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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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Indian Tycoon and alleged oligarch Gautam Adani is about to be in deep trouble given the indictment by the US for bribing inidan government officials and the amount is 265 million. South Asia is super corrupt and Adani has been very close with Modi for decades now. The Indian supreme court did not investigate Adani for what seems like very obvious case of mass bribery if the evidence with the US is true.

Reactions on this have been mixed so far, quite a few Indians want him gone stating how indulging in obvious corruption that too as stupidly as his people did is worthy of having your stocks tank. Adanis firms were under fire by the Hindenburg report on him which did cause some turbulence in his stocks. people at Hindenburg also pointed fingers at the cheif of SEBI, the SEC equivalent here and SEBI simply refused to talk about it. This indictment also came with a cancellation of deals in Kenya. The people involved in this includes pretty much the entirity of Indian political elite, irrespective of their geography, though he is still seen publicly as Modis guy.

The reactions to this are not surprising, BJP supporters are not defending him as fervently as last time which is not a good sign, no one in Indian stock market wants to fuck with stocks that are deemed suspect by the US so they probably are trying to cut ties with him without flipping 180. He is being defended quite a bit by tech bros many in finance are telling others to abandon ship. These are not ideollgically motivated people either. I had never expected to see people who talk about free markets come and defend out and out crony capitalism, the government changed its laws to let Adani bid and win multiple auctions, this is extemely well-documented too.

The tech bro argument can be boiled down to "he may be super corrupt like the nation but you are prosecuting him because he has control over Indian ports and is trying to move to international markets"." In contrast, some finance people just think that a firm that has had so many issues with regards to moral lapses is a terrible investment from a monetary perspective. Adani bought the only non BJP supporting new outlet NDTV which is an ultra progressive media house and just unwilling to say anything at all.

To any americans here, how bad is Adani case? Is this simply something being done out of fear of investors losing out on much or are the allegations of political turmoil true?

A bit of a tangent, but foreign financial crimes are almost always prosecuted in the Southern District of New York or the Eastern District of New York.

I'm a bit surprised that foreign oligarchs and billionaires haven't set up a scheme to flood those districts with ex-pats who are available for jury duty.

Why are they usually in those? I seem to remember reading it was a default option. If true, the U.S. would just pivot to holding them somewhere else.

I'm a bit surprised that foreign oligarchs and billionaires haven't set up a scheme to flood those districts with ex-pats who are available for jury duty.

That would require changing federal law, as currently, non-citizens are ineligible.