“You are actually permitted to trade on insider information.”
–“Montauk Bill” Ackman, 2014
Aren’t we lucky to have heroes like Montauk Bill Ackman out there, making money for the benefit of the charities he donates to? On this glorious wednesday morning, I am also very grateful to have men like Joe Kernan, shill, CNBC, asking such hard hitting questions regarding the Valeant-Allergan-Ackman deal.
You’d also be pleased to know that another publicly traded company has approached Bill to assist them in taking over their prey, in the most hostile of ways. But he’s focused on this deal now and told those bozos to get in the back of the line and to wait their turn.
So, just to recap:
If you manage more than 10 billion dollars and a CEO from a publicly traded company calls to tell you they are going to acquire XYZ for 75% higher from where the stock trades, not only are you permitted to buy as many call options as your heart desires, it’s also your God given right– as a leader in the financial world– to profit from this exchange of information because you “never quit” and could “exact positive change” at the company you are targeting.
However, if you’re a self-made woman who sells towels at Sears and cooks pumpkin’d pies around halloween for the teevee, should your fucking broker call you up and tell you he heard XYZ is going to report bad earnings, suggesting that you sell it, should you do that, you will go straight to prison for several years.
Any questions?
If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on Twitter
No questions.
God bless (the illusion of) free market capitalism
excellent post – great analysis – the right comparison — the SEC is a fucking joke
hey!!…wait a minute – wtf?
.
… but, it wasn’t the actual “act” of trading on “inside information” that landed Martha in prison …
… it was the “fact” that she “lied to the feds” about trading on “inside information” that landed Martha in prison !
—–
Subtle distinction !
.
Spot on!
Fargin quacksucker scallywags. Arrrr!
Amen to that! It seems like the process will never change.
White male privilege, it exists.
Hey Jules, I never got any of that shit, just the opposite. Back in 73, for Affirmative Action the company that I applied to had to hire 5 Blacks before I could get in. Over the next 2 years 3 quit or were “let go”. After 10 years it was only me and 1 women left from the original group they hired.
It’s real hard being white.
I don’t think I said exactly that.
Sorry I didn’t mean it applies to all white people. But do you think Bill Ackman could have gotten away if he was Asian or even say Italian-American? Certain white people born into certain classes have privileges over others.
You are correct sir. I see it as a small percentage but do agree. Never once for me. I started out upper class poor and Worked my way into lower middle class with no help from anyone but my wife. But in the generations before mine I am sure it happened all of the time.
Are you implying that Italians are not white? Hitler would agree!
Italians are half eggplant
I don’t know what that means, but it is kind of funny.
You didn’t watch the clip from True Romance that Fly posted yesterday? You should!
okay I’ll check it out. Thanks for mentioning it.
“You know, I read a lot. Especially about things in, uh, about history. I find that shit fascinating. Here’s a fact, I don’t know whether you know or not, Sicilians … were spawned by…”
Italians are white, but they have stigmas attached to them different than white anglo-Saxons.
You mean that they wear silk suits and cut people fingers off with hatches.
Yes!
hatchets I mean
Hell yes dumbass!
I’ve known good white people and good black people, however I have never met an asian person who can drive. It always fun to race bait before 10 am, Thx.
True true. My mother always told me as a child that there are good and bad in are groups of people and we all bleed red.
You don’t “have to hire” anyone unless you have a crappy government job.
Bart, it was manufacturing and it was 1973.
Martha’s problem was having Saul Goodman for her attorney.
And Jordan Belfort as her broker.
God Bless Martha …
Fucking joke.
Of course, I support you 100% but I believe he spells it Kernen not Kernan.
As for Martha, would you?
His name isn’t important
check
never thought I’d feel sorry for Martha.
That picture on the front page is Bill saying “I am only going to stick it in THIS much”
the tradition of white collar criminal loop-hole exploitation is reaching new heights of greed & dishonesty .. the culmination of Ackmans life & life-philosophy .. Montauk BIll will go down in history
We should all give Ackman our money to invest.
Martha was a perfect target in that her popular fame made her an object lesson for “the little people.” Her case also helped distract attention from the wholesale decriminalization (or at least de-prisonization) of…well, everything (including child rape) for the 1%. Useful!
“James Comey, the federal prosecutor behind the Stewart case, says he went after Stewart “not because of who she is but because of what she did.” But that’s hard to believe given the audacious legal theory Comey used to pursue her.
Comey didn’t charge Stewart with insider trading. Instead, he claimed that Stewart’s public protestations of innocence were designed to prop up the stock price of her own company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and thus constituted securities fraud. Stewart was also charged with making false statements to federal officials investigating the insider trading charge — a charge they never pursued.
In essence, Stewart was prosecuted for “having misled people by denying having committed a crime with which she was not charged,” as Cato Institute Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds put it….
In a famous speech in 1940, Attorney General Robert Jackson (later Justice Jackson) warned federal prosecutors: “With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone.” The great danger, said Jackson, is that “he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted.”
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/lessons-martha-stewart-case
Bill is a big money dem donor; Martha not so much.