I'm so tired of the Martha Stewart jokes. She's going to jail for doing what thousands of white males do every single day in America. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying she was prosecuted for who she is. Why anyone would laugh at someone else's misfortune, esepcially someone who has contributed so much to the happiness of the family and the home, is foreign to me.
Insider trading is not even a crime in Europe, from what I understand. Profiting from your knowledge is just the way the game is played.
If there were any justice, those "thousands of white males" should ALSO be going to jail if they were involved in securities fraud. I dabble in the market myself, and I think it sucks that I have to play by the rules while the Martha Stewarts of the world think they can simply game the system for their own benefit at my expense. Insider trading and other financial crimes corrode the very basis of our financial system - the thing that has arguably done more than anything else to make us prosperous and successful. And although Stewart wasn't convicted of insider trading per se, she did interfere with an investigation into it and she perjured herself.
I've got very little sympathy for Stewart's plight:
- She lied to the Feds and got caught doing it. I guess I'm a little odd and old-fashioned in that I still cling to the stubborn belief that there should be negative consequences for lying.
- Her new digs for the next five months aren't exactly Attica or Devil's Island. Alderson is pretty plush as prisons go - about the only things she is going to really have to give up for 150 days are the ability to go where she wants to and some degree of control over her daily routine (both of which are torture to a control freak like Stewart).
I don't consider Stewart's punishment to be out of line with what she did. And I hope that the next financial flavor-of-the-month out there will consider Stewart's fate when they think nobody will catch them cooking the books or lying about it to the Feds.