Does sure seem like there are definitional issues here. I do agree that drug trade and similar things bring the economic effects of conspiracy-type things up a lot, and I hadn’t considered those, and agree that if you count things in that reference class FTX is a tiny blip.
I think given that, I basically agree with you that FTX isn’t that close to one of the biggest conspiracies of the last decade. I do think it’s at the top of frauds in the last decade, though that’s a narrower category.
I do think it’s at the top of frauds in the last decade, though that’s a narrower category.
Nikola went from a peak market cap of $66B to ~$1B today, vs. FTX which went from ~$32B to [some unknown but non-negative number].
I also think the Forex scandal counts as bigger (as one reference point, banks paid >$10B in fines), although I’m not exactly sure how one should define the “size” of fraud.[1]
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some precise category in which FTX is the top, but my guess is that you have to define that category fairly precisely.
Wikipedia says “the monetary losses caused by manipulation of the forex market were estimated to represent $11.5 billion per year for Britain’s 20.7 million pension holders alone” which, if anywhere close to true, would make this way bigger than FTX, but I think the methodology behind that number is just guessing that market manipulation made foreign-exchange x% less efficient, and then multiplying through by x%, which isn’t a terrible methodology but also isn’t super rigorous.
I wasn’t intending to say “the literal biggest”, though I think it’s a decent candidate for the literal biggest. Depending on your definitions I agree things like Nikola or Forex could come out on top. I think it’s hard to define things in a way so that it isn’t in the top 5.
Does sure seem like there are definitional issues here. I do agree that drug trade and similar things bring the economic effects of conspiracy-type things up a lot, and I hadn’t considered those, and agree that if you count things in that reference class FTX is a tiny blip.
I think given that, I basically agree with you that FTX isn’t that close to one of the biggest conspiracies of the last decade. I do think it’s at the top of frauds in the last decade, though that’s a narrower category.
Nikola went from a peak market cap of $66B to ~$1B today, vs. FTX which went from ~$32B to [some unknown but non-negative number].
I also think the Forex scandal counts as bigger (as one reference point, banks paid >$10B in fines), although I’m not exactly sure how one should define the “size” of fraud.[1]
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some precise category in which FTX is the top, but my guess is that you have to define that category fairly precisely.
Wikipedia says “the monetary losses caused by manipulation of the forex market were estimated to represent $11.5 billion per year for Britain’s 20.7 million pension holders alone” which, if anywhere close to true, would make this way bigger than FTX, but I think the methodology behind that number is just guessing that market manipulation made foreign-exchange x% less efficient, and then multiplying through by x%, which isn’t a terrible methodology but also isn’t super rigorous.
I wasn’t intending to say “the literal biggest”, though I think it’s a decent candidate for the literal biggest. Depending on your definitions I agree things like Nikola or Forex could come out on top. I think it’s hard to define things in a way so that it isn’t in the top 5.