# House 10/12: Instant Karma
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 12, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569 "2009-10-12T19:43:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2009, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/21 "2009-10-13T20:34:11Z")
> [@LurkMeister](#):
>
> Exactly what were the “papers” that he signed? He kept talking about how by getting rid of all his money he would somehow change his karma and save his son’s life, but everyone else was acting as if by signing the papers he would be shutting down his company and costing thousands of people their jobs. How would bankrupting himself personally cause his company to go out of business? What was I missing?
Also, what were they threatening to sue the hospital for? I scored rather poorly in Torts, so perhaps I missed the day where it was explained that merely owning the situs of a bad business decision was actionable.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/22 "2009-10-13T20:41:41Z")
> [@Meltdown](#):
>
> Upon further reflection, it appeared to be a publicly-owned company (since House talked about shorting shares) so let me amend my theory to say that he was a majority shareholder in his company, and sold off all his shares for next to nothing. This would leave him powerless, with no money (assuming all his fortune was tied up in his company) and leave his company to whoever happened to be the new majority shareholder.
More than that, it appeared he was buying options. He could have bought call options on the stock and lost all that money when the stock went down. Certainly the news that the owner of the company was selling his stock – news that is required to be reported to the SEC – would send the stock dropping, making his options worthless.
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### Author:  [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/23 "2009-10-13T20:43:30Z")
> [@maladroit](#):
>
> I love that House is secretly working for good now, eg the records from the dead guy’s previous dr that explained away the cholesterol discrepancy.
Technically that’s not “Good” it’s still pretty much covering up murder by a doctor.
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### Author:  [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/24 "2009-10-13T20:44:31Z")
> [@randwill](#):
>
> Rats! Googling “misty may digs for gold” yields no results.
Look for Misty May digs for **GOAL**.
She’s a famous volley ball player- you won’t get specific hits, but if you just enter in misty may and goal you’ll get plenty of images.
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/25 "2009-10-13T21:18:50Z")
My favorite part was that How The Grinch Stole Christmas wound up saving the patient.
Also, isn’t House going to get into very serious trouble with the SEC for shorting all those shares? It doesn’t get much more “insider information” than that.
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### Author:  [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2009, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/26 "2009-10-14T14:40:29Z")
When the dad was signing himself over to financial ruination by buying options already underwater I was hoping for this conclusion to the episode:
1. The boy dies.
2. Against all odds the options pay out and his huge wealth is multiplied several times over.
Still waiting for an episode where they’re all sitting doing the differential and come up with what it must be and House says “No, that’s not it.” Everybody asks why and he says “Because it’s our first answer.” He’s such a smart guy he must surely have noticed the pattern that every correct diagnosis first requires 3-5 incorrect near fatal diagnoses.
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### Author:  [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/27 "2009-10-14T14:57:09Z")
> [@Morbo](#):
>
> Also, isn’t House going to get into very serious trouble with the SEC for shorting all those shares? It doesn’t get much more “insider information” than that.
The only person that would seem to be liable for insider trading in this situation would be the father, who told House that he was bankrupting his company. Wiki’s article on insider trading: [Insider trading - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading)
I guess you might be able to make a case that House is “trading shares based on material non-public information in violation of some duty of trust”, but I think you’d have a hard time proving that the father was trying to keep the information non-public.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/28 "2009-10-14T16:14:22Z")
It was just so _irritating_ how selfish the dad was. Seriously, you want all your money to just disappear? When you could give it away? You could even donate it to research the very disease they thought was killing your son? But you’d rather have it vanish from the economy entirely? Grr.
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### Author:  [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/29 "2009-10-14T16:20:24Z")
It does seem that from a karmic perspective, giving it away would have been better than screwing over your shareholders and putting all your employees out of work.
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### Author:  [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/30 "2009-10-14T16:53:02Z")
Yeah, that bothered me, which probably is why I couldn’t understand what he was doing (thanks for the explanations, btw!). If you think that your son’s illness is some sort of karmic retribution for you being rich and successful, then giving your money to charity or medical research or maybe even distributing it among your employees for their part in making you rich would make more sense,
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### Author:  [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-10-12-instant-karma/513569/31 "2009-10-14T17:50:58Z")
> [@LurkMeister](#):
>
> If you think that your son’s illness is some sort of karmic retribution for you being rich and successful, then giving your money to charity or medical research or maybe even distributing it among your employees for their part in making you rich would make more sense,
I don’t know. It seemed like the guy viewed his “bad karma” as everything working out for him in business- always doing the smart, right decision- rather than just being wealthy. I guess he felt like he needed a massive, humiliating public failure to even out the balance.
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