And Martha Stewarts Says “WTF?”
By John Cole April 23rd, 2010
There’s a different set of rules for the super-rich than for you and me, and one of the reasons they stay super-rich is because of those rules:
One of the directors of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS: News ) told a hedge-fund billionaire about a $5 billion investment by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKa: News ) before a public announcement was made, the Wall Street Journal reported citing a person close to the situation.The report noted that the Government suspects that Goldman Director told Galleon of Berkshire’s 2008 investment. The report specified that the information came from board member Rajat Gupta and that federal prosecutors has notified Gupta in a letter that they had intercepted phone conversations between him and Galleon’s Rajaratnam.
Apparently there are still a few SEC members working and not surfing porn during office hours.
Posted in Assholes, Goldman Sachs
Wait. Only government employees can be lazy, wasteful and incompetent. Private business is always efficient. Fox News said so so it must be true.
I need to go curl up in a foetal position and rock back and forth to make the head pain go away now.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:29 am
The porn thing is at least a month old. I laughed that NPR was reporting it this morning.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:35 am
The planning for the Iraq war makes a lot more sense if you allow for the possibility that Rummy might have spent 8 hrs a day on porn sites.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:36 am
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
If Martha had to serve time . . . . . . . .
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:37 am
It’s a GOP/GOD/GOOD thing – you wouldn’t understand
Haven’t you learned yet? It’s not where you live – It’s not how much is in your bank account (though we would like to know how many cases of “Shop N Save Select” are in Tunch’s undisclosed location. It’s where you were born and especially WHO you were born to that make all the difference. Something tells me there were other people living on the same street as Prescott Bush who have children we have never heard of.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:39 am
(a) Gupta bad, should probably go to jail, or at least lose a giant civil suit by GS and/or BH
(b) Rajaratnam, not so clear (on this specific issue only), if he was paying Gupta, bad, should probably go to jail, if Gupta just passed on info and no quid pro quo (which seems unlikely but who knows), doesn’t seem that Rajaratnam has any kind of fiduciary duty to GS or BH not to trade on the information, but the insider trading statute has been stretched so far (AFAICT) that maybe he’s guilty.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:41 am
Bonuses are earned for all the
illegal tips from country club buddiessmarts and hard work of these captains of industry. Free market, bitches! (I do so look forward to Veruca McArdle’s 250,000 word defense of this transaction.)April 23rd, 2010 at 8:43 am
Clearly the guys at the SEC misunderstood what “insider swaps” meant.
Oh, see when you said to scan “the bond market” online, I thought you meant…
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:45 am
If the SEC “intercepted phone conversations,” they must have had a wire tap, and if they had a wire tap, one of the two must have already been under legal investigation for some reason. I wonder if there is more to come.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:53 am
@Morbo:
I’m in Tampa and the Tribune has its first article on Rubio today.
Headline: “On spending probe, Rubio says open the books”.Subhead:”State GOP credit card outlays questioned.” Below it is another article with headline: “Cheney weighs in on Senate compaign”. Subhead: “He backs Rubio, says Crist can’t be trusted.”
I’m surprised it didn’t take the Tribune a month to get on this story.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:54 am
@Comrade Jake:
Maybe that is why he always stood at his desk.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:57 am
Wait, so it’s bad to look at porn while at work?
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:57 am
Well, Lloyd Blankfein said they were doing the lord’s work and well, you gotta cover all religions. Lloyd also says this is all political. I’ll remember that the next time I get a traffic ticket.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:58 am
@Tom:
Shouldn’t be a problem – especially on “Bring your children to work” day.
Once when I worked at AT&T we had people who were such compassionate conservatives that this was the preferred day for “liberating” employees.
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:13 am
Posted with no comment since none is really needed:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.c.....023471.php
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:16 am
So what’s the deal with the financial reform bill anyhow? Are they working to outlaw these deals where an investment bank hedges against possible loss on the investments it’s putting clients into? I assume this is going to require pretty much shutting down most of the risk arbitrage operations that Wall Street runs.
