On the wealth valve governing the country, South Korea also has to control the United States to call his father

Recently, Elon Musk has caused a lot of money because of his money. This was a "announcement and abandonment of acquisitions" on the issue of acquiring Twitter. In addition to making the stock market boiling, it also involved himself into a legal dispute that may last for several years.

This is not the first time Musk has done such a thing. A few years ago, in the private Tesla transaction, he had come to such a hand.

At that time, Musk announced a high -profile purchase of Tesla's shares and turned Tesla from a listed company to a privatization company. As soon as the news came out, Tesla's stock price rose. But then he announced that I had no money, and the privatization was blowing.

This behavior that clearly manipulates the stock price makes the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unable to turn a blind eye. In the end, SEC issued a huge ticket for Musk.

However, the so -called "huge amount" is for our poor eggs. For Musk, hundreds of millions of dollars are sprinkled.

This also explains why Musk dared to be Feng's woman again this time.

(Musk, who is carrying tens of billions of dollars lawsuits on the Internet, is still leisurely vacation in Greece)

What can Musk remember? In general, I am afraid that it should be more effective for him to eat for several years than fines.

But in the United States today, billionaires seemed to be imprisoned because of financial violations.

In the crisis of the Savings and Loan Association that broke out in the 1980s, the US Department of Justice and the FBI fist hit more than 30,000 criminal investigations, and sent several suspected fraudulent banks and investment industry executives into jail.

In 2008, the financial crisis caused by the extreme adventure and fraud of Wall Street executives, the scale of funds was 70 times larger than the storage and loan crisis, which caused huge losses for tens of millions of ordinary people, and the living standards in the middle and lower class in the United States declined. But in the end, there was no Wall Street executive to squat.

The US financial regulatory system relies on the cooperation between the SEC and the prosecutor. SEC surveillance insider trading and other violations, and handle the so -called "disclosure of violations", that is, ensuring that the financial information of the listed company's publicly public is in line with reality.

However, the SEC has no right to prosecute, so it will transfer the case to the Federal Prosecutor of the Southern District of New York. This position is known as the "Sheriff Wall Street Sheriff" and is in charge of financial crimes and is directly appointed by the president. Independence is also very strong. In many cases, you can take action without reporting to the Minister of Justice.

In theory, the US financial regulatory mechanism operates like this: Billionaire Wall Street bastard committing fraud, New York Stock Exchange seized and reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the US Securities and Exchange Commission handled the case and submitted it to it to it The prosecutor, while the prosecutor sent these bastards to court, and finally put it in jail.

But the ideal is full and the reality is very skinny. A large amount of evidence shows that on Wall Street, the judicial system not only does badly in punishment of penalty criminals, but in fact it has even evolved into an efficient protection mechanism -allowing Wall Street executives to avoid prison.

This reality has nothing to do with the political spectrum, and it will happen no matter who takes power in or which political parties.

Why is this?

You have to start with history.

In 1873, due to the coinage bill pushed the United States to the de facto -gold system, the value of silver plummeted. The unstable monetary policy has caused investors' expectations for long -term returns. At that time, the United States was on the climax of railway construction. Maintaining this orgasm requires investors to have sufficient confidence in long -term returns.

As a result, the crisis came that year.

The bank was crowded, the New York Stock Exchange was closed, hundreds of railways across the country went bankrupt, hundreds of companies closed down, and subsequently triggered a strike of the American railway workers.

Discovered by banks who were severely damaged in the crisis found that before everyone did their own, they were not ventilated, and the response to the crisis was very slow. A banker named James Hobinstein decided that things could not go on like this.

So he organized an industry in New York and was widely run away. In 1875, he established the American Bank of America Association (ABA). The ABA program wrote that the purpose of ABA's establishment is to promote the general benefits of banks and investment institutions and ensure the consistency of action.

Maybe some people think that this organization is like a legendary goodbye meeting, hiding in the dark to control everything in the United States, but responsiblely says that no organization can have such power at the time of its establishment.

At that time, the ABA, just like most industry associations, and lobbying organizations, were carefully around the source of parliament members. But the establishment of ABA is indeed a key step in the banking industry.

