Is the Morality Gene Missing?
The daily news reinforces my belief that there is something rotten at the core of the financial services industry. I am not discussing old news like Bernie Madoff. Here are some of the items that crossed my desk this week:
1. The SEC charged two brokers in a Smithtown, New York, firm, and a real estate promoter, with fraud. The brokers allegedly sold risky, unregistered stock in real estate ventures to elderly investors who attended "free lunch" seminars. The defendants collected over $12 million from 90 senior citizens by promising them returns of 50%. According to the complaint, the promoter charged excessive fees of over $1 million and helped himself to an interest free loan to buy a personal residence.
2. The New York Times reports that an Intel employee had a ten year history of passing on insider information to the Galleon hedge fund. The founder of the fund, billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, has been indicted for insider trading. Galleon suffered massive redemptions and has an uncertain future.
3. The SEC charged a Merrick, New York, stock broker with fraud for creating and distributing phony press releases to manipulate the prices of public companies. The motive: The broker and his clients purchased the stock of these companies prior to the issuance of the releases and no doubt sold before the companies issued corrections.
4. In a lawsuit filed in Federal Court in Boston, famed mystery writer Patricia Cornwell claimed her investment advisors decimated her personal fortune and abused the trust she gave them by misusing a Power of Attorney to write unauthorized checks.
Whether you are rich or poor, brilliant or in your declining years, a segment of the securities industry sees you as having a bull's-eye painted on your back.
The size of that segment is growing.
Dan Solin is the author of The Smartest Retirement Book You'll Ever Read.
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Paul Abrams: Supreme Court to Hand Government to Republicans, Again: This Time, Forever.
Because of the legal nicety of the corporation, established solely to promote commerce, we are now going to be treated to the permanent takeover of the US government by these humanly-created legal fictions.
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Without laws and regulation, those with morals, are at a competitive disadvantage.
Morality? How bout enforcement? Enforcement of financial laws are circumvented by waivers or exemptions until the entire law is eradicated by lobbyist written legislation. financial justice is missing in the US every single day like the entire eastern seaboard of our military was awol on 9/11.
Sorry, the "morality gene" was replaced in the 80's by "greed is good" and the "selfishness is a virtue" paradigm of fiction writer Ayn Rand and their followers such as Alan Greenspan. After all, we have "the invisible hand of the market" to regulate.
(ummmm, Is it "invisible" or "non-existent"?? Now a days I tend to forget which one. heh)
YET THE SEC IGNORES the REALLY BIG $TRILLION CR1MES:
DERIVATIVE PURPOSE: USE GIGANTIC HIDDEN FEES/COSTS TO EXTRACT INVESTOR WEALTH INTO WALL STREET EXECUTIVE/
http://www
DERIVATIVES = Humanity's eternal quest to get something for nothing = Eureka!
DERIVATIVES = Wall Street's financial engineers' ingenuity in OBSCURING FEES!
DERIVATIVES = Offered to Average Investors (V1CT1MS) as "risk-free" way to get upside of equity investment with principal guaranteed.
DERIVATIVE REALITY = Principal PURPOSE was put investor wealth into broker's pockets through GIGANTIC HIDDEN FEES and COSTS.
CREDIT DERIVATIVES=$62 Trillion in Early 2008 but insured credit was only $20 Trillion= $42 Trillion Uninsured! Hence Wall Street Collapse from Hidden Fees Skimmed into Pockets!
Our healthcare providers, (well insurers) refer to their patients as dogs. What we have is a class of professionals that despise their clients and aspire to dismember them. And they know they'll get away with it.
Well the latest that I saw was that of the 5% of the millionaires, on the average the underpayment of taxes was over 100,000 and there were only 400 auditors or less, I cannot remember,,,,but the auditors collected 3500 per hour and were paid less than 100 per hour...whe
The morality gene hasn't gone missing just lately, how can we forget Chile and Milton Friedman. How about the Coup resulting in the Shah of Iran, ably assisted by the CIA, it's a humble opinion all those dead people were dispensable because they got in the way of profit. They always have.
Consumers should be wary of the lure of "too good to be true." 50% investment return is riduculous and the consumer is as greedy as the broker...
The whole system is rather immoral. Why do people think it's ok to get rich for doing nothing? Why should you be given more money b/c you already have some? The church used to forbid such ventures as immoral; thus was the original meaning of "usury." That credit card companies violate even the modern definition of the word should be a wake up call.
