What do you think? Does this guy deserve it? Or the jury over reacted?
Our justice system cracks me up. This guy, Raj, could get sentenced to 19.5 years for passing around insider information and making himself and his clients rich in the process. He could have been stealing his clients money. This would have been business as usual in China. How many people have gone to jail for the Bernie Madoff ponzi? One? I’ve always wanted to know how only ONE person runs a $65 Billion ponzi scheme. How many executives of the sub-prime mortgage industry (Angelo Mozilo) have gone to jail? None
they had to get someone - the system is a total joke. if the NFL doesn’t come back this fall we may go the way of Rome…
Chuckrox8 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Our justice system cracks me up. This guy, Raj, > could get sentenced to 19.5 years for passing > around insider information and making himself and > his clients rich in the process. He could have > been stealing his clients money. This would have > been business as usual in China. > > How many people have gone to jail for the Bernie > Madoff ponzi? One? I’ve always wanted to know how > only ONE person runs a $65 Billion ponzi scheme. > > How many executives of the sub-prime mortgage > industry (Angelo Mozilo) have gone to jail? None Everyone else gets immunity because they can’t take the weight and snitch. Its the same in high level drug/organized crime cases, except people don’t rat as much because it’s considered dishonourable.
20 years for a victimless crime is sad.
Palantir Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 20 years for a victimless crime is sad. for a victimless crime…did the millions he made come out of thin air…no it didnt he used matrrial inside info to gain an unfair advantage against other maket participants …no not victimless at all Sir
There’s nothing wrong with that. His goal is to make money for his clients, and bears no responsibility to making the marketplace a “fair” playground for everyone else. Gupta is certainly at fault for leaking confidential info, but Raj was doing his job. He didn’t steal the info or coerce it out of anyone. Gupta just handed it to him.
at least the lawyers got paid. Palantir - Im trying really hard not to flame you so I will just say that I strongly disagree with your comments. Raj was doing his job by doing insider trading? What kind of job description are you looking at? This isn’t soviet Russia / China where we can just defraud people and no one gives a sh!t. No matter how you look at it he was STEALING from investors on the other side of all his trades. Should he do 20 years? Considering he was worth $1.3 billion dollars and stole hundreds of millions of dollars that he drank, ate and smoked up for 20 years - yeah he should. If he isn’t punished everyone will do it and no one will have faith in our markets.
How was he “defrauding” or “stealing” from anyone? He has absolutely no obligation to serve the best interests of the guy he is trading with. His job is to make money, and his loyalties lie to only his investors. He is supposed to go out and exploit an edge in the market and make money for them. It’s not the same as a CEO trading on inside information, because his duties lie to his firm’s shareholders. Now Gupta certainly acted unethically by divulging confidential info. He should certainly be charged.
Palantir, are you a charterholder? Have you signed that ethics pledge? Come on. Insider trading is a form of fraud and is highly unethical. You are trading with another party who assumes that you are not holding material non-public information.
Palantir Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There’s nothing wrong with that. His goal is to > make money for his clients, and bears no > responsibility to making the marketplace a “fair” > playground for everyone else. Gupta is certainly > at fault for leaking confidential info, but Raj > was doing his job. He didn’t steal the info or > coerce it out of anyone. Gupta just handed it to > him. Uh, put me in the “Strongly disagree” camp as well. Yes, your objective is to make money for your clients. No, you cannot claim that you bear no responsibility to making the responsible a fair playground. If you are a participant in the capital markets, then you have a responsibility to abide by the rules those markets have in place. It is not your job to police the markets - that would fall to the regulators - but it is first and foremost YOUR JOB to make sure that you’re not going outside of the established laws. No one is saying that you can’t achieve an “edge”. An edge, either through better research, better analysis, or other legal means, is fine. If your “edge” consists of the fact that you’re willing to go outside the laws and regulations that the market has in place, then your “edge” is pretty pathetic.
I don’t know, I’ve never been that vindictive. I think many people in the business world are the kids that always did what they were told and followed a set path, did all the right things, never wandered into the real world, etc. So it’s very hard for those people to think sympathetically of those that do, and they’re quick to kick them when they’re down. Nobody’s saying insider trading should be legal, or that he shouldn’t see some jail time. But he was something of a conscientious criminal and I don’t think 20 years is a justifiable sentence for someone who still looked after his clients etc. Particularly in light of the executives that criminally mismanaged their clients money and put half the nation into recession with their ignorance that continue to walk free. I also agree that there’s no way 1 man perpetuated a 60B fraud without anyone else being involved. I think the punishment is out of line here.