In 1876, the then President of ABA obtained the opportunity to testify in Congress, and he petitioned to reduce the tax burden of banks. After 7 years, after countless discussions, this wish came true.

In 1897, the former chairman of ABA, Lehman Gech, was appointed by President McKinli as the Minister of Finance and served until 1902.

In 1925, ABA donated the Education Foundation at a price of $ 500,000. Until today, this foundation is one of the main sources of funding for economic research in major universities in the United States.

During World War II, the Chairman of the ABA Investment Banking Committee, the head of Goldman Sachs Group, West Didy Winberg became the director of the War Material Supply Bureau of Roosevelt President, and became an important leader of the Democratic Party in the following decades. It can be seen that after decades of development, ABA has made the political influence of the banking industry stronger and stronger. However, even in the 1980s, the banking and investment industries were not as powerful as today.

Until Ronald Reagan became president.

Reagan won public opinion support in the crisis of stagnation in the 1970s, and he established an attitude of relaxation and control for the financial industry. Such a very friendly president of the financial industry has made ABA's lobbying environment easier.

In 1980, under the push of ABA, Reagan signed the "Relax of Control and Monetary Control Act" to cancel the upper limit of interest rates since the Great Depression. The deposit is introduced into the banking system.

In 1983, Reagan signed a bill to abolish the source of interest on interest and dividends, which has increased the income of the financial industry. This bill is also called the largest "lobbying victory" ever by ABA.

In 1984, the Federal deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) confiscated the Bank of Illinois, which caused discussions on "big and unable to fall." In the end, the bank was not liquidated, but received $ 4.5 billion in capital injection from FDIC.

It was also from the era of Reagan's governance. The proportion of bankers' entry into the room has increased significantly and entered the government's responsibility. For example, White Heide became the assistant Secretary of State of the Reagan administration and exerted a huge influence in the US diplomacy. Most of the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Reserve were monopolized by bankers and began in the Reagan period.

In the future, the US President Xiao Zhi Cao Sui, such as Clinton, Bush, and Trump's financial minister, all came from Goldman Sachs.

Knowing the White House of Kings can be called the "LUO) British (BO) Gegai (KAI)", the chairman of the National Economic Council Kon, the chief strategist and the senior adviser Bannon, the White House communications director Scalamqi, all of which are all Based on a banker.

Is Obama an exception? how is this possible. Goldman Sachs is Obama's number one private donor. Obama lets a big coffee of Citi Group responsible for his economic transformation team, and his chief of staff is a senior executive of JP Morgan Chase.

It can be said that since Reagan, the US government's support and indulgence in the financial industry has formed a symbiotic relationship with Washington politics. It is also this symbiotic relationship that has become a gold exemption gold medal for Wall Street executives in the future.

The case that best reflects the privilege Wall Street is the investigation of the US Securities and Exchange Council investigator Gary Agre on the investigation of investment bankers John Mike.

Aggre joined the SEC in September 2004. Two days after serving as a financial investigator, he received a complaint about insider trading with hedging fund superstar Sam Bogg.

At that time, without any pre -research or discussion, Sam Pogg suddenly acquired a large number of Heller Financial stocks.

"It's as if Sam Pogg wakes up one morning, a voice from heaven tells him to start buying Heller." Agrey recalled. "And he is not just buying stocks. In a few days, the number of stocks he tried to buy was three times the transaction volume of the day."

Sure enough, in just a few weeks, Heller was acquired by General Electric premium, and Samberg made $ 20 million in this transaction.

After some investigation, Agre easily locked Sam Pogg's inside information source: John Mike. This person is a close friend of Sam Bog, who has just stepped down, Morgan Stanley CEO.

At that time, Mike always hoped that Sam Pogg could allow him to participate in the reorganization of the technology company Langxun. This reorganization can make Mike easily gain $ 10 million.

Brother, settle accounts, Sam Pogg could not help this.

As a result, Mike flew to Switzerland to interview the senior position of Credit Switzerland. Coincidentally, there is a company named Heller Financial in this investment bank.

No one knows what Mike got on his trip to Switzerland. According to him, he lost all the records of the conference.

