT_Edging 7mo ago
rvz 7mo ago
Sure, we should ban all insider trading of any kind; including people in congress which have done this repeatedly without any consequences.
- Jcampuzano2 7mo ago
  They should be banned from trading or accepting any money whatsoever and be forced to divest from all assets. And then to compensate they should be paid more in terms of salary, even if that salary seems absurdly large it would be less than most of them gain from the insider info they use to make deals. Take the median income, multiply it by 5-10 and thats their salary.
  - vidarh 7mo ago
    The problem is that it is still to make vague promises of future income to buy them. E.g. speaking fees.
    - XorNot 7mo ago
      Making better the enemy of best is a sure path to failure. "Speaking fees" and deferred income are very different from being able to bank the profits tomorrow morning.
  - fhdkweig 7mo ago
    There could also be a requirement for them to buy and hold (for a predetermined length of time) broad index funds that match the US Total Stocks and US Total Bond markets. They would only make money if the US as a whole makes money. It would certainly help with aligning motivations.
muskstinks 7mo ago
[dead]
andix 7mo ago
Donald Trump has one big advantage over many other members of the administration: He will be long dead before the justice system can act on him. Also something to keep in mind in the future: Old people have no reason to fear prison, they will die before they can get convicted.
- mattmaroon 7mo ago
  When I’m old I’m going to commit so many violations of the emoluments clause.
- Jcampuzano2 7mo ago
  Partly why I'm against anybody over retirement age taking office even if it is a heavy handed approach and could be seen as age discrimination. The odds are too low of anybody getting meaningfully punished while they get to openly setup their entire family for generations using means and information not available to any normal citizen. And while not guaranteed they are statistically more likely to suffer age related cognitive decline while still in office.
  - XorNot 7mo ago
    Probably the best age limit argument I've heard really: whatever retirement and pension age is, for public office that's the limit. It's nice and clear, has obvious motivation and obvious sourcing. Also obvious incentives: e.g. after your political career you will live with the system you helped build.
Quarrelsome 7mo ago
> What's the path for that, really? Record and wait. Justice is slow but has the power of the nation state. Once the leadership of this current government is gone and nobody is around to protect the offenders then its time to swoop in with the records and the justice system. This is why its risky to join corrupt political movements led by old men, because they will use you to break the law, then die and you'll be on the hook. Much like the people who worked for the Soviets in the Baltics post war as young staffers, who administered the forced deportations and were eventually prosecuted ~50 years later for genocide or crimes against humanity. i.e. everyone working for ICE today should be agitating for a pardon, given how racial profiling and warrentless raids are probably rather illegal in the long run.
- wellthisisgreat 7mo ago
  > Record and wait. Justice is slow but has the power of the nation state. this is pretty much how things will unfold in USA. Everything that has to happen will happen but very slowly. There is all the evidence supporting that.
  - testing22321 7mo ago
    You mean like all the people that were punished for trying to overthrow the government on Jan 6th?
    - wellthisisgreat 7mo ago
      Unironically, just give it time
vjulian 7mo ago
Revolution, not election. We need a new governance framework in the US. I believe it’s genuinely silly to think this type of activity is limited to one party or one administration or that it is new. I believe the Constitution and related artefacts should be stored in the British Museum with other historical documents. Civic religion needs to be done away with.
- stackghost 7mo ago
  >We need a new governance framework in the US. And what does that new framework look like to you?
  - 0xffff2 7mo ago
    Not GP, but I think there are a few things that could be done either through a complete re-write of the constitution or through amendments if that process somehow becomes tenable again. 1. Massively increase the size of congress. Modern technology makes this feasible in a way that it wasn't when the size was capped. More congress critters means it's harder to buy off a majority of them. 2. Re-write the first amendment to significantly limit political speech. The specifics of this are obviously very thorny, but reversing Citizens United and drastically limiting the amount of money that is spent on elections is necessary to have _any_ chance of saving the country.
    - wellthisisgreat 7mo ago
      > 1. Massively increase the size of congress. Modern technology makes this feasible in a way that it wasn't when the size was capped. More congress critters means it's harder to buy off a majority of them. Passionately agree with this!
    - underlipton 7mo ago
      1 is something I've been saying for a while. One rep for every 35k residents was the count at one point, right? I hear it's something like one for every 800k now. And constituency shouldn't be based on geography; if the most important issue to me is whatever, I should be able to fill my ranked-choice ballot with candidates that support Whatever. We can work out the mechanics, but the point would be to have a legislative body where each rep had 35k distinct names behind them. 2 is dicey and I would like to try campaign finance reform first. I don't want to throw everything out because that's how you get slavery and The Handmaid's Tale. At the same time, I'll gladly acknowledge that a lot of our institutions were rotten from the founding and to their core, and their dismantling maybe not necessary but certainly suitable for a reborn America that leaves much of its baggage behind.
lynndotpy 7mo ago
For starters, you're not alone in this feeling. A lot of us are very hungry for justice, and a lot of the Trump administrations current tactics are openly grappling with the reality of jailtime and restitution if they lose power. These are unusual times, and so people who are not usually inclined toward retribution are hungry for it. That said, it's hard to reconcile that with the fact that Democrats continue to be the opposition party, and failed to even imprison Trump over four years for the things he'd done. And even in the best case scenario, we wouldn't expect Trump himself to live long enough to face much justice. The optimism left in me hopes that this era can serve as an enduring cautionary tale for future societies.
