Good. It's just about the height of hypocrisy for the federal government to prosecute people for trying to reassure investors despite having some private doubts about their institution's fiscal situation. I wonder if the jury was deliberating at the same time as Geithner was explaining why the dollar will remain strong?

Why is the verdict incredible? The article makes it seem pretty cut and dry. The prosecution didn't have any real evidence, so the defendants walked.

I like how the prosecutors leaked sound bites from emails that made it sound like these guys knew exactly what was going on,

when in reality the emails discussed a wide range of possible outcomes and responses

That is what fund managers do, evaluate a wide range of risks, assign probabilities and make plans on how to respond to what they consider the most likely scenarios.

These guys were hung by the general public because the prosecutors were not honest in the media about the quality of their evidence

Nice to know that making bad business decisions hasn't yet risen to the level of a criminal act. Yet. The feds are going to have to find some different witches to burn to appease the anti-Wall Street bloodlust of the political class.

MikeFallopian: Good. It's just about the height of hypocrisy for the federal government to prosecute people for trying to reassure investors despite having some private doubts about their institution's fiscal situation. I wonder if the jury was deliberating at the same time as Geithner was explaining why the dollar will remain strong?

The court system is not the same thing as what we think of as the "federal government." I'd like to see Geithner and Bernanke in front of a judge someday too.

I can't read this because it's gonna make me too angry. or sad.

This makes me so angry, I want to comport with the zeitgeist!

Where is the change?

FTA: "According to the memo, one of the questions deemed likely to be asked was: 'I thought the fund was diversified, and now it turns out it seems to have had a fair amount of exposure to the subprime mortgage market. What exactly was the exposure?' The answer: '60 percent.' The problem was that in all previous communications to the investors, the two fund managers had suggested that only about six percent of the funds were invested in subprime mortgages."

And the prosecutors didn't think that was damning enough?

Note that even a Democrat fuzzy-headed librul like me isn't stupid enough to believe that two guys brought the economic world to its knees. It was shiat LIKE these guys pulled - making people believe everything was rosy when they knew it wouldn't be for long, over- or under-stating earnings/investment exposure, and gamesmanship like CDS's.

These two are fractions of percentage points responsible, but if we could get all of them in a room together (like the RICO arraignment in Dark Knight), we could probably find a trillion worth of profilgacy, fraud, deceit and other SEC violations.

// arrest MBAs before they become criminals

trapped-in-CH: I can't read this because it's gonna make me too angry. or sad. it's a f'in NYT reg req'd story.

trapped-in-CH: I can't read this because it's gonna make me too angry. or sad. it's a f'in NYT reg req'd story.

What? I have to register for something that's not even gonna cost me a dime. Whaa. Whaa. Whaa. I want everything for free with no strings attached!

The real beauty of this is that the trial itself probably cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

GO GO GADGET JUSTICE!

They were guilty of fraud, no doubt. Telling all your clients that only 6% of their portfolio was in the subprime mortgage market when the actual figure was near 60% is a gross misrepresentation of what you are selling.

Those prosecutors just sucked.

Its nothing compared to what politicians can get away with:


"These two entities-Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

So the verdict is incredible because prosecutors had to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and they utterly failed to do so?

What's incredible is a jury actually got one right, despite the rage of the masses.

If the glove don't fit, you must acquit.