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Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense
- Theodores 5mo ago[flagged]
- mentalgear 5mo agofunny aside: rothshields were mentioned more than trump in the epstein files, yet no outlet even touched that fact..
- tekla 5mo agoOf course this is a complete lie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_of_Jeffrey_Epstein#Ariane_de_Rothschild https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_of_Jeffrey_Epstein... https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/the-rothschild-dynasty-survived-wars-and-crises-will-the-epstein-files-tear-it-apart-18735944 https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/the-rothschild-dynasty-s... https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/epstein-files-show-swiss-bank-ceo-de-rothschild-kept-up-yearslong-personal-2026-02-05/ https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/epstein-files-show-... https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/02/05/jeffrey-epstein-s-business-ties-with-banker-ariane-de-rothschild-revealed_6750170_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/02/05/j...
- pzo 5mo agothe question is if those links and thumbnail were back then on the front page / timeline. Because otherwise how you supposed to know about the news if you have to google it first.
- filoeleven 5mo agoLookit them goalposts retreating!
- mentalgear 5mo agoWhile it may be an exaggeration, it isn’t a lie: Quantitatively, Trump receives far more coverage in the press than the Rothschilds - who were rarely mentioned at least in the mainstream press. However, if your "lie" accusation concerns their frequency in the Epstein files, the data is easy to verify. A search on the JMail database shows 6,307 hits for "Trump" compared to 7,845 for "Rothschild." [0] https://jmail.world/ https://jmail.world/
- tekla 5mo agoLookit them goalposts retreating!
- petesergeant 5mo ago> There will always be opportunities for insider trading, and there always have been. The Rothschilds could get news across Europe quicker than the kings could, so they made vast fortunes. That is not an example of insider trading
- SkipperCat 5mo agoThe Rothschilds getting news faster because they build an information network is not inside trading. Inside trading is when you have a legal and fiduciary duty not to trade and not to disclose information. The people working in the US government have that obligation and are not abiding by those rules.
- gruez 5mo ago>and fiduciary duty not to trade and not to disclose information. The people working in the US government have that obligation No they don't. They might have duties not to leak classified information, but not fiduciary duty.
- selectodude 5mo agoLook, just come out and say you’re okay with them doing what they’re doing. Stop making arguments that are just verifiably untrue. > Amends the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to declare that such Members and employees owe a duty arising from a relationship of trust and confidence to Congress, the U.S. government, and U.S. citizens with respect to material, nonpublic information derived from their positions as Members or congressional employees or gained from performance of the individual's official responsibilities. (Sec. 5) Amends the Commodity Exchange Act to apply to Members and congressional employees, or to judicial officers or employees its prohibitions against certain transactions, involving the purchase or sale of any commodity in interstate commerce, or for future delivery, or any swap. Extends the meaning of "covered government person" (currently restricted to Members of Congress and congressional employees) to include the President, Vice President, an employee of the U.S. Postal Service or the Postal Regulatory Commission, or any other executive branch employee. https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-bill/2038 https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-bill/203...
- gruez 5mo ago>Look, just come out and say you’re okay with them doing what they’re doing Don't put words in my mouth. Moreover I'm not sure how you can come to the conclusion that I'm "re okay with them doing what they’re doing", when I specifically acknowledged they have a duty not to leak classified intel. >Members and employees owe a duty arising from a relationship of trust and confidence to Congress, the U.S. government, and U.S. citizens with respect to material That's not "fiduciary duty". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Relationships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Relationships
- amalcon 5mo agoSending a letter containing public information to a place that hasn't heard yet is not insider trading, even if you own the post office. Algorithmic trading firms are doing the modern equivalent of this at all times to arbitrage the NYC/LON/HK exchanges. The classic example is that sitting outside a factory and counting trucks does not result in insider information, but driving the trucks does. Even though it is the same information.