- edgyquant 7mo ago
  The Democratic Party isn’t without its own corruption either. Pelosi is one of the best stock traders ever and there’s a reason why people voted for Trump. The border being open was criminal negligence and this isn’t just a conservative talking point cities like Seattle near the Canadian border were maxed out on services the could provide to migrants. Across the board our politicians are corrupt rule breakers, it doesn’t matter if one is worse than the other. Neither party can really prosecute the other fully because both need to see their leadership held to account and are terrified of that door opening.
  - SapporoChris 7mo ago
    There were posts claiming "Pelosi made millions in coronavirus insider trading," But there's not any truth to them. More details here: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/30/facebook-posts/no-evidence-nancy-pelosi-made-millions-insider-cor/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/30/facebook-p...
  - vkou 7mo ago
    > Pelosi is one of the best stock traders eve For 90% of her tenure, her investments produced lower returns than an S&P500 ETF. The other 10% were all driven by NVDIA. If she's the bar for one of the best stock traders ever, I must be a Buffet-level genius. --- Why do people keep repeating this lie?
greenpizza13 7mo ago
You are completely right. There are no avenues to seek justice here because the levers of power control the justice. And if the holders of power change, they won't spend political capital on this kind of thing. It's free crime.
nostrademons 7mo ago
I think it's likely that they'll see justice in a chaotic way, ie not connected to the specific crime. Most likely outcome is that they make huge paper profits that are then absolutely worthless because the dollar collapses and the property rights that enforce the wealth they gained from these transactions disappear as the government is toppled. Another likely outcome is that they get in the habit of doing criminal things that piss people off, piss the wrong person off, and then get offed. There was an AskHistorians post about the French revolution a few years ago that really stuck with me: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/w18qt5/what_led_to_the_fall_of_robespierre/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/w18qt5/what_... > Stability had hardly been a hallmark of the Revolution til that point, and really what we have seen is a revolving door of men rising to the summit of power, only to realize that once your head is above the rest it's a prime target for the guillotine. Of the early years of the Revolution, virtually any man who had been considered a leader was either dead or in exile. The King was executed in January of 1793. The Girondin, formerly indistinguishable from the 'left,' went en masse to the guillotine in October 1793. Danton & friends (dubbed by Robespierre 'the indulgents'), the literal authors of the Insurrection of August 10th which overthrew the King and declared the Republic, the 'giant of the Revolution,' had been executed in April 1794. Interspersed with these prominent deaths were hundreds of individuals who had been important players in the Revolution, whether in national or local politics, and who had now paid the price for their notoriety In times of crisis and scarcity, the usual outcome is that anyone whose ego is big enough to think that he can lead or profit finds that they become a target for elimination. The folks who survive are the ones who focus on, well, surviving. We're headed for one of those times of crisis now, though most people don't want to admit it, and a lot of the people who are profiting off ill-gotten gains now may find that they don't live to enjoy it simply because it gives them a taste for profiteering that eventually makes them take stupid risks.
- Windchaser 7mo ago
  > Most likely outcome is that they make huge paper profits that are then absolutely worthless because the dollar collapses Seems like it'd be pretty easy to diversify into inflation-protected assets after taking big profits. But I also don't see the dollar collapsing any time soon. The dollar's strength is built on the US economy, and the US economy is still one of the strongest in the world, with high productivity per person. We'll see some inflation, sure, but nothing that the rich insider traders can't hedge against. I do not expect that there will be any real justice here. They're not gutting the average American -- they're bleeding us, extracting a small enough amount of value that they can get away with it. And we don't live in a just world.
nichos 7mo ago
Less power to the government.
recroad 7mo ago
The thing with justice is that when you look past it in one place, you don’t really get to ask for it in another. I’m talking about Gaza - it set the precedent that the U.S. and its client state, Israel, can get away with anything. Nothing is out of bounds, criminality is normalized, and accountability is dependent on the identity of the victim. Now that the victims are people affected by the stock market manipulation (people in the West), suddenly we’re interested in justice.
inaros 7mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47496508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47496508
bluegatty 7mo ago
Congressional hearings combined with SEC regulatory incursions. There will never be an investigation while Trump is president, but, it's entirely feasible to force some action in the time being to enable a case later. FYI it may not be technically illegal it depends on all sorts of things. If trade were made public it could be very damaging.
- FireBeyond 7mo ago
  > There will never be an investigation while Trump is president, but, it's entirely feasible to force some action in the time being to enable a case later. And realistically we don't want that. Similar with Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, better to sit on things until Trump is out of office, so there can be no pardon.
inaros 7mo ago
"The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed it" - https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/us-government-insolvent-fiscal-crisis-fix/ https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/us-government-insolvent-fisca...
- Windchaser 7mo ago
