whacked for less

Perusing Reader Comments on the Anthony Wiener story definitely puts a person into some "Reb Tevye moments":
That Commenter was right.
And that Comment is right.
('They can't both be right.')
And you, also, are right.

Somehow, a couple of Commenters veered onto the subject of the economy -- probably because someone mentioned, Why are we paying attention to this trivial fuss when there are bigger problems? -- also it was linked with other sex scandals, for example the one with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in 2008...

A Reader from Michigan Commented in:
Our economy does better when we have a healthy middle class that can afford things, the foolish greed rampant on Wall Street is short-sighted and hurts us all.  Eliot Spitzer and his type are too rare these days.  Wall Street desperately needs a sheriff and as Teddy Roosevelt isn't available and there aren't many other solid prospects (everyone else seems to be eyeing the revolving door) -- I say bring Spitzer back!

same Reader, with a second Comment:
Wall Street survived and prospered with reasonable regulation from 1934 through the Reagan / Clinton / Bush idiotic deregulation.  Where's Wall Street going to go?  London?  Nope, already a center and better regulated; Toronto?  Nope, reasonable regulations; Mexico City; Dakar; Johannesburg; Shanghai?  Hah hah hah.  Fat chance.  Wall Street will whine and lament over their 25 year old scotch and Cuban cigars and then go on with making slightly less billions with a more productive outcome, if we give them the chance.

and a 2nd Reader answered:
Spitzer was run out of town because Wall Street hated his attempts to regulate them, and throw the worst of them in jail where they belonged.  He singlehandedly could have avoided the crash in 2008 if he'd stayed there doing his job.  Considering the downside, this makes him fearless; people have been whacked for less.  Bring Back Spitzer!

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...then today, as I was absorbing and trying to understand those Comments and their implications, this New York Times story comes at us:

----------------Federal authorities, under fire for handling Wall Street with kid gloves, have delivered a crippling blow to one of its most successful firms, SAC Capital Advisors, whose outsize trading profits have drawn government scrutiny for more than a decade.

Calling SAC "a veritable magnet of market cheaters," federal prosecutors announced criminal charges against the hedge fund on Thursday, a rare move against a large company that could threaten its survival.  The authorities argued that the firm and its units permitted a "systematic" insider trading scheme to unfold from 1999 to 2010, activity that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for the firm, owned by its founder, the billionaire stock picker Steven A. Cohen. ...

The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and the F.B.I., which brought the charges, have spearheaded the largest and most prominent securities fraud cases in the nation's history, including those against Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and Raj Rajaratnam.  Yet

federal prosecutors on Thursday portrayed the "rampant insider trading" at SAC as having no equal,

pointing to more than a decade of abuses that took place while managers turned a blind eye.

...At the height of SAC's powers in 2006 and 2007, Mr. Cohen is reported to have earned about $900 million each year, helping to give the firm a certain mystique.  But it also generated whispers about whether the fund routinely crossed the line.

...SAC, the indictment says...recruited employees who possessed what the fund called "an edge," including one trader who was fired from another hedge fund on suspicion of insider trading....

Mr. Cohen, 57, was not charged, but the 41-page indictment is a stinging attack on him nonetheless, declaring that he "fostered a culture that focused on not discussing inside information too openly, rather than not seeking or trading on such information in the first place."  Last week,

the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil action against Mr. Cohen, accusing him of failing to supervise his employees.

The criminal indictment lists eight former SAC employees who the government said engaged in misconduct while at the fund; six of them have already pleaded guilty to individual criminal charges, and are expected to testify....-----------------[end Article excerpt]
written:  Peter Lattman and Ben Protess.

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5 of the Reader Comments:

Ossining, NY -- Simply organized crime.  Greedier, and more dangerous to the economy than the Mafia, yet much less intriguing, and in some ways much more repulsive.  Now, how about Goldman for their crimes?

Asia -- Sadly, the entire finance industry is one big magnet for cheating.

Marlton, New Jersey -- You forgot Congress--also a magnet.  In fact America's so called elite got there mostly by cheating and / or connections.
Amorality if not immorality is absolutely a prerequisite to get to the top.  Ambition and ability are not enough.  Just look at all our doped up professional athletes, politicians who have gone to jail, CEOs who have gone to jail (except for the ones who are TOO BIG to be handcuffed ex. Blankfein et al.)
And they pick on the desperate guy standing on the corner selling some reefers to rich white kids from the burbs.

[This Comment was from an NYC guy who works in financial industry and has associated with SAC's Mr. Cohen] -- ...I do think Steve lives an empty existence of dealing with all of this stress when he has so much money that every marginal dollar is useless to him (law of diminishing returns to scale)

[[ I don't understand that Comment but found it interesting. B-C-L]]

David from Portland, Oregon -- I look at other poker players' cards before I make my bet.  That makes me a poker genius who deserves vast sums of wealth ...

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