<p>I have been following this case closely as I have a personal connection to one of the involved players, but this whole area is not my field of expertise. For those who are in this industry, I am curious as to your take / perspective on the whole thing.</p>
<p>I’m curious, too.</p>
<p>At one point raj was in the forbes 400 richest Americans.</p>
<p>Please judge, not another slap on the wrist, a drop in the bucket ten million dollar fine, and house arrest, and Lindsay Lohan II type saga. Hit him with the highest jail sentence and bankrupt him, so that the next time someone says, “they all do it”, so let him go, we can point to Raja.</p>
<p>Why put this guy in prison for a long time? He did not commit any violent crimes. All insider trading means is that he cut in line in front of others to make profit for himself. He is not a Maddoff who stole from others. The best way to punish rich people is to make them poor. Forcing taxpayers to pay for him while he rots in prison is not a useful use of tax dollars.</p>
<p>Help me understand exactly what it is he is accused of doing, and where the lines get drawn.</p>
<p>razorsharp, why not put him in jail and relieve him of his ill-gotten gains? The money could be used to pay for his jail stay.</p>
<p>And he should be punished severely. The reason this stuff keeps happening is that the criminals see that there are no serious penalties.</p>
<p>I guess I’m missing the greed gene here. When I worked on Wall Street I had numerous opportunities to access “inside” information that would have elevated my then crappy lifestyle quite a bit. The thought occurred to me, sure, but I’d never do it. I had alot more to gain by doing it than he did. He was already rich! Just don’t get it.</p>
<p>pizzagirl, he traded on insider information. In other words, he took advantage of knowing certain people who had information about upcoming deals that they shared with him and that no one else knew about. Free markets can’t work if insider information is used to trade. The point of a free market is that all the information is available to everyone. Insider trading has been illegal for – forever. </p>
<p>Raj was caught on tape saying some flagrantly outrageous things – like, “I just learned that Company X is going to takeover Company Y in another two weeks, so now would be a good time to buy Company Y.”</p>
<p>Insider trading harms those who don’t know about the upcoming deal and sell their stock. By not having the same information as the buyer (or, at least, access to the same information), it’s not a level playing field.</p>
<p>I haven’t read a lot about this particular case, but does anyone know what, if anything, happened to the individuals who were feeding him the insider information?</p>
<p>In today’s New York Times:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/opinion/12thu1.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1305205270-/oRor6U5GyZ1XhDDJd/Ncw[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/opinion/12thu1.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1305205270-/oRor6U5GyZ1XhDDJd/Ncw</a></p>
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<p>This case seems much more odious than other insider trading scenarios to me. Odious and obvious. I did not think the Martha Stewart or Milliken cases deserved the punishments they got, given exactly what could be proven happened. Unless the stuff is not provable in a court of law, and the evidence seems strong, Mr RAajaratnam does deserve to be punished severely. He not only deliberately and knowingly commit fraud, but put others with his power in the position of having to be party to it or suffer some realistic consequences. I don’t think that should make that stands as an out for those complicit, but does put even more of a hit on Raj.</p>
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<p>He’s been found guilty. Case closed.</p>
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- What he did was illegal and 2. his profits did come from others who either made less money or lost money.</p>
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<p>Absolutely not. If all you do when rich people break the law is to take money from them, they will do two things - first shelter the money (Madoff’s wife and family aren’t exactly living on the streets) and secondly, just repeat the same thing again. As someone said earlier, in his case, taxpayers needn’t pay for his prison term; his money can be used for that. And the biggest advantage to society is that other potential fraudsters will have to seriously weigh the possibility of life in jail when they plan on doing anything illegal.</p>
<p>Insider trading, like prostitution (which I think should be legalized), is not a victimless crime. T. Boone Pickens, too, was guilty of insider trading (and didn’t spend a night in jail, whereas Michael Milliken did, provoking cries of anti-Semitism), and there were millions lost by stockholders, without the prescience of insider trading info, who were in the energy options game, for example. And whether or not the options market is a fool’s game is beside the point. The playing field wasn’t level, and people’s finances were descimated.</p>
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<p>I don’t believe you. Got any proof?</p>
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<p>I don’t think in this case Raj decimated other’s finances. He just made himself very rich, illegally and unethically.</p>
<p><<i don’t=“” believe=“” you.=“” got=“” any=“” proof?=“”>></i></p><i don’t=“” believe=“” you.=“” got=“” any=“” proof?=“”>
<p>Whoops, I meant to write Ivan Boesky, not T. Boone Pickens (<–I was reading my statement from BP Capital Management while typing). Pickens is sort of my hero given his acumen in the oil market made for a nice contribution to tuition, in this household.</p>
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<p>“I don’t think in this case Raj decimated other’s finances. He just made himself very rich, illegally and unethically.”</p>
<p>cbreeze, insider trading might look fairly benign on the surface, but it can have much deeper consequences. Manipulation of a company’s stock price can affect its ability to raise funds and hire people. While he did not directly decimated anyone’s retirement funds, he might have caused loss of jobs and great technologies indirectly.</p>
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<p>So this opinion isn’t valid anymore since Boesky and Milliken are both Jewish?</p>