  I made a face, reading this article. They present the US gov't's very large and scary liabilities and future obligations, but they don't present the other side of the picture, the future income streams. (How much can the US government realistically expect to earn annually via taxation?) Without being able to compare future liabilities to future income, we're lacking critical context. It's like they wrote half an article; kinda frustrating.
  - inaros 7mo ago
    There is no feasible scenario where tax revenues will allow the US government to pay a 39 Trillion, soon to be 40 Trillion debt. And paying the debt its not even in discussion right now. What is in discussion, are the multiple, very feasible, and very realistic scenarios, where an increase in interest rates, and a run from the dollar...Will force the US government to spend over 80% of the tax revenue, JUST TO SERVICE the debt interest....
    - underlipton 7mo ago
      I know a way. https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1773582592057062.jpg https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1773582592057062.jpg Close out enough debt to make what's left serviceable. Thank our richest for their sacrifice for the nation's greater good. The alternative is that they take the money and run. Or start WWIII. There is no in-between.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago
  I am not an economist but my worry is that government deficit spending was the largest driving factor for the bull run. Balance the budget and the economy crashes.
dannyobrien 7mo ago
I think one of the things that goes unmentioned in these discussions is that while the US gets a lot of attention for this kind of activity, it has also (historically) been in the forefront of criminalization and prosecution. I may be wrong, but don't know of any other jurisdiction that prosecuted insider trading before the Eighties, and the US has had a pattern of investigating and regulating this since the 30s. I don't think that this is a particular form of exceptionalism, beyond the US having a longer tradition of widespread, retail-owned shares, and law-making around that fact. But sometimes I wonder when people are criticising the US as a culture, they're often choosing as the baseline that should be respected standards that were also defined in a US cultural context. What this sometimes means is that in internal US culture these points are seen as something that is heavily discussed, because there was a point where it was democratically decided and therefore could be undecided in the same way, like corporate personhood, or money-as-speech. In the case of the criminalization "insider trading", there is lively debate about whether this is actually a "good thing". That can sound horrific externally, because of course insider trading is a bad thing. But someone decided to make that a bad thing, and -- for historical accident reasons -- the edges of that debate was largely defined within the US. (This is mostly just barely-informed speculation: sometimes issues like this emerge in international fora, or start in another culture and quickly spread. But the cultural and financial dominance of the US in the last century or so really makes these things often a point of debate in American terms, and a fixed point elsewhere. I speak here as an immigrant to the US and also someone who is dipped in global policy work, rather than someone who is stating this as a good or a bad thing.)
- tmountain 7mo ago
  A lot of the United States historical influence and soft power comes from it being a nation of rules and laws. The credibility of the country provided a perception that it was a stable place to store value (investment in treasuries, greenbacks, etc). When the government is facilitating insider trading out in the open (repeatedly), we’re losing a lot more than money due to fraud.
chunky1994 7mo ago
Realistically I think it will come down to the aggrieved counterparties here. Who was on the losing side of the money, was it Joe Schmoe day trader or a bunch of funds who lost their shirt? If it’s the hedge funds or institutional money, you can absolutely be sure this will come to a head. People don’t like being taken for a ride, and if they are repeatedly taken for a ride and they are organized market participants they will come around and make sure there is a comeuppance as a collective
pear01 7mo ago
It's not that complicated. Elect a Democrat in 2028 who will nominate a strong AG, not a useless ditherer like Garland. What a disgraceful tenure he had. If he was going to take so long to bring charges he should have just avoided it. Instead he takes 3 years to bring all these charges which naturally look like election interference and as such are paused until they choke the election away and the new justice department kills all the cases. Don't elect a geriatric compromise candidate. The current administration's excesses create a massive opportunity for a pendulum swing. It's really not that hard. Hold yourself, your neighbors, your family and your friends accountable for who they vote for. And as tempting as it is, don't give into cynicism. It will take work but change for the better is always possible, and really in America, is far less out of reach than it would often seem.
- chinathrow 7mo ago
  > Elect a Democrat in 2028 Does everyone still believe this will be possible/happen/allowed by the current regime?
  - pear01 7mo ago
    Is this supposed to be an intelligent comment? Is your answer to forgo elections ahead of time? You plan for the worst outcome by already accepting it as reality? Why don't you work on lobbying your grandparents and their vote because I seriously doubt you are equipped for whatever armed conflict you are imagining. Have some dignity. If Americans are so called upon to defend the constitution then so be it, there is no need to prematurely soil your pants about it.
    - QuantumGood 7mo ago
      People often in essence say "I think the odds of [the alternate option(s)] are greater than are being represented". It can be helpful to frame it that way, rather than "I will over-react to what I feel is an over-reaction".
  - kortilla 7mo ago
    Yes, given that there is no evidence to the contrary.
tdb7893 7mo ago
I have accepted that a lot of effort has been put into making sure these people never see justice and they probably won't. I put my energy into strengthening democracy and institutions for the next generation so they have the opportunity to do better than we have.
underlipton 7mo ago
The last 10 minutes of The Sum of All Fears.
vkou 7mo ago
> What's the path for that, really? Elect people who will make justice a priority.
michaelteter 7mo ago
Sometimes there is no justice. You just have to accept that bad people get away with bad stuff, usually at a significant cost to others.

