Rhodes Center Podcast: How Fraud Explains the Economy
2024 ж. 17 Мам.
34 091 Рет қаралды
On this episode Mark talks with economist Dan Davies about his book ‘Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of the World.’ Dan and Mark look at some of the great scams of modern history to explore how fraud works, why it persists, and what it can teach us about modern economies.
Have him back. Really rather interesting podcast. Thanks.
It's like the old saying by robber barrons to governments, "Tell us what the rules are so that we can get around them".
Crimes of violence are easy for ordinary folks to understand, and can be perpetrated by folks just like them. People go to jail for crimes of violence. These crimes negatively affect a relatively small number of people. Much of the crimes of fraud discussed here are difficult for ordinary folks to understand. People don't go to jail for these crimes. These crimes negatively affect a relatively HUGE number of people. It's the cleverness what counts.
Great Shoutout to Bill Black. Amazing Man.
great talk. I remember watching the S&L debacle in real time, never being confused for a second.. while it was pumped and popped. It was like watching a sad cartoon. .. still is, everytime.. boggles the mind.
And Bill Black is my hero. Funny/sad that he never got any awards like the Nobel Prize or Pulitzer or McCarthur Award. He is a national treasure and is still working hard for us 90%.
I have an MA in Criminology. The theory they are talking about are the techniques of neutralization. Cressy was even more popular for his work aiding in differential association theory than anything else tho.
"As a Deterrent, the Fear of Actual Prison is absolutely disproportionate to the Fear of Financial Penalties" And this people is why the Criminals who commit The most destructive Crimes against the largest numbers of us year on year will continue on doing just that. All Moral Hazard has been removed from their Equation when it amounts to little more than Settling a Bill.
People stole when the penalties were chopping off your hand, so I think punative measures are kooky. Fraud, takes two dishonest people. One telling the lie and someone who suspends logic,to believe the lie, in pursuit of easy money, or who thinks they are in on the shady side when they are not. Both got what they deserve.
@@MrOliverwoods Their needs to some Moral Hazard as a deterrent though, simply handing them a Bill which they can Pay Off with more Fraud is just factored into a Business Day, as we have seen internationally all over the Financial Sector. If those Big Wigs who defraud Billions have all their Assets Seized and were then actually locked in a Cage for 10 years they wouldn't by definition be able to continue said Crime Spree for the next 10 Years. Do you not think that would then serve as 'some' deterrent to others knowing they will have to suffer some meaningful personal accountability if they get caught? Folks who are impoverished stealing something to 'get by' and these characters who continue on to defraud Millions purely for Greed are different Animals imho. As is its laughable, its like allowing a Gardener who is guilty of a crime to 'Pay His Bill' in Grass Cuttings lol.
@@bigdaz7272 You stated it perfectly. You’re spot on!!!
@@axil03 Thankyou
what a timely and intersting topic ! thank you Mark !
In the meantime, take a look at Wall Street on Parade. You can find a listing of the 5 JP MORGAN Felonies as well as the Negotiated Settlements (of course, for those, they did not ACTUALLY admit guilt....it was all a simple understanding and of course nobody can possibly understand business...). Lovely comments on this show about RBS, the Netherlands and Sweden.
A simple law stating "no financial gains may be made from a crime" meaning, you first turn over the profit (even if it was payed out in dividents) and on top of that you pay the penalty will go a long way. Of course I do not think that will ever be made water tight but it could be a major disincentive. Jailing would work as well of course.
Yes but....who decides what is a crime?
@@MsColl90 let's start with the things that jp gets caught with and instead of paying 10% of the defrauded amount make it 110%.
thx for the recommendation, great read... also kind of proofs a theory I had for a long time... understanding modern US economy is easy... the precedent was set right at the start of the millenium... ENRON it has everything... cooking books, assett based accounting, projections, always great profits but no cash etc... instead of avoiding enrons practices, after all they ended in the biggest bancruptcy known to man at the time, US corporations plunged head first into them... not only did they "enronize" the whole economy... when it came to light they were already so dependent on their "creative" (fraudulent) accounting, the US gov had to basically legalize them all...
Wow this is a fascinating talk
31:24 its not about eliminating it .. its about managing and minimizing it and putting in place mechanized to redress the damage done
Yay. something pure to chew on other than politics.. thank you. I'm making a pot of coffee.
Simpleton. Politics and economics are inseparable. The sooner the brainwashed sheep realise this the better.
What about after Quantum computing can this be done. Checking tranactions and fraud.
What happened to (i) Deceive, (ii) Deprive and (iii) Intent?
The where's the "commandement for that" bit felt like a pratchett line, so nice. Ty
"one term is *that thou shall not steal*, a counterfeit is *thou shall not bear false witness*, but, you know, *thou shall not place, um, orders into an electronics trading system designed to affect other market participant's algorithmic perception of the underlying balance of supply and demand*, mmh, you know, there's lots of people who would not see that as a crime"
* "i'm not sure i do."
