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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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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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…
