alt Hacker NewsHoward Lutnick and his sons are surely happy about this. It’s almost like Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce, knew this would happen. His sons, at their firm Cantor Fitzgerald, have been offering a tariff refund product wherein they pay companies who are struggling with paying tariffs 20-30% of a potential refund, and if (as they did today) they get struck down, they pocket the 100% refund.
https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-wa...
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I wouldn’t put anything past them, but my impression is that they were just acting as a middleman for this transaction and taking a fee, rather than making a directional bet one way or another. Hedge funds have certainly been buying a lot of tariff claims, giving businesses guaranteed money upfront and betting on this outcome. But for an investment bank like Cantor Fitzgerald that would be atypical.
It’s a tax on the US economy. A tax levied by individuals rather than the government itself. An ingenious scheme. Evil, but ingenious.
> a tariff refund product wherein they pay companies who are struggling with paying tariffs 20-30% of a potential refund
For what it’s worth, I’ve personally been doing this. Not in meaningful dollar amounts. And largely to help regional businesses stay afloat. But I paid their tariffs and bought, in return, a limited power of attorney and claim to any refunds.
Is a refund even likely?
Seems more likely the administration orders everyone to ignore the court.
The Lutnick sons were also probably betting on the outcome of the case on Kalshi
A witness also reported to the FBI that Lutnick and CF are engaged in massive fraud: https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA012492... Oh and he bought his house from Epstein for $10. Nothing to see here just a criminal admin fleecing you without even shame enough to try to hide it well.
Remember when a conflict of interest was so important that Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm, because heaven forbid, he accidentally made some money while president.
Like his peanut farm would unduly sway government peanut policy.
If the court establishes that this was a tax, how would they administer the refund considering it's impossible to disentangle absorbed tariffs by firms and those passed along to consumers?
Wait you don't mean the same Howard Lutnick who was sold a mansion for the sum of ten dollars by none other than Jeffrey Epstein himself? I'm shocked.
Yeah, he's gotta finance the payments to whoever the kiddie peddler du jour is somehow. Especially now that he can't just walk next door or steer his yacht towards a conveniently located island.
And this is the same Howard Lutnick who was just last week was caught blatantly lying about his relationship with Epstein?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/new-epstein-...
Basically a bookie, eh? And the house never loses...
Most people knew this would happen, it was widely predicted.
Witkoffs profited off the UAE Spy Sheikh chips deal! Why can't Lutnicks make millions?! Come on guys. Unfair.
There's no scam too big or too small, from Trumpcoin's open bribery, to Secret Service paying 5x the GSA per diem rate to stay at Trump properties on duty.
Holy crap, you couldn't make a story that is a more direct echo of the plot point in Wonderful Life if you tried.
That’s an insane conflict of interest. His sons took over the firm? It was already bad that Lutnick took over in the first place. As I recall he sued the widow of Cantor to steal control of the company after Cantor died.
But I guess this is not very surprising. I am sure every friend and family member of Trump administration people made trades leading all those tariff announcements over the last year, while the rest of us got rocked by the chaos in the stock market.
What is this shit? 4D grifting?
He is also surely happy the Trump administration no longer sees fit to investigate or pursue anyone with connections to Epstein. Previously Lutnick had lied about the extent of their relationship, yet even after the recent relevations he can simply wave them off.
What a profitable time for the Lutnicks, who are of course already fabulously wealthy. Our system really does reward the best people.
You think at some point america would get sick of having a billionaire gang of thieves in charge.
Trump just gave himself a $10 billion dollar slush fund from taxpayers. Who stopped him? No one. This amount of money will buy you one great den.
Noem wants luxury jets from the taxpayer.
So. Much. Winning.
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I've wondered from the beginning if the whole tariff thing wasn't basically an insider operation for import/export insiders to profit off of rate arbitrage, if not outright black market operations.
That's more sadistic than I had guessed.
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Lutnicks profit requires some 2nd order thinking. How Trump et al might profit off of import/export insider operations also requires some 2nd order thinking. My apologies for not spelling it out, although it should not take much imagination.
That Lutnik is always sooooo lucky. He didn’t go to the twin towers on 9/11 cause he finally took his kid to kindergarten.
Always seems to be in the right place and the right time
Meanwhile Pam Bondi's brother is a lawyer who's firm represents clients with cases against the justice department, and those cases keep getting dropped.
- https://www.newsweek.com/trump-doj-handling-pam-bondi-brothe...
- https://abcnews.com/US/doj-drops-charges-client-ag-pam-bondi...