Comments on: Billionaire brown found guilty

By: Ashish

Ashish — Thu, 12 May 2011 07:47:31 +0000

Rajaratnam is one brown man among 1.5 billion. He is one Wharton grad among a few tens of thousands. (Like Millken.) Likewise, Rajat Gupta graduated from HBS, like so many other scumbags.

I may be brown, but I don't deserve to be tainted by association with them.

By: Pravin Praveen

Pravin Praveen — Thu, 12 May 2011 06:29:41 +0000

Michael Milken looks like a saint compared to a lot of these execs from the last decade. at least Milken showed some contrition and remade his life. A lot of these execs just lack total shame. And no, I don’t think race had little to with the four eyed tubby’s arrest.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 12 May 2011 05:57:10 +0000

i thought the hedge fund guys avoided some unfavorable taxes in part because they gave so much money to democrats historically? it's known that obama got a lot of that in 2008 (quantitative analysts from science backgrounds were surprisingly pro-obama when i was taken out for dinner and drinks in 2008 if they were american born [foreign born ones didn't seem to care much about american politics]).

By: Nandalal Nagalingam Rasia

Nandalal Nagalingam Rasia — Thu, 12 May 2011 05:08:32 +0000

Was it a case of the SEC not being able/willing to use wiretaps in the past (before Rajaratnam)? Because, I think, this is the only way you can provide incontrovertible proof of insider trading and, if i’m right, it’s more likely Raj was hit a perfect storm. That whole counterfactual regarding whether X prominent white banker would not have been investigated and prosecuted to the same degree as Rajaratnam if they did the same thing isn’t useful because although they’re all very wealthy, Jamie Dimon (and Pandit) can call on congresspeople and the white house while Raj probably didn’t ever need to in order to make his money.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 12 May 2011 03:35:17 +0000

comments implying that raj is being targeted because of his ethnicity need to be accompanied by some datum or rationale why this is a plausible position from now on.

By: DesiInScotland

DesiInScotland — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:44:17 +0000

(Deutsche, UBS, Lehman)

Yes, Lehman is a great example, given how it no longer exists. Why do you constantly make sh!t up??

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:40:46 +0000

someone do at least a descriptive count of indictments of demographic breakdowns since 2008. otherwise shut up.

By: Anon.

Anon. — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:29:46 +0000

I can’t help but find it interesting that so many white Wall Street crooks have gotten away with actions that have helped destroy the economy, and yet the courts have the wherewithal to prosecute a brown suspect.

By: Zachary Latif

Zachary Latif — Thu, 12 May 2011 01:16:51 +0000

I find desi unity to be elusive; IIM/IITs cling to each other to the exclusion of other desis. But then again there are a couple of banks in Londontown (Deutsche, UBS, Lehman) which have a very desi tinge (Deutsche particularly under Anil Jain).

Its seems the global elite becomes post national and to some extent post-racial methinks.

By: John Jacobi

John Jacobi — Thu, 12 May 2011 01:14:30 +0000

As an Indian I can take some little comfort that Rajaratnam was not Indian but Sri Lankan. But the biggest disappointment was that Bengali Rajat Gupta ex CEO of McKinsey & Company was involved in this mess. These are wealthy intelligent people but yet they used unsecured/unencrypted modes of communication to plot their evil . Even the uneducated Taliban know better. I heard some of the tapped phone calls that the prosecution used on the nytimes site and the only precaution they took was that one guy spoke softly (his children in the background were making fun of him for that).