[hdevalence]

> We don’t know who placed the trades. We don’t know what they knew.

Actually, “we”, collectively, do know, because the SEC maintains an “XKEYSCORE for equities” called CAT.

If there was interest, the government could know exactly who placed these trades. But the call (options) are coming from inside the house.

[rschneid]

The consolidate audit trail regularly has millions of errors within a day... It's far from complete data; here's their latest report card:

https://catnmsplan.com/sites/default/files/2025-04/04.01.25-...

Also, CAT is run by CATNMS, LLC which was created in response to an SEC rule 613, however it is operated by the same consortium of SROs that it purports to provide oversight on...

All these layers of responsibility diffusion and a notable absence of penalties for failing to meet rule 613 guidelines mean that rule is little more than for show.

[rvba]

The prosecutors dont need any spy tool to check who did the trade (at least officially). They can simply ask to receive the records / logs.

[sebasv_]

What would determine whether the SEC will investigate for insider trading? I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure.

[tdb7893]

Who would be doing the shielding? The current US government has been operating under the assumption of an incredibly expansive executive power, even over "independent" agencies.

I'm not a legal expert at all but so far the most useful mental model has been to assume absolutely no one is shielded from executive power (including organizations and people entirely outside the federal government) unless the courts have delivered a final ruling on it.

[mjd]

How would a final court ruling shield someone from executive power? The court relies on the executive to enforce its decisions. They can find a person in contempt, and order fines or jail time until that person complies, but I believe the orders are then enforced by U.S. Marshals, who are executive appointees.

This is a serious question. What have I missed?

[paulryanrogers]

If the Marshalls neglect their oath to the Constitution (whether ordered to by superiors or not) then the court can deputize others to carry out court orders. IIUC correctly that's usually the police.

[freeone3000]

I cannot overstate this enough: The police cannot be counted on to protect citizens against governmental overreach.

[tdb7893]

I think there's no hard power stopping them but in general they've been reluctant to openly defy courts (they have defied lower courts some while claiming they haven't). I think at least adhering to some pretense of American democracy has so far been important to this administration and if they abandon that pretense carelessly they run a real risk of losing necessary support (popular support, Congressional support, but also support of executive branch institutions).

Also, it's not that I think they won't defy courts but they'll be very careful in doing it (well, at least as careful as this administration can be) so it's still a reasonable base assumption that court orders protect you since while it's not the ironclad protection it was it still gives you some protection for now. Though that "for now" is obviously rather ominous.

[mjd]

Do you still think so, after seeing them stonewall the courts in the Kilmar Abrego García case? To me it appears they a brazenly flouting the law.

[pulisse]

> I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure.

In the past month the SEC has stopped most enforcement actions involving crypto.

[hurtuvac78]

The president nominates the SEC chair, and can fire him.

This explains how, written just before Trump assumed power:

While he can't force Gensler to step down as a commissioner at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, he can name a new interim SEC chair as soon as he's inaugurated on Jan. 20. He can also nominate a new commissioner to the Senate, which has to confirm the pick.

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/11/07/heres-how-quickly...

And Gensler resigned as Chair as soon as Jan 20th:

https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-29

[dboreham]

When the criminals get root access...

[jibal]

"I would expect them to be shielded from executive pressure."

Such an expectation was rational prior to 2025-01-20. Since then it's been completely counterfactual.

[hattmall]

Questionable if there is anything to investigate, definitionally you can't inside trade an index fund.

[Frost1x]

If you’re POTUS or closely related to POTUS with access to sweeping information about erratic tariff policies that actual do shift entire markets index funds index against, why couldn’t you?

In general I think you’re correct because the “inside” information is typically not as broad or powerful. But I don’t think we live in general times. If POTUS gave me personally a heads up about such adjustments on tariffs, after watching indexes tumble after announcing them, and knowing the opposite direction, I would dump almost everything I had access to in such stocks largely effected by reevaluation from tariffs.

