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Pastimes : MANIPULATION IS RAMPANT --- Can We Stop It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LPS5 who wrote (565)	12/16/2002 12:47:47 AM
From: Dan Duchardt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 589

Well... not all of us are all that pleased with the performance of the regulators either, and certainly not favorably impressed with governments role in "setting the table" as outlined in your previous post. Message 18328771 While I find that article to have considerable merit in outlining the mistakes of the Federal Reserve System, and agree that it was not "business fraud" that caused the current business slowdown, I have little doubt that the practices that have been "exposed mainly because of the recession" are primarily responsible for shifting the devastating losses that resulted away from the perpetrators of those practices onto the small investors and retirement funds of hard working people. I find the conclusion of the article very unsatisfying, and actually contradictory with much of the preceding argument it presented. To suggest that no real "crimes" are provable by the government, and that it can only prosecute by bundling "minor legal transgressions" and "gray area" into fraud and conspiracy charges because even the lawyers and experts "were not able to agree {there} were regulatory violations", and then to suggest that those harmed by such practices should seek redress in the courts themselves is preposterous. On what basis are they to seek redress if no laws have been violated? Certainly the point is well made that if anybody should benefit from any penalty levied on the perpetrators it is the "victims", but the fact of the matter is that only those citizens with substantial resources to obtain the services of the high-priced lawyers are going to receive such benefit. The many victims with even less resources now than what they had to begin with are not going to get anything. Victims of real fraud that amounts to less than $10,000 per event are pretty much ignored by our crime fighting institutions as it is, and they have little chance of doing better in civil proceedings. Besides, the last thing this country needs is more civil litigation initiated by every individual who perceives themselves to have been harmed by actions even the experts are unable to classify as unacceptable, if not criminal. The reference to a lack of "criminal intent" as an appeal for not punishing those unfortunates who cause harm accidently seems terribly misplaced in this context. At the heart of this whole controversy is the intent of those who deliberately lied and deceived for their personal gain at the expense of those they could mislead. Whether they clearly violated some regulation or law governing their behavior is secondary to their motives, and their lack of any sense of "fairness" in issuing their guidance and advice to the masses of small investors they betrayed. Sure there will always be some who envy and resent the wealthy without justification. And surely there are and always will be politicians who will feed on that to promote misguided "justice" for their own political gains. But that is nothing compared to the reality that a huge number of hard working people have been deliberately duped into pouring their limited wealth into a system that made the rich deceivers richer at their expense. The bottom line is that what many business leaders did in the environment created by monetary policy clearly demonstrates a lack of moral compass. As valid as the arguments may be for the misguided actions of the "Maestro", I've not yet heard anything to suggest criminal or even immoral intent coming from that quarter. Perhaps it was the Maestro driving that car down the street mowing down all the innocent children darting out in front of his car. Did anyone notice who was deliberately luring all those victims into the street? Are those deceivers to be excused because the simple children they influenced were too stupid to know that the street could kill them? I don't think so.