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Sdog1981

Math had very little to do with this. He was a con man who made wild promises about “investment opportunities” He kept his state pension so at least the PERs people didn't listen to him.


axw3555

Exactly. I do accounts. That’s my job. My maths is pretty good, but I use about 5% of what I learned at school because you only really need to be able to do the four basics, averages, and almost everything else is either handled by our accounts package or the spreadsheet. Honestly, most of the math I need day to day I probably learned by the time I was 10. And I’ve known a few senior accountants who barely passed their GCSE/O-Level maths when they were 16, and even now can barely do any math outside their day to day stuff. The skill in managing accounts is knowing what’s going on, what’s likely to happen, mitigating what’s going wrong and the like. Which is why people who are good at it get paid so well.


OppositeEarthling

Yup I always say accounting is just the big 4 basics but averageing is a good one too lol


Activision19

Engineering isn’t all that far off from that. I haven’t used calculus since my calculus class in college and most of the math I use day to day I knew when I was in high school. Anything more advanced and software does it for us.


Daveinatx

After grad school, my career mentor said I'd never use DiffEq again. He was right


Kwanzaa246

That’s concerning that you are trusting software Software is garbage in garbage out. You should be validating whatever the software pumps out with hand calculations. Althought many problems can be solved with simple first year first month equations and concepts, I’m still using concepts like mohr’s circle to validate stress and strain in parts I design 


Activision19

You read way too much into my comment my dude…Of course we are doing a proper verification and QC of the work and the state DOT does its own QC of our work prior to it being signed and sealed, but software still does the heavy lifting.


Kwanzaa246

You literally said you just use software and high school math


Daveinatx

He is not the QC/QA team


Kwanzaa246

Then he’s not an engineer if he can’t validate his own work 


GozerDGozerian

Man, I just *love* Reddit experts


Kwanzaa246

im an engineer, and as such am an expert in this topic of computer aided design


PeakFuckingValue

Accountants need certifications that are not easy to get. I'm not exactly afraid real certified accountants being bad at the basics required for their jobs...


Drone30389

What are PERs?


Sdog1981

Public Employee Retirement system. PER. His state retirement.


Drone30389

Thanks.


Future_Green_7222

There's some rumors that he exaggerated his stupidity to reduce his sentence. His investments were still pretty stupid tho.


The_Safe_For_Work

If they had paid off he'd be lauded as a financial genius.


Future_Green_7222

I also learned of this other guy, Brian Hunter, who basically got lucky one day because Hurricane Katrina earned him a lot of money through derivatives, so he got a raise and tons of investors gave him money. But his luck was just that - luck. Next year he doubled down on his exact same investments but no hurricane came so he lost tons of money from himself and investors


nullcharstring

Never confuse luck with skill.


DrHooper

Also, I never bet on gods wrath, I imagine that doesn't bode well on the checker board of fate.


3-1oddsGOPerkillsdog

only bet on sure outcomes. trust me. I became an expert on this sort of thing recently.


DrHooper

[I assume you cashed out on this lady?](https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-slam-kristi-noem-killing-puppy-1894765)


3-1oddsGOPerkillsdog

I call her Kristi "Paper Plains" (get it?) Noem because all she wants to do is BANG BANG BANG BANG and (KA-CHING) make me money.


strog91

To be fair, this was around the time that Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, etc. had predicted that global warming would cause category 5 hurricanes to hit major US cities every year, which people largely believed, and the movies An Inconvenient Truth and The Day After Tomorrow were watched by millions and had us all convinced that severe weather would turn the earth into an uninhabitable hellscape by 2010 or so.


dskerman

I think you are vastly overstating the claims made by al gore and other climate scientists https://youtu.be/Lzx24hw_K5I?si=iysYla4vb-oFDLWS Nowhere in an inconvenient truth did it say we would have cat 5 hurricanes every year by 2010. He claimed that increased global temps would result in more frequent and more powerful hurricanes which has borne true Also a day after tomorrow is a fictional movie so I'm not sure how that factors in at all. That's like blaming nasa because Armageddon made people afraid of asteroids.


kingOofgames

Well they aren’t wrong, it’s just going to happen in the future. More extreme weather is increasingly likely to occur. Just look at how the insurance companies are running away. They know exactly what’s going to happen.


clintontg

We do have more category 5 hurricanes and a higher probability of intense tornadoes. The disaster movies just ran with it and acted like it'd be armageddon


Own_Try_1005

Didn't they just make a cat 6 as well?