quink 7mo ago

Getting rid of the delusion of American exceptionalism in how politics is conducted. In other words, do something about the two party system, or the pardon power or any number of things, the possibilities are endless. But doing anything about it would require admitting that the USA is something other than perfect, so it’ll never happen. Too bad really. At least the USA is only 4% of the world’s population so the world economy will just find other financial hubs and currencies, no big loss.

quink 7mo ago
lol, others are saying elections to solve economic concerns. If that solves it why do you keep re-electing Republicans given this context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_presidential_party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_p... sure the next election might fix it temporarily but the one after that will just just tank the economy again. Or overturn insider trading bans or issue pardons, the possibilities for chaos are endless and — fun fact - investors abhor regulatory uncertainty.
- tmountain 7mo ago
  Why do we? You say this as if the country is a single organism and in lock step with the current administration. I have never voted for a republican in my life and never will, but now, somehow, all 350 million Americans just fit into one big bucket?
  - quink 7mo ago
    Because at this point all the people in all the other countries do not care who you voted for, especially not after he caused an insurrection and a Democratic Party administration didn't do anything to prosecute that. At this point all the people outside the US just want to know what you're going to be doing about this insanity.
    - tmountain 7mo ago
      Didn’t vote for him. Doing whatever we can to get out of the situation. The United States is not a single organism. It’d be like blaming the French for Victor Orban because both countries are in Europe. Sorry for being born somewhere and sorry for the bad weather lately.

atemerev 7mo ago

Elections.

mrtesthah 7mo ago

Elections and a collectively demonstrated will for justice.