- pjc50 5mo ago> Therefore, why not assume every trade is insider dealing, unless proven otherwise? This kills the crab. (investors are driven out of markets when it is obvious that they are being cheated) > The truth is that any empire needs to pick off rivals and rob them, in order to keep the empire going. This also kills the crab. (And most of us along the way: we're already in a limited kind of world war, the sort of thing that has a history of escalating) Who else here is old enough to remember when Martha Stewart got jailed for insider trading?
- black_13 5mo ago[dead]
- charcircuit 5mo ago>paying what in retrospect will have been an excessive price This can be said about any negative price movement. You still get the same amount of oil you agreed to regardless of if the price goes up or down afterwards.
- skinfaxi 5mo agoYes but it is being said about a manipulated movement, not any negative price movement.
- charcircuit 5mo agoIf a store sells a TV for $500 and they know they are going to run a sale the next day. The next day the customer may feel like they missed the sale, but the TV was still worth >$500 to him else he would not have bought it in the first place.
- smallmancontrov 5mo agoIt's a tax. I don't know if you specifically are one of the "taxation is theft" types, but it's absolutely wild how many of these are totally cool with the tax if it's funding insider trading payouts but not if it's paying for poor person healthcare or whatever.
- jstanley 5mo agoIn the absence of the insider trader selling you oil futures on the basis of his insider knowledge, what would you do? You'd buy oil futures at broadly the same price from someone else (maybe a worse price! Because the presence of the insider selling is already driving the price down). So how exactly do you lose? The only people who lose out are those whose limit orders don't get filled because the insider outbid them. The counterparty benefits from trading with the insider.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- gruez 5mo agoSo if this sort of "insider trading" is bad, what does this mean for other sorts off strategies hedge funds do to get an edge, like flying helicopters to look at how full oil storage tanks are? Should that be banned too? The article basically argues that any sort of edge is bad because it disincentivizes others from participating. edit: see my subsequent comment. I'm not saying corruption is good. The whole point of the article is that it's bad beyond just corruption, and that's the point I'm pushing back on.
- rocqua 5mo agoThis insider trading isn't hedge-funds working hard to get an edge. It's political insiders trading ahead of public statements. They are getting gains not by dint of being incredibly smart, nor from working very hard. Instead its from abusing their position in power. And by doing so in this manner, they are taking money away from the actual productive people trading in the futures market. Besides, as Matt Levine often says. In the US, insider trading is a matter of miss-appropriating information when you have a duty of confidentiality. Its not about trading when you know more than someone else. Its about trading when you know something your not supposed to share.
- gruez 5mo ago>It's political insiders trading ahead of public statements. They are getting gains not by dint of being incredibly smart, nor from working very hard. Instead its from abusing their position in power. The article specifically argues that it's extra bad beyond just corruption. That's the part I'm pushing back on. >The stench of corruption is overwhelming. Yet aside from the raw corruption, these incidents also raise a larger question. The insiders ripped off the parties who sold futures to them at what turned out to be very unfavorable prices to the sellers. What broader damage does this kind of unchecked insider trading do?
- not_the_fda 5mo ago> The article specifically argues that it's extra bad beyond just corruption. That's the part I'm pushing back on. They are elected officials that are supposed to be working in our best interests, or at least the interest of their supporters. Are they making decisions in our best interests or what makes their pocket book fatter? Poisons the whole system.
- noIdeaTheSecond 5mo ago> "The Trump administration is making no real effort to crack down on whoever is trading using inside information, and these inside traders are operating with a complete sense of impunity, assured that they can get away with it." I think this sums it up.
- bloomingeek 5mo agoIndeed, since 2016.
- blitzar 5mo agoThe inside trader made no real effort to crack down on themselves
- wartywhoa23 5mo agoThe Ouroboros is smart enough to not get annihilated by biting its tail. Mind the gap, eh?
- NordStreamYacht 5mo agoWhy would they turn off the tap for easy money?
- bcjdjsndon 5mo agoIf only the NYMEX somehow knew who ordered a trade
- harvie 5mo agoCan you watch what happens on a market just before the press conference and do the same?
