Greed Is All Right, By The Way

When assessing the economic damage to due to Paul Thayer and those that he tipped off about the acquisition of Campbell Taggart, it should be noted that some argue that this kind of insider trading circulates information and forces the stock to its “true value.” If we assume this argument to be flawed, then part of Anheuser-Busch stock dip after the announcement was due to the insider trading and the fact Anheuser-Busch probably paid more to acquire its target. Thayer and his friends trade the Campbell stock for nearly a month before any public announcement of the merger. On July 27 nearly half the volume was insider volume controlled by those individuals who were in violation of rule 14(e)-3 (See exhibit 2). The increased volume might

Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in

The word “fraud” was magnified in the business world around the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. No one had seen anything like it. Enron, one of the country’s largest energy companies, went bankrupt and took down with it Arthur Andersen, one of the five largest audit and accounting firms in the world. Enron was followed by other accounting scandals such as WorldCom, Tyco, Freddie Mac, and HealthSouth, yet Enron will always be remembered as one of the worst corporate accounting scandals of all time. Enron’s collapse was brought upon by the greed of its corporate hierarchy and how it preyed upon its faithful stockholders and employees who invested so much of their time and money into the company. Enron seemed to portray that the goal of corporate America was to drive up stock prices and get to the peak of the financial mountain by any means necessary. The “Conspiracy of Fools” is a tale of power, crony capitalism, and company greed that lead Enron down the dark road of corporate America.

On December 11, 2008, a Wall Street investor named Bernie Madoff was arrested for confessing to one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history. Before that day, many people had never heard of Bernie Madoff or perhaps may not have even realized their life savings were invested through his firm. To the casual observer, the arrest was just another dirty banker being taken to court for his actions; but in reality, the arrest was devastating to financial institutions, government regulators, and the personal wealth of thousands of businesses, charities, and individuals. In all, Madoff defrauded investors of $20 billion. Having been a well respected leader and trusted advisor on Wall Street for years, friends, family, and customers never questioned his tactics even though the red flags had always been there. In the end, many people blamed the government for lack of regulation on Wall Street, but the truth is that everyone involved from the investment firms to the personal investors chose profit over due diligence.

What seems to be forgotten in between each visit and the patience lost is that these are still simply children. They spend all day at school, then come off the bus and right to homework help where volunteers wait. Through the long day, focus might have been lost several hours prior to school ending. Even so, we expect them to sit down and willingly do their homework with us volunteers without any distractions or tangents. Not to mention, volunteers and kids alike are constantly coming and going, talking about their days and deciding what needs to be done. Each week, one young girl attends, though very often her homework does not more than thirty minutes to complete. On the other hand, another middle school-aged girl comes, and her homework

William Morris’ Useful Work verses Useless Toil depicts work as centered on the idea that it must aid and give, not only to the worker, but also to the world and community around them. To Morris, work is “not far removed from a blessing, a lightening of life” (Morris, 1). Gordon Gekko, from Wall Street(1987) on the other hand, professes that good work is rooted in the pursuit for money. A notion exemplified in his “Greed is Good’ speech. The needs of himself triumph over the needs of the community leading him to do everything in his power to maintain this notion. Morris directly outlines and differentiates good work from meaningless toil, which is used as a guide to understand the characters portrayed in the movie Wall Street. Considering Useful

Insider trading is essentially the trading of confidential information that is basically sold to the highest bidder. David Hilzenrath, a journalist, describes, “Given the scope of the allegations to date, we are not talking simply about the occasional corrupt individual, we’re talking about something verging on a corrupt business model…” (Hilzenrath). Hilzenrath is suggesting that Wall Street as a whole is being deceitful and doing more than they are letting the public know. Insider trading is not a victimless crime, it takes advantage of honest investors. It is easy to stereotype the rich as greedy due to how they attain their wealth through power but the middle class can be just as greedy by trying to live vicariously behind a mountain of

The next big scandal came in the mid-1800s, at which point Wall Street had already become the most important financial institution in the Western world, and men such as Daniel Drew had become one of the richest men on the planet. But Daniel Drew’s success did not come legally. The technique Drew used was what is today known as a ‘pump and dump’ scheme, where a large portion of a company’s stock is bought before publicly decrying the company (“Pump and Dump,” n.d.). Negative publicity for the company would cause the stock’s price to tumble, and Drew was able to ‘sell short’ the stock for massive returns. Selling short is when an investment is made with an expectation that the price will go down, and where profit is only feasible in extreme cases where a stock fails (“Selling Short,” n.d.). The return on these investments caused Drew to be one of the richest men on Wall Street until Drew went

