In 1997, Fair Wayne Bryan was convicted of stealing a pair of hedge-clippers. He was given a life-sentence because of other minor thefts. He was paroled from Angola prison in late 2020.
In 2015, a conspiracy involving the Malaysian "tabloid party boy" Jho Low and a clutch of Goldman Sachs bankers stole and laundered $4.5b from the country's 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund (#1MDB).
The multibillion dollar crime toppled the Malaysian government, but Goldman Sachs maintained that this was the result of a couple of rogue elements, despite evidence that the rot went all the way to the top.
Goldman Sachs is a repeat offender. It played a key role in the mass financial fraud that triggered 2008's Great Financial Crisis, then used bailout money to pay giant bonuses to the top execs that presided over the fraud.
The company has a long history of manipulating stock prices with bribes and kickbacks. Its frauds led to the collapse of the Greek economy. It underwrote California state bonds, advised its clients to short those same bonds, and made a fortune.
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It's an insider trader. A fraudulent securities issuer. A commodity price manipulator that specialized in manipulating food staple prices, triggering global famines.
Those are its good points.
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Goldman's CEO since 2018 has been @DavidSolomon. His base compensation (which only accounts for a fraction of his total take-home) is $27.5m.
This week, the board cut Solomon's base pay to $17.5m.
The cut was triggered by a $3b fine over 1MDB. Solomon's "leadership" was part of a string of multibillion-dollar thefts and frauds that cost his employe $3b and his punishment is a $17.5m payday.
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Fair Wayne Bryan served 23 years in a federal pen for stealing a pair of hedge clippers. He is still a convicted felon, on parole for his life sentence.
Goldman Sachs is still in business and its C-suite have been punished with multimillion-dollar payouts.
eof/
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The world is beset by urgent, fantastically technical challenges - vaccine logistics, financial misconduct, geoengineering proposals and fights about what we should eat and how we should get from A to B.
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These are thorny problems. Getting them right is urgent - and hard. Not just because these are complicated questions, but also because there are powerful, monied people who benefit when we get them wrong, and they pay handsomely for doubt.
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Worse: many of these problems involve far-off, probabilistic consequences for actions we're taking today: "If we don't do something about climate change, your grandkids will experience some bad stuff. Probably. Maybe not yours. Someone's though."
3/
Inside: Mexican indigenous telco wins spectrum fight; How apps steal your location; Understanding /r/wallstreetbets; Knowledge is why you build your own apps; and more!