Insider Trading: Undercuts The American Dream

A chance to re-establish oneself, an opportunity to earn one’s fair share of wealth, a vision waiting to be created into a reality: The original American dream. Over time these myths surrounding the American dream have altered due to constantly evolving cultures within the United States resulting in newer cultures that are less concerned with one’s “fair share” and more with pure gain. Sadly, today the American dream more closely represents one’s ability to attain materialistic items rather then its previous connotation of equal opportunities for everyone. One example of contemporary use of the American dream includes advertisers incorporating a sense of national entitlement into their sales campaigns in hopes

Overview of the Case: The Securities and Exchange Commission claims Mark D. Begelman misused proprietary information regarding the merger of Bluegreen Corporation with BFC Financial Corporation. Mr. Begelman allegedly learned of the acquisition through a network of professional connections known as the World Presidents’ Organization (Maglich). Members of this organization freely share non-public business information with other members in confidence; however, Mr. Begelman allegedly did not abide by the organization’s mandate of secrecy and leveraged private information into a lucrative security transaction. As stated in the summary of the case by the SEC, “Mark D. Begelman, a member of the World Presidents’ Organization (“WPO”), abused

Thesis Statement: The achievement of the American Dream, represented by social classes and opportunities available for social advancement, is unrealistic. The American Dream is propaganda for capitalism, rooted into the minds of believers that are used for labor. Capitalism’s fixed social classes leave no room for immigrants or for the hopeful to move up towards material success and wealth.

The idea of the ‘American Dream’ motivates workers without giving them any actual gratification; individuals are led to believe that success is inevitable and thus abstain from carrying out the necessary work to achieve their long term goals, preventing lower class individuals from entering positions of power. The American Dream is the concept that anyone, regardless of wealth or status can achieve success in America. George

“In 2011, at every education level, white workers were more likely than black workers to be in good job –one that pays at least $19 per hour, has health insurance, and has some kind of retirement plan” (Jones and Schmitt). The American Dream promises equal opportunity and acceptance for every citizen in America, but sometimes that does not seem to be true to people of an opposing race. Although some people claim that America still provides access to the American Dream due to all of the different opportunities that our government and schools offer, others believe there are some setbacks that can occur while trying to achieve one's goals; such as equality struggles within race and gender.

SEC alleged that Mark Cuban violated misappropriate insider trading. To be qualified as misappropriate insider trading, an individual wrongfully obtains (misappropriates) inside information and trades on it for her or his personal benefit. In this case, Cuban actually traded his shares based on the material inside information he was told and saved him $750,000 in losses. Wrongful misappropriation means violation of a fiduciary duty.

The American Dream is not a function of ability and achievement, but a dying illusion. America is not truly the land of the free, but an ignorant classist society. Gregory Clark, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, stated that “America has no higher rate of social mobility than medieval England or pre-industrial Sweden … That’s the most difficult part of talking about social mobility - it 's shattering people 's dreams” (qtd. in Evans). The United States has an incredibly outdated economic system that does not allow disadvantaged citizens opportunities regardless of how hard they work. People get stuck in their social status and are not able to stray out of it, which affects their further generations. Additionally, immigrants coming to America in hopes of prosperity are likely to have even less luck than immigrants of the pass and widen the gap of social inequality. Clark continues to state, “The truth is that the American Dream was always an illusion. Blindly pursuing

The capability of all Americans to achieve the American dream is what many believe to have made this country great. Perhaps this is why more immigrants flock to the United States than any other nation, because they view America as “the land of opportunity”, because here anyone can achieve the American dream. Generally, the American dream is the belief that anyone, even one at a low income level, can achieve success and make themselves content if they work hard enough and are determined. Unfortunately, when looking at certain aspects of society, it’s apparent that nothing can be further from the truth. For example, a person can pursue and live the American dream and still be unhappy. Also, the lifestyle that one may live to pursue the American dream can be dehumanizing. Both of these examples are flaws in the American dream that can be seen in the film Fight Club. Furthermore, rising levels of income inequality and the crushing debt people face also shows flaws in the idea of the American dream. When analyzing the evidence, it’s clear that in the modern United States, the American dream is non-existent.