Knowing major policy shifts before they happen from one of the powerful governments in the world is useful information, especially when the policies are being set by a handful of people who can limit access to knowledge escaping even more than regularly so markets don’t adjust from larger sets of insider information.

Now is it really considered “insider” trading in this case? Probably not, and this administration can get away with anything it seems.

[spwa4]

That's the whole point. It CANNOT have been someone inside all 500 companies. It wouldn't make much sense because those companies did not do anything at the time. It was president Trump's tweet that moved the market. So it can only have been someone that new of Trump's announcement hours before he made that announcement.

[rco8786]

Why would you expect that?

[daedrdev]

In this administration they will be fired for cases Trump doesnt like. Who would protect their independence, Congress? The house members will not oppose any trump policy unless the US is in a depression due to his action

[vkou]

At this point, it's not clear that they would oppose him dropping a nuclear bomb on Ohio.

[ourmandave]

Well, if there was a hurricane headed to Toledo, it could be justified.[0]

All depends on if it's in the storm path drawn by the Presidential Sharpie.

[0] First Trump threatened to nuke hurricanes. Now he’s waging war on weather forecasters

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/04/trump-...

[klipt]

SEC is a federal agency so falls under the Executive which is controlled by Trump. Trump will fire any SEC employee who investigates the "wrong" people and install a loyalist in their place.

[EasyMark]

This is the truth, they have been recently divesting of anyone who wants to prosecute for white collar crime. The next four years will see at least one trillionaire because he/she will be able to game the system without any barriers because the sheriff is also the criminal.

[mullingitover]

No economic system is functional without a bunch of compromises, and capitalism needs strong regulations as a check to keep it from turning absolutely rotten.

We're witnessing the removal of all of the guardrails, traffic signals, road maintenance crews. The highway patrols have been replaced by organized teams of highwaymen.

It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

[consumer451]

I recently read someone's comment here stating that "trust is efficient."

What we are witnessing is the devolution of the USA from a high-trust to low-trust business environment. "Low-trust business environment" is the euphemism we have used to describe other countries, where corruption is rampant. This is so sad to watch.

[rapnie]

Not just sad to watch. Would a country with a low-trust business environment be allowed to have such a huge mountain of government debt, and continue to have its currency be the world's reserve currency? A lot of sadness hinges on those considerations.

[radicalbyte]

I'm pretty sure that the damage is done. It will take a few years, maybe even a decade, but the USD will no longer be the defacto reserve currency.

[cft]

there's no reason for the USD to be the reserve currency, being the currency of a country that doesn't produce anything anymore

[dlkmp]

But does provide services the entire world depends on.

[lazide]

I remember when everyone said the Euro was the new reserve currency - even a Bond film used it as a plot point.

Came to nothing.

[2muchcoffeeman]

But things can change no? Like the country whose currency we use becoming untrustworthy. Do you think the world watched the first trump presidency and thought to do nothing?

[radicalbyte]

It was US policy to actively work against that and it was an acceptable deal for us given that we've been friends and allies forever. Now Trump has turned the US into our heroin-addict sibling we can no longer rely on them.

[EasyMark]

But at that point in time the USA wasn't run by a clown show of grifting circus performers.

[impossiblefork]

Those particular aspects are only good for Americans though. That those two things are ending is good for basically everybody else, from Brazilians, Chinese and Canadians to Frenchmen.

[rapnie]

The speed with which things are ending are most important I think. For decades there has been a slow decline in US power. Today we have the BRICS trade block representing more than half of the world's population. And countries hold a basket of reserve currencies, where the dollar is still a large percentage, but not nearly as large as it used to be. If all these pillars of American empire are carelessly self-destructed, crashing the world order, it will be hugely disruptive. It forces other powers to act and move to occupy the power vacuum, while lacking the economic weapons may force US'es hand to engage with military force, to reestablish itself.

[Ray20]

>Today we have the BRICS trade block representing more than half of the world's population.