komali2 7mo ago
Elections elected Trump twice, so what other strategy should Americans try next? Americans have been a democracy for 200 years and have no healthcare, no public transit, a crippling drug and homeless problem, a crippling gun violence problem... The list goes on. Democracy doesn't seem to be having the desired affect there. Why should that suddenly change? Where's this hope coming from?
- mrtesthah 7mo ago
  Most of this intransigence is due to corruption, starting with a billionaire cabal’s influence over the supreme court. Citizens United has all but granted the power to decide elections to super PACs, and therefore to the billionaire donor class. Unfortunately with 90% of broadcast television soon to be owned by a single family, overturning this corrupt power may be even more difficult. I think it’s time for society as a whole to reconsider the social contract legitimizing the wealth of these oligarchs.
altacc 7mo ago
Elections are already being used for collectively applying "justice", just not the type that stops corruption. Instead it's right wing mob "justice" against the woke and immigrants and all the liberal tears are the prize the braying mob that voted for autocracy wants and they're happy to accept corruption as long as they don't think it affects them. Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all types we've tried.
- tmountain 7mo ago
  The framers of the constitution acknowledged the flaws and vulnerabilities of democracy and cited education as a prevention mechanism for an ill informed population voting against their own best interest. It’s no coincidence that public education has been under constant assault from the right since Reagan.

miltonlost 7mo ago

[flagged]

ElevenLathe 7mo ago

Organize, organize, organize. With some luck, we can have trials for the crimes of the past few decades and purge our government of hostile actors.

gosub100 7mo ago
We particularly need a momentary repeal of double jeopardy to get justice for Epsteins victims. I don't care what the implications are, or the precedent. What he did was unprecedented. Retry gelane on rape and espionage, invalidate the non prosecution agreement for the 25 co conspirators, and convict Jeffrey in absentia in case he ever turns up.

IncreasePosts 7mo ago

Zero when the president has the power to issue blanket pardons to his family and inner circle. Hell, he might even extend it fully to ICE. There's precedent too since the previous president pardoned his son for all crimes committed over a period of time.

skizm 7mo ago
I think the bigger precedent is that he has already blanket pardoned all J6ers.
- tehwebguy 7mo ago
  That and the Christmas Day Proclamation
deaux 7mo ago
None of that matters. The only thing matters is whether there's enough will. There isn't.
nozzlegear 7mo ago
The president can't issue pardons for state convictions, so: prosecute offenders at the state level for state crimes.
- IncreasePosts 7mo ago
  Well, then we'll just have a situation where texas and Florida are safe havens for these people, and the governor will refuse to extradite them to New York or whatever to face trial
  - nozzlegear 7mo ago
    But is that better or worse than the current situation where they're not prosecuted at all?
  - MSFT_Edging 7mo ago

rvz 7mo ago

Sure, we should ban all insider trading of any kind; including people in congress which have done this repeatedly without any consequences.

Jcampuzano2 7mo ago
They should be banned from trading or accepting any money whatsoever and be forced to divest from all assets. And then to compensate they should be paid more in terms of salary, even if that salary seems absurdly large it would be less than most of them gain from the insider info they use to make deals. Take the median income, multiply it by 5-10 and thats their salary.
- vidarh 7mo ago
  The problem is that it is still to make vague promises of future income to buy them. E.g. speaking fees.
  - XorNot 7mo ago
    Making better the enemy of best is a sure path to failure. "Speaking fees" and deferred income are very different from being able to bank the profits tomorrow morning.
- fhdkweig 7mo ago
  There could also be a requirement for them to buy and hold (for a predetermined length of time) broad index funds that match the US Total Stocks and US Total Bond markets. They would only make money if the US as a whole makes money. It would certainly help with aligning motivations.

muskstinks 7mo ago

[dead]

andix 7mo ago

Donald Trump has one big advantage over many other members of the administration: He will be long dead before the justice system can act on him. Also something to keep in mind in the future: Old people have no reason to fear prison, they will die before they can get convicted.

mattmaroon 7mo ago
When I’m old I’m going to commit so many violations of the emoluments clause.
Jcampuzano2 7mo ago
Partly why I'm against anybody over retirement age taking office even if it is a heavy handed approach and could be seen as age discrimination. The odds are too low of anybody getting meaningfully punished while they get to openly setup their entire family for generations using means and information not available to any normal citizen. And while not guaranteed they are statistically more likely to suffer age related cognitive decline while still in office.
- XorNot 7mo ago
  Probably the best age limit argument I've heard really: whatever retirement and pension age is, for public office that's the limit. It's nice and clear, has obvious motivation and obvious sourcing. Also obvious incentives: e.g. after your political career you will live with the system you helped build.

