Bush's billionaire friend sold £100m of shares just days before scandal broke

[emad]

A billionaire ally of President George Bush could face a criminal investigation into insider share dealing after selling £100million of shares just days before Societe Generale's rogue-trader losses were reported.

Robert Day, a member of the French bank's board, disposed of a million shares on January 9 and 10, plus a further 500,000 on January 18, according to official disclosures to Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), France's market regulator.

The £3.7billion losses at the bank were not disclosed to the public or investors until January 24, despite reports that Societe Generale bosses were aware of the crisis several days earlier.

The AMF is investigating after complaints by minority shareholders who claim some protected themselves at the cost of less influential investors. A source confirmed that Mr Day's share dealings are part of that investigation.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=511973&in_page_id=1811

[PuraVidaDreamin]

1. Good! Lets start with his friends then see what happens

You never really know who your friends are.

[hobbit709]

2. As Commander Vimes says, "Follow the money"

[BB1]

6. Sam Vines is right more oft than not.

When he follows the money, people get scared. But then again, Vimes is backed up by Lord Vetineri. In real life, there's no back up. That's why (see OP).

[hobbit709]

7. But Vimes will continue even if Vetinari wants him to stop.

[BB1]

9. Usually to everybody's best interests ;)

And Vetinari knows, he just puts up a struggle for show, don't you know?

(I found my first copy of The Colour of Magic on the back of a bus, I had no idea people wrote like that for a living!)

[malaise]

3. Didn't he also finance Sarkozy's rise to power

Who provided the Hamptons house for Sarkozy's visit to the US last summer?

Now the rushed wedding looks like great diversion

Here's a link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/30/europeanbanks.creditcrunch

add link

[Dawggie]

4. K&R

[lonestarnot]

5. And another.

[librechik]

8. BushCo Rules!

in both senses of the word.

[Vickers]

10. He's got a cute granddaughter.

:thumbsup:

[Javaman]

23. she breaks balls for a hobby. nt

[leftofthedial]

11. that's just capitalism in action

why punish someone for being better at making money than someone else? Poor people and small investors should be grateful for whatever crumbs the super-wealthy let fall. The losers should quit whining about their betters doing well.




it's just the free market in action. Clinton and Obama both know this. If someone has enough foresight to put themselves in position to know what is coming, they should be rewarded, not punished. It's the free market. Investigators should let this "invisible hand" remain invisible.











oh. uhh . . . :sarcasm:

[JosephSchmo]

14. That is not the free market

That is an employee of the bank screwing the owners over. He should go to prison for theft.

[leftofthedial]

15. if he has the expertise and the access, it's just him exercising his "free" market will

just like insurance companies or war profiteers or banks (oops!--same as insurance companies) or mortage lenders (oops! again) or outsourcing, union-busting manufacturers or . . .


EXACTLY the same.

[JosephSchmo]

16. His access was entrusted as an employee of the bank

which he abused. That's just wrong.

Think of it like a cashier taking half the money out of the till and putting it in his pocket. Except on a multi million dollar scale. Theft is theft any way you want to look at it.

[leftofthedial]

17. I could think of it like that, but it isn't analogous

he used information.

laws against that particular form of capitalist exploitation are just arbitrary exercises in false morality, like making alcohol legal and pot illegal. All capitalism is theft. At its root, it exploits any resource it can steal. It's called externalized cost. It is a celebrated way of doing business. Whether that resource is land, timber, air, water, labor, or information, capitalism couldn't survive for 2 seconds if it actually had to pay its own way. So why punish this "thief" while rewarding all the other thieves?

[JosephSchmo]

18. i see

good luck to you

[leftofthedial]

19. why thanks

and good luck to you

and I'm not so sure you DO see.

[JosephSchmo]

21. i see that there is no hope in convincing you that this particular man is a criminal

if you believe that capitalism is theft and he was already a criminal before he committed a crime

[leftofthedial]

22. I do believe he is a criminal

[JosephSchmo]

24. i mean he is a criminal because of the crime he commited

not because he is successful in a capitalist system.

[leftofthedial]

25. the two aren't mutually exclusive

in fact, they quite frequently go hand in hand

[goforit]

12. Bad Boys play bad!!!! Pirates in the high seas! Steal..steal steal!!!

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. And that's France, not Anglo-America. Even Government Minsters

can be held to account and jailed, and one was in fairly recent times, for knowingly allowing hospitals to use AIDS-infected blood.

[goforit]

20. Looks like Kenneth Lay.