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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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…
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Sam Bankman-Fried Political Donations Were Hardly ‘Bi-Partisan’
Dems got 99.5% of disgraced dough, but GOP got plenty from other FTXers
One of the weird little elements to the Sam Bankman-Fried debacle —and there are so many, and we journalists are quite grateful for them — has been the determined way the media has tried to make his political donations appear bi-partisan. “The FTX scandal is prompting lawmakers from both parties,” wrote Politico, “to symbolically give up campaign contributions from the crypto exchange’s top executives, underscoring the firm’s political toxicity in the aftermath of its collapse.” “[Sam] Bankman-Fried, 30, and his younger brother Gabriel donated lavishly to members of both political parties,” the New York Post noted. In fact, SBF was the seventh largest donor of the entire 2022 cycle, according…
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New York Times Reveals an SBF-DeSantis connection
Previously unreported meeting puts Fla gov in a room with Sam Bankman-Fried
Buried in the 29th paragraph of a truly nauseating story about fallen crypto guru Sam Bankman Fried’s pay-for-play connections to celebrities and influencers, the New York Times drops a heretofore unreported political name into the mix. According to the Times, the investor Bryan Baum “helped Mr. Bankman-Fried and his younger brother, Gabe, schedule a meeting in Miami with Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, according to three people familiar with the matter and messages viewed by The Times.” The Times offered no further details about the meeting with Gov. DeSantis — when it occurred or its purpose. Modern Consensus will continue to report on this development and will update this story as…
