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That’s hilarious … so he’s arrested and put on trial and all the senate and congress are doing the exact same and free? lol
by looksjjhg 6mo ago
That’s hilarious … so he’s arrested and put on trial and all the senate and congress are doing the exact same and free? lol
- chii 6mo agoPalpatine: I am the senate!
- wraptile 6mo agoAt this point insider trading issue has run away so hard I don't see how it can be tamed without revolutionary frameworks. If we look at crypto then I'm not sure we want to live in a world where insider trading is normalized either so we ought to start working on these new frameworks as soon as possible but nobody seems to care.
- ImHereToVote 6mo agoSpeculation has historically been solved by a workers vanguard party.
- nandomrumber 6mo ago> without revolutionary frameworks I’d argue that the level of corruption we’re seeing, not just in the USA but all over the Western world, hasn’t risen to a level that warrants revolutionary action. > nobody seems to care And it would seem that the masses tend to agree. We are much much better off tolerating this level of corruption than we would be attempting a revolution. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast.
- ashtonshears 6mo agoSad that you have given up
- vasco 6mo ago[flagged]
- goreeStef 6mo ago[flagged]
- Pay08 6mo agoSad that you want a return to the Reign of Terror.
- goreeStef 6mo agoYes we should just calmly ignore private insurance death panels, propped up by politicians, killing treatable people at scale rather than put the fear in a few thousand rich people physics didn't see fit to spare from eventual biological death anyway (since they love to trot out that argument). To say nothing of the processed food and automobile industries.
- harimau777 6mo agoWhat's your alternative? The present situation is intollerable and even a bad solution is better than no solution.
- Pay08 6mo agoThe present situation is very tolerable, actually.
- chaostheory 6mo agoThat’s until food and energy price increases become unbearable for the masses. While the first test is already here with gas prices, we’ll have the second test soon in the form of 50% price increases on food in developed Western countries.
- nandomrumber 6mo agoWhere is the evidence that petrol prices are unbearable, by the metric you’re proposing.
- kdheiwns 6mo agoIn some places, like the Philippines, gas/fuel prices are up 70-100% since the start of the Special Four Day Operation in Iran. It's easy to say "who cares doesn't affect me", which sounds nice. But the Philippines is a major manufacturing hub of stuff that keeps life artificially cheap in the west. The rest of SE Asia is undergoing similar rapid price increases. Thailand, Malaysia, etc make lots of electronic components which will be facing a huge squeeze very soon. The reason for those price increases is those countries don't have massive fuel stockpiles. The west does have big stockpiles, and they're artificially suppressing the price of fuel by releasing those stockpiles and hoping the special operation is over before their stockpiles run out. Because if prices shoot up now, people will realize just how truly disastrous it all is and actual consequences for various governments may be had, so the only option is to kick the can down the road and hope it somehow resolves itself. Asia is in a particularly bad situation, because even for countries that do have stockpiles, they get basically all of their oil from Iran, the UAE, east coast of Saudi Arabia, etc. Now they have no oil. America can pretend it's a 4D chess move and now those countries will buy American oil and make their economy great again. But the thing is America isn't selling any additional oil to Asia. But America is 100% dependent on cheap things made in Asia, things that are built with plastic made from middle eastern oil and powered by electricity generated from middle eastern oil and shipped on boats running on middle eastern oil. All these things take months to show any effects to Americans and Europeans, so until then, it's just a game of burying heads in the sand until the situation suddenly explodes.
- lava_pidgeon 6mo agoHow is inside training outside of US s thing? Please give dpurces
- fzeroracer 6mo ago> Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast. Well, given that people are behaving more and more violently towards said fat cats I think it's clear we're starting to reach a breaking point and people are caring. It wasn't too long ago that I saw people cheering on LinkedIn when that healthcare CEO got got, so if people are willing to put their professional profiles at risk you have to imagine it's far worse behind closed doors. Personally I really dislike living in interesting times and greatly prefer advocating against corruption rather than letting things slide until they get a lot worse.
- eptcyka 6mo agoSo a slow decline is OK? Nah, life would be better if a cleptocrat couldn’t find his way into power.
- lazide 6mo agoSlow?