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:27 am
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Oh, see when you said to scan “the bond market” online, I thought you meant…
Great stuff! You here all week?
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:30 am
@Linda Featheringill:
Martha Stewart was a major Democratic donor and a highly visible celebrity. She was sent to prison to create the illusion of enforcement, and she was selected because the Republicans weren’t into eating their own as much back in ‘02.
Given how many people walked away from Enron / Worldcom / Tyson / etc, while a network show host got slapped for insider trading her broker was engaged in… It was a total farce. And then the derivatives market went off the rails over the next six years, when it became evident that this was a consequence-free administration.
I’ll say this much – what a difference a President makes.
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:36 am
That’s a pretty vague statement. It would be interesting though that the Feds would have had a warrant to wiretap/eavesdrop on Goldman board members for years. I would love to see the warrant application to find out what the reasonable articulable suspicion was.
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:38 am
Pat Buchanan. why does this guy still have a job? I am truly mystified.
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:47 am
@flukebucket:
EWW!! Brain Bleach!! Brain Bleach
I need Brain Bleach
NOW!
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:53 am
@Comrade Jake:
I always imagined him FAP-FAPping away at the Abu Ghraib photos.
April 23rd, 2010 at 10:03 am
@arguingwithsignposts:
I’ve often wondered the same thing. Have you seen his op/eds on YahooNews lately? All about white people finding their own tribal identity, being the new “negroes”, etc.
But they balance him out with Susan Estrich, so that’s all right then.
April 23rd, 2010 at 10:05 am
They call me the Thread-Killer.
Sigh.
April 23rd, 2010 at 10:28 am
White ultra-rich American male commits white collar crime. Not a woman like Martha, not a Canadian like Conrad Black. No jail time looming for this guy, I fear.
April 23rd, 2010 at 10:43 am
My assumption is that the porn watchers were all hired by Bush II. Until I am shown otherwise, this is the truth. The porn watchers at SEC are all Bush appointees/hires.
I think everyone is right in making this assumption. It’s the most likely scenario based on the evidence at hand. Pun intended.
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:02 am
@numbskull: Or just normal SEC staffers who every time tried to do their job got told by the Bush appointee “I don’t see sufficient evidence to proceed” and were pretty much made to understand their job was to watch porn because the market will always fix itself.
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:21 am
@Bob L: Nah, these were high level staff pulling down >$200k per annum. As I said, until proved otherwise, the only people who were porn surfing were Bush hires. Fits with everything else we’ve seen from those guys.
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:28 am
@Bullsmith:
Both of whom were guilty, by the way. You have a problem with punishing criminals?
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:38 am
If an SEC investigator watches Debbie Does Wall Street while at work, is that considered looking at porn or is it a genuine investigation into financial misconduct?
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:41 am
@numbskull: You’re kidding me. I am so use to the whole the hole top is beyond reproach I figured it was just rank and file staffers. Yes, they would pretty much have to be Bush’s people.
I am going to make some predictions;
When these guys weren’t surfing for porn they were writing e-mails to their staff warning them anyone caught viewing porn would be fired.
Their porn viewing habits were so blatant everyone on their staffs knew about it.
Every chance they got these guys would brag about how hard they worked to their staffs.
April 23rd, 2010 at 12:19 pm
@Bob L: Hmmm. Maybe that’s how the SEC got their warrants to wire tap . . . I would think a least a few of the staffers would be really pissed off if your predictions are correct.
April 23rd, 2010 at 12:48 pm
@burnspbesq:
IIRC she was busted using 18 USC 1001, which can be abused.
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:12 pm
@Bob L: #31
...worked their staffs”
Veiled p**is reference?
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:32 pm
@catclub: LOL but with that crew you can be sure their was nothing veiled about it.
April 23rd, 2010 at 3:46 pm
It’s called a “class system,” John. It means, a legal and social system which has different rules for different classes of people.
Now, isn’t that special?
Croak!
April 24th, 2010 at 5:44 am