As far as I understand, the BRICS block does not actually exist. I mean, being member of it does not mean anything serious. There are no obligations, no agreements, no roadmaps. We might as well talk about a alliance of countries whose names begin with the letter "S"

[impossiblefork]

I really don't agree. Rather, the 2015-2024 period has seen a huge increase in US GDP relative to the EU, which is probably largely driven by the US ability to spend, due to these particular things.

Of course, countries like China are catching up anyway-- they're more than a billion people and very able, and of course, people are working hard to get out of this arrangement. I agree that it will be disruptive, but I think the crash has been in the making for years.

When US interest rates went from 1% to 4.5-5% without a drop in stock prices or a corresponding increasing in dividends I could only interpret that as pure irrationality, and even now companies like Tesla still have P/E ratios of 133.54 whereas excellent firms in the same business-- Volkswagen and Toyota have P/E ratios 3.24 and 6.21 respectively. I'm surprised it still hasn't gone through the floor. The traders by trading at these prices are implicitly assuming interest rates will go back to <1% without any drop in earnings, and that won't happen.

[yencabulator]

Agreed otherwise but

  s/forces other powers/makes other powers want to/
  s/force US/make US want to/

Starting wars is not something forced upon a country, and that's ungood doublespeak.

[StormChaser_5]

Not sure that's true. America's military keeps peace for trade to happen in a lot of the world... Not always successfully but it's there. That works because they have the reserve currency and can therefore print money for free. Which benefits the US greatly in all sorts of ways. But everyone else also sees some good. If that goes away its going to have impacts on everyone else as well as America. Maybe not as much of an impact on the rest of the world but this is not good for anyone. I can get the anger at the way the US acts, particularly over the last couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean that them doing badly helps the rest of us

[impossiblefork]

I really don't think we do.

France and Britain alone used to be able to defend trade routes. I don't think it's a huge expense. It really is good for essentially everyone aside from the US itself, once the disruption is over. Obviously we'll have some kind of crash though, but I think that was inevitable with or without this.

[consumer451]

I agree. I would argue that Pax Americana has been pretty great for even the USA's supposed "arch enemies." My gut feeling is that everyone loved that stability, whether friend or foe, and the fact that it's now gone will mess everyone up.

I am biased here, but I look forward to the next century of Pax Europa. This is the only way forward.

[eastbound]

I know I’ll be downvoted but, since we’re going straight for scorched land, I prefer to voice it.

I think most voters think like me “I still prefer Trump to a leftist government”:

- Was there any need to be so extreme in terms of wokeness on the left? I am directly threatened by their program. Was there really any need to go for such a degree of revolution, ensuring everyone sensical would vote Trump? Could the left imagine being a little more democratic and making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males? Is it such a bane? It’s concessions for white males, or we vote for Trump, so did the left win anything with their scorched earth policy?

- It is true that savings needed to be done. The left refused to do any, and went to raise the public programs, reaching a few trillion debt per semester. At one point this has to stop, and the left ain’t gonna stop by itself, so the left provokes the people into voting for the only one who will stop public spending and, yes, he comes in, and has the bad role of taking the US to the cleaners. You will say “It doesn’t even save money” and whatsnot, but would the left have saved the money by themselves? No. Never. So someone else came in and saved for them.

This entire movement is a reactionary movement to the left. The left makes no concessions. So both sides go for a scorched earth policy.

What have we learned? What have we won, on either sides?

Do we agree that, staying closed-minded as they are, the left will resume public spendings by the trillions the moment they step into power? Do we agree that the left is a direct threat to meritocracy, stability of government, men in marriage, men at work, a direct threat to men’s financial stability, and that no-one on the left cares even a little what others-than-them feel?

[tmcb]

> I am directly threatened by their program. […] Could the left imagine being a little more democratic and making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males?

I am not from the US, I am originally from Latin America. I am considered a “white male” there. I am now living in Europe as I am a dual citizen. This kind of position is interesting to me. What is so bad about being a white male in the USA at the moment?

