There are plenty of people whp are great at excel but you chose to talk about him. Don't give that guy any more attention. Thats what he wants. Lets all just forget about him and go on with our lives.
Insurance firms send a clear message- fuck with us and we completely ruin you.
And before anybody downvotes me- please inform yourself- not a single person had to pay a penny more than what they had to pay before the price increase, except the insurance firms.
The point of insurance is that the customers pay the full cost. (And a little extra). It's just that customers share the full cost of all the customers, not their individual costs.
It's passed on in aggregate, spreading the burden. Except now the burden gets heavier for all because some companies find a way to leverage the most vulnerable.
The funny thing is you're being glib, but Markowitz literally is quoted as saying diversification is the closest thing there is in finance to a free lunch.
There was no campaign. Nobody met in a smoke filled room and decided they were going to ruin the guy's life. What actuallu happened was the guy was a douchebag, and people called him out for it.
HN is the only place I find people defending that guy. I suspect it's because this forum is full of douchebags who identify with him.
Humans are complex creatures with many facets, and a crime and shitty PR doesn't change that. Most people don't defend criminals or unpopular opinions as to avoid alienation and judgement.
Generalizing people or groups of people over shallow associations says more about the commenter than those commented on.
Shkreli was one of many finance types who have fully drunk the koolaid. He is not alone, and the others too would be prosecuted if people had the time and awareness to be incensed with the culture.
In his defense, shkrelli didn’t know he was a tool. On the one hand singing praises of the free market and on the other taking advantage of every loophole someone could find.
I mean the argument that “no body has to pay a dime more.” Is so patently ludicrous for someone who works in finance, that it can only be called disingenuous.
The difference between HN and New York is that finance thinks it’s ok. HN was founded by people/culture who saw Wall Street as everything they didn’t want to be. (And now a sad reminder of how money changes perception)
I know many those who don’t think it’s ok, and are bothered by it, and many who think he is stupid and didn’t do anything particularly wrong. The morality of it is separated from the legality of it.
The defense on this issue is pretty clear cut, raising the price is not illegal. If there is something illegal, then it should be in a regulation somewhere.
If he is doing something the market is open to, then it’s not a problem and he is doing a service by forcing the market or regulators to respond.
Maybe he was a douche about it, but that’s a stylistic issue, not a practical one.
He did get dinged for securities fraud, not price gouging as I recall.