- rjzzleep 6mo agoIt was slow for 30 years, the last couple of years have been insane. I'd say that either way the population will not rebel. If the government is smart they'll just pay for the populations Netflix, burgers and beer. It's enough to keep people passive.
- scottyah 6mo agoWeed is the ultimate double edged sword- it pacifies much better than beer, but also the GDP and standard of living plummets.
- psychoslave 6mo ago>We are much much better off tolerating this level of corruption than we would be attempting a revolution. There is no we to prevent any revolution occurring once corruption or "mere" wealth distribution unsustainable discrepancy are passing some thresholds, after which it simply will feedbackloop exponentially. Pauperization that allows some party to have chip exploitable labour too frightened to have strong collective claims is also building the social structure of bloody revolution as masses feel like rushing into brutality is the only viable left option.
- hfhc6s 6mo agoThresholds by themselves dont auto trigger some state change because the state is aware of them too. The police and intelligence are well paid to keep an eye on all kinds of signals. Unless the situation reaches a point they cant pay the cops any voilence will be shut down fast, because over time they have become quite good at it. Just like we have become good at running gigantic boilers without them exploding. Even poor states are good at it. Because anyone running a farm, factory, depending on banks, telcos, ports, power grid etc are all very dependent on the state to keep the lights on. More efficent they get the more dependent they are on external structures staying in tact to stay afloat. The world today is a much more complicated place, full of interdependcies(as covid showed us), than what it was when revolutions were seen as the solution to anything. So Organizing and Voting still remains the easier way to cause change as tempratures rise. Thats the control and feedback mech.
- harimau777 6mo agoExcept that organizing and voting doesn't actually accomplish anything.
- joquarky 6mo agoProtests have already been mitigated by tactics researched and documented among the most authoritarian think tanks. Believe it or not, wealthy people plan ahead to protect their hoard and they have had several decades since Gandhi to figure out how to neuter peaceful protests that threaten their status.
- andrepd 6mo ago> Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast. Worker's compensation in real terms has been almost flat for the last 50 years, 50 years which have seen the largest increase in productivity in recorded history by far. I'm surprised this is still not enough to you.
- gzread 6mo agoAnd that's using the fake, government approved definition of "real wages" where they pretend the existence of smartphones cancels out a 200% increase in rent, which it doesn't. Real real wages have declined.
- close04 6mo ago> We are much much better off tolerating this level of corruption than we would be attempting a revolution. We, today, are better not attempting revolution because revolutions are painful. But we are also on a downward slope which will eventually reach below a threshold where 2 things happen: their* life will be much worse off than any revolution, but also they will no longer be able to mount a revolution. I've lived through a violent revolution. Not knowing what's happening, not knowing what tomorrow brings, while getting shot at are all terrifying. I can genuinely say that most of what came after was better. A few paid a high price for the several generations that came after to mostly have it better. I am not advocating revolution, just doing what it takes to change course. Even voting appropriately could do it. *I say they because it might not happen in our lifetime. But we are selling our kids' futures for our current comfort. They'll be the ones really paying our debt.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- cucumber3732842 6mo agoI think they meant revolutionary as in new and novel
- rbanffy 6mo ago> hasn’t risen to a level that warrants revolutionary action. A certain amount of corruption is normal - as Doctorow pointed out, all complex ecosystems evolve parasites. It's much better to have a democracy with some corruption than a police state that enforces its laws perfectly. Now, when people realise the current state of their democracy and how it reflects the needs of the people, then they'll start considering bringing out the guillotines.
- harimau777 6mo agoThe general population's standard of living HAS gone backwards too fast. Just look at something like Office Space. Just twenty seven years ago, it was a satire of the indignities and disrespect of work life. Today, the movie's work environment would be incredibly cushy.
- jjk166 6mo ago> I’d argue that the level of corruption we’re seeing, not just in the USA but all over the Western world, hasn’t risen to a level that warrants revolutionary action. What level of corruption would warrant revolutionary action? How much more corrupt can you get than sending forces into combat in a war of choice that disrupts the global economy and kills thousands to win a bet on a crypto platform and shift the news cycle away from accusations of rampant pedophilia among the elite and the lack of prosecution thereof?
