Yes, a home owned by his parents, located on land leased by his parents from Stanford. Apparently this didn’t require Stanford’s approval, as the leaseholders can encumber their ownership without asking permission. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-30/sam-bank...
Stanford wasn't the sponsor in any way. However his parents lease property from Stanford, and these leases are structured in a way called a "Restricted Residential Ground Lease", and it is quite similar to ownership. You can read the painful details here:
The faculty deal is that stanford owns the land but the faculty member owns the house. They get discounted mortgages, and though they can (or have to if they leave) sell the house, the only permitted buyers are stanford faculty or a few non-faculty employees. This kind of arrangement (house built on leased land) is common in some places (e.g. London) but pretty unusual in the USA.
So the parents can post their house as collateral.
Non-bail aside: stanford recently changed the terms of those leases so they are only 50 years. This can screw you if you want to retire in your home, but increases housing supply, which is relevant to another HN front page post about zoning.
Similar setups exist for fraternities and sororities. They lease university land for a token amount but own the house that's built on it. In some cases, the university even gives loan guarantees for the mortgage on the house. This makes Greek organizations more financially viable than they otherwise would be and desirable locations near or on campus. In exchange, the university has incredible amount of leverage over the Greek organizations to ensure their compliance with university rules. Of course, some schools are quite lax on this but when something rises to the level of legal proceedings, the university can move swiftly in banning the organization from campus.
Because the divide went from "I believe in a balanced budget and you don't" to I believe you have no right to live or have bodily autonomy and I will do everything in my power to strip you of your rights.
There are no sides anymore it's supporting racists, bigots and misogynists or not.
Because between 2020 and 2022 the world experienced the greatest transfer of wealth between the poor and middle class to the wealthy as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Or if you don't like that one we could try...
Because the wealth gap between classes is the greatest it has been since the days of the robber barons and individuals who cannot afford basic medical procedures have to hope an influencer wants clicks and will pay for their surgery so they won't be blind.
Or if you don't like that one we could try...
As the world burns from rampant climate change, one side actively blocks any effort to halt or god forbid repair the damage done while enriching corporations and the 1%. All while the 1% jet set around doing the equivalent damage of entire countries to the climate. In the mean time the youngest generation of Americans, by and large believe they will never be able to own a home or have children.
> Because between 2020 and 2022 the world experienced the greatest transfer of wealth between the poor and middle class to the wealthy as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.
It wasn’t the virus or the pandemic that caused this. This was caused by societies insane reaction to it. Virtually all second order effects from the pandemic are caused by our reaction not by the virus.
It is possible to be an individualist without calling for women, racial minorities, and gay people to be reduced to second-class citizens, but unfortunately given the popular rhetoric of self-proclaimed "individualists" you can be forgiven for not realizing this. You don't need to be a communist to be in favor of gay marriage, the right to abortion, the self-determination of gender identity, and so on. Back in the day we just called that "libertarianism" before the term was co-opted by anarcho-capitalists.
It is interesting how one can support gay marriage, the right to abortion, the self-determination of gender identity, and so on without being a communist; but one cannot be vaguely affiliated with a group that opposed Roe v Wade without being a racist, a bigot and a misogynist that wants to strip everyone of their rights and reduce them to second-class citizens.
Racists, bigots and misogynists can at least theoretically be voted out eventually, but only with fair and free elections!
To this end, Republicans benefit greatly from gerrymandered districts. They also introduce legislation that would make it harder for people to vote (and are sometimes successful). There's also the recent trend of not accepting election results.
As such, they are actively fighting against democracy.
But what really gets me is that you somehow think that an article from April 2022 with such a milquetoast support for you comment as: "Yet the plain reality is that, if [Democrats] had decided not to do any of it, Republicans would not only have retained their existing advantage in the House map, they would have expanded it" leads you to such a smug reaction, especially when, spoiler alert, Republicans still win the house in Nov 2022 with the help of their own redistricting in places like FL, TN, GA, TX.
Yeah, you see Republicans not accepting election results, you see Republicans enacting voter suppression laws, effectively limiting who can vote, and you see Republicans passing a comical redistricting map in Florida, and you weigh all this against Democrats gaining a new seat in growing state like Oregon or whatever, and you're acting like I'm the one another planet for thinking that these are not equal and that there's a problem here?!
> Because the divide went from "I believe in a balanced budget and you don't" to I believe you have no right to live or have bodily autonomy and I will do everything in my power to strip you of your rights.
That is a straw man made up by those who have a vested interest in dividing us all. 99% of the people you meet are way more moderate than either “side” portrays them.
Most people are just trying to survive and have some fun at the same time.
