hillbilly

The Hedge Fund Business Is Finished and Bernie Madoff Is Sealing the Deal

I find it incredibly naïve to believe that “free trade” can exist without massive corruption (dishonesty, bribery, sleaze, fraud, vice). No, corruption is not a part of “free markets” it is a part of humanity. To discount it as such is just plain ignorant. There is and always has been a certain segment of the human population that will take any advantage over another human being up to and including murder for their personal benefit. Add to this a culture where goals outweigh principle (other than the mainstay principle “whatever is in my best interest”) and the probability of corruption is very high. Good regulation is an attempt at protecting the remainder of the population. Of course regulation can be and has been corrupted also.

That said many see profit in “freedom” from regulation and call for it. Naïve or corrupt?



On Dec 14 08:15 AM Adamantane wrote:

> Talk about creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think it is unconscionably
> irresponsible for anyone to advise people to leap into total panic-mode
> selling, especially when it is a foregone conclusion what the consequence
> will be. It makes me wonder who is setting themselves up to profit
> from the inevitable dead cat bounce after all the lemmings jump off
> the cliff having gotten less than half of what they would have received
> in an orderly and systematic unwinding of positions.
>
> I don't disagree that people who rely on the government regulators
> to watch their back for them are fools, and that simple and transparent
> balanced holdings are preferable to pigs in pokes, but this is not
> a plausible way to get to that position.
>
> (It still astounds me that some people blame the free market for
> brazen and widespread acts of fraud such as the subprime mess, and
> the unsecured credit default swaps which are the functional equivalents
> of hot checks being used to play the float. Old-fashioned fraud is
> not a feature of markets, certainly anything but a feature of capitalism
> which system requires mutual trust and confidence and fundamentally
> honest if often hardnosed play by all participants. Even the most
> draconian regulation only tangentially can address well-concealed
> or long-standing systematic frauds. The fraudsters as our British
> friends term them are the appropriate targets for wrath and punishment,
> not free markets.)