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Several guidelines make it clear that this kind of comment is unwelcome here. Corruption and conspiracies are easy to insinuate, but we need more than insinuations to have intellectually gratifying discussions. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48364986 and marked it off topic.

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It’s often telling what sort of thing is deserving of moderation. The timing is well documented as being extremely favorable to Musk and Altman and indeed directly benefits them. Suspicion is not only warranted it should be demanded.
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If you have evidence of corruption, present it. Otherwise it's just generic cynicism leading to a thought terminating cliche.
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At this point in US regulatory oversight I would have a harder time finding evidence of no corruption.
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Then present your evidence, so we can have a substantive debate and draw informed conclusions.
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My evidence of no corruption?

I can’t find any because the admin is so horrendously corrupt.

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Why else would they change the rule ?
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> Why else would they change the rule ?

These indices aim to replicate the market. They’re not trying to pick stocks.

There is a serious argument for saying they fail to replicate the market if they structurally exclude trillions of dollars of it.

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It defeats the purpose of the value setting part of the IPO if there are guaranteed buyers. It would be better for the market and for the indices if they only hopped onto new entries of the market after any initial instability has passed.
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> defeats the purpose of the value setting part of the IPO if there are guaranteed buyers

The indices don't buy into the IPO, but a few days afterwards. That's obviously easier to bridge than 6 months. But IPO buyers are still taking a risk.

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They also exclude many other things that are of economic value, because they could cause structural or social harm in the markets.
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> They also exclude many other things that are of economic value, because they could cause structural or social harm in the markets

Which index are you thinking of?

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Yes, but a stock market index is just that. It is intended to track stocks, not meth sales or the phase of the moon.

Most of these indicies intend to match the largest companies on the market - going up when they do and going down when they do.

If someone doesnt want that, they can pick a different index or invest in a managed fund. Companies like vanguard also offer custom EFTs where you can exclude certian companies if you want - probably the simplest option.

But then you cant complain if they go up and you miss out.

PS: Yes, there are several cannabis ETFs if you are into that kinda thing. look into MJ, WEED, MSOS, and YOLO.

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Because they think that a lot of people will want to get in on the historically massive and well-known companies, which would lead to outflows if the index doesn't pick them up fast enough?
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It will lead to outflows either way. And I say that as someone who has been an Index fund evangelist for years, strongly considering selling my index funds to build my own collection of companies that I believe in long term.

So why not just stick to the roles we agreed on when buying in?

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I think deep cynicism is the correct mindset to have in the current financial/political climate.
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I find it to be genuinely more likely some level of corruption, and while my insinuation may be overly specific or illustrative, I still hold to it as an ironic statement meant to speak the truth.

In this age of AI marketing taking over the minds and imaginations of most of our businesses leaders in the name of greed and fear, I’ll hold to the more likely truth given the circumstances, regardless of this appeal to some invented tale of uncorruptable corporate governance. Have you never seen decisions being made?

I think that better matches the original spirit of this forum. The progenitors have become the people they once disrupted.

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At least a new Cybertruck.
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You're claiming without evidence that the bureaucracy and regulators are corrupt to the core? No way I refuse to hear another bad word about the government, they are above reproach sir.
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I was a lawyer in 2008 representing banks in the financial crisis. Multiple bankers wives set up companies to by mortgage backed securities using government loans and government guarantees on payment upon default. That let the banks get the toxic mortgages off their balance sheet.

These wives were yoga teachers and socialites. And I say that as a man that is a feminist and upmost respect for the amazing women I have worked with that were absolutely world renowned professionals. The bankers wives were not in that category and were shells to eliminate the “conflict of interest”. The CEO of Goldman Sachs did this. You can find the records if you want to be on a government watch list.

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We’ve really hit that point, where our institutions are transparently corrupt, and everyone knows it, and both the guilty and the public just say “yep, we’re doing the corrupt thing”.

It’s depressing as hell, and it’s going to go out with the proverbial whimper, but at least we’ve got to be close to rock bottom, right?

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From someone who lives in a country that is still more corrupt than America.

You need to vote for the next several years, no matter what, because you still have a chance.

Once corruption becomes the default, then you are REALLY screwed. Because it kills hope and the faith in the future in the most corrosive way possible.

The death of morale is a far worse and insidious fate that will make today look like a high point.

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I appreciate the perspective. From where I sit in America, morale is as dead as it gets. The president wrote himself a $2B check, and both his supporters and opponents are resigned to this massive theft. Restrictions on voting are nonsensical, the Supreme Court is transparently ruling based on who will benefit rather than what the laws say, and masked “police” are terrorizing communities.

Of course I’ll vote, and be more active in protests and campaigns, but TBH the general vibe is that it’s already too late. It’s that bad.

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To be fair, these are not regulators, just private companies making up rules, so technically this is not corruption just something that looks like it but it's just business™
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> To be fair, these are not regulators, just private companies making up rules, so technically this is not corruption just something that looks like it but it's just business™

What I find odd is that the comments are critical of how the police didn't caught thieves, but there is absolute silence towards thieves and the fact they have been engaged in thieving for ever.

Another comparison is people blaming the fire department for not inspecting sprinklers after an arsonist torched the place. It seems to me that the arsonist is the root cause, isn't it?

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We expect thieves to thief.

Police are only useful so long as they are effective as policing. It’s insanely difficult to put a price on a cost center which doesn’t add value, but only has a chance to reduce the loss of value if they do their job well.

The problem with the fire department analogy is that there’s a lens through which the fire department IS the arsonist here, or is at least pouring accelerant at the future site of the arson. If you don’t know why I would call the bankers at S&P, Nasdaq the arsonists in this case, you aren’t equipped with the background info about SpaceX’s fast track + goalpost moving to index funds.

I guess we should be thankful there aren’t more Luigi jokes in the comments.

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> We expect thieves to thief.

This seems to be the problem. Thieves get a free pass but the very few guardrails that said thieves haven't dismantled yet suffer the blunt of the criticism, to the point people argue they don't need guardrails at all.

Don't you feel you are unwittingly aiding thieves to go unpunished?

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Thieving behavior is deterred by the police doing their job.
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> Thieving behavior is deterred by the police doing their job.

Wouldn't it be more productive to place the blame on thieving? Police is a mitigation, and your complain boils down to complaining that police is influenced by thieves. Yet, I don't see people complaining about thieves.

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These are all private companies's decisions.
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> You're claiming without evidence that the bureaucracy and regulators are corrupt to the core?

The "bureaucracy and regulators" are at most engaged in passive corruption.

For passive corruption to exist, you need massive active corruption effort.

Why is everyone focusing on vilifying passive corruption while completely ignoring active corruption? I mean, I'm hearing lots of conspiratorial remarks directed at regulators but... Who stood to benefit? Aren't those responsible?

I mean, why was regulation required to begin with?

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