- delecti 6mo agoI doubt they did it for the purpose of crypto bets, that was just a side benefit. They did it because Israel owns our government, and this is the first time we've had a president far enough out of touch with reality to not push back. Age limits (for Congress/Judiciary/Presidency) would be a much more targeted fix. Past ~75 you just don't have enough years left to be at risk of being affected by the things you're implementing. Dying in office of old age should be a deeply shameful way to go.
- rabidonrails 6mo agoIsrael owns out government? You have proof of this outlandish claim?
- joquarky 6mo agoI'm trying to determine the causal basis for this and given the ubiquity of evidence, I can only conclude that it must be sea lioning.
- rabidonrails 5mo agothanks for proving my point. There's no evidence other than you falling prey to the tropes of yesterday. In what world does it make sense that Israel controls our government? Only in the world where you think that Israel controls our banks etc. Let's keep this conversation tied to evidence before launching attacks that are based on prejudice.
- Aunche 6mo agoMAGA propaganda is so effective that it got those who never believed in the economic utility of the stock market to begin with to call for revolution to preserve the integrity of the market. The cost of insider trading mostly get passed to the rich. The reason why insider trading is illegal isn't that it's particularly morally wrong as much as it disincentivizes participation in the markets.
- joquarky 6mo ago> the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast. Too late for that hypothetical.
- sixsevenrot 6mo agoYou're wrong. It's just that the problem is not the trading or betting side, the problem is the information producing side. E.g. imagine he placed a bet that Maduro would get shot in is left eye and die. Same goes for the congress. Them making money is by far a smaller issue compared to the havoc they can cause trying to make a few bucks on their crazy bets.
- jorvi 6mo agoInterestingly enough, trading and gambling are things that a blockchain is a pretty good fit for. There is a public ledger and trace of ownership for the trades / lays. And depending on how it is set up, payout is autonomous, as long as no one party controls the network.
- grey-area 6mo agoIt can be solved by enforcing the laws already on the books. Insider trading is illegal. If the laws are not enforced or selectively enforced you live in a nascent fascist state, not a democracy, what you need is a return to the rule of law, not the abolition of it.
- harimau777 6mo agoI don't think anyone who has been paying attention over the last year could conclude that laws are not being selectively enforced. So I guess the next question is what options provide a realistic way of restoring justice.
- PunchyHamster 6mo agoJust ban gambling. That solves good part of it. Then ENFORCE EXISTING LAWS. That solves good part of it. Talking about any other solutions will have to wait for govt that's not crooked. It doesn't need revolution, it needs to not have criminals at helm
- criddell 6mo agoHow would you define gambling? Would it make trading stocks illegal?
- Tangurena2 6mo agoIf it is based on chance, then it is gambling. Until the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, Collateral Debt Obligations were regulated differently in different states. Some said it was insurance, and thus regulated it like insurance. Some said it was gambling and banned it outright. Instead, regulation was handed to a toothless new agency who got little funding for enforcement and the rest of the world got the 2008 financial crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernizatio...
- criddell 6mo ago> If it is based on chance, then it is gambling. Is there much difference between picking a horse at the track or a stock on an exchange?
- triceratops 6mo agoLots of countries have managed to legally define gambling and ban it without making stock trading illegal. Even the US. This isn't some gotcha.
- epistasis 6mo agoThat would require a functioning legislative branch that could pass laws. However a major political program of the past decades has been to gum up Congress and prevent its functioning. There's very limited bandwidth to accomplish legislation, and there's hundreds of good fixes that can't fit through, so I doubt the US will be able to fix this anytime soon, unless there's bigger scandal.
- rbanffy 6mo ago> but nobody seems to care. Very few people feel impacted by that. If you consider bombing Iran was going to happen anyway because distractions are needed, the money made by the whale that consistently predicts the movements of the current administration is a relatively small thing compared to starting a war for no good reason. One possible solution is to make all trades public and traceable to the person who made the decision and the people who benefit from that.
- triage8004 6mo agoIt's not legal for him, but it is for them.
- nandomrumber 6mo agoThat’s not it. It’s that there isn’t an Attorney General who would dare attempt raise a case against the hand that feeds them.
- vagab0nd 6mo agoThink about it. He's stealing from the US military. The politicians are stealing from you. Who's laughing now?
