Hacker News Reader

Comment by guywithahat | Hacker News Reader

If someone told you you were worth 16 billion dollars so long as your company was successful, and then your hedge fund almost collapsed, you would probably probably be willing to do a lot to save it (such as moving customer money into your failing hedge fund). People who lived through 2008 act like they've never seen behavior like this and to me it doesn't seem that bad

View on HN

Literally stealing billions of dollars doesn't seem that bad to you? If my almost-worth-16-billion-dollars company was failing, I would do a lot to save it, but that would never, ever include stealing other people's money, nor defrauding anyone, nor lying about anything. Which, of course, is why I'm unlikely to ever have a company worth nearly that much.

What you're really saying is: "If you were a narcissistic compulsive liar who was defrauding thousands of people and your lies began to untangle, you would dig yourself in deeper and deeper with more and more unrealistic lies until the whole thing collapsed. It happens all the time." Yes, that seems to be what happens to compulsive liars, and prison is absolutely appropriate for these people (when it results in this level of damages). The same behavior in 2008 also should have resulted in prison time. It did for one person, and probably should have for a lot more.

Sure, that’s a fair description of how he probably got started in his criminal behavior. But that’s not the situation he’s in now! He needs to think (or should be thinking) about how to minimize his time in jail.

He’s in serious serious legal jeopardy and he keeps opening his mouth. That’s a very, very bad strategy.

I guess to answer my own question he probably has his head so far up his own … that he can’t imagine why he should take anyone’s advice about anything, including lawyers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com