+Oops.jpg)
"Fraud? The market will fix itself."
Posted on 01/11/2018 8:35:34 AM PST by Wolfie
There Is Only One Business: SCAM
You either steal, rob, lie, launder money and otherwise rip people off or you go out of business.
The only exception? If you're small enough not to attract any of the so-called "great businesses" attention. You can run a bar. You can run a small restaurant (as long as it doesn't compete with any of those large firms.) You might be able to run a small consulting outfit.
Otherwise, forget it.
You can't emulate their game because you will get prosecuted. They will not.
Investors will not care and thus the so-called "efficient market" will not punish the firm either because there is a now couple-decade long history that says the government will never indict, prosecute or meaningfully punish any large firm that breaks the law.
Amazon is known to have gamed the USPS -- probably with the explicit help of Congress (who they lobby all the time) to get below cost package delivery. You pay for this every time you send a letter or package to someone, and they literally rob you. In addition the firm engages in the very definition of anti-trust punishable behavior by cost-shifting their loss-making sales onto AWS customers, some of whom are various state, local and federal governments and thus there's no push-back available to private industry there either. All of this should have been met with a bone-crushing response years ago, but it hasn't and won't be.
Intel just got caught with its pants down in that they cheated on the rules of actual data security in basically every chip they've made since the 1990s. They issued a mealy-mouthed claim that their chips were "operating as designed" which implies they knew -- whether factually or by either ignorance or negligence -- that they could be penetrated in this fashion. In other words, they are insecure. Yet they never disclosed that. Forcing them to recall all those chips and refunding the customer's money would bankrupt the company, by the way. Further, the CEO sold all but his board-required minimum amount of stock after this was disclosed to the company but before it was made public. The reaction from the SEC, from the FBI and from investors has been nearly zero.
Facebook has been caught, multiple times, overstating how many impressions their ads get. They charge people for all of their claimed impressions of course. This is blatant fraud, especially when you claim more reach then there are people. Not only has there been zero enforcement action taken against them there has been zero investor reaction.
Netflix was caught during the original Net Neutrality debacle intentionally putting traffic down slower channels, explicitly barring the providers from upgrading that channel and then blaming the slowdowns on ISPs. They used this as a means to bludgeon the Obama FCC through public opinion to pass Net Neutrality. The current FCC head, who rolled that piece of fraudulent idiocy back, has been facing death threats and in fact canceled an appearance at CES as a result. Zero enforcement has been taken and again, investors do not care.
Wells Fargo has been caught repeatedly screwing customers since the housing meltdown. Never mind that scam with liar loans and similar they then pulled many more scams, including "new accounts" never ordered, charging people for products the customer never asked for, fraudulently force-placed and unnecessary (and thus worthless insurance to captive companies (from whom they probably received kickbacks!) for both house and car loans and more. In total these scams amount to billions of dollars stolen. Some of it has been "given back" but never with any penalties or interest attached and nobody has gone to prison.
The entire health industry operates on a model that violates 100+ year old federal law. In doing so it has gone from 4% of GDP to nearly 20%, a five-fold increase. This threatens the very survival of the nation's finances along with state, local and private pensions. NOT ONE SENATOR OR REPRESENTATIVES, NOR ONE FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY, NOR ONE MAJOR MEDIA OUTLET, WILL POINT OUT THE FACT THAT REFUSING TO QUOTE A PRICE OR HONOR A QUOTED PRICE IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF UNFAIR AND DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES WHICH IS ALSO A CRIME BOTH AT A STATE AND FEDERAL LEVEL. WHEN DIRECTLY CHALLENGED ON THIS (I HAVE) CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES WILL LIE TO A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE IN RESPONSE AND WHEN THEIR LIES ARE POINTED OUT COMPLETE WITH CASE LAW CITES FROM THE SUPREME COURT THEY NOT ONLY REFUSE TO CORRECT THE RECORD AND APOLOGIZE BUT INSTEAD REPEAT THE LIE AGAIN! Again there has not been one firm that has faced any enforcement actions, not one person has gone to prison and damn few have faced any sort of investor pushback either.