In today’s society crime occurs everyday across all aspects of life. One particular crime is that of white collar and corporate level crime. It is important that we as a society study this type of crime in depth because many individuals believe that white collar and corporate level crimes are victimless crimes when in reality they have the potential to destroy major corporations and economies all with one single case. The news or media rarely talk about this type of crime because it is often difficult to understand and individuals typically lack interest in these types of cases. One particular case is that of Jordan Belfort. Dubbed the infamous “Wolf of Wall Street” Jordan Belfort is a former stockbroker who robbed investors of over $200 million dollars to create his wealth through “pump and dump” schemes, insider trading, money laundering securities fraud, and stock-market manipulation. As an attempt to further understand these complex cases I will break down Belfort’s case as far as the methods and means as to how he got started, his use of “pump and dump” schemes and other means as to how he acquired his wealth. In addition to this I will discuss the sanctions and disciplinary action that Jordan Belfort was given, how the case affected society and what new regulations were

White collar crime is not a victimless crime, and affects many people. These crimes can devastate a company, force investors to lose billions of dollars, and destroy people’s life savings. Through L. Dennis Kozlowski’s and Mark Swartz’s scandal reported in 2002, the Tyco Company lost over $28 billion dollars in debt. However, the biggest lash came to its shareholders who lost over $90 billion. The Tyco two were tried and found guilty in 2005, and are currently serving a 25- year- sentence. Crime never pays and it is only a matter of time before one is caught. The damage done affects all people involved

Do people realize that sometimes other people just deserve to be happy? Why can"t you just be happy seeing that the person you love is happy? Why do you have to try and ruin their happiness for your own selfish desires? Isn't it the best feeling to see your loved one's eyes sparkling with pure happiness, and not tears? Is it satisfying to see that others are in incredible pain because of your own personal selfish greed? Why does the world work in ways where the selfish people with money and power and selfish intentions overpower the poor and weak. Pain is almost never one-sided. Your actions ruin the lives of some of the most amazing, wonderful, and pure-hearted people just because they don't have the voice to speak up and defend themselves

“To Catch a Trader” To Catch a Trader is a Frontline’s video that describes some moments of the internal situation in the Wall Street, stock’s machinations and their consequences. The main topic of the movie is a usage of inner information that helped traders and hedge funders to earn fortunes. The video provided several examples, like a founder of the SAC Capital Stephen Cohen and CEO of the Galleon Group Raj Rajaratnam. Both these men commanded the services of informers and expert networks to get the inner information and turn to account. The usage of the inner information is the main ethical issue of the video.

The SEC probed Mr. Madoff’s business on numerous occasions for sixteen years. Despite many blatant warning signs, not once was there an investigation that uncovered the fraudulent auditing being performed. Regarding the SEC, Madoff was quoted in a jailhouse interview as saying that “it never entered the SEC’s mind that it was a Ponzi scheme,” and also that he had “too much credibility with them and they dismissed” the idea of a Ponzi scheme.(7)

Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex, he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in

On June 4, 2003, the Securities Exchange Commission announced that it was pursuing charges against investor Martha Stewart and stock broker Peter Bacanovic for securities fraud. The fraud occurred on December 27, 2001 when Stewart sold stock in ImClone Systems, after receiving an unlawful tip from Bacanovic, who at the time was working for Merrill Lynch. The SEC also accused the two of attempting to cover up the insider actions, and of making false statements regarding the ImClone trades to SEC investigators (SEC, 2003). Stephen Cutler, the SEC director of enforcement said in the SEC's press release about the charges that "It is fundamentally unfair for someone to have an edge on the market just because she has a stockbroker who is willing to break the rules and give her an illegal tip. It's worse still when the individual engaging in the insider trading is the Chairman and CEO of a public company." This statement and the philosophy behind it is a central part in the debate about the merits, not so much about the case against Stewart but against the prosecution of Stewart. The SEC sought redress not only in the form of monetary penalties and prison time, but it also sought to have Stewart removed from a position as officer of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (SEC, 2003).