In the US, books are always published on Tuesdays, and around my house, the Tuesday of a new Michael Lewis book brings heated anticipation. And not just cuz we own a bookstore. Liar’s Poker, Money Ball, The Big Short, Flash Boys and Next are all key books in our household. And even the misses — The Blind Side and Trail Fever come to mind — offer a few insights and some great turns of Crawfish phrase. So a book by a gifted storyteller about crypto’s most impossible to ignore character is naturally of great interest to Modern Consensus. But Lewis’ appearance last night on 60 Minutes to promote his book…
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Re FTX, SBF Should STFU
New Yorker story reveals Bankman-Fried people with legitimate arguments to raise, but they’re doing it wrong
Sheelah Kolhatkar’s comprehensive and thoughtful examination of Sam Bankman-Fried and his parents in this week’s New Yorker deserves consideration even by those who, like myself, have read every single word about this case. Kolhatkar was one of the journalists who had enjoyed consistent, welcoming access to Bankman-Fried while he was on bail at his parents’ house in Palo Alto. That access ended with Bankman-Fried’s decision to share private writings by his former girlfriend and now cooperating witness Caroline Ellison with the New York Times. I have already shared that I cannot stand the way even a punk-ass bitch like Bankman-Fried has been pre-judged by an angry society. But his decision…
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FTX CEO Comes After SBF Parents
Bankman and Fried sued by John Ray for alleged lavish treatment
There’s a Rodney Dangerfield joke, “My high school was tough. After they sacked the quarterback, they went after his family.” We’re now seeing a little bit of that toughness directed at Bankman, Fried and Bankman-Fried family members. Over the weekend, a BusinessWeek cover story ran with the headline “How Sam Bankman-Fried’s Elite Parents Enabled His Crypto Empire.” The story itself was not so bad and there’s no smoking gun — it’s 5,000 words of high-powered parents advising their privileged son. Hardly surprising to anyone who’s followed this case or knew of his parents, whom BusinessWeek says, “both renowned Stanford scholars, [they] opened doors for their son and provided a halo effect…
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SEC Chairman Gary Gensler in an official government photo from his service as Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (Photo: CFTC)What Gensler role in Long Term Capital Debacle Tells us about his war on crypto
25th anniversary occasions a look at SEC chair’s small part
This is the 25th anniversary of the September 1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management. That was one of the most stunning events in Wall Street history, as the firm allowed its leverage to grow to more than 100 to 1. But it was shocking beyond the sudden evaporation of $4 billion in value—that was a lot of money 25 years ago— but also because the firm had been put together specifically on the basis of its supposed genius for understanding and managing risk. The firm was dominated not by great traders but by intellectual supermen, including Robert Merton and Myron Scholes. Merton and Scholes had won the Nobel prize just…