America historically owns the reputation of being the land of opportunity, and for generations immigrants have fled to the United States to experience the freedom and equality our government lays claim to. At the root of this reputation is the American Dream, the belief that with hard work anyone can succeed based solely on his or her merits. While definitions of success vary, the American Dream defines it as the ability to become a "self-made man," thereby rising to a more-than-comfortable state of living. The American Dream is believed to be blind to race, sex, or socio-economic status and at a first glance, seems to be almost Utopian. Conversely, repeated examples and statistics of the lower-classes, those continually facing the harsh

Since America’s formation over 200 years ago, anyone who immigrates or is born in the U.S. has hope to fulfil the American Dream. The rags to riches mentality is infectious and has seeped its way into every aspect American culture from literature to the workforce. Since the beginning America has been the land of opportunity; everyone has equal chances to succeed. A melting pot of cultures, religions, and ethnicities, America embodies equality and fairness, or at least it has claimed to. Since its creation, America has hidden behind the rouse of the American Dream; equal opportunities for everyone. However, for over 200 years it has failed. Through centuries of slavery, poverty, inequality, and war, the American dream has eluded its citizens,

The American Dream is the belief that anyone, regardless of a person’s birthplace and class, can gain their idea of success in a country where mobility is possible for everyone. Working hard and pushing forward can lead to the wonders and triumphs of life. The idea of The American Dream has changed over the years, once representing a successful life through hard work, but now representing a person’s “entitlement” and belief that they deserve the easy way out just because they are American.

Insider trading – insider trading is the trading of a corporation’s stock or other securities by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the

“The American Dream” is advertised as being the act of a person having an idea, goal, or as the saying suggests, a dream, and then them spending time, energy, and money to make it come true. However, if you haven’t realized it yet, there’s a reason they call it a dream because it hardly becomes a reality. More and more people are realizing this so called “dream” is nothing but a hoax, and that the promises America assures and guarantees such as equal opportunity and equal success are nothing but pure manipulation. Furthermore, the American dream no longer stands by the virtue of discrimination and prejudice, overwhelming debt, and failed establishments.

For example, Manna (1966) states that insider trading should be allowed because insider trading is the most effective way to compensate to insider to generate new economic information in firm. Hirshleifer() states that for insider, good information is as good as bad information to make profit but this profit may not be related to economic contribution of insiders in corporate. Proponents of insider trading suggest (Carlton and Fischel (1983) that insiders are the most informative member in the market, and by trading, they bring new information to the markets and causing prices to change toward their true value and, therefore, promoting the optimal allocation of resources. On the other hand, Scholars (Benabou and Laroqu, 1992) say that insider trading may provide incentive to corporate insiders either to delay the announcement of price-sensitive information to public or to prevent to release price sensitive information, which in turn makes stock prices less informative. However, Georgakopoulos (1993) argues that restriction on insider trading may have little adverse impact on market efficiency but it reduces the cost of transaction that burdens on uninformed traders

Insider trading refers to the trading of a listed company’s stock or other financial securities by individuals who has access to non-public material information about the company. This action often occurs within employees/ex-employees of the listen company. Information is considered to be non-public material information if making it public would affect the price of securities, and using such information in decisions to buy or sell financial securities would be unfair to non-insiders (Bainbridge, 2013). Insider trading is treated as a mischief in more than 90 countries, and defendants are imposed with penalties (Beny, 2012). Specific insider conduct regulations in New Zealand were first enacted in 1988, followed by amendments in 2002, 2006 and 2008. The insider conduct regimes between 1988 and 2008 are often considered as a failure due to weak enforcements. Thus in 2008, the regulator introduced a new regime, which was a close model to the Australian insider conduct legislation. Both regimes are expansive, meaning it could be applied to any person in possession of insider information. However, while the Australian laws were aggressively enforced (more than 26 prosecutions were brought since then), no prosecutions have been launched under the new legislation in New Zealand. In addition, New Zealand also had no convictions secured prior to 2008, illustrating a clear enforcement deficit in the New Zealand