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IBM, Intel Execs Arrested Over Insider Trading
An anonymous reader writes to share a report from The Register stating that executives from IBM and Intel have been arrested as a part of insider trading allegations. "According to a report from the Associated Press, six people were arrested today as part of an insider trading case, including Bob Moffat, senior vice president and general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology Group; Rajiv Goel, director of strategic investments at Intel Capital; Anil Kumar, a director at management consultancy McKinsey & Co; and Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of the $7bn Galleon Group hedge fund."
Didn't Intel just a while ago discontinue some of their largest product line too?
And IBM only supports the enterprise companies.
Even if Google just today reported great increase in profits, maybe recression still has something to do with it.
Per TFA, the trading took place from Jan 2007 to July 2007 and they're just making arrests now? Interesting...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Helping the Nazis is worse than insider trading.
Does this surprise anyone? Insider trading must be commonplace at the executive level across most industries these days. How else, but corruption, do talentless, unethical, unproductive sociopaths get paid? These are all lucrative positions to hold, why do they need to cheat to get more bread? Meanwhile, honest mom and pop outfits are folding like lawn chairs and hardworking people are in debt beyond hope just to from month to month. Will somebody please flush the elitist toilet?
Nice. So executives at Intel, IBM, Bear Stearns, and McKinsey were tipping off a Billionaire hedge fund manager. Any wonder _how_ he made those Billions, then? And all of them massive contributors to politicians. How nice. These idiots should all go to jail, for a very long time. Maybe, use the per capita income of ordinary Americans to judge their prison terms; 25M/43k/yr = 500 years between them. Some of them _might_ get out in time to die.
andy
Business as usual for corporations. The only thing out of the ordinary here is that they got caught.
Since Corporations don't have any moral compass, I'd suppose anything is ok as long as they don't get caught.
It's called, 'getting caught.' You see, when you get caught, everyone else in business has to pretend they don't do it, and that they are shocked! Shocked and appalled at the bad apples ruining the barrel. By 'bad apples,' they mean, 'people just like me except they got caught' and by 'ruining the barrel,' they mean, 'drawing the attention of the peons to our utter corruption.'
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I'm afraid that insider trading is deeply, deeply frowned on by most companies, who put strong clauses in their confidentiality agreements, and at some larger companies provide "training" about how not to do it. I've attended such training several times, as part of corporate mergers, and it's striking how thee announced policy does not apply to VP's in practice: does not apply to "corporate partners": and does not apply to the people who have the most to trade with and the most to gain. It _does_ apply to the peons, the people with stock options who might want to trade them in at the right moment but whose activity might pre-announce and thus reduce the profitability of the corporate changes which are the direct knowledge of those most with the most to gain from insider trading.
Yes, I've become extremely cynical about this: I know VP's who really try to help their companies and improve their products, but I've been running into far too many since the Dotcom boom who simply studied how to make their bundle and get out with the last glowing quarter on their resume, and get out before the SEC or the market stomps their grandiose "big vision" plans into the dust.
Doesn't seem to be a lack of Indian representation.
Oh wait, I thought this was the Top Coder thread.
Wall street is still showing record profits after they stole the billions from the American people I start to wonder how much is enough when I see stuff like this - I mean really how many houses cars boats do you need ? Wonder if they are still saying that they don't need tighter regulation.
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
Here's your bonus.
rewriting history since 2109
It's really a tossup. +5 insightful, or +5 cynical. Ironic that cynicism and insight are so much alike, isn't it?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
"Start taking up responsibility for your own actions."
You mean he outsourced himself? Perhaps you should sober-up before climbing on your high horse.
Well, it's not like there aren't any good, ethical people even at the highest levels of corporate power. There are good, ethical politicians, too. Heck, I've met some of both.
But in both cases, you have two things working against there being a preponderance of ethical people. First, power tends to attract high functioning sociopaths. Second, and perhaps as a consequence of the first, you have a culture where corruption is seen as normal, a perk of one's position over other people.
People in positions of power are shielded from anything that can touch their comforting illusions about themselves. They believe that they deserve their positions because they are good people. They are good people because they are in those positions of power, sacrificing their superior selves to make the lives of we, the incompetent peons who need them to look after us, better. Of course they deserve a little on the side for such sacrifice!
You see, the terrible burden of such awesome responsibility entitles them to whatever they can take because the rules for little people don't apply to them.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
with vertical steel bars from side to side and horizontal blue bars at the top and bottom.
I think information is allowed to be provided to investors, but it has to be done through a public disclosure, where any investor could potentially access the information at the same time, right? Things like press releases/conferences, maybe announcements on a website, tv/radio/internet news, etc. I might be wrong - I'm definitely no expert on securities law, but I think the *point* is to prevent people getting rich (or avoiding losses) from having access to secrets that other investors don't.
they can arrest everyone who has ever worked for Goldman Sachs or any of those other bankster firms who are now heaping lavish bonuses on their people, paid for by taxpayers who are becoming unemployed and homeless.
