Sense on Cents 2009 Halls of Fame and Shame
Posted by Larry Doyle on January 4th, 2010 9:47 AM |
For those who missed last evening’s No Quarter Radio’s Sense on Cents with Larry Doyle Hall of Fame and Shame Induction, I am compelled to provide a recap and listing of all those honored or dishonored — depending on one’s perspective. What was the measuring stick to make these assessments? Very simply, the pursuit and promotion of truth, transparency and integrity as we navigate the economic landscape.
Some names you will immediately recognize, others you may not. Additional information about these individuals can be found via the search window (located above the right sidebar) at Sense on Cents. The names appear in no specific order of priority or importance. With no further adieu . . .
Sense on Cents 2009 Hall of Shame Inductees
1. Bernie Madoff
2. Nicholas Cosmo: ran financial scam at Agape World
3. Tim Geithner: tax cheat amongst other things
4. Larry Summers: arrogant, condescending, and sleep deprived
5. Auction-Rate Securities dealers and managers, especially Oppenheimer Holdings, E-Trade, Schwab, Pimco, Van-Kampen, Blackrock
6. The Wall Street Journal
7. George Soros
8. Chris Dodd (D-CT): reasons too numerous to mention
9. The Board of FINRA
10. Franklin Raines and Leland Brendsel: former CEOs of Fannie and Freddie
11. Wall Street management, especially Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs
12. Frank Dipascali: a special place in hell for Madoff’s CFO
13. Rahm Emanuel
14. Jimmy Cayne: CEO of Bear Stearns
15. Dick Fuld: CEO of Lehman Bros.
16. Congress collectively
17. Barney Frank (D-MA): reasons too numerous to mention, but start with “I want to roll the dice…”
18. Bank Stress Tests: a total sham
19. Allen Stanford
20. Steven Rattner: car czar
21. Bruce Malkenhorst: receiving a 500k pension from Vernon, CA
22. Barack Obama: just another politician (more…)
Tags: Acorn, Allen Stanford, Andrew Madoff, Angelo Haligiannis Ponzi scheme, Arianna Huffington, auction rate securites dealers, Bank Stress Tests, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Ben Nelson, Bernie Madoff, Board of FINRA, Bob Rodriguez of FPA, Bruce Malkenhorst, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Carmen Reinhart, cash for clunkers, Charles Bowsher, Charlie Doyle, Chris Cox, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Clifford S. Asness, Cohmad Securities, Colonel Elton Johnson Jr., Congress, Daniel Hannan, Dennis Kucinich, Dick Fuld, Edward Liddy, Elizabeth Warren, Erin Arvedlund, financial media, financial regulatory reform, Frank DiPascali, Franklin Raines and Leland Brendsel, George Soros, Goldman Sachs, Harvey Pitt, Helen Davis Chaitman, Helmut Kiener, Howard Kastel, incest between Wall Street and Washington, Jeff Gundlach, Jeffrey Picower, Jimmy Cayne, Joe Saluzzi, Joe the Plumber, John Edwards Mark Sanford Rod Blagoevich, John Mauldin, john wooden, Jonathan Cuneo, Jonathan Weil of Bloomberg, Judge Jed Rakoff, Judge Lawrence McKenna, Kenneth Rogoff, Larry Johnson, Larry Summers, Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities, Lew Rockwell, Lloyd Blankfein CEO of Goldman Sachs, Madoff family, Mark Madoff, Marta Mossburg, Martin Feldstein, Mary Landrieu, Mary Schapiro, media in America, Mike Duggan of Domus, Nicholas Cosmo of Agape World, Oppenheimer Holdings E-Trade Schwab Pimco Van-Kampen Blackrock, Paul Keating, Paul Volcker, Pete Peterson Genevievette Walker-Lightfoot, Peter King, Peter Madoff, Peter Weinberg, Phil Trupp, PPIP, Raj Rajaratnam of Galleon Group, Rham Emanuel, Richard Greenfield, Richard Ketchum, Robert Benmosche, Robert Jaffe, Robert reich, Robert Rubin, Ronnie Sue Ambrosino, Ruth Madoff, Sean D'Arcy, SEC, Sense on Cents 2009 Hall of Fame Hall of, Sense on Cents 2009 Hall of Shame, Shana Madoff, Shelia Bair, Sin-Ming Shaw, SIPC, Sonny and Marcia Cohn, Steven Rattner, Susan Antilla of Bloomberg, Taylor Bean Whitaker, Tea parties, Thaddeus McCotter, The Wall Street Journal, Themis Trading, Thomas Hoenig, Tiger Woods, Tim Geithner tax cheat, Tom Lauria, truth transparency and integrity, Wall street management, Walter Noel, William K. Black
Posted in General, Sense on Cents | 31 Comments »
U.S. Attorney and SEC Investigating Lehman’s Auction Rate Securities Sales; They Should Also Investigate FINRA’s
Posted by Larry Doyle on May 21st, 2009 11:34 AM |
The Wall Street Journal reports this morning Lehman Role Probed in Selling Securities:
The Justice Department has questioned several former executives at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. as part of its criminal investigation into whether they sold supposedly safe, liquid securities to clients while knowing that the market for the securities was drying up.
Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn and lawyers from the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent weeks interviewed several former executives who ran Lehman’s auction-rate-securities business, these people said. Auction-rate securities are short-term debt instruments in which the interest rates reset at periodic auctions.
The inquiry centers on whether Lehman employees defrauded customers as the market for these securities broke down in 2007. Authorities want to know if Lehman executives got these auction-rate securities off the firm’s books and into client accounts at a time in which the securities were becoming hard to sell, according to the people with knowledge of the matter.
Authorities also want to know if executives knew the market was in trouble and sold their own personal holdings of auction-rate securities, which could constitute insider trading, according to the people. (LD’s highlight)
I wrote on January 16th, “Let’s Really Question Ms. Schapiro.” In that post, I was raising the same questions about FINRA that the U.S. Attorney is now raising about the Lehman executives. I wrote:
Additionally, as of the end of 2006, FINRA acknowledged that the assumed portfolio held a cool $647 million dollars in Auction Rate Securities!!!
For those not familiar with Auction Rate Securities, this sector of the market totally imploded last Spring leaving institutional and individual investors holding the bag. While many institutional investors were made somewhat whole via settlements from the larger broker-dealers, many individual investors remain holding the bag as smaller broker-dealers, who did not necessarily underwrite these securities but did distribute them, have not been forced to make clients whole. WOW!!!
Are you kidding me!!?? The main regulator of the financial industry happens to be an investor in securities which virtually every Attorney General in the country is going after every Wall Street institution for improper marketing and distribution!! Are we looking at gross negligence, ignorance, incompetence or all of the above?? The question that MUST be answered is what has FINRA done with these Auction Rate Securities. Do they still own them? Did they liquidate them? If so, when and at what price? How was the sale negotiated? So many questions.
Over and above that, given that Ms. Schapiro is the chief executive of FINRA, don’t you think it would have been appropriate for her to address which hedge funds, fund of funds, and private equity shops were in FINRA’s portfolio? FINRA’s Annual Report categorically states its’ investment committee addresses any potential conflicts of interest. The public deserved to have this topic openly addressed during Ms. Schapiro’s hearing. WHY? For the simple reason that FINRA is feeding from the very same trough it is supposed to be regulating.
I followed this post up with numerous other posts raising the same questions. On March 31st, I wrote “Before Any Fraud Ensued,” in which I aggressively put forth:
Given that there is public acknowledgement by a federal judge that a fraud had ensued in the marketing and distribution of ARPS, let us return to the case Sense on Cents has been highlighting. FINRA’s Annual Report for 2007 publicy records that FINRA owned $647 million ARPS at year end 2006.
The questions that need to be answered:
1. Was FINRA defrauded in the purchase and sale of their bonds?
Note from LD: I have subsequently unearthed, in reading NASD Annual Reports from 2003-2005, that FINRA assumed the ownership of their ARS holdings from NASD. I highlighted as much in my post, “NASD Knew Auction Rate Securities Weren’t Cash”
2. If FINRA has sold their bonds subsequent to the publishing of that report in April 2008, to whom did they sell them? at what price? on what date?
Note from LD: The Bloomberg article from April 30th, FINRA Oversees Auction-Rate Arbitrations After Exit offered the following color addressing FINRA’s sale of their ARS holdings:
Finra, responsible for educating and protecting investors, owned as much as $862.2 million of the debt before exiting the market in the spring of 2007, less than six months before auctions began to fail, according to spokesman Herb Perone.
3. Did FINRA have material non-public information at the time of sale, if in fact they sold them? Did they act on that information?
Note from LD: Today’s WSJ article is further acknowledgment that the Auction Rate Securities market was failing in 2007. FINRA first apprised investors of concerns in the ARS sector in Spring 2008. If in fact the ARS market was failing in 2007, the pressure on FINRA needs to increase. FINRA must release the trade information on their sale of ARS. Without that information, how can the investing public have any confidence in the integrity of FINRA and its procedures. Returning to my March 31st post:
Let’s put this into layman’s terms. FINRA was supposed to be overseeing and regulating the casino on Wall Street. In the process of regulating the casino, it appears that they put some of their own chips into one of the games. That game, ARPS, turned out to be a fraud, as publicly acknowledged by U.S. District Judge Lawrence McKenna in this case with UBS.
DID THE SECURITY GUARD, FINRA, PROTECT THE OTHER PATRONS AS REQUIRED OR DID THE SECURITY GUARD PROTECT HIS OWN INTERESTS TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE OTHER PATRONS?
Now here we are on May 21st, 2009. The questions that the U.S. Attorney is looking to get answered by Lehman executives are the EXACT questions that FINRA executives also should be compelled to answer.
Do you think representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the SEC, and defense counsel may also want to know the answers to these questions as well?
LD
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Posted in ARPS, ARS, Auction Rate Securities scandal, General | 12 Comments »