Maggie's Farm

In Re: Michael Milken

Differences of opinion. That's what makes horse races.
Milken had a trial, guilty they said. Milken kept hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions.
Many are satisfied to say he was scapegoated, charged with minor infractions for political purposes.
Well, they prosecuted Al Capone for income tax evasion. Capones' business card read "Second hand furniture dealer"

Often times a prosecutor knows that the complexity of the case will not allow for a conviction so they either plea bargain or go for lesser offenses. Rudy chose to go with the latter.

Enron was so complicated that prosecution was almost sidestepped entirerly. Their are very few public prosecutors who know Wall Street well enough to prosecute securities laws. The SEC an SRO is useless in protecting the average investor
Emotions are great things, like feeling "good" when people make money. Wall Street counts on two pillars of "emotions from the average investor, fear and greed, you hear it as a mantra. I have seen brokers who churned accounts using those"emotions" that could turn water into butter.
By and large their feeling is ,"Hell,
it ain't my money"
So my delight in seeing people make money is in seeing then make it honestly. Most of the Wall Street firms make huge amounts of money so illegally, in such complicated manners that prosecution is impossible. Just read Wall Stree reporters' Charles Gasparino's book, "Blood on the Street"
Another eye opener is "When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management " the hedge fund that wall street investors and US taxpayers had to bail out even though it was run by two winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics.
The list is already long and distinguished on Wall Street manipulation,payoffs and theivery from the average investors pocket book, and I am more than confident that we see only the tip of the iceberg.
Yeah, Wille Sutton and D.B. Cooper made money too they just weren't as subtle about it.
Mr. Milken the court finds you guilty.
When George Soros was called before Congress to testify about "his" most knowledgeable area of expertise, hedge funds, his response when asked how they worked was that he couldn't explain it. Now he's on record as having sworn he can't explain what he does. If ever prosecuted, a bad memory and that statement before Congress is a free ticket out of jail, unless they nail him on income tax evasion.
The people at the top of Wall Street are more devious that you can ever imagine ...but they can always count on fear and greed to propel the machine. It is an oxymoron to put making money on Wall Street and honesty in the same sentence.