- gilrain 5mo agoEager to make bank off the back of civilisation, too? My IT colleagues continue to impress!
- 2ndorderthought 5mo agoPsychopaths and sociopaths come from all types of backgrounds. One things for sure, they all tend to gravitate towards power and exploitation of people without remorse. C suite and founders are far from immune from this...
- vavos 5mo agoCivilization will be effected the same way anyway, why not make a buck of it? But you wouldn't be able to anyway because some quant's ml model would have already sucked every dollar out of the opportunity two milliseconds after the insider executed the trade
- vasco 5mo agoThese were before news reports that came out with the scoop before any press conference. How would you know that some big news scoop is going to drop? You'd have to jump on every futures drop.
- organsnyder 5mo ago
- Havoc 5mo agoThe worst part is the sharp changes in the price being traded aren't achieved by magic but rather with guns & actual human suffering
- vkou 5mo agoThe war must continue in order to bring us to the status quo that was in place before we started the war. I hope that everyone responsible for this is enjoying every cent of what they get to pay at the pumps.
- skinfaxi 5mo ago> I hope that everyone responsible for this is enjoying every cent of what they get to pay at the pumps. As if the people responsible actually feel the impact of their choices to that degree.
- hrldcpr 5mo agoArguably people who voted for Trump are somewhat responsible, and include a lot of car drivers. (Not to imply that many Democrat politicians aren't also owned by AIPAC and big business.)
- wuft 5mo ago[dead]
- cbdevidal 5mo agoI didn’t vote for Trump but I don’t blame the voters. I don’t think many people foresaw him doing this on either side of the political aisle. Other stuff we disapprove of, yes. But not this. I say that because he had famously resisted to enter extended conflict in his first term. Maybe he wanted to but now has the chance since he’s in his final years. (At least, I hope it’s his final years.) But I didn’t hear anyone predicting this before his second term.
- giarc 5mo agoWhat if it's not insider trading and in fact the Trump inner circle has been compromised and foreign actors are trading on the news? You might think they wouldn't want to expose themselves just to make some money on oil futures, but at this point, they are bringing in billions.
- beAbU 5mo agoApply Occam's Razor to your statement and try again.
- giarc 5mo agoOh I agree - the most likely scenario is someone within the inner circle trading on this insider info but my comment was more of a devil's advocate comment. If you are NK and you have hacked some Trump adjacent staffers phone, and you see the ability to make a ton of money, would you take it? The staffers aren't known for their grade A security practices.
- ruilov 5mo agoI'd like to see the base rate. Ie were there similar bets at similar times when Trump did not make an announcement
- sagebird 5mo agosame, without context it is speculation. even with context, if the person creating the story controls the window, a window can be found which supports the story.
- scrivna 5mo agoLook at Adobe stock 10 minutes before the Claude Design announcement came out… the volume spike there is out of the ordinary and I find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence, someone knew something. The level of blatant insider trading at the moment is pretty wild
- clarkmoody 5mo agoInsider trading laws are for the plebs. Tip off your cousin about an acquisition by a public company? Go to prison. Tip off your cronies about war? Business as usual.
- leonidasrup 5mo ago"The U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday that it had charged 30 people allegedly linked with a decade-long insider trading scheme involving high-profile law firms." https://www.newsweek.com/premier-law-firms-spy-ring-11920914 https://www.newsweek.com/premier-law-firms-spy-ring-11920914
- seany 5mo agoHonestly, insider trading laws should be removed since they manipulate markets. If you know things, make moves that are public, that would price things _more_ accurately.
- tardedmeme 5mo agoIt's easy to know something accurately when you are the one causing it.
- api 5mo agoI remember one take I had in 2024 after the election. We're all familiar with some of the "defund the police" experiments that went too far in places like Portland and San Francisco and resulted in things like epidemics of casual shoplifting. Well, what we just did is basically the white collar crime equivalent. We now have a wide open free for all for all forms of white collar crime. You can just insider trade, launder money, commit investment fraud, anything you want, the way you saw random people just walking into CVS drug stores years ago in SF and grabbing stuff and walking out. But as usual when someone steals $100 worth of stuff on the street that's a national crisis and those people are scum, but when people steal billions that's fine cause they're wearing suits.
