Word: lynching
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...early part of this decade. As New York attorney general, Spitzer used internal e-mails sent by analysts to prove that Wall Street firms were pushing stocks their professionals didn't believe were good investments just to generate investment-banking fees. In one famous case, former Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodget told investors to buy stocks about which he privately wrote in e-mails to colleagues were "horrible," a "disaster" and a "POS," or piece of s___. Blodget paid $4 million to settle Spitzer's charges. The total civil penalties for Wall Street's research infractions reached $875 million...
...that there's a correlation between excessive pay and excessive risk-taking isn't quite accurate. It may be true in the case of hedge funds or leveraged-buyout - which call themselves private-equity (PE) - firms or some parts of stricken outfits like AIG, Citi and the former Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America. But hedgies and PEs aren't covered by pay czar Ken Feinberg's ukases...
Where's the Justice? None of the people who presided over the catastrophes at the likes of Citi and AIG and Merrill Lynch are likely to go to jail. That's because incompetence and arrogance aren't criminal offenses. If that seems a bit unfair, so does the government's rescue program that saved some and not others, depending on political and social criteria. The most recent example: Delphi Corp., GM's former parts division that was spun off a decade ago, which recently emerged from bankruptcy proceedings. White collar Delphi retirees are having their pensions whacked, but United Auto...
...slap on the wrist. Even as the outrage over her column continues, there's a growing backlash against her leading critics. Comedic actor, writer and Twitter pioneer Stephen Fry has come in for the most censure. Columnist Brendan O'Neill wrote that Fry had used Twitter as a "virtual lynch mob" that had set press and speech freedoms back...
...contrast, NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and a leading proponent of legalization, called the move a "major victory" for those seeking drug-law reforms. Tim Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the libertarian Cato Institute, says the new policy announcement was a significant step that was "long overdue...