Monday, February 27, 2012

Clueless Michael Douglas versus Murray Rothbard

This is sad. First, we had Clint Eastwood in an absurd Super Bowl commercial.

Now, we have Michael Douglas doing an absurd "public service" announcement against securities fraud and insider trading..

In the commercial Douglas says:
Hello, I’m Michael Douglas. In the movie ‘Wall Street,’ I played Gordon Gekko, a greedy corporate executive who cheated to profit while innocent investors lost their savings.
Here's the first problem with this propaganda. The character Douglas played in the movie, Gordon Gekko, didn't cheat "innocent investors". He sought out information so that markets became more efficient. He launched takeovers to make firms more efficient. Investors that held stocks where Gekko bought in benefited from his actions. No one "lost their savings." Did Douglas even understand what the hell was going on in the movie?

Douglas goes on:
The movie was fiction, but the problem is real. Our economy is increasingly dependent on the success and the integrity of the financial markets. If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.
The absurdity of this quote is that when there is real fraud, even if it is reported to the government, the governmnet, via the SEC, has shown it will do nothing.

Harry Markopolos warned the SEC for years about the scam Bernie Madoff was running and that did a lot of good.

As for as insider trading, it does nothing but make markets more efficient. It's done every day on Wall Street. The government just takes on outsiders. Raj Rajaratnam and Rajat Gupta certainly are not names you are going to find on the list of Boston Brahmins.

Douglas concludes the propaganda piece by telling viewers how to report insider trading or other securities fraud to the FBI.




Here's Murray Rothbard contra-Michael Douglas




3 comments:

  1. Rothbard's sense of humor is just terrific. Entertaining and informative.

    Another problem with making insider trading illegal is sporadic enforcement. Some get done and others get away with it scot-free.

    (BTW, according to Google, the term scot free is very appropriate. "Sceot is the Old English for "a tax." Scot and lot was a medieval muncipal tax levied on residents. Someone who managed to avoid paying this medieval tax got off "scot free." ")

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  2. You're right, that Is sad, big time. I've lost all respect for both Michael Douglas and Clint Eastwood,... and I've noticed, when I do something, at least 250,000 other guys just like me are doing the same thing.
    But they've already made their millions, so what do they care?

    Everywhere I look, all I see is sellouts, backstabbers and liars. Well, everywhere except places like this website, thank goodness for that,... and Ron Paul. Heh, Ron Paul is the new Clint Eastwood, and so too are all the other truth tellers of the world.

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  3. douglas is being a shill for the govt for his son, who i believe is in prison for drug charges

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