Taken To Task: Capt. Cronyism, Hank Paulson

Aaron's 'Taken to Task' series is great, and is one of the few doses of honesty I see in mainstream(ish) media. Great job, and keep up the good work Aaron!

P.S. Let's see more interviews with Davidowitz. :)

#$%$ you Aaron..and Yahoo! argh, stop these truth revealing, public serving segments - I mean, we need to be kept in the dark, follow the other media! Lol..OK: kidding, Aaron, What a beautiful eloquent, concise and succinct overview, of this whole mess - and for clearly identifying that Congress, are enablers...and corruption in DC is by far the base foundation problem, of all of this. Yahoo..thank you!

Brilliant! Keep up the good work.

His activities were in fact "Illegal" and his crimes fit perfectly under the RICO statutes. As a leader of the Banking Cartel, he has thus-far been immune from prosecution. A sad commentary on our Justice Department.

Big Bank Hank! Good article - keep reporting, the light of truth is the best weapon.

Wait a minute...it may not have been illegal for Hank to insider trade (though it's beyond outrageous), but what about those who received and acted upon that insider information?! Did they not violate the law? The piling up of these stories is bringing us ever closer to a Marie Antoinette moment that will be the bell that cannot be un-rung.

An ex-CEO from Goldman not playing by the rules? Wow. Who could have seen this coming?

Paulson is a #$%$ to be sure. But this has become like a time honored tradition in Washington. Look at all the congressional and white house staff that regularly trade on information that will affect, usually negatively, firms all over the country. Staff have for years been taking short positions on plenty of firms days and weeks before legislation is proposed in committee that will affect any number of corporations. After the congressional news breaks, they dump their stock and cash in a tidy profit. This is still legal in Washington, but only for politicians and their staff. Call your Congressman now and state your opinion regarding this egregious behavior.

Big banks need to be taken down...period

Well said...happy to hear someone say this!

I would think that the hedge funds could and should be prosecuted if they acted on inside information. We need a fair market that encompasses large and small investors.

I hate Hank Paulson so much. Seriously above the law taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

It is as old as salt. The ones that make the money are ones that
make the laws.

Isn't this considered insider trading? If so, the crooks should be made to repay the illegal profits and then sent to jail.
Didn't Martha Stewart get some jail time for 250m? These guys should get a boat load of jail time. Come on attorney general get the ball rolling and start trying these guys for insider trading. What are you waiting for?

If he had any shame, he'd lock himself in a room with a gun and one bullet.

Please begin with "Insider Trades" in Washington Mutual Case! GoldmanSachs was shorting WAMU Stock months before FDIC sold a traditional US BANK with 300billion in assets to "CRONY" JP MOrgan Chase for 1.9 bil! Crony CAPITALISM! Right on!
Hank Paulson should be in JAIL, like DIMON and the other HEDGE FUnd Cronies!!!
The only ones who lost everything, are the "SHAREHOLDERS" , lost life savings, got screwed and now challenging a corrupt system and corrupt DELEWARE JUSTICE SYSTEM!

My GSE preferred stocks are trading at around 5 pennies on the dollar today. OTC markets.... Still waiting for some resolution.

The RICO (racketeering) laws are perfect for prosecuting this type of crime!

Evil man among evil men all exploiting cowards who are distracted by an inane arguement over political ideaology.

The answer is obvious and right in front of us but we just keep watching and listening to the propoganda put out by the media owned by the same evil men.

We have been divided and now we are being conquered.

Hank Paulson is a Psychopath: "Psychopaths are people who have no conscience or empathy and who do not care for anyone other than themselves." Research by Babiak and Hare in the USA, Board and Fritzon in the UK and in Australia has shown that psychopaths are indeed to be found at greater levels of incidence at senior levels of organisations than they are at junior levels (Boddy et al., 2010a). There is also some evidence that they may tend to join some types of organisations rather than others and that, for example, large financial organisations may be attractive to them because of the potential rewards on offer in these organizations."

Some psychopaths are violent and end up in jail, others forge careers in corporations. The latter group who forge successful corporate careers is called Corporate Psychopaths...

Psychologists have argued that Corporate Psychopaths within organizations may be singled out for rapid promotion because of their polish, charm, and cool decisiveness. Expert commentators on the rise of Corporate Psychopaths within modern corporations have also hypothesized that they are more likely to be found at the top of current organisations than at the bottom.

Further, that if this is the case, then this phenomenon will have dire consequences for the organisations concerned and for the societies in which those organisations are based. Since this prediction of dire consequences was made the Global Financial Crisis has come about.

Clive R. Boddy, The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis, Journal of Business