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Raiders of Wall Street
| Article
# : |
12954 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1987 |
3,496 Words |
| Author
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Donald Lambro
Donald Lambro is chief political correspondent for the
Washington Times. |
The insider trading scandal that has rocked the nation's securities industry represents different things to different people. To those who believe that the banking and securities industries are awash in corruption and greed, it confirms their worst fears and suspicions. To those who have long sought an end to the Reagan era's deregulatory policies, it reveals the need to impose stricter government regulations on Wall Street transactions generally and the process of business takeovers in particular.
And indeed as the scandal has unfolded in recent years, each disclosure has fed the widening public perception that insider trading permeates Wall Street. The view is that greedy and unscrupulous profiteers are making millions on insider information arising from a takeover mania that forces good companies to the brink of bankruptcy and victimizes innocent stockholders, and that only sweeping new laws and stiffer regulations will clean up the industry.
"A cancer has been spreading in our industry," says investment banker Felix Rohatyn, "and how far it will go will become clear only as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and federal prosecutors pursue the various investigations currently under way. The cancer is called greed."
But an examination of the complicated issues underlying the nation's insider trading scandal reveal that public perceptions are not always accurate and that there is a lot of blame to go around. Most analysts, government officials, and outside experts believe that the securities industry has done an abysmal job of regulating itself, and that the securities regulations are too often imprecise and have not kept pace
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