Quarrelsome 7mo ago

> What's the path for that, really? Record and wait. Justice is slow but has the power of the nation state. Once the leadership of this current government is gone and nobody is around to protect the offenders then its time to swoop in with the records and the justice system. This is why its risky to join corrupt political movements led by old men, because they will use you to break the law, then die and you'll be on the hook. Much like the people who worked for the Soviets in the Baltics post war as young staffers, who administered the forced deportations and were eventually prosecuted ~50 years later for genocide or crimes against humanity. i.e. everyone working for ICE today should be agitating for a pardon, given how racial profiling and warrentless raids are probably rather illegal in the long run.

wellthisisgreat 7mo ago
> Record and wait. Justice is slow but has the power of the nation state. this is pretty much how things will unfold in USA. Everything that has to happen will happen but very slowly. There is all the evidence supporting that.
- testing22321 7mo ago
  You mean like all the people that were punished for trying to overthrow the government on Jan 6th?
  - wellthisisgreat 7mo ago
    Unironically, just give it time

vjulian 7mo ago

Revolution, not election. We need a new governance framework in the US. I believe it’s genuinely silly to think this type of activity is limited to one party or one administration or that it is new. I believe the Constitution and related artefacts should be stored in the British Museum with other historical documents. Civic religion needs to be done away with.

stackghost 7mo ago
>We need a new governance framework in the US. And what does that new framework look like to you?
- 0xffff2 7mo ago
  Not GP, but I think there are a few things that could be done either through a complete re-write of the constitution or through amendments if that process somehow becomes tenable again. 1. Massively increase the size of congress. Modern technology makes this feasible in a way that it wasn't when the size was capped. More congress critters means it's harder to buy off a majority of them. 2. Re-write the first amendment to significantly limit political speech. The specifics of this are obviously very thorny, but reversing Citizens United and drastically limiting the amount of money that is spent on elections is necessary to have _any_ chance of saving the country.
  - wellthisisgreat 7mo ago
    > 1. Massively increase the size of congress. Modern technology makes this feasible in a way that it wasn't when the size was capped. More congress critters means it's harder to buy off a majority of them. Passionately agree with this!
  - underlipton 7mo ago
    1 is something I've been saying for a while. One rep for every 35k residents was the count at one point, right? I hear it's something like one for every 800k now. And constituency shouldn't be based on geography; if the most important issue to me is whatever, I should be able to fill my ranked-choice ballot with candidates that support Whatever. We can work out the mechanics, but the point would be to have a legislative body where each rep had 35k distinct names behind them. 2 is dicey and I would like to try campaign finance reform first. I don't want to throw everything out because that's how you get slavery and The Handmaid's Tale. At the same time, I'll gladly acknowledge that a lot of our institutions were rotten from the founding and to their core, and their dismantling maybe not necessary but certainly suitable for a reborn America that leaves much of its baggage behind.

lynndotpy 7mo ago

For starters, you're not alone in this feeling. A lot of us are very hungry for justice, and a lot of the Trump administrations current tactics are openly grappling with the reality of jailtime and restitution if they lose power. These are unusual times, and so people who are not usually inclined toward retribution are hungry for it. That said, it's hard to reconcile that with the fact that Democrats continue to be the opposition party, and failed to even imprison Trump over four years for the things he'd done. And even in the best case scenario, we wouldn't expect Trump himself to live long enough to face much justice. The optimism left in me hopes that this era can serve as an enduring cautionary tale for future societies.

edgyquant 7mo ago
The Democratic Party isn’t without its own corruption either. Pelosi is one of the best stock traders ever and there’s a reason why people voted for Trump. The border being open was criminal negligence and this isn’t just a conservative talking point cities like Seattle near the Canadian border were maxed out on services the could provide to migrants. Across the board our politicians are corrupt rule breakers, it doesn’t matter if one is worse than the other. Neither party can really prosecute the other fully because both need to see their leadership held to account and are terrified of that door opening.
- SapporoChris 7mo ago
  There were posts claiming "Pelosi made millions in coronavirus insider trading," But there's not any truth to them. More details here: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/30/facebook-posts/no-evidence-nancy-pelosi-made-millions-insider-cor/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/30/facebook-p...
- vkou 7mo ago
  > Pelosi is one of the best stock traders eve For 90% of her tenure, her investments produced lower returns than an S&P500 ETF. The other 10% were all driven by NVDIA. If she's the bar for one of the best stock traders ever, I must be a Buffet-level genius. --- Why do people keep repeating this lie?

greenpizza13 7mo ago

You are completely right. There are no avenues to seek justice here because the levers of power control the justice. And if the holders of power change, they won't spend political capital on this kind of thing. It's free crime.