- mschuster91 5mo ago> You can just insider trade, launder money, commit investment fraud, anything you want, the way you saw random people just walking into CVS drug stores years ago in SF and grabbing stuff and walking out. Something I'd disagree with is... enforcement will not help against what causes people to turn out and steal in stores. Fix widespread poverty, get people out of homelessness, help people legitimately get off of drugs, help them get jobs even when they have convictions on the book, and then they won't need to become members of what is, essentially, small and hyperlocal crime networks. In contrast, insider traders and billion-scale fraudsters - they do not have the need for survival pushing them to do crime. It is just pure unchecked greed that drives them.
- trollbridge 5mo agoIt’s a myth that petty shoplifting is something done by poor people. The people doing it are usually part of organised crime (that is not “hyperlocal”) and generally are doing better than actual poor people. The idea poor people are somehow criminal is a myth that needs to be eradicated.
- danans 5mo ago> t’s a myth that petty shoplifting is something done by poor people. The people doing it are usually part of organised crime (that is not “hyperlocal”) and generally are doing better than actual poor people There is not such a strong distinction. Organized crime groups often use poor people who have few alternatives as the pawns of their theft and fencing operations. People with other better options don't usually take up petty crime as a vocation.
- Fokamul 5mo agoIt's done by Truthsocial IT team, they are tracking when he opens the app. Good for them, I guess.
- yieldcrv 5mo agoThe warring parties greatly influence the price of oil futures but they are not the only influences, and there are other markets The losses of market participants and the gains from insiders is difficult for me to take seriously as a problem in commodities market I read all of the cases in the article
- trollbridge 5mo agoThe article displays a laughably out of date view of futures markets, too There are people and institutions, such as oil producers, who will need to sell oil at a future date. They want to lock in the price today on those future sales. There are also people and institutions, such as airlines, who have a future need for oil and would like to lock in the price today. Airlines haven’t hedged fuel in a long time and generally run a policy now of just adjusting fares whenever fuel prices change. Oil producers sell futures simply to ensure deliver of their oil at a certain date so that someone actually shows up to pick it up. The rest of the market is speculation, and in particular short term movements have always been very speculative and also believed to be plagued by insider trading. Airlines and oil producers do not care about minute to minute changes.
- fooblaster 5mo agoAirlines can't raise the prices of tickets sold months ago. There is still financial reason to hedge.
- leonidasrup 5mo ago"All the airlines cancelling flights and adding extra charges amid jet fuel crisis" https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/jet-fuel-shortage-flight-cancellations-airline-easyjet-ryanair-b2971558.html https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/jet-fue...
- Aurornis 5mo agoYou have to read more than the clickbait headline > While this figure might appear significant, it constitutes a mere 1.5 per cent reduction in total worldwide aviation capacity,
- NordStreamYacht 5mo agoIs this an oligarchy or a kakistocracy?
- smallmancontrov 5mo agoThe Venn Diagram isn't a circle, but you need a magnifying glass to tell it from one.
