So Michael Lauer is free, and clear and free and clear. It is a shitty shitty day for justice, and a victory for extractors and contrapreneurs alike. Pump-and-dump is a rotten game cynically preying upon the ignorant, the greedy, ignorantly greedy and the greedily ignorant. Machiavellian schemes of orchestrated share ramping through related-party vehicles transacting amongst themselves is patently Fraud (with an upper-case F). It likely that it was YOUR pension fund that was hit and YOU should be mightily pissed off.
One might speculate that in the intervening years, events have conspired to make Mr Lauer's antics and pilferage appear petty by comparison. And this too is shameful, and dishonest in its roots. Oh, and what's up with the eight years it took to come to trial? It is a very long time. Too long. This also is sad. Fortunately, there is an amusing punch-line to the story: Mr Lauer says that he is going to get back into the hedge fund business!!!
I hope he gets what he deserves, because he didn't deserve what he got.
no-one from Wall Street ever goes to prison anymore....cheating, lying, being dishonest, raping your clients finances, stealing etc etc. is now the accepted new norm on wall street. I strongly believe the bad guys have won. They OWN the ENTIRE system..sad but true.
ReplyDeleteWhile one is entitled to a trial by one's peers, this is seems subject to further interpretation. In specialist technical cases, like finance, ordinary people are probably unprepared for the spin and bullshit of defense counsel and prosecution alike. However this cuts both ways: would the public trust whom they perceive as generally corrupt to judge those whom are accused of corruption? Would what is SOP be judged as harshly as it might or should in the eyes of the public? While this danger exists, I think overwhelmingly, the juries in these cases should come from financially literate peers: they could accountants, academics, economists, market practitioners. That's my two cents....
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ. As a former clerk at a parochial brokerage in the US, I was able to contribute when an assistant to "The Sheriff of Wall Street" called me back.
ReplyDeleteI can also explain a CDO to almost anyone in 5 minutes or less.
Throwing back the curtain on "The Wizards" merely requires a step into the jurists' shoes and use of the same arguments that would prove grand larceny or welfare fraud to them.
Then again, grand larceny and welfare fraud have simple legal definitions as criminal offenses. When you don't regulate an industry, how can its participants be accused of a crime?