[xinayder]

Big investors have a pass for doing shady stuff. They can do insider trading (up to a point where it's not considered insider trading), they can break the SEC rules to artificially reduce the share price of a company so they can buy it or drive them to bankruptcy, but a normal person like me and you can't do these things, because we don't have the money to get around with it.

Big market actors are just institutionalized corrupt people working for private companies. Change my mind.

[kylebenzle]

You are correct, this is America where we do A LOT of things that are bad for us because they are profitable.

I'm writing a long form article about this idea, how in America we do stuff like private prisons, allow pollution, the "family" court system and social media for kids even though some countries can easily fix these problems we refuse to address them because just TOO much money is being made (at least that's how the divorce industry was explained to me).

[benreesman]

“Corruption charges?! We have laws against it precisely so that we can do it! Corruption is why we win!”

- Syriana

[Modified3019]

I’d definitely love to read it when it comes out.

[kylebenzle]

I'll be sure to post to HN :)

[kortilla]

> They can do insider trading

This is incorrect. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/sec-secures-largest-eve...

> they can break the SEC rules to artificially reduce the share price

No, stock manipulation with falsification of bad information is also heavily prosecuted.

Can you give specific examples where you think this happened? You might not be using the correct definition of “inside information” or “artificially reduce”.

[xinayder]

A recent one: Unity CEO sold a huge amount of shares a week before they announced the pricing change on Unity.

Pfizer top-people bought a huge amount of shares before their vaccine was publicly approved and they sold it the moment the public was made aware that there was a vaccine for COVID-19 approved by the FDA

Microsoft bought a lot of Activision Blizzard shares a few days before they announced they would buy the company.

Having this thin line separating what's allowed and what isn't is not ideal. If you have privileged information, for example, that your product will be approved, something that isn't public knowledge, it should be considered insider trading.

[kortilla]

> A recent one: Unity CEO sold a huge amount of shares a week before they announced the pricing change on Unity.

It had to be an already scheduled sale or he will get busted. That doesn’t fly with the SEC.

> Pfizer top-people bought a huge amount of shares before their vaccine was publicly approved and they sold it the moment the public was made aware that there was a vaccine for COVID-19 approved by the FDA

By shares with expectation of approval is fine. They didn’t know it was approved.

> Microsoft bought a lot of Activision Blizzard shares a few days before they announced they would buy the company.

Do you realize how stupid this statement is? You buy a company by buying shares. Building up a stake before tendering an offer is the normal process.

> If you have privileged information, for example, that your product will be approved, something that isn't public knowledge, it should be considered insider trading.

That is insider trading and would be prosecuted if that’s what happened.