The real problem is our voting system forces this artificial divide where the candidates of both parties drift into bozoville. It’s hard to run for office and win as a moderate because the fringe ends of the spectrum will attempt to paint that person as being an extremist too, only “the bad kind”.
What do you mean, strawman? How can you say elected politicians who, for example, enacted trigger laws to ban abortion in the wake of Roe v Wade being over turned don't exist? I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I see comments like this and it's hard to accept that they are operating in good faith.
Someday your “side” will do something you absolutely disagree with. You’ll know you are right too… but your (former?) side will consider you a member of the other “side” and you’ll become a political outcast. Never again will you be able to discuss politics in polite company… It happened to me.
Sincerely, a pro LGBQT, pro infrastructure, pro choice, anti vaccine mandate, anti-mask, anti-mandate, pro-gun former democrat.
When was it about "I believe in a balanced budget and you don't"? Was it at the same time when the divide was about gay marriage? Or the intervention in Iraq? Civil Rights? Women's suffrage? Reduction of the non-white immigration? When were those simple times of balancing budgets?
not that i think it's necessarily applicable in this particular instance...but
one political party is flirting with authoritarianism, denying election results, pushing bigoted policies, marching with tiki torches, taking away all social safety nets, repealing abortion, refusing to do anything about healthcare insurance or even insulin prices, refusing to take any action on gun violence...oh, and insurrection.
It begs the question, who would want to willingly work with anyone endorsing that party?
In a sane world, we wouldn't have to ask the question. We do not live in a sane world.
SBF's political donations are both more evenly distributed than previously reported[1], and seemed targeted more at pacifying potential investigations/regulatory attention than driven by ideological/political concerns.
(And this framing makes intuitive sense: the politicians least likely to be cryptocurrency aligned lean center-left.)
Edit: Pulling the relevant grafs out:
> “All my Republican donations were dark,” he said, referring to political donations that are not publicly disclosed in FEC filings. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the f—k out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”
> Given that he donated nearly $40 million to Democrats in the 2022 election cycle—and he admitted to giving an equal amount to Republicans—his total political contributions may have actually been around $80 million.
He was the second biggest Democratic donor in the 2022 elections, and since he supports the Democrats, he doesn’t want them to suffer any reputational damage from their #2 donor being a notorious con man, so he made up a conveniently unfalsifiable story.
As for what advantage it grants him, just wait and see. Marc Rich got a lame duck pardon from President Clinton in exchange for his generous political donations, so maybe Biden will do the same for SBF.
> He was the second biggest Democratic donor in the 2022 elections, and since he supports the Democrats, he doesn’t want them to suffer any reputational damage from their #2 donor being a notorious con man, so he made up a conveniently unfalsifiable story.
I think these explanations benefit from persona tests: can you think of someone in your life whose political stance is meaningfully affected by either (1) SBF donating massive sums to the DNC (true!), (2) being a scam artist (true!), or (3) potentially having donated equally massive sums to the GOP (maybe!)?
Mine aren't, and I don't think most peoples' are either.
So your contention is that absolutely nobody would care if the Democrats in particular were heavily financed by white-collar crime? And that the Democratic Party doesn't care whether or not they're associated with an alleged, indicted criminal? That's facially absurd. Even if it wouldn't cause anyone to change their vote (which seems unlikely given the marginal-but-still-very-real swings in election results every two years), it would affect enthusiasm and engagement among people who would otherwise support the Democrats. Whereas with this lie about mysterious "dark money" donations to Republicans, most people who support the Democrats will just accept that claim uncritically and continue to support the Democrats because that's the story that minimizes their personal cognitive dissonance.
Also, you need to explain why somebody would donate equally to both parties in the first place, when both parties are engaged in a zero-sum game with each other for control of the federal government.
No: my contention is that nobody seriously believes that the DNC (or GOP) sat down and went "hmm, this is dirty money, but we'll take it anyways." Both do legal and reputational review, and almost certainly determined (correctly!) that both the law and ordinary people distinguish between "scammy but not openly criminal man in scammy industry gives money to politicians" and "definitely criminal man gives money to politicians."
Put another way: we have no special reason to believe that either the DNC or GOP leadership saw SBF as anything more than a convenient piggy bank. SBF in turn probably saw both as insurance, and time will tell on that.
> Also, you need to explain why somebody would donate equally to both parties in the first place, when both parties are engaged in a zero-sum game with each other for control of the federal government.
This is actually pretty easy to rationalize from the EA worldview: if you've convinced yourself that you can maximize good by maximizing your personal wealth (laws and norms be damned), it makes sense to maintain whatever regulatory framework (or lack thereof) enables you to do that. Giving money to both sides is a not unreasonable course of action in that context.