I’d like to elaborate further, but I want to engage in an honest conversation so I would like to hear your opinion.

[slopslop]

As a white male from northern europe, I learned during the most left recent years that I’m responsible for all the world’s injustices and ethnic/gender/sexual preference defines a human. I can see why so many gave a protest vote when the current system was trying to paint their existence as non-desirable. We went decades backward and this all just brought the focus back to our insignificant external factors like skin color.

I don’t support extreme right or their hate but it looked a lot like categorical hate against my “kind” that I didn’t have part in choosing.

What got me writing is that is debt actually so bad or is it like leveraged investment? If US would have chosen a bit more professional leader capable to at least maintain the position in world economy, the debt wouldn’t likely ever have to be paid off.

[tmcb]

> I’m responsible for all the world’s injustices and ethnic/gender/sexual preference defines a human.

Rest assured you are not. But this could turn out to be true, maybe in a very minor way, the moment your resentment towards this straw man becomes the main driver of your political views.

[Epa095]

Damn, as another nordic male, why did nobody tell me?

I noticed that someone in America said so, but the US had been extreme, in all ways, for many years and no sane person takes the stuff coming from there as gospel.

I am not responsible for 'all the world’s injustices', and nobody had tried to make me. Maybe if I spend some time on YouTube I can find someone at an American college thinking so, or a right-wing podcast saying that people think so about me. But that is not the mainstream here.

[DemocracyFTW2]

There's no "leftist" party in the USA, there's a Conservative Party called the Democrats, and there's an Ultraconservative Party that's now hellbound to become a Fascist Party called the Republican Party.

[FranzFerdiNaN]

Do you also post on the /r/conservative subreddit? Because you should if you do not, you will find many likeminded people who are completely down the rabbit hole.

[fabian2k]

They're not saving money so far, they have been spending more money than the government spent in 2024. And in those cases where they will spend less they also did enormous damage, e.g. cancelling clinical trials midway through. This is pure destruction, not efficiency.

And your woke argument is a pure strawman. What were those extreme positions by Kamala Harris?

[eastbound]

The “Trump is doing the opposite of his program” yields no constructive argument. Because voting for the opposite movement wouldn’t have made the left suddenly implement meritocratic capitalism.

[miramba]

> wokeness on the left… I am directly threatened by their program.

Could you please explain what that threat is exactly, and what kind of “concessions to white males” you would have in mind?

[eastbound]

I’ll candidly assume that this is not a rhetorical question aimed at making me pass as a spoiled child, as is frequent with leftism:

- AOC, known as “the squad” (!), has claimed the Congress has too many white males. President Macron said the same about the US tech sector, and he’s not even part of the extremists, so this issue permeates society. Basically everyone says white men should be fewer of them. This is a direct threat.

- Feminism was supposed to give women more place at work and give family a better representation of both genders at home. What happened: Men can’t apply for some jobs anymore; while men are assumed to not merit to see the children by default at home. This has been going on since the 1980 in every developed country, moreso in France and US, a little less in Sweden. Judges and lawyer family courts are often 100%-women (80.2% in the profession).

- We helped women when they were 38% of the university students. But they crossed the 50% in 1990. Men now represent 39% of university students. Do we help them? No, we drop help programs. And Sweden also dropped equality programs the moment men were in need.

This is what various groups have been militanting for years, but they were harassed into submission by the left (from Facebook’s pro-left censorship at the time, to directly burning their cars or killing their dogs, and of course cancelling conference centers for men support groups which they presented as extremists - which is true, men are angry).

How is Trump helping?

- His program basis is based on a meritocratic econonic theory (that does not favour women, which is all the left complains about), but, granted, elected presidents generally implement another program, and Trump isn’t helping much,

- Men thrive in both meritocracies and in the wilderness/lawlessness, because they work more. To this, Trump has choosen the latter. The more economic crisis there is is, the weaker the government, and the more women will need men. Given the left’s program is “let’s take men’s/white’s people money”, the scorched earth is the best situation.

