tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post196401584081656009..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: An Investment Gone SourJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-67408783031626531382016-10-01T07:50:30.803-04:002016-10-01T07:50:30.803-04:00@Shadow Flutter
It's not so much about the ri...@Shadow Flutter<br /><br />It's not so much about the risks themselves, but rather about the trust they necessitate, and how people are legally allowed to break it in many cases.<br /><br />If someone who wants to take risks with their money hires a broker to advise them on how best to do that, the problem isn't that sometimes such people lose out despite their best intentions - it's that sometimes their brokers will knowingingly manipulate them into making choices against their own best interest, so long as those choices benefit the brokers themselves.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-46728989836113835292016-10-01T06:28:10.212-04:002016-10-01T06:28:10.212-04:00I have no idea what isn't required but should ...I have no idea what isn't required but should be required and what isn't enforced but should be enforced when it comes to this kind of thing (creating and trading derivatives). IIRC, there were applicable regulations in 2008 no one bothered to enforce. Our response was to create new regulations that some time in the future no one will enforce. This seems to be a recurring theme in credit and investment markets.<br /><br />I do have a little trouble with this idea that some people are preying on the ignorant when it comes to derivatives. There are two ways to look at derivatives, I think. One is that only those who are not ignorant in the ways of money and derivatives play the game, while the other is that no human being truly understands the riskier, more complicated derivatives, but there are always those who have so much money they are willing to risk losing a certain amount of it in return for a possible big payout. Perhaps LIA at the time it made this investment had a billion dollars burning a hole in its pocket and nothing better to do with it than "invest it in something risky but with a possibly huge payoff." Of course that was then, and this is now, and assuming LIA actually has anything to do with Libya and Libyans, one can understand their new found regret.<br /><br /><br /><br />Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-91571594909740790862016-09-30T21:03:45.702-04:002016-09-30T21:03:45.702-04:00It boggles my mind that so many fields of exchange...It boggles my mind that so many fields of exchange reliant on expert knowledge still aren't regulated to be fiduciary in nature.<br /><br />When you make it legal for people to prey upon the ignorant, then a significant percentage of people are going to do so.<br /><br />Why we continue to allow some of our most complicated, impenetrable, trust-necessitating, and staggeringly important social systems to operate without any requirement for actual trust and good will between parties is beyond my comprehension. We allow doctors to prey upon their patients, schools to prey upon their students, banks to prey upon their clients, landowners to prey upon their tenants, lawyers to prey upon their and advocates, and on, and on, and on.<br /><br />Why? It has been demonstrated time and again that if you let people in positions of public trust operate freely, such that they may place their own interests ahead of those of the people they ostensibly are meant to serve, a significant portion of them will go ahead and do so. And yet we let it happen. Why?G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com