nostrademons 7mo ago

I think it's likely that they'll see justice in a chaotic way, ie not connected to the specific crime. Most likely outcome is that they make huge paper profits that are then absolutely worthless because the dollar collapses and the property rights that enforce the wealth they gained from these transactions disappear as the government is toppled. Another likely outcome is that they get in the habit of doing criminal things that piss people off, piss the wrong person off, and then get offed. There was an AskHistorians post about the French revolution a few years ago that really stuck with me: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/w18qt5/what_led_to_the_fall_of_robespierre/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/w18qt5/what_... > Stability had hardly been a hallmark of the Revolution til that point, and really what we have seen is a revolving door of men rising to the summit of power, only to realize that once your head is above the rest it's a prime target for the guillotine. Of the early years of the Revolution, virtually any man who had been considered a leader was either dead or in exile. The King was executed in January of 1793. The Girondin, formerly indistinguishable from the 'left,' went en masse to the guillotine in October 1793. Danton & friends (dubbed by Robespierre 'the indulgents'), the literal authors of the Insurrection of August 10th which overthrew the King and declared the Republic, the 'giant of the Revolution,' had been executed in April 1794. Interspersed with these prominent deaths were hundreds of individuals who had been important players in the Revolution, whether in national or local politics, and who had now paid the price for their notoriety In times of crisis and scarcity, the usual outcome is that anyone whose ego is big enough to think that he can lead or profit finds that they become a target for elimination. The folks who survive are the ones who focus on, well, surviving. We're headed for one of those times of crisis now, though most people don't want to admit it, and a lot of the people who are profiting off ill-gotten gains now may find that they don't live to enjoy it simply because it gives them a taste for profiteering that eventually makes them take stupid risks.

Windchaser 7mo ago
> Most likely outcome is that they make huge paper profits that are then absolutely worthless because the dollar collapses Seems like it'd be pretty easy to diversify into inflation-protected assets after taking big profits. But I also don't see the dollar collapsing any time soon. The dollar's strength is built on the US economy, and the US economy is still one of the strongest in the world, with high productivity per person. We'll see some inflation, sure, but nothing that the rich insider traders can't hedge against. I do not expect that there will be any real justice here. They're not gutting the average American -- they're bleeding us, extracting a small enough amount of value that they can get away with it. And we don't live in a just world.

nichos 7mo ago

Less power to the government.

recroad 7mo ago

The thing with justice is that when you look past it in one place, you don’t really get to ask for it in another. I’m talking about Gaza - it set the precedent that the U.S. and its client state, Israel, can get away with anything. Nothing is out of bounds, criminality is normalized, and accountability is dependent on the identity of the victim. Now that the victims are people affected by the stock market manipulation (people in the West), suddenly we’re interested in justice.

inaros 7mo ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47496508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47496508

bluegatty 7mo ago

Congressional hearings combined with SEC regulatory incursions. There will never be an investigation while Trump is president, but, it's entirely feasible to force some action in the time being to enable a case later. FYI it may not be technically illegal it depends on all sorts of things. If trade were made public it could be very damaging.

FireBeyond 7mo ago
> There will never be an investigation while Trump is president, but, it's entirely feasible to force some action in the time being to enable a case later. And realistically we don't want that. Similar with Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, better to sit on things until Trump is out of office, so there can be no pardon.

inaros 7mo ago

"The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed it" - https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/us-government-insolvent-fiscal-crisis-fix/ https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/us-government-insolvent-fisca...

Windchaser 7mo ago
I made a face, reading this article. They present the US gov't's very large and scary liabilities and future obligations, but they don't present the other side of the picture, the future income streams. (How much can the US government realistically expect to earn annually via taxation?) Without being able to compare future liabilities to future income, we're lacking critical context. It's like they wrote half an article; kinda frustrating.
- inaros 7mo ago
  There is no feasible scenario where tax revenues will allow the US government to pay a 39 Trillion, soon to be 40 Trillion debt. And paying the debt its not even in discussion right now. What is in discussion, are the multiple, very feasible, and very realistic scenarios, where an increase in interest rates, and a run from the dollar...Will force the US government to spend over 80% of the tax revenue, JUST TO SERVICE the debt interest....
  - underlipton 7mo ago
    I know a way. https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1773582592057062.jpg https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1773582592057062.jpg Close out enough debt to make what's left serviceable. Thank our richest for their sacrifice for the nation's greater good. The alternative is that they take the money and run. Or start WWIII. There is no in-between.
2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago
I am not an economist but my worry is that government deficit spending was the largest driving factor for the bull run. Balance the budget and the economy crashes.

