Securities Firms Cheated Customers, Settle With SEC

New York Times:

More than a dozen Wall Street trading firms systematically cheated their customers of millions of dollars by improperly slicing bits of profit from countless trades, federal regulators said on Wednesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed the allegations after negotiating settlements. The firms did not admit or deny the charges but agreed to pay a total of more than $69 million in forfeited profits and penalties.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Waitaminute]

I didn't see anything in the article about indictments. Will we have to take a note from China and execute these thieves, to keep the rest honest.

[ramper]

Now that is a suggestion worthy of serious consideration.

[American04]

Maybe Wall-Street will get the message that main-street-ers are taking their money, and running to stop the Wall-Street thieves from getting the rest. If Wall-Street doesn’t start purging their families of thieve fast we are all going to be out of business. The trust between Main-Street and Wall-Street has been lost, Wall-Street had better react fast and start cleaning house. Those sneaky little rats need to be step-on.

[Waitaminute]

They stole a lot more then 69 million. They want get the message, unless they are made examples of. That means long prison terms. Sixty nine million is nothing to them. They give bonuses larger then that.

[obelus]

The only thing I can conclude is that something quite the opposite of sound risk management was taught at these schools. Principally, I allege there to be an ongoing indoctrination underway whereby risk is a thing that can be hidden and transferred like an ace in a game of 3-card Monte or a pea under a cup. The sad part is that highly skilled MBAs are probably what is needed to right the ship, but an entire generation of simpering nitwits has been loosed upon the world with unsound ideas. Rebuilding what has been lost in our intellectual capacity may take another two generations. A hopeful beginning to that process would be if a professional business degree from the above named institutions would become worth spit, and a sea change would occur in what is taught at the graduate level. Exploiting cheap labor is not rocket surgery and should not be taught as such.

[ElkoJohn]

only 14 ??
come on, you can do better than that

[jerrypl]

We have been living in a free-to rip off the working class-market. This is no surprise that Wall-Streeters are thieves and should be wearing orange jumpsuits.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

[PhilipTaylor]

I guess if you are NOT an Elite Bankster with "INSIDER INFORMATION” from the ELITE FED you are going to lose most of your Retirement!

FED is not owned by our Government! Federal Reserve is purposely named so People think it is a Federal Agency!

FED is owned by the "Secret Society of Elites and Elite Banks" that have been in England and Germany since Roman Times, often called “Money Changers” or Banksters by some of our best presidents including Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, and Kennedy.

FED has almost nothing to do with our Federal Government, but can print endless amounts of money and charge our government interest to increase our National DEBT!

The FED exists because of some "TRICKY" legislation that was passed in 1913, while a lot of Congressmen were on Holiday Break.

A small TARP clause gave FED the ability to PRINT AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF MONEY.

FED main goal is to making sure the WEALTHY STAY WEALTHY!

FED charges our government interest on all the money it prints, as it deems helpful to the WEALTHY!

FED's other duties include protecting the WEALTHY from their own mistakes by forcing the AMERICAN TAXPAYER to pay for those MISTAKES!

Many think Government is taking over Banks when in fact the ELITE BANKS/FED are TAKING OVER OUR GOVERNMENT!

SOLUTION: Place the FED under the Treasury and President to break “Control by the Wealthy!”

[Waitaminute]

They were all complicit. Otherwise how can the congress tell everyone to go home for the holiday and a few sneak back or hung around, to rip this country off and nothing is done about the illegality of it?

[RTIII]

I agree that the Fed should be abolished or nationalized, and I agree it creates fiat money.

However, your post does a dis-service because of its inaccuracies which are obvious and can be used by some to discount the entire argument. For example, the U.S. Treasury "prints our money" and everybody knows that. It's the difference between money and currency - when you include the verb print, it changes the meaning clearly to mean currency... And by blowing it here, you blow any chance of convincing people.

Here's an accurate, well done primer on the "Federal Reserve:"

...DAMN... I just found my favorite video on this was removed.

...Anyway, there are good sources of info out there.
.

[vippy]

Did not Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul propose that during the election campaign.
People want change, so they say, but they really don't want much change. This works
every time. Perhaps we get smarter in 2012 but I doubt it.

[tyger]

And these offenses are the ones we know about. The SEC needs to dig a lot deeper.

[Antifascist-08]

There need to be prosecutions, not deals.

Mr,. President: Do something about the Wall St. private casino.

[MJJM]

Investment Bankers and Brokers, and Advisers are a bunch of crooks.

All Pyramids.

[Seveen]

hey it's all a PONZI scheme

if a firm as big as madoff was

so are all of them

games over

[nomadicexpat]

that is just an inane, il-informed and incendiary post.

[Seveen]

i hope you are holding your cards tight

and no one is looking over your shoulder

[Rule Of Law]

Hey, I just walked in with a pistol and held up my local B of A.

Can I pay a fine and go home?

[research]

Don't fear the Bankers!

Kucinch was threatened by the bankers and he did not back down.

Saving his city millions.

Kucinich knows the bankers games.

Talk to him Dems and Obama.

[ICU1225]

Where is Rick Santelli, he should be outraged about this.

Rick, Rick, where are you? Oh, at the Chicago Board of Trade.

[gloriousbeing]

What can the average citizen do about this?

[CaptainHowdy]

http://www.counterpunch.org/pace02272009.html

"In 1948 George Kennan, one of the chief architects of post-war US foreign policy, famously stated the chief object of US policy in the post-war era: "We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population."

"The 60s and 70s conditioned Americans to expect a standard of living which Kennen and the ruling class knew could not be maintained over the long haul. They understood that world military dominance could only hope to delay the inevitable time of reckoning."

"By the 1980s the chief concern of the ruling elite became making sure that when the reckoning finally came it would be working Americans – not the rich – who would bear the brunt of the adjustment. That required transferring wealth from working people to the rich in advance of the reckoning. This has been the main projects of the ruling class since the election of Ronald Regan."

[take10]

Exactly!