Though it's a _bit_ overrated (still incredibly good of course), Breaking Bad is actually a pretty good tv series demonstrating the obvious initial smaller criminality that necessitates ever increasing amounts of criminality largely to conceal and justify that smaller crime. Also demonstrates pretty well the subjectivity involved in delineating the evolution and moral complexity of "crime". Oh shit he actually basically says this later (without referencing Breaking Bad).
The host should invite the author of ‘ponzi Factor’ regarding fraud in financial sector !
Yes!! Tan Liu would be a great interview.
The idea the execs don't know where the profit centers are in their companies is stupid as hell.
Whole system is fraud. Just got to know how to navigate it.
Soooo True!
@@shaz7132 Not in school
Lying for money? Thought it must be Boris Johnson's biography.
Nobody smuggles gold or diamonds these days, why smuggle atoms when you can smuggle digits.
25:35 lol a Boltzmann fraud lol if you will
I see it like some games. You can lie or make bogus deals or mislead opponents in a variety of ways, as long as you adhere to a narrow set of basic rules. In poker, for instance, you can bluff, but if they don't pay to see the cards, the bluff wins. The market is like one of those games. It's based on deception and insider knowledge. Fraud is inevitable.
Fraud is natural but as the instruments of tek continue to change so does the unintended consequences of messing with complex systems like copying a signature. AI in ActIon.
That fraud is _inevitable_ in practice does not mean it is _necessary_ for the economy to work.
to commit to crime, go to Delaware.. not Can or Greece. everybody else does.
If they just started auditing people who set up Delaware LLCs and don't pay the annual fee to keep those in good standing, they'd probably find a ton of unpaid tax money.
@@RickG151 when Cohen needed to set up a new company to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels, it would be in Delaware. when a Rus Oligarch "offshores" his money, it goes to Delaware.. jus ask Lev Parnas.. he testified to exactly that, under oath, to a Fed Judge.
Ponzi? It's more or less the definition of working for a living under capitalism. Forget about being sold on Herbalife- it's no different.
Well duhhhh. Given we already know that the rating agencies were all fiddling the numbers for the corporate world, pre 2008 crash , this is old news. Well 12 yrs late at least. The problem lays with how the law handles those cases that become known. I'm not talking about low level traders or solo mavericks, but those at the top of banks. In essence C.E.O. 's who massively profit from this corrupt practice
lol "unintentionally" is an overvalued word.
That's why you need block chain and AI to help keep people honest
Won't the algorithm just be tweeted to loot ordinary citizens?
@@marianhunt8899 block chain is a distributed digital ledger, basically several copies that are separate and that have to all agree to any changes. that makes it prone to mischief.
Can't it also be programmed by professional thieves, including all the copies? Anything human made can be corrupted.
@@marianhunt8899 What you are talking about is possible, however, nobody would trust it initially without seeing the code and loading it on one of their own authenticators. That means at least between those two people, they know exactly what is running and there isn't a way to corrupt it without both of them knowing an exploit ahead of time. How many people do you have to trust before you believe a blockchain is secure?
You can’t cheat an honest man
What a naive statement
@@billiamc1969you can lie to an honest man and he will believe you. That is lying. Fraud, however, almost always requires a willing participant in the act. An honest man would never entertain those type of thoughts, so the pitch won’t work. I know I’m breaking a rule here by telling you this but “you can’t cheat an honest man, never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump.”
@@MrOliverwoods Ah yes, let's blame the victim.
@@monroefuches2707 This type of fraud doesn’t have victims. Madoff didn’t have any victims. He had accomplices. They invested in a fund that they weren’t allowed to ask questions of and they agreed because they thought he was a mastermind of a scam, himself. That’s not fraud, it’s avarice. Your probably religious so I’ll blame the devil.
@@MrOliverwoods My "probably religious" what? If you meant *you're* probably religious, I'd have to answer that you seem to be the one that believes in ridiculous fantasies, not me.
ferengi
This guy sounds extremely amoral. The system is completely amoral. It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up with ethics.
People are insulated from their actions, it's easy to rationalize these actions because of that. Its like stealing from a big corporation, that level of abstraction let's people think it isn't as bad as it is.
@@shawnjavery or defrauding your customers.... that used to be illegal.. Would you call it fraud to INFLATE appraisals, Abrogate Underwriting (turning it into a joke and what board of directors were PAID OFF TO LET THAT HAPPEN) or INFLATE RATINGS.... and this works in Healthcare also.. the more that is paid for healthcare, the more the premiums are and the more administration and profit can be extracted... while over 50 million people cannot even afford to get the Covid vaccine, let alone get treated for Covid.
The underlying problem is that people can own the means of production. If you allow people to use money to make money, it creates a class society divided into the haves and have-nots.
he "Made-Off" with millions of dollars. (I can't be the first one to make this one)
Yeah, economists are lying by not talking about Planned Obsolescence and ignoring the Depreciation of Durable Consumer Junk since Sputnik. How many cars have American consumers trashed since the 50s?
Will be interesting when ai learns how to audit
Wubistics. Great stock scam.
steeling money...... yeah that's a great way to make money!
Talking about Dr Black's Control Fraud, basic human nature..
excellent podcast....not a single mention of climate change covid or donald trump....thank you!
That guy is gaslighting the public.