I just read a long tweet by Peter Girnus that just makes me feel so hopeless and discouraged that I have to come here and talk about it.
He’s a Senior Surveillance Analyst at a Commodities Exchange and he has three monitors on his desk. From his tweet after he describes several bets he flagged:
“That is $2.1 billion in directional oil bets in April alone. Every one of them landed on the correct side of a presidential announcement. Every one of them was placed in a window so narrow you could measure it in bathroom breaks. I flagged every single one.”
Another bit:
"The President’s son sits on the advisory board of Kalshi. He is an investor in Polymarket. Both are prediction markets. Both saw accounts created days before U.S. military action.
One account. I cannot stop thinking about this account. It was called “Burdensome-Mix.” It was created in December. On January 2nd, it placed $32,500 on Venezuela’s president being removed from power. On January 3rd, Maduro was seized by U.S. special forces. Burdensome-Mix collected $436,000. Then it changed its username. Then it disappeared."
This all just sickens me. I just want to bury my head in a pillow. Reading this just after seeing that the Senate has voted to give ICE 70 Billion is too disheartening.
Why on earth are we not in the streets in the millions? We are just allowing evil every day. The horrible killing in Ukraine and Gaza and Lebanon, the poverty and lack of health care by the many, while a few hoard all of the wealth and shove it in our faces with their billion dollar yachts and mansions and open corruption.
I’m telling you, I’m not envious of these people. I’d rather be poor than a billionaire. If I were a billionaire, it would mean I’m not helping enough.
God Damn it all.
Historically the world has run on graft, greed, corruption, and nepotism. It’s only recently in historical terms that we’ve managed to make a dent in that.
According to Genesis the 3rd person ever killed the 4th person. I’m not a Christian, but I think that is worth noting. People suck and have since there were 3 people.
Not to be a doom-and-gloomer… but “the world has never been less corrupt than it is today” is a flip-side Pollyanna-ish view of current events that minimizes any elements that separate this moment from other moments (and, while granted that this is not GD, is a questionable statement to make without cites and methods of evaluation).
Was it possible for any one of dozens (hundreds) of political insiders to be able to make hundreds of thousands of dollars at any given moment by betting with American citizens on the outcomes of violent wars that those insiders had foreknowledge of, and/or were in the position to set into motion? With as little “covert” effort as logging into a website and placing a bet?
Yes, perspective is important. Yes, the pendulum is always swinging. But, the individuals who tend toward corruption, graft, and greed have been able to feed those desires more easily, and with broader impacts and consequences on more people than ever before, and it’s appropriate to lament that.
Any human being who chooses to gamble on the outcome of violent wars should be happy if the only thing they lose is their money. And the bit about oil futures, nobody investing in oil futures is going to go hungry tomorrow, so I’m fine if everybody on both sides of the bet/future loses 100% of the money they risked.
Not the tiniest shred of empathy is wasted for anyone involved, rich assholes stealing from other rich assholes. Frankly, let them keep stealing from each other instead of focusing on people who actually need the money to live.
Fair enough, and I think we agree here? My attempted point was that grifters with their hands on the levers of death and destruction have never been able to pull those levers for personal gain so effortlessly as they can today. I’m making no defense of the morality of you or I putting money on whether or not we’ll kill Iranian citizens today or tomorrow, which is maybe a different topic.
Event organisers for Saturday’s protests estimate more than 8 million people attended to protest policies imposed by US President Donald Trump, and things like the Iran war, immigration enforcement and the rising cost of living.
It might help in the midterms but it wontean shit until then.
I have to ask, as someone with no understanding of these things - where’s the money coming from? Betting is by definition zero sum, so if someone is “winning”, someone else has to be losing an equal amount, plus a certain percentage for the bookie. So who is it?
The question for any of what goes on in government is “Who profits?” It’s rarely asked and even more rarely answered. Trump’s roller coaster ride in Iran is making billions for a select few as the market seesaws, but few are questioning it.
Those with inside access to the Trump administration are winning. Other oil traders are losing. This would prompt an SEC investigation in any other administration. But Republican regulators today are corrupt though not necessarily taking outright bribes.
The Securities Exchange Commission was established in 1934, in the teeth of conservative opposition. Before that, I’m not sure that this sort of thing would have even been illegal. And financial markets at the time were worldwide and sophisticated, though less so than today.
So it’s rich people stealing from other rich people.
I get it, though. It’s not about the money, it’s that leaders are making policy decisions that serve themselves rather than their country. That’s the real crime here.
You really think there is not grift and corruption allover the world.
America is still a young country.
This crap has gone on for centuries in old old countries with lots of Old money. They hoard til they think they can increase their net worth by investing, betting, backing disreputable politicians.
I assure you Americans did not invent this.
Some cultures produce shitty corrupt people at a higher rate than others. You can tell which ones they are because they’re also filled with nitwits who make excuses for it.
Umm. Excuse me, I’m not a nit wit making excuses for anyone TYVM.
We all know Trump is evil. There have been other evil leaders in other countries. They are generally beat down in shame in the end. If not put to death.
The World and certain MEN are corrupt.
Not every person in a country ran by corrupt leaders is evil.
America itself is not evil.
If we just had a female leader we would not be in this place. More MEN shoulda swallowed their pride and voted for Kamala. We’d be golden.
Actually, it’s not. It’s one of the oldest, if not the oldest. San Marino is considered to have the oldest constitution in the world (since 1600), but the US Constitution is the oldest codified constitution.
Our government has been largely unchanged since 1789, just with small tweaks here and there. Every other nation on the face of the planet has undergone massive changes. The US is old and stagnant. An optimist might just say it’s a sign that our form of government is solid and very successful, which is the reason why it has lasted as long as it has while other nations have seen complete overhauls, but I think this thread shows why that’s viewing the situation with glasses given a far too rosy tint.