- danans 5mo ago> Is this an oligarchy or a kakistocracy? Yes. Also a klepotocracy
- 5o3lad 5mo agoThe corruption is a welcome byproduct of Trump's role as a Reality TV host who has to keep the conflict going and Hormuz closed. The fact that he is talking peace again now is just because he cannot attack before the meeting with Xi in mid May. The real issue is US energy dominance and control of the sea routes. Which Krugman does not mention, because the effort is bipartisan and he probably likes it. The US literally has a National Energy Dominance Council: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/08/08/inside-the-white-house-energy-dominance-council-00500465 https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-rema... It is designed to subjugate and increase EU and Asian dependencies on US exports. The EU committed to buying $750 billion in US energy exports. LNG terminals in Alaska are being approved to make Asia dependent on US energy. This process is accelerated by the emerging forever conflict that will keep Hormuz closed. It won't be a full scale war, just pinpricks so that shipping companies don't dare to cross Hormuz. Maybe China is able to pressure Iran in a way that the US can no longer pretend it has the right to intercept Iranian ships. But Russia is another factor: The closure of Hormuz benefits both Russia and the US and the EU is too incompetent to negotiate Trump-style and threaten (it does not necessarily have to happen) to resume Russian imports. In an ideal world it would also block US vessels from entering the Baltic sea, because since the Greenland and now the overt Gulf energy threats the US is no longer an ally.
- sailfast 5mo agoI think you’re giving Trump too much credit. If he starts firing shots again the war is illegal. The 60 day window is over. He has no appropriated money to fight the war, no public support, and no way out. There is no chess game here. It’s not even checkers. He is just trying to not have to admit he made a mistake - just with billions of dollars and lives on the line. Such sad.
- bcjdjsndon 5mo ago> If he starts firing shots again the war is illegal. Whos gona prosecute america? Germans ar still waiting for somebody to go to jail for Dresden, and rightly so
- SoftTalker 5mo agoIf you are trading in the futures market and you don't have inside info or are not an actual supplier of the commodity, you are the sucker.
- cindyllm 5mo ago[dead]
- spacebanana7 5mo agoTo be fair, you could also be a real world user of a commodity and productively use futures markets. For example, an airline or trucking company using them to hedge fuel prices.
- nyeah 5mo agoSure, and increasingly those people are being played for suckers. The article makes that point.
- mothballed 5mo agoLess so than those buying it for spot? They need oil one way or another, whether from a future contract or the spot market (or downstream thereof).
- tardedmeme 5mo agoThen your average price is higher than average. I heard airlines don't use futures any more because they need to keep costs low.
- rbanffy 5mo agoFuture exists to stabilize instantaneous commodity prices. They also allow some insights on future demand, which can help you plan production of your commodity.
- otterley 5mo ago
- trentnix 5mo ago[flagged]
- usualtuesday 5mo agoYes, the article is right. And every time an article like this is published, HN predictably goes into the same tirade. What are you actually going to do about it? Nothing. So keep complaining and hoping things change without changing.
- AlecSchueler 5mo agoMaybe if you had some suggestions or wanted to lead by example?
- Forgeties79 5mo agoYou’re literally doing what you’re railing against. In fact it’s worse, because it’s not even about the thing itself, but about the commentary on the thing.
- ifwinterco 5mo agoIt's more evidence if any was needed that the US is now definitively in a late imperial phase of decline - US elites have become corrupt. This is classic decline of empire stuff. So no you can't stop it, but knowing that does at least let you make decisions with more clarity in your own life
- bcjdjsndon 5mo agoI'm just glad I'm alive to witness it. Ww2 is what finally sank Britain's declining empireafter ww1, I'm hoping Iran and maybe a global war finally knocks them off that top spot and the east takes over
- ifwinterco 5mo agoThe lesson from the British empire is it's a slow process, death by a thousand cuts. "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation" and all that. We'll be watching it for the rest of our lives, mostly in slow motion with occasional rapid periods of decline like the one at the moment
- linhns 5mo ago
- coredog64 5mo agoBy 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's - Paul Krugman, 1998 Excuse me if I take the Krug-o-tron's opinions with a grain of salt.
- aarond0623 5mo agoThe insider trading is pretty obvious right now.
- Brigand 5mo agoSo everyone who was wrong once 20 years ago should have their well presented insight dismissed without further reasoning?
- shermantanktop 5mo agoKeep your salt shaker handy because he produces opinions at a prodigious rate. That personality type- highly verbal but able to produce talk to fit anything from a 5 second sound bite up to 2 hours, superficially bright but not actually thoughtful, full of spicy opinions, prone to predictions that sound interesting but don’t come true - is all over TV and now podcasts. Alex Jones is the same type.
