Wall Street Robbers ---- Taking Candy From Babies
We punish those who rob a woman of her purse on the street, steal our car, or pilfer shareholders' money. But why do so many Wall Street thieves go un-policed and un-punished?
After all, we aren't talking minor "candy" here. We're talking major dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars. Money taken from real people and for real needs and dreams - college education for the kids and retirement at 65.
Furthermore we aren't even talking about subtle acts. These acts are often balatantly obvious. Sometimes they are even semi-legal. More importantly when they're not, they know the odds of getting caught are so low as to be laughable to them. Fines are meaningless even if they are.
We know the cast of sleazy characters - certain analysts and their firms and certain Market makers and specialists, hedge fund honchos and insolent institutions. The list goes on. Analysts and CEO's are starting to get their just exposure, but what about the others?
Market Makers have been fined some in the past for abuses, but they made a good living in the 1990's. The spreads were wide and trading volume was growing. But then came decimilization and the near death of the Penny stock market. Volume slowed and spreads shrank. It got tough.
"Naked shorting" became a great answer for them, particularly when they have an institution or another major investor willing to feed them virtually endless supplies of stock, if necessary.
Hedge funds and institutions meanwhile saw power opportunities and took full advantage. Now their "buy-sell programs" control well over 50% of the Market volume on some days. They can move the markets by themselves. They also learned to profit by manipulating nervous traders who panic simply because others do. Creating a snowball effect by starting a rumor or hiring a rogue reporter or even buying insider information has all but clinched their ability to rob the naive small guy of his or her money.
They probably tell themselves that anybody that trades in this Market gets what they deserve. They justify taking money from investors because it's "just 401K money". "They can just forego their retirement a few years", they probably reason, and "Kids don't need college to succeed".
The whole passivity of people towards theses criminals is hard to fathom. It brings up an image from an old Steve Martin movie, called "LA Story". As several people were in line, getting money from a cash machine, a man stepped up, half-smiled and exclaimed: "Hi, I'm Bob, I'll be your robber tonight". They smiled back and happily emptied their wallets and purses.
It was kind of funny, actually. But that's a movie and this is all a bit too real. The real question is --- why do so few people seem to care? Why did it take so long for us to punish crooked CEO's and chatise analysts?
I don't get it. If you don't either, why not express your thoughts to your state senators or to the NASD, SEC or any countless number of people. Write CNBC and tell them it bugs the hell out of you. They might even decide it'll make for good ratings, if they think you care. Do you?
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E-MAIL THESE ORGANIZATIONS AND PEOPLE
1) Your State Senators
senate.gov
2) Mr. Levin's website, head of the Senate Subcommittee dealing with these things:
levin.senate.gov
3) SEC website: sec.gov
4) NASD website: nasd.gov
5) Wall Street Journal: wsj.com
6) CNBC website: cnbc.com
7) Dept. of Justice: doj.gov
Anybody else you can think of...your local newspaper, etc. |