PR move to make him seem impartial, so that people would stop complaining about the donations because some people might type out things like this:
> SBF's political donations are both more evenly distributed than previously reported[1], and seemed targeted more at pacifying potential investigations/regulatory attention than driven by ideological/political concerns.
I don't think he needs this: anybody with more than a passing awareness knows that he's an EA type, and those types infamously cast themselves as "above" the normal political fray. Even before this reporting, I don't think people had strongly held beliefs that SBF's donations to the DNC were anything other than expedient (given that they're the ones in power).
> He's an "end justifies the means" type, and that means you can never trust a damn thing he says, ever.
A very large fraction of the population has personal ethics that boil down to some variant of act utilitarianism/consequentialism. SBF is just the most visible and venal form; it's probably an error to assume that such a broadly held ethical position means that its adherents are incapable of not lying.
He may not, but people he donated to would like it. The implication here is that we ought not bother looking any further into his claims that his donations might be some form of corruption funded by conning a large number of people out of billions of dollars because 'both sides' benefited financially therefore it is all awash.
> anybody with more than a passing awareness knows that he's an EA type
He's not any type that you or I can "know" because he is a duplicitous conman. Or, I suppose, he is the duplicitous conman type.
At this point, it's up to your own imagination to determine whether or not he was lying about this particular piece of information. You seem to have decided he must be telling the truth because despite all of the other lies about his business, there isn't a logical reason (to you) that he would put out a statement, with no actual evidence, about making "dark" money donations to the other side prior to making massive public donations to the one side during an election year.
Just like you, I don't know if he's lying or not. I do know that if he has a vested interest in confirming his statements, he most certainly could release further documentation showing he made "dark" money donations. I mostly do not believe him because the lack of effort in proving it and the completely stupid notion of referring to his donations as "dark" money, like somehow I'm supposed to believe there's no paper trail, at all, of his donations. This is absurd.
Except the donations to Republican or 'right' candidates were supposedly anonymous or "dark", and therefore we have to trust his claims that they happened.
> “All my Republican donations were dark,” he said, referring to political donations that are not publicly disclosed in FEC filings. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the f—k out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”
He's been caught constantly lying about everything over and over again, but we should definitely take his word that he's donated just as much to Republicans but there's no proof of it at all.
Whoever is backing him is taking on the risk of SBF jumping bail (and I'd assume the house is under surveillance and he's wearing ankle monitors), in exchange for either silence or valuable goodwill on the tiny off-chance he gets out of this.
I don't know, I think it stinks to initially permit them to be anonymous but then retcon it later. There's a good argument for never having allowed them to be anonymous in the first place, but this is going back on an earlier agreement.
It's amazing what a small amount of bail (200k and 500k) the two individuals put up relative to the supposed $250 million bail.
The value of course to court is that these two people would help ensure that SBF doesn't vanish, but given that the two individuals are likely very rich I'm not sure how true that is.
The guy has a supernatural ability to get people to accept insane financial arrangements. They need to bind his mouth or something. Have everyone plug their ears during his testimony, and tie down the court stenographer like Odysseus.
It's honestly very hard to believe what he continues to get away with. How can this guy be this persuasive? I've even heard him talk for hours, and yeah he's good at talking and sounding persuasive, but not that good. On the other hand, I can't argue with the results.
There was a villain in Get Smart who had a way of making everybody love him if they looked in his eyes. It's almost as if something like that is going on.
> 0.28% of the bail amount is all that was needed to be put up
Posted. It’s all “put up.”
Most people don’t have $250mm in cash, but quite a few have that much in assets. The court does better ring-fencing them than forcing a fire sale or jailing SBF with fewer strings to pull.
So who posted the bulk of the $250 million then? Is it these two people being talked about, SBF himself, or something else? Who stands to lose $250 million here if SBF runs, and where will that money come from?
> Most people don’t have $250mm in cash, but quite a few have that much in assets. The court does better ring-fencing them than forcing a fire sale or jailing SBF with fewer strings to pull.
Well, yes, but no one involved has posted or claimed to have $250M in assets, either.
Sorry, where are you getting that the anonymous parties have (or claim to have) $250M in assets? I don't see that attested to in the documents[2] or reported in reliable explanations of the bail arrangement[1]. I don't even see where the anons are under the already-lenient requirements that the parents are, who also don't have to show $250M in assets.
From [1]:
>>Two non-parent sureties have to sign the bond, pledging amounts approved by the government, by January 5. That means Bankman-Fried must find two non-parent supporters with substantial assets to agree to sign off on the bond and be responsible for up to a specified amount (likely in the hundreds of thousands) if he breaks the terms of the bond.