- jameshart 6mo agoTechnically this is stealing from the people who bet against the Maduro raid happening; and it’s cheating because we assume those people taking that side of the bet weren’t privy to the planning. He’s only stealing from the US military if the DoD is taking the other side of prop bets on US military operations on polymarket. Which… I mean maybe it’s a reasonable insurance strategy? US military bets that they’re gonna screw up a raid on Venezuela, then either everything goes well and they end up with a successful operation, or it all goes to hell and they wind up winning a consolation cash prize. Hedging operational success by taking the over on casualty estimates… dark.
- Frieren 6mo agoOnly aristocrats can play that game. The soldier is being punished for doing something not allowed for his class status. This is how a caste system works. People is not judged based on their actions but their relationship to power.
- spwa4 6mo ago> This is how a caste system works. Not at all. In a caste system a lower caste person will get attacked if he (or especially she) has any success at all. Whether or not what they did was legal or not does not factor into the equation. First priority is that the highest up dalit is lower than the worst drunkard brahmin, even if they have to kill them.
- Fricken 6mo agoTulsa once had what was known as Black Wall Street. There were too many successful black men, so 1921 in the whites massacred everybody. They even brought in planes and dropped bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
- Lionga 6mo agoIts a big club and you ain't in it.
- pbkompasz 6mo agoI like how when people talk about corruption they think about Nancy Pelosi or some other congressman/senator making couple million $ on the stock market over their entire careers due to insider trading. Just last week Trump made a bet of around $1B on the price of oil going down before doing a fake announcement.
- lazide 6mo agoNancy pelosi’s net worth is around a quarter billion dollars, most of it attributable to insider trading.
- xienze 6mo ago> I like how when people talk about corruption they think about Nancy Pelosi or some other congressman/senator making couple million $ on the stock market over their entire careers due to insider trading So, two things. First, she's made quite a bit more than a few million dollars. Second, she's been an example of being a "suspiciously good trader" for years and years and years. Has anything happened to her? Republicans talk about her and do nothing about it. Democrats say it's a conspiracy theory. The behavior has quite clearly been normalized.
- markus_zhang 6mo agoI think corruption happens long ago before Trump. I’m thinking more on the inequality of wealth and how a smaller percentage of people takes a bigger share of the wealth since I don’t know when. Trump is in fact the symptom of that corruption and part of the reason people elected him. But he definitely makes it worse especially in his second presidency. Nowadays super riches run the show and even the illusion of democracy is gone. Another thought: many political elites are probably waiting and pushing for Trump to fail to take over. It is us who are going to suffer.
- andrepd 6mo agoI too wonder why "Nancy Pelosi" has become basically synonymous with Congress insider trading when she's not even close to the top of the list among congresspeople.
- cpncrunch 6mo agoAny evidence of that?
- dan-robertson 6mo agoI actually don’t know the details of the specific crimes. Eg if you’re a soldier and you post on Facebook that you’re about to go on a raid to depose a head of state, that’s presumably a secrecy violation you would be punished severely for. The insider trading can be like this too in that you’re improperly using the information you are privy to due to your being an insider. If you’re a congressperson and you tweet that the government is about to do such a raid, I don’t know what the legality of that is – perhaps you have some kind of privilege to reveal these things and any censure must happen politically (eg impeachment, losing elections, etc) rather than legally. I don’t know what the rules for insider trading would then be – legislators are not insiders in the way that soldiers are. Ignoring the moral argument, it isn’t all that clear to me that this would actually be a crime for a legislator under US securities law. It may be that new laws would be required to be able to punish legislators for this kind of behaviour.
- a_victorp 6mo agoHe was charged with "unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of non-public government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.". Supposedly, unlawful use of government confidential information could also be applied to legislative and other people in the government
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Tangurena2 6mo agoCongress sometimes includes an exemption for themselves from some crimes. Others are excused by the Constitution: > The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. Explanation: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S6-C1-2/ALDE_00013354/ https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S6-C1-2/... As for insider trading: > The law prohibits the use of non-public information for private profit, including insider trading, by members of Congress and other government employees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STOCK_Act
- ekjhgkejhgk 6mo agoYes. This is Trump signaling that insider trading is for actual insiders only.
- breppp 6mo agoSome, and probably very few. When the people feel everyone is corrupt without any evidence then the next step is getting actual corrupt leaders like Trump's government and soldiers like this that feel corruption is standard behavior
- baobabKoodaa 6mo agoWhich specific senate and congress members made Polymarket bets on the Maduro raid? Oh, none of them? So it's not "the exact same", then, is it?
