The biggest financial frauds ever – from Sam Bankman-Fried to Bernie Madoff | Hacker News Reader

The biggest financial frauds ever – from Sam Bankman-Fried to Bernie Madoff

qz.com

16 pointsAnon846 comments

These stories sadden me because I can’t help but wonder, what else could you possibly “need” after your net-worth is above seven or eight? Figures?

Watching the Bernie Madoff documentary on Netflix I couldn’t get away from the question “why”? Same thing with the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. Why would someone “need” another 50 million dollars? How is it worth risking life in jail?

Well, if you’ve played games, there’s definitely a thrill you get from farming or playing the economy for its own sake, much past the extent needed for personal use of the currency gained

Most of these pale in comparison to the amount lost in wage theft ($50 billion a year): https://www.epi.org/press/wage-theft-costs-american-workers-...

it's a poorly written article because it didn't explain how the wage theft happens. i mean does the pay stub simply not reflect all the hours they worked? are they talking about overtime? is this for part time work or full time? for full time, it should just be 40 hours, how does the employer not pay out the full 40 hours?

> i mean does the pay stub simply not reflect all the hours they worked?

That's very common, yes. Bosses simply lie about the hours worked or force employees to work undocumented hours.

> are they talking about overtime?

Overtime is a frequent target of wage theft because it costs the employer more per hour.

> is this for part time work or full time?

Yes for both.

> for full time, it should just be 40 hours, how does the employer not pay out the full 40 hours?

Sure. Who's gonna stop 'em? Wage theft claims are difficult to document, expensive to litigate, and usually the people being robbed are the more powerless workers: young people, recent immigrants who face a language and culture barrier, and people simply ignorant of the their rights under the law.

if labor has so little bargaining power this suggests a huge over supply of labor which contradicts the low unemployment rate.

is this happening wide spread or is it just undocumented workers? I would assume, undocumented works have to put up with such mistreatment but everyone else who's not on a H1B should just be able to get another job, right?

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