These IBM/intel guys are small potatoes. Make Geithner and Paulson do the perp walk.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Same thing applies to pastors and preachers, too. They preach the word of God, and start to think they understand all the exceptions, and when it is 'ok' to break them.
I knew a guy who had a collection of old/historical bibles. He always locked them up whenever a pastor came over, because he'd had too many of them stolen, by pastors.
Qxe4
It's just the bad 99% giving the other 1% a bad name. ;-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
A guy named Anil Kumar charged with insider trading ... I, I just don't know where to start with this one.
Well, it's not like there aren't any good, ethical people even at the highest levels of corporate power. There are good, ethical politicians, too. Heck, I've met some of both.
Heck, I've met both of them. (ftfy)
872835240
Sorry, but I'm sure the real criminals got away, these guys are probably fall guys.
This seems different than the typical Martha Stewart type deal..
Just read some of this stuff.. They had phone taps on these guys for a YEAR... They were blatantly sharing information, and it even infers at one point that the IBM Exec got there through influence from this group of people doing the insider trading..
http://dealbreaker.com/2009/10/rajaratnam-accomplice-danielle.php
Don't mind me just waiting for your sig to load.
signature is pants
"Our white-collar crimes are not like your white-collar crimes."
"The feeling of power has so far mounted highest in abstinent priests and hermits." F. Nietzsche, Notes (1880-81; x, 414 f.).
Well, it's not like there aren't any good, ethical people even at the highest levels of corporate power. There are good, ethical politicians, too. Heck, I've met some of both.
There are good, ethical politicians, too. Heck, I've met both of them. - fixed it for you
Based on his $21 million bonus in 2008
With those sorts of rewards on offer for "performance", the results are hardly surprising.
Yet we continue to be surprised.
No, it's because of Double Jeopardy. You can't be tried twice for the same crime on the same set of facts. They have to get a slam dunk because the court (awesome pun) is completely ripped from under their feet after that. It has absolutely nothing to do with image though most of the uneducated Jerry-Springer-watching public does think that way. Case in point.
They are good people because they are in those positions of power, sacrificing their superior selves to make the lives of we, the incompetent peons who need them to look after us, better.
You're dead wrong on this one: psychopaths have no illusion whatsoever about what good they do to "us", the lowly ones. Psychopaths only and exclusively look for their own benefit, even if it means a damage for everyone else. They have no conscience whatsoever, but are very charismatic and expert at manipulating. I highly recommend the book Snakes in Suits for anyone interested in the phenomenon of psychopaty in corporate life.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
...aren't like your inside traders.
This seems nonsensical when the annual corporate meetings are held with all employees, who may own stock or stock options. Even if you tell those employees "there is a trading freeze on, due to these business changes", this is why those VP's and more stock-playing employees have divested their shares to family members or business colleagues, with whom they regularly and quietly share insider information.
I think you're right about the point of the laws, I just find that they're often a sad joke in practice. There's nothing like being the trusted engineer called to recover the email from some pending purchaser, about whom you're supposed to know nothing but the boss is _really upset_ that they haven't gotten the email, and you're forced to read the email to verify that you found the right one, to realize just how much chicanery is going on.
It made it clear that the president was defrauding clients and our own investors: and I got out, ASAP, with other abuses logged with the staff I worked with to give me cover. I thought about reporting it, but after attorney consultation, found that I didn't have enough to force a prosecution and could profoundly damage my career by becoming an _unsuccessful_ whistleblower.
Ironic that cynicism and insight are so much alike, isn't it?
Not ironic, just a comment on how cynical you yourself are.
According to ABCnews Raj Rajaratnam is suspected to have given "$3.5 million to the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), whose assets were frozen by the U.S. Treasury Department in Nov. 2007 because of its alleged ties to the Tamil Tigers."
I suspect that the others simply got caught by following the money and listening to the wire-taps supposedly a first time for a hedge fund case according to ABCnews.
It seems the anti-terrorism fraud and money laundering investigations are working to snare more than just directly involved terrorists but also their support system of financial cash inflow.
Those who are just greedy also get snared.
Well, obviously the sociopaths and psychopaths don't need those excuses internally. I'm talking about the non-sociopaths who tell themselves these things.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
No, parent is a troll, because their nationality has nothing to do with the crime they allegedly committed, and was used purely for the purpose of bigotry...Unless the parent also goes around writing in "WHITE AMERICAN" on all articles that mention bad things white Americans do. It's totally irrelevant.