Prosecuting Wall Street

Why hasn't anyone on Wall Street gone to jail?

I've been thinking this as Fuel Fix has been doing a retrospective on Ernon

Related?

"On the websites"

In honor of C-Ray:

Labou via Hulu.

Note C-Ray's speech at about 1:24-1:25 or so.

"...and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"

Check out AZ for the juicy details from the St. Pierre trial. Some of the best blogging I've ever read.

UPDATE- Much more to read at my new favorite site, Slabbed

Found on the Idiot Page

Usually, the Letters to the Editor page is pretty dumb. My dad sometimes called it the "Idiot Page."

There were a few interesting ones recently, though.


James Gill wrote a wonderful little article comparing Congressman turned convict William Jefferson's illegal bribery to Congressman turned lobbyist Bob Livingston's legal bribery. Livingston was not amused, but his response shows how out of touch he is with reality. A couple of readers were happy to point out how asinine his response was.

Violence begins at home. Reader points out how so many parents, whether they are black or white trash, seem to derive plenty of perverse pleasure from beating the shit out of their 2-8 -year-olds.

I saw a future killer Monday. He was about 2 years old.

As he and his mother stood on the corner of South Broad Street and Louisiana Avenue, she was not holding his hand. And as cars passed and he slowly began toddling into the street he tripped and fell (fortunately). His mother pulled him up by the shirt like a rag doll and smacked him in the head, then continued across the street yelling at him as she dragged him by his upper arm with his feet barely touching the ground. This is a common scenario that most of us have witnessed...

That's one of the things that really sickens me about New Orleans.

Bad week for Goldman Sachs

If you haven't read The Great Bubble Machine by Matt Taibbi, take the time to do so. It's a very broad article, so it doesn't nail Goldman down as well as a more specific article and it's by no means a complete catalog of their sins, but it captures the scope of Goldman's transgressions and reach.

Goldman Sachs has called even more attention to Taibbi's piece by howling about the article. Here's Taibbi vs. Van Praag (Goldman Vice President/PR-guy nicknamed "Von Doom").

Even the NY Times noted the Goldman's PR shitstorm: The dense revolving-door conflicts of interest are appalling. Goldman is howling about Taibbi’s article, but the bottom line was articulated last week by the economic blogger Felix Salmon of Reuters. He wrote that he couldn’t “think of a single government regulation over the past couple of decades which has remotely harmed Goldman Sachs” as opposed to the many that “have done it a world of good.”

And just to cap it off, a hacker stole some of their secret trading code and shipped it to Eastern Europe.

I think the most devastating indictment of Goldman Sachs came from analyzing their trading for major clients (universities, pension funds, etc.). Zero Hedge has been tracking their trades for major clients and developed a compelling case of Goldman front running major trades. Goldman will buy up some shares, then process the (large volume) purchases for their client, then sell their front-run shares. The institutional purchase will be so large, it moves the market. Goldman is shafting their client and putting trust in the whole system at risk for a fairly small pot of money. How did Goldman respond to Zero Hedge? They pressured the NYSE to stop releasing data that caught their hand in the cookie jar.

There is one bright spot out there: among the requirements being considered in new banking regulations: extremely large reserve requirements for mega-corporations (Citi/Goldman/etc.). Now there's a regulation that would put a crimp on Goldman. If you pose a lot of risk to the system, you have to carry around extra reserves to go along with your risk. We'll see what happens with the regulation.

UPDATE: Goldman will be laughing all the way to the bank. Massive profits for the last remaining investment bank.

"At a time when the supposedly progressive party controls all the political branches of the federal government, our economy is being run like a glorified banana republic." -LGM

Meanwhile, Krugman says more signs pointing to a jobless recovery.

UPDATE 2- Goldman Sachs employee caught doing what they do best (fuck us). Unfortunately, this 15-year-old girl was actually an undercover cop.

UPDATE 3- Bashing Goldman Sachs is a Game for Fools. By Michael Lewis. Bitingly satirical take on Goldman's recent woes. Well worth your time. Lewis has been on a roll with his last few articles.

Greg Meffert's Complete Deposition

Here's the link for the total (~1000 page) deposition. Here's the great thing about it: it's searchable text!!! Hit Control-F and search for all the references to 4000 Downman Road.

Most of the last 300 or so pages, up until now unpublished, concern various trips paid for by Mark St. Pierre.

Page 921:

For example, the Chicago NFC trip. Here's Dambala's post about it from over a year ago.

Page 909:

Ah, the infamous Hawaii trip. There's an interesting claim that Meffert claimed all these trips on his income taxes. Feds, you interested in some income tax evasion? Maybe get some restitution to shore up the deficit? I'm sure you could not only squeeze a few G's out of Meffert, but you could also squeeze some out of much bigger fish.

Page 963:

The company suing Greg Meffert, et. al. never paid for anyone to go on any trips. Gee, I guess they just didn't know how the Nagin administration likes to run their business.

White Collar Crime

I can't post the clip (thank you, Viacom), but there was a great episode of the Chappelle Show where they contrasted the treatment of blue collar criminals with white collar criminals, except in the sketch, they were flipped. The ponzi-scheme mastermind had his home invaded by machine gun toting police, his dog was shot, his wife and kid dragged out of bed, and he was badly beaten before being thrown in central lockup in his underwear. The drug runner (played by Chappelle) was hauled before a Senate subcommittee, asked questions (very courteously) by the senators, and he took the fifth, or in Chappelled case, "I take the fif."

Well, white collar crime does a hell of a lot of damage to this country. Look at the huge mess in the financial world, much of which was caused by blatantly illegal acts. Here are a few episodes of white collar crime that stick out.

Lawyers are "Life Support" for organized crime. Related:
Defense Lawyer Charged With Witness Tampering. More lawyers should see the inside of prison, and I don't mean visiting clients...

Joe Cassano peers out his spider-hole. Looks like the Feds are homing in on the dude that was chronicled in Matt Taibbi's piece. Exiled suggests he have his teeth removed, so they're not punched out for him in prison (I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out why).

Papers Show Wachovia Knew of Thefts - New York Times. Wachovia aids telemarketing fraudsters because of lucrative fees... Related (?): 24 indicted for mortgage fraud ring. Wouldn't be surprised if it turns out the banks didn't check these mortgage applications as closely as they were required to, because they the bank got to bundle up the fraudulent mortgages into a mortgage-backed security and make a boatload of money selling it to pension funds, Chinese investors, etc. Suckers! More related: "Very clever."

Morgan Stanley's 13% Payout Offer To Short Ford Stock. MS using taxpayer funds to short Ford, the only domestic automaker still hanging on strong (at least for now).

How helpful are your bankers? Well, try banking with UBS. Their so helpful, they'll even smuggle diamonds in toothpaste past the TSA for you. Now, many UBS clients are facing huge IRS fines and possibly even jail time for willful acts of tax evasion on a massive scale. Some of the tax evaders are crying their eyes out to their lawyers. Bo-hoo. Fuck 'em.