There's plenty of very suspicious trades in US politics, and presumably European ones too. Actually on both sides of the aisle. Senators putting trades in sectors that overlap with their committee memberships, or these trades appearing in their "blind trusts", with "no input" from the senators. There is so much of it that I am sure there is plenty of insider trading. On average, if you blindly follow their trades, will you make money? The evidence is mixed, and made worse by the fact that the disclosures can be made on paper (pen and paper is allowed!) and the records not all electronified. You can imagine the juiciest trades are probably "disclosed" on a napkin if at all.

There's no doubt it's very dirty business. I just find it lazy thinking to say, hey this one is very suspicious therefore definitely criminal.

While I agree it is very suspicious, needs investigating and far, far greater oversight in general, I'm not sure there is enough to conclude this definitely is insider trading. Markets are weird. People trade for weird reasons, sometimes gently and in small size, sometimes aggressively and all at once. We're zooming in at a short window just before the tweet. If you look at random windows you'll find these too. 6.49 am is around lunchtime in Europe, and people exist there too. Crude oil liquidity isnt at its peak at that time but certainly not "thin". It's really not that uncommon for traders to accidentally send a "fat finger" trade, much bigger in size than intended or appropriate for the market conditions.

I'm not trying to split hairs here. There's been plenty of weird coincidences and each should be investigated, and on the balance of probability at least one may well be insider trading at the highest echelons. And in any case, in any financial job you need pre clearance for trades, often justifying why you're doing them if they are odd enough. There are minimum holding periods, day trading is not allowed, and the full record auditable by regulators. It is insane to me that politicians are not subject to such rules and it must change.

But to conclude that a weird trading pattern is definitely insider trading is IMO cheap. It's like TV drama where the unemployed, wife-beater-wearing husband definitely killed the wife, end of story.

The real tragedy IMO is that this is really avoidable. It would take very basic, very standard regulation to stamp this out, and we wouldn't be debating this in a technology forum.

It's a collection of indeed ironic events. I haven't read closely enough to see how many I agree with, but some good points for sure.

But what is really not funny is the scale of human suffering that is happening and will follow. Civilians killed in Iran, Lebanon - and what the hell, even in Israel, maybe they aren't in the 90% who support this war. Completely pointless material damage. All the people in Tehran who will get cancer from breathing in crude oil fumes - and according to Trump himself, 85% of Iranians oppose the regime. The damage to GCC economies, who didn't want this to happen. The damage to global economy from the spiking oil prices, unpredictability - and the very real poverty this will push people into. The weakening of arsenals against other adversaries, including Ukraine's defence against Russia. The boost to Russia's budget from spiking oil prices and indefinite-looking suspension of sanctions.

And all this assuming this doesn't turn into WWIII.

So on balance, not funny I think.

It's an interesting point.

I see your point that something cannot be a red line if it has significant support. Because a red line is something that people universally agree is unacceptable, and if there is even a significant minority who disagree then it's not universal.

Equally, for any horrible thing you will find a minority who support it. Hitler certainl had wide support for deporting Jews, if not worse. Does that mean it can't be a red line? In fact there is no point having red lines that are universally accepted, because they are already, well, universally accepted. There is little point stating that killing babies and eating their flesh whil livestreaming is a red line because no one wants to do it.

I don't have a view on Flock itself.