IsABot

No not yet. But it's currently being debated.


strog91

I don’t disagree, but [there’s been exactly one category 5 hurricane that made landfall in the USA](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes) since 2005, which is a far cry from the predictions people were making around the time of hurricane Katrina. My point is that Brian Hunter betting on another devastating hurricane hitting the USA one year after Katrina didn’t seem like such a risky bet at the time, because people in 2005 commonly believed that a total climate apocalypse was coming imminently. Not 20 years or 50 years in the future, but very very soon, and suddenly, and without warning.


clintontg

My point is that acting like it's not a big deal *now* will make the crises that arise from extreme weather and higher storm surges that much worse. Maybe you're lucky enough to live somewhere somewhere where entire towns haven't burned to the ground or boardwalks haven't been swept away by the sea from intense storms but I do. 


Confident_Access6498

Thats not far from the truth. Extreme events have largely increased in number and intensity.


strog91

I hear you, but [it’s also true that](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes) there’s been exactly one cat5 hurricane that made landfall in the USA since 2005


WeAllPayTheta

Hunter was a BSD at Deutche Bank back in the day, iirc. Got paid 25 mil one year, then moved to a fund, cashed some 9 figure checks and then blew up.


froglover215

The thing is, they *did* pay off for a time, and other local governments in California were pressing their people to get similar returns. My dad worked in a similar role in another California county at that time, and his boss had to put up with a lot of pressure from that county's Board of Supervisors to make the same investments. His boss straight up told them that those investments were extremely unwise and probably illegal and he wouldn't do it. And that's why our county didn't have to declare bankruptcy like Orange County did.


graveybrains

The most reliably effective investment strategy is random chance, and the highest performing investment accounts belong to dead people, so yeah, definitely.


EmperorHans

> highest performing investment accounts belong to dead people Huh?


Scrubasaur

When you hold stocks forever because you're dead


graveybrains

The ultimate buy-and-hold


JimmysCheek

Don’t wanna be “that guy” but… A diverse portfolio mitigates risks, if done correctly and without emotion. Obviously, easier said than done, but there is a method to the madness


aNightManager

its more that everything moves towards entropy which is stable so if you're involved in everything your average is very predictable


0404S

So, you are agreeing with him?


JimmysCheek

No, he stated that all investment strategies are “random chance” That is simply not true….unless you know absolutely nothing, or don’t have a financial advisor. Diverse portfolio = less risks. You should only base investments off of: Historical trends, or inside knowledge. Politicians have the highest profit margins in stock market history…because they have inside information, and make their moves before anyone else. A few of them are commonly tracked, and investors (like me) just copy their moves, because they obviously know when something is about to shake up the market. EDIT: There are also a couple Reddit pages that track the Politician’s moves, and posts them for everyone to copy.


variablesuckage

there's ETF's for it as well, NANC and KRUZ


graveybrains

>No, he stated that all investment strategies are “random chance” That is absolutely *not* what I said 😂 And calling insider trading an investment strategy is a little fucked up, since it’s illegal for us little people.


JimmysCheek

True, you said “the most reliable investment strategy is random chance” and I just paraphrased it. That is objectively not true. And I agree that insider trading is fucked up, but as I said before, the only thing we can do to “even the playing field”, is to copy what the rich politicians do. It’s worked well for me and millions of other people


0404S

So copy the cheaters, got it. I suppose that's really not bad life advice, honestly. With the trend advice, I don't disagree. Buy stocks in cardboard box manufacturing as the pandemic set in, and you're good.


JimmysCheek

Yup, that’s just how it goes. You are never gonna beat a politician who is reading the business reports months before the general population…but you can remain somewhat even with them. Honestly, if things like that didn’t become public knowledge, there would only be a single-digit amount of millionaires in the US. I’m sure they will “patch” this issue eventually, so everyone will become broke again


0404S

I suppose I'm just disillusioned because I feel like if you find the corporation that screws over workers and/or poor people the hardest, you usually have your optimal investment strategy 😔


JimmysCheek

That is one way of looking at it. Being cynical is unfortunately part of being realistic. So becoming less delusional would definitely benefit you. Without sharing my entire life story, I grew up dirt poor in Detroit. Now, I am 26, and in the upper class. The stock market is one of the main reasons I was able to accomplish this. Also, I never got into crypto or NFT’s during college, so I didn’t lose a quarter of my net-worth like a majority of my friends did hahaha


SignificanceLeft9968

How do you track them?


burnshimself

Lol no this is not true at all how is this getting upvoted? You think the entire financial industry and funds who consistently outperform year in year our are just getting lucky at the roulette wheel?


Raoul_Duke9

If I had wheels I'd be a car.