^ Agree with Swan…Clearly what he did was wrong, but who was he hurting exactly? Every counter party to every single trade he placed was going to either buy/sell their shares regardless of Raj’s actions. In my mind, Gupta is much more culpable and should be punished more severely. Bottom line is Raj was wrong and should be punished, but 20 years is excessive. He is paying the price for all of the crooked Wall St. execs during the financial crisis that have yet to be caught.
20 years is probably excessive but whatever. F*ck him. Don’t break the law and you don’t have to worry about things like this. Besides a judge will probably commute the sentence and he’ll get time shaved off. All told he’ll probably be in jail for 5 years.
Really AF? We’re going to have another lame thread about how insider trading isn’t wrong? Are you people really that devoid of a conscious or moral compass? Ask me if I give 2 spits about what would or would not fly in China. http://jeffmatthewsisnotmakingthisup.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-solve-crime-let-criminals-decide.html Jeff says it better than I can, and the third comment brings in another good point as well.
NakedPuts Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Really AF? We’re going to have another lame > thread about how insider trading isn’t wrong? Are > you people really that devoid of a conscious or > moral compass? Ask me if I give 2 spits about > what would or would not fly in China. > > http://jeffmatthewsisnotmakingthisup.blogspot.com/ > 2009/10/how-to-solve-crime-let-criminals-decide.ht > ml > > Jeff says it better than I can, and the third > comment brings in another good point as well. I don’t often do this, but I’m gonna go ahead and quote myself here in response to your self-righteous tirade: "Nobody’s saying insider trading should be legal, or that he shouldn’t see some jail time. "
thepinkman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 20 years is probably excessive but whatever. F*ck > him. Don’t break the law and you don’t have to > worry about things like this. This is not a correct attitude. You could say the same about any crime and obviously that would quickly become problematic.
Palantir Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 20 years for a victimless crime is sad. Strongly disagree… How do you feel someone cutting in line in front of you. Even worse, he bought the last iPad2 in the store and you ended up with nothing inspite of getting up at 2 am for it? Similar thing here, this Raj Raj guy ('King of King") walked away not with an iPad2, but with, allegedly, $64 million, profit could have belong to other investors. I am not sure about all 14 counts guilty or 20 yrs for $64 mil, but I believe it’s wrong to call it a victimless crime. BTW, does this guy look like a meathead or not?..
Black Swan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don’t often do this, but I’m gonna go ahead and > quote myself here in response to your > self-righteous tirade: > > "Nobody’s saying insider trading should be legal, > or that he shouldn’t see some jail time. " You can say that, but unfortunately the posts above yours prove you wrong. Perhaps it was unfair of me to address my post to all of “AF”, but there have certainly been posts in the past advocating for the direct and unfettered legalization of all insider trading. Also feel free to take my broad post as a direct, personal attack on yourself, then turn around and call me self-righteous. Nice.
AlphaSeeker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Palantir Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > 20 years for a victimless crime is sad. > > Strongly disagree… How do you feel someone > cutting in line in front of you. Even worse, he > bought the last iPad2 in the store and you ended > up with nothing inspite of getting up at 2 am for > it? > > Similar thing here, this Raj Raj guy ('King of > King") walked away not with an iPad2, but with, > allegedly, $64 million, profit could have belong > to other investors. ^That is a bull crap metaphor. The guys he “took from” were already on the other sides of these trades to begin with. They would have transacted whether or not he was there. Also, think about what you just said, $64MM in profit spread throughout all the counter parties to his trades throughout wall street is pennies to the individuals. The only people disadvantaged were the counter parties, so they were never “in line” to begin with. Also, by playing counter party to them, he would have actually had the effect of lowering their purchase prices or raising their sale prices by increasing demand on the other side of their transaction. So your case holds no water about all the “victims”. Yes, insider trading is bad, it hurts the ability of markets to operate efficiently by scaring away investors. Although, to be honest, it mainly has a negative impact when it’s used to profit the individual, not to benefit his investors. Again, not saying he shouldn’t be punished, but 20 years of someone’s life is a terrible thing to waste when that person doesn’t pose a malevolent threat to society. This is punitive, not corrective.