Juggling Dynamite

The fact that SAC has been allowed to continue in its notorious practices for so long and amass such incredible wealth for its principles and investors who were happy to collect 30% a year without questioning how that was possible, proves that crime does pay in American and makes a long-running mockery of the rule of law and American securities regulation. It will be interesting to see if a conviction flows from the charges. SAC, of course, has the most formidable legal team money can buy.

Bethany McLean, CNBC Contributor, says the U.S. indictment of SAC implies this was a company where compliance was there in name, but not practice. If you believe what the indictment says, this was a place set up to encourage insider trading, she adds. Here is a direct link.

The testimonies given are all excellent summaries of the unjustifiable risks and costs we are paying for the refusal to break up ‘too big to fail’ banks and re-establish a clear division between traditional banking and their speculative pursuits–profit-levering, trading and churning through capital markets. We have already learned these lessons the hard way several times in history. Today we seem destined to feel that pain some more before changes will finally be made. We have let banks have their unfettered way with us, and the real economy (the 99.9% of us) continue to suffer the consequences. Not surprisingly the bank representatives all respectively disagree.

Joshua Rosner, managing director at Graham Fisher & Co., Tim Weiner, global risk manager of commodities and metals at MillerCoors LLC, Saule Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Randall Guynn, head of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP’s financial institutions group, testify at a Senate subcommittee hearing on U.S. banks, financial rules and commodity trading. The panel is led by U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, who is among lawmakers and regulators who say banks can drive up prices when they control both the physical products and the financing.Here is a direct video link of the hearing.

Chinese vacationers increasingly are turning away from tour-bus travel and frantic shopping trips. The WSJ’s Yun-hee Kim speaks on the changing habits of Chinese tourists. See more on the numbers here. Here is a direct video link.