Treasury official is running the bailout. It’s been great for his family | Hacker News Reader

Treasury official is running the bailout. It’s been great for his family

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164 pointshhs33 comments

This reads like something that normally would be written about an underdeveloped country, which, lacking established institutions and rule of law, is run by a kleptocracy for the kleptocracy. Yet we're talking about the United States. It's embarrassing for the country on so many levels. Unbelievable.

I saw an armored Mercedes car on the streets of Denver for the first time a couple years ago. I have seen dozens of them in Africa and Latin America, but it was a really depressing moment for me when I first recognized that in my home town.

I think that people who are not well traveled are not even aware of this slide, but we have been moving towards becoming a highly stratified developing nation for 20 years now. The armored car is just one striking example, but there are dozens more I can think of off the top of my head.

I concur, but coming from a more historical/legal perspective.

The U.S. has always fundamentally been like the Central and South American countries, just with a thin layer of Lockean rule of law and property rights.

That layer is quickly eroding. The U.S. will become more like Mexico or Argentina (for instance) over time.

Love him or hate him, Trump did a lot to advance this timeline. You can see that his style is much more reminiscent of Central and South American politics. His followers want to replace the Lockean style with a political system built around a strong central personality.

A Mexican friend, long living in the USA, told me how much the Trump family reminded him of corrupt elite families in Mexico: "The dad thinks he's above the law and constantly cheats on his wife. The sons wear their hair slicked back and boast about how good they are at business even though they've never done anything in life but sponge off their dad's companies. And the daughters think they are glamorous fashion models and dream of owning a lifestyle brand."

You can see the same thing in thailand where the rural voters voted in a corrupt billionaire. Eventually his attractive daughter took over.

Politics is downstream of culture, and as the demographics of the country shift more towards those of Mexico or Argentina (for instance) we should not be surprised when our political climate reflects that.

If that were true, I would expect the demographics of the supporters of the current administration to be skewed towards immigrants, especially from Central and South America, and I would expect to see opposition to the current political climate from the demographics most culturally different from those- non-immigrant, white males.

But it seems to me the opposite is instead true. Are you perhaps suggesting the non-immigrant, white males supporting the current political climate look up to the immigrants as role models?

Yes, but that is an entirely separate phenomenon from the one I was raising.

Immigration is not the reason the U.S. is not losing the Lockean "rule of law and property rights" layer.

It's losing it because other ideas have come to predominate the intellectual landscape.

Being in Denver, that particular example may be related to someone in the cannabis industry. The bank lockouts and cash build up that's common in that industry make individuals in it prime targets for robbery[1]. With extreme violence[2] involved in some cases, it'd make sense for those stuck in this situation to invest in things like an armored vehicle if feasible.

While still a situation that's a direct result of and reflection on US policies, it may be a more specific issue than a general national trend towards greater stratification.

[1] https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/at-risk-of-robbery-...

[2] https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/nation/fugitive-...

This had nothing to do with marijuana. They usually use GMC Suburbans + men with rifles, but sometimes you see Brinks armored trucks too. I am quite familiar with the weed trucks.

For actual money runs, yes. But as the personal vehicle for a successful marijuana business owner?

Why are you assuming that? You just really want to force weed into this story somehow, is that the prism through which you see the world?

Why would such a person need a different sort of vehicle than any other successful business owner?

If you want a peak into the playbook of these corrupt officials, read the book Moneyland. The author walks through how government officials around the world use their positions to rob their countries, he goes over how they get the money, where the money goes, the effects of kleptocracy on a nation, and the aftermath of the inevitable collapse.

I should probably read it again, it might be even more insightful when viewed through the lens of 2020.

Pretty depressing reading law professors discuss the legality of this, knowing it doesn't matter at all and never will. Rule of law is no longer a thing for anyone but the working class in the US now.

> Today, Muzinich retains financial ties to the firm through an opaque transaction in which he transferred his shares in the privately held company to his father.

