The Greatest Financial Scandals

Business Week:

The now infamous dealings of Bernard Madoff, the money manager accused by federal authorities of running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, have dominated headlines recently. But Madoff is far from alone. In recent months, a rash of alleged investment frauds have unraveled, thanks to the ravaged economy. Here's a look at some alleged financial frauds that have been prosecuted over the years, beginning with the man for whom such transgressions are named, Charles Ponzi.

Read the whole story: Business Week

Comments

[userw014]

Hyperbole.

Perhaps the "Greatest Financial Scandals - of the past 9 years", + Charles Ponzi. Mostly US too, with (dis)honorable mentions to Japan and France.

No mention to BCCI, "The Bank of Credit and Commerce International" (failed 1991).

No mention of Enron.

All of these are scams. Scandal is a much more generous term.

Count on BusinessWeek to maintain the low end of the literacy curve.

[Sundialsvc4]

No, BY FAR the greatest financial scandal is the one that's going on right now.

"Twenty-odd banks" sought to corner the entire finance industry by combining banking, finance and insurance under one roof. Let the record show that they failed spectacula­rly... that is, if they ever were seriously pursuing those businesses at all, which I doubt. They turned to crime, selling hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of worthless securities and paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to make it happen. Which they are still doing. "But don't worry... it's all rated 'AAA+'."

They also turned to usury, grasping and wheedling tens of billions of dollars (per bank, per year!) in "fees and penalties" that they are not owed. It is the death of a thousand cuts to the REAL economy of what was once the mightiest industrial nation on this planet.

But they simply do not care. The gambling, the lying, the extortion, the usury, the racketeering, and, yes oh yes, the bribery continues at an ever more reckless pace. Senators, Congressmen, Supreme Court Justices, Commissioners ... all of them hungrily consume bribes that are doled out to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a DAY and congratulate themselves for being so smart.

It truly is "a crime against America." Really, the world. It makes Bernie Madoff to be the miserable two-bit scapegoat that he always was.

[PhilipTaylor]

This is disappointing in that it does not cover the LARGEST VOLUME of CR00KERY:

FAKE Government FUNDED PROFITS hide “Off-Balance-Sheet” Toxic Derivatives according to 0ffice of Comptroller of Currency, 0CC, quarterly Report:

1 JPM0RGAN $81TRILLION in Toxic Derivatives
2 BofA $78TRILLION
3 G0LDMAN $48TRILLION
4 M0RGAN $39TRILLION
5 C1T1GROUP $32TRILLION

http://www.occ.gov/ftp/release/2009-72a.pdf
Page23!

[PhilipTaylor]

Same CEOs that brought America to its KNEES still ON DUTY!

Prosecute 5 LARGEST WallSt Banks' CEOs:

1. Misrepresentation of HighRiskProducts as LowRisk"AAA" -selling all over World

2. Manufactured Insider Trading - Far more manipulative than Chef Martha!

3. Regarding St0len G0LDMAN Software: "GS has raised possibility there is danger somebody who knew this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways." Isn't this the MOST AMAZING ADM1SS1ON in a C0URTofLAW?

4. Automated Scheme intercepts real time order messages+insert GS Trades ahead of others trades to capture the BOUNCE from a BigTRADE. Automatic+ILLEGAL!
______________

Laws on books - LACKING IS AN HONEST ADMINISTRATION TO PROSECUTE!

“Misrepresentation” is contract law concept, meaning false statement of fact made by one party to another party, which has effect of inducing that party into a contract. For example, false statements/promises made by seller of goods regarding the quality/nature of the product that the seller has may constitute misrepresentation.

“Insider Trading” is trading of securities by individuals with access to non-public information about product/company. Taking advantage of non-public information by an insider during performance of insider's duties, or in breach of fiduciary duty or relationship of trust/confidence.

“PREMED1TATED MANUFACTURED 1NSIDER TRAD1NG”
a. Make SureFailMo­rtgageProd­uct knowing it will fail
b. Buy Massive A1G CreditDefaultSwaps Betting “SURE FAIL Products” will FAIL!
Make it to fail&bet it will fail: "Manufactu red-Inside­r-Trading" 100% Sure BETS!

[Carolab]

INDEED!

The entire derivatives market is being abused by bankers as a means for enriching themselves while producing nothing good. Despite destroying the entire banking system, they still think they can leech out $35 billion a year, playing the rigged derivatives markets which has only one function: to create $35 billion a year in profits. It has zero other functions. We know this because just one event that triggered the swaps in this market led to the collapse of all of this market. When the system failed in September, 2008 and AIG went down in flames, this signaled the end of the fiction that derivative swaps work.

They don’t work at all. So they should be terminated. The quicker this termination, the shorter the pain. And the big 5 banking entities that hold 98% of the derivatives can go bankrupt and we will not miss them at all.

http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/top-5-investment-banks-want-no-derivatives-controls-at-all/
.

[flossophy]

The UN's Oil for Food Programme Scandal.

Largest in history.

[Carolab]

RUBBISH.

[openhand]

How about The U.S. programme of hypocrisy and awe in Baghdad?
If you have ever asked yourself the question "did Germans know what was going on with their Jewish compatriots?", maybe you will ask yourself the same with the U.S. concentration camp in Guantanamo.
But if you really want to stick to financial issues, ask yourself wht Reagan took Carters solar panels off the White House and forced his people to fund middlemen, hostile nations while strangling U.S. technology and taxpayers. Seems like treason to me, maybe you can tell me why it isn't and why neo conservatives are anything but conservative, rather dangerously reckless?