You should get money for doing work that contributes to someone else, not for being born into a rich family and oh so generously "lending" that money to others who were not so fortunate.
The financial services industry is rotten to the core, however I fail to feel too sorry for "seniors" looking to make a 50% return on an investment
We all have a targets on our backs.
Do you use credit cards? Target.
Do you fly on airlines? Target.
Do you use prescription drugs? Target.
Do you use the shop the internet- use Face book? Target.
etc. etc. etc
Didn't you live through the 80"s?
I remember somehow,
Ronald Raygun managed to add "making a profit" to the definition of moral acts.
Ahh,... the 1980s,.... bad haircuts, 'new wave' pop music, lots of Yuppies in BMWs,... and looking out for number 1.
Greed did become good somewhere along the way,...
Greed earmarked one for success, like "what have you done for me lately"?
The main message is not that the morality gene is missing, it's that the greed gene is so much bigger. Loraine Antrim
It isn't that simple tho... when I was young, it was cool to have morals. It was cool to be kind and considerate. Now the opposite is cool. Now greed is cool. The aspirations of regular people are not the same as they were. People don't aspire to be good, they aspire to be rich. Now consideration and ethics are considered weaknesses. If you care about other people, you are a chump. It's ugly out there.
You are exactly right- The change is that it is now quaint if not downright ridiculous to exhibit compassion or to seek fairness for oneself or others.
Sadly, most schools keep preaching social responsibility to the kids, who then go out into the world expecting to find it. The majority of people still believe that the other people they encounter are honest and fair. Everyone needs to revise this wishful thinking; then instead of being mostly disappointed they will have the occasional happy moment when the other party turns out to be better than expected.
you got it wright LORAINE
i may add ''GREED IS ADDICTIVE ''
America needs a new ARMY . An army of accountants and lawyers who work for the executive branch and with law enforcement personnel , whose duty it is to detect and prosecute all major white-collar fraud activity in the U.S.A.
These frauds represent $ Billions annually siphoned out of the economy to benefit a very few.. bankers , Wall Street sharpies like Madoff , crooked government officials, and criminals .
Another major example is the Medicare Fraud , at $60 Billion per year , as reported on "60 Minutes".
The enormity of this fraud makes Madoff pale in comparison.
These specially selected and trained personnel would have oversight capability over all established agencies , like the SEC . Their mission would be that of a "FINANCIAL SWAT TEAM " , that would be able to wade through broken beaurocracies and deal directly with those who are robbing the American taxpayer .
The Medicare fraud elimination alone would free-up $600 Billion over ten years ,, more than half of the money needed for health care reform.
There is FINANCIAL TERRORISM going on right now in America , which runs through every government agency ... this terrorism destroys more lives than 9/11 ever will .
With an Elizabeth Warren type at the helm.
Or maybe Elliot Ness , complete with machine gun ( figuratively speaking of course) .
I have said for years now,... since I was in college back in the mid 1980s,... that if they want to root out waste and graft in the US Government -
Get a bunch of newly minted CPAs fresh out of college, hire them on the spot for ~$50K/year base salary, and let them audit the books of companies for the SEC and IRS,...
Give them a percentage finders fee for any graft and waste they find as a year-end bonus tax free. Oh,.. and issue them some bodyguards
People are greedy, and if they can, they will find a way to beat the system. Regulation is so important to the consumer. When it comes to Congress, we gotta take away the greed factor somehow, so our representatives are working for us, the consumers or peasants or whatever they are calling us. I work with a "system" that was created in 1982 and has taken the "greed" factor out and it rewards "doing the right thing". Sure, people have tried to "scam the system" to make more money, but they are easily found out and any loop hole is fixed and they are asked to cease and desist or leave. Our government system of checks and balances has been broken and their are people who will scam the system. Fix the system so that it promotes helping the constituents, as in our schools, teachers earn more when students learn and show up as "educated". So much to do, so little time.
Watch "The Warning" on Public Television. Allen Greenspan, the genius of Wall Street is quoted as saying "We don't need to regulate fraud, the market will take care of it." That's how far the blind faith in the invisible hand of the market has gone.
"As I look around, it's mighty hard to see, this wild and wicked world, is funny place to be. The gambling man is rich, and the working man is poor, and I can't feel at home, in this world anymore." Woody Guthrie
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