- rbanffy 6mo agoNot in their own names, at least.
- baobabKoodaa 6mo agoWere members of Senate and Congress even informed of the Maduro raid before it was executed?
- smcin 5mo agoThe Congressional Gang of Eight said they were not informed (even though they're supposed to be).
- rbanffy 5mo agoMaybe that’s their resentment - that they could have profited from it and didn’t.
- smcin 5mo agoDon't become so cynical. Congress has an obligation to be consulted on wars and withhold consent/budget. (Even if they were merrily trading on events). Perhaps one of the silver linings we eventually get from current happenings is meaningful anti-insider trading legislation, with criminal penalties, timely reporting, nonpartisan enforcement. In principle that legislation could happen as soon as 2/2027. Or perhaps not.
- sdoering 6mo agoAlready known to the classic Roman people: "Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi" [1] [1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bovi https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bov...
- Bender 6mo agoIs there a specific case of someone in congress disclosing classified information by betting on it that we can link to?
- brandonmenc 6mo agoYes, the military have fewer rights than civilians. That's a feature.
- giantg2 6mo agoDid congress do it with classified ops data, or with their voting stuff? The main difference between the two is that betting on the date of a classified op indirectly reveals classified data that can tip off an adversary and cost lives.
- hypeatei 6mo agoThe only reason we know about the trades in Congress is because they're following the law and reporting them. I don't think there is any evidence that members of Congress: 1) have access to classified info like this, and 2) are betting on polymarket. That's not to say the behavior isn't extremely slimey but they are acting within the law. Your comment doesn't mention the executive branch and the various crypto "ventures" going on, like the Whitehouse dinner for investors of $TRUMP coin of which we have no idea who invested or what they got from it.
- acchow 6mo ago> senate and congress Senate and congress are both elected. Their re-election is effectively jury nullification. The people do not care about the crimes.
- harimau777 6mo agoBetween citizens united, gerrymandering, the electoral college, winner take all elections, and voter supression, I don't think we can say that "elections" in America reflect the will of the people.
- smcin 5mo agoAlso that only ~30-40 congressional districts of the 435 US House seats are competitive this cycle.
- kilroy123 6mo agoClassic Anacyclosis in action. The same things happened in Ancient Rome right before the Republic fell. https://anacyclosis.info https://anacyclosis.info
- ChrisBland 6mo agoWilhoit Law; There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect
- Tangurena2 6mo agoOriginal source of that quote: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288 https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...
- throw7 6mo agorules for thee
- jasonlotito 6mo agoAmerica is fine with the rich and powerful doing that. Just not one of the normies. Just look who they elected to President. You cannot with a serious face suggest otherwise.
- varispeed 6mo agoThe Western corruption is called "lobbying" and is only allowed for the rich.
- mrguyorama 6mo agoNo. Lobbying is indeed legal for everyone. But when's the last time you had $300 million in your personal budget to spend on advertising to a specific human being to improve your personal income? When's the last time you got a call from an actual politician begging you for money and "support"? US congress members spend the vast vast majority of their time on the phone begging a list of rich people for a piss of nickles to fund advertising for their next election. There's always a subtle threat of strings attached. Both the prince and pauper are forbidden from sleeping under the bridge.
- darksaints 6mo agoThey have to put on a show to hide the fact that the corruption is coming from the top.
- encoderer 6mo agoIt’s abundantly clear to a uniformed soldier that they have a lot of rules to follow and “can a senator do it” couldn’t matter less.
- soledades 6mo agoMy first thought as well, but you can imagine how dangerous it would be if special forces started tanking their performance due to betting market considerations.
- throwaway894345 6mo agoYeah, Republicans are always playing this game. They also get top tier, free healthcare while they gleefully cut veterans' benefits.
- FireBeyond 6mo agoFor life, too. Be a one or two term congress critter in your early 40s, free healthcare for you and your family for life.
- bko 6mo agoIf Nancy can get some stock for cheap prior to landing a big government contract, that's not the same as a solider possibly tipping the hand of a delicate military operation. No one likes insider trading especially when it's done by politicians, but let's not pretend they're the same