Granted, it would be nicer if leftists didn’t hate white men’s guts so much that they could listen to them when they make reasonable demands such as equity in family courts or meritocracy at the workplace. Barring being sensible…

[master-lincoln]

What left are you talking about? The Democratic Party in the USA would be seen as neo-liberals too from outside the US. Calling it "the left" just shows how delusional the society in the USA seems to have become...

[rapnie]

The whole left/right thing has been weaponised to distract from the up/down, top/bottom real issue.

[labster]

I agree, but I would also like to add that the Republican Party is not a conservative party, either. Trump brags about raising taxes on so many imports. And the current administration never saw a Chesterton’s fence they didn’t want to tear down. The party as a whole seems to be pretty happy with it.

So that’s America, no options if you want to vote for a liberal party or a conservative party.

[eastbound]

> The Democratic Party in the USA would be seen as neo-liberals too from outside the US

Incorrect: This is an old argument from the left to pretend that US leftism isn’t very left.

Truth: The US government is in debt of 6 trillion per year, which makes it the most powerful government of the world. The right’s “Atlas Shrugged” vision is to have a very lean government, as in, weak and powerless as possible.

Conclusion: The American left wing proposes to build a government bigger than any socialist country in the world.

Correlation: Ironically, the leftists are often anti-war and they’d be much better defended if they supported defunding the US government to the point they couldn’t wage war outside their borders. The left should support Elon Musk ;) </s>

[const_cast]

> making a few more concessions towards… omg, white males?

I'm a white man. We already HAVE all the concessions. There's nothing left to give us. I mean, we're not gonna implement anti-racist stuff against white men because there does not exist any racism against white men. Ergo, that policy is defacto implemented.

White men also don't need DEI because we actually already have DEI. Studies show upwards of 50% increase in likelihood of being hired if you're white.

I mean, look at Trump's cabinet and admin. Full of white men... because they are white men. A lot of them are very unqualified.

> It is true that savings needed to be done.

This administration will only raise the deficit.

Also, the left at least admitted that taxes on the ultra-wealthy need to be raised. The Trump administration is continuing to raise YOUR taxes while cutting theirs. So, to recap: higher taxes for you, a greater deficit, and the programs will be cut. Wow, it's a lose-lose-lose! Almost impressive how shit conservative policy is.

> This entire movement is a reactionary movement to the left.

I applaud your honesty in admitting the reactionary nature of American conservatives.

However, you're incorrect in saying they're reacting to the left. They're not. They're reacting to a made-up version of the left. One formed and imagined through decades of conservative propaganda. One where the left are communists, baby eaters, and reptilians - not the reality, where the democratic party is a right-leaning ultra-capitalist party.

> Do we agree that, staying closed-minded as they are, the left will resume public spendings by the trillions the moment they step into power? Do we agree that the left is a direct threat to meritocracy, stability of government, men in marriage, men at work, a direct threat to men’s financial stability, and that no-one on the left cares even a little what others-than-them feel?

Uh, no.

[drekipus]

Roots of which started way back earlier than 2001 even..

[consumer451]

Personally, I would argue that the corruption afterburner kicked in with Citizens United v. FEC.

This was like giving a crack addict a feedback loop which gives them more crack. Of course it was going to end badly.

We could discuss many possible points of inflection, but I don't want to dilute the undeniable power of the phrase "trust is efficient."

However we got here, whatever one's politics, you cannot argue against that simple phrase, and the tragedy of the loss.

___

just to give credit, it was https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=the_snooze who turned me on to these three words that have stuck in my head

[pirate787]

Yet Kamala and her supporting PACs had two or three times the funding that Trump had.

[consumer451]

There is no need to get left/right political here. There are two political parties in the USA, and they both hit the feedback loop of $crack. One might have led to low-trust faster than the other, but they are both $crack addicts in the end.