Why does the market go up, up and away?
Because everyone is stealing and THEFT, when there are no cops, has no check and balance on the amount or frequency of the thefts. In addition anyone who has the temerity to challenge any of these enterprises with competition can be stomped on and will be, whether here or through the theft of their intellectual property (here or in China) and again nobody will do a damn thing about it.
That's the entirety of the market's rise post-2009 folks. All of it. The market turned literally on the day that the Obama Congress decided to let banks knowingly lie about their asset values and LITERALLY forced FASB to accept those lies in their accounting standards. I reported on this at the time and the pushback from the public has been, over the last nearly ten years now, zero.
As the market came to realize that this open, official sanction of lies and fraud was not limited to a handful of large banks but in fact extended to all large firms listed on public exchanges and many that were not the stock market went ape-**** and continues to do so today. You get screwed out of thousands of dollars a year -- each and every single person in this nation -- as a consequence and yet you won't do anything about it either.
In fact to a large degree you cheer it on!
That's the beginning and end of it and it will not stop until (1) they run out of money to steal, at which point everyone else (that's you) is broke or (2) the rule of law shows up again somewhere.
The latter won't happen here in America because you don't give a **** even if the hospital kills your kid, your mother, your father or your friends after stealing everything they have -- and that's just for starters.
I read quite far into this editorial looking for some issue I could find that is high on my list of peeves...
I rather think this is over-stated.
But I do think we are a highly leveraged society, leaning on debt far more than any rational civilization would, and I think Big Government and Big Business create an environment where certain people cannot lose. Sweet deal for them.
But I think it’s going too far to say that any marketplace is a Scam. Nothing that LIMITED government and default on the debt won’t cure.
Remember this reaper friends the love of money is the root of all evil
Put the treasures Of your heart in the kingdom of heaven not in the moneychangers of this world and you will find peace
Stupid auto correct
Freeper not reaper
Wow.
The frothing spittle spewing about makes that article hard to read.
Yes, Amazon made arrangements to deliver below cost. When you are supplying a large fraction of the service provider’s revenue, you can make deals like that. (Lose Amazon’s business, USPS could actually go under.)
Yes, Intel said the devices worked as intended. Extremely creative individuals figured out how to abuse what is otherwise beneficial capabilities. (The technique is staggeringly clever.)
Etc.
No, it’s NOT stealing. Everyone has the opportunity to cease business as they see fit. Yes, there’s consequences - that’s why the system built up the way it has: on the whole it benefits everyone more than not. Don’t like what’s happening? then stop using Amazon, USPS, Netflix, Intel, etc - and see how life really was better.
What a bitter cynical man
Unbelievable!
That’s TWO (2)! Truth In A Week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
******************************************
@Planet WTF!
+++++++++++++++++
Imho, the article is seriously overstated. However, I did have the cited bank try to rip off about $1500 In junk fees on a loan (including an attempted $500 for a non- existent appraisal) — and more recently we had another bank actually take a course hundred dollars out of a customer account with zero cause or even notice - they just took it. Numerous communications since have confirmed it was a “bank error” - but repeated promises to return the customer’s funds have gone unfulfilled. In short, sometimes huge businesses really do screw customers over - and it can be extremely difficult to get your money back or your HP computer fixed under its so-called warranty. Imho, customers are often better off patronizing smaller businesses ( and the phone company has reaggregated after we broke it’s near- monopoly up — just try to get their billing computer to send correct bills without it adding fifty dollars extra ripoff charge! We finally got it fixed but it took nearly two years and approximately 200 hours of work despite many nice agents acknowledging the “mistakes” and promising they’d be fixed by each successive bill). Etc. there are some big companies that have been honest with us —Costco and the old (definitely not the new) sears, also amazon — sonitscnot as generalized a problem as the author asserts. But he still has a point and some of these huge outfits really should be broken up with the largely- dormant, ignored anti- trust laws
It’s understated. Incredibly understated. He’s right, and then he’s not right enough.
