[danans]

What's the old saying? "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."

Most common people throughout history made their living working in the systems owned by aristocrats whose wealth was usually built on both corruption and theft. Guess that hasn't changed much.

[patkai]

Behind many, but I sincerely hope not "every". A trivial counterexample is Warren Buffet: he simply saved and invested. Or consider inventors with patents.

[worldthruword]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-generated-doub...

https://x.com/theallinpod/status/2022746722191938017

Chamath explains Warren Buffett’s secret to success: “Markets thrive when there's information asymmetry”

“Now I'm gonna get a lot of people really upset with me.”

“This is an example of Warren Buffet's returns pre- and post-Reg FD. Now what do you see?”

“His returns were double the market returns when this kind of information sharing was legal.”

“And the minute that it became illegal and you had to act on the same edge as everybody else, his returns went to the market return. He generated zero alpha. In fact, he probably, on the margins, lost a little bit.”

“So this is the single best investor in the world. This is what happens when you have information symmetry.”

“So it's just meant to explain that markets thrive when there's asymmetry. Billions and billions of dollars will be made in asymmetry.”

“The prediction markets today, unless they are regulated out of existence or shut down, will look like the stock market pre-Reg FD, and there's nothing we can do except choose not to bet it, because otherwise what you're going to have are a ton of sharps taking advantage of a ton of squares.”

[wavemode]

You wrote this whole comment just to demonstrate that Warren Buffett is indeed following the law, like the parent commenter stated.

[voakbasda]

The law is not what determines right and wrong. Following the law can still result in unethical and immoral behavior. Exploitation of others through information asymmetry, whether illegal or not, is inherently wrong.

[thegrimmest]

I'm failing to see why any of this is immoral. Taking every (legal, nonviolent) advantage is called "doing business". We live in a competitive ecosystem. Under such conditions certain behaviours are emergent from the system. It creates the niches that make this behaviour optimal. If you don't want to be taken advantage of by a sharp, don't be a square.

I don't see how living in an ecosystem, complete with selective pressure, asymmetrical compounding advantage, etc. can possibly be immoral, since it's fundamentally inescapable.

[voakbasda]

You seem like the type of person that will take advantage of others when a loophole law permits it. Sure, it may be legal, but it still makes you a bad person in my book.

[thegrimmest]

Like most people, I treat people I know with a lot more kindness than people I don't. Whether most of us like to admit it or not, our actions demonstrate that we don't generally have much regard for distant strangers, no matter how profoundly they suffer and how much we benefit from it (see the conditions in which most of our goods are made). You can call that immoral, but rational self interest is absolutely normal human behaviour, and I'm not even a psychopath.

My point is that the niches exist to be exploited by the least scrupulous among us. As long as the niches exist, they will be exploited. Resenting that is akin to resenting the biggest fish in the pond for being so damn aggressive - it's pointless. We live in a pond, and we should focus on maintaining the nonviolent and often ecosystem-benefitting nature of the exploitation (since it is hard-won and precarious), rather than resent the inescapable reality of its existence.

[mamonster]

Buffett should get much more credit for pioneering/mainstreaming the insurance float game which is what minted a lot of the P.E billionaires once they learned the trick.

[zahlman]

What part of this demonstrates corruption, fraud or other crime?

[n4r9]

Buffet is well known for acquisitions that pushed the boundaries of fair competition, and investments in other companies that did the same, or otherwise pursued deeply unethical practices. But he's trodden carefully around the law, so any "crime" would be a moral crime against society rather than a legally criminal act.

[wavemode]

Might as well save your breath. You're not going to convince HackerNews commenters that there is any human being on Earth with net worth over a certain threshold who is not evil. It's just too comfortable of a worldview for people to let go of.

[francisofascii]

I like Warren Buffett, but he can't be the best example. Who is someone the created significant positive value, themselves?

[iririririr]

and vice-versa.

everyone holds to the old blanket to help them sleep.