It's a top gov official using the exact same scheme as Tiger King.

And that is even before any of the 3trillion part even begins.

This is the same whether it is mortgage backed securities or treasuries too.

I would consider this faux controversy because exactly what kind of person would be a better steward of these decisions. The "revolving door" is funny to see how ridiculous it can get, but really who of the citizenry would be better prepared to steward these organizations? What exactly would the pedigree of that person look like?

The Fed was ALWAYS going to be forced to buy corporate debt as it expanded the universe of eligible assets. This was predictable no matter who at the Treasury negotiated with the Fed that "the time is now".

To me, the only controversy would be the tax implications of the sham transfer of his stakes in his company. But actually, we don't even know if they neglected the taxes and it probably isn't a real issue for them as they'll just report it and try to offset the tax footprint just like everyone else.

If it wasn't corporate debt, it would be mortgage backed securities, or leverage up on treasury bonds, or even higher leverage on currencies. There are always information asymmetries and that isn't controversial, except in single issues of companies in the securities market.

After all, the king is chosen by Divine Right, so who could possibly be better prepared to steward the kingdom?

I didn't know we had a king! I thought we were an autonomous collective.

Now we see the violence inherent in the system!

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

> The "revolving door" is funny to see how ridiculous it can get, but really who of the citizenry would be better prepared to steward these organizations? What exactly would the pedigree of that person look like?

Let's invert your argument on it's head:

- No one of the citizenry exists to play this role. Why?

- There is nothing stopping anyone who has regulated the system from switching sides to the thing they used to regulate

- Therefore, anyone qualified enough will pass through the revolving door and systematically brain-drain the regulatory apparatus rendering it impotent

- Therefore, this part of capitalism is able to seamlessly absorb and neutralize any resistance or regulation

- Therefore, there is nothing stopping it from absorbing all power and instituting a one party state

Don't call pointing out the corruptibility of this system "faux controversy."

Accurate and undeserving of downvotes

Sometimes the truth hurts, e.g. the downvotes on this.

Muzinich may be right for this role but he should still properly divest his interests ethically.

These articles would have a lot less bit if Congress were looking after the working man as nearly as well as Treasury and The Fed are looking after the investor class.

My beef is not necessarily with the investor class, and its protectors, but I believe the rest of us need someone effective looking after our interests as well.

Who is lobbying congress? The investor class is certainly among those who are. The working man certainly isn't.

If you're unhappy with your representatives, there are elections coming up in November.

Whom should we elect? The loudmouth confused old man from the urban Northeast who grabs pussies? Or Trump?

This voting thing doesn't seem to work the way we're told it works.

This is true. The fed telegraphed its move into corporate credit for a long time. Many current and former high ranking fed officials said the market was a problem long before and no one did anything until there was a problem. The Fed is just good at its job, the byproduct of that is that people keep asking them to do more and more when they should not.

Talks about draining the swamp, proceeds to swamp the swamp with more swampy swamp-dwellers.

>The cleverest trick used in propaganda against Germany during the war was to accuse Germany of what our enemies themselves were doing. [1]

It's one of the oldest tricks in the book. Somehow a billionaire who shits in gold toilets in a palace in NYC convinced a bunch of working people that he was on their side. Hilarious and sad.

[1] https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/37824/did-josep...

Couldn't you write the same thing about every government worker with a [retirement plan that contains stocks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrift_Savings_Plan)? - that the actions they took led to personal financial gain? Note that the same was also true for every member of the Obama administration in the bailouts of 2008-2010.

We should care about when government action directly picking individual winners and losers in the economy leads directly to financial benefit for government individuals who made those choices - whereas this seems more analogous to complaining that government action improving the air quality in a city helped a government official's asthmatic child breathe better - why is it a problem unless the benefits are specific to his child while the costs are borne by the broader population? That certainly doesn't seem to be the case here.

the US has been a 3rd world country, since Reagan. current gvt just exposing the facade faster than most expected.

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