Wall Street's Naked Swindle

Rolling Stone ^ | Oct. 14, 2009 | Matt Taibbi

[Wolfie]

On Tuesday, March 11th, 2008, somebody — nobody knows who — made one of the craziest bets Wall Street has ever seen. The mystery figure spent $1.7 million on a series of options, gambling that shares in the venerable investment bank Bear Stearns would lose more than half their value in nine days or less. It was madness — "like buying 1.7 million lottery tickets," according to one financial analyst.

[BGHater]

Taibbi Bump

[maggief]

Ping!

[MNJohnnie]

Since when does this website devote band-with to the insane ranting of a Neo Marixist know nothing clown?

[kralcmot]

ping

bump

vomit

thanks for posting

not what i really wanted

but i needed that

i knew it all....but could not write it myself

corrupt financial markets? government collusion.

ya think?

nothing to see here

go watch football

[JmyBryan]

ping

[ikka]

Since you are involved with the Street, would welcome your comments on this article.

[ikka]

Since when does this website devote band-with to the insane ranting of a Neo Marixist know nothing clown?

If the writer is such an idiot, then a short post showing a few of the deficiencies in the article will no doubt be sufficient to expose him.

Unfortunately, one-line rants that use ad-hominem attacks don't qualify.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

I remember that morning very well.....BSC went south of $30 twice early, and I took some at 30 on the way up the second time....within about 30 mins I sold at a few cents shy of 37......didn’t have the cojones to then short it, but a BUNCH of folks did at that point, which added to the shorts who knew in advance that this was going to happen

[Vigilanteman]

It was madness — "like buying 1.7 million lottery tickets," according to one financial analyst.

It sounds more like buying 1.7 million lottery tickets when you know the lottery was rigged. I'm not faulting you for seeing what was going on and making some pocket change off if it, but rigged lotteries generally have the fingerprints of George Soros on them if you dig deep enough.

[JDoutrider]

mark

[snarks_when_bored]

Wall Street's Naked Swindle

Since the guys and dolls who perpetrated these monstrously enormous frauds are either running the government and the SEC, or at a minimum dictating the actions of those running the government and the SEC, the likelihood of any one of them ever being charged even with jaywalking is essentially nil. The interests of justice in these cases would perhaps best be served by a bloody revolution in which these monkeys were dragged kicking and screaming out of their New York penthouses and Hamptons beachfront mansions and chopped up into little pieces on the street...perhaps.

[investigateworld]

I remember that too. Thought we were going to have to put Todd on suicide watch.

[grey_whiskers]

Here, you might enjoy this.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Since when does this website devote band-with to the insane ranting of a Neo Marixist know nothing clown?

We cover Barack Obama all the time...

Cheers!

[bitterohiogunclinger]

“If the writer is such an idiot, then a short post showing a few of the deficiencies in the article will no doubt be sufficient to expose him.”

I agree. The writer, while having leftist tendencies of style, did an excellent job of reporting what happened. As others have pointed out, no one seems to be willing to expose the “who”, and the reason is right in front for all to see.

Follow the money. Who benefited financially and who benefited politically?

[Wolfie]

I'd say this about sums it up:

At their most basic level, innovations like the ones that triggered the global collapse — credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations — were employed for the primary purpose of synthesizing out of thin air those revenue flows that our dying industrial economy was no longer pumping into the financial bloodstream.

[timetostand]

“Since the guys and dolls who perpetrated these monstrously enormous frauds are either running the government and the SEC, or at a minimum dictating the actions of those running the government and the SEC, the likelihood of any one of them ever being charged even with jaywalking is essentially nil. The interests of justice in these cases would perhaps best be served by a bloody revolution in which these monkeys were dragged kicking and screaming out of their New York penthouses and Hamptons beachfront mansions and chopped up into little pieces on the street...perhaps.”

I don’t think we can depend on the law anymore!! Lawlessness will come soon enough. Everyone of these criminals will have to be dispatched by WE The People!!

[Wolfie]

Funny, since Wall Street triggered, and benefitted from, the biggest Marxist event I’ve seen in my lifetime. But you go ahead.

[headsonpikes]

Scary, isn’t it?

Anyone interested in the daily workings of Wall Street and how not to be fleeced like a lamb by the predators based there ought to follow Bill Cara’s blog:

http://caracommunity.com/

I knew of him as a Canaccord(then Canarim) big shot when I was a Vancouver broker back in the day. He’s a straight-shooter and provides an excellent free service. His paying customers appear to be happy, and I’ve made some good money trading off his insights and work absolutely free.

Trading smarts aside, in today’s post he touched upon this fraught issue:

“First, I would set in place a Congressional impeachment process that would investigate the actions of the former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the then head of the New York Fed Timothy Geithner, removing Geithner from his current position as Treasury Secretary until the investigation was complete. If there was a majority finding that Paulson and/or Geithner abused their authority, I think the permanent record would sufficiently scar their reputations that future appointees to those positions would toe the line.

Second: I would have another Senate committee investigate the trading blotters of Goldman Sachs to determine whether profits in the 3Q2009 (64 trading days) were made illegally via (i) front-running information that came to them from political sources, or (ii) by trading against order flow caused by their “research” analyst publications. I would want to know how much Goldman Sachs made trading against their own clients and whether those clients, being State pension funds, university endowments, hedge funds, and the like, were managed by “friends” of Goldman Sachs. For all those days in the past quarter where there were large gaps at the opening bell, I would want the investigators to determine whether Goldman Sachs traders caused those gaps by earlier trading in international markets and then buying or selling into the order flow after the open. In other words, were the Goldman Sachs’ trades part of a scheme. If any of the above did in fact happen, I would expect the government of the United States to indict and prosecute these people. With all the people involved, I am sure there would be many plea agreements struck that would result in such a large number of senior bank officers and directors going to prison that New York State would have to build another prison, and I’m sure the multi-billion dollar fines at Goldman Sachs would cover the cost.

The public — not just Americans, but people throughout the world who trade in US capital markets — have a need to know the answers to these questions. If there has been fraud, all the perpetrators, including the most senior people in Goldman Sachs and their former employees and associates in government ought to be put on a trial that the entire world would watch.”