STREET JUSTICE THE OLD FASHIONED WAY
Installing public confidence by going after little guys
Today in New York a jury convicted Raj Rajaratnam (Raj) of 14 counts of insider trading. While those on the outside looking into Wall Street hail today’s verdict as a sign of the changing times of regulation, the rest of us in the know roll our eyes and realize its business as usual on Wall Street and today’s verdict gives politicians a pound of flesh to staple to their jackets come fall election time. Don’t get me wrong, the guy is a no good crook who was defrauding the public and was given his just rewards. The problem I have is that with everything that has occurred in this country and on Wall Street since 2000, this is the best you can come up with?
The cartel firms and their clients continue to run amok on Wall Street yet our Government and our regulators look for easy and low lying fruit that they can easily pick off without upsetting the balance of power on Wall Street. Insider trading is so serious they are going to send this fat, slimy, used car salesman to jail for the rest of his life yet when it comes to Wall Street’s elite, insider trading is merely an inconvenient truth …I can’t believe I just quoted Al Gore but maybe he’s on to something? David Sokol was the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and was considered to be the successor to the “Wizard of Omaha” , Warren Buffet. If you recall, In January we released a story tracking Berkshire Hathaway to Goldman Sachs and other powerful Wall Street names Click here to read and suggested that the Wizard of Omaha may not be as clairvoyant to market and economic trends as he has indicated. I even received some scathing e-mails from readers who were aghast that I would even suggest that Berkshire would trade on inside information. A few short weeks later we learned that the CEO of Berkshire was trading on inside information:
Berkshire Hathaway directors have accused David L. Sokol, once considered a possible successor to Warren E. Buffett, of misleading the company about his personal stake in a specialty chemicals manufacturer that Berkshire recently agreed to acquire .Mr. Sokol, who resigned in March, never told Mr. Buffett that he had bought his stake in Lubrizol after Citigroup bankers had pitched the company as a potential takeover target
Before I go any further I would just like to tell “Brian”, the author of one particularly scathing e-mail to the SIPA that I was right, you were wrong and if you had any heart or courage you would comment on this thread and tell the world that you know nothing and that I am a God….or you could just shoot me over an e-mail that states I’m not as crazy as you said I was. It’s your choice. Now back to the story at hand. The Fat guy gets life in prison, yet to date the CEO of Berkshire is able to just retire, take a couple million in cash and probably tens of million in stock and go settle out in the Nebraska pasture on his ranch. How is this justice? Why is one person given a free ride while another loses his life? Its also interesting to note that they don’t call it insider trading in the Berkshire case but rather “He mislead poor Warren Buffet”. Well don’t you think the SEC and FBI should make sure he actually did that and conduct a thorough investigation and do sworn testimony from the Board, Warren Buffet and company employees? This of course will never happen because Warren happens to be one of the top individual shareholders of Goldman Sachs and thus has diplomatic immunity from any and all regulatory inquiries. So what made the Raj man stand out in this insider trading case? As most readers know by now I always tell them to follow the money and follow the trail to Goldman Sachs. In today’s release it was noted that Raj had inside information on a number of companies and this little snippet was included in the release:
The 53-year-old Rajaratnam faced five counts of conspiracy and nine counts of securities fraud for insider trading on stocks including Google and Goldman Sachs
I’m going to go out on a limb here and ask if anyone from Goldman has been charged with providing non public vital information to Raj? I didn’t think so.
