July 24 we got the Rigas "perp walk" and the markets rallied. Arthur andersen was put out of business. A couple of the Enron and Tyco guys were indicted. As far as I can tell, not much else has happened. Bernie Ebbers, Gary Winnick, Jack Grubman, Robert Rubin, the heads of Goldman, Morgan, Merrill, the crooked analysts, the CEO's who pumped and dumped their stock on CNBC, nothing has happened to any of them. Oh yeah, some banks were forced to pay some protection money in the form of settlements to the state AG's. BFD. How much did they net out of the fraud that they ran on innocent investors? I have to agree with Jim Cramer that the SEC and Justice Department seem more interested in teenage internet pump and dump operators than big time crooks. Drexel Burnham was small time compared to this. Don't blame it soley on the Republicans either. Most of this stuff happened on Clinton's watch, and plenty of big money Dem's are up to their eyeballs in this stuff. Sen. Corzine ran Goldman, Robert Rubin tried to get the Treasury to use its influence to stall the Enron debacle, Clinton money man Terry McAuliffe made millions on Global Crossing. Wonder how much ended up with Clinton? A couple of months ago the Wall Street inspired backlash started, along the lines of how unfair it was to penalize these brokers and analysts who were just going along with the program. What BS. Now apparently it's not news anymore. You lost 12 trillion dollars but hey, that's life, don't expect anyone to do anything about it and as long as you're on the line, how about some Janus funds or a hot IPO? Mary Meeker has a buy on this one. Oh yeah, I'm in. I continue to be astounded that there is not more public outrage over this. People get more excited over a service charge on their ATM card. Both political parties are missing the opportunity of a generation to brand themselves as the champion of individual investors, all 100 million and growing of us. Guess it's more important to maintain stability on Wall Street.
Any politician that tried to pin the charge of "lost all the little guy's money" on some business leaders would look like an idiot, third worldish dictatorship rhetoric, at best. Max
but the fundamental problem is that this is no different then what's been going on and will continue to go on....The market has been used illegally from the begriming of time and although they continue to legislate it...there's always a way around it...but the question I have is this: WHAT IF? what if they hit Goldman. Merrill and S. Barney in the teeth for this? and all the analysts? dow 4000 naz 500?????? Who would that hurt more? The insiders on the street who will sell short or the mom and pop 401k holders who will hold long term thru thick and thin?
So I just imagined all that corruption? And actually I think standing for investors who have been screwed by Wall Street and crooked CEO's who basically stole hundreds of millions would be pretty good politics.
They put Drexel out of business and the markets survived. There might be some short term volatility but I think the increase in invesotr confidence in knowing the same crooks were not still running things would ultimately bolster the markets. I guess the answer to my question is no, people really aren't that angry. They think it was just good business to give Bernie Ebbers huge IPO allocations in his personal account in exchange for banking business from a publicly held company. Of course, if they put every CEO who abused their shareholders with that scam in jail, they would have to build a few more Club Fed's. And I guess people are cool with the idea that their mutual and pension funds slavishly voted to approve obscene CEO comp packages. Just good corporate governance and had nothing to do with getting pension fund management assignments.
How would you or I know that "people" are angry? Were people really that incensed about the Trent Lott comment, or was it selective media coverage and editorializing? Were 290 million people really so captivated by Elian Gonzalez as to require a two-month 24/7 media circus, or was the media driving it? Those that are familiar with this situation are not surprised by it, and those that aren't are already on to the next brittany spears striptease or awards show or whatever they're being sold today. There are great numbers of people that have been injured here, but apparently they don't have much political clout. Meanwhile, there might be quite a few people with an interest in minimizing coverage/hype of this to the extent possible. JMHO.
How much was lost due to crooks versus how much was simply evaporated due to the bubble deflating? Most of it was just the bubble deflating. Busting all those bad guys would not reinflate it. Max