Just to be clear as to what this means in politics on the ground... left or right, if you have a political position which disagrees with the biggest money, they will primary you. So, left or right, generally speaking, you only see politicians finally standing up for their morals when they are no longer up for election. The most obvious recent example of this is Mitch McConnell.

[EasyMark]

at some point you hit saturation on most anything, doesn't stop the fact that hundreds of millions were spent on both sides. Kamala lost because she was a female of color, not because of policies, no one will ever convince me otherwise. There are just too many misogynists and racists in the USA currently to have both of those working against you unless you're bordering on messianic in charisma

[yardie]

You mean a single day fundraiser beat Trump’s single day fundraising by 2-3x, that would be correct. If you think her 90 day campaign fundraising managed to beat Trump’s 8 year fundraising campaign that would be wildly incorrect.

[eru]

It depends on what you mean by 'strong regulations'. Regulations that are on the books should be enforced as written. In that sense I agree. But it doesn't mean that we actually necessarily need all the regulations that are on the books to stay on the books.

Eg, it would be perfectly fine to make insider trading legal by law. (And in fact, the definition of insider trading in the US differs a lot from the one used in France. So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing.)

I agree that random enforcement of some regulations but not others depending on the whim of the executive is less than ideal.

[pineaux]

You could make insider trading legal by law, but that would destroy a lot of the stock market because all non-insiders would basically set themselves up to be ripped off.

[eru]

No, it wouldn't destroy the stock market. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43661926 for an explanation.

Summary: people are already allowed to trade on inside information (in the US), if the person who officially owns the information is ok with that. The prohibition on insider trading in the US is about fiduciary duty to the owner of the information, not about protecting the general public.

[Epa095]

> So there are lots of things that have long been legal in the US that would have been illegal in France, without the economy collapsing.

Who knows, maybe we are in the middle of the resulting collapse now ;-)

[eru]

Well, that collapse is because of tariffs, not the intricacies of differences in insider trading law.

[Epa095]

I was thinking more that these kind of lax laws allowed the rich to get richer, and influence politics in ways which enabled or accelerated the fall. But it it a complicated picture of course, and the further back in the chain of causality we go the harder it it to say anything for real.

[eru]

> [...] allowed the rich to get richer, and influence politics [...]

That would have been a better world than the one we live in.

I'd rather have Romney and Bloomberg etc than the populists we got.

[delusional]

> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

Importantly, there's no guarantee it's actually going to get better. We like to pretend that human existence has some trajectory towards "justice" or "prosperity". I don't think that impulse does us justice.

Stalin/Lenin could have won. Hitler could have won, Napoleon could have conquered and held. It could just get worse.

[johanvts]

Oppression and corruption is expensive. Systems based on them are not going to be competitive in the long run.

[dachris]

That may be the very long run. Taking it strictly, Russia never had real democracy. And they are trying hard to export that model.

[autobodie]

Define "real democracy"

[Draiken]

Like the American one where unelected billionaires control the government and the populace.

I always find it so surprising how people really do believe individuals have any real power despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It's a capitalist society so capital is power. Doesn't get simpler than that. Voting is the circus to distract us so we don't realize how much we're being exploited, while giving a sense of agency that simply does not exist.

We can choose but they pick the choices we have.

[yardie]

I look at apartheid and how long it managed to hang on. And I can only determine it was surprisingly lucrative and competitive as well. It took a long, series of activists and a long time to finally delegitimize and finally break it.

And now, apparently, everyone involved with it had always been against it.

[atombender]

Systems based on oppression and corruption can still be extremely resilient. Countries like Russia, North Korea, China, Belarus, Cambodia, Eritrea, and Venezuela have all lasted many decades.

[closewith]

That's a very optimistic belief, not any kind of axiom, but even if we accept it, the long run could easily extend past the lifetimes of every loving person today. It could last generations or much longer.

[Epa095]

Maybe oppression is where AI finally shines, making oppressive systems competitive. Technology is certainly helping China, and I can only imagine how much Stasi would love to automatically transcribe and store everything all their microphones caught.