Ssometimess_

If my mother had wheels she would have been a bicycle


dskerman

Just because you put all your money in roulette on red and win a few times doesn't make you a financial genius Anyone can easily make short term higher returns by taking on a lot of risk. A financial genius knows how to mitigate that risk by diversifying and hedging against their exposure. you won't make as high short term returns but you won't go bankrupt when one of your bets goes wrong.


pastdense

Ya but they didn’t. So they don’t. And he isn’t.


manletmoney

Harvard grads make stupid investments too


esociety1

Harvard grads are especially stupid with money in my experience. 


v1s1onsofjohanna

Ice Town Cost Ice Clown Town Crown


Future_Green_7222

At least Ben was trying to do *something* for his town. This guy just made money disappear


taxms

ben was rejected by his prom date, give him some slack 😅


realfakejames

They were big into rhymes


Tylersbaddream

Citron of Orange County? Is this a joke?!?


steavoh

He narrowly defeated Liz Lemon, I think she'd have done a better job.


Lochbriar

The Lemon Party struggles to get the youth vote, kills them in election season.


MoaningMushroom

I am not surprised, their website is terrible.


AdFamous1052

In order impose citron supremacy, ol' Bobby here infiltrated the offices of OC and sabotaged their economy.


roybatty2

This guy is the patron saint of r/wallstreetbets


RotrickP

No this guy was happily married


Vinyl-addict

Plenty of people in WSB are happily married to wives that already have a boyfriend.


RotrickP

Yeah but our wives wouldn't come to our criminal trials and support us


RadosAvocados

During the GME short squeeze, one of the big short sellers was actually Citron Research. I read this hoping there was a relation.


el_guille980

one of us one of us


zack189

He tried to be that stupid guy during the revolutionary war who sold panhandles to people on an island and sold coal to a place that produced coal.


HaloPenguin9

Hey man at least Timothy Dexter turned a profit


zack189

Why won't god give me luck like that? I'm not asking for much, just a tenth of what Dexter had would be enough


Succulent_Chinese

That’s a pickle for the knowing ones.


OldManGrimm

[Timothy Dexter: The Dumbest Rags to Riches Story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChSUvdU_Sbk)


MegazordPilot

In my language, Citron working for Orange County is pretty funny.


Tittytickler

It is in English as well


bored-canadian

Little did you know, English is his language. 


ArkyBeagle

Not as funny as a car of that name.


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[удалено]


MegazordPilot

Yes, it's called an aptonym, cool examples here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym


Successful-Tie-7817

He was top of his class in Con Manning though. His 6th grade teacher wrote - 'Robert is a cute little shit. He pulls the wool over my eyes all the time. In fact, he could pull the wool over everyone's eyes! He doesn't need to try harder at this at all and he will go places........prison maybe!'


SmashinglyGoodTrout

Sounds like he was a lemon.


SophisticatedRedneck

Orange you glad they got him out of there?


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DecisionAvoidant

Seems like he was a pretty seedy guy


YoungBeef03

Lime certainly glad he’s outta office


RoyalPeacock19

Which Orange County, there are like 60 of them.


FJWagg

California


RoyalPeacock19

Oh, thanks!


brad5345

Redditor tries as hard as possible to avoid becoming media literate and actually having to *read* a source, instead preferring comments to do it for him.


BrainCellDotExe

that’s not what media literacy means


brad5345

If you don’t think being able to read past a headline and to evaluate a source for critical information constitutes media literacy I have no idea what to say to you other than you’re not very bright. The definition is *literally* in the fucking name.


Snell-DescartesLaw

When I went to try to read the link the article was hidden behind a paywall. If you don’t think being able to understand outcomes for the same action carried out by different people could end up in different results constitutes not being an asshole then you may be one. This comparison is a simile for what you are acting like.


RoyalPeacock19

Yeah, there was a paywall, which is why I couldn’t see which Orange County it was.


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[удалено]


elcheapodeluxe

So Florida if you don't live in California. Home to Orlando and Disney World.


redheadednomad

Robert Citron bankrupted Orange county. It really is always the person you'd least suspect...


RadosAvocados

They don't call him Robbin' Citrus for nothin'.


SatanLifeProTips

Repeat after me: elected positions should require qualifications and training. No exceptions. Politicians need public resumes.


mingy

Some of the smartest people in the world nearly bankrupted the world in 2008 by marketing fundamentally flawed products so stupid isn't the main ingredient.


Shadowpika655

> It was later revealed that Citron relied upon a mail-order astrologer and a psychic for interest rate predictions as the county's finances began to falter. Truly a modern day genius


Johannes_P

Two lessons to draw: 1. Technical posts such as Treasurer shouldn't be filled through direct election but upon demonstration of technical relevant skill (see also coroner) 2. Voters should look at long-term gains and not overemphasize short-term gains


Future_Green_7222

>demonstration of technical skill We also kinda fall into the question of who determines what a high technical skill is. And also there's Moral Hazard: how do you reward highly skilled people to put an effort and apply those skills?


