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November 13, 2009 11:51 AM

Gasparino: The SEC is "INEPT"

Posted by Jill Schlesinger

This post by Jill Schlesinger originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

Here's my interview with Charlie Gasparino, author of "The Sellout." In addition to calling the SEC "inept," watch to the end when he describes Wall Street CEO's. Can you guess which of the former Masters of the Universe is: "The Iconoclast," "Nasty," "Nastier," "Smart," "Twerp-ish," "a Man's man," and "King Lear"?!?

More on MoneyWatch:
•8 Lessons from Real-Life Job Switchers
•Analysis: Let the Fed Stay Independent
•Report Card: 'Good' and 'Bad' Lenders
•Real Estate Deals: 5 Great College Towns
•Big Bank Fined over Hidden Fees
•Home Buyer Tax Credit: How to Cash In

(CBS)
Jill Schlesinger is the Editor-at-Large for CBS MoneyWatch.com. Prior to the launch of MoneyWatch, she was the Chief Investment Officer for an independent investment advisory firm. In her infancy, she was an options trader on the Commodities Exchange of New York.
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by mnbrant November 14, 2009 1:15 PM EST
Wow this article came down quick.
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by mnbrant November 14, 2009 1:11 PM EST
Oh I would like to add that recently there was a priest around here who was convicted of having child porn on his computer. The Star Tribune article actually stated that he did it based on the porn was organized into various files on his computer. So apparently having files on a computer is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt and pleading innocent is actually an admission of guilt. Why do we even need trials anymore? Based on what I learned researching this we are probably going away from trials in this country by making them unreasonable expensive and the conviction increasingly draconian. Instead we will have 90% of the cases in this country plea bargained with the understanding that you won't can't a fair trial anyway and that your sentence will be doubled. I have to admit this is gonna save a lot of money. especially if you add labor camps into the mix. Probably going to make a lot of money.
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by mnbrant November 14, 2009 12:58 PM EST
I just wanted to comment more about the guy who spent 250 million to clear charges that he left child porn on his computer. Apparently according to CBS news and others it is nearly impossible to download hundreds of thousands of files onto a host computer and who in their right mind would want to do that anyway? AP states that sometime these child porn people leave clues such as emails or discs. In the above case there were no porn emails or other evidence and it still cost the guy a quarter million to defend himself. I would guess that getting your email address would cost probably 10 bucks if its already gotten or probably 20 bucks to get someone to pretend they are you and get it from the company. In other words its almost painfully easy to forge an email. There are such things as discs containing child porn and if one of those things are found in your house or place of work expect your defense to cost billions even if you claim you don't know how it got there. According to the prosecutor in the AP claiming not to know how porn got on your computer is called the "lottery defense" because it's not going to work. I presume thats because the prosecutor and judge expects you to plead guilty even if you didn't do it. Don't expect them to dust the disc for fingerprints or do any forensic work on your computer to find out whether or not you reasonable could have been the one to put it there because that is not necessary to obtain a conviction at this time. Finally, since most of these pictures are apparently found on shared work computers I would say that if you find child porn on a work computer it most likely means that they are NOT looking at child porn rather than the other way around. The reason I say this is if your ultra rich and really need to look at child porn at work, laptops have indeed already been invented. If your poor with this need, flash drives can be had for 10 bucks. I personally don't think anybody there is anyone around who would do this. Maybe I am wrong. Anyways I am guessing that there is a 99% false imprisonment rate for child porn viewing based on the fact that a conviction requires 0 evidence other than the existence of files containing child porn and that defending yourself against vague accusations charging you with child porn is extremely expensive and the judge will not be willing to pay for expensive forensic tests so you will have to do it yourself. Who would I say benefits from all this. I would say the main beneficiaries is the government right now as this creates an easy avenue to jail dissenters. Otherwise why would the government make having a defense so unreasonably expensive and hard? I think phase 2 of the plan will be work camps for these people. Already surveillance and liberties are down in this country. Only yesterday I was having trouble downloading updates so I went in to task manager and stopped a process ending with .dwm. The updates went through fine then. I get this malware nearly day thats why I look for it. This is despite having norton 360 version 4 on my computer. Great Zeus! I hope I don't have child porn on my computer. I for sure I don't have millions do defend myself if I do.
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