On Apr 22, 11:06*pm, anoop <ghanw...[at]gmail.com> wrote:
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That should be _stated_ income loans.

This is a fun article on the crises.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...e_big_takeover

dapperdobbs <GeorgeCFL[at]hotmail.com> wrote:


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Which is starting to address the core point. Incompetence is not a crime. Damn
good thing, too. There wouldn't be enough people left to be jailers.

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Right. The boards of directors gave them specific incentives and rewards to act
the way they did. In many cases, they even had government blessing (e.g. the
SEC allowing 30x leverage).

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Well, criminal negligence is usually applied to acts that cause physical injury
or death. I don't know if it has ever been applied to financial injury. I do
know there is the "reasonable man" defense. It is not negligence if our
mythical reasonable man would have acted the same way knowing the same things.
At the CxO level, these guys had armies of highly educated, highly trained,
highly paid experts telling them they were doing good things.

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My argument took a little detour in response to Chip's message. However, I do
hold the "innocent until proven guilty" principle dear. A person is not a
criminal until a judge or jury says so.

My core argument is there doesn't seem to be many crimes committed at the CxO
levels. Not like Enron. Just greed and incompetence. Maybe deeper
investigation will turn some up. I wouldn't be surprised. It just hasn't shown
up yet, so we are little quick to use the term "criminals" even by looser
definitions.

I'm sure there were lots of crimes committed at lower levels. e.g. mortgage
brokers or applicants falsifying mortgage applications. It wouldn't bother me
to stuff some of them in jail.

-- Doug

On Apr 23, 10:35*am, Douglas Johnson <p...[at]classtech.com> wrote:

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Drunk driving is a crime, whether the driver gets caught or not. These
guys were drunk on statistics ("risk modelling") and greed. These guys
did NOT understand what they were doing - the bottom line and stock
options were the focus. There is such a thing a criminal negligence,
and one needn't be an attorney to spot it.

I'm not an advocate of mobs - the French Revolution showed the
insanity of extremes - but it is an important point to keep in mind
that We make the laws, and We are responsible for enforcing them. We
are. We see the wrongs. We see the hurt. The criminals specialize in
slipping past laws, whether they were masks and bypass alarm systems,
or rob the banks from the board room.

Your argument (no offense to you intended, just pointing to the
fallacy of your argument, even if you are slyly playing Devil's
Advocate) - it sounds similar to excusing a criminal on the basis that
the guy(s) who wounded 6 trillion people on video tape has not been
proven guilty yet, and so should not be called "criminal." That they
are now collecting their options packages AFTER sinking "their" banks
shows, to me, the dire need to throw them in jail. Their arrogance and
"willful indifference" is nothing short of stunning, and is a blow to
the good name of capitalism, free enterprise, and financial planning

On Apr 23, 8:35 am, Douglas Johnson <p...[at]classtech.com> wrote:
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Moneyed interests are typically those in power, and they look out for
each other. So at times it is the voice of the people, expressing
outrage, that ultimately gets prosecutors to do their jobs and bring
justice to all. I will continue to refer to many in the financial
industry as criminals, in the belief that, for one, criminal fraud was
widespread. If you have doubts consider, among other things, the many
reports on qualifying people for mortgages on shady evidence.

Chip <chip.a.wood[at]gmail.com> wrote:

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I guess we shouldn't be referring to them as "criminals" until then.

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You mean like buying AAA rated CDO's? OK. I agree. Some of the things going
on were obviously foolish at the time, like writing those garbage mortgages. But
some wasn't.

-- Doug

On Apr 22, 3:22*pm, Douglas Johnson <p...[at]classtech.com> wrote:
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Like the rampant abuse of state income loans?

On Apr 22, 6:31 pm, honda.lion...[at]gmail.com wrote:
[snip]
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Exactly right! (And getting something exactly right is not a 'minor'
achievement by any means :-) The major point is maintaining adequate
discipline, keeping rules of proper conduct. I cannot phrase it any
better than you did!

"Igor Chudov" <ichudov[at]algebra.com> wrote in message
news:WLSdnYTtS-qu5XLUnZ2dnUVZ_jdi4p2d[at]giganews.com...

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Could it be you have the wrong fellow? Not 16 months at Freddie Mac, but 16
years.

Elizabeth Richardson

On Apr 22, 2:04*pm, Igor Chudov <ichu...[at]algebra.com> wrote:
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Aparently so - the article states "A spokeswoman for the Fairfax
County police said there were no signs of foul play"

Douglas Johnson wrote:
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And foolish ONLY in retrospect? If they were being (and continue to be)
paid the big bucks to know what was going on, they sure as hell played
fast and loose with MY money.

Chip

dapperdobbs <George...[at]hotmail.com> wrote:
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This strikes me as a good proposal. Putting aside that protocol like a
suicide watch would have been available, perhaps Mr. Kellermann would
have found relief knowing he was being properly punished and no longer
had to carry, say, the weight of the world on his shoulders by trying
to remedy (the chaos that is now?) Freddie Mac's woes. Order would
return to his life. I feel bad this crisis would cause someone to be
in so much mental agony.

dapperdobbs <GeorgeCFL[at]hotmail.com> wrote:
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Exactly who committed what crimes? Madoff and Stanford aside, most of this mess
was created by perfectly legal activities. The activities may have been foolish
in retrospect, but not illegal. -- Doug

On Apr 22, 3:50*pm, honda.lion...[at]gmail.com wrote:
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David Kellermann (with two "nn's"
http://tv.rightcelebrity.com/?p=2328

Thank you for the heads up on this. Apparently he worked for Freddie
for 16 years. My guess is he woke up to realize what chaos he
contributed to. This could of course have been prevented by throwing
these guys in jail which is where criminals belong. Those without
remorse, such as the execs of the former Wachovia are in line to
collect their re-priced stock options, now Wells Fargo options.
That's, IMO, a crime, too.

On Apr 22, 3:50*pm, honda.lion...[at]gmail.com wrote:
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Was that the guy who committed suicide by shooting himself in the back
of the head, and then hacked himself into pieces?

Let's see, a 41 year old guy joins Freddie in September, works under,
obviously, great scrutiny, and has little chance, if any, to steal
anything. He then "kills himself" after 6 months on the job. Am I the
only person who is skeptical that it was suicide? Could it be that he
learned something that he would be better off not knowing?

i

I trust the regulars saw this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/bu...er=rss&emc=rss

I hope the Harvard Business School et al. do a study of the conflicts
that arose in the minds of the various executives who have killed
themselves in the last two years. Surely it would help future business
leaders avoid quandaries that lead a person to give up. Perhaps it
would also help the general functioning of business. I wonder whether
this fellow was pushed over the edge as much by a flawed business
system as any mistakes he himself made.