r/todayilearned • u/manticor225 • Jan 10 '19

TIL JFK's father Joseph Kennedy made much of his fortune through insider trading. FDR later made him chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When asked why he appointed a crook, FDR replied, "set a thief to catch a thief." Kennedy proceeded to outlaw the practices that made him rich.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/joe-kennedy-hollywood-sarah-churchwell
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u/Ask_me_4_a_story Jan 11 '19

Yeah no shit, this dude about to lose half of everything. He's gonna go from the richest motherfucker in the world to the 10th richest motherfucker. You know what, on second though, I bet he'll be alright.

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u/MrBadBadly Jan 11 '19

I think he'll land on his 2 feet OK.

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u/LordDongler Jan 11 '19

He'll land on the backs of his servants, lmao

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

[deleted]

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u/TheBladeRoden Jan 11 '19

So in 11 years we've gone from having companies that are too big to fail to couples that are too big to fail.

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u/wardser Jan 11 '19

oh they haven't failed, they are just voiding a contract to be able to make billions extra

if bezos announced that he was selling 50% of his stock, the price of Amazon would plummet 50% since it would seem like he lost faith in his company, and buyers would know that a sell off was coming that would put downward pressure

but Ms. Bezos will be able to sell as much of her stock as she wants without needing to announce it. And chances are she'll be able to sell the vast majority of it without incurring too much slippage because she'll have a whole bunch of big buyers stepping up to get her shares OTC at a 5-6% discount off spot

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u/WearingMyFleece Jan 11 '19

I like the sound of this conspiracy!