dannyobrien 7mo ago

I think one of the things that goes unmentioned in these discussions is that while the US gets a lot of attention for this kind of activity, it has also (historically) been in the forefront of criminalization and prosecution. I may be wrong, but don't know of any other jurisdiction that prosecuted insider trading before the Eighties, and the US has had a pattern of investigating and regulating this since the 30s. I don't think that this is a particular form of exceptionalism, beyond the US having a longer tradition of widespread, retail-owned shares, and law-making around that fact. But sometimes I wonder when people are criticising the US as a culture, they're often choosing as the baseline that should be respected standards that were also defined in a US cultural context. What this sometimes means is that in internal US culture these points are seen as something that is heavily discussed, because there was a point where it was democratically decided and therefore could be undecided in the same way, like corporate personhood, or money-as-speech. In the case of the criminalization "insider trading", there is lively debate about whether this is actually a "good thing". That can sound horrific externally, because of course insider trading is a bad thing. But someone decided to make that a bad thing, and -- for historical accident reasons -- the edges of that debate was largely defined within the US. (This is mostly just barely-informed speculation: sometimes issues like this emerge in international fora, or start in another culture and quickly spread. But the cultural and financial dominance of the US in the last century or so really makes these things often a point of debate in American terms, and a fixed point elsewhere. I speak here as an immigrant to the US and also someone who is dipped in global policy work, rather than someone who is stating this as a good or a bad thing.)

tmountain 7mo ago
A lot of the United States historical influence and soft power comes from it being a nation of rules and laws. The credibility of the country provided a perception that it was a stable place to store value (investment in treasuries, greenbacks, etc). When the government is facilitating insider trading out in the open (repeatedly), we’re losing a lot more than money due to fraud.

chunky1994 7mo ago

Realistically I think it will come down to the aggrieved counterparties here. Who was on the losing side of the money, was it Joe Schmoe day trader or a bunch of funds who lost their shirt? If it’s the hedge funds or institutional money, you can absolutely be sure this will come to a head. People don’t like being taken for a ride, and if they are repeatedly taken for a ride and they are organized market participants they will come around and make sure there is a comeuppance as a collective

pear01 7mo ago

It's not that complicated. Elect a Democrat in 2028 who will nominate a strong AG, not a useless ditherer like Garland. What a disgraceful tenure he had. If he was going to take so long to bring charges he should have just avoided it. Instead he takes 3 years to bring all these charges which naturally look like election interference and as such are paused until they choke the election away and the new justice department kills all the cases. Don't elect a geriatric compromise candidate. The current administration's excesses create a massive opportunity for a pendulum swing. It's really not that hard. Hold yourself, your neighbors, your family and your friends accountable for who they vote for. And as tempting as it is, don't give into cynicism. It will take work but change for the better is always possible, and really in America, is far less out of reach than it would often seem.

chinathrow 7mo ago
> Elect a Democrat in 2028 Does everyone still believe this will be possible/happen/allowed by the current regime?
- pear01 7mo ago
  Is this supposed to be an intelligent comment? Is your answer to forgo elections ahead of time? You plan for the worst outcome by already accepting it as reality? Why don't you work on lobbying your grandparents and their vote because I seriously doubt you are equipped for whatever armed conflict you are imagining. Have some dignity. If Americans are so called upon to defend the constitution then so be it, there is no need to prematurely soil your pants about it.
  - QuantumGood 7mo ago
    People often in essence say "I think the odds of [the alternate option(s)] are greater than are being represented". It can be helpful to frame it that way, rather than "I will over-react to what I feel is an over-reaction".
- kortilla 7mo ago
  Yes, given that there is no evidence to the contrary.

tdb7893 7mo ago

I have accepted that a lot of effort has been put into making sure these people never see justice and they probably won't. I put my energy into strengthening democracy and institutions for the next generation so they have the opportunity to do better than we have.

underlipton 7mo ago

The last 10 minutes of The Sum of All Fears.

vkou 7mo ago

> What's the path for that, really? Elect people who will make justice a priority.

michaelteter 7mo ago

Sometimes there is no justice. You just have to accept that bad people get away with bad stuff, usually at a significant cost to others.