- forlorn_mammoth 5mo agoFive years later, still mourning the dot-com bubble https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/nation-world/2005/04/10/five-years-later-still-mourning/50414283007/ https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/nation-world/2005... for a view of the internet's impact on the economy in 2005. internet delivered massive value post 2005, but that is outside of the window K called out.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- cosmicgadget 5mo agoOkay but what of this particular opinion?
- exabrial 5mo ago[flagged]
- Michael666 5mo ago[dead]
- bkovacev 5mo agoSo, what should we buy next? There can be bread for all of us :D
- imglorp 5mo agoWhat if the whole point of the war was planned to generate trading opportunities? Every crazy tweet or announcement another cash out. It's like every time you see a poorly run business and you think, how can they stay open? The answer is it's usually a laundering operation, a tax shelter, and who knows what else. The message to us poors is, nothing these people do is as it appears; there's always a bunch of stacked, leveraged advantages. https://newrepublic.com/post/192244/trump-celebrates-destroy-anti-money-laundering-law https://newrepublic.com/post/192244/trump-celebrates-destroy...
- chneu 5mo agoWhile I don't think trump and co are smart enough to plan big stuff like this, I think it is pretty obvious they are trying to benefit oil companies and I have no doubt oil companies were involved in the decision to bomb Iran to some degree. What I mean is Trump and Co probably spoke to oil execs before making the Iran decision to ask if they would raise production. Then they lied and said yes, while knowing they would drag their feet as prices rose. Trump is a stoog. The folks around him treat him like an idiot. There's no way they weren't involved here. They've been around his entire presidency.
- mannanj 5mo agoHeard of the documentary, "Everything is a Rich Man's trick"? It's quite eye opening, and makes this similar conclusion with evidence pointing to the Rich Men through history. Highly recommend a watch.
- fireant 5mo agoI have been thinking about this a lot lately. If you look at effects of geopolitical events and who profits and loses, rather than stated intentions. This global oil crisis, the Ukraine crisis, tariffs ect. It's the equivalent of the "the purpose of the system is what it does". Oil crisis: Trumps friends profit on insider info, US oil industry (also his friends) profits, Russia profits because they are another big oil producer, USD dominance is harmed (also helps Russia), everyone else in the world eats the costs Ukraine: Russia bleeds, Ukraine bleeds, arms industry profits, politicians in general get something to grandstand on in front of the voters. Personally I believe that this conflict has been artificially prolonged just to amplify the effects Tariffs: US public eats the costs, Trump profits politically by appearing strong, Trumps friends profit on insider info
- vinceguidry 5mo agobrb, directing ai to build an app notifying me of oil futures volume spikes
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- hatradiowigwam 5mo agoWelcome to the world of commodity trading. There is no SEC here, and this is business as usual. You can look at T&S to see this for yourself, but this is (like it or not) how this typically goes in commodity markets.
- utopiah 5mo agoDoes the SEC even matter anymore with the current administration?
- declan_roberts 5mo agoCommodity trading is managed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC and a criminal probe into this started last month. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-probes-suspicious-oil-trades-made-before-trump-iran-pivots-source-says-2026-04-15/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-probes-suspicious...
- lbriner 5mo agoThe scary thing for me is that in the US, the President and by extension the DoJ has a lot of power to override any legal protections that exist in most countries. In the UK, the Prime Minister or the Home Office cannot ring up any of the enforcement agencies and tell them to drop a corruption case - the law is supposed to apply to everyone. In the US, for some reason, if you are a danger to the President's friends, you can be fired/your department can just be shutdown executively and this isn't just about Trump, it is about a serious weakness in the systems of governance.