Those parties might not even be liable for the full $250M, let alone have current access to that much.
Yes but just because they only put up that amount, don’t they have to guarantee the rest against assets? Not saying the amount isn’t soft, I think you are right, but just pointing that asset guarantee out.
As far as I understand what they essentially said is "We'll pay $X if SBF doesn't show up to court" (where X is $200k or $500k)
To the best of my knowledge they haven't paid anything yet.
Bail bonds are when you have a company make that promise for you at the cost of you paying 10% of the bond. If you show up to court the bail bondsman makes 10% of the bond and if you don't they have to pay the whole bond amount. There's also a system of bounty hunters that somehow happens if you don't show up, but I don't know how that works.
If you can post bail yourself, you don't actually lose any money assuming you show up to court.
My problems are the same ones that the entire middle class in the Bay Area faces.
I'm saying they should at list take a shit about something that's affecting the largest chunk of the population, instead of just dropping cases and not even going out to catch the serial thieves. Even more so, the people running around punching elderly Asian women. In fact, go after those first. My problem is a distant second.
Instead, they focus on the world of a few individuals who didn't really need their money anyway.
When you're angry at a group of people it helps to think of whether this issue happens in other places and if not then consider that it might be a systemic problem and that you should be angrier at the systems that led to this problem.
My bike got stolen recently. I was pretty bummed out about it. But I think whoever stole it was probably more happy to get it than I am sad to lose it. The total happiness in the world increased. So, whatever.
dheera lost $5000 of their property and the nut I responded to is telling dheera to have more empathy for the thief. There is something seriously wrong with you when you've lost the ability to empathize with the victims of crime but retained the ability to empathize with the perpetrators.
What does it even mean that bail is set at 250mio if he gets free on 700k? I don't understand what's the point of setting bail that high and then ignoring it.
I admittedly don't understand the bail process that well and now realize I understand it even less than I thought I did after this case. At some point I may read into it, hopefully I never need to, but none the less one would unknowingly assume when a bail amount it set, that's what should be covered, at least I did.
Right -- together, they put 3.5% at risk, not 0.28%. [1] A huge distinction to make!
Well ... not really. It still seems like a farce. Either lower the bail amount, or require meaningful proof that the guarantors have access to anywhere near the ostensible figure.
"Your bail is $X, but we'll set requirements that completely ignore $X" seems comedic at best, or special treatment at worst.
(I know, the courts will "come after" the guarantors for the full $250M. It's still irrelevant to the on-the-ground reality.)
[1] 700/250000 = 0.28% . Actual is 700 + 700? (from anons) + 4000 (house) = 8800/250000 = 3.5%.
But doesn’t this mean that the people that co-signed his bail have basically risked their entire net worth on an unsecured basis? Unless they are billionaires, this seems like a pretty compelling amount to be at risk for people…
A bail bond is like a mortgage where the money down up front grants you access to the full loan amount. $700k down for a loan on $250m sounds like a pretty sweet deal, so I would assume the parties involved are reputable people and all parties think there is a high likelyhood Sam will show up to trial.
You are talking out of your ass. There was no bail bond.
His $250M nominal bail is mostly not backed by any asset. His parents pledged their house (~$4M) and the other two signers pledged ~$700k in assets. Beyond that, there are no pledged assets and there is no loan involved.
Why go out of you way just to be rude? There was already another comment that helped me learn this detail. I don't have time to follow news like this so closely, so sorry I answered a generic "why don't people have to pay their full bail?". I guess it created some noise in a thread but somebody had already corrected me, all you're adding is vitriol. Hope it made you feel good because all it did was make me regret coming to HN.
That is totally fair, but it's worth noting that this exact topic has been beaten to depth multiple times on HN over the past weeks/months. That's probably why you get some gruff replies at this point.
But it's also fair to note that you weren't asking a question, you were claiming to know the answer, but were wrong. That also gets gruff replies ;-).
I know, but people need to stick to the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) regardless of how wrong another comment is or they feel it is. The thing to remember is that even if you don't feel like you owe better to the wrong comment, you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
(I don't mean you personally, of course; I mean all of us here.)
Why go out of your way to lazily invent obviously false details about bail? You can just say "I don't know," or nothing, or ask further questions. Curiosity and naivety is fine. Making things up is obnoxious. There has been a ton of the exact same kind of lazy thinking on these SBF bail threads, and it's tiring. I apologize for the gruff response.
You can't attack other users like this, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again. Your comment would be fine without that bit.
Usually at the state level, one needs to put 10 percent of the bail amount for bail bonds. At the federal level, judge has more discretion on how much one should put.
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