However, the communication records showed that Mike returned to the United States on the night and called Sam Pogg. The next morning, Mike was added to Langxun's transaction. On the next trading day, Sam Bog began to eat a large -scale shares in Heller.

No more obvious insider transactions than this. Not to mention the trained SEC investigators like Ajile, that is, we can see that there are problems in the people who eat melon. As a result, Ajile reported to his superiors with confidence and asked to interview Mike.

But it was also from this moment that the incident changed.

Ajile's superior said that it is difficult to continue to advance in this case because Mike has a strong political connection.

Of course, Ajire knows that Mike is not good. Everyone in the US financial circle knows that Mike is a donor of the presidential campaign and is responsible for the fundraising of many presidential candidates. But such obvious illegal acts, it is difficult to let the big guys speak out for him. Ajre is still very confident.

His supervisor shook his head, and Ajre did not understand what "strong political connection" meant.

He quickly understood. Within a few days, the pressure on Morgan Stanley made Ajre a bit unbearable. The bank is fighting back to Mike as their CEO. At the beginning, Morgan Stanley's executive Eric Tenaro personally called Ajile in person and asked him to put on the investigation.

This was frightened by Ajre, because Tenaro was a senior adviser to New York State Governor Eliot Sipzer before the inauguration of Morgan Stanley ...

This is not over. Three days later, Morgan Stanley's legal adviser Mary Joe Tyte directly called the superiors of Ajile's superiors, that is, SEC's law enforcement director. The law enforcement supervisor apologized and said that he would definitely suppress the case.

How powerful is this Mary Joe White, which can make the law enforcement director of the US Securities and Exchange Commission so scared? The answer is that before serving as a legal consultant of Morgan Stanley, she was a federal prosecutor in the southern New York District.

The prosecutor in charge of the financial crime went directly to the large bank as a legal consultant after he stepped down, and he was not amazing. A few years later, the Mrs. White would also return to politics to serve as the Obama administration's SEC chairman.

In order to deal with Ajre's investigation, John Mike also invited a lawyer, the lawyer named Gary Link, a law enforcement director of SEC.

Ha ha.

Ajile finally understood what it means "strong political connection."

One month after applying for an appointment with Mike, Ajile was suddenly fired by the SEC (at the time he had just received a performance award), investigating the case of Mike's participation in insider trading was immediately revoked, and all testimony and tickets were canceled.

Mike was excluded, and the SEC fake models began to find Sambag's "real" message. In this regard, Ajile joked: "OJ Simpson is looking for a" real "murderer who kills his wife."

It makes people cry.

After a few years, Ajire noticed that the US Financial Law Enforcement Conference was held at the Hilton Hotel in New York. Prosecutor of the official office.

Ajire participated in the reception of $ 2,200 at his own expense, where he understood the truth that the struggle between the US financial regulators and financial criminals was not a contest of confrontation, but a cocktail club between friends and colleagues. They are constantly changing every month and every year.

In the meeting room of the Hilton Hotel, regulators and banker lawyers passed each other in a series of speeches and group discussions, far away from Wuhe people. "They are more friendly in that environment." Agre said.

The rotation door in the US financial community is not only turned once, but has been turning ...

Such a loose and friendly supervision environment is like indulgence, and then supplemented by the incentive mechanism of distortion of the financial industry, it is tantamount to encouraging executives to ignore leverage to do extreme adventure and fraud.

Rolling Stone Magazine commented angrily that the U.S. government built a prison, which was covered with people who stole coins, but if you stole one billion US dollars? What if you let 100 people lose the right to redemption? Forget it, that's not a crime, let them apologize, this matter passed.

You know, the common saying in South Korea in the "Samsung Republic", Samsung's head of Samsung, Li Zaiyu, had to eat for more than a year; in the United States, Wall Street Tycoon can get rid of it.

It is indeed the real base of global financial capitalism.

Reference materials:

Marketplace: Why did you enter jail without any Wall Street CEO after the financial crisis?

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Rolling Stone: Financial scammers drag down the world economy -but the federal government has done more to protect them

Atlantic: How does Wall Street bankers avoid being prison?

Financial industry: Goldman Sachs said that the former executives were proud of our politics

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