We promised the world we wouldn’t game the dollar (Bretton Woods).
Then a bunch of politicians wanted to get elected, and spent money we didn’t have. So we printed more money.
Other countries protested. Our Treasury Secretary at the time said, QUOTE, “It’s our dollar, and your problem.”
That’s an act of war. It’s hard to explain that to our citizens, but the US stole money from every country on Earth and then dared people to do something about it.
China, Russia, and others want off the dollar so bad they can taste it, and they are completely justified.
There is so much off-the-books judicialism going on that the ONLY people subject to the power of the state are those who can’t afford to put up a fight.
It is NO WONDER Trump got elected. Everybody on the planet knows they are living in a ‘Matrix’ like state of soft slavery, but have no recourse.
We used to shoot people for stealing a horse. Amazon is built - 100% - on fraud, violating sales tax laws, etc.
We are only BEGINNING to see a FRACTION of it with this Trump Dossier business. There’s $21T of unaccounted for DOD spending since 1997. Trillions. 21x10^12 dollars.
It is so big, it is easier to write that number with scientific notation. It is literally an astronomical figure.
The US is going to be destroyed, and likely justifiably so.
We just pioneered a different form of colonization - fiscal.
And then we really didn’t. This is the way of all fiat currency, and all wars are bankers wars.
Crypto-currency, which is actually the opposite (Crypto means secret, but Bitcoin and others like it run an OPEN LEDGER, which means you can see exactly how many total coins are in existence) is an equal an opposite reaction to Central Bank Criminality.
It is going to be extremely interesting.
It’s called “Capitalism,” Karl. Celebrate it, don’t denigrate it.
Hmmm.............
**********************
“Amazon is known to have gamed the USPS — probably with the explicit help of Congress (who they lobby all the time) to get below cost package delivery. You pay for this every time you send a letter or package to someone, and they literally rob you. In addition the firm engages in the very definition of anti-trust punishable behavior by cost-shifting their loss-making sales onto AWS customers, some of whom are various state, local and federal governments and thus there’s no push-back available to private industry there either. All of this should have been met with a bone-crushing response years ago, but it hasn’t and won’t be.”
*******************************
Funny anyone would get that idea????
;)
**************************
@Planet WTF!
++++++++++++++++
Projection IS perception after all.............???
So what would you like to happen?
And ....
This is emblematic of why the Class Action lawsuit thing has morphed into such a perverted form of the ills it supposedly attacks.
Respectfully, it is certainly not called “Capitalism.” It is “Cronyism,” at best. It is also mostly “Fascism,” the collusion of corporate and state interests. It is near 180 degrees from capitalism. It is anti-competitive, terminally corrupted, and will ultimately fail. We haven’t had free markets since a bit more than 100 years ago...
Bottom line is - we still have a system. It is corrupt, but it is far, far better than the collectivism which would inevitably follow the destruction of the system. Repairing it should be our top priority, but it will be the work of several generations. There will be constant temptations to blow up everything to get the cheaters (which Democrats exploit) or to ignore the cheaters since we are “all” making money (which Republicans exploit).
Not many politicians can confront these issues when their re-elections depend on them not confronting them. Trump has taken a merciless pounding for making the smallest steps in the opposite direction.
>
I read quite far into this editorial looking for some issue I could find that is high on my list of peeves...
>
Boil it down to just 2:
1) Illegal/unconst. growth of govt
2) ...allowing to ‘selective’ enforcement, if at all, to their detractors and those of the connected\donor class.
OK, maybe just one: GOVT.
“You either steal, rob, lie, launder money and otherwise rip people off or you go out of business. “
Liberals love money; they just want a government they control to have all of it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.