Author: admin
In ?A Dirty Business? in the June 27th issue of The New Yorker, staff writer George Packer reports on the trial of hedge-fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, who was convicted last month in the largest case of insider trading in history.
In an interview with NPR?s Steve Inskeep, Packer says the trial revealed a pervasive culture of ?casual corruption? on Wall Street:
Just the way in which people would make the decision to break the law, to commit a felony, to trade on inside information almost without thinking very hard about it, as if it was part of the way they did business. And I think it was the way many of them did business before the crash.
And there?s just so many examples in this case of people who Raj Rajaratnam, the defendant, reached out to corrupt, and who allowed themselves to be corrupted. I think it suggests that it was a part of the culture of this world, such that it?s not a big leap for a law abiding person to begin to break the law.
Rajaratnam didn?t personally cause the financial crisis of 2008, but Packer writes that the crisis haunted the trial. The prosecution?s wiretaps show that, even as the government desperately tried to save the banking system, Rajaratnam gamed the system to make even more money:
While the ocean liner was sinking, these leaders of finance and industry were focussed on keeping their chips from sliding off the lower deck?s poker table. The wiretaps, which breached the normally soundproof walls of hedge funds, told a breathtaking tale of selfish, short-term thinking.
Despite Rajaratnam?s wealth and status, he wasn?t the worst of the worst. Packer notes, ?One former prosecutor compared the financial crisis to international narcotics trafficking, and insider trading to street-level drug dealing.?
So why haven?t there been more financial-crisis prosecutions?
The prosecutor in the case, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, told Packer that proving criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt can be extremely difficult in cases in which bank executives might have misled investors. Often what looks like solid evidence doesn?t hold up under deeper examination. Also, the government?s resources are limited (the whole budget of the S.E.C. is less than Rajaratnam?s net worth at the time of his arrest), and Congress has failed to pass meaningful reform.
So here we are, almost three years after the crisis, which one banker described to Packer as nothing more than a ?speed bump.?
Read the whole story here.
Tags: corruption, finance, financial crisis, George Packer, insider trading, Raj Rajaratnam, The New Yorker, Wall Street
ricky rubio rosetta stone stubhub weather nyc rimm phil mickelson california dmv
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.