One of the biggest insider of all time seems to be ... the father of John kennedy, Joseph Kennedy who even after all his crimes was appointed SEC Chairman later by Roosevelt !!! From: Cecil Adams's "Return of the Straight Dope" (ISBN 0-345-38111-4) "...he set about mastering the secrets of insider trading, management pools, and selling short. Soon he was hhead of the stocks department and on his way to his first million..." [p. 41] "Joseph P. Kennedy had made his first big killing in the winter of 1923. For an outlay of only $24,000---on credit---he'd used insider information given him by Galen Stone and had reaped a profit of more than a half a million dollars---$675,000---in fact---on Pond Creek Coal Company shares. [...] Sitting in his office, [...] Joe Kennedy now indulged in financial larceny on vast an unseen scale, manipulating share pricess with other hands in secret stock pools designed specifically to hoodwink investors. His growing expertise neeted him a second fortune in the spring of 1924..." [p.51] Joe's further dealings are many and varied, including film deals, and not all as profitable as the insider trading. He also tried to become a wire-puller in politics, and helped to elect Roosevelt president in 1932. "...November 1933. Mr. Kennedy had abandoned plans to see Mussolini. Instead, having used Jimmy Roosevelt to open doors that would have otherwise been closed to him, Kennedy managed to obtain the exclusive United States distributership for Haig & Haig, Gordon't Dry Gin, Pinchbottle, and other British liquors in anticipation of the repeal of Prohibition." [p. 101. Footnoted as coming from David E. Koskoff, _Joeseph P. Kennedy_ (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1974] And finally, a little irony: "On June 28, 1934, President Roosevelt finally rewarded Kennedy for his work in the 1932 election campaign. Countering all objections with the words "it takes a thief to catch a thief," he appointed Joeseph P. Kennedy the first chairman of a new regulatory agency to tidy up the nation's stock market: the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. To the consternation of all, the notorious stock-market swindler Joeseph P. Kennedy would become stock-market reformer." [p. 109]
Now you know how to have a chance to become SEC Chairman : be a great thief or insider and you get the necessary expertise to be considered a good candidate
A testimony that shows the real role of the "independant" SEC EVEN TODAY : http://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/s71698/marino1.txt Subject: S7-16-97 Date: 8/13/98 6:49 PM You have gotten to being kidding!!!! I have contacted the SEC numerous times and continue as a matter of courtesy to e:mail the agency regarding the recent contacts that I have made. Mr Arthur Levitt Chairman of the SEC has at various times chastised the CPAs for not doing enough to uncover fraud. That is some joke when you consider the role that the SEC has played in covering-up a major stock market manipulation case. Remember, it was the SEC who supported the brokerage industry by allowing them to monitor and dispose of consumer complaints. The SEC went so far under Shad as to state, in their friend of the stockbrokerage industry brief in the McMahon v. Shearson case that went before the US Supreme Court in 1987, that the SEC monitors arbitration cases. In my case the SEC covered-up a stock market manipulation case.. It was Ira Sorkin, former Northeast SEC administrator, who confessed to the press in 1986 that self-regulation never worked. It was he who refused to investigate my case because he considered the fact that Merrill Lynch had performed their own extensive internal investigation. (I have an SEC internal memorandum that supports the statement Sorkin made to Shad). They certainly did. They got rid of their workpapers that supported earnings projections that were 100% off the mark and not corrected until the end of the 11th month of the corporate calendar year. I have made a copy of the e:mail that I have forwarded to various interested news groups and organizations. [see the rest on the site it's too long]
Excellent post Harry. When I read most of your posts, I can't understand them. This clip from Bris's paper is really good.