NYT: S.E.C. Chastises Morgan Stanley’s Chief for Comments. Morgan Stanley’s efforts to play down its role in the Wall Street research scandal appeared to backfire yesterday, as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission released a blistering letter addressed to the firm’s chief executive. William H. Donaldson, the commission chairman, said in a letter dated Wednesday that he was “deeply troubled” by comments from Philip J. Purcell, the Morgan Stanley official, which he said “evidence a troubling lack of contrition.”
The people running Wall Street simply do not grasp how corrupt and arrogant they appear to everyone else — at least everyone outside the insiders’ club that has enriched itself at everyone else’s expense in recent years. Purcell’s statements are just one more example, and the SEC chief’s rebuttal is a welcome change from that agency’s stance in the early days of the scandals.
The market has been rising in the last few weeks. Here’s a prediction. Wall Street and its shills will lure enough small investors back into the fray to run the market up another 10 to 20 percent, at which point reality will intrude and the market will sink again. Another suckers’ game, courtesy of the people who will cheat the little guy every time if they can get away with it.
The can get away with it. This week’s fines are a piddling sum next to the staggering sums the bankers and their pals swindled out of the market. The Congressional leadership doesn’t care anymore, if it ever did.
If you trust this market you are an utter fool.