Tag Archives: In the media

USA Today Founder Has Good Advice for Investors, Misses A Couple Things

Every so often, the editorial page of USA Today asks me to weigh in with a brief comment on a column written by the newspaper’s founder, Al Neuharth. Today, Neuharth writes on the important topic of saving money for college or retirement, and keeping that money in the stock market.

Neuharth says “the stock market continues to be our surest, steadiest investment” despite its ups and downs. Maybe that’s true, which doesn’t say much for the other investments he doesn’t mention — mortgage-backed securities, bonds, real estate, and, before we know it, crowd funding.

But here’s the problem: Investors don’t think the financial markets are fair. They’re not only sick and tired of the motion sickness they get from high-frequency trading glitches that rock the markets. They’re sick of Wall Street lobbyists who have more power than securities regulators; they’re sick of insider trading; and they’re sick of powerful people in finance who can do the wrong thing and suffer minor repercussions. Or no repercussions at all.

My quote in USA Today this morning:
“The public will buy into Al’s good advice once they see that regulators are in charge of Wall Street — not the other way around. Confidence flows in fair markets.” Read article.

And Another Word on Justice and Goldman Sachs

Over at wallstreetonparade.com, editor Pamela Martens has more to say about the lopsided priorities of prosecutors who won’t quit in pursuing Sergey Aleynikov, a small fish who has been arrested yet again on charges he stole data from Goldman Sachs. The most recent Aleynikov arraignment was on the same day that we learned that prosecutors will not be charging Goldman with any crimes related to a scathing government report on how the firm treated its customers in the period leading up to the financial crisis.

Aleynikov was tried and found guilty of stealing computer code from Goldman, but an appeals court reversed that on April 11, saying that prosecutors hadn’t properly applied corporate espionage laws. Martens writes:

“Then, on Thursday, August 9, 2012, the unthinkable happened.  Aleynikov was arrested and charged based on the same set of facts by Cyrus Vance of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, an individual is not permitted to be tried twice for the same crime.  But when you take from Wall Street, all bets are off apparently.” Read article.

Forbes.com features me on sexual harassment at work

The first thing the firm will do is to go through every email you’ve ever written, searching for key words or phrases that might make you look bad.

Victoria Pynchon of Forbes.com just interviewed me about tips on sexual harassment in the workplace. Read article