The FTX dog that didn’t bark
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle无毛视频檚 famous Sherlock Holmes tale, 无毛视频淪ilver Blaze,无毛视频� the detective investigates the case of a murder of a horse trainer. At first, investigators presume that the murderer of the trainer must have been a stranger to him. But Holmes cracks the case with the revelation that a watchdog remained silent the night of the murder 无毛视频� a 无毛视频渃urious incident,无毛视频� as Holmes puts it, if the watchdog had been confronted by a stranger. No, Holmes concludes, the murderer must have been known to the watchdog.
We would do well to keep Holmes无毛视频� 无毛视频渃urious incident无毛视频� in mind when discussing the complete meltdown of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange run by Sam Bankman-Fried, a man who looks like he emerged from a laboratory dedicated to the manufacture of charlatans. Bankman-Fried was, at one point, worth some $26 billion; his exchange was the second largest in the world. But he also bragged about never reading books (无毛视频淚 think, if you wrote a book, you (expletive) up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post无毛视频�); he lived in a 无毛视频減olycule无毛视频� 无毛视频� a polyamorous semi-colony 无毛视频� along with nine of his executives; he wore gym shorts and T-shirts to important company events with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair; he placed at the head of human resources the girlfriend of the director of engineering and as chief operating officer his own intermittent girlfriend and as head of his associated hedge fund yet another intermittent girlfriend.
The red flags were endless.
And yet the scam continued.
In the coverage of FTX无毛视频檚 meltdown, many in the media have been rather slow to ask a simple question: why didn无毛视频檛 anybody notice that SBF was one of the most obvious scam artists of all time? Perhaps it无毛视频檚 the insanity of the digital age, in which those fresh out of college can be assessed as billionaires without actually showing a balance sheet. But there无毛视频檚 something else going on here: SBF was a key cog in a political machine dedicated to the proposition that a coalition of like-minded Left-wingers can seize the reins of capitalist enterprise and then work with friends in government to reconstruct the world.
That, after all, was what SBF was publicly attempting to do. He dumped $40 million into the midterm elections in support of Democrats; he donated $5.2 million to then-candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 election cycle. He had pledged the FTX foundation to hand out $1 billion in 2022. He did all of this in the name of supposed 无毛视频渆ffective altruism,无毛视频� a philosophy in which Left-wingers seek to use capitalism in order to enrich themselves, then dump the money into favored causes. 无毛视频淚 wanted to get rich, not because I like money but because I wanted to give that money to charity,无毛视频� SBF told one interviewer.
无毛视频淓ffective altruism无毛视频� is just another iteration of the World Economic Forum-approved 无毛视频渟takeholder capitalism无毛视频� idea 无毛视频� the idea that CEOs owe their shareholders nothing, but the world at large their time, money and resources. There is a reason that FTX had partnered with WEF 无毛视频� a fact that WEF has now obscured by cleaning its website.
How many scam artists are using such 无毛视频渂luewashing无毛视频� in order to cover for malfeasance 无毛视频� all the while colluding with government figures to redraw regulations that benefit them? That, after all, was SBF无毛视频檚 biggest scam: He was an advocate of particular types of regulation that benefitted him and used both familial and business connections in order to protect his corporatism.
And that无毛视频檚 the dog that didn无毛视频檛 bark here: Where were the regulators with whom SBF was close? Where were the supposed advocates of 无毛视频渆thical capitalism,无毛视频� who posit social responsibility but whose friends seem to repeatedly be caught with their fingers in the cookie jar, dating all the way back to Bernie Madoff?
Maybe, just maybe, the problem isn无毛视频檛 with capitalism per se, and its chief admonition caveat emptor, its belief that trust is to be earned rather than granted freely. Maybe the problem is with a cadre of supposed protectors of the public who aren无毛视频檛 out to protect the public at all, but to hobnob with other 无毛视频渃hange agents无毛视频� from Bahamian estates while patting themselves on the back for all the good they无毛视频檙e doing.
Ben Shapiro is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of 无毛视频淭he Ben Shapiro Show,无毛视频� and co-founder of Daily Wire+.