- pjc50 5mo ago> In the UK, the Prime Minister or the Home Office cannot ring up any of the enforcement agencies and tell them to drop a corruption case - the law is supposed to apply to everyone. I would not rely on that. The Attorney General can withdraw prosecutions, and is a government minister (although not technically in the Cabinet). Parliament can do anything, it just usually doesn't. This includes retroactive legislation to decide that you did not win a lawsuit that you actually did win (Reilly and Wilson v Secretary of State, although that itself was eventually ruled unlawful). The infinite delay of Bloody Sunday prosecutions is probably the biggest example in UK discourse. No country is safe from this if enough authoritarian-collaborator political appointments are made (such as happened to SCOTUS). It should really be viewed as a form of coup.
- Someone1234 5mo agoYep; I think the above comment took the wrong lessons. What actually happened in the US is that "common norms and expectations" were thrown out the window, so instead of the question being "What is traditionally done?" it became "What can legally be done?" And, as it turns out, when you're only constrained by the letter of the law the executive branch is insanely powerful. UK politics, more than most younger countries, is particularly susceptible to this. Norms, traditionally, and commonly understood standards make up a scary amount of constraints on the powers of government. If anyone gained power that only feels limited by the letter of the law (i.e. throws out norms, traditions, and standards), the UK is in serious trouble and Parliament hasn't moved to address it. Somewhat ironically (given how unpopular it is), the Lords may be the best back-stop the UK has. Particularly the 30%~ which do not originate from politics.
- jongjong 5mo agoWell, the entire global monetary system is a scam, so this is nothing by comparison.
- declan_roberts 5mo agoCriminal probe into this started last month. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-probes-suspicious-oil-trades-made-before-trump-iran-pivots-source-says-2026-04-15/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-probes-suspicious...
- apexalpha 5mo agoAs if anything in the executive branch of the US still works properly. Isn't the FBI already raiding the homes of political opponents for intimidation? The famed US constitution with all its 'checks and balances' they would never shut up about turned out to be papier mâché and completely trampled by the first person that tried.
- atmavatar 5mo ago> The famed US constitution with all its 'checks and balances' they would never shut up about turned out to be papier mâché and completely trampled by the first person that tried. If we're being completely honest, the checks and balances in the constitution ended within the first decade. They were only designed to work in the case that the three branches of government were truly separate and adversarial with one another. The creation of political parties largely eliminated them, both because they cross-cut branches and because the first-past-the-post, winner-take-all electoral system virtually guaranteed the parties would have nearly even representation most of the time. That it's greatest likelihood of collapse comes between 236 and 243 years later (depending on whether you count from the end of the revolutionary war or ratification of the constitution) is a goddamn miracle.
- Galanwe 5mo agoI dont think the problem is parties by themselves. I think it's more the fact that the US system cannot accomodate more than 2 parties. Plenty of other democracies have parties, including cross government branches. What makes the US unique, and fragile, is that no party other than democrats and republicans can realistically exist. It over emphasizes partisanship above anything (including honesty, morality) because career politicians in one party just have nowhere to go if they are dissident. You can see that in plain sight currently, with republicans being in the total incapacity of contradicting their party line on anything, even the most obvious of lies. In most other democracies, dissidents would have just created a new party and moved on, that wouldnt be "carrier ending" for them.
- jmyeet 5mo agoThis topic keeps coming up so I'll summarize some points I've alrady made [1]. 1. The size of this market manipulation can be measured by the gap between spot or physical oil prices (which generally aren't public) and the future or paper price [2]. Historically these have tracked each other so close it was a non-issue. Now it's a huge issue; 2. Part of the gap can be attributed to the financial markets being in denial [3] and the market itself being in extreme backwardation. That simply means the spot price is significantly higher than the future price. It indiciates some sort of market dysfunction (or delusion). We saw this in the silver market last year. All credit for this wanton insider trading goes back to the Supreme Court inventing presidential immunity out of thin air [4][5] and a Congress that has completely abdicated any kind of constitutional responsibility. You might think there might be some kind of criminal prosecution or at least investigation by government agencies of the players involved. Well, sycophants and crackpots have put in charge of those agencies (eg Michael Selig of the CFTC [6]). And if that fails, just buy a pardon [7]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47955623 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47955623 [2]: https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-interpret-wartime-oil-prices https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-interpret-wartime-oil-pric... [3]: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Is-Reality-Finally-Catching-Up-With-Financial-Markets.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Is-Reality-Finall... [4]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/supreme-court-roberts-trump-dictator/683576/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/supreme-co... [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States [6]: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/12/michael-selig-prediction-markets-00865239 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/12/michael-selig-predi... [7]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/04/donald-trumps-pardon-economy https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/05/04/donald-trumps-...