[autobodie]

Lenin did win.

[astral_drama]

> It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

If they're getting away with it, they'll do it again. The tariffs were paused for 90 days. The plan is to run the same playbook in 90 days.

[labster]

Why do you trust that they will actually wait 90 days to run the same playbook? There’s nothing stopping Trump from reneging on his 90 day tariff pause.

[Almondsetat]

Capitalism actually thrives where there is only 1 regulation: total transparency. After all, if we go by the classic definition of free market competition we have customers who have perfect knowledge of every product and the products are very similar and etc. etc.

Who cares if someone at the WH does insider trading? In a transparent system people would be able to trace back every transaction and realize something is brewing and they could act accordingly.

[wesselbindt]

> could act accordingly

Concretely, what are you thinking of here?

[Almondsetat]

Simply copy their positions. But if everyone's position were available, insider trading wouldn't even exist because it would give the game away

[notahacker]

By the time you copy their positions, they've made their money.

In theory of course, them being blatantly and obviously corrupt would hurt them at the ballot box. In practice, this is not really something at moves the needle in American politics.

[EasyMark]

why do you think you would know their positions in time to do anything about it?

[Almondsetat]

I will leave it to big investors with supercomputers connected directly to the exchanges to eat away at the potential profits of even the slightest insider trading activity automatically

[formerly_proven]

This is poor bait, even for 2025 HN standards.

[EasyMark]

who cares? I care, I want insider traders to go to prison for multiple years. That's not a free market, that's a market of those who know things to manipulated the rest of the market into never ending pump and dump schemes.

[maxbond]

Is this really SEC's bailiwick? Aren't options commodities (and so regulated by CFTC)?

[dragonwriter]

No, options are derivatives and are, in the US, generally regulated by the body regulating the underlying asset; stock/index options are regulated by the SEC, commodities options by the CFTC.

[shawabawa3]

Options are not commodities

They're a derivative, so options of equities are equities and I guess options of commodities are commodities

[manuelfcreis]

Neither! Options are derivatives, which are also regulated by the CFTC

[richardw]

You keep the receipts for about 4 years and you speak up one minute after the government changes. You get it done long before the following election.

[eru]

With a bit of luck, you only have to wait for 2 years, when Congress changes hands.

[mattkevan]

Bold to assume there are going to be elections.

All it needs is some kind of emergency, genuine, imaginary or self-inflicted, and ‘Oh no, we can’t possibly hold elections until our time of national crisis is over.’

[eru]

> Bold to assume there are going to be elections.

I'm happy to bet. What odds to do you offer?

[netsharc]

Probably much easier to rig the elections, just like dozens of "we're democratic!" dictators have done. Erdogan, Putin, Mugabe, Suharto...

[yread]

You mean like requiring ppl to have a proof of citizenship disenfranchising 21 million

https://apnews.com/article/congress-save-act-citizenship-vot...

[netsharc]

I thought you're agreeing with me about disenfranchisement and how it's evil, but I can see you can also infer that "Did you know 21 million undocumenteds voted?"...

As your article discusses, requiring that proof means paperwork, paperwork some people might not have (e.g. wives who changed their names).

For example in the UK, the Windrush scandal 1) deported British subjects because the government made irrational demands for documents to prove that they're citizens.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_scandal

[EasyMark]

they're already trying to jail the guy who kept 2020 election safe. It's a bad sign lol.

[immibis]

Congress already ruled that time isn't passing, allowing a temporary state of national emergency to become permanent. There's no reason to think they won't find some asinine excuse to deny elections or defer them indefinitely.

They might not even need an excuse. They could just not hold elections and say "what are you going to do about it?"

[koolba]

You mean like Ukraine?

[multjoy]

They’re literally fighting for their lives. Nobody wants elections in wartime, not least because polling stations become targets.

You need to lay off the MAGA talking points.

[eru]

> Nobody wants elections in wartime, not least because polling stations become targets.

