ROGER SIMON: FTX Scandal Exposes ‘Woke’ as the Crime Syndicate of Our Times.

More than Enron, more than Madoff, this is the paradigm case of the United States in our times.

Greed has taken over society to such a degree no one can see straight, let alone see such obvious fakery when it’s in front of their eyes, especially when “social justice” pronouncements are there playing the role of papal dispensations without the inconvenience of any thoughts of God or the afterlife.

Bankman-Fried wouldn’t have happened if all kinds of people and organizations, celebrated and uncelebrated, didn’t want, above anything else, more and more of the cash from that trough.

No matter. As Gordon Gecko assured us in “Wall Street”: “Greed is good.”

These days, it’s practically orgasmic. Watching the various talking heads before his unmasking, extolling the supposed crypto genius as the next Carnegie or Vanderbilt is an object lesson in how these people think. (Make me rich, please, please—especially if I don’t have to do any work for it.)

Ditto for the various celebrities on his bandwagon—Larry David, Tom Brady. Who knows if they even understand what blockchain is, but they love the cash and it’s seemingly hip to invest in crypto—above the curve, doncha know?

But who is this Bankman-Fried really and what would make him think he could actually do things such as create a “back door” between his two allegedly separate companies FTX and Alameda, so he could do what he would with other people’s money?

Yes, he looks like a Rip Van Winkle holdover awakened from a Big Brother and the Holding Company concert, circa 1967. Maybe that was a plus—made him seem “cool” to his customers.

Related exit question: How Do We Protect Ourselves from Billion-Dollar Boy-Men?