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Leverage is fun when it magnifies your profit.....Sucks, when it magnifies your loss.
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Leverage is fun when it magnifies your profit.....Sucks, when it magnifies your loss.One day you eat the chicken.....next day the left-over chicken.....next five days you eat chicken feathers, head and feet. -
Just read that one of the bit-coin systems is in trouble. The operator 'dropped dead', and no-one can find the password(s) to access ~ $150 Million encrypted in his digital vault...
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Slightly off topic, but does any-one remember an old Scifi tale set on a semi-terraformed Venus, where a previously associated cabal of investors are trying to get access to VERY valuable, certainly embarrassing data etc in a decades-old vault ?
No keys or dials, the vault design required you to place a highly radio-active Radium source against the sensor box before activation. It had to be Radium, and it had to have a close-tolerance radio-activity level. Time-locking severely restricted attempts. The 'window' on this vault was set tight, and very, very high. The matching source would be hard to get, hard to handle, and extremely valuable in its own right. Of course, it was only 'borrowed' / hired for the occasion...
Turned out to be a total scam, set up to steal that valuable Radium source...
This incident was, IIRC, a side-plot in a long-running revenge tale but I cannot remember more...
Any takers ?Comment
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"The operator 'dropped dead', and no-one can find the password(s) to access ~ $150 Million encrypted in his digital vault."
Latest news, IIRC, is that those digital wallets are empty.
Not 'we cannot access them', but 'lint & cobwebs', the expected contents gone, gone, gone...
So, was it a pyramid scheme ? Operator didn't seem to be living 'beyond his means'...Comment
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Maybe his dropping dead wasn't so "natural". $150mil is a whole lot of reason for someone to have an accident...
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you!Comment
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I suppose another possibility is they're empty to foil a 'Black & Decker' hack, and the real vault's drive is some-where else...
Security by obscurity but, if you die without leaving a treasure map, it is still lost, lost, lost...Comment
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You couldn't make it up...
fair-use quote:
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The bonds on offer from London Capital & Finance looked highly seductive: the interest was a table-topping 6.5% to 8%; they were authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority; and HMRC had granted the bonds tax-free ISA status. Yet, after more than 11,000 investors poured £236m into the bonds – only for the company to collapse earlier this year – the FCA is now accused of its worst failure as a regulator for more than a decade.
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Little of the money went into safe interest-bearing investments. As little as 20% of the money may ever be recovered...
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London Capital & Finance...
Now appears that their brokers were taking 25% commission from investments, so those bonds would have to make all that back before breaking even. And, what a bonus incentive for their sales-team to close deals !!
What could possibly go wrong ??Comment
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Another investment scandal developing in UK where 'acclaimed stock-picker' has blocked further withdrawals from his investment fund.
BBC TV fair-use quote: ( £1 == $1.3-ish)
Neil Woodford said after "an increased level of redemptions", investors would not be allowed to "redeem, purchase or transfer shares" in the fund.
Investors have withdrawn about £560m from the fund over the past four weeks.
Kent County Council also wanted to withdraw its £263m investment, but was unable to do so before trading halted.
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Smaller investors' £ 6k ~ 10k also hamstrung...
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Can anyone tell me how it all ended up?Comment
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"Just read that one of the bit-coin systems is in trouble. The operator 'dropped dead', and no-one can find the password(s) to access ~ $150 Million encrypted in his digital vault..."
His creditors are trying to get him exhumed to make sure it really is him in the grave...
( There is a growing suspicion that the guy, who was dying unpleasantly, gave those funds to charity. That's if it wasn't a Ponzi...)
Meanwhile, looks like Norks have ripped off yet-another bit-coin exchange, while some 'ordinary' hackers infected a major bit-coin mining operation with a virus that re-directed proceeds to them...
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IIRC, the Woodward & Co investors will take a hefty hit, lucky to get even half their money back. Bank regulators muttering about changing rules on lead-times and penalties for early withdrawal.
One snag is that pension funds etc are obliged to seek the best returns for their money. Even with risk-balancing, this may force them to put money into stuff you or I might shun. In theory, if they didn't seek high yields, they could be sued for the short-fall. Of course, if those capsize, they get sued for the losses...Comment
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Update: LC&F investors face a 'total loss', there's not even the residual '20% of capital' initially suggested. Even HMRC (UK's IRS) won't get a 4-oz pattie, never mind its usual 'pound of flesh'
Hopefully, those 'ruined' investors will sue the very socks off the entire LC&F crew, along with their pushy, peroptimistic agents...
Motto of story: Don't bet what you cannot afford to lose.
Corollary: If it looks too good to be true, it's probably snake-oil...Comment
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if that was my money, I'd be wearing a mask and using visegrips, working my way up the ladder until I found somebody with enough money to make me whole again. All thieves should be killed, slowly and painfully.Originally posted by Nik View PostYou couldn't make it up...
fair-use quote:
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The bonds on offer from London Capital & Finance looked highly seductive: the interest was a table-topping 6.5% to 8%; they were authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority; and HMRC had granted the bonds tax-free ISA status. Yet, after more than 11,000 investors poured £236m into the bonds – only for the company to collapse earlier this year – the FCA is now accused of its worst failure as a regulator for more than a decade.
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Little of the money went into safe interest-bearing investments. As little as 20% of the moneIf y may ever be recovered...
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Bernie Madoff: Disgraced financier dies in prison
He'd only served a decade of ~150 yr sentence for his vast Ponzi scheme, but died of kidney disease etc. Looks like accountants have recovered ~$ 14 bn of estimated ~$ 17 bn cash losses from his ~$ 65 bn pyramid, but a lot of people will stay seriously hurt.
Fair-use quote:
Last year, Mr Madoff requested early release from prison citing health problems, including kidney disease. In an interview with The Washington Post he said he had "made a terrible mistake."
"I'm terminally ill," he said. "There's no cure for my type of disease. So, you know, I've served. I've served 11 years already, and, quite frankly, I've suffered through it."
Judge Denny Chin denied Mr Madoff's request, noting many victims were still suffering due to their financial losses.
"I also believe that Mr. Madoff was never truly remorseful, and that he was only sorry that his life as he knew it was collapsing around him," he wrote.
At least two investors with Mr Madoff took their own lives after their losses. His son Mark also killed himself on the second anniversary of his father's arrest. His other son, Andrew, died of cancer in 2014.
Mr Madoff is survived by his wife, Ruth Madoff, who maintained she was unaware of the scheme and was never charged. Prosecutors let her keep $2.5m from the the $825m fortune the couple once possessed.
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Tangential, and back to bit-coin: IIRC, Chinese authorities are increasingly unhappy about local bit-coin mining, which is accelerating electricity consumption at a rate beyond long-term plans. Which will soon be stretched by need for much power to pump their grand irrigation mega-projects. Those may need to be flanked by vast, linear solar and wind farms simply to keep local grids from collapse.
D'you wonder they're pouring money into fusion research, while planning vast hydro-dams in geologically and politically inappropriate Himalayan gorges ?? For possible consequences, even without earthquakes, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam
Even so, IIRC, bit-coin mining usage is rising faster than they hope to build coal-fired power stations and scary hydro-dams. Do they raise the price of power ? Do they restrict bit-coin mining by strict licensing & heavy taxation ? Do they ban bit-coin ? If latter, value may collapse with dire financial consequences. Do they 'nationalise' bit-coin ? Upside, they get control. Downside, bit-yuan or bit-renminbi would become totally traceable, a terrifying prospect for residents...Comment
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I seriously doubt that China would be any sort of threat, if we didn't have stupid, traitorus pos's running things here.Comment
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