On 2010-04-19, John R. Carroll wrote:
Winston wrote:
On 4/19/2010 10:08 AM, John R. Carroll wrote:
Ignoramus9593 wrote:
On 2010-04-19, wrote:
Let's say that I sell you a product that I know is worthless
and will almost certainly cause you to lose a large amount
of time and money. Let's say that I game the system
so that the product appears to be well regarded and a good
value; I use that to convince you to buy.

Exactly.

Let's say that I sold you a lathe that was made of parts handpicked
to fail, greased with abrasive added to grease, pee instead of oil,
etc.

Furthermore, assume that my client actually built this lathe so that
it will fail as early as possible, say to eliminate competition
(just to make this example more realistic).

I know that full well, sell you a lathe like that, and say "here's a
lathe, as far as I know it is great, it runs, but it is sold AS IS".

Then the lathe fails in 2 weeks.

Would I be a fraud? Yes. Would saying something like "but the buyer
considered hilself sophisticated", absolve me from responsibility?
No.

Nicely put, Ig.

They haven't been charged with, or done, anything criminal.

Bill Moyers Journal that aired last night:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1471123509/#

"SIMON JOHNSON: (...) the person who nailed this intellectually a
long time ago was from the University of Chicago. George Stigler.
Not a man of the left. He got a Nobel Prize for his observation.
All regulated industries end up with the industry capturing the
regulators."

It's a little disingenuous to claim that nothing criminal took place
only because the captured regulators were told to regard broad
categories of theft as 'technically legal'.


I follow Moyers to the extent possible and he's just excellent.

There isn't anything "disingenuous" about such a claim at all.
You and Ig are placing the failure of both the voters and regulatory
agencies on the backs of the regulated.
I'm not condoning GS's behavior in any way, I'm saying that putting people
in jail anytime someone gets mad is a bad idea.
Even promoting that possibility is counterproductive.

I never suggested that the fraud was criminal.

i