We Have Already Mentioned The Collapse Of FXT
They are - or were - a cryptocurrency exchange that went in the space of eight months from being worth $32 billion to filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in South Canada. Just in case you're a bit hazy on this, this is a very bad thing.
Let us now praise famous men abruptly change course and jump back in time to the Nineties and Oughts, where we see the collapse of Enron and it's filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The whole story is as complicated as it is sleazy and seedy. Art!
Economics are dull. Here's an atomic-engined spaceship
Enron defrauded investors by hiding all their liabilities and losses in specially created offshore accounts, whilst cooking the books to inflate their share price. The problem with this was that they had to keep the books cooked, at an ever-increasing temperature. to keep the share prices rising. Many of their assets turned out to be completely fraudulent. Even worse was that Enron executives sold their shares before the price on the stock market tanked, because they knew all about the fraud. When news of all this jumbo-sized fraud came out, the price per share went from $90.56 to less than $1. Art!
Enter John Ray. He's a n expert in corporate re-structuring, which was necessary at Enron to ensure that anything left in the coffers went to the creditors, and which he helped achieve. This chap has seen it all.
Thus, when FTX's Chief Executive Officer, Sam Bankman-Fried (yes that's his real name) was sacked, John Ray came in as successor. It's his job to follow and find the money, which is going to be extremely difficult, as he says the chaos, disorganisation, lack of records and needless complexity present at FTX is much, much worse than Enron.
Just let that sink in for a bit. Incidentally, thanks to Joe Blogs for a very informative explanation of this issue. Art!
Fried. Chicken*.
It transpires that FTX, despite being only 3 years old, and with no history of buying up or acquiring other companies, has a total of 134 separate business organisations in it's structure.
Conrad was immediately suspicious. Why would you need that many dialects and sub-tongues - Sorry! Sorry, that was "Forbidden Planet". Why would you need that number of different branches? Art!
That, of course - obviously! - is not all. SBF and two of his pals had enough control of these entities that they could make payments and loans and swapsies without having to go to anyone for approval. Surprise! SBF ended up being granted $3.3 billion in loans with nary a whisper of oversight. Mister Ray states that there is no paperwork or auditing or even communications between FTX staff, because SBF insisted people use an app that deleted their comms immediately afterward.
Ooops. Of course - obviously! - nobody saw that as a red flag. Art!
As Joe points out, whilst SBF and his chums were playing at being international hot shot financiers, the boring yet essential structures to ensure accountability, compliance and fiscal responsibility were -
Not there.
A few of the major corporate investors have given up any hope of ever getting anything of their hundreds of millions back, which is part of the real disaster here: real currency in the real world being lost hand over fist.
In the days before FTX fell over and died, investors pulled out $6 billion from the company's total of $16 billion, which left $10 billion. Where is the money? That's a good short question with a verrrry long and complex answer.
Isn't it sad that economics only ever gets interesting when things go awry?
Korean Cooking Continues
Yes indeedy. Tonight I made savoury Prawn And Spring Onion Pancake. Art!
The pancake itself doesn't have any particularly strong flavours, it's all about dipping the wedges into sauce. The whole thing was easily managed and surprisingly filling. I may make this again with a different filling. Hmmmm wonder what's appropriate?
Bitten By The Coincidence Hydra Again
Yes indeedy Ally Sheedy. I have been whanging on about the Universal Carrier of late, comparing it to a 3-ton Jeep on tracks, which is pretty accurate for a thumbnail description.
What did Your Humble Scribe espy from the Sekrit Layr this afternoon? Art!
Gotta be a South Canadian model because left-hand driver. They were undoubtedly glad that the incessant rain had cessed for a while.
"The Sea Of Sand"
The Italians at Mersa Martuba are about to make a last stand against their mystery opponents.
Standing out here in the open was a calculated risk, of course. The range of those silent, invisible ray guns was unknown.
Ah! Now a second black tank drew up behind the first one, and a third behind the second.
"An embarrassment of riches," he muttered to himself. Curious muted clinkings came from the back of the Sahariana, making the officer turn and frown.
"Sergente, are you drinking beer?" he asked, angrily. The swarthy NCO shook his head, flipped the cap from another bottle of liberated British beer and poured it over the side of the car, onto the desert sands.
"No, sir." Cappricio picked up a petrol can and poured the liquid into four empty beer bottles, which were partially filled with axle-grease. "These are special cocktails." Using rags, he plugged the top of each bottle, leaving a long dangling string of rag, then shook them, creating a nasty chemical slurry. "Molotov cocktails. Learned to make them in Spain, sir."
Petrol bombs! realised Dominione.
"We won't be close enough to use those. I hope."
He strode backwards over the car, giving a nod to the gunner, who sternly fired at the lead black vehicle. As if aggravated by such insolence, the huge glassy thing began to move forward.
Going down fighting!
Doctor S. And His List Of Ships
Another iconic one from "Star Wars", and this time around it's the 'Millenium Falcon', which if Art doesn't want another Tazering -
Doctor S. takes it down a notch because of the FTL capability, and also doing u-turns in the vacuum of space. However, he loves the fact that it's wonky and lopsided and looks nothing remotely like an aircraft, and also gives it votes because it exemplifies the SW universe, where not everything is pristine and spotless and works every time; a lot of kit is lived-in and scuffed and looks to be hard-used to make ends meet. Classed as Enjoy The Ride.
Finally -
Conrad notes, with his trademark surly truculence, that the ballfoot game's Word Cusp or similar is underway in Qatar. Rest assured that this is the first and last time it will get a mention on BOOJUM! unless the Icelandic team do what they did the last time and humiliate teams from countries where their capital city has a greater population than that of Iceland. The BBC wastes considerable space on their News page with guff about the event, another thing Conrad can ignore alongside "Strictly Come Dancing".
* Yes, of course it's Korean
No comments:
Post a Comment