- mannanj 5mo agoSo, basically, over the last century or more or so, we've learned: - our laws, the ones that supposedly keep society stable and safe, don't apply to particular groups of people - we can catch them, and maybe, just maybe, we will hold someone accountable for those people, though often they just distract and trick everyone from holding them accountable - the majority of people are getting stolen from, treated like slaves and tricked and abused, and they will tolerate this abuse because of <fear???> Am I to accept this frame of reality in which the universe and the earth, and the leaders currently making decisions for me and holding influence over the worlds' military powers, are this hostile towards me? I refuse. I think we have more power than we think. In America at least, we still have an amendment that has yet to be repealed (created for scenarios in which abusers hold leadership positions and refuse to be accountable): the 1st amendment and parading guns legally, safely, and responsibly is a powerful reminder of what accountability and dignity looks like. edit: I advocate for parading guns peacefully with an intention and purpose: go with a group standing for rights, safety and dignity
- apexalpha 5mo ago>The Trump administration is making no real effort to crack down on whoever is trading using inside information, and these inside traders are operating with a complete sense of impunity, assured that they can get away with it. Yeah that's because IT's HIM. Jesus how much more proof do you people need that the Trumps themselves are looting the country.
- le-mark 5mo agoThe only stop gap we have is for the states to start investigating and prosecuting these cases. And they don’t, I can I only suppose there are issues of jurisdiction even if the opposing party controls the apparatus. Too bad the the Georgia DA Fawny Willis was so inept; that election stealing RICO case had teeth.
- cosmicgadget 5mo agoAt least here he is just looting counterparties. It's way better than selling off national parks and using tax dollars on no-bid contracts to gild the presidential tanning bed.
- fennecbutt 5mo agoThe world will remember who you Americans chose to vote in. And then we'll do nothing anyway because the wealthy and corrupt run every single country on the planet. Money talks. And people are too easily preoccupied with trivial policy squabbles to care about how badly we've all been fucked by the last 50 years or so.
- doncoyote 5mo agoThinly veiled reddit thinking its not reddit. amazing
- doncoyote 5mo ago[flagged]
- anthonybsd 5mo agoMAGA bot farm intensifies. How delightfully curious :)
- mikaeluman 5mo agoI don't see many comments here about the actual topic. Such is the case with anything Trump related. Needless to say, though I consider Krugman to have failed at practically every prediction he made in his NYT columns, his point is very valid. No one should stand for this. Unfortunately a very bad precedence has been set by many politicians in the US. I find it hard to see that this would ever change if the governing authorities are as tame and neutered as they seem to be. Ultimately it is a question of how to root out corruption. And it must be a path 90% agree on. I don't see it as helpful to become emotive. The real curious part to me is why there are such large reactions when neither the US nor the Iranians seem to be truthful and seem to agree even on what they disagree on...
- lvl155 5mo agoUnfortunately insider trading happens all the time in commodities and isn’t necessarily illegal. It depends.
- _-_-__-_-_- 5mo agoAll the more reason to consider small hybrid vehicles and full-electric vehicles where charging is plentiful (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI)
- soerxpso 5mo agoHow is this at my expense? It's at the expense of the hedge fund they bought the oil futures from before the price went up. I don't see why I should assume that some hedge fund manager is more on my side than some insider trader.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 5mo agoI think insider trading is robing the market, which affects everyone.
- field_reader 5mo ago[flagged]