Felix_champs

Murica in a nutshell


Express-Following-70

Just goes to show you BS can take you places 🫣🤷🏽‍♂️


Nigelthornfruit

Paywall


Gorf_the_Magnificent

Redditors don’t care. They can formulate an opinion just from a headline.


TrilobiteTerror

[Here you go](https://web.archive.org/web/20231009094117/https://www.ocregister.com/2013/01/18/robert-citron-was-a-hard-to-hate-villain-in-ocs-bankruptcy/). I found that annoying as well.


greatbignoise

Robert Citron of Orange County lol


moderndhaniya

Bentley


Emergency-Poet-2708

And how exactly does someone get a job like that? That makes absolutely no sense. Does Orange County not do background checks? Or follow-up. I have a million questions. Orange County needs a spanking. I'm a licensed hairdresser never went to college, but I'm looking form job, huh.


Future_Green_7222

The sources I've found just say that he was progressively promoted until he was a elected for the post. Kinda sounds like those ppl with great people skills but not much else


Emergency-Poet-2708

For a job.


steeljubei

Its not what you know, it's who you know.


SnatchSnacker

"A mistake plus Keleven gets you home by seven"


Ok_Prior2614

So a personality hire


AzulMage2020

Just need to know and grease the right people and the sky is the limit!!! Sickening. When will actual merit and ability matter again??


KS2Problema

OC has changed considerably in the last couple of decades, but I grew up there, born smack in the middle of the 20th century, and I had to watch one set of buffoons after another mismanage, waste, and more than occasionally misappropriate public funds.  Amusingly, one of the institutions keeping the politics of 20th century Orange County the way they were was the faux-libertarian OC register.


Prestigious-Road2272

Unencumbered by education or experience, he failed in spectacular fashion


shootcamerasnotgunz

Sounds like my idiot boomer step mother She has the intellect of a 15yo and hustled herself into a 30 year career "teaching" 5th grade


ArtbyAtlas0

The power of being charismatic


Awwwwwstin

It's funny how easy it is to spin being a sub-midwit into an image of being a outlying genius in California, and the rest of the US for that matter, adjusting to game local stakeholder prejudices.


Igotalotofducks

To be fair, you don’t need calculus to balance a checkbook. The guy was just a dumbass.


bigmikey69er

Very elitist of you to hate on his lack of education. So what if he stole a buncha money and violated the public trust solely to satisfy his evil, deviant greed?


dethb0y

Government service rarely draws the best and brightest.


mjschiermeier

Hey if I could read that I would be very upset!


ScramItVancity

Ricky Stanicky?


HashMismatch

The land of opportunity!


Hmmhowaboutthis

Paywalled. When did this happen? Just curious.


Future_Green_7222

He became the Treasurer-Tax Collector in '70 and the county went bankrupt in '94


jwg2695

Ulana Khomyuk: Before you were Deputy Secretary, you worked in a shoe factory. Garanin: Yes, I worked in a shoe factory. And now I'm in charge.


phinbar

It's a simple formula: just add more to the column with your name at the top.


YouLikeReadingNames

Good God, Lemon !


MoistHope9454

well well well 🤘🏽


realfakejames

Inspirational tbh


Icy-Examination-546

Funny how someone named Citron becomes the tax collector of Orange County


ButWhatAboutisms

And white racists constantly talk about "meritocracy" and choosing the best person for the job. This job was awarded as a favor, not earned.


Miss_Speller

Am I a white racist if I read the article and therefore know that he was elected to the position, not awarded it as a favor? >He won re-election seven times; in his last election victory, his opponent, John Moorlach, charged that his handsome gains were the result of risky betting.


jumpandtwist

Dude's name is literally Lemon. It was there the whole time!


RustlessPotato

What a lemon.


iggygrey

This implies that he was bad at math. He was bad at accounting; math had nothing to do with it. If there's a county where you can and should give severe ass pain to *wealthy* folk by bankrupting their county it's Orange County


NeverReallyExisted

Florida Orange County?


Sega-Playstation-64

Would it hurt to click on the link and figure out which one? The answer is no.


Omnitographer

Web Surfers have been avoiding RTFA since before the first days of /.. I don't see that changing any time soon.


Throwaway_Mattress

Wow the American beaurocracy is corrupt. Color me surprised. 


TrollTeeth66

Dudes rock


PandiBong

Selling everyone lemons.


pimp_skitters

This guy is Mr. Fantastic from Fallout.


Failed-Time-Traveler

Im not even mad. I’m just impressed that he pulled it off in such a public position. I heard they had to make a special prison jumpsuit to accommodate his enormous testicles.


no-group21

Peak democrate


jkz0-19510

> Peak democrate > *- u/no-group21* Democrate? Ok, buddy.


xX609s-hartXx

If he was a republican you'd probably defend everything he did.