Nobody is a strong word. Lots of people want elections, especially in wartime. And lots of other people don't want elections.

But it doesn't matter: the constitution of Ukraine doesn't allow elections during wartime.

I think by default constitutional rules should be followed, unless there are very good reasons not to.

[thatcat]

The conscripted might disagree and desire a leader who will pursue a peaceful solution, this conclusion is supported by the high number of deserters.

[Ray20]

>Nobody wants elections in wartime

THE GOVERNMENT doesn't want elections in wartime. Most people want.

>not least because polling stations become targets.

I think this is pure gaslighting. If we are talking about Ukraine, Putin is one of the main supporters of holding elections there. And almost certainly not because he wants to bomb some polling stations, but because he is confident that people will vote for a candidate who will de-facto offer to surrender, and not for Zelensky with his busifications.

[sorcerer-mar]

It is unconstitutional to hold elections during wartime in Ukraine.

[sethammons]

> Asked whether he’d trade his office for peace, Zelensky told a journalist, “I can trade it for NATO.”

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5159951-ukraine-pre...

Zelensky is not seizing power. Elections suspended during active, home-turf wartime is normal.

[mikeyouse]

Especially when Russia is currently occupying huge swaths of territory that would make holding elections there impossible.

[labster]

And with a lot more luck, the election results will be recognized as legitimate.

[readthenotes1]

Assuming the President doesn't pardon you for all crimes committed from 2008 until 2030...

[adolph]

Could a president pardon everyone for all time?

Or maybe just all future times: the Court has indicated that the power may be exercised at any time after [an offense’s] commission,8 reflecting that the President may not preemptively immunize future criminal conduct.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3...

[EasyMark]

the president can't pardon you for crimes in the future. Any lawyer would get laughed out of court and possibly charged with murder of the judge who first heard it because he laughed so hard his heart stopped.

[more_corn]

Are you suggesting that the SEC won’t investigate this obvious insider trading because it came from someone in his inner circle? Big if true.

[testing22321]

That same day after market close Trump directly told us it was insider trading AND who dun it.

He literally bragged that his friend made 2.5 billion and the other 900 million that day.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1jvyryz/tru...

[bhouston]

You are inferring too much from that comment. I think those people just had large stock holdings in general and were he market went up a lot that day.

[testing22321]

The market briefly went up 7% that day.

To make 2.5 billion just from holdings they must have had stock holdings of 35 billion. Then the next day they lost a lot more than that. I doubt it very, very much.

[dist-epoch]

There is a difference between making 2.5 billion because you owned stocks and the market went up and making 2.5 billion because you bought just before the market went up and then you sold.

[throwaway3b03]

It's unlikely you can make 2.5 billion with a single unleveraged trade. The market went up by what, 6-7% that day? Nobody bets his whole net worth on this to make a profit like that. So I think leverage was definitely involved, which just shows that insider info was definitely there.

[cft]

from the house of representatives or the white house? and how do you know?

[jwilber]

Maybe it's a friend of Trump. Maybe it's a friend of Pelosi. Might even be a member of Congress!

"Rules for thee not for me."

[paulgb]

Is congress actually apprised of the tariff developments, or do they learn about them from twitter like the rest of us?

[dashundchen]

The horrid congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene happened to disclose many trades that were clearly front running the tarrif announcements. There is definitely an insiders club communicating these things in advance.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-stocks-t...

[EasyMark]

I don't think you can say "definitely" but you can definitely say "high possibility of", the president has signaled that the DOJ is okay with white collar crime by his friends and family by firing lots of long term bureaucrats and lawyers known for fighting said white collar crime. He wants to clean house of honest people and put in only sycophants and fellow grifters.

[dtquad]

How would a "friend of Pelosi" know when Trump would post his "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" and "90 days pause" posts?

[gruez]

That's arguably the opposite of insider trading though? I'm now sure how doing insider trading but in secret is somehow better.

[jwilber]

The implication is they're all in the same club. And if you know any family members of members of Congress, you know this to be true!