in light of all the fraud that is not a very impressive resume in my opinion. its more like a list of people who crossed the wrong politicians. I have spoken with people on the phone at the SEC. if you think they are the good guys, I suggest you call their legal department on behalf of citizens who really wish to comply with the law.
Could be, but let's use a car building analogy. The complexity between building a cheap 15K car and a more expensive 40K car is very little, but the profit margin is much bigger in the more expensive car. So it makes more sense to build those cars. The complexity/effort between prosecuting Joe Bloe and Big Hotshot is very little, but the possible pay off for the prosecution is much bigger in the later case, so it makes more sense to try those cases. Same with the IRS, they go after the bigger fish using the same effort. Now add a politically ambitious attorney, who has plans in the future so he wants to make a name for himself, and you can see why they are not messing with Joe Blow but Mr. Big Hotshot.... Also, there is the deterrent aspect, just like with the IRS (a la Wesley Snipes) If you put Joe Blow away, nobody cares, if you put Mr. Snipes away, suddenly people are filing tax returns... P.S.: I think the whole thing started with the ex-wife being pissed and talking to the Feds 6 years ago and it rolled from there. Cohen was too pissed at her to throw a little Picasso money in her way, and look what he got in return... Never piss off a woman who knows too much about you....
Maybe because he doesn't collect dead sharks as art.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stuckist_International_Gallery_2003_(shark_1).jpg
seriously I feel for the guy : having newspapers, TV, forums and forums discussing the details of his life, mistakes, etc... must be super depressing. Though we all know how lucky he is having billions. I'd love to be his trainee. But then seems he took shortcuts on his way up. And the problem with shortcuts is one does not learn the lessons when it is relatively cheap to learn : 1)- good understanding of human nature -> so that means not letting oneself exposed by trusting the wrong person( including here obviously having married to become someone's meal ticket. Because if the woman loved him in the first place, never she'd have gone to talk to the fed no matter what. ) 2)- important to create goodwill : > extreme success will create jealousy in other people. Just now, many are actually happy of his misery. Can he list 5 people who will just be ready to help him , just because they have a positive feelings of him? Or is he just surrounded of by sharks waiting for the meal ? And people wonder why the fear of success exist. Now even in this situation, there are ways to handle all the egos involved. Hopefully he has a good team who will do that for him successfully.
<font color="009900">On the Possibility, Indeed the Probability, that Aliens from Another Universe, Have Conquered Time Travel, Visited Planet Earth, and Injected Government Agents with a Serum that Raises their Political Ambition to Levels Hitherto Unknown</font color="009900"> There are those who's inclination is to see conspiracy in government actions. All that conspiracy requires is that two or more persons work together to carry out an illegal act. So conspiracy, by its definition in law, surely must be fairly common. I believe in Ockham's razor however. So I will naturally gravitate toward explanations for events that are consistent with what is already known as fact, and if two or more possibilities exist to explain how something has happened, I will accept the simpler as being more likely. There are those who obviously don't pay much heed to this principle of William Ockham. And in their defense, I know of no rigorous proof of its efficacy having ever been offered. (This, however, would be fertile ground for a Rutgers Economics Ph.D. Dissertation. One could start with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and press-on to fill a number of pages with Jacobian matrices. ) The fact of the matter is, however, that in countless examples from everyday life we find that Ockham's razor holds true. When I read, therefore, the comical assertion of he who would want me to believe that the government is pursuing hedge fund gurus because money is needed to put down against the deficit, I am filled simultaneously with both glee and disbelief. I am tempered in my laughter by the recognition that if someone outside of government could believe in the absurd, then obviously someone inside the government could as well. But then, once this tempering subsides, I return to my hilarity. One can read nearly anything in the hallowed threads of ET. And who among us has not experienced a wayward finger heading toward the submit button, sometimes not to be stopped in time? -- "Guilty as charged, Your Honor." Mr. zdreg is the one responsible for the laughter that visited itself upon me this morning. I am hoping in all sincerity that his remark is yet another example of a "wayward finger incident", "wfi" if you prefer, and not --God help us all! -- an intentional push of the button.
Walter of Chatton : "If three things are not enough to verify an affirmative proposition about things, a fourth must be added, and so on." Karl Menger: "Entities must not be reduced to the point of inadequacy" "It is vain to do with fewer what requires more."
We do have a good number of examples where successful prosecution of the prominent or the notorious has been parlayed into a political career. It does not make sense, however, that this will very often be the motivation for initiating prosecution, but rather the incentive, sometimes, to do a rather thorough job in a manner highly visible to the media. As soon as I wrote that silly headline, Pekelo, I realized that you might think it was aimed at you. It wasn't. [edit] Oh, and Ockham's razor is not in any way inconsistent with the quotes you have given. There is not necessarily a simple explanation for everything, but according to Ockham, in the case where two or more explanations are consistent with facts, the simplest will nearly always be the correct one.
I used to look at the bright side and be an optimist til I learned how govt worked. People go into congress poor and come out fabulous wealthy. For instance... This is Schumers campaign contributors last 5 years. If you click through - and have been watching since this was pointed out to me... If you look at the break down of contributors its the hedge fund guys themselves... If you look at the law firms...They are the the wall street related firms. Then there are lobbyists. This happens all through out congress on every subject. you can not be a bright eyed optimist when in reality we have the best public officials money can buy. Schumers is what head of the finance committee and banking committee. Schumers list of contributions... http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=n00001093 Securities & Investment $2,891,064 $2,702,764 $188,300 Lawyers/Law Firms $2,255,549 $1,994,036 $261,513 Real Estate $1,316,090 $1,225,590 $90,500 Lobbyists $594,763 $584,843 $9,920 Misc Finance $522,000 $505,000 $17,000 In a way I do not even see this as schumers fault the system is set up to turn our congress into whores for the people and countries who can buy them. Eventually, when you are no longer idealistic how many people are going to turn down all the money?